Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to Talkin Toowoomba, the podcast sharing real stories that matter. We're proud to partner with Hope Horizons, shining a light on the journeys of locals impacted by cancer and the incredible people who walk beside them. Today's episode is brought to you by Betty or Business Consulting, helping local businesses grow with clarity and purpose.
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Now, let's get into today's conversation. We're chatting with Rosie Bambrick.
Now, Rosie is a unique person because she's the ambassador for Hope Horizons, but she's also been on a cancer journey herself. And today we're going to chat with her and we're going to get into the nitty gritty. Welcome to the podcast, Rosie.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here, Rosie.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: I'm not quite sure which way to go first. Whether we talk about you as the ambassador for Hope Horizons or what perhaps led you to become the ambassador for Hope Horizons. So let's, let's jump into the perhaps into the time machine. Let's travel back in time a bit.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Sure thing.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: And let's talk about a little bombshell that was dropped on you at the.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Age of I was 31 when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
The only symptom I had that I trotted along to the GP with after a lot of nagging was a persistent cough in the middle of winter.
Now tell me, who else in Toowoomba doesn't get a cough in the middle of winter? It might hang around for a weekend or two, but yeah, mine had hung around for about a month and it was time to just go to the GP so I could get everyone off my back.
And I'm glad I've got a good gp because in among me being far too busy to go to the gp, given that I was busy in my career and working very full days and enjoying a full social life in between it all, as well as a young bulletproof 31 year old does.
I was asked to go and get a chest X ray because I was a picture of health. Otherwise I was at the gym for an obscene amount of time every week and I was energetic and eating healthy and no family history of asthma, no smoking, just nothing that really should be creating this persistent cough. So off I went, got the X ray, came back the next day, was at the GP and I was that person that held up the waiting room for like 4050 minutes.
It just wasn't sinking in what she was telling me. She showed me the X ray with this big giant tumor in the middle of my rib cage and said, well, this is why you're coughing.
So we know it's some type of lymphoma, but we need to find out what type. And had contacted an oncologist and was explaining to me that I would need to probably do chemotherapy and that sort of thing. And I just nodded and I said, well, I'm really busy with work, so can I do that on the weekends? What about after hours?
And not only did she hug me once, but my GP hugged me three times.
Just trying to help this obviously intelligent young person to understand that this is cancer.
No, you can't do it on the weekends. No, you, you will be undergoing some pretty intense treatment.
And it's not until she rang my dad. Cause she could see my dad's on my contact list for my patient record. And at the time my dad was LGP down in Brisbane. So yeah, she rang him and they spoke, Doctor. And that's when it hit me. Not after the third hug from a gp, but when she started talking to my dad and they were talking in doctor speak that I didn't understand.
That's when I thought, oh, hang on, she's dobbing me in.
Hang on. Did she say chemotherapy? Isn't that a cancer thing? Despite having explained that to me for the past half hour.
And just after she finished chatting with him, the oncologist rang. And this is what really stays with me. Because he said, rosie, from the background that Sharon, my GP has given him, he says I could, I suspect it's going to be Hodgkin's lymphoma. We're going to do some further tests to make sure of that. However, if it is Hodgkin's, I want to assure you that it's very treatable, it's very curable and you can expect to live your life afterwards.
And depending on how you're going, you might even get to work part time through your chemotherapy.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: That must have sort of been the moment that you went, oh, was it?
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Yes, I did say a few other words as well. We won't repeat those though.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: I don't have one of those buttons.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: On my panel, but yes, that was the moment.
And when you face your mortality as a 31 year old who, let's face it, at 31, we think we've all got it figured out, don't we?
[00:05:30] Speaker A: You do, don't you?
[00:05:32] Speaker B: That's what they want us to believe so to go through the process of aligning work and treatment and telling my friends and comforting my friends, given that none of us had really experienced anything like this before and what was coming ahead was still relatively unknown. And I feel that a lot of people who have gone through cancer treatments have been told a big list of things that you could expect, but it's different for everybody and everybody gets different side effects. And I understand that.
But also there's so much in common.
The loneliness, the hardship. And I'm not talking about the like financial hardship. I'm talking about just how damn hard the journey is on you as a person, on you as a human, with feelings, with emotions, with a very, very fragile mental state.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Do you think the mental shock actually plays a bit of a hindering role in you getting your head around what's to happen next and what's happening to you?
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Yes, there's so much and I guess this does vary a bit person to person.
For me, I've always been able to.
