How the Meads tackled breast cancer - and won

By ELIZABETH BINNING

When All Black great Colin Meads was told his wife, Verna, had breast cancer he thought the doctors had made a mistake.

"I thought doctors aren't always right. It'll come right."

But the doctors were right. So, in a way, was Colin.

Verna did have cancer but today, four years on, she has "come right".

Now as Breast Cancer Awareness month approaches, the King Country couple want to share their experience in the hope it will help others.

It was in April 1999 while holidaying in the South Island that Verna Meads first found the lump in her right breast.

The 67-year-old, who was in the shower at the time, was not really concerned by the discovery. Nor was her husband.

Ten years earlier, Verna had found a similar lump and that had turned out to be benign.

"I thought it was probably the same," she recalls.

At the doctor's, Verna was told she actually had two lumps in her breast, one of which was cancerous.

For Colin, a man more accustomed to challenges on the rugby field than in his personal life, the news was difficult to grasp.

"It was hard for me to really believe that she had cancer because at that stage she never felt or looked unwell," he says.

Doctors removed both lumps and Verna began chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

"I lost my hair. I was warned that that would happen but it just happened so quickly.

"It just started falling out in handfuls. It was everywhere."

However, with plenty of support from her friends and family the treatment worked and life started returning to normal.

Then, in 2001, Verna discovered a new lump, this time in her left breast.

Doctors described it as small but fairly aggressive cancer, which had gone into her lymph nodes.

She began treatment again. This time it was more intensive, leaving Verna's body "burned and blistered", her immune system weak.

Throughout the process Colin had been at his wife's side, helping with household chores, keeping a positive attitude and reassuring her everything would be all right.

The most difficult part for him came at the end of her second lot of treatment.

Verna, weakened by the radiation and chemotherapy, succumbed to pneumonia and she was in hospital over Christmas and New Year.

"For me, when she was in hospital with pneumonia, she was very, very ill. That was the big challenge, the big worry," says Colin.

Today, Verna is again in remission and the couple, happily married for 45 years, have no qualms about publicly discussing their experience.

"If you have got it you have to deal with it," says Verna.

Talking about cancer not only helps raise awareness about the illness but also acts as a kind of therapy.

"It's how I deal with it,"says Verna.

Colin agrees, saying there is no reason not to talk about cancer.

"It's a sickness that you shouldn't be ashamed to have. It can happen to anyone."

For Colin one the most stressful things about cancer is the unknown. That's where the support of friends and family proved invaluable.

His advice to other men going through the same experience is to "just be supportive".

"There's not a great deal that you can do, but you can be supportive.

"It might sound cruel but don't wrap them in cotton wool or mollycoddle them because life's got to go on. Just do what you can."

Verna urges women to conduct regular self-examinations, a practice that gave her an early start in the fight against cancer on two occasions.

Colin says the whole process, while difficult and emotional at times, has been a learning experience which has strengthened his already strong relationship with Verna.

"I just think that in many ways it probably brought us closer together. It makes you more aware of life."