How Do You Keep Going After Cancer? A Cancer Survivor’s Story
How

Transcript

Rita De Michele: Kate Gale was 27 and raising two young daughters when she found out she had breast cancer. She is an author, speaker, wife and mum from Ballarat.

She faced breast cancer, supported her husband through cancer, and later lived through leukaemia and a stroke. Her memoir, Angry, Grateful, Still Alive, tells the story of motherhood, fear, anger and finding reasons to laugh through it all.

Rita De Michele: We were already talking before we pressed record about how you were hit with so many things. I mean, two cancers and a stroke, and then your husband’s cancer. Let’s start with your story, though. What made you check your breasts that day in the shower?  

Kate Gale: Well, I was working as a hairdresser at the time, and I was speaking with a client. She informed me that she had breast cancer. We had that awkward conversation that surrounds cancer, when you say, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” She said to me, “I hope you check your breasts.”  I went, “Of course I do.” And I had never done a breast check. For the rest of that night, I felt really guilty because I’d actually lied straight to this woman’s face. But the next morning in the shower, I said, “Yep, let’s check my breasts.” So I did, and unfortunately, I found a lump. It was one conversation with a client, and my life changed forever. 

Rita De Michele: That’s incredible, isn’t it? Sometimes we think, “Why did our paths cross? Why did she come into your salon? Why did you end up having that conversation?” It was like this message for you.  I always find it interesting when we check our breasts because not everyone has perfectly smooth, firm breasts. Sometimes they can feel a bit lumpy or different. How do you recognise what is a lump and what might just be tissue changing as we get older? Was it significant? How did you know, “Oh, that is definitely a lump”? 

Kate Gale: I had not long finished breastfeeding my youngest daughter, Gemma, and I’d never had any issues feeding, or mastitis, or anything like that. When I did the breast check and felt it, it was very obvious that there was a lump. It was at 12 o’clock, at the top of my right breast.  I got out of the shower, dried off, and then checked again. I thought, “Hang on, that’s really not right.” I asked my husband to check it, and he said, “Yeah, that doesn’t feel good.” It was the size of a pea, 0.8 centimetres, but it was obvious it shouldn’t have been there. So off to the doctor we went. 

Rita De Michele: Speaking of the doctor, you say that being diagnosed wasn’t straightforward for you. What happened? 

Kate Gale: I think it came back to the fact that I was 27. Back then, breast cancer was seen as an old lady’s disease. It’s not that I was fobbed off. It was more, “I don’t think it will be anything. You’ve just stopped breastfeeding. Breast cancer is more of an old lady’s disease, and you’re just 27.” It was all a bit of a flip-flop.  But I knew that it wasn’t right and that it shouldn’t be there. It was actually really sore. When I had a little person climbing over me a lot, with elbows and hands going in all different directions, she quite often leaned on it. I nearly went through the roof a couple of times. So I knew it wasn’t right.  I’m glad that I kept going back to the doctor. I felt like I was a hypochondriac. I thought, “Well, hang on a minute. They’ve already told me it’s okay.” But I just kept pushing. I had that gut feeling that something wasn’t right. Eventually, I went for a mammogram, and there it was. 

Rita De Michele: Thank goodness you’ve got that personality that keeps pushing, so you don’t just accept what they say. How did you feel? It sounds like you were being dismissed. 

Kate Gale: I suppose that’s where the angry part comes in. I’m still really passionate about that side of things. You’ve really got to speak up and advocate for yourself. I’m a strong believer in going with your gut. If you’ve got that gut feeling, you stick with it, because if I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here.  I was angry even when I went for the mammogram. The lady said to me, “How old are you?” She said it in quite a condescending way. I went, “I’m 27.” She said, “No, we’re probably not going to see anything.”  The word “probably” was what made me really put my foot down. I said to her, quite rudely, which isn't normal for me, “How about you do the job that you’ve been asked to do, and then we’ll talk about it afterwards if it’s nothing?”  She took a couple of pictures, and I was rushed out to have an urgent ultrasound. The rollercoaster began.  Years later, that lady actually did my last mammogram, and she apologised. She said to me, “I’m so sorry for all those years ago.” I said to her, “You’ve always thought about it, and that’s the best thing that you could have done to change: not dismiss anybody...

Kate Gale: ...else, because it can happen to anybody. It doesn’t matter what age you are. It’s not necessarily an old lady’s disease.” Just listen to the patient. That’s probably the biggest thing that I advocate for now: listening to the patient.

