The ward doctor entered the room with "I hear you have meds that are uncharted". Um, sorry? I deciphered this statement at the time as follows: it appeared one of my Zarzio immunity injections hadn't been included in the documented medication list when I arrived at the hospital for my overnight stay the night before, meaning the nurses were unaware of it and weren't going to offer it to me that day without prompt. And when I did prompt - they were very confused. "It's not on your chart". "Well, it was self administered. I've been taking it at home and I have one more left". "But

I have been beautifully sheltered from the burden of breaking my news. I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to say "I have cancer". My husband, Tim, and my family have taken all of my tough conversations away from me. Social media also protected me, strangely. I was able to announce cancer my way by crafting a message in my words, with my sentiment, in my time. Set the tone for the discussion with a simple Instagram post. The response was so immediately overwhelming. Uplifting. Affirming – I had done the right thing. I knew within minutes of my formal diagnosis that I w

“Would you like to listen to some music while you are lying here, Nicole?”. I was stretched out on a very skinny bed with my arms above my head, waiting to be pushed into my PET scan. Music was the last thing I expected. Well, perhaps a glass of Veuve was the last thing. Music would do nicely. “Sure, yes, that would be nice”. “Great, some sixties stuff?”. Was this guy for real? He had asked with a slight hesitation, which served to betray the harsh truth: ‘sixties stuff’ was the only CD on rotation in the PET scan room. “Sixties?! Um, sure!”. And then it hit me. Of c

I know it may seem like a bizarre wish – but I wanted to lose my hair. In my mind, chemotherapy that was killing my abundant head of hair would surely really be giving it to that nasty cancer. So when my first oncologist told me that I would keep my hair, I was disappointed. Decidedly so. It was sold to me as some good news amongst the bad. But I didn’t want to keep my hair. I didn’t want to keep any cell in my body that might make the difference. Eyelashes, eyebrows – take them all. When I met my second oncologist, the outlook for my beautiful blonde tresses took a dive. I was goi

The tears fell thick and fast. I felt confused. Defeated. It had been a nice morning. I had woken up feeling good, feeling strong. My body ached from yesterday’s workout – and that was a great thing. Joshua was having a morning nap and I had a chance to think about work. Like an adult. I wanted to run my mum through some training content before her Diploma class that day. I had written our Business Strategy class, the newest class in our Diploma program, just a few months earlier and had always intended to teach it. But of course, that was now not possible. Helping my mum understand my inte

Last night, my beautiful baby boy feel asleep in my arms. In our dark bedroom, a little after midnight, I felt his head relax into the crook of my elbow, and saw his eyes rest shut. It was a moment of pure perfection. This was the first time I have had a sleeping baby in my arms since my cancer diagnosis. Before cancer, I got to have sleeping Joshua in my arms every night. As I breastfed him, I would often sleep too. The two of us would cuddle together in the dark, he getting his milk and his comfort, me getting to nuzzle the top of his head and drink in the smell of his delicate baby skin.

Tuesdays are probably the nastiest days. Chemo Tuesdays. They are my low point. I am on a fortnightly chemotherapy treatment schedule. This means every second Monday, I have an in-hospital treatment on the Epworth Eastern Day Oncology ward that lasts around six hours. On Monday evenings, I leave the ward wearing a take-home pump for a further 46 hours of slow-infusion treatment, returning to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon to have the pump removed and complete my chemo round for another fortnight. In my latest discussions with my oncologist, we have agreed that this will likely be the p

I’ll admit, I have imagined music playing at the conclusion of my funeral. More than once, actually. Anxiously chewed my cheek and let a series of notes to an unnamed song fill my head. It is not the most inspiring of day dreams. And once a thought like that enters my mind, it is difficult to keep it from escalating. Meaning I don't just hear the song, but agonise over how my team would possibly agree on said song. ‘My Dad and Tim don’t necessarily share music tastes. I listen to different tunes with my Mum than I do with my brothers. How are they going to work this stuff out? How is it fai

‘Alright. Deep breath’. So I do. I take a deep breath. In. I forget if I exhale. I steady myself. It’s time. I walk into the room; a room, any room. It’s the same each time. Before the eyes, before the smiles, before the embraces. Before all of that, I wonder: ‘Who is going to be the first to mention it?’. Will it be me? With a thin-lipped smile and a small shrug? Will it be you? With a sympathetic pout and arms held outstretched? Or will it be neither of us? Will we just let it hang in the air? Has it been mentioned enough? Should we just get on with it? The cancer. Pa

I am about to make a small request. I am already uncomfortable about it. But my feisty-writer-self will not let me proceed to other ideas without first getting this off my chest. So here it goes: I do not wish to offend or intrude – but would like to ask that you rethink your food. There. I have said it. So let’s just acknowledge this up front: food is a sensitive subject. I am wading into a protected, personal space. (But I am a stage IV bowel cancer patient who is staring this food issue in the face. So do me a solid by sticking with me for a minute or two. Please.) Australians l

First, I felt the ants. Their little legs tickling mine. I felt them as I sat quietly at the dining room table. I felt them as I wandered around the supermarket. I felt them boldly marching over my skin as I jumped and yelped and slapped at them. And then, just as quickly as they arrived, they were gone. I barely noticed their retreat – until I became aware of what had arrived in their place. Prickling and twitching. Static under my skin. Currents charging down my legs and arms and fingers and toes. It had started. I didn’t have an ant problem. I had peripheral neuropathy. Neuropathy

