Beyond Courage

By Chris Lancashire

Andrew James Lancashire (14.8.1986 - 23.11.2008)

A beautiful young mans life cut short due to Chondroblastic Osteosarcoma (bone cancer). The silent killer. The impact of this journey had changed completely Andrews world and all that he loved.

Through this tragic time Andrew had shown us his extreme courage and fortitude. Andrew showed us how to live life to the full with the little time he knew he had left. He was our greatest teacher, our inspiration, our hero, our son.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483699790

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Chris Lancashire.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4836-9978-3

                Ebook          978-1-4836-9979-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 10/09/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-800-455-039

www.xlibris.com.au

[e-mail]

501347

Table of Contents

Dedication

With Gratitude

Introduction

Chapter 1   Beyond Courage

Prologue

How The Book Was Born

Thank You Letter

Chapter 2   The Events That Changed Andrew’s Life

Background

The Diagnosis

Chemotherapy

Sleep

Contact With The Outside World

Limb Salvage Surgery (Left Femur Reconstructive Surgery)

Making Up For Lost Time

160 DAYS

Andrew’s Take On Life Before Cancer

Chapter 3   Life And Death Decision

The Major Decision That Andrew Had To Make In His Life

Pre-Hemipelvectomy (Amputation) Chemotherapy

Day of Amputation Surgery

Post-Amputation Journey

The Journey On

Follow Up

Another Nightmare

Andrew’s Take On Life With Cancer

Chapter 4   22nd Birthday Surprise

Chapter 5   Memorable Malaysian Trip

My Prosthetic Leg

Chapter 6   Mortality Challenged

The Cancer Had Spread

Clinical Drug Trial

Living With Dying Sooner Than Later

Chapter 7   Who Was Andrew Or Dru?

Reflections:

Andrew’s Character

Andrew’s Favourite Things And Hobbies

Music

Fondest Memories

Cherished Times

Chapter 8   Transformation Journey

Chapter 9   Andrew’s Grand Finale

The Day Andrew Left The Physical World

Buddhist Ceremony For Andrew The Night Before

Final Farewell to Andrew

Chapter 10   Andrew’s Spirit Lives On.

Author’s Notes

Acknowledgements

Chapter 11   ‘The Forgotten Cancer Project’

Data Chart from AIHW

References:

Websites and Links:

Untitled-1.jpg

Artwork by

Andrew James Lancashire

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my beautiful son, Andrew James Lancashire. From the tragedy of his battle with bone cancer, Chondroblastic Osteosarcoma and with his tremendous courage to the end, he left us this legacy, Beyond Courage. Without his personal journey and story, there would not have been this book.

This tragedy had brought home to us and what Andrew had shown, the potential of our human courage. From this legacy he had shown us a gift of living to our full human potential not only in good health, but also during the challenges of our health in sickness.

Living in the moment and having love, fun, humour in his life and not taking life too seriously. Andrew saw life’s beauty by painting its blank canvas with putting his creativity and artistic talent into his life. He gave life its full meaning and lived it with depth, greatness, vibrancy, happiness, integrity and pure courage.

Not only was Andrew my son, he was also a student and a teacher on this earthly school. He was also a truth seeker, seeing the external world with all he was blessed with and his internal world of his personal growth of knowing his true self.

With Gratitude

Bone and Soft Tissues Services of Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and St.Vincent Hospital, Melbourne, Australia in particular; Associate Professor David Thomas, Mr. Gerard Powell, Professor Choong, Dr Ben Soloman, Dr. Michael Franco, Dr.Sumi, Dr. Tay. Kate Thompson of On-Trac @Peter Mac, Melbourne and Kerrie from Social Work Department.

The doctors, nurses, pastoral care, allied health services and the staff of Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and St.Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne who had played a very important role in Andrew’s journey while on their wards and in their care. The nurses who were not just performing their roles, but went beyond that where it truly made a undeniable difference to Andrew especially Paula, James, Narelle, Scott, Andy, Rachel and many others who had made an impact in the care of Andrew and his family.

The Royal District Nursing Services.

Peter Mac at Home Services.

The Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, Australia, especially the Emergency Department.

Dr. Suzy Matthews, Dr. Cathy Renzahoe and Dr. P. H. Lee of Grimshaw Clinic, Bundoora, Australia.

Pastor Frank Gere and his congregation, Frankston, Australia.

Ambulance Victoria especially the 2 teams, MICA (Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance and the 2 police officers who attended to Andrew at our home on the 23rd November 2008.