Rita De Michele: Yeah, absolutely. That’s really what I like to get across on this podcast and through Beyond Diagnosis, the collective that I run. No one knows your body as well as you do. Sometimes, even if you don’t feel alarmed, you can intuitively feel that something is different about your body. You have to keep pushing because people will make assumptions. It’s not right that they put their assumptions on you and run everything from that assumption. It’s fantastic that you did keep pushing.  You write that cancer doesn’t just attack the body; it slowly takes over who you are. What do you mean by that?  

Kate Gale: It just becomes your life. You really have to succumb to it in a certain way. You have to put your body in other people's hands, and you have to trust them. When you hand yourself over like that, you sort of lose the person you are. It takes a bit of your heart with it. Your heart’s broken.  Then there are things like losing your hair. That was my identity. I was a hairdresser. Thinking back now, people would say, “It’s just hair. It grows back.” I’d go, “Yep, correct, but it’s got to go first, and you have to deal with that first.” Then you have to deal with it growing back, and it’s not necessarily what it was beforehand.  There are a lot of things that you just have to accept along the way. I think you lose a little piece of yourself every time you have to accept what cancer’s doing to you. You have to succumb to treatment. I wasn’t able to look after my children like I could before. They were three and one when I was first diagnosed. They were my babies. Then you have to rely on other people to look after your children, and no one can look after them as well as you can. 

Rita De Michele: That’s right. And there’s that connection. 

Kate Gale: Yeah. So I lost the old Kate, and I spent a lot of time trying to find her. 

Rita De Michele: You mentioned someone saying, “It’s just hair. It’ll grow back.” But look how much importance we place on hair as a society. Everybody wants to take care of their hair. They want a great haircut. It makes them who they are. The way they look is such an integral part of that.  To then suddenly feel, “I have to go out into the world bald,” especially as a woman, must bring up a lot of feelings.  

Kate Gale: I sat on my sister’s kitchen floor and let my girls and my dad shave my head. For one thing, it helped my girls understand. We never kept anything from them, but at three and one, they didn’t understand that Mum was sick. So we used very plain language, like, “Mummy’s sick, and she has to have some medicine that’s going to make her hair fall out.”  I chose to shave it before it started to come out, so they could see that Mummy’s hair had been shaved off and was gone. That helped them understand. But it was also a way of me taking the reins and going, “You know what? I need to be here, and I need to take control.” That’s why I shaved it.  Then I had a wig. I hated wearing a wig. I felt like I had a dead cat sitting on my head the whole time. Then I said, “Right, we’re going shopping.” My sister lives around the corner from a massive shopping centre, and we went shopping. I needed to do that to face society, for people to stare at me, and to understand that they were as inquisitive as I was nervous. 

Rita De Michele: Yes.

 Kate Gale: I’d rather people look at me and go, “Oh, she’s bald. She must be going through treatment,” and move on, than have to wear a wig and have people look at me and think, “Is that a wig?” I didn’t feel comfortable wearing a scarf either. That was just my way of dealing with it. I faced it head-on, and I needed to take control. 

Rita De Michele: Good on you. Is that why you say there was a moment when the word “brave” actually made you feel uncomfortable?

 Kate Gale: Yep. It still makes me feel uncomfortable. To me, brave means, well, if you look at the dictionary definition, that you are ready to take on anything. I was never ready. Courageous means you’re willing to take on anything, and I think I’m in the courageous boat more than the brave one.  I understand that people look at me and think, “Wow, you’ve been through so much. You’re so brave to have done that.” But I was never, ever willing. I had to get to the other side. I didn’t have a choice. That choice was taken away from me, and it was the only road I could take to get to the other side. So, courageous, yes. But “brave” still makes me a little bit uncomfortable. I get where people are coming from. I do understand it. 

Rita De Michele: It’s the first word that usually comes to people’s minds when they think of something like this, or someone going through something as you did.

Rita De Michele: ...you’ve gone through the cancer, you’ve had the treatment, and you’ve lost your hair. Then, just as life started looking good for you, you got diagnosed with leukaemia. 

Kate Gale: Yeah, well, my husband got diagnosed first.

Rita De Michele: He got diagnosed first, and then you got it as well.  

