Emma

When Emma Panapa first felt the lump in her breast, it was early 2025. She knew immediately that something wasn’t right. But knowing and acting are two different things. Fear held her still – fear of the word she didn’t want to hear, the one that had defined so much of her childhood. 

“I was afraid to know. I was afraid to be told that I have cancer,” she says. “So, I just masked everything”.

Masking wasn’t new to her. It had been her survival strategy since she was nine years old – the age she was when her mother died (she believes from bowel cancer), a loss shrouded in silence and unanswered questions. 

So, when Emma discovered her own lump decades later, her first instinct was to keep going: caring for her father who has dementia, raising her five kids, growing her business and pushing the fear into the background. “I had lots of stuff going on… but what I was really doing was masking the fact that I could potentially have cancer”.

But silence, she would soon realise, had already taken enough from her family. This time, Emma was determined to break the cycle.

After several months living in the fear, Emma finally sought answers. She recalls clearly the day she got her diagnosis, saying it was something she felt before anyone said a word. 

“I could feel it in the room. It was eerie. And it’s like you can hear a heartbeat because it’s so quiet.” 

She watched the nurse’s face, the surgeon’s posture, and her sister‑in‑law trying not to cry. She already knew: “I know I’ve got cancer”.

She was told many things she couldn’t take in because of all the medical terms, but the words “you have aggressive cancer” landed loud and clear.

“I just knew in my soul and in my heart that that was the beginning of the journey that I was about to accept.”

This moment would become a turning point not just in her medical journey, but in the story of her entire whānau.

Her first fear wasn’t dying. It wasn’t chemotherapy. It wasn’t pain. It was this: 
“How am I going to tell my babies?”

In that fear lay the shadow of her mother, who had never told Emma she was sick. She carried the burden alone, believing she was protecting her children, but left Emma with the lifelong ache of not knowing and feeling abandoned. 

“Can I break that cycle?” she asked herself. “How can I do better for me as a mum and for my babies?”

The didn’t just want to break the cycle; she wanted to heal it. 

One by one, she sat down with her kids, starting with her eldest son. She made a choice to model vulnerability rather than shield them from it. “For them to be vulnerable with me, I had to show that I can be vulnerable with them,” she says.

Her eldest daughter was the last because Emma felt she was looking at a mirror. “I was nine when my mum passed,” she says. Her daughter was ten. The parallel shook her. When they finally talked, her daughter spoke first: “You’ve got cancer, eh?”

And they both cried – not out of fear alone, but because they were rewriting history. “It was a moment I wished I had shared with my mum,” Emma reflects.

As treatment began, including chemotherapy, targeted antibody treatment and later integrating rongoā Māori, Emma discovered that speaking openly wasn’t just for her children. It was part of her own healing. 

“My mind was going crazy… emotions that I didn't want to feel again because my mum had been through this same journey”.

But speaking cracked it open.

She shared her journey publicly on her business’ Facebook page, talking about the fear, the side effects, the grounding rituals in nature – water when she could get to it, wind when she couldn’t. “Nature helped me cope… Being able to speak helped me release all the emotions”.

And when she spoke, her village arrived.

Friends she hadn’t seen in years stepped in. Kai filled her freezer, gifts arrived, and school pick-ups and drop-offs were rostered. 

The woman who once believed she had “no one” discovered she had an entire community standing around her.

“The support was just everywhere. They had wrapped around me. They were like my korowai.” 

Alongside whānau, friends and community, the Cancer Society became part of the village that helped carry Emma through treatment.

While she'd seen the daffodil symbol throughout her life, she says she didn't fully understand the breadth of support available until her diagnosis.

Emma used the volunteer driving service and said she appreciated being able to “share stories with people that have journeyed the same journey”. 

As her treatment continued, Emma carried that same openness into her interactions with the medical system. She valued her clinicians and appreciated their expertise, but she also learned the importance of giving herself space to process decisions.  

“Pause,” is her advice to others who may be newly diagnosed. “Don’t let anyone rush you for your own body, your tinana”. 

Sometimes that meant asking more questions or seeking clarity. Sometimes it simply meant trusting her intuition – aligning her decisions not just with medical advice but with her body, mind, and wairua. Her voice, once quieted by generations of unspoken pain, became steady and assured. 

With fear slowly easing, she began choosing life in a deeper, more intentional way. She took her kids to Rotorua and Taupō between chemo treatments. They bungee‑jumped, laughed, and created memories.  

“We're not making memories because I'm going anywhere,” she told them. “We make them because we deserve it”. 

Emma had broken a cycle that stretched back generations. 

“We had this thing that that that took over me, right? Or tried. And it was festering in the darkness. And I thought….if I keep the silence and the silence of the many generations before me, and I don't speak on this, I've just given over my mana to this thing that's festering and growing from my silence.” 

After her third chemotherapy treatment, Emma felt the presence of her ancestors – her Nan and her mum – and says their message was clear: “You did it. You’re the cycle breaker.” 

Having completed her final immunotherapy treatment in September, Emma is now turning her attention to art, podcasts and lived-experience storytelling, determined to help other wāhine find their voice.

“I feel like I'm at this really light place now, able to give back. I'm excited because I believe in doors that are closed properly, make way for new doors to open.

“It’s not a f*ck cancer kōrero for me, it's a thanks cancer, you threw me into my highest self and for that, that is why I am grateful.”