Finding support during the holiday season

On Christmas Eve, 2020, 44-year-old baker and mother of two Tahli found herself at the Alfred hospital getting a biopsy of a large mass in her chest. She also had one and a half litres of fluid drained from her lungs.

Tahli had been diagnosed with stage four lymphoma just days earlier, after a rollercoaster few months trying to find the source of the itchy rashes, persistent cough, breathlessness and fatigue which had been bothering her since August.

Her haematologist wanted to start chemotherapy straight away, but Tahli asked to wait until after New Year’s Eve – when she was meant to be hosting a party with her husband and two young children.

Like many other families impacted by cancer, Tahli and her family had mixed emotions about celebrating over the festive season but took the opportunity for a final moment of relative normalcy before beginning cancer treatment.

A few days into the new year Tahli began her first round of chemotherapy, which required she stay isolated in the hospital Monday to Friday for one week every three weeks. This continued for six months, while Tahli and her family also dealt with the ins and outs of lockdowns on top of the shock of her diagnosis.

Tahli and her husband decided to talk to their children about the cancer, being honest throughout each new treatment and hospital stay. "I just thought, ‘I can't lie to them, because they're obviously going to see me go through chemo,’” she says. “I'm going to lose my hair and be sick.”

After six rounds, plus an additional two rounds of another form of chemotherapy and a stem cell collection, Tahli’s tumour was still growing. Her team then decided to try CAR T-cell therapy – a new form of immunotherapy which uses altered T-cells to attack cancer cells throughout the body.

It took a week to collect Tahli’s T-cells, as her already exhausted immune system was struggling to make enough, and she then received radiation therapy while they waited for the cells to be ready to be transplanted back into her. In this time the tumour never stopped growing, going from the size of an apricot to a cantaloupe.

“You get fatigued mentally as well,” Tahli says. “You go in expecting that it could be a bad result, but then when it actually is… it’s the worst feeling.” – Tahli

After a few weeks Tahli had the cell infusion, and 30 days later a PET scan showed that her tumour was completely gone. “It was a really weird feeling. I burst into tears in his office,” she says. “It didn’t feel real… I’m like ‘are you sure that’s right?’”

Thanks to that CAR T-cell therapy, Tahli is celebrating three years in remission this holiday season. The chances of the cancer coming back are very slim, according to her doctor, but she still goes for annual scans. She’s learning to live well after cancer, enjoying time with her family and new puppy Maggie.

Cancer support during the festive season

Tahli’s advice for anyone recently diagnosed with cancer is to take each day as it comes. “Try not to think too far ahead, because everything changes,” she says. “Just take each day at a time and try to find the positive in the bad, because it’s there.”

Speaking to other families impacted by cancer these holidays, Tahli says it’s important that every member of the family gets the support they need.

“It's really important to know that your family can have somebody that they can talk to, because even though I was the one going through it, I often feel like it was worse for them, because they felt so helpless.” – Tahli

Many people impacted by cancer worry that their emotions will dampen the occasion for others, but it’s important to not feel guilty and to be gentle with yourself.

“I always felt like I needed to be positive, because if I wasn’t positive, then everyone around me wouldn’t be,” Tahli says. “I felt like I had to keep it together.”