From cancer to helping with mental health: Young survivor's dream

Young cancer survivor Darlene Sayers plans to use her experience to help others. Photo / Andrew Warner

Like many 21-year-olds, Darlene Sayers saw in the New Year surrounded by mates at the RNV festival and trudged on to Bay Dreams a few days after. She also just beat cancer, Cira Olivier reports.

Cancer might have flipped her life upside down, but one young Bay of Plenty woman will flip it back, better than before.

On May 3 last year, everything changed for Mount Maunganui's Darlene Sayers, 21, when she was told she had cancer.

She was taken into a room and given the news.

Her world stood still. Her mum started to cry.

She was diagnosed nearly a year after the first time she went to the doctor about feeling tired.

"I just thought I was stressed," she said, putting it down to being a student of psychology and human development at the University of Waikato.

There was also a lump in her throat, but she thought it was a bit of weight she had picked up around her neck.

But the lump continued to grow.

The doctor initially thought it was her thyroid, but her blood tests came back clear.

After the fourth test, she was called at 9pm and told to go for a CT scan the next morning.

She was taken into a room and she knew it was bad.

She was told she had Hodgkin lymphoma, a relatively rare cancer, diagnosed in about 75 New Zealanders each year.

The cancer affects the lymphatic system, part of the immune system, mainly the white blood cells.

It had spread around her heart and neck and was the size of about two fists.

"Even when I'd been googling the symptoms of the thyroid, lymphoma cancer had come up but I didn't even bother to click it ... everything always says you have cancer, but it's not," she said.

But she couldn't be in denial for long.

From there, everything was all go: her studies were put on hold, her eggs were frozen and she began 12 rounds of chemotherapy every two weeks for six months.

"Life can be turned upside down in an instant. I never would have imagined that would happen to me or anyone I know."

Usually unable to sit still, Sayers found it difficult to come to terms that she was sick and did not have the energy she was used to.

"Looking in the mirror every day, my eyes were dark, and I just wasn't use to feeling like that," she said.

"The way I thought about someone with cancer was not me."

She lost her hair and was unable to make bikinis for her handmade bikini business, reiterating that she was, in fact, very sick.

After the chemo, her scans came back and the cancer was gone.

She then had radiation every day for three weeks, ending just before Christmas, to round off the treatment.

"Compared to the last chemo, every day I wake up and I have so much energy. I just feel grateful not to feel sick."

Her diagnosis has helped her see the world through a different lens.

"People that died yesterday had plans for this morning, people that died this morning had plans for tonight. Don't take life for granted."

"Don't take life for granted," says cancer survivor Darlene Sayers. Photo / Andrew Warner

The rest of the summer will be spent with friends and begin laying the groundwork for the future before her final year of university.

She hopes one day to be able to go to schools and speak to young people about mental health.

"I believe everything happens for a reason," she said, adding she was motivated during her treatment that her cancer could one day help others.

She will go to Mount College, her former high school, and speak to teachers about her plans to talk about mental health.

"I'm just going to be focusing on my future."

What is Hodgkin lymphoma?

• A relatively rare disease, diagnosed in about 75 New Zealanders each year.

• Formerly known as Hodgkin's disease.

• Is a cancer of the lymphatic system, part of the immune system, and mainly affects the lymphocytes.

• Differs from non-Hodgkin lymphoma as it is characterised by the presence of a particular cancer cell, known as the Reed-Sternberg cell.

• Can be cured; this is especially true for younger patients who are diagnosed with early-stage disease. Advanced Hodgkin lymphoma can also be treated successfully and cured in a high proportion of patients.

- Source: Leukaemia & Blood Cancer NZ