The Day Casey Nott Found A Lump

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Life can change in a day.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

A betrayal, a diagnosis, a devastation, a breakdown. This is That Day, the podcast where women tell real stories of the moment life changed, the chaos that followed, and the strength they found along the way. No subject is off limits. I'm Jack, a former coronator and empowerment coach. And I'm Kylie, once an HR manager, now a published author. Together, we help women tell the stories that matter. By the end of each episode, you'll feel it, you'll learn from it, and carry it with you. Welcome to that day.

SPEAKER_04 0:37

This podcast contains conversations about difficult life experiences. Some episodes may include coarse language and themes such as illness, suicide, infertility, or childhood trauma. Please take care while listening and prioritize your well-being. Help lines are listed in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Today's guest is Casey Knott, a Melbourne-based contemporary fiction author whose stories explore women's lives and the challenges they face. At 29, Casey looked like she was in a hopeful season of life, but quietly she was grieving miscarriages and navigating fertility struggles. Then, on an ordinary morning before brunch, she found a lump. Within days came a diagnosis that paused everything and narrowed life down to one goal: survival. Welcome, Casey. We're so excited to have you. Thank you so much for having me. What an intro. Hello, Casey. I wrote that. Harley, you've the writer.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

I know, you can tell.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Could you briefly describe your life before that pivotal moment?

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Sure. On the surface, it looked pretty great. I had been working as a chartered accountant for about 10 years and got very disenfranchised with that. Sick of spreadsheets.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

Under your control-minute increments or whatever they do.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

When I was an auditor, we did that. So you had to even mark your breaks. It was great. It was such a good time. But I was back at corporate accounting at this stage. I had a really unpleasant time in the last job that I was in and felt just gross going to work every day. I'm like, I've got to get out of this. So I went back to uni. I actually took six months off to write a book. I just quit and said to my husband, I need to just regroup. I'm going to write this book that I wanted to write. Anyway, that lasted about three weeks. And then I went back to uni. I heard an ad on the radio advertising for food science. I thought, oh, that actually sounds what I want to be. I'm going to go do that. So the book didn't really go anywhere. And I went back to uni, loved it. I was learning all this cool stuff, health science. It was totally different to whatever I had studied in the past and just really thrived. It was great. And then we were trying to have a baby. I was almost 30. We'd been married a couple of years. All my friends were having babies. It was just that everywhere you look, there's a pram in the streets. And it sort of hit me overnight. Wasn't obsessed with having them. I knew they were in my future, hopefully. And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh my God, I have to have one like tomorrow. And I thought that would be easy, naively, I think. Everything in my life had kind of been easy up until that point. If I had decided to do something, I would do it. If I applied for a job, I usually got it. Didn't realize that things would be difficult. So I'd been pretty charmed and lucky. And it was really hard. So we had had a few miscarriages quietly. And there's this weird shame that sort of shrouds that. So a few of my close friends knew, but it wasn't something we advertised, and that was really hard. So behind the scenes, I was obsessed with that. Yeah. And bracing for the worst, and bracing for the fact that it might never happen and preparing for fertility treatment.

SPEAKER_04 3:53

And so young as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Yeah. I know I felt really old at the time.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

What a dickhead. 29 is quite young. I know. I think about, you know, I was 34 when I had my first child. Why do you think there is a shame associated with particularly miscarriage? Because I felt it too.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yeah, I don't I don't know. Probably because society expects women to be mothers. And when your body doesn't cooperate with that, it is a visceral, physical failure. Like my body has not come to this party, it won't do what it's meant to do. Like nature says this is what we're meant to do, it wouldn't do it. And I was really angry with her for that. And it took a long time to forgive her.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, and you had to probably learn to love her again.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

Yeah. And I mean she was doing her best. Poor thing. Had they given you reason? Like, or was it too early to go into fertility exploration?

SPEAKER_03 4:52

No, I had seen a fertility specialist at Monash and she did a surgery, like a exploratory laparoscopy, and they found a septum in the uterus. So basically a dint. No blood flow, nothing could implant. Okay, so she took that out, which was great. And a few months later I did fall pregnant and then lost it almost straight away. And then a month later I found the lump.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:17

So you were living with your husband. He is he also an accountant? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

We have a lot of fun. Did you meet at work? We did meet. We met at karaoke night. Welcome to the grads. And I sang summer of 69. I mean, love that. Blew him away.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

I met my husband at work too. It's very incestuous, those accounting firms. And when you spend so much time at work, it kind of makes sense because your social life becomes the people that you hang out with. Yeah. People you work with.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

So ostensibly, happy life, everything on the outside was looking great, but at home behind closed doors, you and your husband were dealing with these difficult issues and going through miscarriages and fertility issues.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

And um that would have been extremely traumatizing as well.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Yeah, it was really hard. He was a lot more stoic and is always very even. So it was something I did privately a lot of the time, that grief. And it, you know, came in waves. It wasn't all the time. I was pretty good at masking most of the time, but every friend who announced a pregnancy or sent me an ultrasound photo. Yeah. I wasn't unhappy for them. I wasn't even jealous. It was I just wanted it to be my turn.

SPEAKER_04 6:39

Of course. And you you do want to celebrate them. But feel two things at once, right? You can be envious of what came easily to them and what you're desperate for and struggling with.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

And it didn't always come easily for them either. And some of my very close friends had had the same thing going on. But you don't find out till later. It's a bit like in high school when you think you're the only one getting your period for the first time, and then you find out that everyone's having it, and we're all doing it in secret. And these very normal physical things that women go through, I think it's like one in four pregnancies ends in a miscarriage. Like it's very common. Yet we don't we don't help each other or be that support. And I hope that's changing.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

As a woman in Maws, I think we are seeing women are starting to talk about these things more openly. But I agree with you. In the past, I think it was shameful and people sort of kept that very much to themselves. And what a shame. Because shared experience is shared knowledge and wisdom. And you realise you're not alone if you can relate to someone and say, Oh my god, me too.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Oh, how are you coping? You know, those kind of connections with women are just gold. And if we can like educate women out there, talk to your friends, be honest, be open, would you agree that that would have changed if you'd been able to talk about it freely with your girlfriends?