Kate Gale: Yeah. I had breast cancer, and then, five years later, we lost my nan, my maternal nana, to bowel cancer. A month after we lost my nan, my husband went to hospital with suspected kidney stones. It turned out that he had a tumour on his kidney. He had renal cancer. We got back on the rollercoaster.  It sounds bad, but fortunately, he only lost a kidney. They had to take the entire kidney, but he didn’t need any follow-up treatment. He didn’t have to have chemotherapy or radiation.  Then I suppose I went into a bit of a jealous spiral. I hated that I was jealous of my husband because he didn’t have to do that. I used to sit there and think, “Wow, how lucky are you? I lost a breast. I had to go through chemo. I had to go through radiation. I had the works absolutely thrown at me.” Then he went into hospital and had a kidney removed. Of course, he had a long way to go after that.  But that was the point when I realised I wasn’t okay. I hadn’t dealt with what I’d been through. I’d just put on a mask, built a little wall around myself, and shown on the outside that I was fine. It wasn’t until he got diagnosed that I realised I wasn’t fine. I needed to do a bit of work on myself and deal with what I’d been through.

Rita De Michele: When you say you did a bit of work, I’m curious what that was, for other people going through the same thing or something similar. What sort of work did you do?

Kate Gale: I actually went and saw a psychologist, which I’d been offered numerous times during treatment. I’d just say, “No, I’m okay. I’m good.” But I leaned on my husband, Bob, a hell of a lot.  When I worked out I needed to get some help, I hated feeling jealous of him, but I also tried to protect him and not offload on him. I suppose the anger was still there. I’d only pushed it down and hidden it, and then it was gracing me with its presence yet again.  So I went to see a psychologist. I went to the gym and worked out. I looked after myself. I put myself first instead of hiding and showing that I was okay when I wasn’t. It was the best thing I could have done: put myself back together and not lean on my husband so heavily.  Watching him deal with cancer, I realised how much he had gone through with mine. Seeing the carer’s side, as well as the patient’s, really opened my eyes. It’s not easy. It’s really hard being a carer, sitting next to the person you love, completely out of control, unable to do anything except love them, hold them up, and care for them.

Rita De Michele: That is challenging because our natural instinct is to do something, to fix it, to help. The carer can feel as powerless as the patient feels with the condition they’re dealing with.  I want to touch on the point you made before about putting yourself first. Before finding the lump in your breast, was it part of your personality that you never put yourself first?

Kate Gale: Yep. I was the fixer and a giver. I just went into fix-it mode. Being a hairdresser, I did everything for everybody else. I loved my job. I loved making people feel good about themselves.  It was the same with my children. My number one job was, and still is, to be a mum. That was my biggest dream, and I put everything into my children. I was that mum who dropped them off at kindy and picked them up, or worked at the school doing the hot lunches. I’m a giver. I love to give.  I wasn’t taking care of myself. I wasn’t putting myself first and realising that your body is your temple. I think I was angry at my body for letting me down.

Rita De Michele: When I’ve interviewed other people who have experienced cancer or something like that, it’s a common thing they talk about. They’re so angry: “Why me? Why did my body do this?”  In the middle of your treatment, whether it was for breast cancer or leukaemia, you ended up having a stroke on top of everything. What else could possibly have happened? Honestly, it’s not funny, but it’s unimaginable. Did there come a point when you thought, “I just can’t take this anymore”?

Kate Gale: Yeah, there did. When I was going through breast cancer, I was just head down, bum up. I was fighting this, and I think anger drove me to fight. Then, when Bob got diagnosed, I went into fix-it mode again. It was head down, bum up: “Let’s go. We’re going to get through this again.”  Then, 15 years after my first diagnosis, I was tired, as all mothers are, and working and whatnot. One morning, I woke up with a really sore shoulder. For me to ask to go to the hospital, my husband knew, “She’s in pain. There’s definitely something wrong.” I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and we got on that rollercoaster yet again.  But this time, I had to go to Melbourne for treatment. I couldn’t have my treatment here in Ballarat. I literally had to leave my life behind: my children, my work, my tribe, as I call them, my family, my friends and my support network. It was Bob and me. That was it. We were in Melbourne, and I just had to fight.  I think it was probably a week or two into my hospital stay. I was in hospital continuously for a good four to six weeks, and I was still in disbelief that we were even doing this again. Instead of head down, bum up, my head was just down.  Bob’s got a saying. I always said that I wanted to punch him every time he said it to me: “One day at a time.” That’s all we could take, one day at a time, because if I got too far ahead, it all snowballed and was too much.  I had chemotherapy, and it knocked me about a fair bit. It was brutal this time around. Then I had the stroke. I woke up one morning, and I couldn’t put my pants on. I couldn’t put my arm in my dressing gown. I couldn’t even sit on a chair. I knew I had to sit, but I couldn’t work out how to actually do it.  I think that was the point when Bob said, “We need to go to the hospital. Something’s not right.” They did a barrage of tests. I’d had blood clots in my lungs, and one of those blood clots made it to my brain and caused a bleed. So I had a stroke at 42.  That was when I really buried my head. My head was in the sand. That was the point when I went, “Come on, what else can you throw at me? I fought so hard with breast cancer. We fought through renal cancer. Okay, I’ve got leukaemia, and I’m fighting again. This isn’t fair. A stroke? Come on.”

