Rose’s story – “Being an advocate for my mother was my greatest privilege.”

Mag­gie describes her moth­er Rose as a woman of deep empa­thy, with a ​‘wicked sense of sense of humour’, who had a pos­i­tive impact on so many.

“Mum devot­ed her work­ing life to help­ing oth­ers – my ear­li­est mem­o­ries were of her work­ing tire­less­ly to get our local Kindy built at Tuti­ra. That build­ing is so impor­tant to the dis­trict and still offers local kids a sense of com­mu­ni­ty today.”

Rose began her career as a nurse aide, and after hav­ing three chil­dren, retrained as a social worker.

“She want­ed to make real change in people’s lives,” says Maggie.

“Rose was a true advo­cate, a real doer. If you hand­ed her your prob­lem, she’d get it done.”

The melanoma diag­no­sis was a shock to the fam­i­ly. Rose had very few risk fac­tors – she had no oth­er moles or freck­les, she always wore sun­block, and there was no fam­i­ly his­to­ry of the disease.

Trag­i­cal­ly, after a surgery, Rose’s can­cer had devel­oped into sec­ondary melanoma on the lungs, liv­er and brain.

The orig­i­nal mole was removed the evening before New Zealand went into the first lev­el-four lock­down in March, 2020. It was one of the last surg­eries com­plet­ed before every­one went into isolation.

“The pan­dem­ic meant Mum had so many delays access­ing treat­ment,” says Maggie.

“It frus­trates me to see these delays are still plagu­ing our pub­lic health sys­tem now and affect­ing can­cer diag­noses across New Zealand.”

Twelve months and two weeks after the orig­i­nal diag­no­sis, Rose died at home, sur­round­ed by family.

“It was a real hon­our being able to take time away from my work and be with her, to care for her and to see how beau­ti­ful­ly sup­port­ed she was by Dad and my sib­lings,” says Maggie.

“I’m so grate­ful we could pro­vide that lev­el of care for her and keep her dignity.”

Through­out Rose’s jour­ney, Mag­gie used her research skills to explore every treat­ment option avail­able. She also act­ed as Rose’s sup­port per­son – attend­ing med­ical appoint­ments and metic­u­lous­ly record­ing every detail.

“Being an advo­cate for my moth­er was my great­est priv­i­lege. There were so many dif­fi­cult deci­sions to make along the way and Mum didn’t always have the capac­i­ty to make them.

“I would encour­age peo­ple to attend med­ical appoint­ments with their loved ones who have melanoma. Mum’s Oncol­o­gist said she rarely saw whole fam­i­lies attend­ing appoint­ments and appre­ci­at­ed how invest­ed we all were in Rose’s fight. That sup­port is cru­cial, being informed means you don’t have your head in the sand when it’s time to get treatment.”

Mag­gie con­tin­ues to raise aware­ness around melanoma – and encour­ages every­one to get their skin checked reg­u­lar­ly. She now has an annu­al skin check with Molemap, as do oth­er mem­bers of her family.

“I know by talk­ing to peo­ple that the major­i­ty don’t under­stand that New Zealand has the high­est rates of melanoma in the world, which is noth­ing to be proud of,” says Maggie.

“We had no fam­i­ly his­to­ry of the dis­ease and melanoma wasn’t a can­cer we dis­cussed much before Mum’s diag­no­sis. I only wish the mole was not in such a hard-to-reach place and we could have spot­ted it soon­er. Maybe then we could have saved Mum’s life, or giv­en her more time.”

Thank you, Mag­gie, for shar­ing your sto­ry. We hope every­one read­ing this will fol­low your life-sav­ing advice – to become informed about melanoma, pri­ori­tise your health with reg­u­lar skin checks, and sup­port your loved ones to do the same.