Speaker 1: Apote production. Hi, my name's beck Woodbine and welcome to
Speaker 1: Tenderness for Nurses.
Speaker 2: I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity
Speaker 2: to be, So I hit it and parked it for
Speaker 2: Nellie four years. We always have free will, We always
Speaker 2: get to choose. We are autonomous. Hi.
Speaker 1: Everyone, welcome back to Tenness for Nurses. Today we have
Speaker 1: Cannie Ladell with us, who is a lovely friend of
Speaker 1: mine and we've known each other for god fifteen years longer.
Speaker 2: Will you make me look so young?
Speaker 1: So I asked Carnie to come on today to have
Speaker 1: a chat to us a because not only has she
Speaker 1: worked within the hospital system, she herself has been a
Speaker 1: patient with the Paralympics. On Cannie herself has actually competed
Speaker 1: in the Paralympics, and I just wanted to touch on
Speaker 1: her experiences both working in the hospital and her experience
Speaker 1: as a patient, but also the impact going to the
Speaker 1: Paralympics had on her. And I suppose moving forward, being
Speaker 1: a powerhouse with human rights, you do so much work
Speaker 1: for people that are handicapped.
Speaker 2: I am now forty five, so I was born with
Speaker 2: my disability in nineteen seventy nine, and in hockey in
Speaker 2: Rocky Mate, I was miss beef Week nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: That's part of my that should have been your bloody
Speaker 2: first thing. Great year ninety six, first Paralympics, the year
Speaker 2: twelve miss beef week. So and Rockampton, by the way,
Speaker 2: is the beef capital of Australia causin yes, and you
Speaker 2: can only imagine my mother. Obviously there wasn't any ultrasounds
Speaker 2: back then, and she didn't go to doctor quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Mum and said, I feel like she's not moving because
Speaker 2: I guess she'd heard everyone talking about kicking. And the
Speaker 2: doctor of course said go away, everything's fine. Then from
Speaker 2: there I was born in a traumatic birth. So Mum
Speaker 2: went in for a vinal delivery. Yes, let's say what
Speaker 2: you say, and obviously a caesar had to happen. I
Speaker 2: was breached. I was legs over the head. Because now
Speaker 2: I've found out from MRIs only just recently actually in
Speaker 2: the last five years, when they needed a full body
Speaker 2: MRI that supposedly, according to that MRI, I don't have
Speaker 2: any glute muscle, not even like a little extra like
Speaker 2: a black pinprick of muscle in my glutes or my hamstrings.
Speaker 2: Which Patty walks.
Speaker 1: Right, So you guys just say you have a bit
Speaker 1: of an idea about Cannie. Yes, she is in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1: I know this for a fact that her mother was
Speaker 1: determined to make her walk, and Cartie can walk. Obviously
Speaker 1: there are areas that she can't.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't walk like you. No, you don't. You don't.
Speaker 2: Is it a gate we call it in the medical community.
Speaker 2: I call it a swagger. You've got a swagger gets
Speaker 2: better with a couple of gin and tonics.
Speaker 1: But you know, her mum was determined to make her
Speaker 1: walk and she did. Hey.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the thing is, that's another thing that I've
Speaker 2: learned along the way being a disability activist, which is
Speaker 2: something that I'd love to retire from. And I think
Speaker 2: any of us want to be activists. I certainly don't.
Speaker 2: The day that I can say that I'm not one
Speaker 2: is the day that we're finally equal. And it's very
Speaker 2: tiring being an activist for your own life and then
Speaker 2: having that kind of responsibility when you become a paralympian
Speaker 2: and you become a public figure. And I did a
Speaker 2: social work degree as well, so I sort of put
Speaker 2: myself in that position not knowing that we would still
Speaker 2: be in what I call the fight I think for
Speaker 2: a couple of years after the NDIS first came in
Speaker 2: to Queensland. For me anyway, it was the first time
Speaker 2: I ever received funding in my whole life, because I
Speaker 2: wasn't eligible for funding before the NDAs came in well
Speaker 2: pre NDIS. And this is something that I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people have forgotten about and the reason why
Speaker 2: there was such a need for the NDAs. And I
Speaker 2: actually was part of the rallies that brought the NDIS
Speaker 2: into Australia. I ran the rallies around Australia, didn't actually
Speaker 2: run them as in I didn't organize them, but I
Speaker 2: was the face and the host and the MC and
Speaker 2: I've never seen the disability community shop like that before.
