Dear family and friends,

Please help raise funds to give me the gift of my lifetime - a beautiful glass photographic portrait of myself by world-renowned portrait and fashion photographer Robbie Merritt - and support the work of an incredible local charity - Cancer Support WA.

Please show your support by sponsoring my portrait.

Thank you,

Melissa Henson

My Story: Melissa Henson aka Bethra

Throughout cancer treatment, you'd think life would be hard, & you'd be right.  But that was nothing compared to knowing I had it, a whole different kind of hard.  There's a kind of hyper-reality, where everything is still normal except you know it isn't.  And I'm not entirely sure that goes away after, either … every single twinge in my neck, each sore tooth or cough, gets analysed & worried over.  Just like all the thinking & decisions you make since you first started wondering if cancer was what's wrong with you.  Like whether to stay distant from your child, because it might be easier for them to lose a distant figure in their life than a close one, if you die; or whether to give them the most love they're ever going to know, so they have that in them for the rest of their lives, whether you're there or not.  I went for that one. 

Every story has a beginning, a middle & an end.  In the beginning, when I was young & stupid, I went out with someone I shouldn't have.  Actually, I went out with lots of people I probably shouldn't have.  All I can say is, in hindsight, there were reasons.  Anyway, this particular person was always quite concerned that they might catch something.  Instead, ironically, they gave me a virus.  A virus that really had little impact on my life until recently, some twenty-odd years later, when another relationship triggered viral cancer. 

By birth, I'm an Irish, Type A personality, red-haired, ADD Aries.  I was chosen for the most amazing parents, who were largely the complete opposite of the above … balance is always maintained in the Universe.  A loving Mum who created a home worthy of a Better Housekeeping cover, on a shoestring, while supporting her husband's work.  A Dad who was dignified & private, had a delightfully dry sense of humour & was not your average Aussie male.  Both loving, intelligent, articulate, thoughtful, educated parents with a strong work ethic; calm, logical & stable was the perfect foil to me really!  The result is a person who's had to do an awful lot of really, really hard work on herself on all levels, professionally & personally.  Who's learnt to make the most of people's characteristics, to see everything for what it can be, not which box it falls into.  Who feels the world & people, & also has the multi-disciplinary academic background to analyse it.  Who has become incredibly organised, to manage all these things.  Dad encouraged me to always have several arrows in my quiver, & I'm an eclectic but useful mix, a study in nature versus nurture.  When I got cancer, I had to turn this formidable armada on myself more intensely than ever before.  That hurt more than surgery.  But it helped me enormously too.  At some stage soon, I want to share those learnings with other people, in case it helps someone.

In the course of seven weeks, just after celebrating my special-needs child's 3^rd birthday & turned 42, my Father died, my dog died, I was diagnosed with cancer & I had three major surgeries including 11 teeth extracted, visiting three hospital sites regularly, & I took my child to 13 speech appointments, not all in that order.  My ex-husband moved back into my child's room while I spent nine days in hospital, then stayed as carer.  I didn't actually feel stressed, I just dealt with each thing as it happened, same as always, being with it as it came.  Like I had when my Magic Man was born five weeks early.  Like while I was having radiotherapy, the next cycle of seven weeks in my cancer journey.  You just do it one step at a time.  During radiation I wrote a lot of lists, I journalled but less than before & in hospital.  I kept some routine.  I worked out how to do things differently.  I lived on 600ml of water, one chicken stock cube cup of tea & a berocca per day for six weeks.   Driving to radiotherapy at RPH every afternoon became a surreal, precious time where I could be with cancer without the other distractions.  I valued the time by myself driving in & out, the feeling of still being good at something when I learnt the best way to drive in & where to park at different times of day.  Even better were the conversations with the people in the waiting rooms.  I needed that feedback that I was doing OK, & I found joy & relief in sharing all the information & understanding I was building with other people who actually wanted to hear it, & who shared their stories & learnings with me in turn.  Best of all was the genuine friendship from the ladies at reception, the chance to check out anything I needed to & the attention & positive efforts of all the medical people in the centre. 

