Spotlight on Tania Bertrand

Spotlight on Tania Bertrand:

Live life. Don’t just be alive!

February 2023

Tania Bertrand

It was 2011, I was 42 years old. I had just started kickboxing.

A couple of weeks in I had a pain in my back. I thought I had pulled a muscle. Over the next 2 weeks the pain in my back was getting worse. I went to my family doctor who prescribed painkillers.

I went back to my family doctor about 4 times within 3 weeks and was given different pain meds each visit. My back pain was so excruciating. I was sleeping on the couch because I couldn’t sleep next to my husband, it was that bad.

I finally had enough and went to the emergency department. I was told I had a slipped disc. They gave me a shot of demerol and sent me home.

By now, it was about a month since all of this had started. Just when I thought my pain couldn’t get any worse, it did. It was taking me about 5 hours just to get up off the couch so I started sleeping on our Lazy Boy chair. I knew this had to be something other than a slipped disc, so back I went to the emergency department.

Again I waited for about 6 hours. This time I was told it was kidney stones, got a demerol shot and was sent home. A few days after that hospital visit, I couldn’t keep any food down and couldn’t even move because of my excruciating back pain. Within 3 days I lost 15 lbs, and I was only 120 lbs to begin with! I couldn’t even keep water down. My husband was at work so I called 911. The ambulance came and the paramedics said there was no point in going to the hospital ‘it’s so busy you’ll just be laying in the hallway”.

That night my daughter Brittany kept begging me to go anyhow. I didn’t want to wake my husband Marc up to go with me and possibly wait there for hours just to be sent home, when he had to work the next day. So, I got my son Anthony to drop Brittany and me off at emergency. This time I was taken right away, had an IV put in and they drew 21 vials of blood.

Shortly after that the doctor came in and told me I might have cancer and my kidneys were failing really badly. If I hadn’t come to the hospital I could have died.

From there it was a whirlwind: admitted to the hospital, x-rays, MRI’s, ultrasounds...! Oh my God, the pain I was in and having to do all these tests. Then, I have a sample of my bone marrow taken.

I’m 42, laying in a hospital bed in a diaper and I’m told I have multiple myeloma and they hoped for a 2 to 5 year remission.

What the heck is that? I never heard of that cancer before!

I had 3 compound fractures in my spine and a tumour in one of those fractures. That’s why I was in such excruciating pain. I was in the hospital for 21 days and couldn’t leave until I was able to take a step up a stair. I finally went home with a wheelchair and a walker. I was told that once I started radiation and the tumour shrank the pain wouldn’t be so bad.

I started my radiation, then chemo, and was put on steroids which caused me to gain 70 lbs.

I slowly went from being bedridden, to a wheelchair, to using a walker, to using a cane. I was at the Princess Margaret Hospital (in Toronto, ON) twice a week at first but I was getting my chemo at Brampton Civic Hospital. I was told they were going to really blast me with chemo because I was so young.

Four months later, I had no signs of cancer in my body and it was time to get ready for a stem cell transplant (SCT). I went for my stem cell collection but they couldn’t find a good vein, so across the street I went to Toronto General so they could put a tube (central line) in my neck. They were able to get enough stem cells for two transplants in one day!

I knew I was going to lose my hair from the chemo they give you before your SCT so I asked Brittany to help me shave my head. I wanted to have control over something, so shaving my hair off was it!

I had my SCT March 1^st, 2012, and it was hell. How sick I felt and having to stay at Princess Margaret for 2 ½ weeks was really difficult. Then in June 2012, I had a vertebroplasty. I think I slept for a year after my SCT and vertebroplasty.

A few months after my vertebroplasty I was able to walk without a cane! Then I started maintenance therapy of 10mg of Revlimid daily which I stayed on for 9 years. The fatigue from the Revlimid was so bad but I figured I could handle fatigue if it would keep me in remission. Three years after my SCT I started to feel about 70% back to myself, but with chronic back pain.

I had to learn to accept the new me.

The me that couldn’t wear high heels anymore, couldn’t do things around the house like I use to, didn’t have the energy like I used to.

It was hard, I had to grieve the old me and learn to accept the new me.

At a concert with my husband Marc, 2020

My kids Anthony and Brittany, and me in 2020

Eleven years later, I am still in remission. I’ve been off of Revlimid for about 2 years now, which is kind of scary! I’m being followed by wonderful doctors:

Dr Reece, multiple myeloma specialist (pictured in the collage below, top row, middle position) and Dr Husain, my amazing oncologist.

I asked Dr Husain how long she thought I had multiple myeloma before I was diagnosed…she said about 10 years!

I’ve only recently become a part of the Myeloma Canada community. A few months ago I told my oncologist that I wanted to go to the SCT floor and just be there for anyone who wants to talk or even just have me sit with them. My oncologist was so happy I wanted to be there for others going through this. She gave me Helen Mahshie’s business card (Myeloma Canada’s Regional Manager Community Engagement and Development in Ontario). I reached out to Helen and the team at Myeloma Canada.

Since then, I’ve started a support group in Brampton, and we held our 1^st Meet and Greet on Feb 1, 2023!

I finally found and reconnected with my biological family 2 years ago after having looked for them for 20 years!

Me and my aunt, 2023

Me with my family and my biological family, Jan. 2023

I have walked in the multiple myeloma Princess Margaret walks, I have dune buggy'ed up a mountain in Mexico, snorkelled in the ocean in Cuba, fed sharks and sting rays in Curacao, walked on the hand bridge in Vietnam and hiked up a small mountain in South Korea.I still have constant back pain, some food that isn’t spicy still feels spicy, my feet and hands burn or tingle, and I still have fatigue. I’ve learned over the years not to push myself.

If I could give anyone some advice, it would be to live life.

Don’t just be alive!

It’s ok to not be ok, and to ask for help.

Stay strong!

Tania

Editor’s note: To find a local support group in your area, or for information on how to start one, click here or contact Michelle Oana, Myeloma Canada’s Director of Development and Community Relations at moana@myeloma.ca.

We hope you enjoy meeting our 2023 Spotlight Stars and your fellow Myeloma Canada community members. The Spotlight section of Myeloma Matters features stories and reflections supplied by members of our community - those living with myeloma, caregivers, healthcare professional - in their words. The views expressed and shared are those of that individual. We recognize that everyone’s journey and experience with myeloma is different.

To all of you who have shared your stories in the past, and those of you who continue to do so today, we are indebted...you are an inspiration.

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Myeloma Canada's mission: To improve the lives of Canadians impacted by myeloma through awareness-building, educational efforts, advocacy, fostering an empowered myeloma community and support of clinical research so that a cure may be found.