Speaker 2: I expected to sharp to five people, you know, normal,
Speaker 2: the same five, the squeaky wheels I like call them.
Speaker 2: They shaped every event, every government event. They're the ones
Speaker 2: that get the funding. And that was just thousands and
Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of people wearing these red shirts. What
Speaker 2: is it? Nothing about us? Without us? Everybody accounts and
Speaker 2: the productivity Commission that was done back then was done
Speaker 2: because we just as a state government just provided bulk
Speaker 2: funding to all those providers. So whatever propriety you want
Speaker 2: to pick, I'm not picking on them. Let's just say
Speaker 2: and Devin Foundation. They would have so many clients on
Speaker 2: their list, and I would have been more than likely
Speaker 2: on Muscular District, Queensland's list. I don't know if I was,
Speaker 2: but maybe. And then they'd write their proposals and they
Speaker 2: get their bulk funding and no one ordered to them,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden there wasn't a done
Speaker 2: because the disability community wasn't doing well. You know, we
Speaker 2: are still the most unemployed group in this country.
Speaker 1: So where was the money going.
Speaker 2: The money was bulk funded to those organizations and then
Speaker 2: they were to deliver the services whatever they decided to deliver.
Speaker 2: So for example, before that, also all your funding came
Speaker 2: down to what they called Disability Support pension, which everybody
Speaker 2: thinks that we're on. And even if I was on it,
Speaker 2: which I'm not, I was never eligible because in my
Speaker 2: interview when I was sixteen, of course, growing up with
Speaker 2: my parents, which I'll get to, and also being apparently
Speaker 2: being and always being like I can you know, look
Speaker 2: at me, I'm the best of everything, don't look at
Speaker 2: my disability. I kind of r into that settling interview
Speaker 2: a bit like that, and I was saying things like
Speaker 2: can you walk and can you do this? And what
Speaker 2: can you live? And I'd be like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: what do you mean? What can I lift? They're like, well,
Speaker 2: can you lift your cat? I'm like yes, and my
Speaker 2: mom's like, hey, you cat your cat? And I'm like yes,
Speaker 2: I can. And then that was it didn't get the DSP,
Speaker 2: and from there it wouldn't matter anywhere because I always worked. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and when you work with DSP, like anything with Setling,
Speaker 2: they docupay so every week and you can imagine if
Speaker 2: I did a speech, I'd have to ring Sendling and say, oh,
Speaker 2: I can't get my four hundred dollars this week because
Speaker 2: I just did this speech, and it would just be
Speaker 2: you know, there's no way. Yeah. So that was why
Speaker 2: people back then, my friends that needed support work or
Speaker 2: care would stay on the DSP like one day a week,
Speaker 2: just so they could be eligible for support work. No
Speaker 2: one in the world can really afford to pay for
Speaker 2: a care, so if anyone had to buy a care,
Speaker 2: you know, like a twenty four to seven situation right
Speaker 2: now with the price guide. The TOOS is sixty five
Speaker 2: dollars hour and minimum for my support workers and that
Speaker 2: goes up according to the time we live. On a
Speaker 2: Sunday them at one hundred and twenty dollars an hour.
Speaker 2: So that situation for a twenty four to seven person
Speaker 2: with the disability, it's about two million dollars a year.
Speaker 2: So back then, the care was delivered to forty eight
Speaker 2: thousand queens Onis for example, give or take, and I
Speaker 2: would have been in forty eight thousand person list. And
Speaker 2: if you need a care, it was Blue Care or
Speaker 2: whatever was you provider, and they would send out a
Speaker 2: care when they could, and you know, like the old
Speaker 2: Telstra come between nine and eleven nine and whine whatever
Speaker 2: it was, and they'd come with your key, male or female,
Speaker 2: nobody who it was, and they would come and do
Speaker 2: what everybody seems to think we need, which is wipe
Speaker 2: our arms, enemas, showers, et cetera. And that's how it
Speaker 2: rolled back then. And then obviously I was never eligible.
