Connecting the Dots

Connecting the Dots...with a person of strength (Jade Sharp)

• Adam Leishman • Season 1 • Episode 38

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Dive into a profound conversation with Jade, an embodiment of strength, resilience, and courage. Discover how she tackles life's challenges head-on, from Olympic lifting to battling breast cancer. Her journey is not just inspiring; it's a powerful reminder of the preciousness of life.

Speaker 3:

Grit, Strength, Tenacity, Fight, not words I'd describe myself with, but this week my connecting the dots, is somebody that connects with all of them and in fact watching their journey and watching those displays of tenacity and grit and strength, is why I reached out to them and said Hey, I really, if it's okay, can I ask you about the, you know, challenging year you've had? And, and she said, yes. And I got to learn for somebody that I've known a long time, but not well, I got to learn so much more about them. And, it just makes you really aware of what a precious thing we have called life. And yeah, let's go talk to somebody that's full of strength.

Speaker:

This is Jade. Jade. I, I feel like I've known you a long time, not well. Did we first meet at CrossFit here in Caboolture? We did. Yeah. Okay. So with Rob's CrossFit.

Speaker 2:

Yes. And

Speaker:

then obviously we crossed paths again at Bribey CrossFit. Were you there at the same time I was doing? Yeah. Okay. That was a brief moment in my time when I did some strength work. You, strength seems to be not a brief moment for you at all. You do some Olympic

Speaker 2:

lifting? Yes. Tell me about that.

Speaker:

So

Speaker 2:

I, I started Olympic lifting in probably like 11 years ago, 12 years ago. Actually I was doing the Michelle Bridges weight loss. Right. And I'd lost a lot of weight and I wanted to do the program called Lean and Strong. And that involved going to the gym, a normal gym, and doing her program there. So I went to the gym and did her program there for a week and I was like, I am not, this is not for me. I didn't enjoy the, the gym. But I knew that I loved sport because I'd been very sporty my entire life. So I, I discovered Olympic weightlifting, which was a sport, but also at the gym. And so I started Olympic weightlifting in my, in my early thirties. Yeah. And then the closest club was in Nambour. So I was driving from Bribie to Nambour three or four days a week. And I decided that I'll, I'll start a club of my own here. And so, I started a not for profit club called the Bribie Isle Weightlifting Club and we run classes for kids and adults there. Okay. On Bribie, yeah.

Speaker:

And is that what you do? Do you do something separate to that?

Speaker 2:

I do well, I have been a stay at home mum for 16 years. Yeah, wow. So I really tried to always wanted to be a stay at home mum and so when I had two kids, they're now 15 and 16 my whole life was revolved sort of around them and their schedules and then I've worked outside of that. So I've done well I've been a gymnastics coach my entire life because I was a gymnast as a youngster and I started coaching at 17. It's kind of evolved. I went from traditional gymnastics coaching into coaching CrossFit athletes and doing workshops kind of actually all around the world. And then I've had a, which I still have now, coaching CrossFit athletes online. I also work with Queensland Weightlifting as, as a youth development coordinator at the moment looking at increasing their, their youth.

Speaker:

Were you into gymnastics? Right, so that's where, have you got to, I guess when you're a coach of something, does it always begin with you were probably an athlete in that?

Speaker 2:

I think for a lot of people, yeah, and that's where that passion started for me, and I actually competed for Australia as a youngster for a number of years. Right,

Speaker:

okay. Doing what type of thing? I know nothing about gymnastics except that There's gymnastics, but there's probably stuff within it, is there?

Speaker 2:

There's, well, there's the rhythmic gymnastics, which is with the ribbon and balls that you see at the Olympics. And then there's artistic gymnastics, which is with the the balance beam, the uneven bars of four and the vault for females. And that's the kind of gymnastics that I did.

Speaker:

Right. Okay. So lots of, yeah. Upper body strength then to that type

Speaker 2:

of stuff? Lots of stuff. Yeah. So 30 to 40 percent of your training is developing strength.

Speaker:

Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Because you need to be strong enough to be able to then perform those skills safely.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I've been doing strength training for a very long time or coaching strength training for a very long time.

Speaker:

And that explains the number plate, which is coach J on the number plate. That's pretty cool. Now is it must run in the family, does it? Because also when we were going to CrossFit, your mum was there doing CrossFit. Does she still do CrossFit first?

