There Is Always Love: A Mother’s Story of Cancer, Children, and Finding the Words

Imagine holding your newborn and hearing the words, you have cancer. That was Vanessa Maiorano's reality. A young mum suddenly facing Hodgkin's lymphoma and later breast cancer. Between chemo, surgeries, and sleepless nights, she found one truth that carried her through. Even when life changes, there's always love. This is a story about motherhood, courage, and finding meaning when everything falls apart. Hello, Vanessa. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Oh, you're welcome. Gee, this is such a courageous story, honestly, to think about getting not just one but two cancer diagnoses when you have a toddler and you've just given birth. What was life like for you before your diagnosis, and did you feel intuitively that there was something wrong? Before you got a diagnosis?

I did. So life before the diagnosis was very different. I had my toddler who was growing up way too fast. We were expecting a new baby. We were prepping my daughter for the life that she would have as a big sister and the joys and enjoying those quiet moments before our life became full of More chaos, but so much more love with 2 children. So it was a very exciting time for us. It was kind of towards the end of my pregnancy though, things didn't start— they took kind of a turn for the worse that my son was born a month earlier. So I was frequently having non-epileptic seizures. I had swollen lymph nodes. I was chronically fatigued, and I just put it down to pregnancy symptoms and the fact that I had a toddler and I was pregnant at the same time, and it was just, just the whirlwind of motherhood. But in the back of my mind, I was like, well, I have these swollen lymph nodes, what am I supposed to do? And we were in a time of COVID where we would just have to enjoy our own company because we were in lockdowns and isolation to get into Doctors was a lot harder, and we had to make sure that it was only one person at all of the appointments. So I told my obstetrician about my concerns, and he said, yep, not a problem, let's get the baby out because we're doing blood tests and we need to make sure that— Other than the baby. So once my son was born, it was kind of a whirlwind of Here's your time for your baby. But all of a sudden it was more doctor's appointments, more scans, a surgery to remove the lymph node. And I kind of just felt really defeated because the time I got the news was actually over the phone because we had telehealth appointments at the time. And I was home with my daughter and my son, and I had just got my daughter a snack and I was feeding my son and We were sitting together, and when the doctor had called me, I was like, this is a little bit too soon that you're calling me. So I answered the phone, and he's like, I'm so sorry. And I said, I have cancer, don't I? And he's like, I'm so sorry. So it was kind of like a whirlwind, and I kind of asked all the questions but then forgot to ask the important ones because I was just in shock. And I remember I tried to ignore it and just go back to feeding my child. Probably about half an hour after, I was like, I need to call my husband. And it was once you said it out loud, you couldn't ignore that it was there anymore.

Well, it still feels— sounds like it's still—

Yeah, it's still very raw. Sometimes I think that cancer took away the joy of my newborn stage. I was supposed to be in this mum bubble But I just felt like it was a whirlwind of doctors and surgeries and chemo, and somehow I had to explain it to my children. And at some point, I remember in the first few days thinking, oh my goodness, what if— what if I don't get to see them grow?

Especially a mother with a newborn, and you're thinking the future that you may not have With these children, I find incredible how you would have processed that in your mind, having, you know, like, how did you do it? How did you process that in your mind and your feelings and try to stay present for your family, for your, for your little ones, for your husband?

I'll be honest, I was in denial for a little bit that I could suppress it because nothing was real until I went to go see the final oncologist and get my treatment plan. But I think in my mind it was like, okay, I need to make the most of whatever time I do have. And I remember when I told my family about my diagnosis, I saw a lot of fear in their eyes, and I didn't want to be looked at as the sick person. And I didn't— as much as everybody was trying to be encouraging and supportive, and I really appreciate it, it was just the same look that I got. every single time. Like, they loved me and they cared so much, but I didn't want them to feel that way. I wanted us to all have the same positivity and know that I was going to fight the disease even if things started looking bleak. And I think that's what I needed the most was— and I can't thank like my family and my community enough because if I didn't have that support and I didn't have those positive people around me, I reckon I would have crumbled. And I think when you have small children, like any mother, you just keep going. That is just, I guess, mum life. You keep going because if you stop, that's when things start to kind of crumble and you have too much time to think about the unknown. You're already so busy as a mum and as a wife running the household. Working children, that I was the type of person that I couldn't stop to kind of process and think about it. So not that I ignored it completely, I just put it off until I had to confront it because there wasn't at that time nothing I could do about the diagnosis. It was there. Cancer didn't care that I was a mum or had a newborn. So it was just we had to deal with it one way or or another. So I guess the hardest part was when I got my first treatment plan and the first time I had to go into chemotherapy and basically say goodbye to my children for the day. Like, they were still so small and I had no idea what it was going to hold. And it was only supposed to last 3 months, but 3 years later I was still going through it.

