Selma Fernandes (right) says her journey navigating cancer, miscarriages and motherhood can inspire others.
Selma Fernandes (right) says her journey navigating cancer, miscarriages and motherhood can inspire others.
Selma Fernandes, a healthcare worker, has faced a series of miscarriages and aggressive cancer since arriving in 2019.
Despite her challenges, she works full-time at Rotorua Hospital and emphasises the importance of her support network.
Fernandes, inspired by others, urges people in similar situations not to give up hope.
Selma Fernandes has suffered two miscarriages and battled aggressive, recurring cancer since arriving in New Zealand at the onset of the pandemic.
But a recent conversation with her colleague about why she’s still working sums up why this woman’s journey has been far from sombre.
“I told her, ‘It’s the mind that plays the game. If the mind is strong, your body can cope with it’,” said 39-year-old Fernandes, who hopes to inspire others like her to find a silver lining in even the gloomiest of situations.
The mother-of-two touched down in Aotearoa from Goa, India, with her young daughter in December 2019 on what was meant to be a three-month trip away to see her newlywed husband in his new home town of Rotorua.
Over those months, a global pandemic spread and government officials shut the borders; a defining moment in most Kiwis’ eyes, and a fundamentally life-changing one for Fernandes, whose visa was extended amid the uncertainty.
Selma Fernandes celebrating Christmas with her husband and two children.
She fell pregnant during lockdown. Then, on the verge of her third trimester, she miscarried.
“The next month, I got pregnant again. And after another four months, I had another miscarriage,” Fernandes said.
Fernandes, whose daughter is from her first marriage, couldn’t find the words to describe how it felt losing them both.
Six months on, she fell pregnant once more. It’s a miracle that her “baba” is here now as a happy and healthy 3-year-old boy.
However, while her family was finally growing, the 39-year-old was to face another devastating blow.
Upon gaining permanent residency, Fernandes was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in July 2022. Her son was just 7 months old at the time.
“It was just a lump that I felt. I went to the GP to get it checked, and she said, ‘It doesn’t look good’,” Fernandes recalled, as a mammogram later confirmed her doctor’s thoughts.
While oncologists initially hoped to save her breast, further tests revealed the cancer was aggressive and had “spread out too much”, so a mastectomy was booked in less than a month later.
Fernandes with her 3-year-old son.
“[The mastectomy] was devastating because I lost my femininity,” Fernandes said, describing how she struggled to face herself in the mirror while coming to terms with the result.
Fernandes said it was “difficult” being in New Zealand without family support, and she was thankful immigration swiftly approved her mother’s visitor visa while she underwent her mastectomy.
The road to recovery was one that Fernandes patiently followed until three months later, when she could no longer “sit at home” and sought work.
“I have no other option because I have children to look after. My husband goes to work early in the morning, and I can work only at night,” Fernandes said.
Working in the fast-paced environment of McDonald’s proved “too tough” on her healing body. Another bout of work as a kitchen hand wasn’t any easier, partly because of Fernandes’ short stature.
Her end goal was to find work as a healthcare assistant. She acknowledged it’s still a “difficult job”, but knew she could do it after six months working in a similar role in aged care before her cancer diagnosis.
Fernandes found luck with Te Whatu Ora Lakes, who hired her to work at Rotorua Hospital. She’s there full-time, five days a week, and feels looked after by her management.
“They work to accommodate me, and they make sure that I get light duties,” she said.
Despite her ongoing struggles, Selma Fernandes remains optimistic about the future.
Having suffered from depression while she couldn’t work, Fernandes originally feared losing her job because of her ailment and was worried they wouldn’t accept her.
“I never wanted to be dependent on anybody ... and then I had to be dependent on my husband until I started working [again]”.
Despite her perseverance, Fernandes isn’t out of the woods yet. In 2024, doctors found blocks in her liver and discovered her cancer had metastasised to her spine.
But she hasn’t given up hope. While on the job, Fernandes met a 102-year-old patient who had also had a mastectomy.
“I was like, ‘Wow, if she could make 102, why not me?’ I don’t want to live for so long, but you know, why not?”
Fernandes still drops the kids to school in the morning, does the housework, rests, then goes to work. She has a mortgage to pay off with her husband, and says she doesn’t want others to feel defined by their health struggles.
“Do not give up. There are times ... where you feel sore all over, but you cannot give up,” Fernandes said, saying her children are what make her “wake up every day”.
For all the help she’s had along the way, Fernandes is grateful for all the people working in immigration and at Te Whatu Ora who have ensured she can continue fulfilling her most important job – being a mother to her two children.
“Without that support from everybody, I wouldn’t have been here.”
