❤️ EXCLUSIVE CHAT: Edwina Bartholomew

The incredible Edwina Bartholomew joins Jonesy & Amanda to chat about her chronic myeloid leukaemia diagnosis, as well as her new role as the National Ambassador of the Leukaemia Foundation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
My Heart podcasts here, more Gold one on one point
seven podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Playlists and listen live on the free iHeart app.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Jersey and Amanda jam Nation, our.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Next guest, lights up screens around Australia every weekday on Sunrise.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
But recently we've seen another side to Edwin. A buffolow you.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
She shocked the country last September when she shared that
she'd been battling cancer. She's now been named Leukemia Foundation's
newest ambassador. And I'm not surprised because people love you
and want to hear your story.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
Any buff follow You're high?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
How like do you? It's nearly a year.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
Now, how's your health going?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
It's the ambassadorship that no one really wants.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yes, I was about to say, like Harley Davidsons said
to me, we we'd like you to be an ambassador.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
Yes, Prada comes to you and says, how about this.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
There's no free Harley with this one, but that is
a good marketing suggestion for future.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
I'm well, thank you, Amanda.

Speaker 5 (01:03):
It was a year this September that I made that
announcement on Sunrise.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
That i'd heard what many of you listeners would have heard.

Speaker 5 (01:10):
You know, over the years you have cancer, which is
never a great thing to hear.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
But I'm really well. I'm really well.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Blood cancers can be symptom free, can't they? Was that
how it was for you?

Speaker 3 (01:21):
It absolutely was?

Speaker 5 (01:23):
And like you, I do shift work and so when
the doctor said have you been tired? Hello, you know
that's everybody. So that's really one of the only main symptoms.
And that's why it is so ambiguous blood cancer because
it can carry on in the body for a long
time before a lot of people realize they actually have it.

(01:43):
I have a kind of leukemia called chronic Mylloyd leukemia.
Twenty years ago that would have been a really bad outcome.
Now it's a chronic condition thanks to a medication that
I take daily and will continue to take for many
years to come.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
But no symptoms, no symptoms.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
Chronic meme in this sense, it's just.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
That you live with it, my chronic fatigue.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
I took a lot from what you said because you
said it was awake cup. Call to all of us
when our doctor suggests we get blood tests and those
little referrals just sit in your bag. I've got so
many of those just sitting there.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
So you don't go and do that no I do.
I've started to, but I really took note.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
I think what you said will palpably change how people
do that because you get that stuff you think I'll
get round to that just sits in your bag.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, yeah, there's just this stuff. And it's all on
social media too, right.

Speaker 5 (02:34):
It's like, oh, I should be just you know, having
a lemon at breakfast, and then I should be drinking
olive oil, and then I should be doing.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
This and this and this.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
You know, its.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Exhausting, but it's a really simple message. Just get a
health check.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
And we are the lucky ones who get to get
the message because this happened to somebody else.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yep. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:52):
And I could have walked into that doctor and they
could have told me anything, And that is not lost
on me how fortunate I've been when they called me
and said you should come in today and bring someone
with you. But they could have told me absolutely anything
about the kind of cancer I had.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
You know how long I had to live.

Speaker 5 (03:15):
That's your sliding the office, Yeah, and sort out your
affairs and fact. As we left the hospital seeing the specialist,
my husband said to me, you've been kicked in the
arse with a rainbow, and I said, you know what
I have because I'm so so lucky and so yeah,
that was a big reason behind me now wanting to

(03:37):
to use this platform to chat to your listeners, to
chat to Sunrise viewers and be able to say to them,
you know, just a simple message could really change your
life or save your life.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Your husband should be writing country song greeting cards job
at Hallmark.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, Eddie, you're doing a great job. Blood Cancer Month,
the Lukemia Foundation is urging Australians to get informed and
help support girls and women impacted by blood cancer by
visiting Leukemia dot org dot au. And here's perhaps a
jet ski and besst ship coming your way. You got
someone from se do Come on, Eddie, you would love
a jet ski.

Speaker 5 (04:14):
Come on, absolutely, I'll take the jet ski with the
place from a Pridor handbag and that.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
I think that should be fair enough.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Eddie, thank you for joining us.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Thank you so much for having me by the way.

Speaker 5 (04:28):
Very happy you guys are moving to drive now early
riser like me can actually listen to you in the
It's true.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Actually, Eddie, will you come over with us to the
Fruited Plains to afternoon? Ready, look there, there's Amanda, there's
me running around the.

Speaker 4 (04:44):
Sun is setting your land of milk and honey.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Honey, that's beautiful green grass.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Jet ski jetski goes past, splashes you ever so so
coming out of her bottom.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Eddie, thank you.