CATHY Jones’ latest tumour stretched like a snake from her left lung all the way up to a bulbous head, the shape of a tennis ball, pressing on her heart.
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Each time she lay down, the growth was squashing her to near-death.
That was in May, after a trip to New Zealand in which she developed a cough. Like most of her other tumours, this was removed but left emotional and physical scars.
It was her ninth surgery in three years.
Ms Jones, who turned 56 last week, has advanced liposarcoma, a rare cancer in the soft connective tissues of her body that resemble fat cells under a microscope.
She refuses to let the cancer rule her life, choosing instead to adapt her life daily in her four-year cancer journey.
This includes having to cut back on housework, but Ms Jones quipped she was never really born for a life of domestic bliss.
Adapting is the approach she must take for treatment. This has made her a vocal advocate for improved access to new therapies.
Ms Jones said the care in Ballarat was incredible but the rare, unknown nature of her cancer meant trying different treatments to figure out what worked.
“What matters now is trying to find out what I respond to best,” Ms Jones said. “I was always told if I got tumours cut out I would be fine. The cancer metastasised.”
For now, Ms Jones is halfway through six rounds of chemotherapy.
So much had changed since she was first diagnosed in September 2013.
At the time, Ms Jones had been scratching her arm when she noticed a large, hard lump.
Her daughter, then 22, had just started a journey fighting ovarian cancer.
“I really didn’t think much of myself at the time because I was so worried about my daughter,” Ms Jones said. “I recovered quite well and went back to work in May.”
The cancer returned on her lungs and in her buttocks less than two years later.
Surgery on her buttocks has left Ms Jones with a permanent limp.
Treatment since then had been mixed. Drug Halaven, shown to slow cancer cell growth in liposarcoma, was added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme this month.
For Ms Jones, it could be another option but she said far more research was vital to help everyone with rare cancers better find what helped them in their fight.
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