Suzy Smith's Journey into the Unknown

15/07/2025

Joining this gym has been one of the best decisions for my health. The supportive environment, knowledgeable trainers and great workouts tailored for my abilities have made a huge difference in my energy, strength, and overall well-being.

29/04/2025

06/03/2025

Some would say I’m insane just eating two meals a day and fasting in between which means no snacks, as the saying goes there’s a fine line between Genius and Insanity.

See below a pic of my dinner tonight I couldn’t eat all of it but I gave it a crack as I don’t eat again until 11:00 am tomorrow.

I’ve always been an emotional eater and my choices of food you could say are questionable, why would I fill my body with junk food? Why would I feed brain cancer with glucose? Why would I treat my health with disrespect?

The answer to that is simple but reckless, a terminal illness diagnosis can bring on a lot of emotions and the one on top of my list was depression, not at first all I wanted to do was tackle the cancer head on and my priorities at the time was to get healthy. Then Chemo made me terribly ill and I didn’t eat very much for weeks, I lost 18kgs and became very weak and quite frail.

When I started to feel like eating again I also started googling too much, reading mostly horror stories. Bad idea as depression set in and I didnt want to get out of bed instead I ate lots of twisties and chocolate, I needed to pack on a bit of weight and try to regain a bit of strength but this method was bound to cause me other health issues.

I have been doing research on the benefits of a Keto diet in Cancer patient’s since my diagnoses and found theres lot of success stories, my intention was to immediately start this new lifestyle I just needed to be in the right headspace to stick to what I had started.

Being a thriver and survivor has always been my goal and like life in general it takes work. Theres too much at stake to not fight with all I have. Positivity is so important to me, luckily I have always had that quality not to mention my crazy sence of humour.

Aspiring to inspire is high on my daily to do list, I certainly hope that shines through on my socials.

I only know how to live!

27/02/2025

Oncology appointment was today at 11:40 to get a more detailed report on how my latest MRI scan resulted, my GP told me I had no evidence of reoccurrence but hearing the finer details are best coming from the horses mouth, (or so the saying goes).

I also had some genomic testing done and my Tumours were tested for certain mutations, these mutations would reveal how likely I would qualify for certain trials and/or treatments, should I have reoccurring tumours. Some of my markers/mutations were favourable should a trial become available.

There are some trials that could have been suitable but they have now closed and as I don’t have evidence of disease they wouldn’t have been on the table anyway.

We had started planing a caravan holiday to Darwin in June but only if my scan in May had again showed no evidence of disease. Our plans were discussed with the Oncologist and pretty soon our plans were shattered due to the risks of how remote we would be on our travels. Flying there would have been a much smarter option. There is so much to see and do along the way and flying did not tick of much off my bucket list. But this holiday is not just about me… my husband/carer would bare the stress of worring about what could go wrong and if it did its highly likely that I wont know much about whats happening.

Another seizure would require me to get immediate medical attention, I wont go into any more gore details it’s just too scary and depressing.

We will simply find a more suitable holiday that we can still go in our beautiful caravan and be closer to medical facilities should we need them. More importantly not give my poor Husband anxiety attacks. 😘

We all experience bumps in the road but all it takes is a little detour and take the road less travelled.

13/02/2025

I was scheduled to have my routine brain MRI on the 25th of Feb but as I have been suffering some mild headaches I was put on a cancellation list.

Thankfully there was a cancellation at 3:00pm today, now all I need to get through is scanxiety while I wait for the results.

Praying now that the scan comes back clean and no reoccurrence.

10/02/2025

I would love to write a book but for now this will do.

PART ONE: DIAGNOSIS.

It was early on the morning of 27th of May 2024, Daryl and I were staying at our daughter and Son in laws home as we were happily on Nanny and Poppy duties while Kera and Josh were having a well deserved break in Bali.

Their arrival back home was very well timed as without very much warning I had suffered a seizure that had affected the left side of my body, I was sure I was suffering a stroke and needed help to get dressed so Daryl could without haste get me to the ED department at the Wodonga Hospital, the left side of my body was thrashing around uncontrollably and I needed to virtually be carried into emergency.

The ED Drs and nurses are well trained in emergencies such as mine and it seemed like minutes that I was canulated and administered anti seizure drugs immediately. During this whole ordeal i was conscious and very aware of mu surrounds, I just wanted the sezures to stop. The medical team knew exactly what they were looking for and sent me for a contrast CT scan after I became stable.

It’s unclear to me how long the results of the scan took but the words…. it’s not good will remain imprinted in my memory.

I was informed that I had two brain tumours which would possibly be secondary cancer….I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in August 2023.

For some reason I disagreed that it had matastisided from the Breast. The breast cancer was caught really early and was tiny, not only that… the markers were clear and the lymph node that was removed was clear as well.

I was transferred the following day to St Vincents Private Hopital via road in a patient transport ambulance and my Surgery (craniotomy) was performed on the 30th of May 2024 by the wonderful and tallented neurosurgeon Mr Carlos Chung who just so happened to perform brain surgery on my big sister as well for aneurisms. The anaesthetist even made mention that I had the best surgeon. This was comforting and reassuring that the surgery would go well.

Everything went to plan and all of the tumours were removed, it’s was expected that I would wake up in ICU but as I’m a little fighter I was fine and taken to recovery then returned to my ward where I decided I would FaceTime my family who were at their motel, my surgery was late in the day and they weren’t allowed to wait until I returned from surgery. None of them could believe that after what I had endured the past few days yet here I was full of sass looking and talking to them via video on their phones.

The surgeon spoke to me after the surgery and told me the tumours definitely weren’t from the breast cancer, I guess they see this kind of thing regularly and I feel like he knew what I would be faced with when the pathology results were finally completed.

I am always the strong and positive one in the family but on this occassion I just knew to expect the worst.

It seemed like an eternity for the results to come through and even though I was well enough to be discharged Carlos wanted me to stay in hospital until he could deliver me with a diagnosis.

On the 6th of June the unit manager had informed us that a family meeting was requested for 4pm that day. Wow the walls of life as I know it had tumbled down on top of me, a family meeting would not be required if it was good news.

The kids and their partners had plenty of time to get to Melbourne and were with Daryl and myself when the fateful news was delivered.

We were informed that I had whats called Glioblastoma, Grade 4 terminal brain cancer that there is no cure for and treatment options hadn’t altered in over 30 years, the median survival rate is 12 to 18 months.

There were lots of tears from all of us but my fighting spirit kicked in and all I had in my thoughts was let’s get on with it….living is all I know how to do. A common question people ask is why the good people? Noone knows the answer to that but im sure we will find out when we meet our maker!