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Ridma and her husband received the most unimaginable news during what should have been an exciting time – their first pregnancy.
“I noticed that I had yellowish eyes and my skin tone had changed. I’d been vomiting and unable to eat a lot,” said Ridma.
“I went to the GP who advised me to go to the hospital. Anxious, I did a couple of blood tests and was admitted.”
The expecting mother was only 12 weeks pregnant when she was diagnosed with cancer, and went from happy and excited to devastated in one day.
“We did a bone marrow biopsy and I was told the news. I had lymphoma - and an aggressive one at that.”
“This was possibly the worst day of my life. I’d been so excited with the pregnancy, so this was a shock to the system.”
Ridma’s unborn baby, a little boy, was always in the front of her mind – especially while she underwent treatment.
“Doctors told me that I had to have chemotherapy, and while all this was going on, we were constantly checking on our unborn baby.
He was battling along inside, while I was battling to stay alive,”
said Ridma.
Her chemotherapy not only had a toll on her own health, it also threatened her unborn son’s life.
“I had a liver infection after the second chemotherapy and had to have an operation.
“Doctors advised me to keep the baby inside for as long as I could, however at about 26 weeks, we were told he had developed hydrops – an accumulation of excessive fluid – and it could spread to his brain.”
Two surgeons in the hospital told Ridma that the pregnancy had to be terminated due to a lack of facilities in Australia, or alternatively the family could go to America for treatment.
The baby was a part of me, but my family were convincing me to do as much as I could to survive, and worry about the baby later.”
“Thankfully, we didn’t have to worry for too long about the baby. Thanks to divine intervention, on 6 October 2015, our miracle boy was born.
“This was a ray of sunshine during a terrible stretch of misfortune and agony. We named him Dion,” she said.
Both mother and baby were in the hospital for months – Dion recovering from his surgery for hydrops, and Ridma still undergoing chemotherapy.
I'd lost all my hair but that was the least of my worries. I just wanted to be Mum.”
“I don’t know how, but somehow my results got better. By December 2015 the doctors were giving me positive vibes.
“They said the word ‘remission’ a few weeks later and my boy came home on 8 December.”
Ridma knows that research saved both her life and Dion’s. She thinks funding cancer research is important because it gives patients hope that one day, they will be cancer free.
“We never know who is going to be the next victim to cancer. By doing research, we can be best prepared for future cancer diagnoses,” she said.