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Absolutely. And not all of them could understand. Like my uni friends were actually great friendships for me to have at that point because they were younger. I mean, we were all mature age students, so we all sort of found each other. We weren't hanging with the 18-year-olds. That would have been embarrassing for for the 18-year-olds, I think. But they were great because they were reprieved from the baby stuff. I could go out and go to the pub with them after class. We had the same things in common. We could study together. So I had a part of my life that was very separate from these other very grown-up friendships that I had. And thankfully, that was really great.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

I mean, it's not the same, but it's a little bit like in book world. You finally get a book deal and you you think that your life is now set, and then you see that other people's books are selling more or getting bookshop windows or whatever, and you want to be happy for them, but you also feel a little bit for yourself that's something that you would have hoped for. I know it's not the same as having a baby, and I know people talk about book babies, and it's not the bloody saying, but also it's quite lonely when you feel like you can't talk about something that's upsetting you, like a mismarriage. And so I think the shared connection is important and having people, like you say, outside of that world. So you give your brain a break.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Yes. And I mean, one person's baby doesn't come at the expense of another's, or one person's book deal doesn't come at the expense of another. I mean, right what is it? The rising tide floats all boats, and we're all in it together. But you just don't want to have your face rubbed in it, I guess, sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 9:39

Of course. And it's hard when someone has a baby, you know, to not celebrate that baby, but she's the turmoil inside when you're holding someone else's baby and you just want it to be your own. That must have been really hard for you, Casey.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

Um, it was.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:57

God, you've broke me already. Sorry. We do.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Fortunately, this is a story about your life. Yes. And you are smiling as well as having tears in your eyes. So, how beautiful is that. Can you tell us about that day and you set the scene?

SPEAKER_03 10:12

It was a beautiful September spring day, you know, early spring when you're just sort of shedding layers and the sun comes out, what feels like for the first time. And so my friend and I decided we'd go out for brunch, and it was lovely. And we were walking around Port Melbourne and there was an auction going on, and we're like, oh, let's have a look at a house we can't afford. This will be great. And we had a look, and then we thought, oh, we'll just stay, we'll watch the bidding. And I just casually like ran my hand along my collarbone, and there was this weird lump. And you know, when you have swollen glands and you can sort of feel they get a bit bigger and but they still move around. There, you can palpate them. Anyway, this one felt really hard and really in the wrong spot. And I just knew instantly something was wrong. I'd also been studying physiology, so I knew this was not good. So we couldn't even stay for the auction. I just turned to her and I went, There's a lump right here. And she is adorable, this friend, but also very health aware and panicked with me. So we panicked together. It was mutual panic.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, connected over. Yeah, connected over anxiety and panic. Was there no part of you that thought, that's a mozzie bite, or it like why did you go straight to panic? I'd never felt anything like it before.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

It was too big to be a bite. It was the size of about half a golf ball sticking out.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Oh wow. Yeah. And you hadn't noticed it prior to that moment. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

That's unbelievable. I know. And I think they can come up quite quickly.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

If you looked in the mirror, could you see it? Yeah, I could see it. Wow, and it did look like half a golf ball. Yeah. That's extraordinary. You and your husband had not seen it before that. Maybe it did come up. Does that show how unobservant he is? It also shows busyness of life. Yeah. Had you been feeling unwell, were there any other symptoms that maybe in hindsight you thought perhaps may have been related? No. This is the annoying part.

SPEAKER_03 12:09

So I I mean, no, I wasn't tired. I wasn't especially anything. Sometimes with lymphoma, you can get like night sweats where you're drenched. I didn't have those. So I had no other symptoms. It was just salam. So you left the auction? Yeah, we left the auction. We found a 24-hour clinic. It was like the St Kilda Super Clinic, which is the only GP that we could find within QE of us that was open on a Saturday. And weirdly I got in and I could tell it wasn't good from what he said. He was lovely, this lovely Irish doctor who was so helpful. He ordered an ultrasound and I said to him, like, what it what could this be besides cancer? Anything else? And he's like, uh, could be like glandular fever, but I had no symptoms of that. There was no lethargy, there was no cold and flu, there was no lingering illness. And I just I mean, a weird spot for a cyst.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

So your mind automatically went to cancer?

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

I don't even know if I would have thought that.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

It's just a weird spot, and I knew about the lymphatic system, and I knew where it would go. So yeah, I just couldn't think of a reason that wasn't that. And then on the Monday, I had the ultrasound. So it moved really quickly, and the tech took too many photos. He took heaps of photos, and he asked me about three times, when are you seeing your GP again? And I'm like, and I went, okay, this isn't good. I don't know how not good yet. And the doctor rang about four times to make sure I had another appointment. So I just when the news is bad, people call a lot. It's unlike a relationship when that ends and you get ghosted. It's the opposite of that. It's like they call constantly, which is reassuring later when you're having scans and nobody calls. Like, oh well, I'm obviously okay. Even though the radiographer can't tell you, you know. They're not allowed to tell you anything. So I got really obsessed with reading people and watching their tells, and they all have them. Then I would also catastrophise that and take anything that was said to me and blow it out of proportion.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

I don't want to keep making this about me, but I do I have been reminded of I rang Kylie after I had my ultrasound and I said, Kylie, they found something. She spent too long on one breast, like she was taking photos. I just know she's like, oh no.

SPEAKER_04 14:35

It's like maybe you just have dense breasts and she needed to get a clearer picture. But I'm going to Jackie was sure. Like she's under something more. Yeah. And it was like it was a Friday and I had to wait until Monday.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Those weekends are the worst. You know why?

SPEAKER_04 14:49

Because cancer doesn't grow on weekends. When my dad had cancer treatment, he he had his biopsy, he had esophageal cancer. He had his biopsy of a lump. That was over Easter. He had to wait. He had it done on like, say, the Thursday before Easter. And then we had like four days we had to wait, and it was hell.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

How long did you have to wait for the formal diagnosis? And was it the GP, or did then you have to get a referral to a specialist?

