Cancer survivor Courtney Mangan

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Courtney, Good morning, morning, Hello, thank you so much for
coming in. We're really throwing our support behind this movie
that's launching tonight at Pacific Fear called Conquering Skin Cancer.
We're the director on yesterday. You're not a part of
the film, but you are opening the film tonight. Tell
us about that.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yes, so I'm really excited to be there, to be
able to speak about my journey. I think that, you know,
having someone face to face with the audience hopefully sharing
this story will have even greater impact than what the
mevie is already having.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
And so you've been living with melanoma since you were
twenty nine, Yes, so I tell us about that.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
What am I now, like thirty eight, So it's been
quite some time. So yeah, it's first started with just
like a little mole on the back of my right
shoulder that my family had said that looks like it's changing.
And it's right in the spot where the sun would
hit me when I would drive to work, and it's
not something I could see myself. So I went to
the doctor and they cut it out and then send
it away for testing and it came back as a
level for melanoma, which was very scary because what I

(00:53):
knew of melanoma was that my uncle had actually passed
away from melanoma, so it was very scary for me.
And then I had that cut out and removed. They
took a big chunk out of the back of my
shoulder blade, and then sort of got on with my life,
continued getting my three monthly checks, and then about two
and a half years later it came back. Unfortunately, melatonoma
is so aggressive, so I've had it four times now

(01:15):
on my shoulder. Then it was two lumps in my
right arm, and then I had a mass in my bow,
and then I've had it in my thigh muscle as well.
So it's kind of like doing a world tour of
my body. But it is really hard to shake once
you've had and I think that that's one of the
myths about melanoma is that you just cut it out
and get on with your life, and unfortunately that's not
the way that it is. I've had something like almost
seventy cancer treatments to try and beat this thing. So

(01:37):
I went on to a more intensive cancer treatment that
I had done previously because the previous one didn't work,
and thankfully it got rid of it, so that was
really good. So I have been all clear now for
three years, but I'm still on cancer treatment just to
make sure it doesn't come back.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
And it's affected many parts of your life as well,
Like you were told to think about your fertility.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, so I've had to freeze my eggs to make
sure that the cancer treatment doesn't impact my fertility. But
of course, you know, when you're twenty nine and you're
going through cancer treatment, you're a cancer pation. Dating is
pretty hard, so I haven't really had to worry about
those eggs anyway at the moment, but yeah, it's definitely
had a big impact on me. My friends when I
first started getting that more intensive cancer treatment the second
time rounds, they were packing their go bags because they

(02:17):
were pregnant and they thought they might go into labor,
so very different lives. My friends were shopping for houses
with spare bedrooms for their kids, and I was shopping
for renting a house to have a spare bedroom so
my mum could stay with me in case I needed
to be looked after because I was so sick from
the cancer treatment.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's just heartbreaking, it is read. I mean, you're speaking
so frankly about it, but when you were in it,
the emotion would be just happened down all the time.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
It has been really hard to be vulnerable and talk
about these stories and you open up these wounds and
keep talking about it. But yeah, it does bring me
so much joy to make sure that I'm like maybe
helping other people not get in the situation that I'm in.
I think a lot of people don't know that the
skin never forgets. Some damage is cumulative, so you can't
like restart all the damage that you've had from when
you're young, and then you know you're in your twenties

(03:01):
and maybe your sun baking, you're out with your friends,
and you're not thinking about it when you're putting out
the washing on the line, when you're walking to get
coffee in the morning, when you're a hot girl walk
all of these different things that we're doing, that sun
damage is just adding up and adding up over time. Yes,
I think Australians are aware that when we're sitting by
the pool having a cocktail, or we're out playing sport,
or we're at the beach, we probably need to put
the sunscreen on, but we're not remembering that the UV

(03:22):
damage here is so strong that we need to wear
SBF every single day.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, that is the message. Yeah, okay, well you just
kicked me out the butt. I know right. You don't
do it daily? Yeah, sitting melanoma. No, I've had the
start of one every day. Yes, I think you've just
been scolded. I have. I should be scolding myself, you
should be. Yeah, you two can sit and compare scars,
because Gaily often comes in to work at the end

(03:49):
of the year with frank and sign esque scars on himself. Well, look,
you can come to the movie tonight. It's on a
Pacific fair. I don't know if there's still tickets available,
but it's called Conquering Skin Cancer and you're going to
be opening it six point thirty I believe it is.
And just bring your kids, bring your young people along
so that they see this message, because they're the ones

(04:11):
we've got to worry about. They're not getting the slip
slop slap message like we used to.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Get, and I think it's important that they get in
their routine now so that when they're older it's not
a big change. As part of your skincare routine, you
put SBF on every single day.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, well, thank you Courtney for sharing your message. I
think you are doing some good and I think you
are saving lives. Thank you, even if it's that big
old guy next year, just older guy