Ridgehaven mum Amy Savage fights leukaemia a year after her partner dies from suicide
THIS brave young Adelaide mum lost her partner five weeks after giving birth to twin boys — a little over a year on, she’s facing new heartache with a leukaemia diagnosis. All she can think of is her baby boys.
HOSPITAL-bound mother-of-twins Amy Savage wonders what fate has in store next.
Picking up the pieces after her partner’s sudden death in January last year when the couple’s twin boys were just five weeks old, she has been dealt another devastating blow, discovering she has leukaemia.
“My heart broke,” the 25-year-old from Ridgehaven tells the Leader Weekly from her hospital bed at Flinders Medical Centre, where she’s received chemotherapy since last Tuesday.
“Knowing that my sons’ only parent was now sick, that’s a feeling you can’t really describe.
“I felt like I had let them down and I felt like life had let them down.
“Fortunately, with their age, they will likely not remember any of this.”
Amy was admitted to hospital for intensive chemotherapy on April 27.
Her hair falls to the ground as she speaks.
“I am not looking forward to looking like one of my bald uncles,” she says with a laugh.
It’s this kind of black humour that has helped the young mum endure an even darker 18 months.
Five weeks after giving birth to twin boys, Cash and Cruz, who are now 15 months old, Amy’s partner, Dwayne, took his own life.
While she “dreads” having that conversation with her boys about their late father, she prays she will be able to.
“Having to bury their father so early on and then facing the possibility of losing their mum, too,” she says.
“I dread that conversation but I hope that I am still here to have it with them.
“Trying to make sense of those emotions while being the best mum I can be has been my biggest challenge.”
She says Dwayne was her perfect match.
“Just as bold and brash as I was,” she says.
“Depression and pride are a deadly mix and my Dwayne had both in abundance
“(He) battled long and hard with his mental health.
“He was super tough but the fight on that went on the inside of his head brought him to his knees.
“The grief you experience from a suicide is very different to any other type of grief.
“It is a mix sadness and also anger.
“You are sad because they are gone and you miss them but you are angry because they themselves are the one who took themselves away.”
Her own personal battle got tougher earlier this year, when she noticed a few bruises on her legs.
“(It was) nothing extreme, I had just assumed it was due to me playing around on the floor with my sons,” she says.
“I was also coughing up a bit of blood. But, again, I didn’t think anything of it and I had assumed that I had a sinus infection.”
However the bruises continued to grow, and then came sudden blood noses.
“Blood vessels were bursting in my eye for no apparent reason,” she says.
“Fortunately I have a great relationship with my GP, he is fantastic.
“He was straight on to it, I had blood tests done on Thursday and had the results that night.”
The devastating results revealed that she had leukaemia, a cancer of the blood.
Family and friends have circled the wagons around Amy and the boys.
Her mother has taken unpaid leave from her job as a teacher in Darwin to look after the boys while Amy is in Flinders Medical Centre receiving treatment.
Friends have also set up a GoFundMe page, with nearly $10,000 raised already.
“I have so much support here,” says Amy.
“The boys are amazing, they are healthy, happy little champions despite everything they have been through in such a short amount of time,” she says.
“They really are the greatest kids. They have served such a hard start to life.
“The biggest challenge since Dwayne’s passing is that I have had to raise two boys on my own. I never saw myself as a single mum, I wanted a family.”
Despite it all, Amy has managed to keep a sense of humour.
“With the run of luck I have had I am fairly convinced that I was an evil villain in a past life for sure,” she says with a laugh.
“He (Dwayne) and I spoke a lot about mental health and that is why now I am so determined to remain positive.
“I have a dark sense of humour but it is helping me get through this. It’s one day at a time at the moment.”
Post-chemo, Amy hopes to find a stem cell transplant from her “best match”, her younger sister Tayler.
You can donate to Amy at gofundme.com/widowed-mother-of-2-battles-cancer
If you or someone you know is depressed or contemplating suicide, help is available.
Lifeline: Call 13 11 14 or visit lifeline.org.au
Beyond Blue: Call 1300 22 4636 or beyondblue.org.au