SPEAKER_03 15:15

So I had an X-ray, I think on the Tuesday. So it was ultrasound Monday, X-ray Tuesday. They picked up a chest tumour on that. So there were three tumors in the end. There was one in the chest and two in the neck. So did you feel the others once they pointed out where they were? Were you like, oh my god? No. Yeah, or was it just not really. And then I saw the GP on the Wednesday and she said, Yeah, it's lymphoma. Now, lymphoma is tricky because there's like 30 different types of lymphoma, and then there's Hodgkin's separate. So if you have a non-Hodgkins lymphoma, it could be all kinds of different ones. Some are really latent and slow growing, and then by the time they find them, the odds are not very good. So you have to have a needle biopsy to test if you have Hodgkin or not, which I had on the Thursday. And so we were all kind of like crossing our fingers. Yes, let it be Hodgkin'cause that would have been the best outcome for me. And that was a fun day, the needle biopsy. You've probably had that, Jack. That's a good time, isn't it? And then that did come back positive for the Hodgkins. So did that take? I think they told me on Friday, I think this all happened in a week. And then I had to, because we were thinking about having IVF, my specialist that I was seeing wanted to do a whole egg harvest. And the oncologist just said, nah.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

No time.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

He said the the tumour near the aorta is it's too risky to let that just bubble away for a month.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Oh god.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

No way. It was close to the aorta. Yeah. Was still in the so he wanted to start straight away. So we compromised. I was very happy to go with him. I couldn't have relaxed and done an egg harvest. That was just unfathomable. So I had another lap surgery and she took some tissue, ovarian tissue, which was frozen. The chemo that I was meant to have wasn't going to well, it wasn't expected to damage fertility, but they didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Was that a topic that was brought up, or did you have to specifically say, hey, by the way, I I was hoping to have children. Is this going to impact my Yeah, I asked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Yeah. It was definitely at the forefront. So another thing they did aside from the harvest was give me an injection to shut down my ovaries. So it essentially put them to sleep and induced like a pretend menopause. Oh why did they do that? To protect them from the chemo. And then the idea is that they just wake up after it's over.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

So were you just feeling like firstly, I have to survive this, but if I survive it, I may never have children? Or did you just not have the headspace to even think?

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Oh no, I definitely was worried about that. But then in the meantime, I was having this fake menopause. So my mum and I were having it together. Hot flushes. She bought me a paper fan and it was awful.

SPEAKER_04 18:02

Hello, lovely listeners, it's Kylie here. Just a quick note before we jump back in. In the middle of recording this incredible chat with Casey, we had a small technical hiccup, the corrupted part of the audio. We didn't realise until afterwards. And let me tell you, that was devastating. Thankfully, we were also recording video. So we've been able to pull the audio from that and rescue the full conversation. You might notice the sound quality shifts slightly, but the heart of Casey's story is absolutely intact. Trust us, it's too powerful to miss. Thanks for sticking with us. And now back to Casey.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

