Strong and brave Natasha wins a battle with cancer

Losing her loved ones – her grandparents and her mother – to cancer, a bubbly and energetic Kings School Robin Hills teacher never thought that she will have to walk along the same path.

Natasha Vermaak was diagnosed with cancer in 2022, and life changed for her and her family. In May 2022, she was going for her routine mammogram to check out any suspicious lump tissues in her breast.

“I didn’t suspect anything, then they discovered a lump in my left breast. They did a biopsy to determine if it was cancerous and we found out it was indeed cancerous.”

During her surgery to remove the cancerous lump, the doctors found cancer in her lymph nodes under her left arm. “They had to remove those as well. It was three days in the hospital and four weeks of the recovery period, where I was not allowed to do any work, move my arms, and I had tubes in me draining the blood.”

Due to her extreme allergies, she chose breast reconstruction using her own tissues instead of implants. After about two months, she underwent chemotherapy and radiation because her cancer was genetic and hormone-based.

“There is a long family history of grandparents and my mom that have died [of cancer] so there was a big genetic load. There was also a hormone issue that created cancer.”

She explained that she was given hormone-blocking injections to take her from pre-menopausal to post-menopausal to stop her hormones from functioning.

“I had to go for chemo sessions for six months, and I had to wait four to six weeks to begin with radiation of which I did 30 sessions. It was long for me because I was genetic and hormonal.”

Her cancer was also in the left breast, which is more problematic, as the radiation process can easily affect the heart.

Natasha is a wife and a mother of two children. Her whole family had to adapt and the journey became a good bonding experience for all of them.

“They realised that I cannot do certain things anymore, and the kids took on some adult roles and they were good about it. We made good memories, doing things and laughing together along the journey. They were with me from the beginning until the last radiation day.”

She explained that it’s been liberating because she will not go back to what it was before. Throughout her journey, Vermaak has learned that life is a choice and death is not; everybody is going to die, but we can choose what we do with our life.

“One word about my life is choice. You cannot control your health; you can do anything to be healthier, eat better, but you cannot control that something will happen to you – but you can choose what you can do with it. On a daily basis, you can chose to have a good day and no one can take that away from you. I chose to connect with people, to be positive and bring a positive attitude to where I am at.”

She added that every day she lives her life with joy and full of purpose. She advised people to sympathise and show support to other people going through the journey of fighting cancer.

“Do not treat a person as if they are dying and sick, but also do not discount it. The person has not changed from the someone you know just because they got diagnosed. They still want to laugh and make memories. Be there for them and as much as we do not want to talk about it, do not ignore them.”

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