Singleton’s dream gap year turned to a nightmare when she died twice and spent two months in a coma

Freya, 26, noticed bruising along her lasered bikini line and soon her trip to Australia turned into a horror story.
A young singleton has revealed how what was supposed to be a carefree gap-year in Australia turned out to be a hellish ordeal – in which she died twice and spent two months in a coma on the other side of the world from home.

Freya Clarke, 26, had quit her sales and marketing job after becoming “bored” with London life and was looking forward to a year of adventures.

But she realized something wasn’t right just days after landing in Sydney in October 2017, when she noticed strange, dark and heavy bruising along her bikini line.

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She’d recently had laser hair removal on the area as she prepared for lots of sunbathing, but feared this wasn’t a normal reaction to the beauty treatment.

To be on the safe side, Freya went to the local GP for blood tests – and was soon given the shocking news that she had acute myeloid leukemia, a dangerous form of cancer that affects the white blood cells.

“My first thought was just, ‘Well, this is going to ruin my holiday’. Then the shock began to kick in and I was just thinking that this couldn’t be happening to me,” she said.

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The vivacious 26-year-old from East Grinstead in Sussex, who had previously had a clean bill of health and who had never even been admitted into a hospital before, lost her hair, was in constant pain and even died twice during her months in the Randwick Hospital in Sydney, when her heart stopped for several minutes.

To make matters worse, Freya also caught an infection, leading to her having an eight-hour operation to remove her appendix and right fallopian tube, which may mean that she will never be able to conceive.

“I’ve been dealt some pretty severe blows over the last year,” she said. “It’s certainly not what you expect: to pop off on holiday and come back with cancer and a 5-inch scar down your stomach. It’s pretty hard to come to terms with.”

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Freya had been planning her year-long getaway to Australia for the previous eight months – after visiting a school friend, who has lived there for two years, in January 2017.

She explained: “I was feeling bored with living in London and wanted to get out. I had never really traveled that much, never taken a gap year or been out of Europe on my own, so I just decided after visiting in January that I would go out there, maybe to stay forever.”

Working 65 hours a week in London to pay for the flights, with shifts in a bar on top of her day job at a brewery, Freya says she was exhausted but excited for her new life in Australia where she would get a ‘work and travel’ visa that would enable her to live there for a year.

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Her friend of 15 years Caitlin, 26, who she’d known since school, agreed to share the adventure with her, and the pair planned to work in Sydney for a few months before traveling along the east coast.

Finally, in October 2017, she and Caitlin packed their bags and boarded a flight to their first stop off Bali, where they spent two weeks sunbathing and sightseeing before heading for Sydney.

Looking back, Freya said it was here, on the white-sand beaches of the Indonesian island, that she first had signs that something wasn’t right.

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“I had been feeling very tired, but I just thought that was because I had been working so hard to pay for the trip,” she said. “I also had these weird bruises on my leg, but again I just brushed it off and told myself I had picked them up while bumping into things at the bar.”

“Then in Bali, I had a very long and heavy period, which did seem strange. I tried to brush it off again, thinking maybe it was to do with the stress of travel, but it played on my mind.”

When she and Caitlin arrived in Sydney, they stayed with their old school friend Lauren and her boyfriend Josh in the suburb of Bronte and spent the first few days looking for employment in marketing and hunting for an apartment of their own.

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Looking forward to a year spent sunbathing, the pair also went to have laser hair removal on their armpits and bikini lines.

Just 12 hours having the laser treatment, Freya noticed the top of her legs and armpits had turned black with heavy bruising.

Until then, she had been trying to put the series of strange ailments to the back of her mind. But now she began to worry something was not right with her.

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“I thought I might have anemia but it certainly never crossed my mind that it could be anything really serious,” she said.

But urged on by Caitlin, Freya went to the doctor’s two days later, where blood tests revealed that something was very wrong.

Freya recalled: “They weren’t completely sure at first what it was, and I just thought they must have made a mistake because apart from the bruising I didn’t feel ill. In fact, I remember feeling a bit pissed off because we were supposed to look around an apartment that day.”

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But Freya’s annoyance quickly turned to horror when she was told by doctors that the strange complaints she had been suffering over the past month were not a random series of coincidences, but the symptoms of acute leukemia.

“The hardest part was telling my mum,” said Freya, who was in floods tears after receiving the awful news. “I handed the phone over to Caitlin and asked her to tell mum, but she was crying too much too, so eventually the doctor had to tell her.”

Freya’s mum, Christine, 59, flew out on the next flight to Sydney, leaving Freya’s distraught father Peter, 63, a carpenter, and sister Sorrel, 29, a teacher, back in England.

