Young Journalist Award 2006 Senior Division Winner

Fighting spirit

Hendrika Duivenvoorden, Catholic College Sale, Vic.

If you saw her down the street, you probably wouldn’t know what she’s been through. You wouldn’t know she’s survived something, something that most people would consider a death sentence. But she didn’t only do it once, she did it twice.

In 1998, Pamela Summers went to the doctor for a routine check-up and he suggested she have a mammogram. There was an area of concern requiring an ultrasound. This lead to a lumpectomy, after which Pam got a shocking call; she was told that her lump had been diagnosed as breast cancer.

Pam naturally went into a state of shock and great sadness, ‘because you immediately think of it as a death sentence. That’s the first thing that hits your mind: that’s it, I’m dying.’

At 47, one of her greatest worries was leaving her husband Barry and six-year-old daughter Chandra behind. ‘Having been left behind myself, at the age of fifteen, I know the impact is still there. I think of my father from time to time … and wish he’d been around.’

Pam’s left breast was removed, her tendons and muscles were cut, and as a result it took three months of therapy before she regained full use of her left arm. She says the support she got from the community was great. ‘The whole community sort of gets behind you. There were people that I’d never met, dropping off casseroles and things for us.’

As a precaution, Pam elected to have her right breast removed six months after her surgery, and a biopsy found it to be pre-cancerous. Later, Pam, Barry and Chandra set off on a six month trip around Australia. ‘We decided that there were more important things to life’, said Pam, ‘like having quality time with Channy.’

However, two-and-a-half years later, the bubble burst … it was back. Pam was diagnosed with secondary cancer in the sternum (breast bone) and behind the left side of her collar bone. She celebrated her 50th birthday with her first day of radiotherapy in Melbourne. After two weeks of radiotherapy, both sites of cancer had shrunk. She came out for the better, once her burst oesophagus and fatigue were healed.

Pam joined a number of support groups, not just for her own support, but to support others and show them that ‘there are survivors’. She has also spoken at gatherings, discussing her journey and the importance of goal-setting. ‘Inspiration is a good thing to hand on’, she says.

A month before the return of her cancer, Pam had started tae kwon do with her daughter. ‘I took it up to get a bit of exercise’, says Pam, ‘but once I started, I loved it, I got hooked.’ Just three months after radiotherapy, she was straight back to tae kwon do. She believes that everybody needs goals, ‘to have something to strive for’.

The tae kwon do belt levels became Pam’s short-term goals, and helped get her through some rough patches. Although she had trouble breathing due to blood clots in her lungs, she says she ‘still kept going because I wanted that next belt level. And instead of sitting at home, gasping for breath, I went along to training. It helped develop the fighting spirit in me.’

Pam has been doing her tae kwon do for five years now, and has achieved her black belt. Next week she officially starts as the head instructor for the weekly tae kwon do classes in Yarram!

Pam now has new goals, including finishing her fitness trainers study course, learning the piano, and to finish writing her inspirational autobiography, ‘for others to see cancer as a life sentence, not a death sentence.’

Her main goal for the future is to see her daughter, Chandra, turn 21, and it would be a bonus to see grandkids. She would also like to teach strength training for the sick and elderly, ‘get them motivated and up, out of their wheelchairs, out of their walking frames and running down the corridors, giving the nurses hell!’

‘My life has changed positively from the cancer, I’m very happy to be on the road I am’, she says.

Pam is a piano playing, inspirational writing, tae kwon do kicking, two-time cancer-beating warrior. And if that isn’t a fighting spirit, I don’t know what is.