Dankr.ca – Your Toronto Connection
Article by Kate Aubusson, The Sydney Morning Herald
“It’s heartbreaking, but the sad reality is this is not something I’m going to get over. It’s more how long can I keep going,” she said.
Her two children, Ava,4, and Ashton, 3, know little of the intense waves of nausea and violent vomiting episodes their mother suffers during and after her chemotherapy cycles.
“They know mummy’s sick, and mummy has no hair, and mummy goes away to get medicine but we don’t used the cancer word at all at home. They’re too young and what they do know is scary enough,” she said.
Mrs Hew is stoic as she describes being hospitalised after almost every chemotherapy session, vomiting blood with bouts so violent they burn her oesophagus, and being so dehydrated she fainted and hit her head.
“The side effect from chemo are horrible. That doesn’t come anywhere near to explaining how bad it is,” she said.
“I watch everyone else around me crumble at times. There’s no point me lying down and crumbling too.
“I need my children to remember me as a happy mum that did things with them and took them to the park and the zoo while I’m here, because if things get worse I won’t get to do that with them,” she said.
