Giving birth to your first child is usually a happy and momentous occasion, but for one Nova Scotia couple, the birth of their son also led to a devastating discovery.
Wednesday marked the first birthday of Gordon Simpson, but it’s also the anniversary of the day his mother learned she had ovarian cancer.
Amanda Simpson was undergoing a C-section on April 2, 2013 – three weeks before her due date – when doctors at the IWK Health Centre discovered the aggressive form of cancer.
“As hard as they tried, as aggressively as they pursued this, as much as they gave her everything she could take and more, it still came back just a few months later,” says her husband, Scott Simpson.
But there is hope for the couple. Amanda has been accepted into a clinical trial offered in Ontario.
“The population in Toronto, where they have five million people, it’s very much more likely that there are doctors there who are doing different types of treatment for women with ovarian cancer,” says Emilie Chiasson of Ovarian Cancer Canada.
Amanda says she realizes the treatment is risky, since it’s only a clinical trial.
“I could be in the group that will just get a placebo, or I could be in the group with the test drug, and I won’t know,” she says.
“The hope now is to extend my life. I’ve been given a year, maybe two.”
The couple says participating in the clinical trial will also allow them to spend time with family members living in Ontario.
“We’re going to need that support as Amanda goes through more chemotherapy,” says Scott. “Given she’s been given a year or two to live, we’re going to need, I’m going to need help raising Gordon.”
Even though Amanda is battling cancer, she says she has never spent a day away from her son.
“I’ve never not seen him. However, the first six months really are…I don’t know how he got to be six months old, and I’m still quite upset about that.”
She says she is grateful she was able to celebrate Gordon’s first birthday, and is hoping she will live to see many more.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Amanda Debison