But then in the meantime, I was having this fake menopause. So my mum and I were having it together. Hot flushes. She got me a bit of fan. Woohoo! And it was awful. I mean, hats off to anyone having a hot flush. But oh, you just get this wave of heat that comes up. You think you're gonna either vomit or pass out, or it was so I was doing that a lot, all night, all day, waking up soaked, having to change pajamas. And that was all the side effects of just that. It wasn't even that wasn't like an interview. That was just another fun little choose your own adventure. Yeah, well outside of not being adventuring you to go to chosen. The things our bodies put us through, really it's quite extraordinary. Yeah, it was a time. So this all happened in like a week, and then I think on the Tuesday after that, it was like eight days later, I saddled up for the first chemo. Well, straight away. Yeah, and I was still really sore. I had to wheel chimney around because I was sore from the surgery on the weekend. Oh right. So um, yeah. So did the surgery, was that to take out the lump and the no, no, no lump really just the harvest of the tissue. Yeah. So no surgery on the lumps. So during this time, are you the kind of person that Googles everything and wants to know everything, or you like prefer to put your hand in the sand and go, whatever happens, happens? It's weird. I would not only want all the information. I Googled one thing, which was what are the survival rates? Oh which are pretty good. Yeah, relatively. But statistics are only good when they're on your side. And my chance of getting this was less than 1%. It was really it's very common on 15 to 30 year olds as a population, this cancer, um, but you know, very unpopular in the skin of life. 90%, I think, was the survival odds at five years. Okay. And it went down a little bit to 10, but pretty good. But that's still 10 people dead in every hundred, and that's what my brain makes. And I'd already felt like I am not special. I this could happen to anybody. I'm not special, I don't deserve to be saved in this statistics, so why not me? I was gonna ask you, that's exactly what happened to me. It's like, why me? And then a friend said, Why not you? Yeah. It's like I was learning about science, and I'm like, this is just so I we don't deserve what happens to us. Probably good or bad most of the time. A lot of things that happen to us are an accident or a coincidence or luck. Um, even where we're born into the world. No one deserves to be born less privileged than someone else. But you know, this is where we're at. This is the society we live in. Um so I was on the right side of so much luck. I had private health insurance, which opened the doors very quickly. Um, I got a great oncologist who usually only sees people from surgeon materials, but he saw me, which was very nice. Um, and he was great and shepherded us through this shit time. And he was just so certain that I was going to be fine. And I really clung to that certainty a lot of the time when I was feeling like I might die. We need that hope totally. Because that's the only thing you had no one to. Yeah, hope's good and dangerous sometimes. Like it's dangerous if you don't have enough, or sometimes if you have too much. I don't know. I I didn't really think about anything beyond the next thing I had to do. It was too it was too scary to think about the alternatives. I did have a countdown of I think it was like a hundred days or something. Of chemo? Yeah. It was five months. I had this countdown and I would tip it off. And at the start, that countdown was so depressing. When you had all that left. So tell us about chemo. The joy that is chemo. Chemo. Um I had a really shitty time with chemo. You get like an induction to chemo on your first day, which is welcome to it. It's kind of like welcome to chemo. You sit down, they go to it, you get a panic. I've got a show bag. Whoa. Did it have Cody Beatles in it? Unfortunately, no. I can't remember. I thought, you know, got some bookmarks. Yeah, I got some tea, maybe. I don't know. It was pretty pretty grim. Oh, but they're just it's just a pair of little side effects, basically. My favourite one was they said, ah, if you go home and want to have sex, you need to use protection because you know you're toxic in the next several days. And I'm like, um, that isn't a fucking thing I need to worry about. There is the openest coming in. Oh my god. Last thing away. But you know, lots of blokes would be like, at this point, make you think meta. Well, she said it was the blokes that usually nothing stops them. Not even no, no, even you're kidding me. Can't be can't be stopped. Keep a good point down. So induction. Yes. It's just here. And um it's kind of like, is an induction or is it a baptism of fire? I don't know. It was they don't really know what's going to happen to you. They don't know what side effects you'll have or what you won't have. So I was kept in overnight, uh, woke up in the middle of the night with like a stabbing pain in my chest, thinking, okay, cool. Dying of some kind of heart thing. Um wasn't dying, spoiler alone. But it was like as the chemo as breaks down your tumors, all the junk from the tumour spills into your bloodstream, and it's quite painful. Oh, really? Yeah, but that was quick, to be fair. Like I think on the second round, this chin, I can feel it. Okay. So they shrunk really quickly, which is encouraging that it was working. And how long does that chemo take? It took about three or four hours at hospital every second week. So I would have like one bad week. The chemo week was pretty grim. But the first couple of months were even worse. I got a really rare side effect of one oh, so I had four chemo drugs in my cocktail. Wow. And one gave me headaches like I cannot even describe to you. It was like the first one that I had, I had to be hospitalized, and they were just shoving morphine into my thigh, injecting it for days. Wow. I was thinking I just couldn't even speak. The first night I was in with another woman and she kept trying to talk to me, this old lady in poor snake, she was lonely. The nurse came in in the morning and said, I don't think that girl likes. Oh, just so awful. She's just very ill. And I'm just I was. So I was we had a pharmacy of stuff. My husband was really good at uh like drug handling. So we I would go home with a bag, like a huge ziplock of stuff, and there was like preventative things like an antibiotic, an antifungal, a white cell injection that I had to give myself occasionally. Um you were basically a drug cartel. I had so much endone and slow release morphine and everything. And then I so I had a 24-hour pain management schedule. So every four hours I was taking something for those headache dates because I would just wake up, have something, be knocked out for two hours, and then cry to my next dose for about four days. That's horrific. Uh and then they took one of the drugs out finally after some pre-orthical trial and error. Um, they thought about any anti-nause drugs one day doing it to me, so they didn't give them to me. Oh. Which was an incredibly bad day in the chair. One woman, the forget her, sitting across from me, having her own chemo, walked out to the gift shop with her IB attached to her and bought me a present at the shop, a little key ring to say, I'm sorry that you know you're ombuding your way to a chemo today. Um, it's very kind. People are so kind in oncology. One guy would come in in his suit and briefcase, clearly going to work after. I don't know how people did anything remotely productive. I couldn't do anything. So I thought about those babies that I'd lost a lot because there was one that I got to about eight weeks before I lost it. And that baby would have been nine months old. I just thought I'd lucky that he wasn't born to have this mother that was useless. And then I just felt worse for thinking that like the how do we was grateful. We didn't have to go through that as well as everything else. I