Health Minister Simeon Brown announced measures earlier this year to boost the country's nursing workforce. Video / Mark Mitchell
Taranaki mum Stacey Winiata was diagnosed with breast cancer weeks after the birth of her twins in May last year.
The 35-year-old was told in February her cancer is now incurable, and she is planning memories and messages to leave for her four children.
Winiata’s Auckland-based sister Mel Boyce is among people throughout New Zealand holding Pink Ribbon Breakfasts to raise breast cancer awareness and funds for the charity Breast Cancer Foundation NZ.
Stacey Winiata is just starting on the future birthday cards and videos she wants to leave her kids since being told the breast cancer she was diagnosed with after giving birth to twins last year is now incurable.
As for husband Chazz Winiata, they’ve joked about her pulling together a manual, the Hāwera mum-of-four told the Herald.
“I’m worried about my husband and how he’s going to handle the kids. Once they’re about 5 and they’re going to school, it’ll be a lot easier for him. But when they’re 1 to 5, kids are pretty full-on.
“It worries me a little bit [how the kids will cope], but I’m more like, ‘Is he gonna be okay?’”
Winiata received the devastating news in February her HER-2 positive breast cancer had spread and could no longer be cured, after a full mastectomy of her left breast and several rounds of chemotherapy. Her initial diagnosis came a few weeks after twins Malakai and Maiana were born in May last year.
The 35-year-old is now on anti-cancer drug Herceptin to help slow the cancer’s progress, with scans showing new tumours near her heart. She has three main reasons for talking about her second cancer diagnosis, after previously overcoming leukaemia in her teens.
Stacey Winiata with her husband Chazz Winiata and kids Violet Leader, 15, Te Ariki Winiata, 2, and twins Maiana( left) and Malakai soon after the babies were born 11 months ago.
The first is to raise awareness of breast cancer – the most common cancer in women in New Zealand, with one in nine affected in their lifetime – and encourage those with symptoms to get checked.
“Even if it’s just a little lump, because – especially if it’s the aggressive one – it grows really fast.”
Second, to support the work of Breast Cancer Foundation NZ, with people around the country – including her Auckland-based sister Mel Boyce – hosting Pink Ribbon Breakfast fundraisers next month and in June.
Boyce said the last year had felt “so out of control”, and hosting was a way to change that.
Her Pink Ribbon Breakfast, a brunch at the 100-staff software company where she works, was also a chance to remind younger women “we aren’t invincible” and to keep up regular self-checks of their breasts.
Mel Boyce (left) is hosting a Pink Ribbon Breakfast to aid the work of charity Breast Cancer Foundation NZ in their support of those with breast cancer like her sister Stacey Winiata, (right).
Routine mammograms begin at age 45 in New Zealand, with most of the 3500 new cases of breast cancer each year in women over 50.
But around 400 women under the age of 44 are diagnosed with the disease each year.
“I can’t take Stacey’s cancer away, I can’t take the treatment instead of her,” Boyce said.
“But I can host a Pink Ribbon Breakfast to support the foundation that’s helping her and others in her position.”
Winiata’s final reason for talking publicly about her cancer was to reassure others in the same situation that “everything’s going to be okay”, she said.
“I obviously won’t just die straightaway. I’ll get notice when I start getting sick, so I can start planning things. It could be worse – there’s a lot of car crashes and people just suddenly die.
“At least [in my situation] you’ve got time to do what you want to do, say your goodbyes and see your family. So I do look at it as like a blessing.”
Winiata, who is also mum to Violet, 15, and 2-year-old Te Ariki, first noticed a “quite small” lump in her breast when she was about three months pregnant with her twins.
Stacey Winiata (left) and her eldest daughter Violet Leader, 15. Winiata discovered a lump in her breast when she was pregnant with her twins, who are now 11 months old.
She thought it might a milk duct issue, but later raised it with her GP and other doctors as the pregnancy progressed, and was told it “would be sorted out later”.
By the time she gave birth at 37 weeks’ gestation, the lump had grown to a size of a tennis ball.
“It grew quite fast because my one’s aggressive.”
After her midwife pushed for Winiata to be given a mammogram, the lump was found to be cancerous.
She had no animosity over the delay, as she wouldn’t have had treatment while pregnant anyway, Winiata said.
“All you would have known is you’ve got it in your boob … it would be worse knowing that, and putting the stress on me while I’m pregnant.”
Both mammograms and ultrasounds can be safely done while pregnant, and cancer treatment depended on the type and trimester of pregnancy, according to the Breast Cancer Foundation website.
It's safe for women to have a mammogram while pregnant, with shielding used to protect the abdomen, Breast Cancer Foundation NZ says. Photo / National Cancer Institute, Unsplash
She’s grateful for the “amazing people [who] go over and beyond for us cancer patients” in oncology care in Taranaki, including her main doctor, Kay Abraham, Winiata said.
Because she’d beaten leukaemia against the odds – “my parents were told they needed to prepare for the worst” – the young mum was surprised breast cancer had proved a bigger foe.
“So many people survive breast cancer, and because last time [with leukaemia] we got told it’d been caught too late, this time I was like, ‘Oh, it’ll be fine, because I survived the last one’.
“And then it was like, ‘Oh, okay. Maybe not’.”
Stacey Winiata was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks after she gave birth to twins last year. In February Winiata – pictured with husband Chazz Winiata and their three children Te Ariki, 2 (left), and 11-month-old twins Maiana and Malakai – was told her cancer was incurable.
But life is today, and with a busy household of three under-3s and a teen, there was always something new to focus on.
This week, it was two 11-month-old rascals getting mobile.
“The twins started crawling. It’s like day four now, and it’s pretty hectic … we just take it all day by day, and I’m thankful that I’m still here.”
What is Pink Ribbon Breakfast?
Pink Ribbon Breakfast is the biggest annual fundraising campaign for Breast Cancer Foundation NZ, with proceeds helping pay for the charity’s work, including supporting patients, new research, and education campaigns to promote the importance of early detection, foundation chief executive Ah-Leen Rayner said.
“Pink Ribbon Breakfast is all about getting together with your friends, family or colleagues to do something amazing for the 3500 women diagnosed with breast cancer in New Zealand every year.
“As a charity that doesn’t receive any government funding, we are completely reliant on wonderful people like Mel who support us.”
Pink Ribbon Breakfast Day is May 22, but events can be held any time in May or June, Rayner said.
Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.