Speaker 2: I'm not to be honest. I wouldn't even thought that
Speaker 2: I would be an eligible for support workers. So up
Speaker 2: until the age of thirty seven, I just lived in sharehouses,
Speaker 2: paid for cleaners, struggled, I guess like everybody else, and
Speaker 2: my parents came down, you know, the Sunshine Coast. We
Speaker 2: moved from Rocky I was about eighteen. I moved to
Speaker 2: Brisbane to train for the Sinney two thousand Paralympics, and
Speaker 2: my parents moved to the Sunshine Coast with my brother,
Speaker 2: who finished school at Sunshine Coast. So when the NDIS
Speaker 2: actually came in was when I accidentally, whoopsie fell pregnant.
Speaker 2: It was a whoop see kind of what do we
Speaker 2: do here? And then obviously a single mother with the
Speaker 2: disability having a baby on my own, the NDAs was
Speaker 2: out and from you know, when I fell pregnant, you
Speaker 2: can only imagine. I mean, you know my doctor, doctor
Speaker 2: Glenn Gardner, who's the I think he's a director of
Speaker 2: the high risk unit. He predominantly does high risk babies,
Speaker 2: which Kai was also that, so he was a high
Speaker 2: risk baby. I wasn't genetically diagnosed. Still okay, I'm still
Speaker 2: not quite genetically diagnosed. I'm about ninety nine percent genetically diagnosed.
Speaker 2: This is the fun of living with a really rare
Speaker 2: muscle wasting disease. I was diagnosed at birth with spinal
Speaker 2: muscular atrophy, which, of course, back then they didn't have
Speaker 2: genetics and didn't have blood tests for SMA or MD
Speaker 2: doushen but they it was all clinical. And back then,
Speaker 2: if you're born floppy, which I was, I was born
Speaker 2: very floppy, and they diagnosed me with what I now
Speaker 2: call SMA type one.
Speaker 1: What's that mean?
Speaker 2: Any child that is born pretty much with a muscle
Speaker 2: disease and they're born floppy typically means you're going to
Speaker 2: die really quick. So most of my mates with SMA,
Speaker 2: they are born typical or what we call healthy, which
Speaker 2: I absolutely hate that label. You know, all I want
Speaker 2: to have as a healthy child. Well what happens when
Speaker 2: you don't? What happens when you are that and a
Speaker 2: healthy baby? What happens to us? You know, whenever you
Speaker 2: say things about disability, you got to flip it on
Speaker 2: its side and say or slip slip it over and say,
Speaker 2: well you're saying you don't want me, and then what
Speaker 2: happens then?
Speaker 1: So complex, isn't it?
Speaker 2: It is so complex because I understand as a mother,
Speaker 2: but at the same time, if you're going to have
Speaker 2: a baby, you should understand.
Speaker 1: That things can go wrong.
Speaker 2: Well, there's twenty percent of Australians have a disability. And
Speaker 2: hopefully you don't say I want a girl. If you
Speaker 2: said all I want to have as a girl, then
Speaker 2: someone will say you can't that because there's a fifty
Speaker 2: percent chance you can have a boy. So I guess
Speaker 2: for me, I needed care because when I fell pregnant,
Speaker 2: nobody really knew what was going to happen. Nobody really
Speaker 2: wanted me to have a baby. There was a lot
Speaker 2: of talk around it. I really desperately wanted to have
Speaker 2: a child. I knew that, but I knew that I
Speaker 2: couldn't say it out aloud, and I knew that everyone
Speaker 2: around me was careful with how they talked. I was
Speaker 2: a godmother five hundred times, you know, and everyone gave
Speaker 2: me that. You know you're going to be a godmother.
Speaker 2: And I lived in a new farm and I had
Speaker 2: Tiffany the dog. She was my fair baby. You know,
Speaker 2: that was really where I was going, you know. It
Speaker 2: surrounded myself, a lot of gay people, a new farm.
Speaker 2: We lived that life. And again I didn't meet the
Speaker 2: right guy. I'd had a very horrific situation. When I
Speaker 2: was thirty four years of age, I got engaged to
Speaker 2: a very dangerous, narissistic, maybe sociopathic, scary man, very scary
Speaker 2: man that has led a full double life and did
Speaker 2: it to other women after me.
Speaker 1: I remember how scared you were.
