Bob Hawke’s widow opens up about "sheer hell" after his death
Blanche d’Alpuget, a writer and widow of former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, has opened up about the “sheer hell” of breast cancer treatment, saying she almost skipped it at first.
Sitting down with A Current Affair’s Tracy Grimshaw, Blanche spoke candidly about the grief following Mr Hawke’s death in May last year.
“I had eight weeks of chemotherapy which was sheer hell,” she said. ”Then I had to have four weeks recovery to get over that, the operation. I had the operation and now I’m having immotherapy so that’s a bit more poison.”
The treatment left her feeling “very tired” and “dopey”, and due to the coronavirus pandemic, she wasn’t able to take public transport or sit in taxis.
Blanche discovered a giant lump in her breast one day while changing her clothes, saying it “was like a mushroom had come up overnight”.
“I had one mammogram and it hurt, I‘ve never had another one … it was quite a surprise and serves me right, really,” she said.
She has been told that her stage two breast cancer was hormone sensitive and she questions if it has to due with her taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after Mr Hawke’s death.
When she was diagnosed, Blanche revealed she was in “shock and disbelief” and almost considered not going through with the treatment.
But she changed her mind after thinking about her son, Louis Pratt.
“Well, it was really thinking about my son and how horrendous it would be if it had gone through first lung cancer, then brain cancer, and that’s what spooked me – the thought of that,” Ms d’Alpuget said.