Darlene's Cancer Journey

Most of you who are friends with Darlene and Nigel know that they welcomed their beautiful baby boy, Cillian into the world on the 28th of December 2021. He became their everything and they loved embracing all that parenthood had to offer.

 

On the 7th of March, when Cillian was only 10 weeks old, Darlene went to the emergency department with bleeding, which is when they subsequently found out that this was caused by a molar pregnancy.

 

She was initially booked for surgery to remove the molar pregnancy but they later found multiple antibodies in her blood which meant that the operation was too risky. This is because it would mean that should she require a transfusion they wouldn't be able to find blood to match.

 

On the 11th of March, they met with a consultant and were given the devastating news that she had an extremely rare form of cancer, called gestational trophoblastic disease. The specific cancer Darlene has been diagnosed with is choriocarcinoma, which occurs in about 1 in 50,000 pregnancies.

 

She met with multiple doctors and was advised she needed to immediately start an intensive form of chemotherapy. This chemotherapy is in 14-day cycles, requiring Darlene to be in the hospital 3–4 days per fortnight. Darlene had CT and MRI scans, and unfortunately, they found it has spread to her lungs.

 

As you can imagine, this has all been quite shocking and has happened within a very short space of time. Darlene and Nigel are thousands of miles away from their home and loved ones, so their support network in Melbourne is limited. We don’t know what challenges lie ahead in the coming months, but they have been advised that the recovery rate is good and they are hopeful she will respond well to the chemo.

 

Darlene and Nigel’s ability to work will be greatly impacted. Given that they are so far from home, they will need to access childcare for Cillian whilst she undergoes treatment, travel costs, and they also have not yet secured permanent residency, so it is likely that they will incur various medical expenses, immigration costs, and issues possibly relating to her diagnosis. They will also need some family to come out and assist in supporting them through this difficult time.

 

People have reached out wanting to help. Stacey and Serena (two of Darlene's good friends) thought it would be great to have a way to support them. The funds raised will go towards relieving some financial pressures in the coming months.

 

This is a very brief version of what Darlene has been through. She has decided to document her road to recovery on Instagram to help create awareness about this type of cancer. You can follow and support Darlene here:

https://instagram.com/my_choriocarcinoma_journey?utm_medium=copy_link

 

Thank you all for doing what you can to help alleviate some of the worries for Darlene and her family. I know it will mean the absolute world to them.