As cancer strikes for a third time, high-profile couple Jane and Glenn McGrath look for the roses among the thorns. Faith Williams looks at what the couple are saying-and doing-about their troubles.
It is nine years since Jane McGrath was first diagnosed with breast cancer.
Both Jane and Glenn were recently guests on Andrew Denton's Enough Rope, where they spoke very openly about what they've been through and where they are now. We can clearly see that even in the face of this latest challenge there is a tenacity of will so clearly exhibited by both Jane and Glenn that demands admiration.
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Cloudy skies
From that point on Jane described her life as consisting of one appointment after another and in the midst of this, she had to decide whether or not to have a mastectomy. Even with doctors' warnings that the mastectomy was her only option, Jane was extremely reluctant to go through with it. She thought to herself, I can't lose my breast. I'm only 31! And with that, she told the doctors she'd rather die than go through an operation. I breastfed both of them, and that is, after all, what breasts are for.”
Reality bites
Perhaps one of the hardest realities for any woman experiencing the trauma of breast cancer and undergoing a mastectomy, is the feeling of a loss of womanhood and femininity. This blow to the self-esteem impacts everyone involved, not just the woman.
Deja vu
A couple of years after being given the all-clear for the breast cancer, Jane was diagnosed with secondary cancer. “It was probably easier for me the second time” she explained. “I'd had this pain in my hip for a couple of months but I was so sure that it wouldn't be cancer. It never entered my mind that it could be cancer, so I put up with the pain. It steadily got worse and worse. In the end the pain was so severe I couldn't even get out of bed. I couldn't walk.” Eventually, “X-rays showed a ‘suspicious' area in my hip.” She underwent a bone biopsy, which confirmed the bone cancer. “My first thought,” she told Denton, “was the children. It was that fear again ... that fear of dying, I suppose, to put it bluntly—that was it. I just could not believe it.” During this time, Glenn was on his way to the West Indies. After finding out all the facts, Jane tracked him down. Yep, that's fine, we'll beat it no problems at all.
A rosy future?
As a result of Jane's experiences with breast cancer, both she and Glenn established the McGrath Breast Cancer Foundation.
