GERALDINE Berry is living proof that you just can’t keep a good woman down.
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The vibrant, assured 55-year-old is the picture of good health – but that hasn’t always been the case.
Her story of courage began almost 20 years ago, out in the garden.
“I was out digging in the garden when I got a really, really sore back,” she said. “I also had some other symptoms and thought I probably should see about it.”
A visit to the doctor that week brought Geraldine unsettling news.
“That was when it all started – and it all went downhill from there,” she said.
Within two weeks, the mother of two young children, Emmett and Liam, and legal guardian for primary schoolers Karina and Jay, was in Sydney for an operation after being diagnosed with bowel cancer.
The diagnosis was particularly worrying for Geraldine, given her mother also died from the disease.
“Mum died from bowel cancer, but I was very lucky, they just took the tumour out. I didn’t need radiation or chemotherapy,” she said.
As a result Geraldine and her three siblings underwent tests and there was more disappointing news.
“The operation was very successful, though it does appear that I have picked up the [cancer] gene. Only one out of mum’s four kids have it – and that is me.”
That revelation saw Geraldine added to a register to have her bloods monitored regularly in case the cancer returned and to enable doctors to conduct research using her “gene map”.
Following the operation and convalescence, Geraldine was back in Bathurst and it was business as usual for the go-getter. But, six years down the track, the almost 42-year-old was presented with what she describes as her “next hurdle”.
And it was just as sinister as her last.
“Once again it came out of the blue. I was as healthy as I had ever been,” she said. “It came from the routine blood tests I had done to check for bowel cancer.”
Those checks began three months after the operation and occurred at three-monthly intervals for the first year. Then Geraldine received a three-year reprieve before the next check up was due.
“Those tests were always negative,” she said sadly. “But that time the doctored called me back in and said my white blood cell count was quite high and soon, unfortunately, he confirmed I had the dreaded acute myeloid leukaemia.
“That one I was a bit frightened of,” she admitted. “Quite frightened, actually.
“You don’t like to think it, or admit it – even now – but the thought does run through your head.”
The thought that Geraldine still struggles to enunciate is “What if this is it?”
“But I have to say, once I told myself what I had, and the realisation that I had a young family, well I had to fight.
“So, I did.”
For the next two years Geraldine struggled along on a cocktail of heavy drugs, hoping for a bone marrow transplant.
During her battle, it was all hands on deck for the Berry family and their friends, who rallied around a determined Geraldine.
The charge was lead by husband, David, and a trio of dedicated women who stepped in to help out.
Robyn Waddell, Lillian Beauchamp and Fran Ovenstone were like Geraldine’s very own guardian angels. They cooked meals, ferried kids to school and sport and were there to lend an ear.
“I’ve never had the chance before to acknowledge them like this,” Geraldine said. “They had their own families, but stepped in to help mine.”
Finally, when Geraldine admits she was, ironically, just starting to “feel healthy again” a bone marrow donor was found in Western Australia.
“I was unsure, but the doctors – who can’t actually say ‘you should have this done’ – did say this was a great chance that I probably should take,” she said.
So, Geraldine left, alone, for 12 gruelling weeks of radiation and chemotherapy in Sydney.
“It was very daunting. I went in happy and healthy – very upbeat – but that soon changed. They had to make me sick so I could ‘take’ the transplant.
“I had the life sucked out of me, so I could have a chance at another life.”
The “excellent match” meant the transplant was a success and Geraldine held her breath for the next 10 years as she was officially in remission.
“But after 10 years I got the all-clear. I’m not in remission, I just don’t have myeloid leukaemia anymore.”
Then, two years ago, Geraldine’s resolve was tested, yet again.
“I remember thinking, ‘I’m having a stupid day’,” she said. “I knew I was doing strange things, but I didn’t know why.”
It turned out that Geraldine had had a stroke, but it wasn’t until the end of the day when husband David returned from work that she was taken to hospital, where she was kept for two weeks.
Back on her feet in 2014 and despite the battles of the last two decades, Geraldine remains upbeat.
“It has everything to do with your family,” she said. “It’s about being there for the people who need you – and I need them. You just can’t give up, can’t give in to this. I know it sounds cliched, but you really have to make the most of life.”