Actually, the middle starts back here.  I remember standing in front of the mirror at Kaleeya day surgery.  I'd known for a few weeks I was having surgery & despite what doctors said, I'd known I was going through a formality, the diagnostic bit was just going to be what type.  But when I stood in front of that big mirror under hospital lights, draped in a theatre gown & looking at my neck, I realised it would never look the same again.  I would never look like Me again.  I decided that was ok, it was in a good place for it to blend in, scars are cool anyway & I had a great cosmetic surgeon.  A few seconds later it sank in - that could be the least of the damage.  Over the following weeks, I reconciled myself to waking up without part of my jaw, with a machine in my throat, or with half my neck missing, because they were all possibilities.  But they all meant I woke up & lived on with my child, so I became ok with all those possibilities. 

I felt so sorry for that first surgeon, having to fit me in between patients, then having to fit “It is cancer” into our time.  He genuinely wanted to help, & made sure I was handed on to the next stage as quickly & personally as possible.  He was the first of many who showed me respect & genuine concern, & who made this journey seem actually fairly easy; or at least simple & manageable.  Technically it was - just turn up & do what they said.  It's the little side bits they don't tell you about that make it special.  Like radiation burns from ear to shoulder, inside & out.  Life would have been soooo much better if I'd known from the start to soak paper towel in mild salt water & lay it on the burns for 10 minutes.  It completely gets rid of the thickness that makes moving or any touch exquisitely painful.  Anything that helps you keep smiling is a good thing. 

I believe it's whether you keep smiling, how you deal with it on a daily basis that makes the difference to living with cancer, like most things.  On a deeper level, it's the issues, not how they manifest, that are most important.  It's good if not essential to medically treat the dis-ease, the symptoms, & I genuinely believe better outcomes are achieved when Eastern & Western medicine are used appropriately.  But how many people have you heard of where the cancer came back?  In my experience, if the underlying lessons aren't learnt, they have to keep repeating, & they get more dynamic each cycle.  I didn't speak out in my marriage, the result of a combination of upbringing & my own issues & co-dependency.  I hadn't spoken up in all sorts of negative situations, professionally & personally.  Where did I give myself cancer?  My throat, my voice.  What did it come from, originally & now?  My relationship with my partner.  What have I since had to learn to do, & tested in situations/learning opportunities I've created since?  Speak out.  Stand up for what I believe in.  Deal with anger.  But not in the “rah” in your face way.  Not with anger or manipulation, the things I'd had to learn about most.  This Cancer Support WA “You Are Beautiful” campaign has been a really challenging example.  I've tried to do it with good grace.  I hope I've done it with honesty & kindness.  Firmly, clearly & with as much good humour as I could manage.  When I felt the time was right, whether I was or not.  There are so many serendipity moments in the timing of things, & this last month, the end of the Year of the Cancer, I got the perfect opportunity to test myself in one final exam for this stage of my life, to know that I've learnt some major lessons well enough to let go, trust & move on, to evolve again.  That wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had cancer.  Now that it has, I have every reason to believe I won't need to have cancer again.  And I really hope I've learnt enough that my future lessons are a little bit easier than cancer. 

In the end, when you look back at it all, or when you first start being able to summarise your life, your experiences, to fit it all into one conversation, & when you start seeing people's reactions to those conversations, delivered so everyday but containing so much … sometimes it takes your breath away, & you start realising why you're like you are, why you're so tired &/or drained sometimes, & why it's more than OK that you're like that for a while.  So you spend some quiet time, & that's when you start realising all the bigger picture stuff, how all the things you've been going through mentally, physically, emotionally or spiritually, fit together.  Then the picture emerges, & you can map where you choose to go next. 

Now, almost exactly a year after I started being diagnosed, I can honestly say I'm doing most of the good things, I've ditched most of the bad things (it's a process), & if you believe in signs & patterns, I'm on the right track.  There's a sense of calmness & competency that goes with surviving successfully, & many people have shared their story & learnings after a cancer experience.  Now I have to use my new-found persistence to share the joy :)

Thank you,

Melissa Henson