“MUMMY if I graduated from university I want you to dress me up with my gown and put my hat on and watch me graduate.
“Mummy if I am 21 years old I want you to bake my cake and giveft me a nice key so I could live my life as a young girl.
“Mummy if I get married I would want you to take me to my new home.”
These were the words of an eight-year-old girl to her mother, who was given only five years to live after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
These comments were made by 55-year-old Asena Senimoli as she recounted how she gathered the courage to battle breast cancer.
Mrs Senimoli was inspired by her then eight-year-old daughter, who challenged her mother to live. These three ambitions of her daughter gave the then 47-year-old cancer patient the strength to fight.
Mrs Senimoli recounted the story at the launch of Pinktober at Tanoa Plaza Hotel in Suva as tears streamed down the cheeks of stakeholders present
Being told she had only five years to live, Mrs Senimoli started planning how to prepare her daughter for her death, not knowing that her daughter would restore the strength and hope she lost with her dreams.
“My daughter, when she was five years old, stood in front of me and challenged me. This was a great challenge to me, but it was a very good challenge. It helped me to think wisely about how to lead my life. “
Ms Senimoli first got suspicious when she felt a hard lump in her left breast. This prompted her to go and see a doctor.
After a general check, Ms Senimoli notified the doctor of the lump in her breast, which called for further thorough testing, and when the results came out doctors suspected she had breast cancer. What followed was a stage of denial as she resorted to herbal medicines. Ms Senimoli was seeking confirmation and not suspicion
Once tests confirmed it was an emotional rollercoaster for her family and her husband, who is a church minister, would pray with tears flowing from not wanting to lose his wife. “I am not ready to lose you,” were his exact words as he cried, according to Ms Senimoli.
This was followed by physical and emotional pain, late night trips to the doctor and prayers for survival.
“In the family when they saw me dying in bed my husband would sit beside me, hold me and pray, ‘Lord this is not the time to take her, please Lord I am not ready to be alone without her’.”
But the dark clouds that surrounded Ms Senimoli’s family soon cleared as she announced — on her husband’s birthday — that she was officially cancer free.
Joy and excitement filled the atmosphere in her house as they rejoiced and started to love Ms Senimoli more, with her daughter already advocating on the fight against breast cancer at just the age of 15.
Eight years later Ms Senimoli fell short of words as she thanked everyone who stood by her and supported her during her trying times.
“Here I am I am free of cancer because I made the right choices and I believed in the doctors and nurses. I would like to thank the Fiji Cancer Society,” she said.
Ms Senimoli’s advice to women battling cancer is to not deny it, but to accept it and get checked and that together they can survive.
