After the second chemotherapy session she wanted to crawl into a corner and die. As on previous nights WENDY SWANEPOEL (right) took her pillow and duvet to the bathroom. When she wasn’t bending over the toilet she would lie down and sleep in the bathroom.
And when she felt despair she would phone her younger sister, NORMA CRAMPTON.
A few blocks away in Nelspruit Norma was as sick and familiar with the desperation in her sister’s voice. They were diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer three weeks apart.
Cancer also claimed the lives of their father 12 years ago and their brother more recently.
That night Wendy (50), an accountant, kept thinking about her chances of surviving the next five years. It seemed her average chance was 70 per cent and Norma’s 30 per cent. Everything looked so bleak.
Then Norma (48) brought her back to reality. “Tell me, Sis, are you average?” she asked.
“I decided to show everyone I wasn’t average. I would live,” Wendy says today, two years after that turning point in her life.”
“We made a pact and vowed to fight for life,” Norma says.
And the sisters have kept their promise.
They drew up their own “bucket lists” (based on the film The Bucket List in which two dying men make a list of their dreams and pursue them) which has become their reason for getting up in the morning.
Norma, a fitness fanatic who boasts 11 Comrades marathon runs, was diagnosed first.
Wendy, also a runner, wrote a moving letter to Radio Jacaranda and since Breast Cancer Month last year the radio station has helped fulfil Norma’s wishes.
She wanted to swim with dolphins, go deep-sea fishing, do a game drive and sleep in a tent. And she wanted to run again.
The sisters have done most of that, the highlight so far being an elephant ride in Mpumalanga.
“I was a new person when I got off those elephants and ready to take on life again,” Wendy says.
Some days they’re still gripped by fear. “Then we just go for another elephant ride,” she adds.
Next year Norma wants to run her 12th Comrades. And Wendy still wants to board a plane as a flight attendant one day. “Even if only to ask, ‘Chicken or beef?’ ” she jokes.
“Healthy or sick, we should all have a dream list.”
