Miss Australia finalist reveals cancer battle “hell”

A Miss World Australia national finalist has opened up about her battle with pancreatic cancer earlier this year, revealing she was “getting ready to be gone”.

Hobart-based model Tirah Ciampa was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in February after doctors found a 15x15cm tumour inside her pancreas. When doctors discovered the mass, 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,” Tirah told The Mercury.

The 27-year-old started feeling symptoms in March last year. Her weight plummeted – from 58kg to 49kg – and she suffered bouts of excruciating pain radiating through her abdomen and back – which she initially passed off as “just cramps”, until they got worse.

“Initially, doctors thought it might be a heart problem,” Tirah told the newspaper.

“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.”

She was referred to a specialist women’s clinic where a young sonographer found the mass mutating in her pancreas. She said he “ran” from the room and left her “waiting there for half an hour”, before a senior specialist told her to “go to the hospital immediately”.

In March, Tirah underwent a major eight-hour surgery at the Royal Hobart Hospital to remove the tumour and part of her pancreas.

But she told The Mercury, “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.”

“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.”

But four months later, after going through “hell” and preparing to die, the 27-year-old is preparing to walk for the title of Miss Australia at the national finals on the Gold Coast in August alongside fellow Tassie finalist Cleo Pedley.

Tirah will never be able to drink alcohol again or play sports, and she 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”. But she says her surgeons at the Royal saved her life. She is cancer free.

• Category

  Pancreatic Cancer