“No one should have to go through that.”
These are the words spoken by Australian actress Tessa James of the gruelling six months of chemotherapy treatment she endured.
The 24-year-old – who is best known for her role as Nicole Franklin on Home and Away – had just begun pursuing her Hollywood dream in LA in July 2013 when she found a lump above her collarbone.
This changed everything.
Tessa was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma – a rare form of blood cancer – which put her life on hold as she began to fight for it.
With her family and husband, NRL player Nate Myles by her side Tessa went into chemotherapy sessions every two weeks of those six months.
“She goes in there and she’s – you know, she’s – Tessa, but she doesn’t come out Tessa,” said Myles on Sunday Night.
The Gold Coast Titans Co-captain joined Tessa’s mother, Charis, in not missing one of Tessa’s treatment sessions while not just one, but two members of the James family battled cancer.
Tessa’s father and former AFL player, Steve James, is also battling an aggressive form of cancer – non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
While Tessa revealed on the program she has been given the all-clear from the doctors but will remain under observation, her father still has one round of treatment and scans in September will reveal whether he’s in the all-clear with his daughter.
It’s brought the family closer, claims Tessa, and her marriage with Myles is only stronger for it.
The State of Origin player said while he’s played with some of the strongest men in the country – physically and mentally – they don’t have anything on his wife.
“There wouldn’t be many blokes in Australia that have watched their wives shave their head to zero and then razor it,” said the 29-year-old.
“It was pretty crazy. She was amazing though, she just took it on.”
And as to Tessa’s next chapter?
“I have huge dreams, probably too big,” she says.
“My dream to be in film and just to work, I think, just to be a working actress would be the ultimate.. would be amazing.”
