Fighting spirit

Asri Parkinson

Diagnosed with breast cancer at just 26, Asri Parkinson now has wisdom far beyond her years.

Words: Lorna Thornber

At 26, Asri Parkinson lived in the moment, confident of a bright and happy future. Married to her high school sweetheart and loving her job as a primary school teacher, Asri spent her weekends indulging the pursuits that made her happiest - meeting friends for dinner and drinks, shopping, dancing, snowboarding and heading off on impromptu road trips. So far, so normal. Then, in December 2008, she discovered an abnormal lump in her breast.
“I felt it in the shower,” Asri, who was born in Indonesia and grew up in the Waikato, explains. “I’ve always checked myself regularly, not because I’m looking for cancer but because I want to make sure things are normal for me. But something [about that lump] didn’t feel right so I kept an eye on it, and when it didn’t go away I went to the doctor to get it checked.”
Her doctor was reassuring, telling her that because she was so young and her family had no history of breast cancer the lump would most likely be benign. He booked her in for a biopsy and the results came back clear,

but Asri couldn’t shake the feeling something wasn’t right. She went back to the doctor for an ultrasound and soon afterward found herself with an appointment at Waikato Hospital’s Breast Care Centre.
“I had a lot of tests and then I had to sit down with the surgeon. She was the one who broke the news that I had breast cancer. We [Asri, husband Daara and her mother and brother] sat there in silence for a bit and then suddenly it was like, ‘oh, my gosh. This is really happening to us’.”
After the initial shock, Asri tried her hardest not to panic, focussing on understanding what her diagnosis meant and what she needed to do to get better - one step at a time.
“We started mapping things out,” she says. “We said, ‘Ok this is where we’re at right now and this is what we need to do next’.”
Asri’s doctors initially believed the cancer was confined to a relatively small area (the lump was 2 cm across and there was a trace of cancer in one of her lymph nodes) and so, in January 2009, she had ‘breast-conserving surgery ’ (also called lumpectomy). But when a subsequent MRI scan revealed that most of her breast was affected by ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a form of non-invasive breast cancer, she underwent a mastectomy and reconstruction.
“I spent a good chunk of the first part of 2009 in hospital,” Asri says. “As a young woman I was used to going out and socialising at weekends, so when I was told I had breast cancer and had to do six months of chemotherapy, five weeks of radiation and a year of Herceptin, I did feel I had lost my freedom, and definitely my sense of spontaneity. And a lot of things did change. But it was okay because I had a lot of friends and family come to visit me and help out at home. Your support crew is so important.”
In March, Asri began chemotherapy and suffered the typically gruelling side effects, including nausea, vomiting, exhaustion and low immunity.
All the same, she continued to teach at Vardon Primary, determined to retain as great a sense of normality as possible. It’s a testament to her dedication to her work that, despite all she went through that year, she was made the leader of her syndicate.  
“I woke up every morning and knew I had to do something with my day,” she says. “If I was at work it meant doing a good job and if I was at home because I had chemo it might have meant getting up and dressed.”
Asri says she constantly reminded herself why she was undergoing the treatment, appreciating she would have to endure a lot - physically and emotionally - along the way. At her lowest points she turned to her support crew, deciding it was better to vent her feelings than try to deny or hide them.
“My family and friends were amazing,” she says. “They were always there for me whenever I needed them and understood if I was tired, or emotional, or needed to talk.”
Knowing they wanted to help but weren’t always sure how, Asri would give them little jobs to do, such as making a cup of tea or hanging out the washing.
“I learnt to speak up if I needed help or just someone to sit with because I didn’t want to be alone. My girlfriends and I would make mocktails and have marathon TV sessions - we must have seen every episode of Gossip Girl and The Hills ever made - and I’d often fall asleep. When I woke up it was so nice to see they were still there. You sometimes feel so alone with what you’re going through, it’s nice just to have other people in the same space.”
Asri describes Daara as her “tower of strength” throughout, and says the experience has taken their relationship to a level she never previously thought possible.  
“He took on the housework, put up with my cravings (which often required him to drive for miles in the middle of the night), made me laugh, held me when I needed it and never, ever looked at me like I was sick. When I was throwing up, losing my hair and feeling tired and rotten, he was always there.”
