It began with a subtle pain in her breast; the type of pain one would usually brush off as an odd ache, an annoying twinge or a tenderness from sleeping in an weird position.
Ninety-nine out of 100 times a twinge of pain is nothing — it’s something that goes away with time or by taking paracetamol; but for Narelle Bateman, the odds were not in her favour.
In 2004, that’s all 34-year-old Narelle initially understood it as — a sprain in her muscle underneath her breast — but her instincts told her something else.
She decided to go to the doctor, and on October 13, 2004, her life was turned upside down.
Sitting in Austin Hospital, Narelle was told she had been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, hormone-receptive positive, with a lump positioned dangerously close to her lung.
“You never forget it,” Narelle said.
“Once they tell you (that) you have cancer, you kind of switch off.”
With most of her family nowhere close to her at the time, she had only her partner, Howard, whom she had been with for only 12 months, and her seven-year-old daughter Tamara to depend on.
“All I wanted was my mum at the time … it was tough, I remember crying the whole way home,” she said.
“I got home and looked at Tamara and thought ‘What am I going to do? I’ve got a seven-year-old. How am I going to cope?’”
Within a whirlwind two weeks of her diagnosis, Narelle found herself under the knife in Austin Hospital, comfortably drifting away under anaesthesia, hoping to wake up on the other side completely cancer-free.
As she drifted, about to undergo a full mastectomy and reconstruction procedure, she recalled feeling a mixture of fear and hope.
The hope would realise itself on November 5, 2004, when she woke up cancer-free; but it was only the beginning of a nearly 20-year battle of preventative therapy, genetic testing and unforgettable personal triumph.
“That was my actual cancer removal, mastectomy, reconstruction — all in one,” Narelle said.
“But it was a long recovery ... it’s taken me 20 years to get the other preventative surgery done and I still have issues today with that recovery, but that’s nothing compared to what I’ve been through.”
Twenty years on, Narelle is appreciative of the family support she has had over the two decades, specifically thanking her daughter Tamara, now 27, her sister Vicky and her now husband, Howard.
She completed her medical journey last year in July, when she underwent her final surgery.
The oncology team at Austin Hospital could not get Narelle out of there soon enough, waving her away with a well-meaning “I hope I don’t see your face again”.
Vicky had created a book specifically for Narelle to read while she was receiving chemotherapy.
“I just wanted to be a positive energy for her ... I knew I couldn’t make her better but (I could) make her more positive and make her laugh,” Vicky said.
Narelle would receive puzzled looks from other patients experiencing different forms of cancer as she would laugh hysterically at the inside jokes and stories splayed out on pages purposefully curated just for her.
“How could I be laughing when there was so many sick people in the room? And yet I couldn’t stop — it brightened my day,” Narelle said.
Howard, who took care of Tamara when Narelle was in hospital receiving treatment, proposed to her while she was receiving chemotherapy.
Her entire journey stemmed from acting on her instinct that something was wrong with her body; and now she encourages others to do the same.
“You know your body ...you know what feels right and wrong, so if something is wrong don’t put it off because it could save your life,” she said.
Narelle said she would have never been able to cope as well as she did if it were not for the people who stuck by her side through such a traumatic experience.
To thank those people and to celebrate 20 years of being cancer-free, Narelle and her family will be joined by friends and neighbours that have supported and witnessed Narelle’s cancer journey.
They will be holding a barbecue at Narelle’s Kyabram home, with a few drinks, tasty food and, hopefully, fine weather.
“The way I look at life, the way I look at myself and the way I treat myself has completely changed,” Narelle said.
“I don’t hold myself back from saying anything to anybody because life is too short not to.”
Narelle’s battle with cancer was only half the story, the other half relates to how she discovered the cause of her cancer: a gene mutation that placed her in a high-risk category for breast and ovarian cancers.
Next week’s article will explore how Narelle’s discovery sent shock waves through the family, and how its detection may have just saved her bloodline.