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Sarvs Falefitu, 40-year-old West Auckland resident, was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. She's undergone radiation, chemotherapy and is fundraising for a 12 month treatment of herceptin

Editor’s Note: This new blog entry is a journal in the life of Sarvs Falefitu. Last year, the brave mother of four was diagnosed with breast cancer. After I set up this website, I asked Sarvs if she would keep a journal online for Pacific Eye Witness, right here. She agreed to do it, if it would help raise the awareness of breast cancer among our Pacific people. Sarvs wants others to avoid what she’s gone through.

This is Sarvs’ story.

Talofa lava. My name is Sarvs Falefitu. I’m married with four teenagers and I am a breast cancer survivor.

The Day I Read About Symptoms

I spotted the list of symptoms of breast cancer in a health magazine I never buy. That was 342 days ago. I glossed over the mention of nipple discharge. But something inside nagged at me all weekend. I was in self denial helped along, naturally, with a few bottles of wine.

Two days later, I found the mother-of-all-lumps in my right breast, the same one with the nipple discharge. It had been discharging over the past few months.

Later that afternoon, I decided to call my GP but I waited another three days before I finally went to see him. I was still in denial. After my GP recommended I visit St Marks Breast Clinic, I still didn’t get the seriousness of it all. Instead, I nodded and asked whether I should go next month. He gently recommended today.

My First Ever Mammogram

So I called St Marks and they managed to get me in that morning. Gulp. I dropped off my then-18yr old son Kroydon to university. During the drive, I didn’t tell him where I had been or where I was going. Somehow managed to drive myself to St Marks safe and sound but I was not in my right mind.

At St Marks, as I waited for the results of the mammogram, my first ever, my memory went back a month ago to an experience with my daughter. My sixteen-year-old at the time, Denae, came home raving about an ‘old school’ song.

She didn’t know the name of the song but she said that I’d know it. Finally she found it and played the song to me. It’s called Ribbon In the Sky by Stevie Wonder. I hadn’t heard Ribbon in the Sky since college and immediately a rush of nostalgia came to me. For no reason I got quite emotional.

The Moment I Knew

Here I was, a month later, sitting at St Marks playing Ribbon In The Sky ever so quietly in the background. I was trying to get lost in more of my denial. But as I listened to the song, instantly my heart became heavy. I knew at that exact moment it was a sign. The same emotions I had experienced a month ago overcame me again. The tears flowed freely down my cheeks as I thought of my daughter and the rest of my family.

The ultrasound seemed to take forever and a core biopsy, I would describe as having a staple gun shot into your breast (sounded like and felt like). After that, I held onto that tiniest piece of hope that I would leave St Marks very grateful that it happens to others but thankfully not to me.

The Diagnosis

I will never forget those next few minutes and the exact words:

Sarvs, I am so sorry to say that the biopsy has revealed the lump is cancer.

That tiniest of hope had been stolen and finally I gave into anger, fear, absolute disbelief and sobbed uncontrollably for what seemed like an eternity.

It was there that my battle with breast cancer began.

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Sarvs

I have Grade 2, HER2 positive type cancer and my cancer has moved away from the primary spot and invaded other parts of my body via my lymph vessels and blood vessels. Along with chemotherapy and radiotherapy I also need Herceptin. NZ only funds Herceptin for 9 weeks but a full 12 months is recommended. I have opted to take the recommended 12 months and it will cost exactly $96,273.60. While some specialists are ‘comfortable’ with 9 weeks of Herceptin, I am not.

If you would like to donate to Sarvs Fundraising appeal, please take the following details:

• For New Zealand donors, please deposit donations into the following ASB account:12-3232-0165369-50
  Mrs S R Falefitu
• For donors outside of New Zealand, please click here to go to PayPal Link

Email: sarvs@pacificeyewitness.org or editor@pacificeyewitness.org