Speaker 2: I thought it was going to kill me. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: were terrifying, surprised, absolutely, And now that I know more
Speaker 2: about DV, I am very lucky he didn't kill me. Look,
Speaker 2: that is truly how much control he had over my
Speaker 2: lifefe And nobody saw it coming. Nobody except one friend
Speaker 2: had suspicions about him. He was so good at what
Speaker 2: he did.
Speaker 1: But remember I said to you one time, he's too
Speaker 1: good to be true. Yeah, he's too good to be true.
Speaker 2: I knew there were some things he was lying about, absolutely,
Speaker 2: but I had absolutely no idea that he was lying
Speaker 2: about a double life. And I didn't know he was
Speaker 2: lying down to see his daughter and he was still married.
Speaker 1: And that's scary. How many men are like that then?
Speaker 2: I mean, I've worked in domestic family violence now for
Speaker 2: a long time, and white sociopathic, narcissistic men our most
Speaker 2: dangerous men walking our street right now because we can't
Speaker 2: catch them, because I don't break the law until they
Speaker 2: kill you. I know that sounds really full on and severe.
Speaker 2: But I've met the victims' families. You know, Alison Baiden,
Speaker 2: Clay's family I've met, and a Clark's family. I opened
Speaker 2: their charity for them. I've heard the stories, I've read
Speaker 2: the death review boards. I've been in their lives, and
Speaker 2: there was no physical violence, hardly any of the cases.
Speaker 2: We call them snakes, right, there's snakes in the grass.
Speaker 2: People's easy to catch because they probably will hit you
Speaker 2: in the face. We often say it's a shame that
Speaker 2: they don't hit us in the face, because then somebody
Speaker 2: would believe me. I didn't have the words for it.
Speaker 2: It's funny. I was thirty four, I'd just finished my
Speaker 2: master social work, so I hadn't even studied worked in
Speaker 2: domestic and found me violence And I met him the
Speaker 2: day I handed in my master's last assignment off Tinder
Speaker 2: or whatever it was. And I will never date a
Speaker 2: stranger ever again. And I mean a stranger. I have
Speaker 2: to know someone who knows them. But yeah, I was
Speaker 2: engaged him. Wedding organized, wedding canceled, proper, lost everything, lost
Speaker 2: so much money. Took me years so untangle myself out
Speaker 2: of that mess. So when I did fall pregnant, so
Speaker 2: the next guy I meet felt pregnant to him. When
Speaker 2: I fell pregnant, I had frozen my eggs six months earlier,
Speaker 2: and I do believe that I was full of hoemones.
Speaker 2: But when my doctor got the eggs out, she only
Speaker 2: got seven or eight.
Speaker 1: But that's what they aim for these days.
Speaker 2: Well, I've had a lot of friends that I had IVF.
Speaker 2: And by the way, it's so funny because when I
Speaker 2: fell pregnant my sisters who used wheelchairs, You've had babies,
Speaker 2: They like, oh, no, big questions. The personal questions about
Speaker 2: disability got to get worse and more personal. I thought
Speaker 2: to myself, how is that even possible. Ever I go,
Speaker 2: people are at me like, what happened to you? What's
Speaker 2: wrong with you? What have you done to yourself? Have
Speaker 2: you tried gluten free? Have you tried rehab? I hear
Speaker 2: it's really effective. Have you seen now Lex mckinn and
Speaker 2: he can still walk? Like so, I've just been dealing
Speaker 2: with all of that, And again, think about what you're saying,
Speaker 2: what's wrong with you? Nothing? What have you done to yourself? Nothing?
Speaker 2: But if I say I've got a neuroe, muscular waste
Speaker 2: in disease. I think it's oncongenital typnopathy. What are they
Speaker 2: going to say to that, is it curable? Are you
Speaker 2: going to die? What can you do? Do this? So?
Speaker 2: And then if you answer it with a car accident,
Speaker 2: because its kind of that's what they want, then from
Speaker 2: there I feel bad because I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, I'm just like, I'm not diminishing what you just said.
Speaker 1: But after I had my second child, I you know,
Speaker 1: was carrying a bit of weight and Jacob never slept,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was a bit of a fatty
Speaker 1: poopa and carried it all in my tummy. Me too,
Speaker 1: And I was asked all the time when my next
Speaker 1: baby was due, and you know how you want to
Speaker 1: not embarrass that person, you just go, oh, no, no,
Speaker 1: I just had a baby now, and Jacob was twelve
Speaker 1: months down the track, so you know, I just hadn't
Speaker 1: lost the weight. Anyway, I had a really bad day.
