Anybody that goes through cancer of any sort will feel emotionally vulnerable and it can be very confronting to know that life may be taken away from you. The thing I've found personally
is that.
If you wake up in the day and you're feeling flat, you've just got to take the little things in life and appreciate that you're still here. And no matter if you're winning the battle or losing the battle, every day you get to spend with your friends and your family and your colleagues. It's a pretty good thing.
Well, hi, I'm Keith. I've had an incredible year in go by. A year ago today I got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in that time I've gone through chemotherapy, surgery and more chemotherapy. After surgery in November last year, I got approached by the wonderful people who look after the chemotherapy side of therapy and said would I be interested in some rehabilitation. And I jumped at the opportunity because my muscle and body mass had emaciated during the lead up to surgery and after such extensive surgery where they literally cut you from one side of your body to the other. And it's very invasive and it was my first
ever surgery. So they went in hard and now look like I've got a shark bite. I got offered to join this program
I work with oncology patients along with my colleague Dylan West, and we've been running an exercise Physiology programme for the last seven months. So,
the idea behind the program started a while ago. A year or two Doctor Peter Fox had an idea to get exercise physiology involved in the care and treatment of people with cancer.
And we got up and running officially October last year, where we did our training with Chris O'Brien Lifehouse. We then managed to get everything sorted and ready to go and had our first class in November 2022. So
in this program, people who are diagnosed with cancer that are about to go through treatment, currently undergoing treatment or have secondary cancers can come and see us. We'll do an initial consult with them, usually at the hospital where we'll take some basic markers so we'll check their strength, check their muscle mass. We'll do some mental health checks, as well. And then we'll ask them if they want a home program or if they wanna come to a gym class
where it's only with other people who have cancer. They get the choice and we individualise all their exercises and give them a program, show them how to do it and make sure it's suits what they want and their goals and gives them the best chance of fighting their cancer alongside with their other treatment.
I found it's helping not only physically but mentally. I remember the first day I came into the program and we were testing where my strengths were and I was absolutely shocked at how much
strength I'd lost. I've found that now, four months into the program, I've doubled my strength and my mental health has improved. And for someone that wasn't into physical therapy.
I've really embraced it. I've found the program. Very useful for not only improving my strength, but also facing issues that come up into your life with the treatments and the healing from surgery. I get here I don't have a favourite exercise by any means, but I'm really enjoying the satisfaction of seeing my body improve as I've pushed through the months of the program and I think it's not one Particular exercise that I come here for, it's to walk away at the end of the day and go, wow, I pushed myself harder. I do feel the improvement in my body and mental health. And so it keeps the drive and now it's become quite an addictive process.
So at the moment we've had over 100 people that we've contacted through the service. We're getting pretty close to about 150 now and they're not just people in orange. They've kind of had contact with people in Parkes, Blayney, Barry. Anyone who is referred to us, we're happy to help, whether that's our home programme or the gym program. At the gym we've probably had about 50 to 60 people come through and use the classes, which is fantastic.
We're really, really lucky so far. We've received fantastic feedback from our clients.
They're so lovely, they're so happy to give everything a go.
We've had people come in who never thought they'd go to the gym like.
And just love it and thrive. And they just really want to see this continue on, which is amazing. And they love to be a part of this community that we've created despite then going through one of the most challenging times of their
lives.
You've gotta look at life with a a positive attitude because if it's you know, it doesn't matter what life throws at you. There's a way to overcome it. And it youmight not find it in yourself,
but you might find it in your pet,
you might find it in your partner.
You might find it in your friend.
Or you might find it just going and walking
outside and looking at life. You know, birds, trees, grass. But.
You've got to remember that it's about what you do with your life
and not what you let life control you.
So it's it's not a journey easy for anybody to undertake and it affects everybody differently. And I know it's it's affected me in many ways.
One of the best examples I can give you is that I've gone through so much personally in a year of discovering that I had pancreatic cancer.
Being dealt with what chemo and how that affects your body and your mind. Then the surgery,which I've never had surgery in my life until that point and then the post process of chemotherapy, but I've come out with a great result.
In that process. I changed my diet, I changed my mind about how it's going to tackle this. But I've met people along the journey that are going through similar things to I that have cancer and unfortunately the treatments aren't always solving the problem. So it became emotionally difficult for me to express the joy that I was winning my battle, knowing that they weren't.
But people are really resilient and if you remember the simple things in life, you'll always find a shining light to go through and forward for.
