A mother’s fight
Eight years ago, Moana and her whānau moved to Hamilton for a fresh start. Life was going smoothly for the mum of three boys – until suddenly everything changed.
At the beginning of last year, the 48-year-old began noticing unexplained bruises on her arms and legs. When she went to have her teeth cleaned at the dentist, her gums bled for days afterwards.
But it wasn’t until she was in excruciating pain that alarm bells started to ring. “I felt this pinching feeling going down my legs,” she says. “It was so painful, like someone was tearing my veins out.”
Not able to sleep from the pain, Moana went to hospital the next day.
It wasn’t long before she received the news that turned her world upside down: Moana had acute myeloid leukaemia.
“I freaked out,” she recalls. “I said, ‘Could I die from this?’ and they said, ‘Yes, you could.’”
Her first thought was her children. “I was just worried about my kids growing up without a mum,” she says.
Breaking the news to them was devastating. “They were shattered,” she says. “They felt like I wasn’t going to come home. But I told them, ‘We have to believe in this, we’ve got to try.’”
The medical team started Moana’s treatment straight away. She spent half a year getting chemotherapy, with five of those months spent as an inpatient at Waikato Hospital.
Moana’s eldest son had to step into the role of looking after his two teenage brothers. “He was only 22. It was hard for him,” she says. “All the cooking, cleaning – he was so stressed out.”
And while things were a struggle at home, they were just as tough for Moana in the hospital. She lost her appetite completely and was surviving on water and ice chips to get her through. “The chemo was pulling me down,” she says, “but I just kept on fighting. All I could say to myself was, ‘You’ve got to beat this. You have to do it for your boys.’”
“But I really did love the people up there,” she says. “There were a lot of us going through it. I could walk around with no hat on, free as a bird with a baldie.”
During this time, Moana also met Sean from Blood Cancer NZ. “He has been a wonderful support through my journey,” she says. “I’m so glad I formed that bond with him.”
After finishing chemo, Moana had to go up to Auckland for a stem cell transplant. “My sister was my donor,” Moana says. “She was a perfect match. I told her she’s my hero for life.”
Although it was an incredible gift from her sister, the months in Auckland Hospital for Moana’s transplant were beyond anything she could have imagined.
In an isolation room and with no whānau able to be there with her, Moana felt totally alone. She couldn’t eat and had to be fed through a tube. The line in her chest got infected, and she had terrible gut issues.
“I would voice call my sons from hospital instead of video calling, because I didn’t want them to see what I looked like,” she says.
When Moana felt like she just couldn’t handle it anymore, she called Sean in tears. “I told him I’ve got no one to talk to here and I need support. He guided me through it and had someone from Blood Cancer NZ in my room within half an hour.”
Finally, Moana was allowed to return home. It was just a week before Christmas. “It was like a joy I’d never had before,” she says. “We got to put up the Christmas tree together, which is a special thing for me and my boys.”
Although she’s glad to be back home, she still has to travel to Auckland for medical reviews, which is costly in terms of both time and money. Fortunately, Sean from Blood Cancer NZ has provided petrol vouchers to help ease the burden and ensure she can get to appointments.
Moana says, “I’m not a person who likes to ask for help. I’m so independent, and I find it really hard, but I’m trying to learn how to accept help when people offer.”
She’s still facing the after-effects of her transplant and is currently dealing with graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). “The transplant is battling it out with my liver and my kidneys at the moment,” she says. “I’m dry in my mouth and throat, and I’ve started to lose my toenails and fingernails.”
She also struggles with her energy levels and is limited in what she can do around the house. “I find it very hard, because the things I used to do – like mow the lawns and weed the gardens – I can’t do them anymore,” she says.
Fortunately, her boys have stepped up, helping make sure that everything gets done.
Moana admits she gets bored easily, so while she’s still recovering at home, she’s taught herself to make flowers from ribbons. “My niece had said, ‘Auntie, how about crocheting?’ And I said, ‘No, thank you, I’m not that old – not yet!’”
Despite everything, Moana is just grateful to be done with her treatment and to be home with the people she loves most. And she knows her boys are grateful, too. “As long as they get to see their mum, they’re happy.”