didn't have to worry about how to fear and this baby. Sorry. Do not apologize. Apologizing to like Kylie my cry as well, because how can you not be touched when you hear a story like this? You know, this is what so many people are facing every day of the week. But also it's that all of motherhood, isn't it? Like the desire to be a mother, but thankful that you didn't have that baby because you were so sick and couldn't have looked after the baby and then feeling terrible about that thought and the guilt already. It's I'm good at guilt. Yeah. And I just thought if I couldn't have I couldn't have even picked up that baby. Because after you have chemo, you are quite toxic. And they say to you, stay away from pregnant women, don't hug them, don't pick up a baby. So I would have had days where I wouldn't have even been able to pick up my baby. So yeah, I it's kind of like God's grace that you didn't, in a way, I guess. In a way, yeah. I keep believing God can give us a wave of it. It was it's time for every kid. And even the one I lost the monk before, if I hadn't him, that would have had to be terminated. Because I I would have died. And then yeah, we probably probably wouldn't have died before the we didn't got a baby. So we'd both we both would have died if I had not had a termination. So um I didn't have to make that choice, which lucky's the wrong word for it. I don't know what the word is, but um I wasn't grateful, I wasn't anything. It was just thoughts that I had. Really? It could have been worse. And I do that a lot. I did that I it could have been worse, and that could be the Catholic thing as well. Don't you complain about whatever shit you're in because somebody has it worse, which I had to unpack a lot in therapy. Yeah. There's always someone suffering worse than you are, even though you're in chemo and vomiting across the room and later dies in the key ring. And then yeah, think about the loss of babes and wow, that's so much to process, Casey. Yeah, a lot going on. I was gonna ask you, did anyone were you having counselling or therapy? Was that offered as you were having the chemo? Because that seems a lot to be throwing into this. Again, a week if diagnosed, bang, well getting this happening every day. Was anyone there to help you guide your emotional well-being? Yeah, I mean, they did offer it at the start. I was really too sick to go in those early months when we were still kind of working it out. And I started seeing her towards the end, when I realized that I was gonna have to go back to life after this, so everything had really been gone on pause. I wasn't I was still studying in the background, the uni was very good, and I sat my exams later. Um, so I was still submitting assignments on my good week. Wow, trying to finish all the course material. I got to do it at a slower rate, but that was also gave me something good to focus on. Um You could have written a PhD on what not to eat when you're feeling nauseous. Oh mate, you just want biscuits. What sort of biscuits? What's it chemo? I just wanted sweet stuff. I couldn't have anything spicy, it was dead to me. Um chemo really obliterates your palate and your mouth is really sore. The Peter Merk Mouthwash, not sponsored, but very good. Very effective. Um, so I had a lot of ice cream, a lot of cake on biscuits, which was fine at the start. But that came back to want me at the sport party. Amazing gets ten kilos. Yeah. Oh, sweetness. Well, you don't have some positive swelling to eat this. So ice cream biscuits get you through. So be it, hey. That's what they say to you. You just say whatever you want. Your body tells you. Yeah, and people were client and would drop off amazing little hampers and stuff. So every week I would have food the food was really my one shining joy to the whole thing. I was gonna ask you about your support network at retirement. So who did who did that? Did you game people? Did you lose people? I find these crises in life and often it's actually surprising who comes forward and who backs away, isn't it? Most people were amazing. Um I my mum and husband really made everything smooth at home. She did the stuff that he couldn't do. Like emotions probably were not his forte. And that was not a secret when I married him. Mum was unmuted. And I think I really weren't you can't get everything from one person. And it's unfair to expect that. But he was great at appointments, logistics, and drug management, drug management. He couldn't he bless him, he'd go to work, but before he had like the box, so he'd like all my blood's ready, set me up, and now if he'd go, and then some days being alone in the house, I would spiral. Just with anxiety or whatever. Just feel like I couldn't breathe with anxiety. And I'd ring Mum. And just say, I can't be alone today. And she would just come over, like play on her jobs. She would just come, or her best friend would come and just sit with me some days. All they could do was hold my hand or they clean my house a lot, actually. That was great. Yeah. The cleanest house, which bothered me to not be able to do for myself. Um, and I had some amazing friends. Again, they all had their own wives. Some had little kids. They would drop off meals, they would drop off just anything. DVDs, this was a while ago, so we didn't have any options. I couldn't really read a book. I couldn't really watch long form movies or anything. I had to be like short episodes or podcasts were really great. I got really into serial remember. Yeah, I was listening to that in real time as it dropped. This American likes. That's right. Yes, I loved that. But I couldn't stay awake for a lot of I was stuck in my deaf, I couldn't have read a book, which was hard to not be able to do something I loved. It just I just couldn't understand. I just could not have shred of a story that long, or even just sit and do anything really for that long. Um and you're right, some friendships are tested, and some people that you think will be really present unplaced. So I think people can get really scared and they don't know what to do with that. And so they do nothing, which is worse. But I was my mum talked a lot harder than I did. I was really forgiving because I'm like, you know what? This isn't really about me, this is about them. And I couldn't even focus on that negative stuff because I had too much other negative stuff to focus on. And that other great, really freeing quote that is not mine, but I will quote May Angela where she said, when people show they show who they are, you should delete them. And the whole let them thing, which came much later. Yeah, maybe I was doing that inadvertently at the time. Like you can't expect everything from everybody, and someone else facing their mortality is very confronting. Yeah. And so actually, it takes acts of bravery, even to say to someone, I don't know what to say to you. Like, I am just devastated that you're going through this. I don't know how to help you. I don't even know what to say. So, but also you don't have the energy to be managing other people's feelings, yeah, or negotiating with them about what they can do to make themselves feel better about being around you. So it's such a tough time, isn't it? You can't comfort people while they're grieving your grief. Some friends would just come and cry. I can't be dealing with your, you have to cry with someone else. But that was kind of rare. My favorite friends were the ones that would treat me like I wasn't a fucking cancer. I etted being treated like a sick person. And I remember my friend rang me one day and said, Oh, how are you going? And she's like, Oh, and then she sort of caught herself. I'm like, What? She's like, Oh, well, I've just I've got this little cut inside my nose. And it hurts a lot. And they're like, Yeah, that's really annoying. And I'm like, God, you winging bitch. That's it. Um, but it was funny, and we laughed, and I'm like, Oh my god, please tell me about your paper cuts because inside your nose. I don't know what you've done to