Slicing into her 50th birthday cake, primary school principal Melissa Marquis celebrated another year of life, surrounded by close friends and family. But instead of continuing to embrace life as normal after marking her milestone birthday, she would soon be sitting face-to-face with her doctor as he uttered the words “cancer”. WATCH IN THE VIDEO ABOVE: How mum discovered she had cancer days after 50th birthday. “Happy 50th,” Melissa says wryly.
“I went through a range of emotions — disbelief was one. “‘Am I going to die?’ was also a thought.” In late 2022, when the breast screening van rolled through Melissa’s town of Geraldton, 420km north of Perth, she booked an appointment. It was during that first mammogram — shortly after her 50th birthday — that a lump was discovered in her left breast. “It was a lot to digest,” Melissa said. On November 9 that year, the 5cm mass was diagnosed as grade 3-triple-positive breast cancer. The mother-of-two and primary school principal stared blankly as the doctor gave her the diagnosis. Her mind was racin