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Her mum, also a teacher, stayed by Freya’s bedside for the next three months as she underwent a strong bout of chemotherapy.

Freya reacted terribly to the treatment. She was put into an induced eight-week coma to help her body cope with the drugs.

However, that led to further complications when doctors tried to bring her out of sedation and her heart stopped beating.

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“My brain has blocked out most of that time,” explained Freya. “I reacted very violently to the drugs and my body basically freaked out, which led to my heart stopping on two occasions, when I would have been technically dead before being resuscitated.”

With things looking bad for Freya, her dad and her sister were called out to Australia in November, as doctors thought she wouldn’t make it.

Thankfully, though, her condition began to improve once she out of the coma, and Peter and Sorrel stayed on until just after Christmas, which Freya celebrated from her hospital bed.

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“It sounds weird but it was one of the nicest Christmases ever because I had all my family over there with me,” said Freya. “Caitlin was there too, and my friend from home, James, flew out to surprise me a few days before Christmas.”

Finally, in January 2018, Freya was well enough to fly back home but, still needing further treatment, she was admitted to The Royal Marsden the following day.

There, due to an infection probably caused by leukemia, Freya had an eight-hour operation to remove her appendix and right fallopian tube.

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Now recovering at her parents’ home in Sussex, Freya is keeping herself busy with babysitting jobs and a pairing. She has not yet received an all-clear and knows she may require further chemotherapy if cancer returns.

She is also working closely with charity Leukaemia Care, supporting their Spot Leukaemia campaign to raise awareness of the signs of the disease via special symptoms cards, which can be ordered from their website and presented to doctors.

“I know I will probably have to have more treatment which won’t be nice, but actually I feel fine now, much better than I have done since the whole thing started,” she said.

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Despite the terrible ordeal she has been through, she is still keen to go back to Australia and experience the adventure that has been denied to her.

She said: “I would love to go back there one day. But now I’m not sure I could stay. The only way I have managed to get through the last year is because of my friends and family – and I couldn’t face leaving them behind now.”

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Stung by paying billions of dollars for settlements and trials, chemical giant Bayer has been lobbying lawmakers in three states to pass bills providing it a legal shield from lawsuits that claim its popular weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.

Nearly identical bills introduced in Iowa, Missouri and Idaho this year — with wording supplied by Bayer — would protect pesticide companies from claims they failed to warn that their product causes cancer, if their labels otherwise complied with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations.

But legal experts warn the legislation could have broader consequences — extending to any product liability claim or, in Iowa’s case, providing immunity from lawsuits of any kind. Critics say it could spread nationwide.

"It’s just not good government to give a company immunity for things that they’re not telling their consumers,” said Matt Clement, a Jefferson City, Missouri, attorney who represents people suing Bayer. “If they’re successful in getting this passed in Missouri, I think they’ll be trying to do this all over the country.”

Bayer described the legislation as one strategy to address the “headwinds” it faces. About 167,000 legal claims against Bayer assert Roundup causes a cancer called non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which Bayer disputes. The company has won some cases, settled many others but also has suffered several losses in which juries awarded huge initial judgments. It has paid about $10 billion while thousands of claims linger in court.

Though some studies associate Roundup's key ingredient with cancer, the EPA has regularly concluded it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.

The costs of “defending a safe, approved product” are unsustainable, said Jess Christiansen, head of communications for Bayer's crop science division.

The legislation was introduced in targeted states pivotal to Bayer's Roundup operations and is at a different stage in each. It passed the Iowa Senate, is awaiting debate in the Missouri House and was defeated in Idaho, where this year's legislative session ended.

Farmers overwhelmingly rely on Roundup, which was introduced 50 years ago as a more efficient way to control weeds and reduce tilling and soil erosion. For crops like corn, soybeans and cotton, it’s designed to work with genetically modified seeds that resist Roundup’s deadly effect.

Missouri state Rep. Dane Diehl, a farmer who worked with Bayer to sponsor the legislation, cited concerns that costly lawsuits could force Bayer to pull Roundup from the U.S. market, leaving farmers to depend on alternative chemicals from China.

“This product, ultimately, is a tool that we need," said Diehl, a Republican.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, said in an email the legislation maintains the integrity of the regulatory process and, without it, “Iowa risks losing hundreds of jobs” in Muscatine, an eastern Iowa city where Roundup is mostly produced.

The Associated Press is seeking public records on Bayer’s communications with governor's offices in Iowa, Missouri and Idaho.

Bayer, like other companies, hires lobbyists in states to advocate for its interests. The company backs this legislation in the states where “we have a big, direct economic impact,” Christiansen said.

Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, is derived from phosphate mined in Idaho. And St. Louis is the headquarters of its North America crop science division, acquired in its 2018 purchase of Monsanto. Because of that, many of the lawsuits are filed in Missouri.

The five lobbyists registered for Bayer in Iowa and three in Idaho is largely consistent with recent years, but the number working in Missouri this year ballooned from four to nine. Lobbyist expenditures exceeded $8,000 in Idaho this year; similar information was not available in Iowa or Missouri.

Led by Bayer, a coalition of agricultural organizations called Modern Ag Alliance also is spending tens of thousands of dollars on radio and print advertisements claiming that trial lawyers and litigation threaten the availability of glyphosate.

On its website, the group asserts that at risk are 500 jobs connected to glyphosate production in Iowa, and 800 jobs in Idaho.

Bayer stopped short of threatening closures. The Iowa facilities, including in Muscatine, “are very critical facilities to our business, so we'll remain at some sort of support level,” Christiansen said.

At issue in the lawsuits and legislation is how Bayer – and any other pesticide company — communicates with consumers about the safety of its products.

Companies are required to register products with the EPA, which evaluates — and then reevaluates every 15 years — a pesticide and its label. The EPA reiterated in 2020 that glyphosate used as directed posed no health risks to humans. But a federal appeals court panel in 2022 ruled that decision “was not supported by substantial evidence” and ordered the EPA to review further.

The debate over glyphosate escalated when a 2015 report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, said it's “probably carcinogenic to humans" based on “limited” evidence of cancer in people and “sufficient” evidence in study animals.

Based on that international report, California sought to add a cancer warning label to products containing glyphosate. But a federal appeals court ruled against California last November, concluding such a warning wasn't factual.

Christiansen emphasized that many regulatory agencies worldwide agree with the EPA and insisted Bayer has to stick to EPA labeling to ensure it isn't providing false or misleading information. She added that the company is transparent in the information it does provide.

Critics of the legislation aren't convinced, citing examples such as opioids and asbestos that had been deemed safe for use as directed — until they weren't.

There also are concerns that the legislation could stifle any product liability claim since most rely on the argument that a company failed to warn, said Andrew Mertens, executive director of the Iowa Association for Justice, an organization for trial lawyers.

Jonathan Cardi, a product liability and torts expert at Wake Forest University School of Law, also said a strict reading of the Iowa legislation extends beyond liability claims, and “the way it’s drafted makes it interpretable to mean nobody could bring any suit.”

In lobbying lawmakers and in speaking with the AP, Bayer representatives disputed that the legislation would cut off other legal actions. Several legal experts said the legislation is unlikely to affect the 18,000 lawsuits already pending in Missouri’s capital of Jefferson City, and wouldn’t prevent claims in states that don’t adopt similar legislation.

In Idaho, the Republican-led Senate narrowly defeated the bill amid concerns about relying on federal agencies' safety standards and limiting the ability of harmed individuals to sue.

John Gilbert, who farms in Iowa Falls, Iowa, with limited use of Roundup, called Republicans hypocritical for attempting to protect corporate interests after campaigning on standing up for Iowans.

The bill “invites a lot of reckless disregard," said Gilbert, who is on the board for the Iowa Farmers Union. “No amount of perfume’s gonna make it anything but a skunk."

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

FILE - Soybeans are seen in a field on a farm, Friday, Sept. 2, 2016, in Iowa. The maker of a popular weedkiller is turning to lawmakers in key states to try to squelch legal claims that it failed to warn about cancer risks. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

FILE - The Bayer AG corporate logo is displayed on a building of the German drug and chemicals company in Berlin, Monday, May 23, 2016. Bayer, the maker of a popular weedkiller, is turning to lawmakers in key states to try to squelch legal claims that it failed to warn about cancer risks. Bayer disputes such claims but already has paid about $10 billion to resolve them. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

FILE - Phosphate ore is dug up and transported from Monsanto Company's South Rasmussen Mine site near Soda Springs, Idaho, July 16, 2009. Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018. Bayer, the maker of a popular weedkiller, is turning to lawmakers in key states to try to squelch legal claims that it failed to warn about cancer risks. The company disputes such claims. A key ingredient of the weedkiller, glyphosate, is derived from phosphate mined in Idaho. (Bill Schaefer/The Idaho State Journal via AP, File)

FILE - Containers of Roundup are displayed on a store shelf in San Francisco, Feb. 24, 2019. Thousands of legal claims against drug and chemicals company Bayer assert Roundup causes a cancer called non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which Bayer disputes. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, File)

FILE - A soybean field is sprayed in Iowa, July 11, 2013. The maker of a popular weedkiller is turning to lawmakers in key states to try to squelch legal claims that it failed to warn about cancer risks. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)