get that. I think she just blew it to me or something. They were the best ones. Or my friend then had a little kid, and she'd text me like whatever saga she was going to, like the kid doing something outie or something. Yeah, it's like I needed people to be normal because I was still me. Yeah. But I don't know, and that just makes you feel worse about death. Like everyone's being really nice to you in case you die. Probably it maybe not even consciously doing that. And I mean, that's nice, I guess. Or I would rather someone send me some dick jokes or something to cheer me up. Well, not dick dips. Not dick, just to be clear. I've never been sent one. So, your friends that brought joy and laughter. Do they help you find your little glimmers in the day? And how important was that to you? I mean, that was everything. If if there's a message which you tell people who have a sick friend, don't abandon them. Just be normal, treat them like there's nothing wrong with them. Like there's they're just still the same person. And they need company and they need friendship and they need laughter. Yeah. They need to be taken away from the whatever emotion they're going to. If if they're available to that and they're they want that. As as definitely not the message. Let me know what you need. Just take some fucking initiative. Yeah. Drop off some food. That is the hardest thing. Oh, let me know if there's anything I can help you with. And you're like, I don't know what I need. Yeah. So just it's like Kylie would come over with a gift pack, we had all these little things with funny people would bring like just humorous things. Take it to an appointment. Oh my god. We turn on papers. I know people don't understand the logistical. My husband had a job, but he was still ferrying me around to all this stuff. Like he came to every chemo. And yeah, it was all like of that stuff. But I'm not sure I would have wanted anyone else to do that either. And also you don't know what you need until it's too late. You don't have to or people say, Why didn't you ask me to I'm I didn't fucking know that I needed I was also highly capable women, as we all are, and not very good at accepting help. Don't need help. So like I had to force Jackie. Like she had three weeks of radiation. No, I'll be fine, I was strike myself. I'm like, for fuck's sake, mate, just let me it's three weeks. Let me do one. No, no, you don't need to come, you'll be stuck in traffic, you'll be driving for an hour. Yeah. I am coming. And I know that not everyone has my personal stuff. Yes. Um, and I I I hope it was you were very resistant to I was like, if people offer help, just accept it. But not like I understand being very vulnerable. Yeah, I just I wish people had shown her, like you say, without having to be asked, I suppose, some of them. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's a hard balance for the person on the outside, because like I don't want to barge into someone's life and go, Right, I'll be cleaning your house today and I'll be I won't even cooking for you because you know I eat my cooking. But you know, like we were a bit younger too. Like say over all around 30. It's a bit at a different time in your life when you don't you don't have that barge-in mentality. And a lot of them, you know, we're in the freaking the trenches. Yeah, and also I didn't want kids to come both. I was toxic and also I was immune suppressed. So I said, please, I love your kids, but stay away from me. That's somebody knows really journey. Yeah, and I couldn't have fresh flour that's because of the toxins that make it in at least. So I had to be really careful with like we had hand sanitizer by the door, so if people came in, it's like you just be really careful. Um and this was pre-COVID as well, so we no one had that sort of level of panic about hygiene yet. So I don't know, you're right though. It's you do know what you need. And I don't know, I think everyone did what the best they can. And I didn't hold any grudges about that. You were too sick? Um, sitting here thinking, this would be a really good host on Instagram. What to do when your friend is diagnosed with a terminal illness, make them a meal, go over to their house and make them laugh. Do not send a message saying, Is there anything I can help you with? And no dick pics. No dictators. And that's a rule for life. Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. I loved hampers. Yeah, handers were fun. Yeah, because people wouldn't see any heads. Because I didn't wear a wig because of the hot flushes. It was just the thought of that was too itchy and gross. So I wore a lot of stars and that was fun. Your partner was very stoic by nature. So he'd also been through a very similar experience with his mother and having cancer. So I knew firsthand that the support person needs a lot of support. So I was, I mean, I was pretty selfish, I guess, for most of the time. Um, but I made sure that he, you know, went to his office Christmas party or he went to his friend's 15th birthday and someone would come and babysit me. It was a bit like no one had agreed, but we all agreed that I couldn't be left alone anymore, like a kid, which I think I was actually fine with. I was worried that something would happen, or I don't know. But if that's one time you're allowed to be selfish, it's a little bit. I could regress a little to like a child sometimes. And like mum would pick me up for an appointment and I do, I just really want hot chips. And so she'd come buy me hot chips. Like, okay, this is great. So I don't know. I did worry about him a bit, but uh he he was fine and he was so it's like you're not gonna do it. This is fun, we're gonna do this, it's gonna be fine. It's like all science-based. Um it's it's kind of nice to have that, isn't that that surety, even though you know, okay, this is bullshit. There is uh potential that I could be one of those ten people. Yeah. Um, but it's nice to have someone in your life going, right, come on, hold the line. He is like that in all kinds of crisis. It's good, it's handy. I think I was more worried about what would happen if I did die again. I mean that worried me, that I would just disappear and he'd get another wife. Did you discuss like who he was allowed to get? Because I've had these discussions with my husband and I don't have cancer. Like I point them out and street, you know, she'd be alright, not hurt. I didn't have a full guide for him. Well, you were a bit young. I just said to him, She won't be as good as me. Yeah, that's fair. I just didn't want her to have bigger boobs. Oh yeah. So I'm like, if she's got bigger boobs than me, I'll be pissed off. Anyway, uh how long did he my last about six months. And was it hell the entire time, or did your body eventually get used to the roundup as my don't? No, it sort of gets worse at compounds, so accumulating. Yeah, you've got brain fog, you've got my skin was really sensitive to be touched. Like it was like being sunburnt, but all over and inside and out. It was so I didn't want to be the only body part I could bear to be touched was having my feet rubbed. My friend would come over with really nice like emotion and rub like feet. It was really lovely. But you know, hugging just like hurt when I was in the really shit parts. There were days. I was just pathetic and would cry and was angry. And grief is not one straight line out of it and then you're like, done. You dip in and out all the time, um, of all the phases. Um, but I think if you want to get to that acceptance that grief is a thing that is going to happen to you if you live long enough, and if you love anybody, it's gonna come for you over and over again. And you can either like face that or not. And letting tiny, annoying things dominate your thoughts is such a waste of energy or wasting time on what other people think of you. I wasted so much time on that in my twenties where I thought I would be judged. Yeah. And I mean, okay, maybe I was. And now I've just worked out. I