PRECEDE: Candian-born Sandi Bonavita has travelled the world and confronted all it has to throw at her. Facing a battle with cancer for a fifth time, the Narre Warren South resident and her husband, Martin, remain stoically positive and draw continuously on their faith in God. Sandi spoke to Lachlan Moorhead about her upbringing in Detroit, Michigan, her involvement in the local church and her ability to stare cancer in the face time and time again – always with a smile.
PULL QUOTE: “You just don’t stress about stuff, what’s the point? You don’t even know if you’re going to be here tomorrow.”
SANDI Bonavita is happy just to wake up for another day.
Four bouts of breast cancer and one of lung cancer would change anyone’s perspective.
“You just don’t stress about stuff, what’s the point? You don’t even know if you’re going to be here tomorrow,” the 61-year-old said.
“You just take today. I get up in the morning and I say ‘okay, what’s on for today, let’s get going’.
“I’ve got today. I know I’ve got today, I’ve got right now. What can I give back right now?
“Then tomorrow, if it comes, then I’ll worry about it. And if it doesn’t? Then I don’t have to worry about it.”
The devout Christian from Narre Warren South has beaten lung cancer once and fought breast cancer four times, the latter returning with a vengeance in July last year.
At the end of next month Sandi will participate for the first time in Melbourne’s Weekend to End Women’s Cancers – a 60 kilometre-walk completed over two days, with all money raised going towards the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre for breast cancer research.
Sandi was first diagnosed with cancer in her right breast in May 1997, when she was 44. It spread to her lymph system and after a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation treatment, Sandi won that first battle and was announced cancer-free in January of the next year.
This first bout almost went un-diagnosed but for the fortuitous decision of Sandi’s GP.
“When they found a lump in my breast the very first time in Australia they took two core biopsies. And the results were negative,” she said.
“Overseas they take six. The only reason we found out I had cancer was that my doctor was very unhappy.
“In America they take six biopsies because two misses it too many times.
“Two actually missed it here and it had already spread to my lymph system. So that was a really bad one, that cancer. I had to go through chemo, radiation and everything.
“Had they not done that, had I just left that lump there, I would have been dead probably within the year.”
It wasn’t until three day before Christmas, in 2005, that Sandi was diagnosed with another aggressive cancer in the same breast but more treatment saw it eradicated by May 2006.
More than half a decade soon passed without any cancer returning and Sandi was considered a “survivor”.
That was before doctors discovered it again in her left breast in February 2012, and soon also diagnosed her with lung cancer.
After surgical complications due to the proximity of the breast cancer to her nerve tissue, it wasn’t until May 2013, after several operations, that Sandi was once again diagnosed cancer-free.
She was given more time to reflect on her life.
The Canadian-born grandmother spent her childhood growing up in Detroit, within the American state of Michigan.
It wasn’t until 1984 that Sandi met her Maltese husband, Martin, who was travelling through America at the time.
The pair married in 1985 and spent years working overseas throughout the world before moving to Australia in the early ’90s where they settled down.
Martin, whose Dandenong-based business Laser 3D has grown immeasurably over the years, has made sure he’s attended every one of Sandi’s doctor’s appointments.
“He’s been a rock. I don’t know how women who have a husband that has to work and have little kids do this,” Sandi said.
“Because it just consumes your life with doctor’s appointments and treatment and being so unwell. And everything you have to go through when you’re going through treatment.
“He’s never missed an appointment with me, no matter what it’s been for.”
Sandi, who now attends Faith Christian Church in Dandenong with Martin, used to be a family counsellor for the local ministry before her health required her to step back.
Though she said she still takes care of anyone who finds their way to her.
“I still do it occasionally. Not officially, but I have friends and the church send people to me that need ministry or just need to be counselled,” she said.
“Whenever God sends somebody to me, I take it.”
Sandi then gestured at the leather lounge she was seated in.
“There’s been many counselling sessions in these two chairs,” she laughed.
Martin has spent the past 17 years by his wife’s side as she has fought cancer on and off and his faith and love remains never-ending.
“It’s very tough. Different people react in different ways.
“One always tends to look at the worst case scenario and you’re always making plans for worst case scenarios,” he said.
“We planned funerals and everything because, you never know, especially in the early stages, what the results are going to be.
“It gives you a different outlook on life.”
On 14 July this year, cancer was discovered again in Sandi’s left breast – two tumours under her left arm, each inoperable.
“It’s entwined in all the nerves so they won’t operate on it,” Sandi said.
“This week I’ll go and I’ll start on some oral chemo treatment. Whether it works or not, we don’t know.
“What it will do is extend my life, I’m pretty sure of that.”
But Sandi’s life, one shadowed by the dark spectre of cancer for almost two decades, will never be dominated by the illness.
“You don’t survive cancer if it doesn’t go away. Eventually it’ll kill you. Both of us know this all the time, so you just take it one day at a time,” Sandi said, referring to Martin.
“And without faith, I honestly don’t know how people get through it, because there’s no fear of dying, for either one of us.
“One day we’re going to be together again anyway.”
Sandi, whose cancer walk group has already raised roughly $18,000 for Peter MacCallum, is looking towards next month’s event with open hope and elation.
“It’s more to give back, just to give something back,” she said.
“I find it really exciting to be a part of it because everyone’s been really nice.
“They’re so kind and some of the stories involved in what these women have gone through, that are doing this walk, are just absolutely incredible.
“It’s the most horrible thing in the world, to hear your doctor tell you you’ve got cancer, because you immediately go to the grave. You immediately put yourself in the grave. That’s where you go.
“And when you talk to girls and ladies that have just been diagnosed with breast cancer, you’re able to say ‘I bet you just put yourself in the grave’.”
“And that’s the greatest thing for them to hear.”
For more information and to donate to the Weekend to End Women’s Cancer walk, visit www.endcancer.org.au, and use Sandi’s participant number – 121226-2.
