hi there and welcome to another episode of the stacy m podcast today is a bit of a different podcast so as you probably know um i'm currently going through stage three cervical cancer and there's been so many people reaching out and i'm trying to um get on to socials as much as I possibly can but ultimately I am absolutely knackered I just don't have the same energy that I used to have um you can probably hear it in my voice like my voice is even starting to go um so it's It's only a week into treatment so far. You know, my ears are popping like I don't hear as well. There's so many little quirky things that just sometimes happen. So I thought today I will expend as much energy as I possibly can to let you know kind of how I ended up here, I suppose, and how you can avoid being in my situation. and uh yeah hopefully that will answer and help a lot of people as well um i did say at the start look i am not doing this for attention whatsoever this was completely preventable i put myself in this position because i was slack we're getting certain health checks so um cervical or cervical cancer can easily let's i'm not a doctor i'm not going to use the word eliminated or anything but you definitely don't have to get to where i am with just some really basic checks that we should have been doing anyway. So I would absolutely love to eliminate so many different things, including cervical cancer. But as I said, I am not a specialist in that field. But what I want to do is let you know things that I easily could have done to avoid getting to where I am today. So today could be a little bit TMI. I don't think I'm going to be withholding anything. I'm not running by a script either. So I'm going to be using my memory as best as I can. But yeah, so I suppose essentially for me, I did get certain checks done throughout the years. So my grandmother died of skin cancer. So getting my skin checked was something that I had always done. So yearly, I still get my skin checked. My eyes, my teeth, they're things that I got checked yearly. Past couple of years I had started engaging a naturopath because we've had a couple of cracks at trying to be a little bit more healthy, I suppose. Couldn't find anyone that was really kind of... compatible I suppose so that got a little bit slack but I did go and get blood slashed during this year and according to doctors there was no alarm bells of anything. Cholesterol was a little bit high and I think that was probably probably about it the only thing that changed from this year's bloods from last year's bloods is that the ass dropped out of my b-twelve which having said that I haven't taken my b-twelve today I'm gonna have to go do that after I finish filming um but the b-twelve dropped out of my ass there was there was no b-twelve left so um was that enough alone to indicate something I'm not entirely sure so um I'm not going to get too sidetracked as to what I've done since then, but there's a lot of things that I have learned and a lot of things that I'm implementing now as well. But was there any significant factors that were pointed out to be in those couple of years' worth of bloods? No. So how do we get on up here? I'm trying to find out when my last Pats Me was, obviously, except for the one that I've had to have now. I reckon it was probably around the time my firstborn was born, so just after. So probably around fourteen, thirteen, fourteen years ago, I would say my last Pats Me was. It doesn't say on the record. I believe I can ring up and find out. So out of curiosity, I will. But I think I'm probably... pushing around, you know, ten, fourteen years. Pap smears here in Australia are recommended every five years unless you've had a pap smear that has come back a little bit concerning and then it might be like once every twelve months or six months. But if you can get them done more regularly, I'd be probably going twelve months, six months, minus any cervical cancer is pretty slow growing. So twelve months should be suffice. I have to mind a little bit different because obviously I do have active cervical cancer, so I think my check's a lot more closer than that. But you can also get at-home pap smear tests. That would only be advised if you haven't had a dodgy pap smear before as well. So, look, it's... It's not a pleasant exam, I suppose, when you've got a doctor trying to shove things up your vagina, trying to do swabs. I would have to say, though, this pap smear that I had done absolutely hurt. Like, it hurt. I thought I was going to be sick hurt. It was very, very unpleasant. So had I gone through the unpleasantry of... You know, the past couple of pap smears, I wouldn't have had to have gone through the pap smear I did this year because it honestly, it hurt and I was sick for a couple of days afterwards. So, but how it got here. So I suppose for me... I still don't consider myself having any symptoms. What kind of did it for me, I suppose, was I thought, so I'd skipped my period pretty well most of my adult life. So I'm forty three. I probably started skipping my period around nineteen, twenty. Hopefully my kids aren't listening to this. Not that they need to worry about that yet, but. And in this case, look, it possibly has saved me because I noticed that something wasn't different. So in around, I think September, October, I actually thought my bladder was failing, but that wasn't making sense because it wasn't consistent with like urine or the smell or the texture or any of that. So I know