She had suspected something was amiss in her breast tissue a couple of months earlier when her cat had walked across her chest, triggering a painful response, but the possibility of cancer was dismissed by her doctor.
“It really hurt and I thought, oh, ouch, so I went to the doctor and she said, ‘oh, breast cancer doesn’t hurt’,” Julie said.
“My mammogram was due in about August, so I said I’ll just wait for my mammogram then.”
“Something” showed up in the test and Julie was sent to St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne for further investigation, where it was discovered she did, in fact, have breast cancer.
Three weeks later — when her cancer had progressed from stage two to stage three after quickly spreading to her lymph nodes — she had surgery.
“I didn’t know whether to have my full breasts removed or what was going on and I thought, well, I don’t want a general surgeon hacking at my breast,” she said.
“So I went down to Melbourne to be operated on and fortunately I only had a lumpectomy, so they only removed the lump, and two lymph nodes.”
She stayed alone in a motel room with her own thoughts the night before and caught a taxi to the hospital.
Her daughter, Rachelle, and son-in-law, Nathan, visited from Shepparton, but Julie said it was pointless them staying away from home.
“So I went into surgery and luckily I have a brother and sister-in-law who live there; she was working in town and she came for me when I woke up,” Julie said.
“And it was beautiful to see someone you know when you wake up, I would hate to have woken up not knowing anybody.”
Post-surgery, Julie had to continue commuting to Melbourne for regular check-ups.
“I’d usually catch the train down, or the bus, but I caught the bus down one day and it was so painful every bump that bus gave me.”
When her chemotherapy treatment began at the Peter Copulos Cancer and Wellness Centre at GV Health in Shepparton, she was grateful she no longer had to travel.
“They are absolutely marvellous there, they are just there for you 24/7,” Julie said.
“The nurses are fantastic ... I can’t say anything wrong about that centre, they are just beautiful people, caring.
“I was very teary one day and a volunteer hugged me and we cried together and then, you know, we’d laugh together.”
Julie had four rounds of chemotherapy.
Around six days after each round, she ended up in hospital for four to five days with a high fever and illness.
Still, she was thankful she was close to home and family for the ordeal.
When her chemotherapy was finished, her radiation began in Bendigo.
She required daily treatment for five days out of each week, for four weeks.
She stayed in free accommodation near Bendigo Health from Monday to Friday, returning home on the weekends.
“If you were fit enough, you could walk there, but no-one with cancer’s ever fit enough to do that,” she said.
“I’d spend the weekend home, usually sleeping, because even though it’s only 15 minutes for radiation each day, it just knocks you, you know.”
The exhaustion meant she couldn’t drive, so Rachelle drove her to and from Bendigo for her 20 days of treatment.
“It took her away from Nathan, so both of them had to sacrifice,” Julie said.
“The hardest part for me, because I’ve been on my own for so long, was asking for help.”
Julie is currently well and remains on a trial medication, getting a full blood panel check every six months and a breast cancer check-up every 12 months.
She urges others to get regular mammograms and ask for second opinions if they think something’s not quite right.
“Never say that cancer doesn’t hurt; it does hurt,” she said.
The GV Health Foundation is calling on individuals, businesses and community groups to donate to its $5 million I Care for Cancer Care @ GV Health fundraising appeal to help bring first-class cancer care to the Goulburn Valley.
Donations can be made via the foundation’s website.
Community members interested in the various opportunities to contribute to and support the appeal can contact Amy De Paola via email at amy.depaola@gvhealth.org.au
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