Speaker 1: I hadn't slept because Jacob love him to pieces, and
Speaker 1: he's what twenty three now, But that kid didn't and
Speaker 1: I'm not exaggerating. He did not sleep for three years.
Speaker 1: We were in and out of sleep hospitals, and he
Speaker 1: had severe reflup. He was a nightmare anyway, bad day,
Speaker 1: no sleep, had worked the night before, went into kmart
Speaker 1: and this lady says to me, oh, so, when's your
Speaker 1: baby jew And you know, I just snapped and I
Speaker 1: just turned her and I said, no, I'm just fat,
Speaker 1: and so my personality to make people feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: But that woman ran that fast and I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: I said, you know, I'm gonna believe what happened to me.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: But you know, why is it that we have to
Speaker 1: make everyone else who ask us a really personal, uncomfortable question,
Speaker 1: we then have to go out of our way to
Speaker 1: make them feel comfortable for being so rude.
Speaker 2: And the thing is too, when I was younger watching
Speaker 2: my older paralympic friends snap, you know, or say things
Speaker 2: that like nothing wrong with me or whatever, I ignore them.
Speaker 2: And you know, people often come in high five you
Speaker 2: when you're out and say good on you for being out.
Speaker 2: You say brave, and they wonder why that's totally offensive
Speaker 2: and patronizing. And I feel like saying, I don't high
Speaker 2: five anyone back now. I mean, to be honest, my
Speaker 2: high five is not good. I've got a muscle disease.
Speaker 2: It ain't great life five is a lot better. But
Speaker 2: you know, you get high five. If you've been a paralympian,
Speaker 2: I'll high five you back. You're in a high five me.
Speaker 2: If you're doing a great speech, I'll hire five you back.
Speaker 2: I'm not high fiving you for being out and being
Speaker 2: brave and being inspiration. Sorry, that is disgusting, it's rude.
Speaker 2: And also I always think to myself, would you say
Speaker 2: that to n a body person? So when I was pregnant,
Speaker 2: the number one question I got asked was how'd you
Speaker 2: get pregnant? No joke. This was from friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Now,
Speaker 2: I tend to think that if you're gonna ask someone
Speaker 2: a question, I always think to myself, you're gonna ask
Speaker 2: anyone a question, probably at least be ready for two answers,
Speaker 2: like yes or no. If you're not ready for either
Speaker 2: of those, like, for example, are you going to die
Speaker 2: from it? If I'm going to say yes, what are
Speaker 2: you going to say? Then? Therefore don't say it. Don't
Speaker 2: ask that question unless you're ready to know what you're
Speaker 2: going to say to yes. Same with how you're going
Speaker 2: to fall pregnant? If you go up to a pregnant
Speaker 2: woman like you in Kmart that wasn't pregnant much more fun.
Speaker 2: So how'd you feel pregnant? You're not going to say
Speaker 2: that to a body person.
Speaker 1: Surely have strangers asked you that when you.
Speaker 2: Was the number one most common question you've asked anyone
Speaker 2: that uses a wheelchair if they've been high five for
Speaker 2: going out, being inspirational or I would kill myself if
Speaker 2: I was you. Oh if I had it up in
Speaker 2: a wheelchair. I tell the newbies that I meet, we
Speaker 2: are going to go out and this is what's going
Speaker 2: to happen, and they think I'm lying.
Speaker 1: That must be heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: For these words and me together. There's a couple of
Speaker 2: us together. Oh, were on a date with the going
Speaker 2: on a wheelchair? Wow, that's really fun. So yes, number
Speaker 2: one question was how do you feel pregnant? And everybody,
Speaker 2: I know that'll affects me to say, because the way
Speaker 2: that we frame disability and talk about disability has been
Speaker 2: said to me for a very long time. So I
Speaker 2: know how you feel about it. You've told me. So
Speaker 2: therefore I know that you all think not you, of course,
Speaker 2: but a lot of people think and had this misconception
Speaker 2: that I'm the riskiest person in every room that I
Speaker 2: go into to support servi or employee, and that disables
Speaker 2: me way more than my disability. So that misconception and
Speaker 2: that attitude towards disability, if that went away tomorrow, I
Speaker 2: could deal with the inaccessible environment that I have to
Speaker 2: deal with. But the fact that I've got a deal
Speaker 2: with people coming at me in front of my son.
