When Maree Steele-Bingham’s doctor told her she had pancreatic cancer, her immediate thought was “you’ve just handed me a death sentence”.
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But Ms Steele-Bingham, who is a nurse, was wrong about her prognosis and has now been cancer-free for more than five years.
To mark World Pancreatic Cancer Day, Ms Steele-Bingham is sharing her experiences, and her message that a diagnosis is not automatically a death sentence.
“I just want people to know that you can get through it,” she said.
“Back in November 2012, I had dinner one night and I got this dreadful pain, and it just wouldn’t go away.
“I saw a doctor and he just said ‘oh go home and take a Panadol or a Nurofen’, but the following night, same thing happened and I ended up at the Wagga Base Hospital, where I was diagnosed with pancreatitis and from there on, I think I spent two weeks in the Base and in Calvary.
“They did a couple of tests which didn’t show anything, and then three days prior to Christmas that year, I went to Sydney for an endoscopic ultrasound, which showed there was a tumour in my pancreas.
“That was a shock because I wasn’t expecting it.
“When the doctor came out and told me, I said ‘well you’ve just given me a death sentence, haven’t you’ and he said ‘not necessarily’.
Ms Steele-Bingham, who was just 56 at the time, shared her diagnosis with her family, then tried to put it to the back of her mind and concentrate on Christmas, although she admits it was not always easy.
As the location of her tumour made surgery an option, Ms Steele-Bingham underwent a seven-hour operation about a month after Christmas.
Despite an initial hope that she would not need follow-up chemotherapy and radiation treatment, both ultimately proved to be necessary.
There were some health complications along the way, and Ms Steele-Bingham describes the treatments as “not nice".
After six months of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation treatment, Ms Steele-Bingham’s doctors gave her the “thumbs up”.
She was required to return for follow-up testing every six months, but passing the five-year milestone means these have been reduced to yearly tests.
“But if I had ignored that first pain, I probably wouldn’t be here,” Ms Steele-Bingham said.
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