this, I say this was TMI, people have asking this, this is what my experience was like. So I thought maybe I've got a UTI. There was, you know, no UTI, you know, symptoms, but, you know, so I took some mural, didn't do anything. I'm like, okay, that's a bit odd. Look, I'm due for my bloods. It's been two months. How about I get them done? And then I'll just go through like online, went through the online doctor because I didn't want to bother my usual doctor. And, you know, I might just mention something in passing then. So I jumped online, probably never do online scripts ever again. But anyway, I did an online doctor and long story short was finally ordered the blood that I wanted to order. And then I said, look, I think there's something wrong with my bladder. I think it's leaking. And he's like, oh, you must have diabetes. I'm like, no, I don't think I have diabetes. You have diabetes. We'll get you to have a urine test. I'm like, okay, righto. Pretty sure it's not. i end up going out and buying a um glucose monitor which also does ketones which i haven't worked out how to do that yet but um and i took my blood sugar was four point two i'm like i don't have diabetes i know i don't so results had eventually come back uh white blood cell count was quite high so it's meant to be around eleven in urine i think it was around eighty And, again, the blood that I mentioned before weren't really kind of indicating anything. The online doctor kept telling me I had diabetes. I'm like, oh, I do not have diabetes. My blood sugar is four point two. I don't have diabetes. This is something else. Anyway, he basically went, all right, well, I'm out. You've got to go to a physical doctor. So I got an appointment with a doctor in town and he put me in on a Saturday. I knew something was going to come back. I didn't. know what i suppose i thought maybe it's just an infection or or something like that so um lovely doctor i won't throw anyone under the bus most people probably know who he is though and um he's like look this is very inflamed i've seen worse vaginas but you know this one shouldn't be looking like this like it was You could tell straight away that it was very inflamed. There was something wrong with it. He did this pap smear. It was very, very painful. There was a lot of blood because when you have cervical cancer, your exams, your examinations can result in a lot of like blood kind of coming out, which this sounds really gross if there's any guys listening, but that's what it was. And he did the pap smear and I nearly vomited it out. hurt so much. I've never felt in so much pain in a pap smear ever. Usually it's just uncomfortable. It has never hurt like that before. And I remember um kind of looking like all the blood and like crap he's like it's okay it's okay like we'll send it away and it's okay it's okay so kind of like you know clean everything up and I don't quite remember what happened at the end of that conversation um I think it was basically look we'll send it away and you know we'll let you know type thing I don't remember there too much else um to that and then I remember sitting in the car going I think I'm going to throw up I just did not feel well at all. And I was actually unwell for a couple of days afterwards. I then had to go to Sydney for a trade show that we booked in for. And it was on a day, so it was only a two-day trade show. Day two, halfway through of the trade show, I got the phone call saying, we need you to pop in to the doctor's surgery. I'm like, I'm in Sydney. I'm at a trade show. Something's come back. You have to tell me on the phone. I'm not waiting until I get back. So that was on the Thursday. And the doctor came on the phone and I went, I'm sorry, you have to tell me on the phone. I'm in Sydney, but I'm not waiting. And I'm like, just tell me what it is. And he said cervical cancer. In that, I heard ovarian cancer. So I was in the middle of the convention centre in Sydney at Darling Harbour. He said cervical. I heard ovarian. So for the first hour or two of that conversation, I thought I had ovarian cancer just simply because I just was not processing anything. which didn't make sense from a pap smear but I wasn't thinking in that rationale either. So I kind of like calmed myself down to a degree and then I went back inside and there were so many people at our stall at the trade show I just kept doing laps and I kept looking at Jess who was with me And I'm like, I can't, I can't. Like, I'm out. Like, we need to go. And just kept cutting laps and people kept on coming over. So amazing that we were so busy at the trade show, but it was at a time after that phone call I couldn't do it. And I was very, very lucky. We didn't know we were going to be at the same trade show, let alone did we know we were going to be at the same event. But we were at, we were side by side. So we were here. and my dear friend Lee was here and Lee had just lost her husband to cancer about two months before and then I remember doing a fat lap and she was at her stall and then she looked at me I looked at her and she's like oh my god and then I told her so I think I told her I had ovarian cancer as well so So I was on the right track of cancer. I was just at the wrong organ. But, yeah, so she came in to calm me down. She took me out. She was, like, just helping me, like, process things. And I think it was around at that time I went, oh, hang on, hang on, no. Like, I think it's cervical. It was perhaps matter. I think it's