Gee Multimedia, Melbourne and the staff during Andrew’s time, in particular Dianne H, Ben, Shannon, Lisa, Chin, Kirill, Eric, Ry, Brian, Adam.

The staff of Multimedia and Design Faculty of Swinburne University, Prahran in Melbourne, Australia in particular Bill Trikojus, Associate Professor Stephen Huxley and Professor Friedman.

Andrew’s friends at Swinburne University, in Multimedia and Design Faculty, Prahran, Melbourne, Australia, especially the class of Designers in Andrew, Josh, Dean, Ryan, Richard M, Jesse, Soph, Pete S, Lauren, Alvin S, Mike B, Roger, Jrome, Mark B.

Ana Tuckerman, Multimedia teacher, Mellissa Lee and Andrew Hyde, Music teachers at Eltham College, Research. Victoria.

The Staff and Management of Pacific Brands Company in Kew, in particular Laurie Inverson.

The Northern Hospital, Epping, Australia. The staff of Maternity and Womens’ Health, in particular Dr. C.M. Leong, and Dr S. Sfameni. The Finance Department in particular Sam Costanzo and his team.

All of Andrew’s closest and dearest friends and their families (too many to mention here, but you know who you are to Andrew, in particular Dan, Tim, Sam, Harry, David T, Alana, Elizabeth, Brooke, Rhiannon, Kitty, Scott, Jacob, Amy, Red, Brendan, Jimmy, Michael S, David L, Leah, Neil, Katherine F, Lauren, Peter S, Sarah L, Thuy P, Kitty P, Laura B, Tiffani, Rubin, Richard. All the friends of Andrew and Audrey and their extended group of friends. Who meant a lot to Andrew throughout his cancer journey.

Mrs. Marilyn Fordred, Margaret Eames and Flora Torcascio of Glen Katherine Primary School, Eltham, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Eltham College Community, Research, Victoria, Australia.

Audrey and her amazing family and extended families in Victoria, Australia. The incredible love, kindness and standing by Andrew all the way and supporting him and his family.

Andrew’s extended families in Malaysia, Singapore, United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, in particular Uncle Ken who is his ‘gadget buddy’, and Andrew’s cousin, artist Katie who remained Andrew’s artist’s contact in the Muju world, sharing their artistic commonalities in music and creative arts from United Kingdom. Words are not enough for the gentle love, kindness shown, from Andrew’s grandmother, aunties, uncles, cousins, Andrew’s closest and dearest friends throughout Andrew’s journey.

Abbott Boon Soom of the WatThai Nakorn Temple in Elgar Road, Box Hill, Victoria, Australia.

The 2 Sanghas of the True Buddha School, Melbourne, Australia in particular Grandmaster Lu, Master Samantha Chou, Master Lian Chao, Abbott Lama Lian Tong, Ross, Winson and his family, David, Tin and Kevin.

Germaine Chan at [e-mail]., for creating the lovely website of Andrew James Lancashire Memorial Fund.

Hector Ooi for assisting in creating this Book Cover, and all your kindness and patience in technical support.

CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sports Limited), who through Rhiannon made it possible for Andrew to be registered and obtained his license as a driver/competitor, in this new sport.

Mick from Historic Rally Association in Melbourne, for making it possible for Andrew even though he did not have the chance to get to that rally as Andrew passed away 2 weeks before his rally event as co driver.

Sandie Baskin of The Lord Major Charitable Foundation, Melbourne, Australia.

Ian Gawler Foundation.

To the countless compassionate, beautiful and good-hearted people who supported Andrew and his families and friends throughout his cancer journey, directly or indirectly.

To our wonderful Tan, Lea, Penny, Jean, Yeoh and Lau families, friends from England where our children had grown up together and had remained in support throughout this journey of Andrew and us.

To the beautiful and amazing group of ‘Warburton friends’ where Dharma and Dana were special to me, in my own personal healing journey.

The wonderful team at Xlibris Publishers in particular Annie Maynard, Joy Daniels, Cherry Mendoza, Scott Perry from conception stage to this published book for your care, patience, sensitivity, understanding and encouragement.

Finally, a gargantuan thank you to my husband Jim Lancashire. Andrew’s dad, my rock, for standing with me, by me along the toughest journey of our lives. With your silent strength of care, unconditional love and all that Andrew was so immensely proud of to have the best dad and a best friend. Thank you for sharing with me the beautiful memories and the sad ones of Andrew’s life journey.

