“It was by accident in January of 2021. I was lucky, I was seeing a great physio at the time, and he basically saved my life. I had a baby about a year earlier and since then I had been experiencing severe back pain. I had played lots of sport for years, particularly rugby so I thought it might be connected.

I had my bloods done by my GP but there didn’t seem to be anything too unusual. The GP suggested I go to a physio. While there I mentioned to him that my back pain got much worse at night, it was then that he told me I should book myself in for an MRI.” Natasha recalls.

In February, following her MRI, Natasha went to the Mater Private with what was believed to be a fracture.

“I went up on the train by myself thinking it wasn’t anything too serious however when I saw the specialist at the Mater Private, everything changed. He told me there was in fact a lesion on my spine and they didn’t know if it was cancerous. I burst into tears.”

The specialist referred Natasha on to a colleague who was based closer to her home for further investigation. 

“I came home but didn’t want to scare my family so just said I had to go for a second opinion. We had lost my brother in law to cancer three years before and my father in law was also going through treatment for bowl cancer at the time.

When I went to the second doctor, he confirmed that it was cancerous but would need further tests to determine exactly what I was dealing with.” Natasha states.

Natasha received her final diagnosis in July. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in her chest, neck, spine and hip.

“Looking back now, I did have some of the symptoms. I had the sweats, the itches, and the fatigue but I thought it was menopause.

My physio later told me he picked up on it when I said the back pain was worse at night. He said typical back pain doesn’t worsen at night.” Natasha adds.

Natasha was prescribed 12 sessions of ABVD chemotherapy. She is currently on her ninth session and says the treatment is working well on all areas.

Natasha visited the Daffodil Centre to pick up some leaflets about her cancer type and treatment and also availed of the Travel2Care fund. She made use of cancer.ie when she needed some guidance on how to tell her kids about her diagnosis, which she says she found particularly helpful. 

Natasha is delighted to be supporting Daffodil Day 2022 and shares some advice she would give to others in a similar situation “It took about eight months to fully diagnose me, with some cancers it can be a bit trickier. I think it’s important to go with the journey and don’t try rush it.