Speaker 2:

She does do CrossFit. She's 65 this year. Yeah, wow. And she also does Olympic weightlifting and coaches Olympic weightlifting because Well, she's a great coach as well. Yep. And she loves working with kids. So she does that. Yeah, still doing CrossFit four or five days a week and still a young. Yeah, okay.

Speaker:

Our fathers do something a couple, you know, similar, a couple of lanes apart. But you know, my dad was a TV repairman. What's your dad do?

Speaker 2:

Oh, so he was a washing machine repairman.

Speaker:

Okay. Is he still doing that?

Speaker 2:

No, he's retired. He's

Speaker:

retired now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And, and he's my stepdad.

Speaker:

Right. Okay.

Speaker 2:

And then my dad, he, he works at St. Michael's. He, he does the gardens and maintenance there. There

Speaker:

you go. Yeah. So

Speaker 2:

two maintenance guys. And what does Hubby do? He is a plasterer.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Does that mean he works on the, your own home? Is he one of those plasterers that works on their own home?

Speaker 2:

Not at all.

Speaker:

Okay. Cause I, cause when we were making a time for this, you said something in one of the replies. My house is getting demolished.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

It is, it is actually someone picked up the patio and the laundry today. Right. So it's being demolished in a week.

Speaker:

Okay. Yeah. Are you going to be homeless in a week? What are you doing?

Speaker 2:

We are, we live on Acreage, just in Lingie. So we're in the sheds and we've got a granny flat there and the caravans as well. Yeah.

Speaker:

Rebuilding?

Speaker 2:

Rebuilding, yeah, starting from scratch. But we have been there for 18 years. Right. So, it was the original house we bought as youngsters. Yeah. And we really couldn't find anything in the area that we liked. So we just, it made sense to build what we wanted.

Speaker:

I saw a post of yours a while ago where one of your sons, you called it, was it Happy Heart Day?

Speaker 2:

Oh yes. Tell me about

Speaker:

that.

Speaker 2:

So my first son Connor he, I didn't know better because I was a new mum and he seemed to have a little wheeze and he wasn't sort of, eating as much as I felt like he should or drinking as much milk as he should. And so I contacted the ambulance, called the ambulance because I thought that he had a wheeze and something was wrong with his breathing. His breathing also, he was, he was sort of moving a lot with his breath and I thought, gee, something's wrong there.

Speaker:

How old was he at the

Speaker 2:

time? He was four months old. Okay. And the ambulance came and said that nothing was wrong with him taken back inside. See the GP tomorrow if you feel like something is wrong with him. so I saw the GP and the GP said they felt like it was just milk in his throat and that's what I'm hearing. The next day I took him to the child health nurse. She could see that I was worried and said, look, I'll walk you up to emergency because I can see that you're worried. And he, unfortunately he was in heart and lung failure and, he had emergency heart surgery the next day. yeah, he was very sick. That situation I went from being kind of carefree. To then being very sort of hypervigilant and aware of how precious life is.

Speaker:

How old is he now?

Speaker 2:

He's 16 now.

Speaker:

Yeah, wow.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and he's learning to drive and He, I had to sort of learn to let go of that protective mum and become coach Jade with him and allow him to do all of the things in his life that he wanted to do and not hold him back from any of that. So he loves CrossFit. He loves softball. He played rugby league. He's broken everything that you can imagine as, as kids do. Yeah. And so he's a, he's a really healthy, boy now. Yeah.

Speaker:

Awesome. Two sons?

Speaker 2:

Two sons, yes. So the the next son, Hunter, he was born exactly 13 months later. So they're very close in age. And he is our family comedian. Okay. He also loves sports and yeah, he's a, he's very funny boy.

Speaker:

Awesome. I saw a post recently of yours, which was both confronting, beautiful, scary, had questions, and that's what prompted me to reach out to you today. Cause it was just one of those, Oh, you've had a year that's probably very unusual for most people. And I was really taken about how brave you were. Put that post up. Tell me about your year last year.

Speaker 2:

Well, people say it's brave, but it didn't feel brave. And people say it's inspiring, but it certainly doesn't feel that way. But at the start of last year, actually, I started university for the first time.

Speaker:

Yeah, right. Wow.