ovarian. So, you know, trying to calm down and everything. um anyway so long story short we ended up packing up our store lee helped us uh went back to the car and um we had to go back to the star because that's where we were staying um loaded the car up i completely forgot to grab the suitcases uh thankfully just remembered so we had to grab the suitcases because we put them in storage and driving out of the city i was okay to drive so like i i needed the distraction. So I was driving safe. Jess probably may not have been able to drive my car anyway, but that wasn't even a thought. It was I just needed to distract myself. If I wasn't up to driving, I wouldn't have driven. But we hadn't even got out of Sydney, so we're driving over Sydney Harbour Bridge and then the specialist rang. and said, we need to book you in. And the only date that they could do, so this was at the start of November and she was away for a couple of weeks. The only date that they could do was the twenty fifth of November. And no, that's a lie. No, that's not a lie. That is right. Sorry. It was the twenty fifth of November because I, one, was meant to be in America. And two, Lil's birthday was the twenty fifth of November and I stalled and they're like, you're going, you can't go to America. And yes, it's Lil's birthday, but it's like, this is, you have to do this type thing. So I kind of forgot my trip to the States. I had to attend my first gynecological appointment with my specialist on Lil's birthday. And I think that was when she told me I was stage one. And then not long after that, I went to stage two and then I went to stage three. So I literally started at stage one, end up at stage three. um that appointment was pretty hard I was actually feeling quite unwell um I think the fact that it took us like forty five minutes to find a car park um you know so that I was actually feeling pretty unwell at that appointment but um everything just happened so quick and really for the first month or so everything was just a complete blur I was getting phone calls everywhere I had a just drop everything to go to these appointments and do all these MRIs and these ultrasounds and these scans and these PET scans and everything. So it was a really big blow. And then knowing that the girls had end of year exams, so trying to work around that and then work around my team and like the businesses that I have and navigating it myself as to okay well what am i processing what's happening what's you know it's been like a very very hectic past couple of months i suppose um and um i suppose at the start also i was told it was going to be a full hysterectomy and then when it came to that part because i was end up being stage three the hysterectomy wasn't um deemed suitable so the change of plan as well so um just a a lot of ups and downs like a lot of um but anyway so what's ended up happening is i um when i met the the doctor the surgeon on the the of november she's like we're going to book you i think i had like scans and stuff done as well so i've had a lot of scans i started with ultrasounds internal ultrasounds mris pet scans I don't know if there's any other scan that I've had I probably have but that's what I'd started with and I was just shipped around anywhere in the Hunter Valley to to fit in like the scans that should have been waiting for weeks for I was in sometimes the same day like that's how quick um all of this has happened so i um yeah so then i was told to go in for a minor procedure so it was for them to check out a little bit more um oh sorry no before that so on the when i went to the um especially she did an exam then she had to take an autopsy not that's when you did Biopsy. Biopsy, sorry. And I thought, oh, my gosh, like the pap smear honestly hurt. Like I thought I was going to be sick. How are you going to take a biopsy of, you know, part of my lining in my vagina type thing on my cervix? And... She did. It did not hurt. I don't know how that didn't hurt. I felt it, but it didn't hurt. But then I looked at and it looked like a crime scene. Like there was fucking blood everywhere. So just be prepared that if you have cervical cancer and they are doing a physical examination on you, it will look like a crime scene. Like I felt so bad. I'm trying to clean stuff up. I'm like, oh, my God, like what are all these clots? Like it was obviously all completely normal, but it was freaking me out because I hadn't seen it like that before. So be prepared to have a lot of blood. So anyway, so that was that part. And then in that meeting she told me, look, we're going to book you in for a day surgery. This was on top of all the scans and stuff. They were going to put little gold markers in me for the radiation. I just have a better look around. So I was like a week later, I went in for the procedure. They didn't end up putting the gold markers in. I can't remember why. I don't think they were needed, but I can't remember why they weren't needed. I was pretty excited to have gold put in me, but nope, not today. And then gold went up today as well. I think gold is actually trading really well, but no gold for me. But I had a bit of a look around and it was just confirming what the plan was, I suppose, for my treatment. So after that, there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, so they wanted my treatment to start before Christmas. One of the hospitals couldn't do it before Christmas. It was after Christmas, and actually I still wouldn't have been in. It