And perhaps this is one part being raised by medical professionals. It could be one part of being a professional in the human resources field where you, for many components of that role, you need to take the human out of the resource and treat them both separately, but still remember that they are one in the same.
So when it comes to your strategic planning and that sort of thing. So I found it quite comfortable to speak clinically to my oncologist, to the other specialists and radiologist I was working with to, to the nursing team.
And I feel that it wasn't until much later and I think most of it hit me when I was in remission than when I was actually going through the treatment itself. As to, like you say, what is happening to you?
Yes, I've got a schedule of chemotherapy treatments or radiation. I've got a medication list for me and I'll speak a bit more about my stem cell transplant. But after your stem cell transplant I had a whole new list of things to do, one of which was my immunization schedule. So after I was what, 34, after all my treatments and I had to get all of the immunizations that your average 30 something year old person has had during your lifetime in Australia. So Yeah, that was 18 months of all, all of the measles, mumps, rubella and all the diphtheria shots and that sort of stuff that you get when you're a little baby, I had to do that all over again.
They didn't tell me that until I was there.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: And I hope you're not like me that has this bit of a fear of, oh, God, not another needle.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Sadly, I did get a portacath installed, though. That was very helpful for. Well, obviously chemotherapy is a lot of needles, a lot of blood tests, but it did make the whole process a bit easier on my veins, and it meant that I could receive the chemotherapy and other medications in the best way for my body.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: We had a bit of a chat the other day before you coming on the podcast, and you said something which stuck with me, and I just want to raise it, and I hope you don't have to reach for the tissues.
But you mentioned that part of the problem you found was that after your treatment, you should feel absolutely fantastic.
But.
And I suppose part of that is having to have all the immunizations again.
It's like, yeah, hang on, I've just been through all this chemotherapy and radium, and you would think that's the end of it.
But as you described it, you felt like it wasn't just a renovation of a house or a room in a house.
It wasn't just that, you know, you knocked a story off and rebuilt it. You felt like a house that had been completely demolished, burnt to the ground, and there was nothing left, and you had to start again.
How did you cope with that?
[00:10:17] Speaker B: In a word, poorly.
And I guess this is one part that they don't tell you about.
Everyone celebrates remission because, yeah, sure, that is something very special because not every cancer journey ends with that, sadly.
But for me, I've had a wonderful network of support through both of the large chapters of my cancer journey. Going through a relapse after enjoying a year of remission was certainly devastating. But to reach remission again and expect to just flip the switch and go back to life as normal, that certainly wasn't the case for me. Chemo brain really did a number on how well my mind functioned, and sadly, I had to step away from my career in human resources that was so deeply embedded within my identity. Hi, I'm Rosie. I'm a HR consultant. Well, no, hi, I'm Rosie. And I. I guess I'm a cancer survivor, but I don't know what else to call that because I'm still trying to work out what that is, and there's no blueprint for it, because as much as I was encouraged to return to all of those activities that I loved, well, I couldn't. I was exhausted all the time. That fatigue 10 years on is still a very real thing that I need to manage, especially when I was someone who just had boundless energy and I didn't need to manage my energy.
But again, this is part of the learning curve and this is learning how to live well after cancer. Because, yes, it's different for everybody, but there's a lot of expectations that you have to get back to whatever your normal is.
And you almost need a mentor to say, hey, you're going to be finding yourself a new normal and the things that you love to do that you might not be able to do as well or you might not be able to do at all is something that you're going to have to reconcile. And whether that's a right now or in a little while or a leave it for later decision, I think everyone who has been through cancer can relate to that and can also relate to how blindsided they feel by that.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Because it does make changes. Changes that you don't plan for or changes that you expect.
And they don't always just sneak up on you.
Sometimes they hit you like a 28 pound sledgehammer.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: That is true.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: And other times you can feel or see that. Hang on, this isn't the way I would normally do things, but this is the way I'm going to have to do things now.
And I think that's something that's important with someone going through a cancer journey. I think that's important for others to who are. Part of the support for people is to realize that, yes, you're in remission and that is fantastic. Over the moon, let's celebrate. But by the same token, it doesn't mean that you're completely back to the person you were beforehand.
So if there's a suggestion you could make to someone, how do you pick yourself up when you're down in that thing where you go, this isn't me, this isn't how I normally would be.
But how do you pick yourself up and get back to either the closest you that you were or a new, improved you?
[00:14:39] Speaker B: My advice would be don't rush it because you are so keen to get back to life. You have felt like you have been rotting in a recliner next to a big tall drip for the last weeks, months, years, as part of your treatment. And the hangover from treatment as a whole is so easy to underestimate because you have great days.