3 years?

Yes.

Did they tell you why it was— why they mentioned 3 months and then it ended up being 3 years? Yes.

So Hodgkin's lymphoma was supposed to be a very curable cancer, but I had other complications along the way, um, because of its aggression. They treat it really hard with one of the most toxic chemos out there that it makes you lose your hair, your eyebrows instantly. However, I was forever sick. I was neutropenic. I got meningitis. I had— we had COVID that many times because we were in COVID time. So my body couldn't fight with the chemo. My body couldn't fight all of the sicknesses that I had because it was so low. My white blood cells weren't rising enough to be able to fight the cancer and the chemo to do its job. So my body was actually essentially attacking itself. So that's how I ended up with the second diagnosis. So 3 months when I thought that it was all going to be over and I was going to be better, I went for a routine PET scan and they were like, I'm so sorry, we found something in your breast tissue. You need to go and get this done as soon as possible. So I went and they're like, again, I'm so sorry, your body's not doing what it's supposed to. We've actually got more spots behind your breast. So you've got breast cancer, you've got swollen lymph nodes behind your heart. So I was having constant surgeries behind my heart. in my breasts, and it was just— I felt very defeated.

Was the breast cancer a result of the Hodgkin's lymphoma? Was it a result of the chemo, you know, like being so devastating?

I think it's hard to say because there were so many components to it with the neurological disorder, and I was constantly having the non-epileptic seizures. I'm a big believer that sometimes stress on your body does cause cancer, and it is probably one of the major contributors to it. So it's hard to say that if it was just my body, if it was— we'd had breast cancer in our family but not as a direct line, so we ruled out that it could have been hereditary. It could have been a result of the PET scans, it could have been a result of the MRIs, the constant anesthesia. By that point, I think I'd had about 4 or 5 Surgeries. I had been in hospital so many times for sickness because what a cold was to someone and a few days in bed was a week in hospital for myself. So I don't know if it was a lot of stress on the body. So what the other diagnoses were and why it was spreading was so rare that even sometimes the oncologist was like, I can't believe this is happening.

That would have been incredibly scary for you.

Every appointment that I was going to, we started off so positive, but I felt like every appointment that we went to was just— my future was getting bleaker and bleaker. And I was having these operations and so many complications after each surgery from blood clots or nerve damage that I had no idea if I was coming out of the next surgery or It is huge.

It is emotional. It's devastating on your body. It's devastating on you mentally, emotionally, and also your loved ones. I find phenomenal that you're here today speaking with me, and I've seen that you've been speaking with other people.

My oncologist used to say the same thing. He's like, how you come to every appointment and smile in every chemo session and make our nurses laugh is beyond me.

That would destroy somebody else, and the best of people too. Where, Vanessa, did you get that grit, that courage to go, no way, this isn't beating me, I'm here for my kids, and, you know, I want to live?

My children were a massive indicator for that for me. I kept going because I didn't want to not be present. However, what I started to do is at the start of my treatment when I was first diagnosed before my first chemo treatment, 2 of my girlfriends, Dani and Steph, they actually bought me a journal. So for the good days and the bad days, it was actually a gratitude journal and I had never journaled before. My family will tell you I write the best cards. I am very sentimental in my messages. I'm not great at public speaking or talking in general, but writing I can do. So After my first chemo session, I actually started writing what I was grateful for just to get me through the days because I knew that it was going to be tough. I used to write the good and the bad, and then with each PET scan and with each appointment, things started to look darker and darker for me. So I was at a point where I was sitting in my oncologist's office and he's like, if it keeps spreading, what else to do apart from surgeries and chemo and/or stem cell transplants. So there's a lot to consider, but your body's not responding the way that we had hoped. So then I was like, okay, so like, and I point blank asked him, and I, am I gonna die? And he's like, look, I'm not going to tell you that you're not going to die. He's like, my job is to keep you alive, and I'll do anything I can to keep you going, but he's like, I also need you to fight with me. But it was after that appointment that I was like, oh my goodness, I might not be here for my children. I got the statistics of making it through the next operation without any complications, and because it was the lymphatic system that fights all the diseases in your body, it wasn't working. So I started writing letters to my children. just in case I wasn't there. And it was in those moments that I kind of reminded my children, like, how much I loved them. And I was doing this all before, but it just reinforced it, and I put it in writing for them so that if I wasn't there— And it was actually the letter writing that got me through, because I knew that if something had happened to myself They're always going to know how much I loved them.

