Brit Mum Survives Cancer and Travels Australia

Carol Smith, originally from Dorset, UK, swapped her family home for a caravan
after overcoming overcoming breast cancer and a double mastectomy.

The 36-year old mum-of-two set off on an open-ended adventure from Bensville, New South Wales with her husband, Adam, and their sons, who were aged just 3 and 5 at the time of Carol's cancer diagnosis.

Carol explains what it was like to face such a frightening health battle in Australia, as well as how she handled the news with her two boys and her reasons for taking her family off-grid.

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Transcript

ANNA

Most expats will tell you that they dread the day they get some bad news from back home. 

But imagine if that news was yours.

ANNA

I'm Carol Smith, and I'm a breast cancer survivor traveling Australia, and I'm a Brit Australian. 

ANNA

In 2007, Carol from Dorset moved with her then Aussie boyfriend Adam from England to New South Wales. 

CAROL

He always says that he bought baggage back from the UK. Cheeky! Charming.

ANNA

Twelve years later, the couple were married and living in Bensville, about an hour north of Sydney, with their two young boys. 

Now, Carol shares the story of her horrendous battle with breast cancer. to help raise awareness for others. 

ANNA

So, October 2018.

CAROL

Yes, that's right. 

ANNA

When you got the news and I believe you were 36 at the time.

CAROL

Yeah. 

ANNA

Can you tell us a little bit more about that? 

CAROL

Basically that year we decided we wanted to try for a third child. And we were pregnant but we had two miscarriages. And I think because of those miscarriages I really was looking for something wrong. And I got my GP to check my breasts and she said everything was fine.

Um, I felt something in the shower, I went back to my GP and said, Look, I feel a bit stupid, but I found something. And she did all the tests, she got them all done. It was cancer. And it was just basically the biggest shock. My husband obviously got very upset and I was just sat there, frozen. I just remember I was just frozen, like solid, like completely. I couldn't move, I couldn't think about anything, it's like the whole, the whole room stood still. 

ANNA

I'm guessing you didn't suspect that you actually had cancer? 

CAROL

No, no, not, not at all, absolutely not, no. 

ANNA

And it's all gone now? 

CAROL

Well, as far as you can say, basically one of the things you live with after having cancer is the fear of recurrence, so it's all very scary.

ANNA

Yeah, of course, but health wise you're fine now? 

CAROL

Yeah, fine. So this year, this year it's five years since diagnosis and five years is kind of your benchmark. It's that one point that you want to get to. So all your cancer statistics are, um, five year survival period kind of thing. So five years is a really good point to get to.

ANNA

Oh, I'm pleased. 

CAROL

But I had probably one of the best outcomes you can have from treatment. So basically. I had chemo first, had five months of chemo and then I had my double mastectomy and when they biopsied the area where the cancer was, there was nothing left. 

ANNA

Oh, bless you. 

How does that feel, obviously, you've had a double mastectomy and you would have lost your hair because you had like quite long hair I saw in your photographs.

CAROL

Very long hair, yeah. Yeah. 

Well, losing your hair is a whole other thing. It's just so, because I mean, my hair was so long, I kind of felt like it was part of my identity and everyone's hair is part of their identity, like, and having that taken away is very, very, it makes you very, very self conscious. And as well, my son was just starting kindergarten.

So he started school just as I lost my hair. So I had to go into new places and take him to school every day. And there's me with no eyebrows, well, barely no eyebrows. So. I really felt strongly, the moment I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was like, get rid of them, I don't want them, they've betrayed me, they, they're gone.

My surgeon, literally on the day that I had my mastectomy, she popped up by the side of my bed and goes, you sure? Sure you want them both gone? I can just take one, for my peace of mind. You don't want to go through it again. No, and if I just had a lumpectomy, I'd be having mammograms and ultrasounds every year.

I just couldn't deal with it. I could have had reconstruction as well. I could have had implants put in straight after my surgery too. But at the same time, going through all that makes you realize that things like appearance are not important. You do get some good things to come out of experiences like that.