Speaker 2:

And I was doing, I was studying high performance sports, exercise science, because I'd always wanted to go to university. And it just sort of wasn't the right time. And I've had a lot of stress. a couple of years, for the previous three years I was involved in actually to do with gymnastics, a lawsuit for institutionalized abuse. And my friends and I there's a lot of us there at the Australian Institute of Sport. I'm not sure if you heard about that, but we were involved in a lawsuit suing the Commonwealth. And so that came to an end. The previous year, so I thought fresh year 2024 going to be my year. I'm going to university and I'm going to do all the things that I want to do. And so university started in March and in May. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And not the run of the mill, high survival rate breast cancer, but unfortunately I was diagnosed with the triple negative breast cancer.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Which is a very aggressive and more challenging to treat because it doesn't have the I don't really understand the science behind it, but it doesn't, as I understand it, it doesn't have the three. hormones or proteins that the other breast cancers are driven by. And so my breast cancer, they just basically throw the entire kitchen sink at it. So chemotherapy, surgery and radiation and immunotherapy.

Speaker:

How did that come about? How did you, what led up to you being diagnosed?

Speaker 2:

Well, I've been very good at checking my own breasts and making sure that there's no lumps that feel unusual because I have had. A lot of lumps throughout my life and I have a lot of cysts and so, that's been a normal part of my life to check and this little lump in my left breast just felt like a very hard P and it felt very unusual. I hadn't felt that type of sort of hardness and it didn't really move as I touched it. So I contacted the doctor straight away and she sent me for a ultrasound. And I was at uni one day a week later, and the doctor before they'd opened, had called me. I had a missed call. And I thought, geez, that's, that's strange. I've got cancer. And then I left class and, and rang them. And the receptionist said you'll need to come in today. ASAP.

Speaker:

Mm.

Speaker 2:

And I said, well, I'm at uni, so I'm, I'm not going to be able to come in today. Can we do it over the phone? She said, no, we can't do it over the phone and I was like, I know I've got cancer. We don't have to pretend. But I am at uni. I am unfortunately stuck in Brisbane. The traffic is going to be a nightmare. Let's do this over the phone. She said, no, you've got to come in this afternoon, any time's fine. Whenever you get home, the doctor will wait for you. Bring a support person. And so, I just drove straight from uni to the doctor in the afternoon. I didn't bring a support person and just found out that way.

Speaker:

Yeah, wow. And a lot of then treatment. Tell me about what the next part of your 24 was like.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well the next part was the worst part because it's the unknown. So yes, you've got cancer. What type of cancer do you have? So I needed to go into the same place for a biopsy. And so the biopsy, it said that I had two three spots that looked suspicious. So you'll need to biopsy all those three spots. And so we did that and the two spots came back as cancerous. So then they said you need to call the surgeon with your private health insurance, call a surgeon that you want to see. So I did a bit of research, found a surgeon that I wanted to see and went and saw her. She told me what type of cancer I had and that surgery wasn't necessary at the start, that I needed to see an oncologist straight away and that I needed to start chemotherapy. So I saw the oncologist at the Chermside St. Vincent's Private and she said to me I needed, for my type of cancer, I'll need, the standard regime is every week for 12 weeks, chemo, and then every three weeks for 12 weeks. After that, so six months of chemo.

Speaker:

Right. And where did surgery come along in that path?

Speaker 2:

So surgery was after the six months of chemotherapy.

Speaker:

Okay. And why do they do it like that? Treatment and then surgery, why that order?

Speaker 2:

So, for my cancer, they said the best protocol is to have the chemotherapy before surgery and that seems to get better results.

Speaker:

Okay. Do you have that moment moment. Where you just want it out, you just, was there a moment where you're like, I don't want to do that in that order, or it feels weird, or just I guess for somebody that knows nothing about cancer, it must feel weird that you do the bit of removing it last.

Speaker 2:

No, I just trusted the oncologist. And they said, this is going to get you the best results. And so that just made sense to me. And they explained it very well. And I, and I really felt like, you know, they, they know what they're doing. And trust is a big thing when you're going through something like this. And so I really had to put my faith and trust in the team. That they knew what I needed for the best outcome.

Speaker:

How long ago was surgery?

Speaker 2:

So surgery was a month ago. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker:

And where are you up to now with it all? I guess at some point they, you get checked for cancer? How does that work?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so after the chemo finished, you have a, what they call staging scans. And so those scans give you a stage of where you're at with your cancer. And after the chemo, I had another PET scan. That scan determined that I had no cancer in my body. left. But then after the surgery, which I chose to have a double mastectomy, they checked the tissue, the breast tissue, and that showed that I had no cancer left in my tissue as well.

Speaker:

Right. So, good news.

Speaker 2:

Great news. Excellent. Yes. That's the best result I could have had.