Rita De Michele: That’s just a step too far.

Kate Gale: I lost all hope at that stage, and that’s when I got into a pretty dark place. I didn’t know how to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I was fractured. There were cracks, and they were pretty dark. I didn’t know how to move forward. It was Bob sitting beside me yet again, saying, “Just one day. We just need to take one day at a time.”

Rita De Michele: I can’t imagine what that would have been like to go through. Did you have the stroke in your sleep?

Kate Gale: I actually don’t know. Thinking back now, it probably happened a couple of days before we realised something wasn’t right. The chemo I was on really wiped me out, so I was sleeping a lot.  But there were things like getting up to go to the toilet and having to hold on to the walls as I walked into the ensuite. I couldn’t rip the toilet paper off. I had to take the entire roll, wrap it around my hand and just pull. I couldn’t believe I had to use my hand to rip the paper.  I’d pick up my phone and think it was broken, but I was the one who was broken. I kept turning my phone off, thinking, “It just needs to reset because it’s not working. Something’s wrong. There might be bugs in my phone.” But thinking back now, I’d had a stroke. I couldn’t do these simple, everyday things that I normally did.  I had what they call apraxia, and everything was backwards. It was like somebody had taken me off the earth, twisted me around and put me back, and everything was back to front.  When you think of a stroke, you think of a droopy face or losing your speech. Luckily, I didn’t have that. Yes, the words escaped me. They still do. It’s like it’s on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t get it out. It was very frustrating. My left side went quite weak. My hand just did whatever it wanted.  I had to learn how to use a knife and fork. I had to learn how to walk without swaying from side to side because my balance was off. I had to learn how to put my clothes back on properly.

Rita De Michele: What sort of therapies were you given to help correct what was happening?

Kate Gale: I had to do repetitive things. I’d go to rehab here and do some exercise. It was things like riding an exercise bike. I started off at six minutes. Before all this happened, I was going to the gym daily. I could run, lift weights and do things like that.  Then I went to rehab. I suppose it goes back to the whole breast cancer thing, with it being seen as an older person’s thing. I was in rehab with older people, so I had to come to terms with the fact that here I was, 42 or 43 at the time, and I was in rehab.  It was repetitive things. I took up knitting so my hands could do the same thing. I’d button my shirt, then undo it again. Repetitive things to train my brain again: “That’s how you do things.”

Rita De Michele: How long did that take?

Kate Gale: I’m still doing it.

Rita De Michele: Oh, you still do it. Your top’s on the right way today.  

Kate Gale: It’s still ongoing. I go to the gym daily. I walk on the treadmill daily. If I get tired or run-down, the left side of my body gets a bit behind the eight ball, as I call it. It sort of slows down. It definitely gives me the heads-up that I need to stop and pace myself. I’m not good at pacing myself.  It was just starting over again, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. I’m very, very grateful that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Rita De Michele: I think you’re just incredible. People who are physically able, and I’ll put my hand up as well, find it hard enough to get motivated to go to the gym and exercise, outside of work, family and everything else. You’re doing it after two cancers and a stroke.  

Kate Gale: I get told that regularly, but I look at it this way: trust me, I lie in bed every morning and go, “I don’t want to get out. I’d rather stay here.” But I’m very aware that the leukaemia I had is a sneaky one. It likes to come back.  At the moment, I have no evidence of disease. I’m in remission. But I’m very aware that that could change at any moment. I want to be as healthy and fit as I can be because if it comes back, I’m going again.

Rita De Michele: Yeah.

Kate Gale: I’m not going to lie down and go, “Oh God, here we go again. This is it. It’s going to get me this time.” Nope. I’m going to fight. So I want to be the fittest and healthiest I can be to take it on.  

