By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
APART from telling close family and friends, Sandi Bonavita has never shared her story.
The Narre Warren South grandmother has beaten lung cancer once and fought breast cancer four times, the latter returning with a vengeance in July this year.
With October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and as she fights her fifth bout of cancer in 17 years, Sandi knew there was no better time than now to share her history in the hope of raising awareness.
“I have never made a fuss about having cancer – in fact, most people would never know what I have gone through,” Sandi, 60, said.
“But this year I have developed such a heart for giving something back to all of those who tirelessly fight to find a cure for cancer.”
Canadian-born Sandi has also signed up to do next year’s Weekend to End Women’s Cancer walk for the first time, to raise money for the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, held in the last weekend in January.
“It’s a 60-kilometre walk over two days and I am in training, walking six kilometres a day,” she said.
“I have a team of seven who have agreed to join me in this walk, and I believe I will be alive to do it.”
The born-again Christian was first diagnosed with cancer in her right breast in May 1997, when she was 44. It spread to her lymph system and after a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation treatment, Sandi won that first battle and was announced cancer-free in January of the next year.
Three years before Christmas in 2005, Sandi was then diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in the same breast, but treatment again saw it eradicated by May 2006.
More than half a decade then passed without any cancer returning and Sandi was considered a ‘survivor’. That was before doctors discovered it again in her left breast in February 2012, and soon also diagnosed her with lung cancer.
After surgical complications due to the proximity of the breast cancer to her nerve tissue, it wasn’t until May 2013, after countless operations, that Sandi was once again diagnosed cancer-free.
“However, I was unable to have any more radiotherapy as I have had it on both sides of my chest in the past and the scar tissue build-up will not allow for more,” Sandi said.
And on 14 July this year, cancer was discovered again in Sandi’s left breast.
“I have two tumours under my left arm approximately two inches in diameter, each again inoperable as they are enmeshed in too much scar tissue,” she said.
“Halfway through chemo I had a CT scan in September and the results are incredible – the two tumours have shrunk to only a quarter and a bit left, with two more rounds of chemo to go.
“We all believe that I will once again beat this beast and be cancer-free.”
Sandi’s last round of chemotherapy will be undertaken next month, with devoted husband, Martin, by her side.
“All through my journey, I have had a wonderful support group and a loving family who have supported me in all of this,” she said.
“I have never been afraid of dying, but never been afraid of fighting to overcome this either.
“I have a great faith in God and know that the prayers and support from all have seen me through this also.”
Sandi may be battling cancer once again, but she is a survivor in every sense of the word.
For more information and to donate to the Weekend to End Women’s Cancer walk, visit www.endcancer.org.au, and use Sandi’s participant number – 121226-2.