wasn't until the twenty-ninth, I think, and I'm filming this on the twenty-sixth of December, so Boxing Day. So my treatment still wouldn't have started, but the lovely people at the Mater, the Calbury Mater in Newcastle, had managed to fit me in for everything. So that's where I'm doing my radiation, chemo and immunotherapy. So... But, yeah, so you meet, again, I've had no time to do, like, due diligence on practically anything. Just everything had happened so quick that people, I was just put in touch with people, I suppose. So I'm happy with my surgeon. The first person I met, I don't see her for, like, four months. She's kind of, like, out of the picture. Yeah. because we're treating the cancer side of it. The radiation oncologist was a referral through the surgeon. the chemo oncologist. I'm not quite sure how she fit into the picture. I'm assuming just through the hospital because it's all at the same hospital. And she's lovely. She is on board with me wanting to look at diet as well and, you know, taking on functional medicine purposes. So she has referred me to somebody in Newcastle for the supplement and food side, which I'm really excited about, but I can't get into her until February. So So I'm doing what I can in the meantime. But to me, making those small changes will make a difference. So like diet, you know, I'm swapping things out like deodorant and perfumes and creams and things like that. and um just be what else i can use to support my immune system because obviously the chemo and the radiation is basically it's fucking my insides up to to kill the cancer but it's not going to fix my immune system which is kind of where the immuno kicks in i think but um i still need to support that side of me as well so um but yeah so that's probably pretty well where it takes me out to today so I'm nearly a week in so I started my first treatment on Monday I've just gone so I had radiation first then I had about five and a half hours in the chemo chair which included chemo and immunotherapy so immunotherapy is on every fourth week i think that's right every three weeks but it falls in the fourth week i think so i have five weeks of radiation and chemo uh immuno is up for two years and then they're wanting to do some brachy on me as well which i'm not against i just need to get my head around um the the brachy therapy which is the internal radiation where they um so the external radiation is when they're treating you externally. So you're laying on a table, a bed, and this thing just goes around and around. I'll probably do a separate one on what the machines look like. I'll see if I can take some photos as well. I'm sure I can. But so the internal one is where they're actually shoving like radioactive rods or something up your vagina like it does not sound pleasant at all probably don't google it um it reminds me of like edward scissorhands a little bit but um but that's pretty well where it has taken me today so side effects as i said there's been a few little weird things every now and then my main one is not to feel nauseous Because I know if I start to feel nauseous, that's where it's all going to come undone. I'm going to be stuck in bed. When you're stuck in bed, you feel worse. So I've been very proactive with anti-nausea meds. And you might have a couple of moments of like, ooh, but then you kind of get over it. I know when the girls were opening their gifts yesterday, I think I got a bit nervous. overwhelmed and then you kind of start getting hot and then you start getting that feeling so i kind of like carry poppers with me everywhere which i know isn't healthy but it's just the like the sugar just helps a little bit so um just learning little uh tricks like that i suppose but um overall been pretty good um Yeah, I said, like, ears get blocked a little bit. You do get pain, so pain in the legs or the pelvis area, depending on what you're treating. Obviously, that's where my pain is. That's what they're treating. Other than that... Not too bad so far. So it's only been a week. I was a bit sore after the double radiation I had the other day because I have yesterday and today off. So I do have to go back tomorrow. So they double-dosed me. And then coming up to New Year's, I have another double dose. I'm definitely a lot more tired than what I was, which is why I'm trying to supplement the B-tom. make sure i'm trying to still get up and dressed so i'm moving around the house so i'm not just laying like you know lazing around type thing um but yeah so i don't know whether i have too much else um on top of that to share i know i did notice there was a big drastic change a big drastic change probably the best english but um i did notice that so going back to where i said the um where i thought my bladder was leaking which i knew it wasn't because it wasn't consistent with that but there was something leaking so effectively that was just everything's like starting to break down like around my cervix area i did notice the day after chemo that i had drastically reduced so um that is very good scan wise and stuff um i know they do scans each time i have my mri uh each time i have my um So I'm actually going to ask tomorrow if they can see things. I know it's only a week, but I think they have the MRI beforehand so they know where to put the dosage of the radiation. But other than that, my understanding is that I will have a better idea towards end of January when they are looking at doing the brachy. But then I have to wait three