Chemotional Rollercoaster

It’s nearly Aussie summer. Which means it’s time for cricket, beaches, and sensible sun protection. It also means we need a break. In this episode, we look back at what was season 2, and the giant year that was 2025…finishing treatment, getting results, and learning to live a new normal on the other side of cancer.      Don’t worry, we’ll be back in season 3, in early 2026...

Today is the second installment in the story of cancer legend, Julia Henderson - the woman who named her cancer.  In part two, Julia continues with her honest look at herself. She talks more about her perfectionism, her struggles with self-compassion, and honestly questions if she deserves people’s sympathy. She’s also super open about her treatment process and shares all the intimate details...

Ever named a tumor? Today’s guest did! Julia Henderson, an honest and humorous cancer legend, joins us for part 1 of her story of rectal cancer. Julia doesn’t hold back. She tells it like it is. She talks about Mum guilt for being sick, conflicting medical opinions and having to choose for herself the path forward, and perfectionism in her world - how to optimise her life to give her herself the b...

In this episode, Glynn opens up about his latest visit to the oncologist—those nerve-wracking check-ups that stir up big emotions and “what ifs” about cancer coming back. He gets real about the rollercoaster of living with uncertainty, and we dive into what “deep remission” really means. Along the way, Glynn shares how he tackles fear and anxiety without letting them run the show, and why embracin...

This episode is part two of our discussion with Emily Grant; a story about how far into your life cancer can reach. Emily is honest about a whole bunch of things including the impacts of losing her hair, and why trying to keep it was so important to her; facing life without children due to her fertility challenges, and feeling as though she has lost some rhythm in her life post-treatment. Once aga...

Picture this: one minute you are overseas, 35 years old, having a good time. Next minute you are home, tackling breast cancer, hair falling out in clumps, and making fertility decisions. Today’s episode is part 1 in a two part series with Emily Grant. This is a story that truly highlights just how far and wide into one’s life cancer reaches, long after treatment is finished.  Emily very gener...

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You come through cancer treatment with your life intact, and then you feel guilt?! What an odd phenomenon. This guilt can be hard, uncomfortable, strange…and it makes some sense sometimes if we really mull it over. Maybe, it is designed to occur inside us for the good of humanity. In this episode, Glynn takes a look inside at his own survivor guilt. Is it there? Is it dressed up as another feeling...

“Remember, be kind to yourself!” We’ve heard this a zillion times but what does this look like? How do we actually do it? Today we are diving into the world of Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) with expert and Clinical Psychologist, Stan Steindl. Stan gives us the whistle-stop tour through CFT, showing us how human it is for life to have difficult bits in it, and how tricky our brains can be. Stan...

Imagine trying to help run the country and you get slapped with cancer. Lisa Chesters, elected as the federal member for Bendigo five times running, has faced this very scenario. Lisa was very generous with her time in sharing her experience of having melanoma in her eye—a very rare form of the disease. This conversation offers insight into how she coped mentally and what she wishes she had done d...

Nobody wants to be in the kids cancer ward. Yet, there are superstar nurses who choose to work there. Today we chat to one of those superstars, Michelle Edwards, who lifts the lid on what it’s like. The role is so much bigger than it seems on the surface and Michelle gives us the ins and outs of it - how it looks (spoiler - they have a McDonalds!), why she does it, and why she can’t leave. Michell...

Cancer in your 30s really sucks. Having it come back again sucks even more. Today we chat to Phil Mellen, the bloke who nearly cancelled his colonoscopy. Lucky he didn’t.  Phil is a mega reflective, rational and pragmatic guy who still talks about his emotions. Glynn loves blokes like that! Phil has a great perspective on life, built over years of experiences, yet forged even further by cance...

“One issue at a time please!” If only this was possible in life. Here’s the rub: all people, everywhere, have issues they are managing…and then some people get cancer on top. Nobody enters the cancer journey as a blank slate. We all bring our past, our traumas, our relationships, our mental health levels, our skills (or lack there of), our financial situations, our cancer knowledge or naivety...et...

