‘In 2005, with Kylie Minogue’s diagnosis, breast cancer was everywhere—on TV, in newspapers and magazines. I was a little cynical at that time, because everyone was so upbeat and positive about Kylie recovering, but a lot of women die.’
‘I try not to be morbid, but I am not expecting a long life,’ says Jodie I O’Keeffe when we sit to share her mother, Beverley Whitfield’s, story.
‘Mum was only 57 when she died. She was a secondary school teacher, for ever and ever, and a great mum to her four kids.’
I had worked very closely with Jodie at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and we quickly developed a personal friendship that made working together fun. However, on several occasions during that month of frenetic athletic events, I sensed a sadness, a vulnerability and a melancholy in Jodie that sometimes came upon her, but was always quickly dismissed.
It was only many months later, in one of our catch-up email chats, that she mentioned her mother had died the year before from breast cancer. She said she hadn’t told me earlier so I wouldn’t lose hope. This empathy and kindness was born from a year of helping her mother die peacefully, with love, dignity and no regrets.
Jodie shares her story because she believes that in our society, we don’t deal with death well, even though it is a fact of life. ‘If we can talk about it, and if possible prepare for death, then those who remain will be better able to cope,’ she says.
When Beverley was first diagnosed in 1999, it didn’t come as a complete surprise. Beverley’s mother had died of breast cancer at 52 and, although Jodie feels that it probably did haunt her, she says, ‘Mum never let on, although she had to have mammograms earlier than most people. A statistic I have since read suggests that one in four daughters will develop the disease and Mum, as one of four girls, was the unlucky one.’
Jodie realises she has a statistically high chance of getting breast cancer, but remains philosophical. ‘I’ve got two sisters, and I feel a real risk as it seems to run in the maternal line. It’s a comforting thought that, when I get to the vulnerable age, technology may have uncovered a cure. In my work as a journalist I report on advances in detection and treatment—so there is always hope. But, whatever happens, happens. I just don’t live my life thinking I am going to be an 80-year-old,’ she admits.
Jodie tries to give her daughter, Ruby, a sense of hope, even though she still feels the loss of her grandmother keenly.
‘Ruby was just four years old when Kylie Minogue was diagnosed, three months after Mum died, and she was convinced Kylie would also die. So, last year I took her to Kylie’s concert to show her that breast cancer isn’t always a terminal illness. That gave her another, more positive, perspective.’
Beverley had found the lump herself. Tucked under her arm, it wasn’t detected by mammogram, but an ultrasound and biopsy confirmed the tumour was cancerous. Jodie says her mum was a woman of her generation and she didn’t talk about it much. She didn’t want to worry any of her children with her feelings; her focus was on the treatment.
At that time Jodie was living overseas in London, so she doesn’t really know how her mother felt emotionally. ‘She wouldn’t burden us with her feelings; she just carried on matter-of-factly. I had already planned to come home for holidays around that time, so fortunately I was there for the lumpectomy surgery. This was a good thing for both of us. It reassured me that she would be okay.’
However, Jodie had to return to London while her mother went through a gruelling bout of chemotherapy followed by radiation. ‘It was a terrible time. I felt helpless and often, when I tried to talk with her on the phone, I could just tell she didn’t have the energy. I learned to time my calls with her good days in between chemo sessions when she felt strong enough to talk. It was emotional for me being so far away, but I was confident she would come through it all.’
The family was very stoic—no doom and gloom—and their spirits were up. Beverley would finish treatment and everything would go back to normal.
In the following few years Beverley fully recovered from her treatment and was enjoying the delights of four new grandchildren. Jodie had returned to live in Melbourne and she remembers her mother revelling in her new-found life.
‘We had a couple of wonderful years. Mum really appreciated living; she was always visiting us, spending as much time as possible playing with her grandkids.
‘Mum really thought she had the cancer beaten, but she still made the most of every second she had. She didn’t verbalise it, and there was no impending gloom, but perhaps she had a sense that her life could be short,’ says Jodie.
Beverley had tremendous faith in the medical profession. ‘She took her Tamoxifen religiously. Once she was at my house in Melbourne and had forgotten to bring her tablet. Instead of staying the night, she drove the 95-minute trip back to her home in the country town of Murchison to take it. She followed the doctor’s orders as a way of protecting herself from any secondary cancer.’
