Emerging stronger after fighting cancer, Nita Mullick raises awareness to help others
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- CNS Special on World Health Day 2017 -
"One night, in the summer of 2013, I felt a twitch in my breast. It was something like if you hurt your toenail. Having a family history of cancer, I did not want to take any chance, and promptly saw my doctor the very next day. He reassured me that there was nothing to worry, more so because there was no lump."
Click here to watch breast cancer webinar: www.bit.ly/breastcancer2016
"But I insisted for a test. Reluctantly, as if to satisfy my whims, he sent me for an ultrasound, and there was something amiss there. So I was asked to come the next day for an FNAC (fine needle aspiration cytology). I had no idea what that word meant. I mistook it for 'effanacy' and tried to google search it unsuccessfully. It was only in the hospital next morning that I came to know that it was a diagnostic procedure to investigate lumps under the skin. It was an extremely painful process. The needle had to be inserted really deep, as perhaps my cancer was just in its infancy and embedded deep in my breast. In 2-3 days time, biopsy confirmed diagnosis of cancer. My doctor suggested immediate surgery and I, as well as my family, agreed to it. My whole world was turned upside down within a few days' time. My summer vacations had just begun and I was all set to visit my daughter in Sydney who had delivered a baby. Instead I landed on the operation table. Strange are the ways of God!"
This is the story of Nita Mullick - a gutsy lady - who candidly shared with CNS (Citizen News Service) her first hand brush with the dreaded disease. She confided "I have never opened up so much to anyone before."
A mother of two children, Nita's first thought when the doctor pronounced the verdict was, 'Lord I do not want to leave this world so early'. She had already lost her father to prostate cancer in 1975 and her sister had been cured of breast cancer in 2006. She knew the seriousness of her situation, but made a firm decision that she will not let cancer win, rather she will win over cancer.
Post mastectomy, Nita had to undergo 6 cycles of chemotherapy, at intervals of 21 days each. This was a very difficult period for her. Every cycle of chemotherapy (which involved intravenous administration of drugs) lasted 8-10 hours and took an entire day at the hospital. On returning home from there she would suffer nausea, exhaustion, loss of appetite, body ache and a general uneasiness that would continue for the next few days.
"But the most traumatic part was that by the second chemotherapy cycle, I had lost all my hair. More than anything else, this loss of hair was something that I found very difficult to deal with. Chemotherapy also made my skin dark, and my nails black. It was easy for the doctor to say that things will improve soon, but the time you have to pass like this looks like a lifetime. Gradually I did get over it."
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