My mum didn’t think much of it when the clinic asked her to come back and do some more testing as she had been through similar processes before. I was abroad for 8 days, and I knew my mum would be getting her results during the middle of my trip. We emailed each other each day and she never let on that anything was wrong.

The day I got back from New Caledonia, my mum picked me up and took me to our friend’s- who had also been overseas with me-house. She seemed fine and while we were in the car she told me that she had come down with a bad cough. I was so relieved when she told me because I thought that was the worst news she had. Once at my friend’s house, we sat down and I told her a bit about my trip and finally asked her about the results of the tests.

"This was when mum told me she had breast cancer."

I didn’t know how to take it at first. I mostly remember crying and not much else. She told me that friends and family would be there to help us through it.

"Everything from then on happened very quickly"

- its amazing how efficient it all was. My mum had surgery two days before Christmas. She was in hospital for a few days. It was especially hard for my whole family on Christmas day. It’s terrible not having you’re mum, but on Christmas I found it so much worse. I’ve never has a Christmas without my mum and it was really hard for me. I later realized that it was probably also really hard on the rest of the family (my aunties and grandmother), but they were a lot more subtle about it.

When mum got home, she was completely out of it. She had lost all her energy and although her personality hadn’t changed, she had become a lot less vibrant.

People kept on sending flowers which, for me, was actually very hard to deal with more than anything. For me it wasn’t a ‘Get well soon’ token or symbol for ‘I hope you are feeling better.’ For me it was just a reminder that everything had changed.

"We got a lot of help when mum was sick."

During the time she was in hospital, and for about a month after, my aunty looked after us. Two close family friends lived in out house for a few months while mum was going through chemotherapy and doctor’s appointments.

Once again, I didn’t like this. It was nice to have people to look after me, but that’s my mum’s job. By the end of their time spent, I couldn’t wait to have the house back to ourselves and just have mum back.

"I sort of regret this feeling"

because I know everyone was just trying to help, and I pushed it away. I dealt with the whole ordeal in quite an angry manner-Why is this happening to me? Why can’t mum be healthy and alright?

The chemo made mum really tired and she didn’t want to do much and eventually during mid 2009, my mum stopped chemo and went on to radiotherapy. The radiotherapy was a lot easier for her and I think that made it a lot easier for us.