It is so heartfelt hearing you talk about this. And, you know, for, for people who aren't watching, you know, Vanessa, you can still feel the deep trauma that is in you. You can see it, how it still affects you. And it would— it's been traumatic. It's not something that you get over easily.

Oh, not at all.

It was a lot. But I remember reading something about you where you said, and I'll read it from here, you said, I wanted you to tell me about the day that your daughter saw you without hair and she said, Mummy, what's happened to your hair? And she touched your head and she seemed a bit fearful of you.

She did.

She saw you.

That was probably one of the rawest moments. I'd ever experienced in my life. So what had happened is I'd already started losing my hair, my eyebrows, and we decided that I was going to get in front of it and shave the rest of it. I had my daughter there and my son there more for my comfort, but it was also so that my daughter would always know that it was me with or without hair too, because she was young. And it was up to her if she wanted to watch or not. And after my head was shaved, I remember she wouldn't come to me. Or, um, and I remember that night she was still very fearful. She would rub my head. She was so confused. And I remember saying to her, it didn't matter what Mummy looked like. Mummy still loves you, and Mummy will always love you. It doesn't matter. It's just hair, it will grow back.

And did she understand what you were saying?

Yes and no. I guess at 18 months old it's hard to understand it straight away. Her questions came days later as to, Mummy, why did your hair fall out? And, Mummy, why did you have to shave your head? Mummy, why are you tired? So, and I used to answer all her questions and make sure that at the end of All of her questions, I made sure that I reminded her that her and her brother were so loved.

Absolutely. That's just so beautiful. What did you fear out of that, that your children would remember about you, and what do you hope that they will remember now?

I think for me, and like one of the biggest things, I hope that they remember their mum's resilience, because I remember how resilient and how brave they were watching it all. And I hope that I did it justice in fighting for them, fighting with them, just seeing that the people around us and the supportive community, that even though we were in a time where the world was crazy and there was so much happening, I hope that they realized that they were still surrounded by so much love within our community, within myself. There was still so much love surrounding them, and I hope that that outweighed— All of the bad that was happening.

Was there a particular practice that you did to help you get through this emotionally? Because you have— the way you're talking, that is immense emotional stress.

Yeah, I actually— so that's where my books came in. So I started writing a book because after one of my chemo sessions, I— oh, sorry, it was actually during one of my chemo sessions. It was one of those days where I just, I didn't want to talk to anyone. I was tired. I had just had another surgery. on my breasts, I felt really defeated. I was recovering with scars all over me, having to go in for treatment, and I just wanted to sit quietly. But I remember a new patient coming in, and she— it was her first session, and she was really tearful. She was actually in the same position where she had a 5-year-old at home, and she had to tell her child, who she hadn't told yet, how do I tell my child that I have cancer? And I explained to her, look, when I explained to my children, they're a little bit younger, but I said to them, our bodies are made of building blocks, and sometimes they get sick and they fall down, and we work with doctors to build them back up. And I remember seeing her in the next time, and she had explained it to her child in exactly the same way, and she said it made explaining the hardest thing really easy for my child to understand. And so it was kind of like a light bulb moment for me that I was like, oh, maybe I can put this into something to help any other mum that has to go through this, to take the stress of explaining it to your child out of the equation, to help them understand that this is the body's response to it and that the whole process of losing your hair. So I started writing the first book and I was like, I'm not going to stop here because there are so many issues in the world. We were at a time where we had friends that were going through divorce. And as much as it's really hard for the parents to go through and navigate these tricky situations, it's harder for the kids. We had actually lost a good friend of ours. So there was the grief process and watching Like the grandchildren and like the kids go through the grief process. It was like, what if I can take out that stress for the parents and give them a simple way to explain it? And it just kept expanding. And I guess that's what got me through because I wrote all 16 books in the 3 years that I had cancer. I was kind of better that I said, okay, I'm going to do something with these because if I could just help one family or one parent, I would be happy. We only released the first book at the moment. The rest are coming out shortly, but it's been an amazing response. Some of the emails that I get from mums and dads to say that, like, they've been through a similar journey or they've had to navigate it with grandparents. Everybody's unfortunately been touched by cancer at some point. Everybody will be touched by grief at some point in their life. They're unfortunately sometimes they're the inevitable. Every second household is going through A divorce, or we've got one of them on kids' anxiety and mental health that I worked with a lot of therapists in regards to. And the same with— I took from my journey, there was a lot of times where I was kind of stuck with the anxiety of the world and the anxiety of my situation at the time, and I wanted my children to know that it didn't matter how I felt. I always love them. And I guess that's a lot of households as well. Sometimes we as parents go through things that affect our mental health, but I don't want it to ever be a reflection on their children or discredit on how much they love their children. So I wrote a book on it to help explain that sometimes this is what mummy and daddy go through, and some— it's not your fault.