months. So it's going to be around April to May to know what effect that's had. But as I said, I am, like I brought a grounding mat today. I've been looking at them for quite some time. It's very easy to go outside and ground, I know. And I will start to do that. But, you know, just trying to earth a little bit more. I did go to the beach. I think I've been to the beach a couple of times the past week or two. as well just to kind of go grounding there. Anything, I'm basically throwing at it. Big, big believer in the placebo effect. Absolutely love Dr. Joe's. I've subscribed to Gaia. So just like beats. I never pronounce the name like binaural beats. I have healing music on for that, which I since learned that you have to have headphones in when you listen to beats because you're different frequencies and the different ears which i wasn't aware of um makes sense i just didn't think of it like that so um i listened to my beats and you know i kind of got a bit of a routine happening around home where um trying to make things easier for me which i'm happy to go into that um another time as well but really all of this could have been avoided and i've just kept up to date with my pap smear so i'd done my teeth i'd done my skin i'd done my eyes I was going to go last year and I didn't. So there's every chance that this cancer has been in me for probably like the past ten years. You know, it definitely would have been after my kids. I think that would have all been noticed when I had the girls. So if I had that done, that perhaps would have been done last year, I probably wouldn't be stage three. And the only reason I went to stage three was because it jumped into my lymph nodes. So there are different, so there's stage one, two, three, four, and there's different stages within the stages. what bumped me up from stage two to stage three effectively was just because I had a sus length node and I could see that in the MRI because it was a it was um I think it might have been my left one um and it was just slightly on the bottom of it so that's my understanding of why I got jumped to stage three so um But again, like prevention. So I also had the Gardasil vaccination. But by the time I had it, I'm assuming this was about the time it came out. It was about two thousand seven, I think. So and this is not an anti-vax, pro-vax vaccine. whatever if you don't want to get the vaccination then you know there are other things that you can do as well but I did get the vaccination but my understanding is that you have to get the vaccination before you're sexually active so I'm pretty sure um my youngest I got that I just I'm quite certain she got that last year when she was in year eight um year seven year eight Maybe it was year seven. I can't remember now. I think it was year seven because like back in my day, I was like year seven, rubella. So it might have been year seven she got the needles. So I think my youngest will probably be due for that for this year. So if you are not keen on vax, then, you know, the cervical cancer is a HPV virus. Most common is sixteen and eighteen. I did not have either of those. Where did it come from? Don't know. But they're the most common viruses to get cervical cancer and I didn't have sixteen or eighteen. So what that means, I don't know. Does it matter? Probably not. But I know I didn't have the most common sixteen or eighteen strand. But practicing safe sex is one, so it's transmitted through through sex, the HPV virus. So, or alternatively, you can just get your pap smears. So I think they recommend the earliest from twenty-five. I don't know whether you can challenge that. I don't know whether AT or, you know, assuming if you are kind of sexually active, I'd be maybe going twelve months from that perhaps. um as i said i'm not i couldn't see there being a disadvantage to to doing that um i don't think you would be unless there's something medically reasoning why you can't get a pap smear until you're you're Prevention is easy. You just have to get those pap smears done. If you're not comfortable with five years, get your twelve months. I don't think you'd have a problem. If you're having a nurse that's having a problem with you wanting to get one done every twelve months, possibly go find somebody else. As I said, you can get at-home ones. I'm not quite sure how they work. I haven't been referred to them as a big COVID test. So how you can get yourself in the position that the doctor gets you in the position of to do it at home, I can't get in my head. Obviously, I'm unsuitable for that for quite some time anyway. But I can assure you I wish I'd just gone through the, what, five minutes of being uncomfortable in a doctor's surgery or a nurse's office with them looking at vaginas that they probably look at every single day. than what I'm going through now. For somebody who doesn't like needles, I have been jabbed uncontrollably. I've only got one bruise on me from chemo the other day. But what I'm going through now, what I've mentally gone through, what my kids have mentally gone through now could have been saved had I've had my pap smear. It's as simple as that. So maybe I still would have had the cervical cancer, but I wouldn't be going through possibly what I'm going through now. So I said I'm a week in and there's still a little bit ahead of me to go. So, yeah, so I hope that hasn't triggered anybody. If anything, I just wanted to let you know how it came up for me. And what you can do to prevent it, like