“They said, ‘your bones look funny, they’ve got holes, like they’re motheaten.”
And I thought, ‘that’s weird.’ But I didn’t care, I was full of fentanyl by then!” Annie laughs.
It was September 2021 and Annie was in hospital after falling onto her bed. Despite the soft surface, she had broken her pelvis. ED doctors were working hard to understand what had happened.
“A couple of weeks later, still in Masterton Hospital, practicing walking, and after many tests including a trip to Lower Hutt for an MRI, doctors asked for a meeting with myself and my two sons. We were told, gently, that I have multiple myeloma.”
“There’s nothing like that heart-stopping moment. Nothing in life ever prepared me for that.”
After the confirmed diagnosis Annie and her sons FaceTimed her daughter in Australia. “We tried to break the news to her as gently as possible – she only knew I had a broken pelvis. It broke my heart to tell her this when she was so far away.”
Annie was then transferred by ambulance to Wellington Hospital where her chemotherapy journey would be mapped out and multiple myeloma explained in depth. She would, after being released from hospital, end up travelling from Featherston to Wellington Hospital for weekly chemo, then eventually weekly to Masterton Hospital.
Once in Wellington Hospital Annie and her children had a family conference video call with one of the haematologists and Kelly (the wonderful myeloma Nurse Specialist) to help them wrap their heads around Annie’s sudden diagnosis.
“The first thing this doctor said was, ‘As far as life expectancy goes, you’ve got around 10-13 years.’ I never asked that, didn’t want to know that, and my children didn’t want to know. My plea to doctors is, please make sure that your patients want to know this before you tell them.”
Unintentionally, that short sentence caused a lot of pain for Annie’s daughter. “Your life expectancy could be 1 hour, 1 day… it could be 50 years, whether you have cancer or not.
What that doctor said really got to her,” Annie says sadly, “and she got stuck on that.” Nervously, the family pushed on with Annie’s treatment. She had 20 weeks of non-stop chemo, ending mid-February 2022. “I was meant to have a stem cell transplant in March 2022 but Covid changed that. So I went back for another 8 weeks of chemo and finally had the transplant on June 1st 2022.”
Annie was so terrified by all she read and heard about stem cell transplants that she seriously considered not going through with it. “I was dreading it, I was certain I would die.”
“I sailed through the whole thing. Since the transplant I’ve been OK – which is astounding, apparently. I got to come home after 10 days – instead of the predicted 3-4 weeks in hospital.”
Despite the good news Annie’s daughter was still anxious.
“After the transplant her first question was, ‘What’s your life expectancy now Mum?’ And I said, ‘Same as yours Lucy. Exactly the same as yours.’ ‘What do you mean?’, she said.
‘Well… there’s no specific amount of life you can expect, that you know you’ve got. But I’m here right now.” It was a difficult conversation – just one of many hard conversations that Annie needed to have – and she found a safe space for those discussions with Nicki, and later Sally, from LBC.
“I got in touch with Nicki first. My son Shaun went to the LBC website and read up on myeloma. He then sent a video of a myeloma survivor that he found on the website to myself and my other son James. It gave us hope.”
“I’m a great believer in support groups, and I’ve enjoyed Sally’s groups. It’s nice to be able to say things that I can’t say to my children, because I want to protect them.”
Annie’s big heart isn’t only limited to her children. While recovering in hospital, instead of worrying about herself, she came up with an amazing plan to help others.
“I’ve always loved sewing dresses for little girls. One day, I was wondering where I would send the dresses to my daughter-in-law Jane Keig. Jane had the Defence Force contacts to put us in touch with the Timorese ambassador Her Excellency Ms Felicidade Guterres. We visited the embassy and got approval from Her Excellency to make dresses for the little girls of Timor-Leste. Stitch 4 Kids NZ was born!”
With a lot of talking to people, newspaper articles and goodwill they were donated tons of fabric from around Wairarapa. Several women locally and around Aotearoa joined in, making dresses for girls from 1-14 years old. Annie had created something special during one of the hardest times in her own personal life. But, this isn’t unusual; Annie really is this tenacious.
“My doctor says the cancer will come back – it’s not curable but treatable – but I’m saying not for at least 15 years. I’ve got a friend in Auckland who has myeloma and she’s 8 years out from her transplant, and she’s perfectly ok.”
“Get on with life and enjoy it, that’s what I say. Looking back from the great old age of 66, it goes fast. I’ve had a wonderful life, and this experience, whilst it’s been horrible and heart-breaking, it’s not the be-all and end-all of who I am.”
“I’ve been stubborn and determined since I was a little girl: and I don’t plan on changing. I’m glad I’ve got that stubborn streak. There’s always going to be good and bad, but it’s what you do with your life that matters, eh?”