'Hey don't freak out': Margaret's text to partner after terrifying discovery

Margaret Gordon and her partner Paul met in New Zealand when they were kids, and they finally got together decades later.

It made sense Paul was the first person Margaret texted when she received the devastating news about her health.

It was during a trip back home in March that she found the lump.

"I was just one day lying in bed on my back and then I felt it on my right breast, there's just a really hard lump. I knew straight away that it was really unusual and that there was something wrong with it," Margaret, 48, tells 9honey.

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She texted Paul: "Hey don't freak out but last night I found a reasonably big lump in my right breast. I'm not telling anyone or freaking out because a. I don't know any info yet and b. I have had fine lumps in the area before."

She told him she would get it checked as soon as she arrived home in Melbourne.

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Paul replied: "Oh Margie! Good idea, get through this weekend and deal with it then. We got this."

Margaret hadn't felt any symptoms of illness before receiving her diagnosis of triple negative breast cancer, a particularly aggressive form of the disease.

Her GP had felt the lump and commented, "I don't like this." From there things moved quickly.

"Then it was straight to the surgeon after that, who did an examination and then that day I went and got a biopsy," she recalls.

"And then you have to just have a whole lot of scans, blood tests and things like that.

"It was like, you know, two weeks of just a lot of tests, and then straight into chemo."

Chemotherapy left Margaret feeling ill. She lost the hair on the top of her hair only, and the treatment sent her straight into menopause, so she was also dealing with hot flushes.

"I kept working but actually, in hindsight, I shouldn't have bothered because I wasn't doing much," she says.

"I felt pretty sick and I wasn't able to concentrate super well."

She also began suffering from anxiety.

In addition to chemotherapy, Margaret was treated with immunotherapy, to which she had an adverse reaction; then surgery in August followed by radio therapy.

She credits her nurses with getting her though tough times.

It was at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre that she learned the best ways to self-care during her treatment. For Margaret, exercise therapy was key to her recovery.

Paul was by her side the entire time.

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"It felt weird for me to be the one who had to be looked after, but he's a real carer, which is awesome," she says.

"I think she think it was mostly emotional support and then also just taking over stuff like just getting dinner on the table."

When Margaret speaks with 9honey, it's the day of her final cancer treatment, her final radiotherapy appointment, and the couple plan to celebrate with a special dinner date.

She is also looking forward to being able to travel back to New Zealand to visit her family again.

"With cancer, you never come through it completely unscathed," she says.

"There'll always be something that you'll have to deal with ongoing."

This weekend on October 6 is 'Olivia's Walk for Wellness' to raise funds for the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre (ONJ Centre) and its important work delivering free, evidence-based wellness therapies to thousands of people experiencing cancer.

To date, the walk has raised a collective $12m and supported over 30,000 people through the wellness programs which includes exercise therapy, massage, acupuncture, music, art therapy and more, to support cancer patients through their medical diagnosis and treatment. Find out more by visiting the website.

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