‘I didn’t want to go public about my cancer because I knew I couldn’t cope with that at this emotional time. I really didn’t want anyone to know. I just wanted to deal with it in my own little circle.’
Ros Kelly AO presents as a strong woman, and that’s the way she’s tried to live her life. ‘I like to think of myself as a woman of control, strength and courage. An action woman. If there is something to be done I don’t shirk it; I get into action mode and just deal with whatever the problem is.’
But when it came to dealing with her breast cancer diagnosis in 2001, the superwoman was floored and suddenly very vulnerable.
Ros Kelly is a leading female figure in the history of Australian politics. She was a member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1980 to 1995, having spent five years in the ACT Parliament. She was the first Australian Federal MP to give birth while in office and when she was appointed Minister for Defence, Science and Personnel she became the first female Labor Minister, in the House of Representatives. She subsequently held six other portfolios whilst in Parliament.
Nearly 12 months after the so-called ‘whiteboard sports rorts affair’, Ros left politics and worked for many years as a very successful senior management executive in the environmental arena.
In her political and corporate roles, Ros has always been an extremely busy woman who was in command of her own destiny. But it was the daunting challenge of breast cancer that gave her a new perspective on life and indeed ignited a new passion—something she says that her previous experiences had prepared her for.
‘I was certainly an organised woman in charge of my life and just got on and did things. Fitness was always an important part of that life and I never thought for a second that I would be one of the breast cancer statistics. I just didn’t fit into any of the “at risk” profiles,’ she says.
She had regular mammograms as part of her health consciousness, ‘but when I went it was always with the view it was never going to be me. And that was the mental attitude I went with for that critical mammogram, which was just one component of my regular health check-ups. Some calcification showed up and I was referred to a specialist. The doctor wasn’t overly concerned and suggested I come back in six months’ time. So I didn’t give it any further consideration,’ she says.
Diligently she returned for the follow-up mammogram to a private radiographer in the suburbs six months later.
‘As well as the mammogram, an ultrasound was performed. The woman who was doing the tests recognised me and obviously liked my politics because she spent a lot of time with me. When I’m a little scared, my defence mechanism is to talk a lot and so we chatted about politics, the Labor Party, and just about general women’s stuff. I left with the envelope with the films for my doctor never thinking there would be anything sinister about the results.’
Ros was hosting a lunch at her home that day and quickly adopted the hostess role. After the guests left she opened the results envelope and read that the radiographer had noted that there was an area of concern but she says, ‘I didn’t worry about it at all—that’s definitely not me!
‘When I went back to the specialist, Dr Crea, he told me I needed a biopsy as he did have some concerns. He reassured me and told me not to worry. I was going to just get on with my life and I still didn’t believe for a second that the result was going to be positive.’
At that time Ros was working with one of the world’s largest environmental management consultancies, ERM, and on that day she had a meeting with a major electricity company out at Blacktown about environmental training for their top staff.
‘I hadn’t cancelled anything because I didn’t realise how serious my tests were and so I just continued on with my busy life. At this stage I was still certain that the tests would not return a positive result. But having to have a biopsy and then carry on as if nothing else important was happening was more difficult than I expected,’ she admits.
‘That night I went to see the musical Shout with my sister and sister-in-law. I told my sister that I’d had the biopsy that day and the look of horror on her face expressed shock and fear. I remember it was just like a foreboding that this was going to be a disaster for me.
‘Next morning I went to the doctor for my results and he walked around the consulting table, took my hand and gently told me the small lump was malignant. I had breast cancer. It was just before Easter and I was horrified. I was in a state of total shock. I couldn’t believe it was me. I kept denying the possibility that it could be me because I didn’t fit into any profiles. I’d gone from a person who was in control of my life to someone who was absolutely out of control.
‘All of a sudden nothing really mattered: jobs, presentations, future plans were no longer relevant. I just wanted to go away to a place I felt safe. So being terribly upset I knew I just needed to be with my husband, David, who was then CEO at Westpac.
‘We went to a coffee shop in Martin Place and I was crying; I put my arms around him, sobbing that I had breast cancer. David was also in shock, and we started talking seriously. Strangely, my son, Ben, was walking across Martin Place after school that day and saw us upset and he literally went white. I asked him to sit down with us and I said, “I have something to tell you.”
‘I looked him straight in the face and told him I had breast cancer. His face lit up and he smiled and said, “Ma, I thought you were going to tell me you and Dad were splitting up. I am so relieved.” But then I had to talk to the two of them about fighting this disease as a family.
‘Unfortunately, I had gone for all the tests and got my results by myself and so I really didn’t remember anything I was told. So now, one of the things I always tell other women is to take someone with them for appointments—so they can listen for you.’
Once Ros had told her family, she was keen to get treatment organised as soon as possible. ‘I wanted Dr Crea to operate immediately so that I could take control of my life as soon as possible. But he wanted me to wait until after Easter to give me time to come to terms with the cancer.