Rita De Michele: I’m fascinated by how you manage your mindset with everything you’ve gone through. How important is a positive, resilient and courageous mindset, like the one you obviously have, in coping with things, healing and recovering?

Kate Gale: It’s a daily thing. It’s hard. Lately, with releasing my book, it’s my story, and I know it’s going to help people, but it’s really scary to bare your soul and put it out there. I have to stay in a positive mindset that it’s going to help others. But, oh God, I suffer from imposter syndrome like you wouldn’t believe.  I always try to find a positive in a negative because I can’t stay in a negative mindset. I know what that feels like after having the stroke and being in hospital for so long. Those four walls start talking to you. Silence is my worst enemy.  I just have to put things in place every day. If I don’t go to the gym, I feel crappy. Music plays a massive part in my life. Whether I’m on the treadmill or getting in the car, music is on because I honestly believe it sets the tone for the day.  You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I still go to sleep with the television on. I set a timer for it to go off. I slept in hospital with the television on because if I didn’t, those dark thoughts came into my mind. I’d think, “I’m dying. I’m not going to get through this. I’m not going to get to the other side.”  The television was my friend. It was my light in the really, really crappy, dark moments. I suppose going to sleep with the television on now stops my mind. I don’t allow my mind to get too far ahead. That goes back to Bob always saying, “One day at a time. One foot in front of the other.”  I can’t control what’s going to happen tomorrow or in the future, so I can’t allow my mind to go there. I can’t control everything. Coming from a previous perfectionist, I’ve just had to let that go.  It’s the same with the imposter syndrome. There are always going to be haters. There are always going to be people who don’t like my book or don’t agree with something I’ve written. It’s not that I’m telling everybody how to beat cancer, because I haven’t got all the answers, and everybody’s journey is different. I’m just sharing my story: how I did it, what happened to me, how I got to the other side and how I now deal with things.

Rita De Michele: You use TV or music. Is finding something like that something you recommend and talk about in your book? When people say, “Just stay positive,” and you really want to be angry, would you recommend finding something that works for you? Something that helps you stay in a more positive mindset, rather than going down the rabbit hole of anxiety? One thing you love or that suits you, to bring you back into the moment?

Kate Gale: My biggest piece of advice to anybody would be to acknowledge what you’re feeling first. If you’re feeling anxious, acknowledge it. If you’ve got cancer, acknowledge it and talk about it, because we don’t talk about cancer enough. It’s literally the big C, and everybody sweeps it under the carpet because it’s an awkward conversation.  No one wants to talk about cancer because people on the outside don’t know what to say. They’re worried about saying the wrong thing and upsetting that person.

Kate Gale: For the person actually going through it, it’s awkward because you get, “Oh, I’m sorry.” It’s like, “Well, what are you sorry about? It’s not your fault that I’ve got cancer.” But then you want to acknowledge that they’ve acknowledged you. It’s an awkward conversation.  Acknowledging what you’re feeling and talking about it is my number one thing. That’s why I write. I started writing so I didn’t have to offload on Bob so much. I was trying to protect him from everything, but writing helped me get it out and get it off my chest. I never in a million years thought I’d be a published author.  That’s what helped me, and that’s what music does for me, along with talking to other people and seeing a psychologist. Just acknowledging it, for starters.

Rita De Michele: That’s huge. You’re an author, but other people could do something simpler, like journalling or writing things out, then screwing the paper up and throwing it away, just to get those emotions out.  What has cancer taught you about fear and uncertainty in life?