It makes you stronger and um, I mean I have no boobs. I embrace it as opposed to making me self conscious. 

ANNA

And your hair's growing back too. 

CAROL

The worst thing was the eyebrows. When it actually all fell out, it was only like an eyelash length. Because I, I literally shaved my head before my, before my third chemo I think, so after two chemos I shaved it and hadn't lost it yet.

But it gets really itchy and it gets quite painful because your hair's just given up. And it was really itchy one day, so I went into the bathroom and I literally wet my hands and put my hand through my, on my scalp and had a bit of a scratch because it was just feeling so uncomfortable. And I brought my hand away and there was thousands of thousands of eyelash length hairs just on my hands and just kept coming out and just came out all at once.

That was my birthday as well. 

ANNA

Oh, goodness me, that would have been quite a shock. Yeah, I guess one after another after another. 

CAROL

Yeah, absolutely. 

ANNA

I mean, that's difficult enough to deal with when you've got all of your family around you. I can't imagine going through that in Australia when all my family are in the UK and, you know, it just must have been, it must have been tough for you.

CAROL

Well, my parents happened to be over. They were in Tasmania. They come over quite a lot. They ended up extending their trip and they stayed till Christmas. So they were meant to go home. I also obviously have Adam's family. So his mom, his, um, sister both live in the area. So they were obviously a huge support to me as well.

So I was, I was surrounded by people despite not living in the UK, despite having moved out here. And so many friends pitched in as well. I had a friend who set up a food train and she got my other friends to come in and bring me food, all that kind of stuff. I think, well, now that I've been in Australia so long, I've probably got more friends and family in the one area in New South Wales where I lived than I do in the UK in one area.

Because all my friends have dispersed, you know, and I haven't lived there for such a long time. I made it my aim, a huge effort basically to make friends and make a community for myself when I came to Australia. And I think if you're moving to a new country, that's what you have to do. You need your girlfriends, you need to make friends around you and that's what I did and when I got diagnosed with cancer they were all there for me.

ANNA

That's lovely. 

You know when you got your diagnosis, did you have private health cover at the time? 

CAROL

So we did have private health, but um, I didn't need to use it at all. except for one time. Um, so everything was covered through Medicare. Everything was public. I could have chosen. I know it's absolutely incredible. And it was so quick. There's absolutely no delays or anything. They got me in as quickly as possible. Everything was done quick. I was so impressed. 

ANNA

Do you think that Australia's health care system is pretty good then?

CAROL

When I was first diagnosed, my dad actually did a Google search about how good the health care system was for being treated for cancer and Australia's definitely up there.

It's really good. I've been completely impressed. 

ANNA

Did you ever consider  moving back to the UK whilst you were having treatment so that you could be closer to... Your parents and have that help?

CAROL

To be honest, no. With my type of cancer, I think I was completely blown away by the treatment and how quickly they were getting on to things.

I didn't want to waste any time. It was. made clear to me that it was an aggressive type of cancer. Transferring a diagnosis to another country would have delayed things hugely, so it was never really an option. 

ANNA

Yeah, that makes sense. 

So you seem to be quite involved in lots of activities to do with raising awareness about breast cancer now.

CAROL

So I mean, being diagnosed so young, and it being such a shock, I think I wanted to start raising awareness as well because I mean, you just don't expect it in your thirties, do you? No. So I just wanted to put it out there, getting the message across that you should be checking from about 20, people under 20 get it as well.

So, ‘So Brave’, they're a breast cancer charity for women who are diagnosed with breast cancer under 40. Even from a doctor's perspective, they don't expect to be diagnosing young women. And a lot of the cases, a lot of the stories you hear, young women have to push to get their diagnosis and often are misdiagnosed.

So I guess raising awareness is making people aware that it can happen at this age. And also that if they are worried about symptoms, they might need to push to get a diagnosis or to get reassurance. 

