Wendy's Journey by Sue Claridge

I recently had the opportunity to talk to Wendy Steenstra-Bloomfield, one of the founders of what is now the Breast Cancer Network. Unfortunately, distance meant that we had to talk by phone rather than in person, but it was clear that I was talking with an energetic, healthy and vital woman about to enter her 72nd year She was cheerful and laughed easily. Extraordinary, really, for a woman who seemed destined for a much-shortened life journey.

Wendy’s mother died from breast cancer in 1956 at the age of 58, only two years after diagnosis; Wendy was only 22. Wendy’s maternal Grandmother also died from breast cancer at the age of 58, before Wendy was born. When Wendy was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 54, it seemed that history was about to repeat itself.

However, by that time Wendy had come face to face with the disease on several occasions. First, when her piano teacher, a Catholic Nun, was diagnosed with breast cancer at about 35 years old. Then in 1985 a close friend, who had lost her husband and was bringing up four children on her own, was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, also at a young age. Daphne’s prognosis was not good and Wendy lived with her for some time, functioning as her primary caregiver and helping to look after the children. Wendy became her ‘chauffeur’ taking her to the main cancer ward for chemotherapy a couple of times a week. In the process she got to know all the doctors and nurses.

Wendy had been having regular mammograms since 1970 but despite this, in January 1988, a five centimetre lump was discovered in her left breast. The tumour had been missed by a defective mammography machine and Wendy’s tumour was somewhat more advanced than usual for someone who had been so vigilant.

Wendy underwent a full mastectomy in February 1988. She was given a better prognosis than Daphne, whose cancer had metastasised and spread to her bones and neck. She died only two months after Wendy’s mastectomy.

With a good prognosis Wendy was not given radiotherapy but was put on Tamoxifen. Everything progressed very well – she had had 15 nodes checked and cleared of the disease and was told that “nothing had gone ‘rogue’ around her body.”

After the surgery, Wendy set about ensuring her survival. She got all the get well books she could lay her hands on and improved her fitness. Between March and June of the following year (1989) she went home to England for the first time since she had left many years before.

Later that year, Wendy experienced a terrible shooting pain in the top half of her spine. Her long-time association with the oncology clinic and the staff meant that she had a better understanding of who she needed to see and how to go about finding out what was wrong with her. She says: “In looking after Daphne, I probably got the best treatment for myself.”

She made an appointment at the Oncology Clinic straight away and a bone scan showed cancer in her T8 thoracic vertebrae.

The news really shook Wendy, as metastases had caused Daphne’s premature death, and Wendy’s own diagnosis of metastatic cancer had been quite rapid; less than two years after her initial diagnosis. In terrible pain, Wendy felt her outlook was grim.

Her Oncologist stopped the Tamoxifen and got Wendy into radiotherapy straight away. She was also started on Megastat from which she suffered a number of adverse reactions over the years. Her naturopath later told that she had looked “a bright shade of grey – like a normal cancer patient who is running out of time”. Wendy expected to die, even writing her funeral. However, gradually she improved.

About that time Wendy embarked on the “Opening Up” programme run by the Cancer Society, where she met Barbara Holt. “She and I were asking all the awkward questions,” Wendy remembers. They tried to get the medical people to use organics, vegetarianism and other “alternative” methods to treat cancer instead of just surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

“It was a different way of looking at [cancer treatment] rather than slashing, burning and poisoning people to try to get rid of the cancer.”

The two women started talking about becoming more organized, giving a voice to women with breast cancer and putting a newsletter out. They were looking for a way to pose the difficult questions to the GPs, surgeons, and oncologists and make them answer them. Wendy refers to it as a ‘ginger’ group, a group that would put the patients’ point of view. Wendy had always wondered why her doctors refused to acknowledge the significant side-effects that she suffered from the Megastat, despite having found a list of identical symptoms in a pharmaceutical journal. That experience lead her to ask unwelcome questions of the medical people with whom she had contact.

Barbara and Wendy got Breast Cancer Action Aotearoa New Zealand off the ground in 1993, modelling it on the San Francisco group of the same name. However, Wendy downplays her role – she describes herself as an “accompanist, the pianist to Barbara’s solo singer,” – in the foundation of what later became the Breast Cancer Network. Wendy was involved with the group for about five years including attending the first World Conference in Canada in 1997.

Wendy credits this ‘ginger’ group with her survival in the face of quite daunting odds. “Through that group, I would say that is why I am still here,” she says, with a hint of almost astonishment that she has survived. “It challenged us to actually read, to get information, to try out different things.” She converted to vegetarianism, then having been dogged by side-effects from the Megastat, she decided on her own to come off it. After about four months she owned up to having stopped. A bone scan, remarkably, showed no sign of the cancer and Wendy continued to enjoy good health.

Wendy has taken considerable responsibility for her wellness, is open to alternative treatments and has a very holistic perspective on the treatment of cancer. She made changes to her lifestyle, including changing her diet twice, which she also credits with her continued survival.

She believes that lifestyle and spiritual factors are involved in the development of breast cancer. “It may be genes, it may be [physical] damage or may be you haven’t looked after yourself properly,” she explains. “But, it is also – and I saw this very much in Daphne – it’s because you have not been nurtured enough, you have tried to nurture other people too much.”

At 71, there is no sign of the metastases that threatened to see her follow in her Mother’s and Grandmother’s footsteps. She says she has never been frightened of cancer, probably at least as much as a result of her experience prior to diagnosis as her own fortitude. Wendy has taken control of her life, taken control of the decisions made about her treatment and has been empowered, something that she sees as an important role for BCN – empowering other women.

Finally, on the subject of the causes of breast cancer, Wendy is very clear on one common thread for the disease: “It is our environment, it is what we eat, it is what is sprayed on us… it can not be disregarded. When they say they want to spend all this money on treatment, they have got to look at what is causing it.”

Wendy's Journey by Sue Claridge

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