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Daffodil Day: New Echuca cancer centre could make a hard situation easier
Echuca’s Amanda Mitchell knows far too well how the inside of an oncology unit can affect a cancer patient - having battled breast, bowel and now stage four lung cancer herself.
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On top of the work of the “amazing girls” at Echuca Regional Health, Amanda said the new Cancer and Wellness Centre would make a hard situation a bit easier.
After facing breast cancer in 2007, Amanda wondered if it would ever come back.
Last year, that concern became a reality.
Feeling unwell and not herself, she went to the doctor. Four months later she was diagnosed with bowel cancer, which is now stable.
The lung cancer was then discovered after Amanda presented to Echuca’s emergency department coughing up blood.
“They thought they might be able to take some of the lung, but they couldn’t because it had metastasised, so they put me on an aggressive dose of chemotherapy and immunotherapy,” Amanda said.
“They pulled it back a bit and that’s what I’m on now.
“It’s come along in leaps and bounds and the tumour and lymph nodes have shrunk.”
Amanda will be on immunotherapy for two-and-a-half years and receives her treatment every three weeks at Echuca Regional Health.
“When I had breast cancer, the treatment was all in Bendigo so it was a lot of travel,” she said.
“It was tiring, and this time they started me off in Bendigo and I asked could I come back here.
“It’s just great to be able to get it done at home.
“Before they built the new hospital, Bendigo was archaic.
“When you went in for treatment it was just really depressing and sad. I hated it.
“Echuca’s a little bit like that but those [nurses]; they just pick your day up. They’re the best. I can’t speak highly enough of them – they make a bad day good.”
Amanda said the side effects from the first four rounds of treatment were so horrible she thought she might not be able to continue receiving it.
“I’d never experienced that with the breast cancer; I just felt so unwell,” she said.
“They’ve taken the dosage back so I can usually tell what’s going to happen every time. It runs the same sort of course, but I do take steroids in that first four days and they knock me about.
“With the immunotherapy, I think if you tolerate that you’re going to do well but if you don’t it’s hard to find something that’s going to work as well.
“The immunotherapy will give me more time. It won’t stop what’s going to happen, but it will give me more time and better quality,” Amanda said.
Reflecting on her journey with cancer, Amanda said there was no reason or rhyme to it.
“It is what it is, there’s nothing you can do. I don’t know why it happened to me, it just did,” she said.
“We have so much in our family, it’s unbelievable. After the breast cancer I always wondered if it would come back, and it did.”
She encouraged everyone who receives the at-home bowel screening kit to make sure they get it done.
“If people can do that when they send them out – I didn’t and I probably could’ve found out a lot earlier than I did,” Amanda said.
“I’m the worst to want to do things like that. Just put it in the cupboard and don’t worry about it. Well, don’t do that.”
The new Echuca Regional Health Cancer and Wellness Centre will move cancer and dialysis treatment out of an outdated part of the hospital, providing a purpose-built facility to deliver holistic care to patients.
ERH is raising $1.3 million to bring its vision to a reality.
“We have a beautiful hospital and it’d be lovely to have something nice for people who are going for cancer treatment and dialysis; all those things that are hard to do,” Amanda said.
“I hope that people do donate and contribute to it.
“It will be lovely to see it be built. Hopefully I’ll have finished my treatment by then but I will go up and have a look.”
To donate to the Cancer and Wellness Centre, visit or, to host a fundraising event, contact fundraising co-ordinator Shari Butcher on (03) 5485 5087 or email cancerandwellness@erh.org.auerh.org.au/cancerandwellness
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