Get your smile back

Karli Heggart felt like she was losing her identity. The Shepparton single mum of two boys was a few rounds into chemotherapy when her hair started falling out. To take back control, she decided it was time to shave it all off at the hairdresser, with the help of her eldest, 11-year-old Jesse.

When Karli Heggart found a small lump in her left breast, she sat on it for a couple of months.

But when it didn’t go away, she went to get it checked and even after being told it looked suspicious she was still thinking, “it’ll be fine”.

So confident of it being nothing to worry about that she booked the phone appointment to get the biopsy results from her doctor while she was at work.

“In my head, cancer didn't even come into it,” Karli said.

“[The doctor] told me it was cancer and I pretty much just dropped the phone and started bawling my eyes out.

“From there I drove to my sister-in-law’s house and she didn’t leave my side after that.”

That was June 24, 2021. She’d been diagnosed with stage 2B breast cancer at 42 years old and was heading into surgery a week later.

During the procedure, the doctor found a second lump which hadn’t shown up on the scans and that the cancer had started spreading into two lymph nodes.

This meant Karli had to do chemotherapy as well as radiation therapy and received both treatments in Shepparton.

She decided to be as positive and happy as she could to get through it.

“I just remember going through the chemo — there were so many laughs because we just stayed positive the whole time, I felt like I needed to do that to get through,” Karli said.

“In saying that, there was also the tough times as well.”

Karli works in administration and finance at St Luke’s Primary School and said the school community rallied around her family, making meals and helping with her boys — Jesse, 11, and Harley, 9 — taking them to footy training or wherever they needed to be.

“St Luke’s was so supportive — I was lucky enough to be able to have flexible working hours from home,” she said.

Karli had decided to get on the front foot going into chemotherapy, chopping her hair to shoulder length — but when it started coming out in clumps, she shaved it off.

She started looking for wigs “straight away”.

“Each to their own, some can handle losing their hair but I couldn’t,” she said.

“You’re going through all this and you just want to feel normal.”

Karli said she couldn’t find anywhere locally to go and try on wigs and ended up going through three she had found online before she found a colour, size and style that made her feel like herself again.

“When I put this wig on, the feeling that it gave me was something I can’t explain — I just felt so happy again on the inside.

“To put something on and get your smile back — everyone needs to be able to do that.”

In June, Karli started her small wig business, The Karli Kollection, with the hopes other local women wouldn’t have to go through what she did.

“There’s not much around here at all. You could go to Melbourne but after chemo, shopping was the last thing I wanted to do,” she said.

Having just been through her own expensive cancer journey, funding has slowed the progress for the business, as well as another health setback for Karli.

After months of feeling completely exhausted and not being able to understand why, she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease — an autoimmune disorder causing an underactive thyroid.

Still, Karli hopes to work towards having enough stock where women can come in and try on different wigs until they find the one for them.

Looking back on the past 12 months, Karli said it had been important to be positive and use her support network.

Her family, in particular brother Paul and sister-in-law Shelley — who came to appointments with her when COVID-19 restrictions allowed — had been invaluable to her.

“I also had a couple of close friends who would message me while I was in chemo,” Karli said.

‘While I was physically alone , I wasn’t ever alone.

“The breast care nurses, and all the oncology nurses, at GV Health are worth their weight in gold.

“I often had to go to treatments by myself due to COVID-19.

“The nurses always went above and beyond to make me feel supported and put me at ease.”

She said she also couldn’t have got through her treatment without Jesse and Harley, who made her little gifts and wrote positive notes to keep her motivated.

Now she has finished treatment but receives monthly injections and will be on medication for years.

To other women, Karli stressed the importance of getting any changes or lumps checked straight away, even if you think nothing of it.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which highlights the importance of funding research into the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia.

Anyone interested in The Karli Kollection can contact Karli on 0439 370 007 or through the Instagram page @thekarlikollection