ANNA

What happened to your life once you found out that you had cancer? 

CAROL

I mean, it kind of, I had to make, keep it as normal as I could because I have had the two young boys. I didn't want them getting worried or anxious or anything about what was going to happen to me. So we kept it a little bit separate. 

ANNA

At what point then did you guys decide, right, that's it, we're off, we're going to go traveling? 

CAROL

It started off being more Adam than me. When it all finished, he was just flat.

He just wanted to get out and live, basically. So he suggested it to me and I was like, no. I was like, no way. I've literally just got my life back. I just want to get on with normal life. Just, just give me, you know, a little bit of time to have a normal life. When I was diagnosed, I was just at the point where Logan was starting school and I had Luke in daycare.

I was just about to get a little bit of time to myself back after having kids at home for five years. and my three days that I had ended up being spent in chemo. All I wanted was, you know, to, to get on with the life that I planned. But I think when you go through something like that, you realise that you're not going to be the exact same person that you were before.

ANNA

Yes.

CAROL 

Um, and you won't fit back exactly where you were before. I think. Um, so traveling and having some quality time with the family was just the best thing that we could have done at that point. 

ANNA

Yeah, it would have taken your mind off of things, I guess, as well, like completely new experience, something new every day.

CAROL

Yeah, absolutely. When you finish going through treatment of that kind, you don't really get the all clear. I mean, I did get very good, um, results from the chemo, but you still have checkups. I had checkups every three months. So it's still playing on your mind every day. If you feel like a new pain in your back, your shoulder, anything like that, you do get anxious.

You do get a bit paranoid. You do have to live with that for a little while. It gets better with time. Um, I feel much more confident now, but I mean, you don't know with cancer. After treatment, you've got no guarantees that it's not going to come back and I think when you're on Instagram and you're seeing other people who've had cancer, um, and some of them, you see them having reoccurrences, and some of them you even do, you know, see them pass away, it's, it can be quite difficult to remain calm.

And I think traveling was the best thing for me. It's such a distraction. I would recommend it to anyone. 

ANNA

Carol, like when you talk about what you've been through, I just, Um, just really struggled to comprehend it. 

So your life obviously changed quite drastically. You would have had a home, and did you have a job at the time?

CAROL

I wasn't working because I took time off for kids, so I hadn't been working for five or six years. I don't want to sell the house because I loved my house. So much. We've had it for 10 years and we'd renovated it and we designed it and Adams dad had helped us build it. So it was, it was such a gorgeous place and I loved it.

ANNA

But you sold your house?

CAROL

Yep. We sold our house. 

ANNA

Is that what's funding your trip now? 

CAROL

That is, yeah. 

ANNA

So what are you doing? Are you just going like, we want to see that, we're off, we're going to go there? Or do you have it more planned in advance? 

CAROL

Well the route was originally to do the full lap clockwise.

But obviously-

ANNA

Wow, that is a big drive!

CAROL

It is. So we're meant to do it all clockwise, but then we just have no future plans. And I don't know whether that's a side effect of having cancer. We're just going with the flow and everywhere we stop, Adam's like, oh, we could live here. We want to at least do. what resembles a lap, so visit all the places we want to visit before we stop traveling for a little bit.

But there's so many families out there who are literally lappers. They just, their lifestyle is traveling constantly. They've gone around [Australia] three or four times. Yeah, there's loads of them. Full time lappers. 

ANNA

Do you think that's a very Australian thing? 

CAROL

Yeah, I reckon it's quite Australian. I mean, there's a community out there.

ANNA

Okay, Carol, can you tell us a little bit about your setup that you've got? What is your home at the moment? 

CAROL

We have a caravan that we tow, so it's about 14 foot the caravan, the top pops up. So it's like tent material around the top. At the back, there's Some bunks for the kids. In the middle, you've got a kitchen area on one side and I like an L shaped sofa and a table to eat at or do schoolwork at and then at the very front, there's a double bed. 