‘I was still in shock and I was struggling with the fact that the cancer was in my body. I am an action person and it was awful having to wait to do something. But I was helped enormously by the mother of one of my daughter’s friends. She had had cancer many years earlier and she turned up one day and said to me, “Ros, the doctors will do fine. They will get this cancer out of your body. What you’ve got to deal with is your head.” And she sat down with me and talked me through how she, as a young mother of two young children, had got through. It made me feel so much better because I thought that if she could do it in a much worse position than I, then surely I could get through it, too. She was a beacon for me on that miserable Easter,’ says Ros gratefully.
This was the first time in her life that Ros had had to confront her mortality. So, like most women in her situation, she decided she needed to know as much about the disease as possible.
‘I went to lots of websites, and they sent me really nutty. So when that didn’t work for me, I trolled the bookshops for books on women living with cancer—but they made me even crazier. The more I read in these dreadful books, the more I kept thinking, “This is really appalling.”
‘But then my spirits were lifted that holiday period when a friend rang me. She has had a terrible time with breast cancer herself but she was so positive and upbeat that I started to believe I could be okay. She sent me a gift which was very different from the usual gifts of books on living with cancer. She gave me a box of chocolates and a copy of the movie Chocolat. It was so uplifting to receive a gift for the future rather than one dealing with death. It pulled me out of survival mode into looking forward to the rest of an exciting life,’ Ros says with a smile.
After Easter the lumpectomy was scheduled. ‘From that time on, I was fine. My friend had been right: the doctors looked after my body and I was feeling much more optimistic about my life. I didn’t look back and I became my old positive self again. I admit I was still a little fragile, but I was a lot stronger than I had been.’
Ros had not told anyone except family and close friends about her diagnosis. ‘I didn’t want to go public about my cancer because I knew I couldn’t cope with that at this emotional time. I really didn’t want anyone to know. I just wanted to deal with it in my own little circle.
‘But I did make one big mistake. I wanted to protect my children from any publicity and from the worry of my cancer, especially Jess, my daughter, who was doing her HSC. So I tried to do it all by myself,’ she confesses. ‘My husband was running a bank, so I didn’t also want him to have any more pressure. It was a mistake not to let my family support and help me more.
‘I had the operation on a Tuesday. Of course I was scared, but I knew I had to have it, so I thought to myself, “Let’s just do it; get it over with.” From then, I knew I was going to be okay.’
After the operation, Ros was delighted to see that she had both her breasts and a reasonably small scar. She felt no pain and although tired and teary, she was happy for it all to be over.
‘I am always a glass half-full girl and I had never found my essence and sense of being depended on the size or shape of my breasts, so my upbeat nature kicked in. I knew I had another journey ahead of me but as I’m not a person who over-analyses, I just got on with it.’
But the timing of her operation could not have been worse considering the stress the family was already under. ‘David’s half-yearly results for the bank were coming out at the end of the week on Friday morning. I’d come through surgery but the pathology results were due to come through on Friday. The waiting and worrying is hard at any time, but worrying how David could prepare his economic report, especially if the results were bad, was too heavy a burden to carry at the time. So I begged my doctor to get me the results on Thursday night so that David could handle his press conference on Friday morning with less stress. He would have come to grips with whatever my results showed.
‘I’d gone home and just waiting for those results to come through on Thursday was the longest day of my life. Finally, around five o’clock in the afternoon, I rang David and asked him to ring my doctor because I just couldn’t take that phone call myself. Here was I—a really strong woman—and I just could not make that call. About an hour later David rang and he said he was coming home early and to get the champagne out because the cancer hadn’t spread to the nodes and the tumour was low grade. David gave his media conference with no one at all aware of what the family had been through that week.’
Ros did not require chemotherapy and her radiotherapy sessions were to begin at the end of May. ‘I went by myself to the treatments. I was still working so I’d go to work each morning, then pop over to the hospital and go home before the kids came home from school. So, from their perspective, once I’d had the operation it was all fixed and over. They were getting on with their lives and as far as they could see I was getting on with mine,’ she explains.
‘I feel now that I should have included the kids more, especially Jess. I perhaps should have told both children how I was feeling and a lot more about the effect the diagnosis and the treatments had on me. Afterwards, Jess said she’d felt a little excluded, but at the time I thought I was protecting her so she could focus on her HSC. However, on reflection, I think I misjudged her and she probably had the maturity to cope and to support me.
‘As I continued going each day I became very conscious of the struggles of many of the other women. I became very close to an older Italian woman who came each day with her daughter. I appreciated how difficult this journey was for many of the women from the country, or those that were not financially well off or those who grappled with young children and those who were alone. But I still wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it at that time.
‘After about Week 3 of radiation, I had to make a decision. My husband, in his position with Westpac, had to fly to Singapore for an international banking conference. All the top banks were represented and it was a very important meeting. It was one of those conferences where spouses really mattered. So I discussed with my radiographer if I could miss one day to enable me to attend two days in Singapore. He agreed, so I had my radiation early, jumped on a plane for Singapore, attended two dinners, several official functions and hopped back on a plane to Sydney late one night so I could have my next dose of radiation early the next morning.