We were all scared in COVID times. Fair enough. Well, now imagine living overseas in that time, with little kids, adding a cancer diagnosis on top, with a border to your home country and family support slammed shut. Today’s story is brought to us by Steph, a cancer legend, who lived this very reality. What we loved about Steph was her willingness to talk beyond cancer and share with us other parts...

Make room in life for uncomfortable thoughts and feelings?! Has Glynn lost his mind?! Cancer treatment brings with it all sorts of challenging thoughts, feelings, urges and body sensation…and he reckons you can just let them be? This is part two of a mini-series looking at the different mental approaches to treatment that we might take…and what Glynn did at different times to get through. On the d...

Last week on the show, Tannis McDonald — two-time cancer legend — shared a powerful piece of advice: try to embrace chemo, radiation, and other treatments not as something awful, but as something life-saving. Glynn had a similar experience with radiation. At first, he hated the mask that bolted him to the treatment table. But then he reframed it — the mask wasn’t the enemy. It was part of his team...

Some people dance in the rain, others eat donuts on the way to cancer treatment. Is it possible for cancer treatment to make you feel like a better version of you? Probably not for all of us, but for today’s guest, Tannis McDonald, this was certainly the case.  Tannis is a long-time cancer legend, who stared down cancer as a teenager. This is a remarkable story of parental choices, teenage co...

What’s it like when your adult son gets cancer? When the natural order of things is off. When it feels like it should be you, and not them.  In this episode we hear from Maz, Glynn’s mum. She shares with us about her feelings along the way - what does it feel like to have your kid cop cancer and not you? She opens up the playbook on how she approached Glynn’s journey. She talks about how she...

Treatment is done…and life resumes. Big decisions all made for now? WRONG! Well, wrong for Glynn, anyway.   Where does cancer fit in the picture once treatment is all said and done? Do you factor it into life moving forward, or do you kick it in the rear, try to forget about it and go about life as before? Glynn gives us his take on how he tackles this in his own life. He shares with us...

What’s it like to be in your mid-twenties and have your Dad get cancer? Well, obviously, it sucks. But, what is it actually like? In this episode we hear from Kez Pell, a long time friend of Glynn’s, as she shares her journey of walking alongside her Dad through cancer treatment until his eventual death. This is an honest chat about treatment changing mental health, creating unpredictability, and...

We’re back—fashionably late, but here nonetheless! In this episode, Glynn shares an honest update on life in remission, reflecting on his mindset and the ongoing balance between remission and the fear of recurrence. We also chat about the future direction of the podcast and offer some thoughts on managing post-cancer anxiety. We would love to hear from you if this episode resonated with you, if yo...

Something good comes out of cancer? It certainly can if we see it that way. Cancer can be a sharpening stone for life’s purpose. It can show us what matters to us and what really doesn’t. And…what matters does not have to be the big achievements or the flashy glory soaked goals. For so many, life is clarified to show us the absolute beauty in the ‘smaller’ things. Glynn shares with us a little abo...

Wait…men get breast cancer?! Who knew?! 1% of all breast cancer cases occur in men, and our guest in this episode, Wayne Bell, is in that 1%. Wayne talks us through the ins and outs of it all. How he discovered it, his treatment journey, some of the mental side of it all, and what tattoos he’s considering to incorporate his scar on his pec from his breast cancer removal surgery. Through this episo...

Without trust in others, we’d be anxious all the time and everything would be a threat. The cancer journey requires a lot of trust in doctors, nurses, pharmacists, technicians. The stakes feel high, we feel vulnerable, and we often have to outsource our healthcare to folks we have very little relationship with. So, how do we do it? What can we trust in? What can we think about? Is trust a choice?...

Ever been 17 years-old, had a 12 hour brain surgery and then raised half a million dollars? One man has - Baxter Hutchinson. He’s a true cancer legend with a great story to tell. Baxter shares with us how an athlete approaches cancer treatment and all the messy side effects along the way. Through some very low lows, he trained himself back into health with a steely resolve. Give this man a goal, a...