Asri says her work colleagues were also incredibly understanding and supportive, even organising fundraising events for breast cancer research.
Not wanting to upset her students, who are aged nine to 11, she refrained from telling them she had breast cancer until she had finished treatment.
“I told my kids, ‘I’ve got something wrong with me that needs to be fixed’, but I didn’t go into specifics. I wanted to keep things as normal as possible for everyone’s sake.”  
When Asri’s chemo came to an end in June 2009, she was put on the “T drug” (a chemotherapy drug called a Taxane) and Herceptin and soon noticed her energy levels increase. While she experienced some physical side effects (such as a rash on her hands), they were minor in comparison to those she had already endured. She came off the T drug in September 2009, and by this stage felt well enough to enjoy a two week break in Melbourne with Daara.
Since then Asri says her health and energy levels have continued to improve and she is only just beginning to fully comprehend how seriously ill she felt.
“It’s nice to know what healthy feels like again. Your body goes through a lot of wear and tear, but [the experience] has shown me that if you maintain your spirit, you can get through anything.”
Completing her full course of Herceptin in May this year, Asri was prescribed Tamoxifen - a hormonal (or anti oestrogen) tablet, which she will take every day for a total five years.
Although she says taking the drug is as easy as popping a vitamin pill, she and Daara need to wait until she comes off it before they try for a baby. While they are happy to spend the time between now and then enjoying each other’s company, pursuing their own interests and travelling overseas they have to face the possibility that Asri’s treatment may have left her infertile.
IVF isn’t an option as the hormone injections increase the risk of the cancer returning. While this is something the couple are still coming to terms with, Asri believes it may mean life has other unexpected - but happy - plans for them.
“It could be a sign that, somewhere down the track, a little person will need a loving family and we’ll fit the bill,” she says.
Happily, Asri’s most recent scans have come back clear, and all going well she will celebrate two years of being cancer-free in January. She says that while it can be hard to calm anxieties about the cancer returning, she realises how important it is to keep working toward your goals.
Asri describes her breast cancer experience as a learning journey, which in positive terms has given her greater clarity about how she wants to live her life, and it’s made her realise how strong and resilient she really is.
“It’s almost like you start seeing life like someone in their eighties,” she says. “You think about what you’ve done, what you’d still like to do and how much your family and friends mean to you.”
She says she has realised how important it is to lead a balanced lifestyle and devote plenty of time to activities that make you happy. Feeling far more energetic these days, Asri has got back into her beloved snowboarding and also enjoys pilates, taking her two dogs for long walks around the lake, reading, drawing and sewing.  
Inspired by the “genuinely caring” medical and support staff she met throughout the course of her treatment, Asri hopes to be able to offer advice and emotional support to others affected by breast cancer, particularly younger women, whom she believes can feel particularly isolated by the disease.
“Breast cancer is perceived as an older woman’s disease and the statistics do confirm this, but the fact is no one is immune. And I know how helpful it can be to talk to someone of the same age. We all face challenges in one form or another and it’s important to rise to them because things do get better. I love the saying that it’s not the destination that’s important, it’s the journey you take to get there. That’s how I feel about my life and experience.”

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Feedback from our Cover girl:

Hi there
I just wanted to say thank you so much for the wonderful job you did on the article and cover! It was so well written and the pictures you chose really show the message that yes you may be undergoing cancer treatment but life still goes on and that really came through in the candid shots you chose to use. It also showed a sense of youth and freedom despite the constraints of cancer treatment. It truly is amazing.

I have had so much positive feedback from it & a lot of friends, family and colleagues have purchased the magazine and have found it to be so informative and awesome.

Thank you so much for helping get my story out there and hopefully it will help others out there going through the same journey.

Thanks again
Asri