Before I can tell you about the surgery, I need to tell you this: writing started as a distraction. It was intentional, to take me out of the woods, to somewhere bright and warm and clear. And I knew, in truth, that my cancer monopolised me. Especially in the beginning. I could go about telling myself, telling others, that cancer was quiet while I wrote. But it wasn’t. I couldn’t silence it. Still, writing was a gentle diversion. Over time, I have changed my thinking and my approach, about my health and to my disease. Cancer does not define me. I can get through minutes and hours and someti

The first time I actually got a real glimpse of the intensive care unit was as I was leaving. Until then, I had seen nothing more than a revolving roster of nurses. The white walls and ceiling. Knowing nods from my doctors. Warm smiles from my beautiful family. As the curtain was thrown back and my bed was nudged toward the exit, I realised I was leaving the ICU before I had actually even seen it. I only had a second to find enough pain tolerance to twist my head to the left and steal a quick look. It was more private than I had envisioned. I had anticipated a barn-like layout of beds, fill

I should have known. I had been waiting for this news. I had given myself permission to accept it could happen. I dared to be believe that it would. So it follows, naturally, that it wouldn’t. I should have known. I looked down at my hands and interlocked my fingers and squeezed them together. I had to keep it together. I was so bitterly disappointed. But I had my support team sitting with me, waiting to see my response, ready to react to my reaction. So I smiled. “Ok”. And I let out a light laugh. “Of course! Dammit.” And I sank into my chair and listened to the det

“Who the hell do you think you are? Your cancer has been eliminated and now you can just get on with it? A splash of life threatening illness to remind you of what is important, and now for happily ever after? It’s back to the fairy-tale, is it? That’s a joke, Nicole. You are in the fairy-tale, sweetheart; thick in a fiction of charmingly unusual joy that is approximately 9.5 trillion kilometres from your reality. Get a grip. You have cancer. You will always have cancer. It was lurk in the shadows, loiter in the corner, obfuscate your future, steal your innocence, shit on your daydreams

There is a particular intersection in Melbourne that simply reeks of cancer. For me. I guess it wouldn’t for most people. For most people, it is where an unremarkable local street meets an endoscopy centre and a cemetery. For me, it is the beginning of all of this. And the end of all of that. We had visited this intersection countless times, I am sure. Driving through and around, up and down, on our way through a day or an evening. On our way through life. But then we visited in March 2017, to hear the results of my very first MRI. The scan that found my cancer. At that time, until

Do you remember? When everything you ever wanted in this world was exactly what you have right now? I came across this statement last week. It rang in my head with such a haunting echo that I had to read it twice. So hey, why not. Do you remember? When everything you ever wanted in this world was exactly what you have right now? Why yes. I do. I remember. Wanting to live. Wanting to escape. I would have given anything. Certainly, I would have given plenty of organs. A third of my liver, at the very least. It consumed me. This yearning for my life. This longing to be allowed t

On 16 October I was lucky enough to be invited to share the stage with Prue Cormie at the Monash Partners Comprehensive Cancer Consortium Forum Dinner, to talk all things exercise and cancer. I wanted to share my speech with everyone, which talks about the outstanding impact my medical team had in introducing exercise to my treatment journey - a complete game changer for me. Here's to exercise, and the difference a truly 'teaming' team can have on a patient!

* * *

It is my absolute honour to be speaking here tonight – thank you to the MPCCC for thi

I slumped against the wall in my wardrobe, and my troubled head found a welcome rest on the doorframe. I was waiting. For the racks of corporate wear to materialise an outfit that I would feel comfortable in. Watching. The hems of skirts and dresses sway back and forth. Wondering. Would a slick work outfit be enough to restore everything I had lost? Giving up I stopped work when I was diagnosed with bowel cancer in March 2017. I had to. I had no choice. I was so weak and sick. My swollen liver, riddled with tumours, was crowding unapologetically into the rest of my orga

Over the course of my almost two years of cancer fighting, I have had countless beautiful people offer their support. Emotional, social, physical, spiritual – whatever my need, it has always been more than met. This commitment to me has meant everything to me. Healed me. Empowered me. 

Many people have also offered financial support to Tim and I. So many people. Cancer fighting is expensive. This support was enormously helpful to us in our early months as we navigated payment for every screen

This was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. 

I knew it almost immediately. 

I knew it before I had really taken stock of it all. Before I was sitting on my couch in Melbourne, eagle-eyed for the first promo on TV. Before the flurry of messages that confirmed that other people had seen the promo, too. And certainly, before watching the end result. 

I knew it weeks earlier, as I waited to

It is fading all the time. The fear, the fragility. The pain and loss. It has been days, and then it has been weeks, since I was enveloped by the emotion and paralysed by the fear. And for some moments I really truly completely forget. I am peaceful. Laughing with friends. Gazing at the bare branches of a tree. I am calm and consciously grateful. I exercise. I bask in the love of my son and my man. I work and then work some more. I read. I have ideas and ambition. I am absorbed. I make dinner and peel a banana and hold a cup of tea with two hands, fingers intertwined.

It was a casual Wednesday night and I was casually flipping through the pages of my health history. I must have been searching for a notebook or putting away another Lego instruction manual or something equally as harmless to cause me to open the living room cupboard and rummage through. My fingers brushed past it first – the fluorescent pink plastic folder that my meticulously detailed 2017 diagnosis called home – and all at once I was transfixed. I shuffled some papers to the side and revealed it, sitting on the shelf all suggestive-like; I was two gins in, so shrugg

I share my cancer life. Everything that is blunt and real about my health crisis is out there for public consumption. It has been from the start. 

It was a decision that seemed obvious to me when I was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2017. How many brand-new mums encounter a stage four cancer diagnosis? How many 32-year-olds are given 18 months to live? The tragically lonely certainty of my predicament, not to mention the heart-breaking reality that it was not in fact a rare occurrence at all; it felt like it all need