Speaker 2: And when I was pregnant, they wanted me to say,
Speaker 2: IVF right, because of course, if you think I can't
Speaker 2: get a job and I can't get on a plane,
Speaker 2: or I can't baby Shrek ride at dream Well, but
Speaker 2: my kid care he's full, then of course I can't
Speaker 2: have a baby. And they weren't expecting me to say
Speaker 2: a couple of gen tonics and a root with a
Speaker 2: guy that I billy knew. And when I had to
Speaker 2: tell my friends, like who you data, I'm like, so, I, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was probably more scared about telling people because I knew.
Speaker 2: Also I was single more than likely, you know, there
Speaker 2: was a lot going on in that situation. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I went to doctor Glenn. He was the high risk.
Speaker 2: He didn't know what to do. He was great, but
Speaker 2: really and truly from probably twenty weeks, stability to do everything,
Speaker 2: and the pain in my back, like I thought my
Speaker 2: back was going to break for sure. You can't imagine.
Speaker 2: I mean, did you see me pregnant at the time.
Speaker 2: I couldn't sit up, I couldn't slide down. I couldn't
Speaker 2: get away from the pain because the lot lordosis was
Speaker 2: so severe and you can't really complain about either. You
Speaker 2: can't complain about pain because you've got yourself in this
Speaker 2: situation and it's not going to kill me and the baby.
Speaker 2: It wasn't gonna hurt Kai, so its a weird thing.
Speaker 2: It was like, oh, okay, well, Kai's okay. He was
Speaker 2: moving a lot, which was good because Mum didn't move,
Speaker 2: and that's part of the disease. No fluid. You get
Speaker 2: stuck in that position can general tighten upathy and then
Speaker 2: you come out with contractions. I came out with my
Speaker 2: thumbs like this okay, which I've been fixed, and the
Speaker 2: tenet transfer and really weird feet like whoever I was
Speaker 2: in her eu it you can imagine you come out
Speaker 2: like that. Now, let me know what it is. It's
Speaker 2: actually missing muscles from birth, so I'm missing pretty much
Speaker 2: most of my back muscles and then the front muscles
Speaker 2: kind of do everything. That's what can general typnopathy actually
Speaker 2: is just discovered. It was thirty five of us in
Speaker 2: the world. It's a Titan gene and it's not progressive,
Speaker 2: so it's not SMA, which is progressive, so it won't
Speaker 2: be passed. Kai. Well, Kai was not born like me yep.
Speaker 2: And also he put his thumb in his mouth at
Speaker 2: twenty weeks.
Speaker 1: But that was the best picture ever because.
Speaker 2: There was a little bit of a club foot situation
Speaker 2: spoken about, which kind of sent me into a bit
Speaker 2: of a tizzy. It's interesting because I was okay about
Speaker 2: Kai has other issues that he's got in terms of
Speaker 2: other learning difficulties, ADHD and other things. But it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I was hoping not to pass on my condition only
Speaker 2: because I've seen what other mothers go through when they
Speaker 2: pass on their own disease. There's something about it. I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is, like. I was ready for guilt.
Speaker 2: Do you think I think it's the guilt. But it
Speaker 2: was also probably scared of the public's reaction, you know,
Speaker 2: because another question I gotta asked all the time, is
Speaker 2: your child going to have your disease? And I couldn't
Speaker 2: say yes or no because I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I'm really struggling that people ask you such personal questions.
Speaker 2: All the time. People have asked, like mates and chairs
Speaker 2: that they got a vagina, and I'm like, well, what
Speaker 2: if they say no? Like people, I'm sure there are
Speaker 2: people that don't have vaginas. I know plenty of people
Speaker 2: that don't have limbs. But again, unless you're about to
Speaker 2: operate on me, you don't need to know. You don't
Speaker 2: need to know anything about my disability because I was
Speaker 2: born with mine. I'm bored of talking about it. And
Speaker 2: I also don't like how you're framing the question. And
Speaker 2: I don't like how you talk to me in front
Speaker 2: of my child now, like someone has prayed, literally not
Speaker 2: pr e y. I've had people get down on their
Speaker 2: hands and knees and pray when my child was sitting
Speaker 2: on my lap at in Tripley shopping center. Serious yes,
Speaker 2: And then my child started praying for me to not
Speaker 2: be in a wheelchair because of those idiots that put
Speaker 2: that in his head. And I had idiots like that
Speaker 2: put that in my head and I was eight xlo
Speaker 2: eighty eight. Yeah, good news. Australia Bible came out. How
Speaker 2: a bunch of them came over to me in my wheelchair,
Speaker 2: got down to an eight year old child and put
Speaker 2: their hands on my legs and told me to read
Speaker 2: this Bible, which I did, and I would be cured again.
