Trish Knight and Kelly Michinson have become friends going through their cancer journey together. Photo/ Andrew Warner.
Trish Knight and Kelly Mitchinson have found the battle against breast cancer is best fought with good company, says Annemarie Quill
"Loosing my hair for me was the worst thing. Everyone knew me by my hair - my mop of red hair that my son has, too. It was like my trademark. And then it's gone. This morning I drew on my eyebrows. And it is the last day I will ever see my boob."
There is no self-pity in the words of Bay mum of three, 43-year-old Trish Knight.
It is the day before she will undergo a six-hour operation to remove her right breast and "make her another one".
It is also the 9th birthday of one of her three young sons.
But Knight is feeling calm and positive, and despite just having undergone more than six months of chemotherapy to shrink a lump the size of a golf ball, her skin is glowing, her eyes are bright and she sits cross-legged in her Avenues villa, calm and smiling.
"All I am focusing on right now is waking up from this operation and seeing my kids again. Being alive. There is nothing like having cancer to make you aware of your own mortality."
Knight has stage four breast cancer. She says it matter of factly.
"Because they also found a spot on my spine but it's inconclusive.
To recover, I have to be positive.
"I don't ask for statistics. I don't want the details. I don't want to dwell on the illness; I just want to know how to treat it. Because if I put negative things in my mind then negative things go in my body.
"To recover, I have to be positive."
She had discovered the lump last September.
She had never had a mammogram or done self-checks but when a work colleague's wife was diagnosed with cancer, Knight "just had a feeling."
"So in the shower I lifted up my arm to do a check and ... well it was huge. Obvious - but then I had never checked before."
A mammogram confirmed the cancer and it was so advanced Knight needed chemotherapy prior to surgery.
"It was a shock... I had always eaten healthily, ran. But the oncologist told me 'cancer does not discriminate.'"
Before she started the treatment she sat her three boys down - Liam, 11; Flynn, 9; and Max, 5 - and told them she had breast cancer but that she was going to get treatment and she was going to be fine.
She warned them about the chemotherapy and told them they would see her really sick.
"I told them 'I am not dying'."
"The first thing Liam said was 'Mum, your hair.' And I said 'I know I will lose my hair.' Then the other two said 'Oh Mum, you are going to look like an old man,' and the other one said 'Oh Mum you are going to look so ugly with no hair.' It made me laugh. Boys eh!"
Knight continued working as a contractor for Baycom throughout her chemo but found it hard.
"I liken it to being run over by a truck, then a car runs you over, then a kid on his scooter, and you have to get up and you can't.
You feel like you are dying. It hits you a day or so later and it lasts a week. After the first round I got back in a week, the second a week-and-a-half and the third I was out ... I never got back to work."
"She was in denial," laughed her friend, Kelly Mitchinson.
Looking at the pair sitting close on the leather sofa, laughing, sharing looks and jokes - they are so comfortable in each other's presence you would think they were lifelong friends.
In fact, they have only been friends since September last year.
I had people coming to my door with baskets of food ... care packages.
Their children attended the same school, and when news broke that Knight had breast cancer, Mitchinson - a interior designer and mum of two daughters - was one of the many mums who flocked to Knight's side to see how they could help.
Mitchinson became the one Knight could lean on the most.
As she herself was going through chemotherapy in September, Mitchinson had been diagnosed with aggressive stage three breast cancer in July after also discovering a lump.
Before that she had also eaten healthily, ran, went to the gym, and did yoga. She had no family history.
She was just 37.
Mitchinson had been able to have surgery straight away and during her own chemotherapy, reached out to Knight.
"I just picked up the phone and said 'come over'." I told her what to expect from the chemo ... there is no point in dressing it up."
But although their friendship was borne out of a shared illness, it became a bond of positivity.
"We laugh a lot about things. Things that are happening to our body. We can laugh and say things to each other that might embarrass other people.
"And we laugh about the things people say. People are just trying to connect but sometimes put their foot in it telling you about their relative who died or something," said Knight.
"We joke about being in the club of those who have surgery, chemo and radiotherapy.
"I mean those girls who just have one or two, they can't be in our club. And I have never had so many comments about hair," said Mitchinson.
"Now it is growing back, people who know I've had cancer tell me 'Oh your hair is growing,' like as though I don't know. The other day at my hairdressers, a lady leaned forward and said 'Oh I love your cut, who did that,' and I felt like saying 'chemotherapy'.
"It strips you bare literally. When we lost our eyelashes we joked about not even looking as good as mannequins," laughs Knight, as Mitchinson does some mannequin poses.
They could compare notes about how their children were coping.
It strips you bare literally. When we lost our eyelashes we joked about not even looking as good as mannequins
Mitchinson's daughters Emma, 9, and Jaime, 11, had been by their mother's side throughout treatment and like Knight with her boys, matter-of-fact explanations meant the girls accepted and understood that mum was being treated for breast cancer.
Eight months after her diagnosis, Mitchinson has completed the gruelling trilogy of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy and is now back running her homeware store in town.
Even though she is working only six hours each week, it is tiring.
"That was hard emotionally to accept that I wasn't the same person as before ... but that is part of the journey and it's a really positive part of the journey.
"As mums we try to do everything. We have work, kids, all the afterschool activities, the pressures to look good, have a perfect house, go for a run, go to the gym and then you get breast cancer, and boof ... You realise you cannot keep up all this perfection. And there is no point in stressing about it."
Mitchinson says she no longer worries about what she cannot control.
With her treatment over, the next step will be potential BRCA gene testing. Knight will take a drug Tamoxifen for five years.
Knight agrees that cancer has changed her perspective.
"I realised I didn't have to be this perfect person and keep up work ... I could take time for me, spend the day making bone broth."
Both women say the experience has made them feel "loved" not just by family and friends but the wider community.
"I had people coming to my door with baskets of food ... care packages.
I told them 'I am not dying'
"The school mums grouped together and had this roster of cooked dinners that would just arrive. They had even made baking for the kids' lunches. I felt loved, grateful."
Mitchinson agrees that the support of her community boosted her in the darkest moments ... "when I was stretched on the sofa barely able to lift an arm ... someone would come in and clean the bathroom, make a meal, take the girls for a night''.
Both women urge all women to do checks and have mammograms.
"I tell my friends just do it ... because if you can catch it early you will not have to go through what we did."
The pair also praise the health services.
"It is not until you need it you realise how incredibly lucky we are to have our health service ... everyone at Tauranga hospital was just superb ... the oncology team, the nurses, the support services, I couldn't praise them highly enough."
Mitchinson agrees and reminds Knight she also had a "primo" surgeon - Dr Chin.
"He is good at taking them off and will make you a good one too, he's one stop."
The ladies laugh again and when they say goodbye Mitchinson hugs Knight.
"I will come and see you on Sunday."
There is no "good luck", no drama or fearful exchanges.
Just a hug held a moment longer than usual.
As Mitchinson walks up Knight's driveway she turns back and points to the pink blossom on the trees, "Look, just for you."
The aspiring new owners say they have 30 years' experience in hospitality.