Kashi – a life of blessings

Kashi Padayachi used some of her Sweet Louise vouchers to have her windows cleaned. The sunlight was streaming through at the back of her warm and comfortable Onehunga home and she said the clean windows had made such a difference and really given her a lift. “I feel so fortunate to be living in New Zealand where there is such a high standard of public health care and services like Sweet Louise and Hospice (Kashi’s Hospice nurse is her ‘angel’).”

Kashi feels blessed by wonderful supportive friends and family and a strong Christian faith that has helped comfort and support her after a diagnosis of breast cancer. An hour or so in her company reveals an irrepressible sense of humour and fun, a warmth, kindness and generosity of spirit and the extraordinary courage of a woman determined to live as best she can in the time she has left.

“Any faith you follow you must do so with your heart and soul. When I get up, I take little fairy steps and I say ‘thank you for another day’. I have so many blessings in my life – I see them and I count them.”

The Christian faith came to Kashi after her diagnosis. Raised in the Hindu religion, yet feeling as if her gods had abandoned her, Kashi returned home to Fiji with her children to tell family of her illness. Kashi’s sister took her to pray with a local Hindu priest and it was there, to her surprise and comfort, she found Jesus. “I had so much anxiety before that. The Christian pastors have told me how to pray and the anxiety is much less. If it starts up, I pray and become very peaceful.

“I’m at the end now. Used to be I could get out of bed, have my shower, put on my face but yesterday I could barely get out of bed. I am so very tired. But you know, I still don’t do what I’m told. I do what I want and know what I am capable of.”

Kashi was diagnosed with breast cancer on June 16 2001. She had noticed some hard tissue in both breasts but thought this was due to an earlier procedure for a benign condition. One day she was bathing her dog Tyson and slipped and fell. The ensuing pain in her back and spine was unbearable. She was very healthy, had always eaten well and taken good care of herself and her family so the extraordinary pain was depressing and debilitating. She tried physiotherapy, acupuncture and visited a chiropractor but nothing helped. Kashi worked at Auckland Hospital so made an appointment with a doctor there.

The doctor sent her for an x ray at the Hospital. Afterwards she went home, took time off work, in so much pain she could not get out of bed to answer the phone when the doctor called with her results. A work colleague finally managed to contact her at home and said she should call the doctor right away.

“Not for one moment did I think it was cancer. I thought it was a fracture so when I saw the doctor and she said ‘please sit down’ I replied, ‘no it can’t be that bad’ and she said, ‘sit down, we need to talk’ . I said to her, ‘I am strong – tell me.’ She told me I had breast cancer but it had already spread, metastasised – everywhere! Pelvic bone, spine, knees, and sacrum – all full. ‘You may have only 6 or 7 months left,’ she said and I replied, ‘That’s all right.’ I just couldn’t comprehend how serious things were. She said, ‘You need to deal with this!’ and I said ‘How do I deal with this? How do I tell my kids?’”

Kashi’s twin sons were 17 at the time. She had often worked 7 days a week to support her children. When she told them, one son asked if he could pray for her and she readily accepted. The other said, ‘You’re not going to die! I can see you 20 years from now with your hands on your hips saying, ‘I’m a dying woman! How can you not do this for me!’’ Kashi has adopted this phrase and uses it often: “I’m a dying woman! How can you not eat this biscuit and have another cup of tea?”

Kashi took two months off after her diagnosis and then returned to work for a while. She chose not to have chemotherapy but opted for radiation which worked well for her, reducing the pain for some time. However, the pain gradually became too severe and Kashi began the first of several courses of chemotherapy.

When she was still able to go out in the car, Kashi would use the handicapped parking areas as she could not walk far. On occasion she would be challenged by members of the public for doing so, distressing encounters that she feels other younger women may also have experienced. “Because I looked so well for much of the time, people would think I was not entitled to be there so they would tell me so. I would be so upset that I could not reply so I started taking a pad of paper and I’d write a note, leave it on the windscreen of their car under the wiper. I’d say to them, ‘We may look young, and make a real effort to look good in public, but we’re suffering inside. I pray to the Lord that you or your loved ones never know what bone cancer is like, how painful it is.’ I say to them that cancer does not discriminate. After one such incident, I threatened to take my wig off in public but my son said, ‘Oh no Mummy, don’t do that!’”

Eight years after diagnosis, Kashi has taken all chemotherapy options available to her and relies on medicines to manage the pain which she says is not too bad at the moment. Tumours were found in her head three years ago and she experiences pain in her head and teeth and some nausea from Aredia treatments (to strengthen bones affected by cancer).

“I want to go peacefully,” said Kashi. “I am not afraid to talk about death, not at all. ‘Shut up and listen!’ I will say. ‘We need to talk about this!’ I have never spent much time wondering why I got cancer. My mother’s strength comes out in me. She would say ‘every breath takes you closer to death so come to terms with it’ – death is a certainty, just like taxes! Make your peace with it and I have.”

Kashi has made plans for her funeral. It is to be private and she will have her sons contact those who have loved and supported her over these years so they may attend. She is worried that her sons will be lost after she is gone. There will be no family in New Zealand to support them.

She regrets not having more children and also that she could not take her boys to Disneyland for a holiday. “I’d like for them to go and shout out ‘Hi Mum, we’re here!’

“If I get down, I think about the little things, my blessings. I can’t always make plans and I feel bad if I have to cancel on the day. I pray to God that friends will call and cancel me so that I don’t have to disappoint them – I don’t want to break their hearts! The only thing God doesn’t do for me is help me win the Lotto – everything else He does for me.”