Melanie beats the odds
“Hearing the word cancer for someone who knows what the journey was all about killed me emotionally.”
Melanie Africa of Bez Valley encourages people to go for routine cancer screening.
The 43-year-old mother of three is a cancer survivor and is now in remission after being diagnosed with stage three colorectal cancer in 2015.
She told the EXPRESS/NEWS that sometimes symptoms are there but people ignore them.
“By the time I was diagnosed, it was already at stage three. Growing up as a sickly person I always thought that it was my chronic illness. I was diagnosed with lupus in my early 20s after giving birth to my first child, so I have been sick my whole life.
“As a young child I felt tired all the time. I also experienced an unexplained weight problem. I used to lose and gain weight. I also had problems with my kidneys. As a result, I ended up having one kidney removed,” she said.
Melanie said she started showing colorectal cancer symptoms in 2011.
Also read: Types of cancers affecting women in South Africa
She went to the doctor who gave her medication for what he thought she might have been suffering from, lupus.
“I was misdiagnosed. The doctor said that it might just be the lupus problem or stress. In November 2014 I was getting ready to go home in Cape Town for the holidays with my children. I was feeling a bit sick on that day. I was feeling very tired and short of breath and had cramps but because of the lupus condition I thought it was just lupus,” she told the EXPRESS/NEWS.
“I went home for the holiday and when I came back in January I started losing a lot of weight. I was always tired. I was feeling a lot pain. When I went to the toilet it was just blood and that’s when I got very worried. I went to the doctor who referred me to the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital. The hospital did all the tests, scans and sonars. That was when I was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of February,” she said.
Melanie recalled the day the doctor told her the news.
“The doctor came to my bedside and closed the curtain. He told me that he needed to speak to me. He also called the psychologists and I knew from that moment that whatever he wanted to tell me was bad news.
“I just started crying when he was explaining it to me. The only thing I heard was ‘stage three’. He gave me some time and privacy to speak to a psychologist and he came back to tell me about the treatment plan later.
Also read: R10 000 raised for cancer
“I was devastated because I thought the results would come back telling me that it was lupus. Cancer was the last thing that I expected. My biggest concern was that I lost my father to cancer.
“Hearing the word cancer for someone who knows what the journey was all about killed me emotionally. It was very difficult for me and my family especially my children.
“The situation in which they saw me affected them in a very bad way and the fact that they had to do everything for me. I cried so much because I couldn’t do anything for myself or for my family. I even became sicker because I relied on other people to do things for me,” she said.
Melanie said her treatment was a nightmare.
She told the EXPRESS that she prayed to die.
“My treatment started the following week with five-week intensive radiation and chemotherapy. I went there Monday to Friday. I sat in the chemo room for about three hours. Radiation was very difficult and painful. It was the worst time of my life. It’s very painful. Even though radiation doesn’t last long it’s the most painful thing ever. I felt like somebody was setting me alight,” she said.
After the five weeks she had lost all her hair and a lot of weight.
“I was down to 32kg. It was hell. I was tired, I was vomiting. When people asked me what it’s like I always told them that its not the cancer that kills you but the treatment because you are so tired and sick.
“I couldn’t even eat because radiation gave me sores in my mouth. When my five weeks were finished, I went back to the drawing board with my doctor to see what was being accomplished. The results came back but they had to do surgery. They removed 23cm of my intestine.
Also read: Edenvale cyclists get hands on with testicular cancer
“I had to go through another five weeks of radiation and chemo. After that it was yet another journey of no hair and feeling tired all the time. I will never ever forget radiation,” she said.
Melanie is now in remission and goes to the hospital for maintenance chemotherapy.
