TMI time…

⚠ Content warning: references to disease and medical procedures

I’ve been unwell this week, again, and I feel like I owe folks some kind of explanation… mainly because it has impacted so many of you, but maybe it also looks inconsistent or like I’m picking favourites or something? I don’t know, I’m weird. It feels like coming clean with a secret, or at least therapeutic to write it out, am I even brave enough to post it? I’ll have to try to relate it back to dog training…

I preface all this with much gratefulness to the public health system for getting me through what turned out to be a complex case.

6 years ago when covid was starting out and we were all working from home, I found out I had cancer. Cervical, one of the girl ones and relatively common I suppose. Onto the roller coaster I embarked. The oncologist was relatively optimistic that while it was a large tumour, the gold-standard treatment of pelvic chemo-radiation was considered curative. There was something in the planning scans though, a secondary finding. I had an internal ultrasound, PET, CT, MRI, Sigmoidoscopy, a whole team of experts, and they still couldn’t tell exactly. So the first surgery was a discovery laparoscopy.

It was endometriosis. Undiagnosed endo. So bad my left fallopian tube was adhered to my bowel causing a stricture beyond salvaging. I would require a bowel resection and removal of the fallopian tube, and my cancer treatment delayed. I was just along for the ride at this point. The rage at the years of medical gaslighting that got me here came later. So the second surgery was the resection, around this time of the year on the 25th June 2026. There was a small leak, but they hoped that would resolve with support. It didn’t. 4-days later it felt like something came undone. My whole multi-disciplinary team of surgeons & oncologists came running, and given this all started with the cancer it was agreed that if I had to be opened up they’d also do a hysterectomy to get the tumour out. The emergency surgery went for hours. They tried to rejoin my bowel 3 times & failed, ultimately doing what’s called a Hartmann’s procedure to form a colostomy, plus the opportunistic radical hysterectomy. I lost at least a day in ICU and took my time recovering, but once I turned the corner was discharged in mid-July. I then still required “mop up” radiation in August, and was able to skip chemo entirely (in consultation with my team and a chemo-oncologist of course).

I never got my head around the staging or prognosis stuff. But I made it to my 5 years “NED” (no evidence of disease), with only a few psychologist appointments, HRT, pelvic physio, and the colostomy. Life with a bag, and not even because of the cancer. It saved my life. I’ve been lucky. But it is a lingering thing, the “preexisting thing that flares up sometimes”, the invisible disability. I’m a card-carrying disabled toilet user. Mostly, I feel normal. Normal digestive fluctuations take place for everyone. Mostly I can cope with them, I can plan and work around them. Mostly, I am not restricted by what I can do or how I can do it, and I’m grateful I can keep training dogs! In many ways, it can even be more convenient. But also, I do have to be more careful. Pain is a signal that I need to honour. Lifting and ability to take impact are impeded. Nausea and dizziness effect concentration and performance. Sometimes, my body lets me down, which means I let you down. I don’t carry that well. I hate letting people down. Sometimes I push through, and sometimes that works and sometimes it makes it worse. And so the spiral goes…

Can I relate this to dog training? I guess it’s about acknowledging limitations and honouring what is, being present when and how you can. It is what it is – I hate that saying but it’s true. Like a reactive dog, my body is not giving me a problem, it’s having a problem. …as fast as you can, as slow as you need to. Sigh.

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I originally started this draft for Invisible Disabilities week in October each year (coming up October 18 to 24 this year: https://invisibledisabilities.org/seminarsandevents/invisible-disabilities-week/) but was not brave enough to post it.

At least I finished it during Stomal Therapy Week June 22 t0 28 2026… a huge shout out to all Stoma Therapy Nurses for the work you do, especially Lee & Karen at Westmead Hospital who were and are incredible throughout. Seeing people at their worst and helping them get back to their best, just differently.