Speaker:

So what next for somebody that's been on your journey then? Do they come back and check on that moving forward?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so, I haven't finished yet. So I'm having immunotherapy still for the next six months, which is every three weeks, once a

Speaker:

week. What's that?

Speaker 2:

So immunotherapy is a type of drug that is relatively new. It helps your body detect cancerous cells and helps your body fight them.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

As well as that, I have radiation. So I have five weeks of five days a week radiation.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So that's 25 sessions of radiation. And then I will see the oncologist up to five years after.

Speaker:

Right, okay.

Speaker 2:

Every few months to every six months.

Speaker:

So, it's a new year I'm guessing you're building a house?

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker:

Going back to uni?

Speaker 2:

Definitely going back to uni. Okay. Yeah, I loved it, yeah.

Speaker:

Alright, awesome. So, what's next for you? Now, that's got to be a bit of a, Re evaluation in life is it? Or had you already done that in terms of going to uni, stuff like that? So it's, you're already on the path or has it changed some of the things you're going to do?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think it's really interesting to think about because I had to contemplate death during all of this because I think everyone goes through this does and that was very scary for me because we didn't know what was going to happen at the very start. And so, I started to see a psychologist and who had given me some exercises to do. And those exercises, I thought, Oh, here we go. What are we going to do here? How's that going to help me? But contemplating death and thinking about my life, I've been one who sort of sets goals and has a sort of bigger term, bigger plan. I've, I've done that my entire life. And I'm very fortunate to say that you know, I'm now no longer scared of death because in contemplating all of these things. I have lived my life in exactly the way I've wanted to live it.

Speaker:

You're awesome.

Speaker 2:

I chose from a young age, I wanted to be a stay at home mum.

Speaker:

We

Speaker 2:

wanted to do a lot of travel with those kids, and we did, and I didn't miss any of it. a single thing. I didn't miss a sporting event. I didn't miss anything. I was there for it all. And so I think I've come from a very sort of fortunate position to be able to say that. And because of that, also being a stay at home mom and my husband, my husband providing for our family very well I've had the choice to do all of the things that I've wanted to do. chase different businesses, or coach different sports, or travel to different places, try different things, and I've, so I don't, it was only university that I wanted to do. And and I'm doing it.

Speaker:

Yeah, awesome. And have you started? We're still in January, so you haven't started yet, have you?

Speaker 2:

No. Not yet, but I'm prepared. And I'm really looking forward to it.

Speaker:

Where are you doing university at?

Speaker 2:

In Nudgee.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

At ACU. So unfortunately the traffic is an absolute nightmare. So doing it full time doesn't work because I spend a lot of time in traffic. And that's certainly not how I want to live my life. So I've dropped back to part time. So I'm doing two units a semester.

Speaker:

Still coaching?

Speaker 2:

Still coaching. And did you have

Speaker:

to give up coaching during

Speaker 2:

this process? I thought I would. And so I, so I stopped coaching and we, we found another person to take over. And that was sort of working out really well and that's worked out fabulously, but the kid, I really needed the kids and I needed weightlifting. And so I went back coaching as much as I could, which was one or two days a week. To try and still be there for the club, but also it was so good to take my mind off of cancer and what I thought was that I, that I was going to die.

Speaker:

Yeah. Yeah. And have you were you able to stay physically active

Speaker 2:

during that

Speaker:

and lifting weights and?

Speaker 2:

I was. Yeah. So I went to for the first 12 weeks of chemo, which was weekly chemo. I went to CrossFit still four days a week.

Speaker:

Yeah, awesome.

Speaker 2:

And then into the next chemo, which the nurses called the red devil, which I asked them to not call the red devil because I said, you know, that's slightly negative and I see this red devil as it's actually saving my life. So let's call it something else. But that had quite a profound effect on my physical health and you know, I had nausea and I was a lot of, I had a lot of pain in my spine and my longer bones. So I couldn't cross fit as much, but I was still doing as much as I could cause I have a weight set at home and I was still very active. Yeah. So I tried to stay as active as possible because they did say that. Let me know at the start of chemo to exercise would reduce the side effects of chemo.

Speaker:

Okay, wow.

Speaker 2:

And maintaining muscle mass and consuming a lot of protein is very important for your body and to sort of try and offset those side effects of chemo, which is important. has been a godsend for me and the breast care nurses and my oncologist were fascinated that I could do as much as I was doing. And everyone has suggested that it was because I was so fit and strong going into it.

Speaker:

Yeah, awesome. What was the hardest thing about this journey?

