On borrowed time

Source: Perth Now, February 2014

Doctors say they should be dead. But living on borrowed time can make every moment sweeter, as two inspirational young West Australians reveal.

Clint Heal bustles into the foyer of the Hollywood Medical Centre in Nedlands with a purposeful stride, dishing out a firm handshake and flashing a big white smile from a face with the good looks of a footy player and surfer. This doesn’t look like a man who’s supposed to be dead. No, not at all. Instead, he’s a bloke bursting with life. A picture of health, buzzing with energy.

He’s only 30, but Heal has had 34 secondary melanoma cancers removed. Surgeons have taken organs, carved chunks from his legs, torso and back, dug six tumours from the lining of his heart, and even sliced off a suspect bit of lung that turned out to be cancer-free after all. But better safe than sorry.

“At least I have a good excuse when I can’t keep up with the young fellas on the footy field, or when I can’t hold my breath when I’m getting smashed in the surf," says Heal with a laugh.

He was diagnosed with cancer at 22. He found out later that doctors gave him a 10 per cent chance of living two years. That was eight years ago. To say the former WA Young Australian of the Year and founder of skin cancer support group Melanoma WA has beaten the odds is an understatement. But now Heal is rolling the dice once again. The cancer is back.

Tumour No. 35 turned up recently, after a clean bill of health for three years, and the former WAFL player from Mandurah admits this one is “just as devastating" as the first – especially because he now has a fiancee and a baby girl.

Heal says he never dared dream that the cancer had gone for good.

“Everyone always wanted to know, ‘You right?’. But this is a life journey. I’ll never be right. I’ll never know what the next scan can bring," he says.

“I’m doing as much as I can to beat this, but I’m also constantly preparing that maybe the melanoma will be back. It’s an acceptance of mortality.

“When I asked the oncologist for the (survival) stats he said he would have told me I’d had a 10 per cent chance of living two years after that first diagnosis in 2005. That means for every one of me there were nine people who weren’t around anymore."

He grew up knowing the skin cancer dangers.

“I’ve always had this picture in my mind when I was six and going and picking Dad up from hospital with Mum, and he’d had a basal cell carcinoma removed from his nose. I still remember being told, ‘Oh, it’s from the sun’."

Then a schoolmate and surfer buddy died from melanoma in 2004.

“People say, ‘You must have been getting sunburnt every weekend’. No, not at all. I used to plaster so much zinc on that my mates would laugh at me. I had that sun-smart message in-built from a young age," he says.

That’s why Heal’s diagnosis was bewildering. Secondary melanoma means the cancer was spreading from a primary source, which doctors never found but suspect was on his head, under his hair. His body fought off that melanoma, but by then it was too late. The cancer cells were in his blood – and spreading fast.

The first sign was when he woke up the morning after his last footy game for Peel in the 2005 WA Football League season with a golf ball-sized lump on his throat.

As luck would have it, he worked as a radiographer at Peel Health Campus in Mandurah. A biopsy was taken, revealing four aggressive cancers. But Heal was so young, fit and healthy, doctors thought the results must be wrong.

“It was very much, ‘Oh no, this can’t be right’. I felt 100 per cent. I’d only turned 22 the week before," he recalls.

“The tumour came out and the next morning the surgeon came back and said, ‘What I took out of your neck was secondary melanoma’. That was a shock."

Heal decided to “take it head on" and do everything he could to beat the disease. He gave up alcohol and has not had a drop since. He started drinking vegetables juices and went on a strict health diet. What followed was a daily routine of blood tests, scans, radiotherapy and chemotherapy – and all the while Heal continued to work as a radiographer.

“I loved that job, and continuing to play footy and surf, even while I was on chemotherapy. That really helped, even though at times you’re feeling terrible," he says.

Incredibly, he played the 2006 WAFL season while having chemo, then fulfilled a high-school pact with a mate by spending five months travelling Europe and America.

When Heal returned home, however, cancer came crashing back. Another melanoma – a lump on his chest wall – appeared in 2007. It sent Heal into a spiral of depression.

“I went to a WAFL pre-season training session and it was one of the scariest afternoons of my life. I just didn’t want to be there. For 20 years, I’d loved playing footy and training for footy and this was the first moment I didn’t want to be there. For about six to eight weeks I didn’t want to get out of bed," he says.

Heal says his world of depression evaporated when he met another melanoma survivor, Perth businessman Ross Taylor.

“To meet someone else who’d been diagnosed 14 years previous and had tackled things head on and taken a proactive approach – it lit a fire inside," Heal says.

“When we drove to his house, it was like Mum was driving and I was in the boot. When we left, I didn’t quite want to kick Mum out of the car, but I was ready to drive."

This new passion for life made Heal realise that other sufferers needed to meet survivors like Ross and hear their stories, which led him to start a dedicated skin cancer support service.

Dozens came to the first meeting. “It became very apparent there was a need for something like this," he says. Melanoma WA is now an incorporated charity with a board of directors, helping thousands of West Australians.

“If people can find a primary melanoma, that funny looking mole on the skin, and have it removed early, there’s a 99 per cent chance they’ll never have to have the secondary melanoma that I’ve had," Heal says.

He can’t resist slipping in other vital messages but he tries not to “tell people what to do".

“I just want to give them the tools to go out and enjoy themselves without the sun damage. But I want them to look at me and realise it can happen to them, too," he says.

While Heal was making a difference to others, his own journey was going from bad to worse. Lumps appeared with frightening regularity.

