Better late than never! On Thursday 19th of April 2018 I completed one of the last super scary things I will do before becoming a mother, who know’s it may be my last every optional scary thing I do. I hear being a parent has some of its own hair-raising experiences, so I shall never say never.
I abseiled and ziplined down the Perth QV1 building, QV1 is the fourth tallest building in my hometown of Perth, at 40 storeys high and just over 160 meters (525 feet) its no small feat.
On Thursday, April 19th at 8am I will be abseiling down the QV1 building. QV1 is the fourth tallest building in my city of Perth, at 40 stories high and just over 160 meters (525 feet) its going to be no small feat.
As part of this annual fundraising event, you need to complete a training day to assess your skills and requirements for the day as well as familiarise you with the equipment you will be using on the day.
Going back as far as I can remember I always wanted to travel the world, there wasn’t a continent not on my dreams list. As a family we never stayed put in one place for long, first living in an old bus that had been fitted out travelling around Australia getting home-schooled before settling down if you could call it that, moving house every six months to two years until I was old enough to take flight and step out on my own. At 19 I left my rental property, my boyfriend of three years, my job and my family with $50 AUD in my purse, a back pack and a sense of adventure, from that moment I was hooked on travel. I returned just over six months later to finish my accounting and finance degree with the knowledge that I could use those skills, making the world my oyster.
This was never my face when I first through about dating with an ostomy.
Although I wasn’t actually looking for love in the beginning, it’s something that played on my mind. My charming ex had wished me dead on the eve of my first surgery so my faith in the opposite sex was at an all-time low and in the beginning I couldn’t even look at myself let alone love myself, so how could I expect anyone else too. The fear that I would never find someone who could love me like this was real and being recently single with a stoma was the most daunting thing ever. My mother tried to keep me positive, even to the point of buying me a wedding dress and a cot, all with that best intentions but it all just reminded me of everything I thought I would never have the chance to have again.
Travel has always been a huge thing for me, I love visiting new places, meeting new people and getting a sense of new cultures. My husband has said on more than one occasion we would be rich if I could just curb my passion for travel but where’s the fun in being rich if you couldn’t enjoy it. Pre ostomy I had spent six months in the UK working and partying and three months in Thailand backpacking and again partying. I had planned to travel until I was thirty and then settle down with the man of my dreams and start a family. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas and I spent my mid to late twenties in and out of hospitals enduring twelve surgeries which ended with permanent ileostomy bag just before my thirtieth birthday.