Introduction

This book is written in honour of my beautiful son, Andrew. Acknowledging the journey he had taken, the toughest challenge of his life and he had come up a champion and a hero in our eyes, his parents. He had also become an inspiration to many who knew him, others who knew him well, and many who heard about him, and those who loved him, like his families overseas, his grandmother, uncles, aunties and cousins and friends.

There is no written manual guide or instructions specific for Andrew or us, to teach us how to deal with this tragedy. A tragedy far from our imagination, let alone happened to this young man. Apart from being slightly asthmatic when he was a baby, Andrew had been a very healthy young adolescent. Andrew did not smoke, drank occasionally socially when he came of age and preferred not to take any medications for even a headache. Rarely visited our general practitioner and not admitted as a patient in hospital for any length of time until this tragedy struck.

Suddenly this young man’s life was turned upside down. Everything changed. His dreams and aspirations were put on hold. How did Andrew feel? His resilience, stoicism, his pure courage spoke for itself. However how Andrew really felt could only be expressed from a similar standpoint from a writing of an inspirational testimonial of someone living with cancer. Not only had Andrew expressed how he felt, he took us on this cancer journey, taught and showed us what any parents would feel in this worst nightmare. This book revealed all aspects of an altered life of what he went through in his cancer journey. Excruciating, hurting pain deep within our hearts and spirits to see what he was going through. He should be out there in the world enjoying his youthful time, seeing and living life. Instead his life was spent nearly 7 months in hospital and many months of outpatients appointments throughout the 15 months of this tragedy. A prisoner of this invisible life threatening, gripping enemy called chondroblastic osteosarcoma. Andrew had neoadjuvant treatments, undergone major reconstructive surgeries to control the bone cancer spreading and potentially save his life. The experienced, amazing and professional treating experts in their relevant fields of expertise did their best and gave Andrew the best treatments available also travelled this very difficult and toughest journey with him till he passed away.

Did we see hurdles ahead of him? No, because Andrew was very resilient. However the world could be a tough playground for anyone that was ignorant or naïve about people’s disabilities. There would be many that would see the person, but there would also be some that would see the disabilities, not his abilities and talents. Nevertheless, I knew the inner strength and integrity that Andrew had. He would take on this new challenge, a hiccup that life had given him because he was very grounded and true to himself. That was his infinite courage.

We could see a bright future ahead for Andrew because there was a purpose in his destiny that this had happened. We believed in the universal power above stronger than any human could envisage and we trusted Andrew’s life would be fruitful, meaningful and rich. Although Andrew grew up open minded leaning towards atheism, life was revealing to him the magnificence of the greatest power of all, himself, and surely guided by the highest universal forces from above. His quest of religious and spiritual inquiry started to become more like an adventure of discovery, became profound when he discovered he had cancer.

Living and actively participating in his life to the fullest, inspite of his personal tragedy he was determined in maintaining his total independence, not confined or defined by his illness. Nevertheless Andrew knew he was on borrowed time which ultimately became very precious. In his own silent way he had already farewelled everyone from the trip to Malaysia to the last 4 weeks of his earthly journey. You could say that he had a part to play from the place where he wanted to leave this earthly school to the final farewell for him. He loved everything to be just right for what was important to him, a perfectionist and a creative artist.

Chapter 1

Beyond Courage

(The Strength Of The Human Spirit)

The Journey of Andrew James Lancashire

Prologue

This is the journey of an extraordinary young man whose zest for living had been turned into a tragedy beyond comprehension. On 11th August 2007, 3 days before his 21st birthday, Andrew’s life abruptly changed from one of the brightest future of an incredible multimedia designer and a creative artist to one of fragility. It was a telephone call from one of Andrew’s closest friend, to his dad telling him that Andrew was in the emergency department at The Austin hospital, Heidelberg and that Andrew had fractured his left femur. It was the beginning of a nightmare which we did not think we would wake up from. His treatments meant he was hospitalised and transferred between 3 hospitals to get the appropriate care. In the course of these 15 months of his gruelling journey, Andrew had been diagnosed with Chondroblastic Osteosarcoma Stage 3, following the fracture of his left femur. He had the initial 12 weeks of intensive chemotherapy at Peter MacCallum Hospital, one of the worlds’ renowned cancer institute in Melbourne, Australia. Throughout these 12 weeks Andrew was bedridden with his fractured left leg in traction. Andrew was then transferred to St. Vincent’s hospital, one of the most renowned centres in musculo skeletal specialty for his limb sparing operation on the 27th November 2007. Andrew had a total left femur replacement done. Inspite of recurrent wounds infections from his portacath site, wound site, pulmonary embolism (clots in his lungs), anaemia, neutropenia (low white blood count), 3 plastic surgery operations to debride his operation wound sites on his left leg, and muscle flap graft taken from his right back muscle (lattismus dorsis), Andrew quietly, stoically pushed himself with amazing inner strength to recover well to come home. His ultimate focus and goal was to be able to attend his girlfriend Audrey’s 21st birthday in January 2008. He continuously pushed himself, working together with the physiotherapy team, pain management team, doctors and nursing staff caring for him. His post recovery periods were one of the toughest and gruelling challenge yet. To understand and feel pain, adapting to what a manageable pain was like, was a complete learning curve for Andrew. His determination following his major limb sparing operation meant he had to learn how to walk again with this mega titanium prosthetic femur, which now formed his left thigh bone of his left leg. It was heavier than what he was used to of his own leg. The next level of challenge was rehabilitation 9 days post operation. These became milestones for each days’ challenge that Andrew took. Pain management was the biggest issue in that adjustment of his pain relief was so complex. There had to be a balance of adequate pain relief medications to give Andrew good relief from his pains to carry on his post operation rehabilitation period.

