A Perfect Life Shattered by Cancer

For the past few years Adele has physically and mentally battled with her diagnosis since finding a little lump on her stomach. Adele waited months between appointments to slowly find out more information about this lump, which turned out to be an aggressive fibromatosis, a type of sarcoma. The process of diagnosing her sarcoma was hard and incredibly confusing as she got sent from doctor to doctor, only to find out they don’t specialise in desmoid tumours. 

The waiting game for a diagnosis was not only difficult for Adele, but also her family, including her baby girl, who was just one at the time. After her initial ultrasound, of what turned out to be a sarcoma, Adele and her family went out to celebrate. Unfortunately, many aggressive fibromatosis get mistaken for hematomas, which are just collections of blood under the skin. 

Adele thought, “Yay, I don’t have cancer, I’m not dying”, until she got referred to the hospital the very next day.

“I got a call from the hospital asking me to come in the next day for a scan and I knew … there was something wrong,” Adele continued, “My gut feeling was, this isn’t right”. 

Adele received the report from the scan online, so she knew what she was walking into when the doctor had the “you’ve got cancer talk”. However, due to many delays in more testing there was a month and half where Adele knew she had sarcoma but had zero further information. 

Understandably, Adele was also concerned as the sarcoma had developed in the muscle that was damaged from being pregnant. “A whole lot of patients get these tumours and it’s related to a pregnancy,” Adele explained.

Adele found a sense of hope in researching and said, “I'd rather go in knowing as much as I can about a topic so I can make an informed choice about what's best for me, my body, my family that aligns with our values, and just who we are”.

“I'm going to do everything I can. I don't care how gross it is, how uncomfortable it is, how disgusting it tastes. I'm going to do anything I can to stay around longer for my daughter,” said Adele.

Adele tried many at home therapies whilst waiting for her final diagnosis and treatment plan. Juice cleanses, coffee enemas, and vegan diets all gave Adele a sense of hope that she was doing everything she could. 

“I think some of it was about having that control back because everything felt so out of control in that moment,” Adele continued by saying she also wanted to delay the “potential inevitable” of her daughter being left without her mum. 

Throughout Adele’s treatment, the sarcoma never stopped growing. Adele’s plan was to try all of the least invasive options first because she wanted to keep hold of the opportunity of having another baby. However, when an interventional radiologist received Adele’s latest scan the sarcoma had grown too much. 

“The risk of damaging my bowels was too high,” Adele continued, “if they didn’t operate ASAP, I probably wouldn’t have made it through Christmas”. 

Other than Adele’s personal battle with sarcoma, she was also fighting for the rest of the sarcoma community. Adele found a purpose in posting her story online to help others who were possibly going through similar circumstances. 

“Because a desmoid tumour doesn’t have that term of being cancer, it often gets diminished," she said. 

Over the past few years around 20 people have found Adele’s story on Instagram and reached out to her as a friend, and sarcoma survivor for hope and guidance.  

After reconstructive surgery in Auckland, New Zealand, and a year long recovery with physiotherapy, Adele is finally back at work as a newborn photographer and has achieved her goal of being able to play with her daughter again. 

Image credits:

• Wedding photos: Two Little Starfish Photography
• Headshots: Haley Adele Photography