Ron and his wife Rachel are sitting together on the couch, while a storm rages on outside their West Auckland home. They’re wearing hoodies, with Rachel in pink and Ron wearing one that is half-zipped up. His head is snug inside a beanie.
They’re sitting on opposite edges of the couch, just close enough for their hands to touch – or, more likely, for someone’s leg to be slapped for making a cheeky joke. That happens a lot on Ron’s side of the couch.
For example, when Ron describes his hair loss due to chemotherapy:
“‘I lost every hair on my body – legs, under arms, my bum…”
Rachel turns to him, and with a funny look on her face, she says: ”Excuse me, you don’t need to go that far!” “What? We’ve all got bums!” Ron chuckles back.
The couple have adult children – a son and a daughter, both in their 40s, as well as a 16-year-old grandson and a 2-year-old granddaughter. “We’ve been together since we were 13 and 14. We’ve got a couple of kids who have left home.”
Between the two of them, they have worked all kinds of jobs throughout their life – from managing a fast food restaurant, to driving buses, to operating a health food company.
“I stopped working after the second cancer.”
It all started 10 years ago. Ron had been feeling slightly unwell – but he didn’t think anything of it until he noticed a small bump under his arms.
“I was in the shower, washing under my arms and I noticed a small bump. I thought, s**t. Should that be there? So I showed Rachel, and she thought I should go and see my GP.”
They went to a private hospital, and had all kinds of tests and a biopsy done. Rachel says, “They virtually told me to take him to Auckland hospital immediately.”
“It grew to become a 9kg mass under my arm. It split all of my skin open, and they couldn’t take it away – they just said I needed to have a lot of drugs.”
By now, Ron had been diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma and he immediately started on a journey of six months of intense treatment, in and out of hospital. Ron says, “My kids were a massive support. My daughter did a lot of homemade cooking for me, because I couldn’t eat hospital food.”
Eventually, Ron improved, and after six months post-treatment, Ron showed no sign of any cancer left in his body.
Ron says, “At 5 years with no cancer, they say that you’re pretty much cured and don’t come back. But after 5 years… I got another dose of lymphoma and this time, it was Large B-cell lymphoma.”
Rachel chimes in, “It was almost five years to the day, in fact. He had been unwell for a while, and his neck was sore. The GP treated him for different infections… but his weight was dropping off quickly. We had a private MRI, and that picked up a mass in the back of his nose and throat. Then, we were immediately back in haematology.”
The haematologist told Ron that if he didn’t do something about it, he’d have roughly 6-8 weeks left to live. He could get palliative care to extend that time… or he could receive some intense chemo.
“And, he chose chemo,” Rachel says, “Thank God, he chose chemo.”
Ron thinks about it for a moment. “Yeah. It wasn’t an easy choice, but I didn’t want to mess around with it. I didn’t really want to die. That would be such a nuisance.”
“Yeah,” Rachel smiles, “Such a nuisance.”
It was at this point that the couple met Melody from LBC on the hospital ward. Melody invited them to their first support group.
“I had to drag Ron to the first one,” Rachel laughs, “He really didn’t want to go – but he got so much out of it that now he’s the first one to ask, ‘When’s the next one?’”
“Yeah,” Ron says, “It just helped me so much because I got a huge lift. Even though I felt awful, it gave me hope. And now I’m there in case someone else needs hope.”
“There’s just something in here -” Ron touches his chest, and says, “In my heart – it’s something that I just feel – I’ve come this far, so I can help someone else and tell them what I’ve learned.”
Incredibly, Ron finished his treatment 2 years early. “The consultant was like, ‘I don’t think we need to keep seeing you. I really think it’s gone, our door is always open but let’s finish early.’”
That was over 5 years ago, and now Ron only needs to see his GP for a check-up once a year.
“Sometimes even now, I think in the shower – ‘Today, am I going to find a bump that shouldn’t be there?’ But, I’m OK. I’ve got plenty of bumps. But…” Ron says with a cheeky grin, “That’s just body fat.”