go and get your checks. So I've had that many PET scans that I know the rest of my body is now all okay. I know there are so many people out there flogging different things that you can just go get a PET scan. I'm not going to start naming the different ads that I'm seeing because some of them I can't remember. Just be practical with it. Like there are people out there probably generally trying to help you in your health and there are people out there probably just trying to have gullible people paying thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in tests that you probably don't need. But what my recommendation would be is that, you know, you get your skin checked, you get your eyes checked, you get your teeth checked, you get your prostate exam, you get your breasts checked, you get your pap smear, like whatever it is that you do, you just get them done. I thought breast screening was forty five. Someone told me it's now forty. So making sure that you're on top of that. I know a few people who have had some breast um i'm forgetting what the breast canting see chemo brain they say the thing and i literally can't think of it when you get your breasts checked your breasts scanned um whatever that is called. That is really bad. I know a few people who have had to go get their breasts checked and they've come back with lumps and stuff. So breast screening, I think that's what I'm trying to get out. It's like baby brain. I swear to God, sometimes I just have absolute mental blanks. But, yeah, so making sure you go get things like that done. If there's anything that you are not sure on, please go get done because prevention is better than having to go through this. And I'm going to start talking about the costs of things. as well when you're going through this. But whether you're an employee, what I have to sign when I have each of my treatments and seeing what those numbers are on paper, if, yeah, if we can do our part to reduce the load on the health system with just taking better care of ourselves. And I tell you what, it's given me like a much, just a different perspective on our healthcare system. And, you know, where I'm at, they're treated about sixty chemo patients a day. And there were people waiting to come in to get treated and there wasn't enough chairs for people to sit in. You know, it's seeing what they do, looking at people in that room who I was probably the youngest. I think when I had my first chemo treatment the other day, there were people around me who looked similar to me and there were people there who looked incredibly, incredibly unwell. And there was a lady there who was with her daughter, I'm assuming, who would have been similar to my Lily's age, so maybe around fourteen, fifteen. And she was there supporting her mum. And to me, that was very brave of her. Obviously, that's not up to me to, you know, whether you bring your kids or not. But to see that young girl in the room with her mum supporting her in cancer and And then the people that she's surrounded by, that I imagine would be really difficult for her. And it's probably not something Lily has asked to come and I haven't. The radiation side might not be so bad. Definitely the chemo rooms, though, are not... know they they can do a lot of mental scarring it's it's quite confronting walking into um it means it's confronting walking into radiation as well but so far the chemo side's been definitely more confronting when you're walking into the room and you're seeing people who look incredibly unwell they're they joined us they're you know they're pale they're they look yeah they they they don't look well And, you know, you have to try and separate yourself from that and go into your own little world in this room. But, yeah, so just, yeah, if anyone has any questions on that, you know, anything about that. I'm more than happy to address it where I can, but definitely I could have prevented this all from happening had I just taken better care of myself. And you don't know that until something like this happens. So did I think I'd ever get cancer? No. Did I think I would be here? No. Could I have avoided this? Absolutely. But this has happened for a reason, I'm sure. And, you know, if that is to spread the news of just getting checks done and trying to avoid this, then that's what my purpose is. So thank you for watching. As I said, I knew this one was possibly going to be quite hard for some people, but it's just easier for me to communicate like this because I'm struggling just to keep up with all the different messages and stuff coming in. And as I said, it was... good, the bad and the in-between. So I'll keep you up to date on my journey. Please keep me in your thoughts. I'm determined to beat it, which I will. But yeah, just if you're overdue, please book yourself in. The amount of people have already told me they've booked themselves in for different things, whether it's females or males. i'm like that i'm blown away just by that so thank you very much for that please enjoy the rest of your day please share this with somebody who you might be concerned with that uh they might be starting this or they're delaying getting something done because they're scared or something um please share it far and wide and we'll spread the message that prevention is most definitely better then try to go and find a cure for or even not to just go through the process that I'm going through now. So enjoy the rest of your day and I will catch you guys later. Bye.
