A mum is fighting for her life after being diagnosed with cancer caused by pregnancy.
Darlene Lynch, 32, and her partner Nigel Bermingham, 34, welcomed their first child Cillian in December 2021, but had just 10 weeks to enjoy parenthood before Darlene was rushed to hospital with severe haemorrhaging.
At the hospital, Darlene was stunned to learn she had suffered a molar pregnancy - a non-cancerous tumour that develops in the uterus as a result of a non-viable pregnancy.
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Doctors were unsure if this had formed from part of the placenta or if her newborn likely had a twin who had not fully developed.
After initially being informed that the tumour was precancerous, social worker Darlene, who now lives in South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, found out she was actually fighting a rare form of cancer called choriocarcinoma, which affects only one in 160,000 pregnancies.
Darlene, who is originally from Croghan, County Offaly, Ireland, but moved to Australia in 2012, said: “When I was first diagnosed it was hard, but I didn’t have time to think about it.
“I went into the hospital on Monday and by the Friday I had my diagnosis and on Saturday I started my treatment.
“When the oncologist said it was cancer, we were upset, my partner was probably a lot more upset than I was because I was already kind of prepared.
“I think in my head I already thought it was cancer so was thinking of what to do next.
“I was half focused whereas my partner was still processing it and he felt quite helpless in it all, and when you’re looking on and it is a loved one you don’t know what to do.
“They aren’t 100 per cent sure if Cillian was a twin and it laid dormant and didn’t come up until after he was born, or if it was formed from part of the placenta.
“But they weren’t able to do a biopsy to determine this as my body had created four antibodies which means that I couldn’t get any blood transfusions for an operation.
“It is difficult to be a new mum and you do feel like that time has been taken away a little bit, and that can be hard.
“I had intentions of being a part of mothers' groups, and taking him to swimming lessons, and I can’t do that because there’s a high risk of infection.”
The new mum was confronted with the news that cancer had spread to her lungs when first diagnosed in March 2022, however, through gruelling chemotherapy, Darlene received the news that the tumours have now halved in size.
Throughout her hospital visits for treatment, Darlene has encountered nurses who were left puzzled by the rare cancer, with many even having to Google what it was.
She said: “When I was in the ward, I’d speak to the nurses and they were like, ‘we’ve not heard of it before, we’ve not had cases of it before and they’d say, ‘we had to Google it’.
“So sometimes when I’m speaking with some of the nurses, they wouldn’t have come across it before.
“Even some of the doctors would have only had a few cases before, even one doctor only had one case with it before. It’s quite rare.
“It can travel to the brain, the brain is the next place it goes, but I was quite lucky it hadn’t gone to the brain yet.
“And the fear was, these masses have such a tendency to bleed that’s why I had so much bleeding and if it had gone to the brain or if there were bigger masses in the lung, it would be quite dangerous.
“The last time I was in the hospital, I had some issues with my chest they thought I might have had a clot in the lung.
“So, I had to have a CT scan, luckily enough I didn’t have any clotting, but from the scans, they were able to see that the tumours had halved in size.”
Due to the rarity of choriocarcinoma, Darlene has taken to Instagram @my_choriocarcinoma_journey to raise awareness of the condition, sharing her story and providing support to others.
She said: “I think at the beginning I felt it was a really isolating diagnosis because I couldn’t find anything about it.
“Through my Instagram page, I’ve had people from all around the world reach out to me who have had it before and who have gone through and are going through treatment.
“It can help someone else in any kind of way, it’s not just there for me, it’s there to provide accurate information about choriocarcinoma and support services along with my story.
“I’ve been so lucky that I have my little family and Cillian, they’re brilliant and they’ve been fantastic, I’m so lucky.”
