Devastating True-Life
She’d gone back to work and was helping the cast and crew of The Crown for their upcoming season.
‘I got to meet Helena Bonham Carter today,’ she squealed as she came home.
Helena was her idol, so Tash was so excited.
Only, the very next day, she took herself to the doctor as the pain had come back in full force.
Whilst in the surgery, the GP noticed that Tash’s breathing sounded laboured and she was then sent for a scan.
I was at work doing a presentation when Tash called me and I immediately made my way to the hospital.
She didn’t sound concerned, so as I made my way to meet her, I didn’t think it was serious.
‘We’ve found a shadow on her lungs,’ the doctor told us.
It was a bit of shock, but we all just assumed it was a cyst and nothing to worry about.
‘Have you been abroad recently?’ the doctor asked.
They thought she might have picked up a parasite while travelling around Asia the year before we met.
My heart sank into my stomach
She was prescribed antiparasite medication and sent home to rest.
Only, back and forth for scans, the mass kept growing.
Just two months later, her doctor, Dr Woo, made the decision to operate and remove half of her lung.
‘The medication isn’t working and it will be easier and kinder to Tash if we just take it out,’ he told us.
It made sense, so Tash was scheduled for the removal.
‘I’ll see you when you wake up,’ I smiled at her, waving goodbye as she was wheeled down for surgery. We all felt so positive before she went under.
Once the cyst was removed, we could get back on with our lives as normal.
But just a few hours later, her doctor came to see us.
‘Tash had quite a large tumour,’ he explained.
Immediately, my heart sank into my stomach...
It wasn’t on her lung, it was on her diaphragm, which was incredibly hard to spot.
‘I’m afraid I have to tell you, it’s cancerous,’ the doctor revealed.
Neither of us could quite understand how it could be possible.
Tash could barely bring herself to speak and in a state of shock, she went to sleep.
I spent the whole night on Google, trying to make sense of her diagnosis.
The next morning, we were met by an oncologist who informed us that her cancer had spread across her body and was therefore already grade four.
‘It’s a spindle cell cancer,’ she explained. ‘But we don’t know what type.’
‘Is it bad?’ I asked, taking the oncologist outside the room so Tash wouldn’t hear our conversation. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. My heart plummeted – we barely had any time with each other.
Only, true to form,