You have days where you probably did get a good night's sleep and you're well hydrated and you've eaten or maybe you can actually eat again. It took me almost a year before I could eat food properly again. After my stem cell transplant.
But all the planets, the stars, the ducks, the squirrels, they all align and you have a great day.
Don't fall into the trap of signing up for everything you used to do on that day because you need to give yourself the grace to be at your worst on your worst days and be okay with that.
Don't dismiss it. It's hard to feel like you're making any progress. You literally feel like you're going backwards. You feel like. And I've genuinely felt, on so many of my hard days in remission, I genuinely felt I would be better off back at hospital.
Because at least at the hospital, when you feel like you can't keep going, you've got a great team of nursing staff, medical professionals, support workers, friends and family, and loved ones who are there to rally around you and pick you up when your own legs won't walk forward in remission. You don't have much.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: Now.
I want to. We're getting back in the time machine and we're going forward a bit.
You've been approached to be the ambassador for Hope Horizons.
What did that mean to you?
[00:16:55] Speaker B: It started off as a coffee with the lovely Jo Cap and a bit of a chat as to some exciting things she's doing in this emerging space that they want to call Hope Horizons. And it's a space that will offer support to people like me, a 31 year old female who had blood cancer in a regional area where there isn't a strong presence from any of the blood cancer support networks and foundations yet.
There'll be a place for people like me to come and tap into that support that they need and whether that's at the point of diagnosis, during their treatment journey, during their remission.
This is a place that won't be discriminatory around what type of cancer you've had, how old you are, what gender you are, none of that.
It'll be a place where you can come and get that support and it won't have any out of pocket costs.
And I joked because at the time, obviously, and they seemed to do it regularly, the council were going through quite a car parking debate at the time and I just joked and said, yeah, wouldn't it be great if we had good parking there too? And she said, funny you say that because that's also on our list. How hard is it to get a park at the hospital? And how much stress is just getting to the hospital or to any of these other larger medical facilities to get that sort of support? Just getting there is half of the heartache, is it not?
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Just ask anyone who doesn't live in Toowoomba, who lives in a more rural setting, that they have enough trouble driving through the streets of Toowoomba, let alone going to Brisbane for treatment, for specialists, for whatever support that they need to help them work through their life with cancer, they just won't.
But to have something in Toowoomba that is a bit more accessible, that's something special. And I said, jo, where do I sign up? This sounds fantastic. Where are you at? And she said, well, we're doing a bit of fundraising at the moment. It's still a great idea. We've got to get a facility, we've got to open the doors, but we've got the backing of some pretty big hearts and some very special people.
And that's where I came on board the Hope Horizons train. I've been part of the fundraising committee as we, I guess, built the bank account up so that we could open the doors when we did. And it's been an absolute privilege to watch it grow and blossom into where it is now and see the plans for the future as well.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: So Hope Horizons to youo is more than just a building and it's more than just a place where people go. There's.
There's some real helpful benefits here at Hope Horizons.
What would you say to the community as a whole, and especially perhaps to businesses that don't mind putting their hand in their pocket for good charities?
Why do you think they should come and support Hope Horizons?
[00:20:32] Speaker B: One thing that I know about Toowoomba, because I've experienced it firsthand myself, is that we have a very rich tapestry of so many different people from so many different backgrounds that have come together to make this place not just their home, but the place where they raise their kids and the place where they build their businesses. I, for one, expected to. I came to Toowoomba for university and expected to finish my degree and, you know, fly off overseas and do the career thing, but managed to find a great graduate position straight out of the gate and kept going from there.
And to answer your question in that sort of a context, is that locally, Toowoomba's got something very special here.
So having having a locally led place like Hope Horizons, which is focused on delivering the support and the services that people affected by cancer, and I'm not just talking about the patients themselves, but the carers, the families, the others that feel a ripple of a cancer diagnosis within their own circles.
The fact that we have such a great scope of support for people Feeling the impact of Cancer, that there's a soft place to land here and you don't have to travel far to experience it.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: I'm going to ask you another question, sharing your story. And whilst we've been sitting here chatting, I've got the added advantage that I'm looking at. You're not just listening.
I can see there's some very raw emotion and feelings coming through, and I thank you for being able to share that with us.
But do you feel that helps you to share the rawness of it as well?
I'm doing it to you again. I'm sorry.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: That's okay. It's the Hollywood tears rolling down my cheeks as I move a bit closer to the microphone. I guess for me, Hope Horizons is a very safe space.