don't give a shit. I am not everyone's conversation, but that's also fine. None of us are for everybody. Go order a fucking coffee. Yeah. Exactly. But I'm also sure, I'll just really fake it anymore. I'm not speculating. Like what is the point? You face some pretty serious stuff, you know. Like you faced your own mortality, you faced the idea of never having children. I mean, why would you then worry that someone cocked an eyebrow because you wore pink when it didn't suit your colour type? Yeah, exactly. But I think that's also a gift of being 40. Like you just you don't care as much about superficial stuff. Um, I laughed when I was having treatment and I would be driving, you get really like quite magnanimous in the car. Like, oh yes, geez, come on in and um I've got all the time in the world to be nice on the road. And you can tell when you're feeling better is when you start like calling people a pricky. When you start getting angry by little things or like cues or yeah, you know, trivial shit that gets in the way of life. You know that you're on your road to recovery. But I mean, facing your own mortality when we're all gonna die. And we all very arrogantly make plans when we're well, like for next week, so three years' time for whenever. And cancer just goes, yeah. You get to look at tomorrow, mainly. Like I could only look a couple of days about what was coming next. And then when I started to make plans again, that was hard. And I think I worked through that with the psychologists a lot because nothing felt like it belonged to you anymore. The future didn't really feel like it belonged to you, and that's because it doesn't. Yeah, it's not guaranteed. Nothing is for any of us. And the best thing I do now is like, okay, we have this one moment that just keeps unfolding. And that's what you do with it, and it's what you do with today. And I hope that by doing that, that I can give the gift to my kids about not worrying about tiny little things or not panicking about the future or worrying about the past, because the past is over and the future's not here yet. So we still I mean, also this makes it sound like I'm really good at this, which would be disingenuous. I am also really good at lying awake at 3 a.m. So I remember that thing you said in 1990. That stupid thing you said. Yeah, yeah. I try, I'm working on it. But that's in nature, isn't it? We we try to be the best person we can, and um like uh something like this illness to you has taught me how to be present, but we're not always present. We could we have given away a bit of a spoiler alert, yeah. Uh not we haven't alerted people we've given the spoiler. But Casey did go on to have children. So could we please are it just low? Um so you six months is up. Yep. Are they like checking out your armpit for the ivarian tissue or whatever it is by then? Or no often? They had to wait for that menopause injection to kind of wear off. And so that could have taken anywhere from a few months to a year to just wear off. So it was like, wait till you get your period back. We can't really do anything for you in the next 12 months or something. I've never even heard of that. So thank you for shouting. I think it's called Zolodex. It's a delightful injection, goes into your stomach, really hurts. It's a dated for some of these things, which is quite nice. And I think it was like eight weeks, I have my period back. Well, that's great. It was really good. Two months later, I was pregnant. And I said to the oncologist, you know, what should I do? Should I wait a couple of years to make sure I'm not gonna die or whatever? And he's like, just go and live your life. Can you stop asking me about death? He was so sure. He was just so confident. I had had a PET scan maybe four months in and a complete metabolic response, which means there's no cancer left. And then they just do the last few rounds to mop up anything that might have been microscopic. So I had basically the best response that you could have. And then I mean you are a myacie bar, but you had a serial control over this. I know. I do like to get 10 out of 10. And I just assumed that that pregnancy would end. Because that had been your experience. So I couldn't enjoy that really. I just thought, yeah, don't get too comfortable because yeah. Yeah, but I'll just yeah. Look at you. So could you enjoy when you saw the pregnancy stick? So yes, you're positive, could you actually enjoy that one? Could I think I did, but I guess it was kind of like being behind a foggy window. So yes, I was excited and you still kind of make all kinds of plans. I still pictured that that baby, pictured, you know, where I put the cart, I was way far gone. Like I had been for all the others. But the closer it got to the GD, the closer I got to 40 weeks, the worse the anxiety got. Because I'm like, well, now do we take it? Even though no one had said this to me. There was no it was everything was fine. It was just you have trial response from having miscarriages and having had this last certain surviving. Yeah, it was self-preservation. When you just prepare to be disappointed. And then maybe you'll be surprised. And then the first baby came out and then she came. And then when she was born, I just I I still couldn't really believe it. It took me a while to really like relax into being a mother. And I think that's just normal for a lot of mothers. You get this baby quantity, and it's like, God, it's no manual. I read all the books, of course, and tried to work out what the hell I was doing. And I was really like regimented. I would just do what I was told. I would feed her, I would swaddle her, I would put her to bed, she would sleep. Well, I feel like the the universe having me a break. She's totally having no break. But you just kind of have a little gift. Yeah. And we learnt how to do it together. Um, and she's still teaching me more than I'm teaching her. Yeah. And it's hard to remember those times now. It's a bit like chemo. It kind of feels like it happened to someone else. Like I see my friends in the schoolyard with new little babies, and I'm like, God, I can't really remember what that felt like anymore. Because and oh, I should say I had two more children now. Yeah, congratulations. I turned into the most virtual woman in the world. Uh, and we had three in three and a half years. So I felt like it was, yeah, it's really lucky to have the babies. I'd never thought I'd have one, you must treasure them so much. Of course, but they still got unlikely sometimes. I think that's the other thing. Like you think, well, you wanted these children, we must be grateful at all times. Yeah. You must never be upset with them, you must never yell or raise your voice. You are Mary Poppy. And so I am an odd girl. Right. Which that's shocked. I know. I've had to let go of that. So I'm quite vocal about you know when I make mistakes, or I apologize when I make mistakes. And so it's healthy, and we I just try and undo all that stuff. And as mothers, we've never done it before. So we're learning. We do the best we can with the information and knowledge we have. Yeah. And they teach us as well. Oh. All the every day. Yeah. My seven-year-old said to me, Oh bum, I hate loving bullwash lessons. Me too. Aren't they treasures? Oh, they're so much wiser than us in a lot of ways. And then I don't want them to lose that magic. No. But they're already better at emotions than we well. I don't know about you guys, but in the 80s we weren't really allowed to have emotions. We weren't allowed to sit with uncomfortable feelings. And I think that's what makes these traumatic adult moments really hard because we're not prepped for this. Do you think that you had added layers with the mum guilt and motherhood because you wanted babies so badly and struggled to have them before you got sick? And then you got sick and wondered if you would never have them. And now you have three of them. And then the moments where you look at them and go, I could actually wring your neck right now.

