In May, New South Wales mum Lee-Ella Heatherill gave birth to her fourth baby. It should have been the happiest time of her life. But a week later, she discovered a lump in her breast.
The 31-year-old mum was recovering from a traumatic birth, which involved an emergency c-section, after placental abruption. So initially, there wasn’t too much concern about the lump.
“They thought it was mastitis for ages, so they did ultrasounds and all that kind of stuff, and it ended up being like a 10 cent piece size lump,” Lee-Ella told Mouths of Mums. “And by time I was diagnosed in May, it was more than 90% of my boob. They did a biopsy, and that’s when they found out that it was stage three cancer. And so I started chemo, and it was probably June, and that hasn’t gone straight forward.”
After months of difficult chemo and adverse reactions to treatment, Lee-Ella is now facing a double mastectomy as well as surgery on her ovaries, after it was discovered she carries the BRCA gene. All of these comes as the family desperately searches for a permanent home.
Lee-Ella, who has been a Mouths of Mums member for several years, explained that for the past three months they’ve been living in emergency accommodation, and even in their car. While they weren’t impacted by floods, the disaster has meant accommodation is difficult to find on the NSW-Queensland border.
“We’ve been applying for rentals. It’s just, we’re right on the border from the last flood, and there’s still so many homeless people here. You go to the inspection, there’s just so many people. We’re just applying for everything and anything, but we just can’t get anything. And then we’re even, like a we like put in housing applications, but they can take ages. It’s just easier if we go and stay with my partner’s family in Tasmania.”
The hope is the family can settle in with her partner’s mum before Lee-Ella’s surgery.
“With my seven month old, it’s gonna be hard, because he’s still really clingy. He’s teething at the moment, so I won’t even be able to hold him because of the drainage, and it will be so much easier to have a set place.”
The family’s funds are already depleted due to out-of-pocket medical costs, which have prevented Lee-Ella from doing some treatments.
“It was like $800 or something, for me just have my biopsy, to find out I had cancer. My partner stepped back part time at work to try and help with the kids. So that means less money. A lot of it is covered, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be able to afford any of it, because they did say that they did want me to do at one stage this immunotherapy, but it was gonna be like, 60 grand. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t have that sorry.”
Lee-Ella’s preschool community has started a GoFundMe to help raise funds for their medical expenses and living costs, and take some of the burden off her shoulders.
“I think I’ve just kind of been in that mum zone where you just keep going and you’re doing it for them little people. I don’t think I’ve fully processed it … just taking it day by day really.”
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mom512949 replied
- 05 Nov 2024 , 6:55 pm
Reply1:21 pm
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