Speaker 2: Like where they he would I park, Like, come on, man,
Speaker 2: I do not want to be The only thing I
Speaker 2: would take away from my disability right now would be pain.
Speaker 2: If someone can come along and just erase the pain
Speaker 2: that I'm in, then I would be fine to be
Speaker 2: in this body for the rest of my life. But
Speaker 2: the pain is becoming increasingly challenging. After thirty plus operations.
Speaker 1: When you have had and you've had numerous surgeries in hospital,
Speaker 1: how did you feel the medical and nursing staff treated
Speaker 1: you and be honest, yeah, like how you felt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because I became apparently been so young.
Speaker 2: I was very fortunate then to be pushed into the
Speaker 2: world of orthopedic surgeons that are sports orientated. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I got all the best doctors, right. So, I
Speaker 2: think my first big surgery, aside from my thumbs at five,
Speaker 2: that was life changing because my knees were desiccating from
Speaker 2: the age of twelve. So they would discad everywhere. It
Speaker 2: wouldn't matter where I'd go. I never knew when it
Speaker 2: was going to happen, and you can only imagine the
Speaker 2: pain scared going up and downs. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't want to fall down the stairs and prove
Speaker 2: them right. Everyone is kept on saying I was just
Speaker 2: because you're a good a muscle disease. You know, obviously
Speaker 2: the muscles aren't strong enough. And that was that and
Speaker 2: just lucky for me. I met Dr Myers through the
Speaker 2: Paralympics and he said, your tibia is out of line
Speaker 2: with uniquer and I went, what does that mean? He goes, oh,
Speaker 2: I saw a tiv transfer. I was like, great, went
Speaker 2: in no idea, how freaking painful that surgery is and
Speaker 2: came out obviously six weeks or something until they can
Speaker 2: bend it. I can't remember how many weeks it was.
Speaker 2: It was like, you know, eight weeks or whatever. And
Speaker 2: in those eight weeks it was after the Paralympics. So
Speaker 2: I also pooked up because I was like, look and
Speaker 2: you're see eating six out. You know. It was like
Speaker 2: when you're an athlete, it burn off so much you
Speaker 2: can't keep the weight. Don't think I was forty five
Speaker 2: kilos probably even smaller at my first Paralympics. It's like
Speaker 2: thirty five at my first and forty five at my second,
Speaker 2: and lost the ability to walk. So it's about about
Speaker 2: a year trying to get it back, like rehab hydro,
Speaker 2: trying because the muscles just wasted so quickly. And then
Speaker 2: three months after I walked, I was walking into the
Speaker 2: Brothers Club and Rocky and my left and dislocated for
Speaker 2: the first time. So it's only my right one that
Speaker 2: used to do it that was up there with the
Speaker 2: worse running for hours in my life, I reckon and
Speaker 2: then from there I knew I had to do it again,
Speaker 2: so I went back to mys. This time took me
Speaker 2: six months to I how to walk again. And in
Speaker 2: those times of being in bed and being completely dependent,
Speaker 2: my dad had to shower me and lift me, and
Speaker 2: my friends had to bring me, you know, like there
Speaker 2: was no freaking things to do. There's not like Netflix.
Speaker 2: It was really lonely. I don't want to be cynical,
Speaker 2: but I learned very young that you're better off just
Speaker 2: really keeping things to yourself, you know, you learn after
Speaker 2: six months, a year, another surgery, another this, and another that.
Speaker 2: You know, there's very few people that stick around really
Speaker 2: and really help. You know. I always say to people,
Speaker 2: if you don't know how to help anyone, just think
Speaker 2: about food company and anything that can help with boredom
Speaker 2: or just sitting there with them. Really just show it up,
Speaker 2: even if they don't answer your phone. To show up.