SPEAKER_04 53:27

My mum guilt is quite heightened, particularly at 3a in.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

When I feel like I should have dealt with that situation a bit better. Do you think the cancer and the fertility struggles initially add layers, or have you learned to just accept it's all part of the fabric if you like? Maybe it was subconsciously in the beginning, but I think I won't. That no one feeling exists in isolation. Like you can, for example, love your husband, get married, and be able to laugh together, but he can really piss you off sometimes. So does that mean that like does one negative emotion negate all the positive? I don't think so. And it's would not be normal to never feel anger or disappointment or satisfaction. That's right. With another person. They're a human being. We are all imperfect human beings. Ah, if I was like, oh darling, you're just the most romantic thing, darling. I just adore you. Yeah, it's not. I don't think that would be healthy for them either. I think I I'm a human being too. They need to know that I am a I am a wild card of needs. And you're you're picking up little little things and learning that women are complicated beings. What helped you heal? Did you have a meditation? Did you do yoga? Did you how did you turn it in what what helped you move through it? It's a really great question. I I can answer it for you. It's called drugs. No, I'd had two ending by that stage after the drugs. And it wasn't green smoothies either. I had to break it down the influences. Because I had gone from chemo to being pregnant, well, yeah, quite quickly in the end. Um, that sort of took over. Yeah, that was how you have to deal with this. Yeah, and then I found this person and I didn't have my 12-month scan that I was due because I was pregnant. So I had to wait to have that till she was six weeks old. That was the worst scan I've ever had because I thought worrying about death was scary before I had her. After I had her was way worse. I had way more than worse. Um, and then I went to that scan and the tech said to me, I was finished, got getting dressed, and he left me in the cubicle and case. I wish you all the best. Close the door. I went. I thought, well, obviously I'm dying because why would you wish me all the best, you asshole? Well kind of just be your own kind of person. Since that to another person, I wish you all the best. Anyway, that was a Friday again. That scan was fine. All the other scans since then have been fine. Well broke up with my oncologists nearly two years ago. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. But the healing for me, I don't think really started until I'd had all the kids because I was focused on their needs. I wasn't my own person anymore. I was a mother, but had to prioritize them. And then COVID came along, and my littlest one was the baby, seven, eight months old. And that really made everything that I had pushed aside just bubble up to the surface. Yeah. So it was a really bad year. Wow. And then I got a great psychologist and had another year in therapy to probably unpack all the stuff that had not been properly unpacked. And I had a lovely oncology psych, but they're very nice to you. Yeah. And I need someone who I need someone that's going to push me a little bit. I need to do and then taking the time for myself has been the biggest takeaway out of that. Not just self-therapy, but then in everyday life. Yes, I do do yoga every day. But that is really good. Yes, yeah. And weights for my osteoporosis prevention. I've just got better at being a little bit, I'm not even going to call it selfish because men don't. Yeah. Do they? And I don't know if it's good to totally rely on your friends for therapy. I think it therapy is so good. It was like a cleanse. It's kind of like getting your car serviced. You get your brain serviced and back on track. And now I feel way more equipped if I'm sleeping to get help quicker. I think I've waited way too long. Every time I've needed help, probably forever. And I'm just better at asking for it. Has writing been a point therapy for you, Casey? Yes, and that was an accident of COVID as well. When I was just so desperate to escape, I met Holly Brunbauer, who's a Melbourne writer online. Um and she had sort of just casually said, I'm writing a book. Like, oh, I tried to do that years ago and it just kind of went nowhere. I did finish it, but it was absolute rubbish. And she's just like, well, let's let's write one together. Like not together, but like, you know, we'll trade 3,000 words a week. So I used to just hold myself up on a Sunday afternoon for a couple of hours, write my 3,000 words and send it to her. And then after a year, I had eked out a draft with my first took. And um that you know sort of just accidentally got published. That entered a competition and then it just sort of spiraled from there. But that book was really about when you don't recognize your life anymore, because that's how it felt with small children. And then that opened up a whole new world of friends. Social network writing friends are just the best. Really, this amazing bunch of smart women. I really enjoy hanging out with them. And I'm never going to be able to stop writing books because I can't. That's my ticket into this group. So I have to keep going, although evicting me. Your second book, how close is it to real life? The honest is pretty close to real life. She has the same diagnosis that I have, my character. And I felt like I had enough separation to be able to write about it. Um and that was unexpectedly cathartic. I think I knew it would be healing, but it felt like closing the chapter on that part of my life. I had written a blog at the time when I was ill, so I had to go back and like read things and it was hard. It was hard to relive some of that trauma. I also wanted it to be funny. Some of the funniest moments we had were in like the chemo lounge, and we'd be laughing about something black humour is I'm quite fond of. If you can't laugh through the worst times, what is there if there's no joy? And sometimes cancer stories are really bleak and stereotypical. And I just wanted something that was hopeful and felt a little bit more real and mostly funny. Because there was nothing like that to read when I was sick, and I just wanted to read something uplifting. So hopefully someone might pick it up and feel a bit sane. So, what did you learn about yourself? You you like to not stress the small stuff. What else? I think we all are. We've all got it in us. Yeah. And you can do you can really do anything. There is no barrier. And I do now, I'm not waiting for the right time to do stuff. Whatever it is that I want to do, I'm doing that. I'm doing that now. I'm making plans to do that now because it's short, it's life. We can't and we don't know how short. Um, Casey, sometimes people really minge about their life. You're lucky you're here. Make some change. We are all ever-changing beings and we don't care right the first time. I certainly didn't. Um so I think I'm that's a takeaway. And that was just more this really felt after what I went to. And so if there's a woman or a man, hello man, if somebody's listening and then in the middle of an absolute shit show of feeling like their life is completely out of their hands, whether it's illness or divorce or job loss or whatever it is. Is there some I don't know really the word advice? I feel like, you know, we get so much advice, but is there something sort of encouraging you could say, or some kind of tip to help them through if they're going through their own that day that is has completely slaughtered them?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:45

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:46

Um, I'll give you a little analogy that a nurse gave me in hospital when I was having a bad day. And she said to me, How do you make mesh potatoes? But she's like, you know, it's a process. You've got to peel the potatoes, you've got to cut them out, you've got to boil water, you've got to boil them for 20 minutes, you gotta mash them, you gotta add some blah, whatever. You can't just get a raw potato and smash it, or it's gonna taste like shit. All these things that come at us in life that are a process, you just have to go through the process. And the other mantra that really got me through was a Nass and Mandela quote that was, it seems impossible until it's over. And that I say it a lot over and over in the this two shall pass kind of category. And that is so true. You just think, Oh, I can't possibly do this, and then you've done it. And then you do the next hard thing. And spoiler alert, hard things are coming. They're coming for all of us. They're gonna come again. And you can do it. It's beautiful. Well done. You should go into coaching now. Well, it's true, we can do it. We can. We're gonna do it. Even when you see what you can't and some days you can't do it. And that's okay, because tomorrow's a new day, right? Yeah. And the this two shall pass message is also about good stuff. Like the really highs and low, the highs are also gonna pass. So you can really suck up that joy when it comes and yeah, appreciate it because it's just just fleeting.

unknown 1:03:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:21

Series of phases, phases. Right. Are you oh are you in touch with the season if you like? What's your season? There's a great article. I might ask the girls to put in the show notes. Are you in touch with the season of your life? So are you going with the flow of what's happening to you? Are you railing against it? So if you have small children and you're trying to go out three nights a week and party, you want to not in one to yourself. But if you kind of just surrender to whatever it is that is happening in your life, there is a peace and a comfort that come from that. And I think I'm getting better at that now. And maybe that's just because my children are getting older and it's getting easier to be smug about this stuff. But I don't know. Seven to twelve is the best age group I've count. So I'm really enjoying it. Yeah. It's lovely. That advice is so true. The more you resist, the more you're going to get resistance. The more you just go with the flow, things start to just be a bit more useful. So well done, you for getting through this. And it's um just been a pleasure to talk to you and cry with you and hear your story. And thank you so much. Well, thank you so much for having me. Um to cry with you guys, don't I? It's been amazing. Your story is inspirational. You know, and it to be diagnosed with cancer at 29 is certainly a curveball that most people don't expect. Kids are luckier. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for coming on that day. We really appreciate your time and your vulnerability.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:46

Thanks for listening to That Day with Kylie and Jack. If this story stirred something in you, if you've had that day, we'd love to hear from you. Find us on Instagram at That DayPodcast or get in touch via email. Hosts at thatdaypodcast.com. Your story matters.

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We record that day in Narm on the lands of the Waronjree Boyorong people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to elders, past, present, and honour their enduring tradition of storytelling.