Emma Perkins: ‘I was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer when I was 12 weeks pregnant’
When a pregnant Emma Perkins thought of the child she was about to bring into the world, she was overcome with a gut-wrenching fear - would she live to see him grow up?
When a pregnant Emma Perkins thought of the child she was about to bring into the world, she was overcome with a gut-wrenching fear she wouldn’t be alive to see him grow up.
The Brisbane mother, 42, was 12 weeks pregnant when she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in July last year.
Due to the risks to her unborn baby, she couldn’t do the routine tests which further assess the extent of the cancer. Instead she spent the duration of her pregnancy preparing for the worst.
“There was a fear it was going to be terminal and I wouldn’t get to see my son grow up,” says Perkins, who lives in Upper Mount Gravatt in Brisbane’s south.
“I thought that was the news I was going to hear.”
But in February this year, Perkins, alongside her husband Jamie, welcomed their healthy baby boy, Owen, into the world at the Mater Mothers Hospital in Brisbane.
The joyous arrival was followed two months later by news from doctors Perkins was ‘cancer free’.
“I have stayed positive, every time I went to treatment I smiled and have just gotten through it and not dwelled on it and trust the medical staff and got on with it,” says Perkins, who was a patient of the Mater Private Hospital in Brisbane.
Her now four-month-old son is the miracle she always wanted.
“The day he was born was the best day of my life,” she says.
Perkins’ longing to become a mother comes after years of heartache where she experienced three miscarriages, infertility, failed rounds of IVF and losing her mother to bowel cancer in 2016.
All of which flooded her with overwhelming grief and loss new depths of emotion were to come when the announcement of her long-wanted baby was shared with news she had cancer.
“I feel like I’ve been robbed the joy of pregnancy because I was too focused on a day at a time and getting through my treatment.”
Perkins acknowledges “it’s not the end” of her cancer journey and she’s still receiving radiation and treatment but is hopeful.
Perkins reveals an undeniable courage one which saw her complete the International Women’s Day Fun Run in support of the Mater five weeks after giving birth and during chemotherapy. And as she shares her story, she hopes to raise awareness and prompt people to get their health checked.
Perkins initially felt something wasn’t right. She had shooting pains in her breasts but had been recently on IVF medication and was in the early stages of pregnancy so she thought it was a side effect of one of those. But eventually, she couldn’t put it off any longer.
At 13 weeks, Perkins had a lumpectomy and node removal surgery followed by 16 rounds of chemotherapy in total, 11 while pregnant, and an anxious wait hoping she, and her baby, would be OK.
So when she finally got to hold her newborn for the first time, she felt the gravity of what they had been through together.
“He was there for the journey, his name means ‘little warrior’, he endured 11 rounds of chemo inside and operations and is a little fighter.”
As is Perkins. “I’m determined, I have a reason to be,” she says.
Perkins is supporting Mater Giving Day on June 28, where all donations to Mater Foundation will be tripled by matching donors. To donate, mater.org.au/givingday.