ANNA

Wow, so quite cosy. Yeah. Yeah, and have you got a toilet in there, sorry? 

CAROL

No, but we have a porta potty. So we carry a port a potty with us. We have an external shower as well. So there's a shower on the outside, which is warm. So we can have showers and we've got a little tent we can put up for the shower or the toilet.

But the caravan itself has a solar panel on the top. So you're self sufficient. And you can use everything except for the microwave and the air conditioning when you're off grid. 

ANNA

People in the UK who have never been to Australia won't quite get the concept of just sell your house, get a caravan and travel round the country.

The weather is pleasant enough that you can basically have a shower outside pretty much any time of the year. 

CAROL

Yeah, that's true. I mean, we've stayed at some amazing camps with amazing facilities. And obviously you've got the big caravan parks over here with the, with the water slides and the massive amenities blocks.

You can do it how you like and you can keep the cost down. But some of the most amazing campsites we've stayed on are just the national parks where you drive onto the beach. You just put your van on the beach and you stay there for three or four days and just chill; have fires on the beach, that kind of thing. And that's the kind of thing we really wanted to do. 

ANNA

For someone who's never done the whole camping or, you know, exploring parts of Australia, what would you say are the highlights? Where would you say, you've got to see this or you've got to go there? 

CAROL

There's a lot of obvious places like Cairns and the Barrier Reef. On the reef, they have these pontoons and you take your boat out to the pontoon. You spend all day on the pontoon. You can just jump in and out of the water. And you can have the snorkels. They provide you lunch. And you've got the whole day snorkeling on the reef. It's fantastic. 

ANNA

What are you doing about the boys schooling?

CAROL

We signed up with a distance education school. They send out these huge packages of worksheets and books. So we just get these packages every four weeks or so with all the work that they have to do and we send the packages back. So we just kind of figure out where we're going to be. We give them a post office address and we just pick it up from the post office.

ANNA

Is this? The fact that this service exists tells me that this is something that, that happens quite a lot in Australia?

CAROL 

I think originally the reason that it exists is because in Australia, being such a vast country, there are people on, in farms that are nowhere near a school. They might own acres and acres of land that aren't anywhere near schools.

So, so that's why they're set up originally. But there's a growing community of people now using the schools for the traveling. 

ANNA

That's amazing. Did you plan to make Australia your long term home when you came over here with your now husband? 

CAROL

Yes, definitely. Because obviously he's from here. I don't think I could convince my husband to live in the UK.

ANNA

Oh, okay. Would you? 

CAROL

Probably. I mean, I could if I had to, but I don't think I would choose to. 

ANNA

Yeah, that makes sense. 

CAROL

I mean, I love the UK and I miss so much about the UK. But I think I can get what I want out of the UK for visits and I love the lifestyle over here and the weather and everything. It's just got, you know.

ANNA

Carol, how do you feel now and how has it changed the way that you look at life and how do you feel about what you've been through?

CAROL

Um, in some ways it's enriched my life. It's made my life better. And I think when you're facing something like that, you have to pick your attitude because you need to pick the attitude that's going to get you through it.

You can't wallow in it. I think going through something like that. It has a huge effect on you. It affects everything from the way you want to live your life, um, to the way you feel about each moment. You want to make the most of it. So, I mean, I jump into crazy experiences now and I, I just kind of want to live life to the full and I definitely just want to embrace every moment and spend as much quality time with my family as possible.

ANNA

Carol, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your story with me, um, I just think you're so brave. Thank you. It's incredible. 

Since the recording of this podcast, Carol, her husband Adam, and their two boys, Luke and Logan, have settled down in the coastal town of Busselton in Western Australia. 

CAROL

So we've been everywhere except for the Northern Territory.

ANNA

Are you keeping your caravan then? 

CAROL

Yes, it's parked on our driveway, ready to go. 

ANNA

To find out what Carol's next adventure brings, you can follow her on social media. All the links are in the description wherever you're listening to this podcast and on the Brit Australian website.