But it wasn’t to be.
In November 2003, Jodie’s father, Desmond, was dispatched to each of the family to tell them that Beverley had been diagnosed with a secondary cancer in the liver.
‘Poor Dad drove to Melbourne and just turned up at each of our doors, unannounced, one evening. That was unusual, as Dad rarely came down by himself, so we knew something bad had happened. We didn’t have time for coffee or small talk. He just told me straight that Mum had secondaries and that things didn’t look good. He cried, I cried and then he left and was on his way to my sister and brother.’
That was already an exceedingly challenging and emotional time for Jodie. She was pregnant with her third child and her second had just turned one. ‘I rang Mum, who, surprisingly, was okay. I was a mess. Mum told me she’d known for a couple of weeks and had now come to terms with the diagnosis. She hadn’t wanted to tell us until she was sure,’ explains Jodie.
‘Mum was only six months short of what she felt was her five-year clearance, but she was pragmatic in playing the hand that she was dealt. She knew there was no surgery that could help and she would face another brutal round of chemotherapy.
Jodie O’Keeffe and son, with Beverley Whitfield
‘She had been overextending herself; she was looking after her elderly father, back at school teaching and spending time with her grandchildren. She was trying to fit everything in.’
Beverley’s new round of chemotherapy was powerful, often leaving her in hospital with low white cells and high temperatures. But it was effective, as her tumour markers were improving. Nevertheless, her body was struggling against the potent chemical onslaught and the dosage was continually cut back. Beverley’s nails fell out and she regularly succumbed to bouts of viral and staph infections, but her only option was to endure.
By June 2004 Beverley finished her chemotherapy treatment and delighted in her newest grandson, Curtis. Life was good and Beverley and her family were positive about the future. However, after four months of joyous living, regular scans and tests showed the tumours in the liver continuing to grow, so further treatment was needed. An innovative new form of chemotherapy, Xeloda, was prescribed.
‘Mum was relatively happy about this latest wonder drug for liver cancer because it could be taken in tablet form at home and she didn’t have to spend more time in the oncology ward. An added bonus was that there was usually no hair loss. Sadly Mum seemed to get every side effect and with this drug the skin on her hands and feet peeled off, making it hard to walk.’
At this stage Jodie realised that things weren’t going according to plan—her mother’s reaction to the drug was quite severe. But she blocked out these personal concerns and, with her siblings, decided to maintain a positive outlook, especially around her mother.
‘By Christmas Eve it was obvious to me and my sister, Linda, that the disease was probably terminal. Wrapping Christmas presents as a distraction, we vocalised our deepest fears. The hardest thing in dealing with Mum’s cancer was to acknowledge she was dying. We kept asking ourselves if that meant we had given up. But we knew if we were facing this awful reality, then we needed to express our feelings to her while she was “fully” alive. This was really important for us. Mum and Dad weren’t as open about it, but that was their way.
‘We didn’t know what was going to happen, but it was very important for Linda and I to tell Mum how much we loved her and to thank her for being such a wonderful mother. For me, it was a big thing to let her know, while she was alert and aware and able to take it in, that she was the best.’
Jodie sits in silence momentarily, sifting through her memories, and I notice tears glistening on her face. But she doesn’t fight them.
‘Christmas 2004 was special. We told Mum that we didn’t know what the future held, but we were grateful for all she’d done for us. She took her headscarf off for the first time in months and she looked really good—although she was coughing a lot, was very tired and becoming increasingly frail.’
The chemotherapy was taking its toll, but Beverley continued taking the tablets as prescribed, suffering in silence.
‘She kept taking them, no matter what damage the side effects caused. She ended up in hospital and the doctors decided to stop the treatment until she could regain some strength and shake off the worst of the side effects.’
Over the following days Beverley’s severe reaction to the treatment worsened, and she gradually stopped talking and eating and eventually lost consciousness. No one had expected such a rapid decline. Jodie and her family feared the worst. The doctors decided to treat her with steroids and antibiotics. When they took effect, Beverley woke up and was able to talk.
‘We then realised Mum was angry. The holy grail of the new chemo that she had laid all her faith in had nearly killed her. She wasn’t ready to go and she was totally annoyed. She had wanted to survive and the promise of the new drug didn’t deliver,’ Jodie says.
