'I'm pregnant and I've got cancer'

Jessica Rapana

November 17, 2016 - 12.07am

“That poor life inside me - I thought, how can something survive in a body that has leukemia?”

Elle Halliwell opens up about her extraordinary battle to start a family while overcoming a devastating cancer diagnosis this Sunday on 60 Minutes.

The News Corp fashion editor found out she was pregnant in May this year — but, what was supposed to be one of the happiest times of a woman's life, became the most terrifying.

Only 48 hours before, she had been diagnosed with leukemia. She was 30, lived a healthy lifestyle and had no symptoms.

Halliwell says she had gone to see her doctor for blood tests to check her folate and vitamin D levels because she and husband Nick were planning a baby this year.

Less than two days after the earth-shattering diagnosis, Halliwell took a pregnancy test after a "weird inkling", she tells 60 Minutes.

“It was just like instant reaction, swore, Nick’s like ‘what?’ and I was like ‘I’m pregnant’," she says.

After being diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia — a disease most commonly found in men in their 60s — doctors told her to terminate her pregnancy.

Considered “one of the more devastating forms of blood cancer”, they warned her the cancer could kill her before she reached full-term, she says.

“It was pretty devastating.

“Our specialist strongly advised us not to because, without treatment, my slow-growing cancer could possibly turn aggressive and kill me,” Halliwell previously writes in the Daily Telegraph.

“He recommended I abort, freeze some eggs and immediately begin a relatively new form of oral chemotherapy... which I would have to take for at least five years — until I was 35. Only then could I consider stopping treatment and try to conceive.”

Refusing to give up on her unborn child, Halliwell reveals the excruciating decision to keep her baby and risk her life.

She shares her inspiring story on 60 Minutes this Sunday at 8.30pm.

'I'm pregnant and I've got cancer'

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