Cancer sufferer given two weeks to live is still here four years on

Published: 2:37PM GMT 11 Mar 2010

Claire Blair, 36, a mom of three girls, believes she has survived so long as she has been prescribed the drug Herceptin which stops breast cancer cells dividing and growing.

Mrs Blair said: “I would not be here without it. I still take it and I have to have other scans every three months which test my heart to check the drug is not affecting it.

“I always try and put those scans off because I am terrified they will stop me taking it.

“I do not think I have side effects. I get tired – really, really tired but who is not with three young children under seven, You cannot keep blaming it on being ill

Mrs Blair of Stowmarket, Suffolk, was given the heartbreaking news that she had just days to live in September 2006.

But three and a half years later, she is preparing to celebrate another Mother’s Day after fighting back against the disease.

She is even taking part in a charity race after watching from the sidelines for the last two years as her two eldest daughters raised money running in her honour.

Mrs Blair is competing in the 5km Cancer Research Race for Life with all her daughters – Abbi, seven, Lolli, five, and Micki, three – in Ipswich on June 13.

Amazingly Mr Blair who is married to Mark, 37, still works as a sales officer.

She added: “I never thought I would see this day so I feel very fortunate. When I was diagnosed I was in the worst possible situation.

“I was told I had about two weeks to live because the cancer had spread to my liver and bones. Not many people have been where I’ve been and bounced back.”

At the time she was diagnosed, Mrs Blair thought her extreme tiredness was down to having given birth to her youngest daughter three months earlier.

When she went to hospital she was kept in overnight for tests. Even before the results came back she knew there was something seriously wrong.

She added: “I could tell by the way the staff were treating me that the results were going to show something terrible but I had no idea how awful it would be.”

The following day her worst fears were realised when physicians confirmed that she had terminal breast cancer and she had two weeks to live despite being just 32.

Her local vicar visited her and staff from the Hospice at Home helped her family prepare for the worst.

Life for Claire, her family and friends became a race against time to fit everything in, to spend time together.

She and her family went on dream holidays to Disneyland in America and euro Disney in Paris and attended her sister’s wedding in Scotland.

Mrs Blair and her husband also made their 10th wedding anniversary dream come true, returning to Bali where they spent their honeymoon, ahead of schedule.

She added: “There was no time to waste.

“I would go out and if I was sick down myself, I was sick down myself – nothing was going to stop me getting out and making memories for my children and husband.”

Mrs Blair faced having to organise her own funeral and explaining to her eldest daughter Abbi where mummy was going.

But she battled against the disease by taking Herceptin and having repeated rounds of chemotherapy at Ipswich Hospital

She said: “What I have learnt in the last three years and three months most people do not learn in a lifetime and I have to thank cancer for that. People always ask the question ‘why?’. I ask, ‘Why not?’

“What is so special about me? Why am I still here? You can feel sick in the morning, you can throw up in the middle of the night, but you get up in the morning to take the children to school, to go to work.

“You can feel like you cannot be bothered to go to work but you have to be bothered. If you stay at home and feel sorry for yourself but if you stay positive it will make a difference.

“There will come a time when I will get knocked back but I’m not dying while I have three small children. I’m living with cancer and I’m very thankful for the time I’ve been given.

“Everybody’s going to die – mine was just rammed in my face. But without it I would not have got up and done all things we have as a family, made all those special memories and lived each day to the full.

“I would not be here without my husband. For me life is easy, I am going to die and it is my husband and children who will be left to pick up the pieces. It is harder for them.

“My children have been a large strength. They are three tiny reasons to live, three tiny reasons to love.

“Surviving cancer is not just about treatment. It is not just about your personality. It’s not just about love and support. It is about all of those things pulled together. You have to make a happy balance of them all.”

source : www.telegraph.co.uk

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