After 160 days of life between the 3 hospitals, Andrew could see light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, he came home and life had just been great. He attended Audreys’ 21st birthday and made an emotional speech to Audrey thanking her for the unconditional love and support throughout his very difficult time. Adding on to this wonderful day, Audrey’s dad had surprised Andrew with a birthday cake for his belated 21st Birthday. Andrew was so taken back by this overwhelming gesture and love. He was so touched by the sheer love and kindness of Audrey, her families and everyone there. It was a double celebration never to be forgotten.

Life had been so full on since Andrew came out of hospital. He attended several birthdays and 21st birthday parties as these were all Andrew’s friends and of the same age groups. Andrew had his bedroom refitted and repainted to his choice of colour scheme because as a creative designer he saw this opportunity as timely for a new and fresh colour to the start of his second chance of this new life.

It had only been just 3 weeks out of hospital life and Andrew continued receiving weekly hospital nursing visit at home. He was so delighted he was able to feel normal.

However, the cancer clock had already started from the day Andrew broke his femur. There was no way any of us would know of what was going to happen from then on. Life sure had dealt the toughest card and challenge for Andrew. On the 6th February 2008 was Andrew’s orthopaedic and oncology outpatients clinic appointments. His oncologist and surgeon informed Andrew that the PET scan, MRI and CT scans had shown that the same cancer had returned and there were 3 ‘hotspots’ on his left hamstrings muscles near to the prosthetic femur. How could this young man’s life been hit again with this tragic news of the rapid growth of these aggressive tumours in just 10 weeks? Utterly devastating and distressing, the news was one of disbelief. With this shattering information given to Andrew by his oncologist and surgeon, there seemed to be only one option. The option was to live. Andrew knew that making the decision to have this operation of hindquarter amputation (half of his left pelvis and his left leg) followed by post surgery chemotherapy, he would be given a fighting chance to live. He chose to live inspite of the tragedy of been hit twice with this aggressive bone cancer in a matter of 10 weeks! The decision to have this life saving operation had to be made by Andrew alone. Unimaginable and what a heart breaking decision Andrew had to make to have half of his left pelvis and his left leg amputated at 21years old. As parents our hearts were broken to see Andrew going through these sufferings in the prime of his young life.

Andrew was admitted to have 5 days of intensive chemotherapy, at Peter MacCallum Hospital, before operation. Another PET scan was done to check to see that there were no other cancer ‘hot spots’ prior to his second major surgery of his life on the 4th March 2008 at St. Vincent’s Hospital. This major surgery was done in just 3 months 5 days before at St. Vincent’s Hospital after the limb sparing surgery which evidently did not stop the cancer from spreading. By this time Andrew had already endured 5 surgeries with 2 being the major ones. Determined to come home sooner than later after the amputation of his left hip and leg, he was again determined to do so provided that he was able to walk with his right leg. Andrew also needed to be able to manage and control his pains, both wound as well as his ‘phantom’ pains. The first week of pain management was almost an ‘art form’. It was a process of ‘trial and error’ especially of the pain management of Andrew’s ‘phantom pain’. His second week was a week of great determination, courage, inner strength of deep within his spirit, where Andrew’s challenge was to push himself further beyond his own boundaries and expectations. Not knowing what to expect, Andrew expected nothing. In that he could and would only take a day at a time. He had no other choice. He was determined to come home on Good Friday. Even having 3 days at home was a great bonus