Speaker 2:

The hardest thing was my negative thoughts. My, my own brain, I have a default to I think that the worst case scenario is going to happen to me in, in, in basically every scenario. And so I had to learn to push, not push that down, but accept those thoughts as being there to help me. And I would actually say, thank you brain for trying to protect me. That's not what's going to happen. This is going to happen and replace it with a sort of more, more positive talk and that, that really helped me. But certainly my brain was the hardest part and it made an already difficult experience worse or better based off of what I was thinking.

Speaker:

Yeah. Wow. And to flip this and this might be weird in this circumstance, but what was the best thing to have happened out of all of this?

Speaker 2:

I think the best thing was that, the realisation that my brain and my thoughts create my life. And my life, as I wrote in my post, can be, you know, and I've had some terrible things happen, but my life can be a tragedy or it can be a comedy based off of how I see it and how I deal with things.

Speaker:

Yeah, that's awesome. Anything else on the bucket list in the future?

Speaker 2:

I'd like to do more of Europe. So yeah, that, that's something that came up in, in my little lists when I spoke to the psychologist. Some things that I regret, want to do more of Europe. And I held a grudge with one friend in particular for a very long time.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Which I've reconnected with that person, but yeah, got to do a little bit more work there. Yeah. In

Speaker:

an age, in a time when we are all aging much older than we used to in previous generations, we now have things where we lose our memories. We have challenges like you've had go on. If there came a point in life where you could only hold one memory, what would that be?

Speaker 2:

Wow, what a great question. And so, well, I would think it was difficult to answer, but it's just, it's very easy. It's my kids.

Speaker:

Right. Yeah. Awesome.

Speaker 2:

Memories of the kids.

Speaker:

Thank you very much for chatting with me today. Thank

Speaker 2:

you for chatting with me. What a great conversation. Thank you. When I looked at it in the mirror, I was like, that's actually pretty good. You know, that doesn't look too bad. They've done a good job with the scars there. And then the scars go all the way down and. I just thought, I can live with this. This is fine. You know, my biggest concern was my husband, of course. Yeah. Because I no longer have the body that he, he sort of, nose. But yeah, I thought it's kind of maybe embarrassing to share the photo, but also it can open eyes to see that people are going through this, but also you don't need to get breasts on to feel feminine. And I didn't, I chose not to have a reconstruction because I just felt like it would hinder the recovery process. I've been through a lot and now I don't want to add to it. And so I didn't get yeah, fake breasts because of that reason. I just thought I'm still a female. Yep. And I determined my level of femininity not to change. Not, you know, what size my breasts are. And so, I'm going to share that. Yeah, awesome. Because I'm not ashamed.

Speaker:

And for someone that knows nothing about that stuff, I saw it and went, oh, that's confronting. And then I went, you know, like, from that femininity point of view, I went, oh, that's beautiful. And I, even for myself, I caught myself going, what, what's that about? I'm like, you know what's more beautiful than boobs? being alive. Yeah, exactly. That's what that photo was.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. That is so true. And that's what you know, ABC reached out to me to do a a segment on menopause and chemical induced menopause for young women. And what that's like, what the sort of side effects are and what that's like, what my symptoms are. And I said, you know, they're a nightmare. I can't have long conversations because of my, you know, my dry mouth. And there's so many symptoms. And I said, but that's the least of my problems. I don't even care about that. I am alive. I just don't care about that. I, you know, and I'd go through it all again to be alive. None of that matters.

Speaker:

Tell me about your car.

Speaker 2:

Oh, the car, the car. I started property investing a long time ago because I didn't want to work. And so I started property investing in my mid twenties. Buy, rent, I buy, rent, I buy, rent. I was always renting out. And then we, in 2020, we bought a couple, we bought a duplex and a house at Bribey, which we split and made two units.

Speaker:

And

Speaker 2:

we thought, Oh, we might just sell them and just get rid of our personal debt. And which we didn't have much of, and then we'll decide what to do with the rest of it. But remember they brought in those tax laws that was instant asset write off. So instead of capital gains tax, we bought that car, a Chevy Silverado, yeah,

Speaker:

awesome. I, I, I like blue and I like BMWs. So I've seen

Speaker 2:

your blue car. Yeah.

Speaker:

So that's absolutely great for me. I think everything I see about you is tenacity.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think I like, I like a fight. I'd like to stop now, please. This is enough. I'd like to relax, but yeah, I think it's given me a good perspective on things for sure.

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