Yeah, it's a safe space where you can speak about what's actually going on. And I did have, or still do have some lovely friends who, while I was going through the real hard part of my treatment and they'd ask me how I was going and I'd have a giggle and say, hey, check it out. I deliberately drew my eyebrows on. Wonky. Can you tell?
And we'd all have a laugh and they'd say, I just thought you were skydiving on the way in. It's hard to find a park around here.
And then, jokes aside, they'd just say quietly, well, how are you really?
And when you've got people who can laugh with the laughs, but also see that it is a hard time and acknowledge that for what it is and acknowledging you for the person you are as you're traveling through it, that's special.
And finding friends here at Hope Horizons who get it and who can just help you feel at ease with that.
And sometimes you do need to sit with your feelings to understand what those feelings are.
It really helps to shape and soften just the impact that cancer can have on you.
One thing that I've seen here at Hope Horizon since we opened the doors is the people coming through those doors has not slowed down.
It grows year upon year.
We welcome more and more people from different places within their treatment.
We're welcoming more carers, more families.
Cancer was often viewed as an old person's disease, but I can tell you right now, I'm not the only 40 something that frequents this building.
And there are people younger than me.
So I certainly see that there is going to be, I guess the pockets of people that access our services will be growing. Whether that's within particular demographics, whether we see more support groups for people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, because there's not many of those specific support groups around. And I'm only speaking from experience here because not only did I go through WTF is going to happen to my career, but I also went through the despair that was regretting my life choices, that I chose my career ahead of starting a family, and at 31, wondering if I'd missed that boat.
Spoiler alert. I've got two kids, so I'm very grateful for the magic that is ivf, that it can take you from early menopause to pregnant in the space of two weeks. And yes, that is its own level of H. Hormonal whiplash.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: I'd say so.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: But that sounds like a whole other topic for a whole other support group and possibly a podcast episode.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: On that. That event of having two children.
That's something I would interpret as something that's helped you get up and get going again.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Definitely. Definitely.
I guess a lot of humans can relate that having a sense of purpose, having a reason to get up every day, being appreciated for doing more than just feeding the cat, is important to a lot of people.
So as I spent a lot of time in therapy unknitting what was the career version of me, and being able to lay that down and love and accept it for everything that it is, everything that it has given me, and find personal satisfaction in other areas of my life, becoming a mum has certainly helped shape another pillar of my identity.
And understanding that life is, without sounding too cheesy, a whole spectrum of different colors of all different things that are happening within you and for you all at once, versus you're on a path, you're on a trajectory.
This is the line. Go follow the line.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: And I was drawing my own line and following my own line when cancer obviously took everything off the table and I had to start all over again.
But looking back, I'll be celebrating 10 years in remission later this year.
A whole, whole bundle of emotion to unpack around that.
Because my first feeling wasn't joy. When I realized what year it was and what was coming for me later this year, I was devastated to think, oh, my Gosh, it's been 10 years.
And suddenly I felt.
You talk about being in your time machine. I felt thrust back into that moment of despair, of, oh, my God, my life has just disappeared out of my hands as I know it, and I don't know who I am now or what I am to do now.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: If I could play the devil's advocate here, I suppose the way to look at it is, and I think anybody who has to deal with cancer in whatever shape or form, all level, it's a journey.
That's what it is. It's a journey and it's sometimes part of the journey isn't perfect.
But the important thing is to keep going on the journey because you don't know what rewards are waiting for you at the end.
And I'm going to use you as a classic example of the rewards.
You've got two beautiful children, which you thought the boat had sailed.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: That's right.
And I've got a friend who loves going on mountain hikes for fun, which is nice, but she's often said to me, hey, don't forget to stop and look at the view, because, yeah, you've climbed a good chunk of that mountain and, yes, there's still a lot to come, but my goodness, isn't this beautiful?
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
Rosie, I want to thank you.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Your turn.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your story with us.
And I hope that those that listen to this get something from it so that they understand when a family member or a friend has to start on a cancer journey, they realise that there's a lot to it.
It's more than just having an illness, it's more than just having to go through treatment.
It's big and it is a big journey, but the journey is worth going on because it's what comes out the other end.
And I think that's where we'll leave it. Thanks for listening to Talking Toowoomba. If today's story inspired you, share it to help spread hope. Thanks to Betty of Business Consulting for their support and to Hope Horizons for their vital work.
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Until next time, keep talking to Wamba.