“The oncologist said there may come a point where we can’t just keep cutting it out," he says.

But he’s nothing if not a fighter. In 2009, Heal was still playing footy, this time for his local club South Mandurah in the Peel District, and he even ran on for the grand final against Waroona, kicking three goal despite “tape basically holding me together".

“We lost by 10 points, but I remember running out there and just thinking, ‘How good is this?’," he says.

But the joy was short-lived. More lumps came up, inside and out – “from the back of my hamstring area right through to the back of my neck and everywhere in between" – and in late 2010 he had the 34th cancer removed from deep in his lower back. That was the last for three years, but the dreaded C word struck again, this time with Heal’s dad, Grahame, in the firing line.

The engineer and keen surfer was diagnosed with cancer of the bile duct in July 2011 and died a year later.

“I saw first-hand the impact cancer can have on the people around you. It wasn’t about me anymore, it was about Dad," he says. “Mum’s been the one who’s been there since day dot, the one who wanted to discuss the emotional and mental side of the melanoma.

“Dad was the practical – if I wanted to get to footy, he’d make sure I got to footy. If I needed the bins put out or if I wanted to go for a surf, that was how he helped. That’s how I’ll remember him – surfing with him in the late afternoon watching a summer thunderstorm roll over and staying out ’til it’s too dark to see."

Heal says he has more to live for than ever before. He wants to grow old with his fiancee, Dani, 23, and see baby Abbie, who turns two next month, grow up.

“(Tumour) No. 35 was the first one Dani had been through. That’s been a real reality check," he says.

But it also helped Heal see the beautiful side to living on borrowed time. Every one of Abbie’s smiles seems sweeter. Waking up next to Dani every morning is an experience to savour. Food tastes better. Every sunrise is just so vivid.

“However long I’m here for, I’m going make the most out of it. I value each day. I just keep living the journey," he says. “Would I choose to be diagnosed with secondary melanoma at the age of 22? Of course not. But do I enjoy life more and get more out of it now? Yeah, definitely."

BEYOND FEAR

Christine Bellis was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at just 22. She isn’t letting it rule her life.

Christine Bellis knows what living on borrowed time is like. Just ask her about her ovarian cancer support group Christmas party a few weeks ago at the Cancer Council’s headquarters in Perth.

At just 24, she’s the youngest by more than a decade of the 15 women in the group who were all supposed to bring a plate of food and a “Secret Santa" present. When the day of the party arrived, only 12 of them were still alive.

“They’re pretty much all ladies in their 50s, 60s and 70s. I was one of the very few young ones to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer," the childcare worker says.

“We meet once a month but between November and Christmas we lost three ladies out of 15. Three in the space of a month. It was heartbreaking. It was a tough Christmas party. It brought reality crashing down."

Ovarian cancer is usually found in post-menopausal women and the treatment often involves chemotherapy and a hysterectomy. However, Christine was diagnosed in 2012 at the age of just 22, and doctors caught it early, removing both her ovaries.

“They found three cysts on both of my ovaries and one was almost as big as a tennis ball. Its diameter was 1cm smaller than a tennis ball," she says.

Doctors removed the cyst and her left ovary. Both were cancerous. But, ironically, it was the large size of the tumour that probably saved Christine’s life.

If it had been smaller she wouldn’t have known it was there. The size of it meant she suffered discomfort during intercourse, prompting her to get the ultrasound that led to early detection.

And while cancer could strike again at any time, for now Christine has a goal that is fanning her own fire within.

She was able to freeze four embryos before doctors took her right ovary in May last year, and she desperately hopes to have a child through IVF with her 29-year-old partner, Don.

“If it wasn’t for Don, I’d probably be sitting in the corner crying," Christine says, adding that her parents, Waverly and Chris, have also helped give her the strength to face cancer.

“I told Don he could leave and I wouldn’t judge him. I said, ‘You know you can walk away from all this and never have to deal with this ever again?’. He just said, ‘Nah, I’m all right. I’m staying’."

Now she is focused on improving her health and getting her body ready to try for a baby. Once she has a baby – or if she fails – she will have a full hysterectomy.

But Christine isn’t fazed. She says borrowed time has changed her perspective, made her a better person.

She is studying to improve her childcare qualifications and running a women’s adult party-planning business called Pure Romance, which doubles as a way to spread awareness of ovarian cancer.

“I don’t take things for granted as much as I used to. I spend more time with my family. I try and make sure I fill every day up, try and do something every day," she says.

“When your time’s up, your time’s up. Until that day comes around, I’ll take whatever I’ve got and go with it."

MELANOMA FACTS

More than 12,500 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed in Australia every year.

One in 17 Australians will be diagnosed with melanoma before age 85.

Though only 2.3 per cent of all skin cancers, it causes 75 per cent of skin cancer deaths.

See www.melanoma.org.au for more.

To prevent skin cancer, avoid exposure during the middle of the day (10am-3pm) when UV radiation is strongest; wear wide-brimmed hats and protective shirts; wear sunglasses that meet Australian standards; use sunscreen liberally and reapply often.

OVARIAN CANCER FACTS

Ovarian cancer most commonly affects women aged over 50 who have been through menopause.

Each day in Australia, four women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and three will die from the disease.

There is no early detection test so learn to know the symptoms, which include: abdominal or pelvic pain; increased abdominal size or persistent abdominal bloating; the need to urinate often or urgently; or feeling full after eating a small amount.

February is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. See www.ovariancancer.net.au.