Because as children and young people, they naturally assume if something's wrong happening around them Exactly right. They did. Sometimes when we're so enmeshed in an illness, or like you, cancer, we can forget what that impact is on other people around us. So you can imagine with little kids who do not know how to process these big emotions that they're feeling, how that would be for them, and how—

That's right.

You know, the nightmares, the worry, the concern, even if they don't verbalize it, they're still feeling it. And that's why I absolutely love the way— here we go again, love— your first book, There Is Always Love. I love the way that you have expressed it as doesn't matter what happens, you know, love will conquer everything.

Exactly right.

You know, I find that is incredibly beautiful. Your children will look at the way that you've handled this, and whether you realize it or not, they're sponges. They model what we do, they're going to be— I hope to be resilient.

Yes.

In their life and know, oh, something really bad's happening. Oh, I remember how Mum handled this. She handled it with dignity and respect, and she loved us still. And, you know, you've given them such essential tools for their life.

Yeah. And that's the goal, I guess, that I wanted from all of this to be that learning curve for them. Yes, sometimes life is hard, but if we've got each other and we've got love, then essentially we've got everything we need.

So even when things are different, like now, what does Always Love mean to you now?

I think it's kind of the foundation of everything that we do now. We make sure that at the end of every day when we're eating dinner, we make sure that we go around the table and we say our favorite part of the day, and we say one thing that we're grateful for. And we never go to bed without saying, I love you, even if it has been a hard day of emotions, or my daughter's just started school, so navigating this new lifestyle for her. I think love is at The essence of every family. It's just more reinforced. And I got given a second chance at life, and I never want my family to feel that I don't love them, or even if it is a hard day. So I make sure that it's reiterated to them throughout their life that no matter the big emotions or no matter what is happening, this is the foundation. Our foundation is love. And as long as we start with that, we can build from there.

You couldn't get a better value, could you? A better foundation than that one. I mean, that's right, so beautiful. But tell us, Vanessa, how is your health now?

I'm actually in remission now, which has been really, really good. So it was after 3 years, um, that I finally cleared into remission. So it's been nice, but it's always scary when it comes up to this time of year. You're always due for your PET scans and things, a little bit of worry around them, but as long as you positive and know that you followed the doctor's instructions and you stay on top of things, that— and just remain positive and I guess remain in your love, that you'll get through it regardless.

And your breast cancer and lymphoma went into remission at the same time?

Yes.

I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy that you mentioned—

Thank you.

I'm so happy for you for this series of books.

Yeah, thank you.

I think they're incredibly useful for so many parents who Some people do really struggle to have those difficult conversations with their kids, or—

Definitely.

Don't actually realize the impact these things do have on children.

Yes.

You know, they think, oh, they're just kids, they don't really understand what's happening.

That's right.

They won't remember. But actually, their nervous system does—

Definitely.

Remember. For parents facing illness right now, What would you want them to know from you?

Fight as hard as you can. Love as hard as you can. Cherish every moment that you can. Sometimes a lot of our friends, they didn't make it through cancer, but the love they left behind and the legacy that they leave behind for their fight has impacted and is remembered by absolutely Everyone. So be kind to yourself, and if you need to slow down, slow down, because your children don't need perfect. Your children need you.

They do. They need you. They don't need what we think society needs from us.

Exactly right. And there is a lot of pressure these days to be the perfect parent, but at the end of the day, perfect isn't what your children need.

Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. It is a powerful—

Thank you for having me.

Powerful and courageous and inspiring, and most of all, inclusive of our little ones. And for everybody who's loved Vanessa's story, her details will be in the show notes. Her website's there. You can buy— I believe you can buy the book from your website, can you not?

Correct.

Okay, go there if it's for yourself, or if you know someone who's got little ones. Do go and buy the books. They're a great resource. Thank you for coming.

Thank you.