A decade after being told she would have to choose between saving her own life or her unborn baby's, journalist Elle Halliwell has reunited with the doctor who helped ensure both survived.
Diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia almost 10 years ago, Halliwell received a second life-changing shock just 48 hours later when she discovered she was pregnant with her son, Tor.
Doctors warned Halliwell she would need to terminate the pregnancy to urgently begin treatment, as the medication used to treat her cancer could cross the placental barrier and harm her baby.
"I went into complete shock," Halliwell said. "I didn't really want to think about the future, because it didn't seem like there was going to be any good outcome. It just looked very bleak ... I didn't really understand it enough to think that there would be any positive outcome."
Determined to find another option, Halliwell's husband Nick began desperately researching alternatives. He went into what Halliwell described as "full Lorenzo's oil mode", searching for any possible way to save both his wife and their unborn child.
The couple travelled to Adelaide to meet Professor Timothy Hughes, a world-leading expert in Halliwell's form of leukaemia. Hughes developed a treatment plan using Interferon, an older therapy that was considered safe during pregnancy before modern targeted cancer drugs became available.
The treatment allowed Halliwell to continue her pregnancy while keeping the cancer under control. Tor was born a month early after Halliwell's cancer levels began to rise, but he arrived healthy and required no special care.
Now, 10 years on, in an emotional reunion organised by The Advertiser, Tor met for the first time the doctor who helped save both his and his mother's life.
"Thank you for saving my life," Tor told Hughes. Hughes replied: "That was your mum. That was your mum who made a huge decision. And look at you now, what a miracle."
Halliwell, who recently celebrated her 10-year "cancerversary", remains on targeted therapy drugs known as TKIs. While chronic myeloid leukaemia is not considered curable, she is now in molecular remission and can live a full life.
"I'm pretty blessed to be able to live with cancer, and that's thanks to the amazing research that's being done around the world, but also in Australia," she said.
Despite ongoing side effects, including brain fog, Halliwell said she remains deeply grateful for the treatment breakthroughs that allowed her to watch her son grow up.
"We punch so well above our weight in Australia in terms of the inroads that we're making for all kinds of medical research, and I'm the product of that."
Halliwell and Tor's full story will feature in The Advertiser's Research Superheroes magazine, released Tuesday, May 19.