‘Just before I flew out, I sat next to John MacFarlane, the CEO of ANZ Bank, at the dinner. As I started to leave, he grabbed my hand, held it and said, “I am giving you my energy.” What an amazing gift from a man who headed a competitor bank to David. And I did carry that energy back with me.’
At that conference Ros also met an amazing woman who changed her outlook on her health crisis. ‘Lady Connie Middleton was with her husband from Barclays Bank in London. She’d heard I was in the middle of treatment for breast cancer. One day, walking in the street, she put her arms around me and said, “Don’t worry. I had it 20 years ago and just look at me. I’m fine!” I felt an enormous strength from someone who had been on my journey and was okay. It was that spirit of being okay that lifted me up and gave me hope.’
Radiation continued to wear Ros down, and it was around this time she met Margaret Wright, who had only a year earlier finished her own breast cancer journey. ‘Margaret gave me some very wise advice. She told me to take a break when I finish radiation because I would recover much faster. I had planned to accompany David on a business trip to London, but I was so tired I suggested Ben go with him and Jess and I would have a quiet week at Port Douglas. For the whole week she studied and I slept. I had to let go of everything. It was incredibly hard for me to let go, but I was forced to acknowledge that breast cancer was changing my life. I had never really recognised the huge physical impact the disease had had on my body. It forced me to concede I was now a different person,’ she recalls.
Ros then began her medication. ‘I put up with that for five years. It was not a happy combination, me and Tamoxifen!’ she grimaces. ‘Going five years with the sweats and without a good night’s sleep was really difficult. But I had to do it because it is my nature to do the right thing and I was going to do every single thing that protected me from getting a recurrence of the cancer.
‘At this time I didn’t realise I wasn’t one hundred per cent. I just got on with life in what I thought was my usual fashion, trying to be as normal as possible. I had talked with my doctor because I felt I was going crazy and I did take some herbal supplements that helped me a little. But once I stopped taking the drug I became conscious of how I had not been all that well. Finally, after five years of hell, I felt fighting fit again.’
As she is such a well-known public figure, Ros had been very determined to keep her cancer diagnosis under wraps. She had not wanted to be in the public eye when dealing with the disease, nor did she want to add pressure to her family. However, a few months after she finished treatments, the story was leaked to the Canberra Times.
‘My cancer was now out in the public arena. I wanted to start working to help others but I knew I couldn’t take a leadership role in this area until I recovered my own strength. Once I felt I had dealt with my own situation, I was ready to help others. I felt it was very important to give all women—particularly rural women—easy access to information and peer support. So I believed that setting up an information website would be very valuable. It was exciting for me because it was something practical I could do. I knew very little about IT but I’m not bad at marketing. My friend Margaret Wright was an expert in technology so we were a perfect combination to provide this service. This has now been taken over by the National Breast Cancer Centre and has been developed into their official website,’ she says proudly.
‘So after this website had been launched around Australia I wanted to be more proactive and I was invited to work with the research side. In 2003 I joined the board of the National Breast Cancer Foundation. It became quite clear they wanted me to chair the organisation, although that wasn’t in my head at all. I felt I needed some distance between my diagnosis and an active involvement.
‘I was still running away from the death cycle and I still felt a little vulnerable. I was struggling with the spectre of people dying from cancer and still experiencing ongoing difficulties with Tamoxifen. I wanted to do my bit, but I wasn’t ready to do it full time. But the main reason was I was scared, really scared, I’d have to confront death all the time,’ she bravely reveals.
‘Eventually, and very reluctantly, I accepted the role of chair. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to take it on but I was anxious about where it would take me. And I haven’t looked back since. It has taken me on the most wonderful journey with fabulous people. There are obviously dark sides when one of our volunteers or speakers or supporters dies.’ She pauses. ‘Those deaths still really knock me down.
‘By and large I am very excited about my role with the NBCF. This is certainly the most stimulating thing I have ever done—looking to find a cure for this dreadful disease. All my previous experiences in politics, business and public life have given me a great platform to be of value in the Foundation. It gives us an entrée to leaders in both the influential public and private sector. I feel we can really create something that is so important for all Australian women.
‘There are so many exciting research projects happening every day. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get that big breakthrough, like a simple, inexpensive test for breast cancer? Early detection is of the essence so research is the absolute key,’ she tells me with contagious enthusiasm.
‘The reason I am walking around today is because that one woman doing my tests found the cancer that was tinier than a pinhead—early detection saved me. I could say God was on my side, but I want that for everyone. A world where breast cancer is no longer a death knell would be beautiful.’
As we pack up ready to finish our chat, Ros tells me a story that emphasises for her—as a woman who has had breast cancer—the importance of giving back.
‘I was driving back from a weekend away with two young girls who had lost their mother five years ago to breast cancer. The girls were chatting away happily and on that highway it struck me that what I’m doing in the Foundation is protecting these two little girls. We—me and all those other generous women giving back—are not really doing this for ourselves; we are doing it for our daughters and our granddaughters. That’s why I do it.’