With a job as a fitness instructor, a dream of climbing Mount Everest and a love of sport and fitness in general, in many people’s eyes, Galy O’Connor, from Sydney, was the picture of health.
Galy O’Connor has an extremely rare form of cancer – peritoneal mesothelioma – which is caused by exposure to asbestos.
It wasn’t until her 50th birthday that the now 55-year-old felt a lump in her abdomen while training a class in a Virgin Active gym in Frenchs Forest.
This prompted Ms O’Connor to see her doctor, where she was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of asbestos cancer – peritoneal mesothelioma.
There are only around 400 known cases of this type of cancer in the world.
Totally unbeknownst to Ms O’Connor, she had been carrying the disease, dormant, for more than 30 years.
She contracted it after working in an asbestos-filled factory mixing paint colours during her teenage years.
‘I’d never had a cold in my life – I don’t do sickness,’ the 55-year-old told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I went into shock and total disbelief when I found out; in some ways I still am in shock.
‘I live in the third person a lot as that makes it easier – my husband calls it “Disneyland”. Back when I found out, I handled it much like many women do. I shopped and got my nails done.
‘These days, I live with pain 24/7. I can no longer work. Sometimes I just lie there crying or curl up in a ball with the pain.’
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Faced now with the very real prospect that she might die, unless she gets the vital surgery which she needs from specialist hospital, St George Hospital, in Sydney’s south, Ms O’Connor has decided to take matters into her own hands.
As well as being on the hospital’s waiting list for the past ten months, she has set up a Change.org petition, begging the Health Minister to urgently intervene and make sure that she gets the life-saving operation she so desperately wants:
‘While the tumour is on my liver and my groin at the moment, it is operable,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘However, it will only be operable for six or so weeks. After that, who knows?’.
And despite being faced with her debilitating illness, the mother-of-six still says she ‘will not give up’:
‘I exercise for an hour every single day, even though it’s agony,’ she said.
‘I also only eat at night because it’s so painful. After I have done so, I take morphine so I can pass out. I’m aware I need to eat in order to keep my digestive system going and survive.
‘I still dream of climbing Mount Everest one day – I can do that, can’t I?’.
So far, Ms O’Connor’s petition to get the highly-skilled surgeon, Professor Morris, at St George Hospital, to perform the complex surgery necessary, has attracted 64,000 signatures.
The 55-year-old said that she hopes to reach 100,000 before the end of October.
‘My whole family has been engulfed by my illness, and my biggest fear is that I won’t see my grandchildren. I want to be here, and be a part of their lives.’
And while at the moment, she is trying not to think about what might happen if she doesn’t get the operation, she also says she struggles to think about what will happen if she does:
‘I have to be so strong in my mind.
‘The only way I can describe it is to say that I feel like I’m in a racing car moving towards the finish line. I feel as though I want to get out, but I know I can’t.
‘I need the operation. For me, it’s the only way.’
TO SIGN GALY O’CONNORS PETITION ON CHANGE.ORG, CLICK HERE
Source: Daily Mail
