Claire Groot didn’t think her battle with cancer could get any worse.
That was until her husband Aaron was diagnosed with late-stage melanoma and was put into treatment while she was still dealing with her own melanoma.
The devastating double diagnosis leaves the parents clinging to the hope that they will beat the insidious disease so they can watch their daughters, Evelyn, 7, and Natalie, 5, grow up.
The family’s horrific cancer journey began in 2019, shortly after their second daughter was born.
Claire, now 40, was breastfeeding when she felt a lump and, being super health conscious, went straight to the doctors where her worst fears were confirmed.
Claire Groot has been fighting cancer for five years, now her husband Aaron is confronted with the disease
Aaron was always Claire’s pillar of support – both when the cancer was diagnosed and every time the cancer came back
“Natalie got fussy on that side, so I switched her, which means that side went really flat,” she explained.
‘That made it super easy to feel, it was a little hard lump. At first I thought it could be mastitis, but Aaron, now 41, thought I should get it checked just in case.’
By the end of that week, the doctor had called to say Claire had triple positive breast cancer.
‘I was floored because I had always done the right thing. “Eating well, exercising, breastfeeding, avoiding underwire bras, all things you should do,” she said.
The mother discovered a lump in her breast when her second daughter was nursing, having rejected the affected breast
Now the couple is tasked with beating the disease so they can be there for their daughters Evelyn, 7, and Natalie, 5.
The devastating diagnosis would be made twice more, the first time twelve months after treatment. The second, ten months after treatment for the second.
‘I’m currently taking medication to keep it at bay. Technically they can’t get rid of it, but there’s only so much these drugs can do and they could stop working. Then we just try the next one and the next one until we run out of options,” she said.
The mother has come to terms with her endless medical appointments and treatment fatigue and has figured out how to manage her household and care for the children while she works through her treatment.
But nothing could prepare the young family for what would happen in July 2023.
Aaron’s diagnosis.
Claire refuses to see defeat as an option and wants to go abroad to achieve cancer-free status – something doctors in Australia have ruled out
The loving father had been the mainstay of his wife’s battle with cancer, picking up the slack at home and with their children.
Claire couldn’t believe it: in one cruel twist of fate, her support person was ripped away and their roles reversed. She now had to help him through his grueling treatment, while continuing her own treatment.
‘The roles have been reversed. I feel like my support has been taken away and I have been put in the role of caregiver,” she said, admitting she had her down moments.
‘For a few moments I was irritated or angry. I didn’t think I was ready to be a caregiver yet; I’m still sick.’
Aaron, pictured, has undergone a few surgeries to get rid of melanoma, which started as a suspicious mole on his face
Aaron’s diagnosis came months after he first went to a skin clinic to examine a growth on his face.
They kept sending him home.
His mother, who had melanoma, kept telling him she didn’t like it, but because he had been to the clinic again and again, he didn’t know what else he could do about it.
Ultimately the father decided to have it cut off, merely a ‘vain’ procedure as it kept getting stuck during shaving.
The young father was told that the birthmark was benign. He did not trust that opinion and returned to his clinic three times to be sent home
‘They kept telling him it was a benign mole and there was nothing to worry about. He had been so proactive – even when we moved from Victoria to Queensland – to have his birthmark card sent to the clinic,” Claire said.
Days later the family received the news.
Further testing revealed that the cancer had already spread, making his prognosis much worse and the treatment a lot more brutal.
“I think people should trust their gut — because if they had cut it off six or eight months earlier when he asked, it probably would have been the end,” she said.
Instead, eight months later the father is recovering at Chris Obrien Lifehouse in Sydney.
“He had quite an invasive operation, I walked up to him and it was very confronting,” Claire said.
Aaron, who once prided himself on his fitness, lay in the hospital bed with the muscles missing from the top of his leg.
Claire, pictured here during treatment, wants people to trust themselves and seek the opinions of different doctors if they don’t like the one they’ve been given
The meat had been used to repair his face and throat after doctors cut out as much of the cancer as they could find.
The surgery followed rounds of invasive treatments aimed at killing the stage 3b disease.
“Aaron will need a lot of care,” she said.
The parents have given the family permission to share their story Go finance me and through social media – as neither has the ability to fully support their family financially.
At the time of writing, over $88,000 had been raised, giving Claire hope for a miracle.
The mother added that she hopes to go abroad to get rid of her cancer for good.
“I can’t beat this, I can’t even think about what would happen if I didn’t – it’s just not an option,” she said.
‘I still take care of myself and see my treatment as my top priority.’
Claire shares her story in the hope that other people will “get a second or third opinion.”
“Don’t just go back to the same doctor, trust your gut,” she said.
Claire is fortunate to be ‘symptom free’ at this stage of her cancer journey, but now that the cancer has reached her spine, she realizes this could change at any time.
The couple’s children are not very aware of their mother’s treatments; they just know that she goes to the doctor sometimes and consider the port in her chest “normal.”
But they’ve noticed their usually active father slowing down and asking questions, breaking Claire’s heart.
The couple were high school sweethearts and Claire says their love has remained strong for 20 years, helping them cope with their cancer.