A Miss World Australia national finalist Tirah Ciampa was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier this year and has opened up about her “hell” of a battle, revealing she was “getting ready to be gone”.
The 27-year-old received the upsetting news in February after doctors found a 15x15cm tumour inside her pancreas. By the time they found it, it had already eaten half of the organ.
“What’s crazy is that I went on living for months with a pancreas functioning at 50 per cent capacity,” Ciampa told The Mercury.
The Hobart-based model began noticing symptoms in March last year. Her weight dropped by 10kg and she suffered moments of excruciating pain in her abdomen and back, which she had thought were “just cramps” until they became unbearable.
“Initially, doctors thought it might be a heart problem,” she said.
“My resting rate was really high, somewhere around 110 bpm. I’d go to work with 48-hour heart halter monitors on, but scans found nothing.”
Ciampa was then referred to a specialist clinic where they discovered the mass mutation in her pancreas. She said the young sonographer “ran” from the room and left her “waiting there for half an hour,” until a senior specialist told her to “go to the hospital immediately.”
The model had a massive eight-hour surgery to remove the tumour and part of her pancreas.
“The worst part was that I didn’t know the severity of the cancer until weeks after my diagnosis — or if they had successfully removed it all,” she told The Mercury.
“For a long time after the diagnosis, I was in limbo. I felt pushed into a corner where I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t show people I was terrified for my life because then they would freak out.
“I was writing letters to my loved ones, sorting out my superannuation, clearing out my laptop and spring cleaning. I wanted to make sure my funeral would be paid for, that it would be an easy mess to clean up,” she continued.
“I was getting ready to be gone.”
Four months later after being in the dark about her diagnosis and going through “hell”, Ciampa is preparing to walk for the title of Miss Australia at the national finals on the Gold Coast in August.
Ciampa’s cancer battle has caused her to never be able to drink alcohol again or play sports. She now has a permanent clot in her spleen and a long scar running from her upper chest to her belly button which she said she is not afraid to show “even in a two-piece bikini on stage.”
After her terrifying experience, she urges people to “not hesitate” getting checked as it “could save your life”.