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  • 4 hours ago
21-year-old brain tumour survivor Grace has shared how travelling hundreds of kilometres for cancer treatment turned her life upside down, and why support programs like the You Can Stay program can make all the difference.
Transcript
00:00I felt dizziness and I felt faint at work one time so I made the appointment with my GP.
00:06She thought it was vertigo. When I came out to the car after being in that appointment with my mum
00:12I turned to her and I said that I had a brain tumour and my mum just went grace that's
00:19not
00:19happening. I just I had a feeling when my cancer was found it was a stage four. I'd waited even
00:28just weeks. I may not be here.
00:36A lot of the time all of those specialists are up in major hospitals in the capitals and that can
00:44be
00:44really difficult to get to. I had radiotherapy every day. If I was travelling from home that would
00:51have been a two-hour journey and then the same back. And when you're feeling nauseous, when
00:58you have the effects of chemo and the cancer itself, it would have been too much.
01:05One of my nurses mentioned the You Can Stay program and it honestly, it sounded too good
01:12to be true. What do you mean somebody's going to pay for an apartment in Sydney? I wouldn't
01:17have been able to do treatment without it. That meant that I had my mum with me. I had daily
01:24radiotherapy. When I had to do an IVF round, she administered every needle. You know, sometimes I
01:31was having five needles a day. She would make sure that I had something small to eat, even though I
01:37didn't feel like eating at all. I wouldn't have been able to do it without her. Even with my mum
01:43there constantly, there was a point in time where my treatment was almost too much and I asked to stop
01:50it.
01:51There's a common feeling throughout patients and survivors once their, once their treatment is
01:56done. And it's, it's called the now what feeling. Now what? You've been through cancer. You've had
02:04this experience that has changed you, you know, mind and body like forever. Advocacy for me helps me find
02:14reason and purpose in that way. I'm not the only one it's happening to. This is happening again and
02:20again. Like even now, there are more people who've just been diagnosed with a life-changing cancer.
02:26And so having that space to draw attention to it as time goes on, even if it's just a small
02:34percentage, it will continue to get better for the people after me.
02:43You know your body better than anyone else. And if you feel that something's wrong,
02:50continue to fight for those, those life-saving tests. You just know, you know it better than anyone.
02:59gonna exhale였습니다.
03:01Tic, Tic, Tic, T.
03:01Tic, Tic, Tic, Tic, Tic, Tic, Tic, Tick, Tic
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