Though Beverley’s condition improved for a while, it became increasingly obvious to everyone that she was dying. The family rallied and vowed that at least one of them would be by her side at all times—for however long Beverley had left.
‘The month before she died was a time of emotional stress and intense pressure on us and our own families,’ says Jodie. ‘Our lives revolved around making Mum’s last days as peaceful and loving as possible. It was also a time of coming to terms with our own personal loss.
‘I was really pleased we had told Mum that we loved her at Christmas, because when you are losing someone, you don’t have much time when they are actually awake and able to take it in.’
Beverley’s friends came in to say their goodbyes. ‘She knew she was dying and in her more lucid moments she’d check with us that she was still alive,’ says Jodie. ‘One day, out of the blue, she suggested I might help to choose the music for her funeral.’
But those moments of clarity became fewer, and by the start of February Beverley’s husband, children and their families were emotionally and physically shattered. They were not coping well and wondered how long they could keep themselves positive.
Beverley died on 15 February 2005. ‘We knew there was no longer any hope and so her death was in a way a release and a relief for us, and for her,’ says Jodie.
Knowing Jodie from our days working together closely at the Commonwealth Games, the emotion with which she spoke these words touches me deeply. What I observe is the unbidden outpouring of grief of a thoughtful and loving daughter for her late mother, and it humbles me.
Beverley with Jodie
But the end of Beverley’s life marked the start of a reconstruction of Jodie’s life. She sought counselling to help her make sense of what had happened, so she could eventually turn her focus to the future.
‘In 2005, with Kylie Minogue’s diagnosis, breast cancer was everywhere—on TV, in newspapers and magazines. I was a little cynical at that time, because everyone was so upbeat and positive about Kylie recovering, but a lot of women die,’ says Jodie.
‘This is one of the reasons I wanted to tell Mum’s story—not as a harbinger of death or to create fear, but just to acknowledge that some women do die from breast cancer. It is a terrible disease.
‘It also seemed to me at that time that everything connected with breast cancer is focused on survival. There didn’t seem to be much information about what might happen, about what we could expect if things didn’t go well for Mum. We struggled and had to learn so much by ourselves about our journey towards Mum’s death because there was just nothing out there, or we didn’t know who to ask.’
While the grief of her mother’s death is still palpable and raw, it isn’t life-consuming and has not left Jodie fearful of her future or that of her daughter.
‘I can only be optimistic for the future. Going round in my head is the reality that Mum got cancer and she died, and questions about why that happened to her have no answers, so I have to let it go. It has happened and I have to move on,’ Jodie adds with a positive smile.
‘Every six months I have tests; I self-examine regularly and I exercise and eat well to stay healthy, so if the worst happens I have the best chance of survival. The ultrasound tests and mammograms do bring a grave reality front and centre for me, although I don’t go in thinking they will reveal any cancer. Being realistic, if I am going to get breast cancer, the best I can do is to find it as early as possible and then deal with it,’ she says pragmatically.
‘Seeing what’s happened to Mum, I’ve got a renewed sense of life. She was 57 when she died. I’m 35 so if, because of my family history, I don’t have a lot of time left then I want to make sure that I do as much with my life as possible. This is my life and I am living it now.’
Jodie’s daughter, Ruby, now six, still finds her grandmother’s death frightening and is often anxious that Jodie will die. ‘I’ve made a deal with her that we will die together, which relieves her fears of being left behind. These are the conversations we can have now, because we have all gone through Mum’s death.
‘Before Mum died I had very little experience of death, and I am surprised how poorly our society deals with it. With hindsight and experience, I think we should talk about death more often as part of our life cycle, so we aren’t as afraid to deal with it.
‘And if we are faced with someone dying, we should acknowledge that and talk about their life. Celebrate who they are, what they have done, and let them know they’ve had an impact. It seems sad that we say these things at funerals—too late. Cancer gives us time and opportunity to say things when they are relevant and not have regrets later on,’ she adds.
‘We stayed in the hospital with Mum every day and night, and once she’d gone we took comfort in our efforts—we’d done our very best. It was a privilege for us to care for her in her last days. We didn’t waste time in false hopes, but filled her life with love, dignity and respect right to the end.’
We stand up ready to go and embrace. Then Jodie leaves me with some parting words. ‘Death isn’t that bad. I can’t stop it, so I just accept it. Meanwhile I have a life to live—to the full.’
