Survivor primed for absolutely fabulous relay
Ab Fab team, Susanne May James, left, Karen Wells, Robyn McLachlan, Joy Marslin, June Fry and Penny Tregear. Absent: Charmain Etwell, Tanesha Etwell, Jill Price and Adele Fordyce. Photo: Elise Vollweiler.
“I couldn’t walk up two steps without lifting my feet up at one stage.”
Retired occupational therapist, Robyn McLachlan, endured surgery and painful chemotherapy over an eight-month period after she was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in July 2019.
With her cancer in remission since March 2020, she will lace up with nine friends to raise Cancer Society awareness and funds at the upcoming Relay for Life to give back to the organisation who supported her during her cancer journey.
She also wants to use her participation in the event to raise awareness of how people can reduce their cancer risk and how to best support those with the disease.
Robyn, who lives in Motueka, says her cancer diagnosis “blew her socks off”.
“I was having a bit of problems with swallowing but I thought it was just heartburn, and at Christmas time [in 2019] I had a very severe choking episode, so I thought I better get it checked out and low and behold I had cancer,” she says.
“It was absolutely amazing because at the time I was fit, doing heaps of yoga, walking, biking, working full time, and just suddenly, cancer.
“I think [the diagnosis] had something to do with some stuff that I was carrying mentally, but I also know that in the past I wasn’t always a healthy person.
“I drunk a lot and I smoked, and I just thought my body would carry on.”
A Blenheim resident at the time, Robyn then underwent surgery in Christchurch and had several rounds of chemotherapy before an MRI in March 2020 showed zero cancer cells.
“People who go through this will agree it’s frightening… when I first had the treatment, I would feel really sick and be on the couch for about a week, and then you would slowly begin to climb out of it,” she says.
“But then you would go back to being on the couch after another round of chemo.
“I couldn’t walk up two steps without lifting my feet up at one stage, my feet were all swollen and numb, so it was scary.”
Robyn says she now had regular checkups for cancer updates and focused on habits to reduce the risk of cancer return.
“One of the fearful things about having cancer is it could morph itself into another place or come back… they said there was 35 per cent chance of a cure,” she says.
“I’m really into my yoga, I think it’s one of the best things to get rid of stress. I’m also quite strict diet wise, plant-based and almost vegan… and I also have good friends, no smoking or alcohol, and I have massages.
“Being grateful for every day is also important.”
Robyn says her Relay for Life team, which is named AB Fab after a common phrase by team supporter Michelle Alexander, had so far raised more than $5000 for Cancer Society.
She says she and the team, which also has a fellow cancer survivor, June Fry from Māpua, relish the opportunity to promote the organisation at the 16 to 17 March event at Richmond A&P Showgrounds.
“It’s time to say to people they can support Cancer Society because they do so much, like they did for me over in Blenheim with wigs and counselling… and we’ve now got the office in Mot which is a really good thing,” she says.