Kate Gale: Yeah, that’s a big one. My biggest thing, again, is acceptance. I can’t control what’s going to happen, so I just have to go with it. I have fear every single day. I used to say I’d be absolutely gutted if I heard again, “You’ve got cancer.”  I suppose the most surprising thing for me was when I got diagnosed with leukaemia. I thought I was having a heart attack. I thought that was why I had the pain in my shoulder, hence why I went to hospital. But when the doctor sat next to me and said, “We’ve found some concerning results,” I said, “Oh, it’s back, isn’t it?”  I just felt at ease. It was a very weird feeling of, “Okay, I knew this day was coming.” She said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “I’ve had breast cancer.” She said, “Sweetheart, you’ve got leukaemia.”  I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t even upset. That came later. I was just in disbelief. I couldn’t believe I was in that position again. The fear I’d felt so greatly beforehand about hearing it again, when I actually heard it, it was almost like I was at peace with it. It was a very weird feeling.  I think because I didn’t have the anger that pushed me the first time around, I was scared. I was really scared because I didn’t have that anger and determination at the beginning to fight. I just sort of lay down and went, “Okay, here we go.”  I’m very fearful of having to do it again. But at the same time, I’ve accepted the fact that it’s most likely going to happen. So, “One day at a time, Kate.” That’s all I keep saying.  I choose how I play that now. Instead of living in fear, letting anxiety take over, or putting on that mask and pretending I’m okay when I’m not, I actually say, “Okay, I need some help. I give in here. I need to stop. I need to do this.” I choose now, and I like that.  I preach it to my girls all the time. They’re 21 and 19 now. My 19-year-old actually went and got a tattoo on her wrist, little bugger, and it says, “You choose,” because I keep saying to them, “You choose how this goes.” You choose to allow the anger, anxiety and fear to take over, or you choose to put one foot in front of the other.  I choose to take each day at a time and live each day the best I possibly can, because tomorrow is not promised.

Rita De Michele: That is an incredibly powerful life lesson and an incredible message for your girls to grow up with. It’s fantastic because society is riddled with uncertainty and anxiety, and people don’t know what to do.  I love your life motto: one step at a time. That means being present, being in the now.

Kate Gale: But don’t ever forget to dream big. You never know where those dreams might take you, and you never know what tomorrow holds. Hello, I’m a published author!

Rita De Michele: It was never on the agenda.

Kate Gale: It was never on the agenda. I was getting married, I was having babies, and I was going to be a hairdresser. Those were the three dreams. I did them all by the time I was 24, and by the time I was 27, life threw me the biggest curveball.  But it was the best lesson. I’ve learned how to live life, how to love life and how precious it is. If I could bottle it up and give everybody a little sprinkling of what I call the kick in the head, the world would be such a nicer, happier, kinder place.  

Rita De Michele: You only come to those realisations when you think you’re about to lose it.

Kate Gale: Correct.

Rita De Michele: Otherwise, we take this glorious life we have for granted. I guess, in many ways, we don’t respect it or make the most of it, and we focus on things that aren’t necessary or are negative. So what does a good day look like now, compared to before?

Kate Gale: No fear, no anxiety.

Rita De Michele: How many people would put their hand up for that, without having to go through what you went through?

 Kate Gale: A good day is when I’ve slept all night, for starters. It’s getting up, sticking to my normal routine, spending time with my husband and enjoying good coffee. No hassle. Just living the simple life.

Rita De Michele: It sounds like you’ve got your priorities right: your family, your health, their health and, like you said, living a simple life without stressing over things.

Kate Gale: Stress is the biggest killer out there. Like I touched on, putting this book out has been amazing, but it’s been stressful at the same time. I actually just said to my husband, “It’d be really nice for somebody to give me a couple of nights in a really posh hotel, a couple of tickets to a show and a shopping spree. Just forget the noise going on around me, chill out and take some Kate time.” He just went, “Do it.”

Rita De Michele: Then do it. Don’t let him say it twice.

Kate Gale: Just act on that. But I know that by putting my story out there, you never know who needs to hear it.

Rita De Michele: Absolutely. That’s why I like to share these stories, because someone may take just a snippet or a little golden nugget of something you’ve said that will help them. What do you hope someone facing cancer will take away from your book, Angry, Grateful, Still Alive?

Kate Gale: I hope they understand that it’s okay to have all those feelings. It’s okay to feel scared. You don’t always have to be brave. You can let your walls down, go through it and leave it, but don’t let it define you.  Cancer is not your entire story. I say now that it’s a fair few chapters of my story. A friend called me “Cancer Kate” once, and I went, “Whoa.” It took the wind out of my sails. But when I sat back, thought about it and sat with it, I realised I am Cancer Kate. Cancer has been my life for the last 17 years.  But it’s made me who I am. It’s made me look at life the way I do now. So I’m okay being Cancer Kate because if it weren’t for cancer, I wouldn’t be the person I am now, and I wouldn’t be living life to the fullest like I do now.

Rita De Michele: It’s given you something you would never have had before.

Kate Gale: I’m grateful for life.

Rita De Michele: I think that is amazing. Kate, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story. You are an incredible human being.

Kate Gale: Oh, thank you.

Rita De Michele: Thank you for allowing me to share your story. It is very powerful.