Speaker 2: People isolate themselves. I isolate big time. I do that,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you just need someone to say, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: you know, like what can we do? And I don't
Speaker 2: know what you can do? So that was that. Then
Speaker 2: from there I walked and then they needs haven't desiccated since.
Speaker 2: And I've had about ten operations with doctor Myers, probably
Speaker 2: more since, just like the you know, the meniscus or
Speaker 2: the cartilage and I've got no cartliage left now my knees,
Speaker 2: but they don't desicate because he did that to be
Speaker 2: a transfer. So that was the first real taste of surgeries,
Speaker 2: big ones. That was a big one. Hospital isn't a
Speaker 2: place I like to go to because I either get
Speaker 2: sick her there from the food and the bed and
Speaker 2: not being able to do my normal routine of rehab
Speaker 2: and you know all that stuff. So I didn't go
Speaker 2: into the hospital with it. When I was pregnant. It
Speaker 2: was thirty six weeks. He stopped moving. I couldn't feel
Speaker 2: him moving, and that's when I went all right, so
Speaker 2: went into hospital for that week. He was okay. All
Speaker 2: I wanted to do was to get the thirty seven
Speaker 2: weeks only that was full urn officially thirty seven weeks
Speaker 2: of the day. First up, doctor card to me, and
Speaker 2: again he had no idea what was going to happen.
Speaker 2: He didn't. I mean, the poor lady was putting in
Speaker 2: a padurial and she's like, oh, how are we going
Speaker 2: to put an epidurial into that back? You can only imagine,
Speaker 2: like my back is just it's really cooked. So of
Speaker 2: course I was expected to be knocked out, and my
Speaker 2: mum came into the room with me. As soon as
Speaker 2: she put it in, it was like instant relief. I
Speaker 2: had no idea how long the caesar took. I actually
Speaker 2: love surgery, love anesthetic. I can totally understand why that's
Speaker 2: a fatanyl problem. I get the addiction. When I get
Speaker 2: into an ambulance and they don't give me the green whistle,
Speaker 2: I am absolutely devastated. And if they take it away
Speaker 2: from me in hospital, I'm even more devastated. I would
Speaker 2: definitely be one of those people that would be like
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson and.
Speaker 1: Well that was mendazolam.
Speaker 2: He was It's all a bit of an anesthetic thing, yeah,
Speaker 2: isn't it? And the new one that Matthew Perry died
Speaker 2: from was offenstional. That would be a drugg I would.
Speaker 1: It's a nasty drug.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but god, I love anesthetic.
Speaker 1: We needs to use kenemine all the time. And then
Speaker 1: it went out of favor because it made people very
Speaker 1: agitated when they were coming out of theater.
Speaker 2: And that's the problem. It's like any drug. I'm guessing no,
Speaker 2: some of them are.
Speaker 1: Just aggravate people more than others. And was one that
Speaker 1: was really.
Speaker 2: A brain chemistry thing, isn't it? Because I hate morphine.
Speaker 2: I can't if you give me an endome, it's not good.
Speaker 2: I mean hallucinations. I don't go to toilet for a month,
Speaker 2: like it's the worst drug. At some people I've and don't.
Speaker 2: I've got lot of people to say that love it anyway.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I did not know that doctor Gardner was struggling.
Speaker 2: He was making a lot of noise and I did
Speaker 2: see some foresips. I thought that was interesting. I don't
Speaker 2: know you did his forceps and a Caesar man. Whatever,
Speaker 2: I'm in, how I'm how, I'm in heaven. The pain's
Speaker 2: finally gone. Yeah. Fifty minutes later he got him out.
Speaker 2: So he was completely stuck under my lord dosis and
Speaker 2: he had no idea by looking at me that my
Speaker 2: abs because I'm missing those muscles in the back. He said,
Speaker 2: it was like cutting through an on a bit gymnast.
Speaker 2: He had no preparation for that, and he couldn't get
Speaker 2: him out. But he came out, and doctor Gardener told
Speaker 2: the couri Mal with Freddie Mining, that was the hard
Speaker 2: of Caesar he's ever done in his entire life.
Speaker 1: Can't He just want to say thank you for coming in,
Speaker 1: and thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate