Life Uncut - We're back baby! UTI's, kids on planes. Plus Choosing Life on Her Terms - Exploring Euthanasia with Allison Willcox

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

We are back!!  Ya girls were overseas and they have...foot, urethra and covid updates. Young, wild and free I tell ya! Laura had a bit of a nightmare flight and we want to know where on the scale you land of intervening when someone isn't really parenting their own children. Britt reveals some 'heartbreaking news about new boyfriend Benjamin Siegrist;' according to the daily mail. Accidentally unfiltered is back with a bang and then we interviewed the wonderful Allison Willcox, who just so happened to grow up with Britt in Port Macquarie.When Allison was just 18 years old, she was involved in a car accident that left her lucky to be alive and as a paraplegic. From this accident, there have been ongoing complications that has meant she has had to undergo around 100 surgeries and her health is now deteriorating.  Allison has one of the most wicked senses of humour you've ever heard and there are a few things in this episode that you might have been curious about and always wanted to know! (If Allison's family are reading this, this would be your time to turn away because doggie is going to enter the chat...)  Now, Ali is off on the trip of a lifetime with her partner and her sister before she makes the very difficult decision to end her own life. Euthanasia is a complex discussion. Allison brings such a beautiful perspective on living while being aware of your own mortality. You can follow along with Allison's journey here! You can cast your vote for the Australian podcast awards here! GET TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW HERE  If you have an question please send it on it to life uncut podcast on Instagram hereJoin us on tiktok Or join the facebook group here Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Wollongong land. Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany. And I'm Laura. I have a question for you.

Wow. Straight out of the gate We're not just going to have any little Hello, catch up Do you have a toenail? Like a little toenail? Yeah, why? Does your little toe have a fully formed toenail? No, it's tiny, why?

Look, look at this shit What is that? That's rank That's your question? I have tiny little fat toes So like my toe's tiny Okay, the reason I'm asking this is because I think that there is a portion of the population out there

whose little toe has just been beaten so hard. It's had such a hard life. My little toe has had such a hard life that the toenail literally doesn't grow anymore. And, I mean, if you've been following along to the pod for a while, you would know or socials, whatever. I've just gotten back from Bali. I got a foot massage and I got my toenails done while I was there.

No, you did not. I'm calling bullshit. Get a refund because those toes have not been done. look at that toe look at those feet wait wait look she's trying to curl her toes over and hide stop looking stop shaming me for my toes guys no the man was there and he was this lovely balinese guy similar age massaging my feet and even he every so often made this look like he was rebulsed and i was like god that's i reckon i'm paying you pretend like you're enjoying it firstly what happened to your feet because you said you got them done they're not done this is

the fucking effects of the milky foot thing secondly like i got them done and then literally two days later they're still shedding it's because you don't wear shoes anyways yeah also a problem i feel like when we were made like however we're made by spontaneous combustion god whatever when we were made i feel like he put us together and he starts from the top down and by the time he gets a little toe i feel like it's the last thing he puts on the body and he's just got nothing left he's like fuck i've run out of juice so you get this tiny little smidgey toe that's what i think happens i have like little chorizo stubs thanks to the big bang theory no yours are not chorizo yours are more like a german sausage like they're long and skinny that last one is like

a little what's that what's that small little potato what's that type of potato it's a chat potato well how was bali other than your foot experience so this was my very first holiday without kids i went to bali for seven days without my children just with my sister and like one star from tony mate we i mean we worked i feel like i have to justify myself every time which you also don't like even if you went away without work that's okay no how dare you as a mother have a life and enjoy yourself without your children how sacrilege it was amazing i miss my kids so much like so so much it was weird being not enough to say back i am coming to you today from bali no i'm back i'm back in the studio i miss them so much but it also made

me realize how much I don't like other people's children is that a terrible thing to say I think that's standard I love my kids I don't think they're perfect I'm not like someone who's like my kids are amazing everyone else's kids suck you do tell me every day that your kids are basically in Mensa they're geniuses but no I think when they're your own children you just have such a different level of patience for their shit right like when they're your kids you're like okay I can deal with this because I created you you are my DNA and I am responsible for whatever it is that you do also because you have to yeah and you just inside your body there's a greater level of patience and everything else and I guess like I've said this before but I have I was never someone

who was particularly maternal like I never had this overwhelming like I want to be a mom I want to have babies and but when I had kids I was like oh my god I love being a mom and everything changed about my life but when I'm away from my children and I have to be around other people's kids kids who I am I have no connection with I'm talking like strangers kids on planes and stuff I realize that my patience for other people's children is very low which is not fair because I would hope that some people are more patient with my children but I just don't have it for other people's kids but I think there's a really small special subgroup of people in the world like the child carers and teachers and daycare workers that's it yes that actually enjoy other people's kids

otherwise I don't think you're a minority like I think I think the minority is people that froth other people's kids okay so i say this because so we flew to bali oh dear we flew to bali we flew jetstar it's a small seat for six hours and directly behind me there was like a six-year-old boy and he had brought plato on the plane he was flying with his dad maybe he was like five i don't know he was young he was flying with his dad his dad was in the middle seat and then he had his other brother who was a little bit older on the other seat next to him like next to his dad and the kid had put the tray table down and was playing with play-doh but was like banging that's banging the tray i don't know if you could hear that from

afar but he was he was really making a pancake he was really getting into the play-doh making which meant that my entire wasn't a pancake yeah my entire seat on the plane was reverberating the entire time and every time he'd bang his little fists onto the tray table my seat would go thud and so i waited i tolerated this for a good 25 minutes until eventually i turned around and i was like look i'm i'm really sorry to the fellow parent here yeah from parent to parent i'm gonna parent down with you i was like could you maybe ask him not to bang on the seat and the dad goes yeah don't bang on the seat that was what i got anyway two seconds later bang bang bang and i had this moment where i was like fuck you for your shitty parenting because he wasn't like the kid

was obviously occupied and it wasn't affecting the dad the dad just like he just went into coast mode and just let it affect everyone else i was like how dare you so did you turn around again yes and said it again but this time to the kid directly would you say stop your little shit i turned around and i and i said it exactly how i would say it to my own children i turned around and i was like can you please stop hitting the seat oh you're in that naughty corner yeah And did he stop? Yeah, he stopped for five minutes and then started again. It hits different when, like, remember when you're a kid,

you know what you can push with your parents, but when another parent disciplines you, it's cooked. You listen because it just hits different. Totally, but it just reinforces how much your own kids don't listen to you. No, no, to be fair, this child didn't listen to me either, so it was very similar to parenting my own children. So what do you do? Do you just let him kick you?

Yeah, for five and a half hours he kicked the back of my seat. No, actually he kicked it for about three hours and then he had a sleep, he had a nap, he wore himself out. i i'm not good at confrontation but i also have really thin patience on a plane and for six hours on that tiny jet star seat i would have lost it i ended up turning around i think in total about four or five times to say can you please stop hitting this or i would have asked to be moved can you stop hitting the seat if there was another seat and three of those times was directed at the dad and twice to the kid which i think is an excessive amount of time to have to ask someone

to stop hitting your seat the dad couldn't care less he did not give a single not one single fuck was he by himself no mom no mom was traveling on his own he had already checked out of his life like you know if you're telling me if you've got a border plane with your two kids and you're not co-parenting and you're gonna do a hundred percent of it yourself he was like i do not care you cannot ask me to do anything right now i am not listening i am surviving and i think i should have had more patience for him oh you know what he was traveling alone with his kids yeah i feel sorry for him so he was probably just like fucking small price to pay like she can cop this for six hours do you know what okay that was the worst i'm so sorry i'm so sorry they started with the two worst part my

feet and my plane trip the rest of our trip really bringing the people what they want it was amazing it was so amazing but you know what this isn't about me this is about you because i read a daily mail article that you are going through a heartbreaking period in your relationship Actually, I will read you the headline. Daily Mail wrote a really beautiful article about Brit. This is the article. Brittany Hockley reveals heartbreaking news about new Swiss soccer boyfriend Benjamin Zierist. Benjamin.

Benjamin. Benjamin. Benjamin. You don't have to go Benjamin. Benjamin. And your head goes like a little peacock. Benjamin. Sorry.

What is the heartbreaking news? You okay? I read this. I don't know. You tell me. That makes it sound like someone's dying. I saw this yesterday and I was like fuck did you guys break up and you didn't tell me like I thought something bad had actually happened probably something that would happen like yeah I just

would go into like the depths of depression and you'd have to come pull me out and you'd be like what happened I'd be like didn't want to tell you no that's a lie you would just send me a text and then you wouldn't answer your phone that's what would happen Brittany likes to be really dramatic in text message and then she puts it on do not disturb and doesn't answer because it's I can't I told you I don't you guys don't believe me I don't deal with this stuff very well I don't want to tell anyone anything so when i have to it's like i drop the bomb and then run away so i can't deal with it but you do it in the most dramatic way possible you'll be like hey so jordan broke up with me i'm super depressed and i you know my life is not going to go on and then you then you

don't answer that is not completely i broke up with him no joking yes i do drop a bomb and and run and then i pretend i don't exist anymore because that's how i deal with my problems okay it's not healthy i don't recommend it yeah i mean we've done a lot we've done four years of self help on this podcast but it hasn't really helped well hang on what was the britney's self what is the heartbreak you haven't told me yet i don't know actually i think we didn't read it you just so so we could be broken up or dying and you just stop reading britney's going through something really bad i'll just check out here well because i knew it wasn't true this could have been the worst moment of my life i'm not gonna tell you now i'm gonna make you read it another day you'll

have to read it do you know what you say this would be the worst moment of your life you look pretty good you're not gonna see him for three months i'm not you know to be honest the article was anticlimactic a hundred percent like you're not gonna see him for three months i'm like you'll be fine you're gonna be okay it's actually 13 weeks how do you feel heartbroken that's the article said no so this is the longest we would have gone in the last we would have been together 14 months by the time I see him but in the last year this is the longest it's a long time like 13 weeks to then only see each other for two weeks at a time it's a long time most heartbreaking moment clickbait headline for sure like I'm gonna live but it is really sad and every time I leave

it definitely gets harder we had a really amazing time but every single time I go on holiday I don't know why I get really sick now apparently this is a science thing heaps of people wrote to me saying it's like literally science behind it saying it's when your body finally can get sick because you're like oh I'm gonna stop for a second pretty sure I had COVID is that actually true though well I had so many messages I think it is I think there was some study with someone and some person that's good yeah so it's pretty accurate yeah like that so I went over there a little bit unwell like I started to get a cold but like one day in I was great it was gone it was nothing I got three amazing days with Ben he got three days off we had three amazing days in Mallorca and it was just

like everything I could have imagined everything I wanted it was beautiful then we got back to Scotland and I think I had COVID I think I was I was basically sick the whole time I know it doesn't look like that I probably only showed you guys one story set actually showing how sick I was but it was so shit then my sister got it she's still bedridden sherry's been bedridden for seven days and apparently there's this new strain of covid going around the uk everything fucking happens in the uk you didn't want to do a test didn't want to check well it doesn't i wasn't seeing anyone and i was sick anyway like i was just at home and seeing ben and there's no point checking anymore the flu's worse than covid these days so they say but i was just really really

unwell and that was most of my holiday unfortunately but still it was ben didn't get sick and he told me he wouldn't he's like I've got this crazy immunity he's like I very rarely get sick so whatever but I got a few days either side that were really really good the start was really good and the last couple of days were really good we just chilled and all I can think is like when you're talking about your holiday in Bali I love Ben but Scotland's not doing it for me anymore I am not surprised it's like it's worth it because I get to spend my holiday with him but it means said every holiday of my entire life is cold in it's summer over there now and it's still cold and rainy so how are you going to navigate this because like I mean there's been lots of

talk about going and spending prolonged periods over there like if you are not enjoying it as a place to be how do you be there I enjoy it because I'm with him and my sister was there but it's more just the idea and I guess if I was there for longer periods it sounds crazy but you'd be ducking over to Europe like you can be in Paris in like an hour on a plane or an hour on a train like there are ways to escape Scotland of course and Scotland's not all bad it's just that the weather's you're never going to enjoy it you're never going to go swimming in the pool they have nice sunny days but it's not like a hot summer right so I would just have to escape but I did spend some time with my best friends over there slash my only friends Eugene Alex and Eugene

Ben's gay neighbors from next door if you're new to the podcast they're Ben's best friends in Scotland now they're my best friends in Scotland they're if they listen to this they'll be angry i've got to get it right last time you said they were 65 they're 65 are they really because last time you said that they were in their 60s and they were offended so i feel like no i said 70 it's eugene's 65th birthday next week so happy birthday eugene and one of them is a psychic eugene's a psychic so just so you know eugene is a psychic last time brit went over there not last time but like you know at christmas time she went over there and she saw him and he said that mitch and mitch's boyfriend were going to break up and then literally three weeks after brit got back

they broke up yeah it was a surprise so Eugene was a surprise yeah I did tell Mitch Eugene was a really famous psychic in Scotland and in the UK he used to like probably exaggeration but he used to work for like the FBI or something he worked he you know how you might see true those true crime documentaries where they bring psychics in sometimes when they're really desperate to try and find a missing person yeah we've all seen medium yeah so he used to do that and he used to do readings for a lot of people but he also was a hospital worker right so he's very science-based but also sees things anyway um yeah he said about mitch he was like mitch is going to break up with his partner and i was like no he's really happy like they've been together for five years that's

not going to happen he's like it's going to happen it's going to happen very soon they're two different people and something they're going different directions and something's going to happen and then they broke up three weeks later or something crazy but anyway this time we were having lunch and i didn't get a reading because you know i don't want to be that annoying person that's like every time you see him though are you like tell me what's gonna happen every time I see him I look really deeply into his eyes waiting for him to like get it receive information and tell me anyway receive nothing he didn't say anything I didn't ask him and then he drove me to the airport they took me to the airport so they were driving me to the airport and then just as I

was gonna get out I was like Eugene I have to ask I was like did anything come through for me this trip he's like you're getting out of the car now he's like no nothing came through I was like okay thanks but we're sitting at lunch and he just went you guys can't see this but we're just eating And then he went, and he got like this hit and he looked off for a second and then he looked at me and he goes, oh, Mitch is going to fall in love really soon. And I was like, oh, really? And he's like, yeah, he's going to be in a relationship really soon.

And I was like, that's great. And then he kept eating and then he went, got another hit. And he goes, huh, and he already knows him. So he said that Mitch's next partner is someone that he's already met and he already knows. Why does he get so many visions about Mitch? I don't know. Have a vision about me for fuck's sake.

do you think it's because excuse me what about me i'm the one there do you think it's because he's gay like maybe they read there's a gay people better maybe gay mediums get different energies from different people i don't know but mitch comes through a lot with eugene that's very interesting do you know what this just reminded me of something it's completely off topic but when i was away and i didn't have my own children and matt was parenting completely solo parenting that's a lie he had his mom but he was trying oh yeah we know that's a lie i sent him a lot of messages being like I reckon we should have a third kid I reckon we should just do it maybe not this year next year year after all the time I was like I decided you were away yeah yeah no I know and he

wasn't so he's really against the idea he was really against the idea he was like that's having a newborn sounds like a fucking terrible idea and I was like we should just do it we should just like let's just have one and now that you're back and you're sleep deprived again and you got the kids do you still think that yeah dude why where has this come from I don't know maybe the last few eggs like they're shriveling up i'm gonna head into early menopause soon and they're like let's just go one more chance maybe you should freeze them hit it let's go no i don't know i just there's part of me that's like maybe we should have one more hit i swear to god correct me if i'm wrong i'm like a crack addict it wasn't that long ago that matt was like i want another

kid and you were like well cowboy yeah how to turn tables because he took he took it off the table he said no and i'm like don't say no to me you're like a child baby you like a child put it in me So now he's like, no. He did write back and he wrote, fuck me, a newborn. And I read that as fuck me, a newborn. Like I should do it. Like fuck me, comma, space. A newborn?

A newborn? Question that? Yeah. No, that's not what it is. Punctuation is very important, kids. Yeah, yeah. Grammar is important. But no, yeah, I think.

So you still think that? Yeah, but not now. Like don't go getting too crazy, guys. Like maybe like next year. Oh, no, this doesn't excite me. It gives me anxiety. We have to talk about how it's going to work. anyway yeah look I love that we've just had a little catch-up I mean we haven't seen each

other for the last two weeks but also we had a week off the podcast so for us this is just as much of a catch-up as what it sounds like to you guys yeah no really it's all real we haven't heard it so I also got a UTI over there awesome but I didn't get it until the last day do you know why you got that sexy time because you were having such dirty sex it's not dirty no I know it's not I take that back I've had we're very clean and hygienic I've had so many UTIs in my last time I've had a bladder infection because it got so far up there. Do you know what it is? It's because I don't have sex for three months

and then I have enough sex to make up for the fact that I didn't have sex for three months. That's why I get a UTI. Yeah. Do you know how we had that conversation about how your body knows when it wants it to stop? Your body's literally like, stop now. Please, please, please.

He's coming. Please, please. Please do not put that to Jamie. No. So I got a UTI on the very last day and I was on the day that I was flying out. And when I say get it, anyone that's listening that's had a UTI, you know there's a very particular feeling at the start when you get it i don't know if you

remember no tingling it's the heaviness it's the well frequently i mean frequent urine but i don't know how to explain it it's like so heavy inside it's really heavy and sensitive and this is like bearing down i don't know that's what i get anyway but i get that as well but that's just from my prolapse yeah same same that's my uterus after walking around all day i have to tuck it back in sometimes so anyway i could feel this feeling and i was like and for me it i mean for most people happens quickly but the last time remember you guys i told you i had one in bali and within like five hours i was weeing blood and i was in so much pain and ben had to go to doctors anyway ben was at training i could feel that i was getting this in a couple of hours i

was getting on a plane for 25 hours of flying and i thought oh my god if i get this on the plane because that's how fast it escalates i was like i need to try and go to a pharmacist right now before I get on this plane. I only had an hour. So I messaged, of course, Alex and Eugene next door. And I was like, Hey guys, I need to, I've just realized I need some medication before my flight. Is there any way you can take me? Cause I don't have a car over there. And they were like, yeah, of course. So they swung by, got all my stuff and took me to a pharmacy. Now Alex was like, Oh, I'm really bad at a Scottish accent, but I'm gonna try. Everyone has written in saying, Oh my God, Alex is like Mrs. Doubtfire. And he is, he's exactly like Mrs. Doubtfire. He looks

like her he sounds like her so we pull up and eugene's like i'm gonna stay in the car you guys go in alex take her in take it to the pharmacy it's like their local pharmacy because it's different in scotland you can't just go and get uti medication over the counter and i didn't have time so i walk in and he's walking in with me and he's like what's the problem i said oh i've got a uti i just told them i don't care i was like he's like why would you yeah i said to alex i've got a uti and i cannot get on a plane like this and he's like no worries and then he said do you want me to come in with you or do you want me to stay out here and I said well no you can come in he's like I don't want to embarrass you I said you're not going to embarrass me like of course you can come

into the pharmacy so we walk in and it's this tiny little pharmacy and there's about 10 people in there scattered around and we get to the counter and every everything's silent because you know when you're in a tiny little pharmacy everyone's really quiet Alex goes oh Michael hello Michael oh we need some help Brittany here's from Australia and she's got a burning UTI and I was like what the fuck Alex I was like and everyone in the thing turned around it only came on this morning but it's given her lots of pain and I was like Alex I was like remember how you just said you don't want to come in because you want to embarrass me I was like everyone in here doesn't need to know I have UTI then the lady at the back turns around don't worry darling I just picked up

my UTI medication. She's like 80. And I was like, this is the worst moment of my life. Do you know what is the worst moment of my life? Your Scottish accent. That's fucking awful. But I was like, this is an unnecessary moment. Then it was so hard. It was like trying to get crack. Not that I've ever tried to get crack, but this is how I imagine it was. I reckon crack's probably easier. It was. I had to sit in, I had to fill out a whole form with my whole history. I had to sit in a private room. He wasn't going to give it to me. He's like, I can't give you this. And I'm like,

please give me this medication oh my gosh she's about to weep and it was a nightmare anyway i got my medication got on the plane dealt with it in five hours got home and i just want to report that it's gone thanks okay does that mean that we'll never have to listen to that wait so is that it that's your number one update from scotland you just went away with the love of your life and the story yes but ben still loved me when i was at the depths of my despair and he looked after me so like I just feel like he's my forever oh oh oh my god I'm so cute okay one other thing I will tell you this absolutely blew my mind and I can't believe I forgot it until right now we really should make a list of the shit that we're supposed to talk about because we get to

this point we're like I do make a list in my head I was driving along in Scotland and guess what I saw walking past me a leprechaun close a life uncut jumper no stop it in scotland stop it yes was it one of ben's family members no it was a stranger and we were zipping past and she was walking past and i tried to wind the window down really fast but i was about 50 meters past at this point and i yelled out really loudly we love love and she turned around but i was too far away then she was like i found this in an op shop in australia she's like someone gave this away i found it on the road and then i told sherry and she was like i saw a this was in glasgow she goes i saw a girl walking around edinburgh with a life on cut jumper as well can we just two people in

scotland guys this is just a promo i know it's getting warmer now but our fucking life on cut jumpers are so nice like the quality of them is so good if you haven't off if you haven't got yourself a life on cut jumper yet there's still some available and like you know what it doesn't even matter if you don't like the podcast the quality of the jumpers is fucking litty city i don't know what i was trying to say then and i'll never say it again i had a similar situation in bali so we were waiting for gojek and this is also like a reminder of the live shows but we were waiting for a gojek and the gojek had pulled up if you haven't been to bali gojek is kind of like the uber equivalent over there right and you can book a scooter or you can book a car anyway we

were waiting for a car to pick us up and the car had stopped it was finishing off a trip and then it started again but the trip hadn't finished and so we're on this tiny little one lane like going one one direction and the car's coming down the road we can see it's still full so it hasn't finished the drop off anyway the people in the car wind the window down and they were like oh we're so sorry we got the address wrong our address is just a little bit further and then as they were in the middle of the sentence she was like oh my god it's life uncut and the girl who was in the gojek was like we're so sorry we took your gojek and she got out it was so cute she got out she stole your uber she stole my uber she didn't give it back she stole my go jack she

loved you but not enough to give you the uber back which i have a lot of respect for she got out and she was like i'm coming to your sydney live show so it was very cool running into lifers in bali who are coming to the live shows that is really cool and this is your reminder that if you don't have your live show tickets yet uh the shows start in two weeks now our very first show is adelaide and it's gonna be so much fun and if you haven't sent us your accidentally unfiltered stories you ask uncut questions if you're coming to a live show we want real life content you can remain anonymous you shouldn't we would love to get you up on stage and do it all together but if you want to remain anonymous it's okay just come to the shows get your tickets send us your content at

every single show we've got different guests coming and if you've been following along on instagram on life on cut podcast you will see that we've been dropping we've been breadcrumbing the guests along in adelaide we have emily weir and also kelly finlayson now emily you guys might know her from home and away but the reason why i wanted to and dancing with the stars yeah she was like the runner-up she was fucking amazing with a salsa also with her fantastic ass whipped you with her tassel she yeah she was so so good oh my god how did i not think of this as if i'm not making you guys do a dance-off at a live show fucking brilliant i will do the floss because i have forgotten all of my dance skills with emily and i will do some sort of twerk in the background

Okay, so the reason why I wanted to get Em on the live show and I was so excited for us to interview her is because we were doing like press around Dancing With The Stars and we were sitting in the green room of like the Today Show, right? And Emily, she will stay out late. She will party as hard as the rest of them. But when I say party, she is completely sober. She doesn't drink.

She doesn't do any drugs. She is stone cold sober. Straighty 180. Straighty 180. Cleany but not a meanie. I liked it. Trademark. Hashtag Brittany Hawking.

It's going to be in our next jumper. which, you know, and we've spoken about sobriety quite a bit on this podcast. We've done episodes on conscious sobriety before. I was kind of shocked when Emily said, I can't remember what we were doing. Maybe it was like at one of the finals for dancing. And I was like running around with a bottle of gin backstage. And I was like, I want a swig. And she, and she was very much like, no, I'm sober. And it still struck me as like a bit of a, Oh, like weird. Yeah. Weird. And I hate that I, that I had that reaction because I should know better, but I did have this instant, like, oh you don't drink okay that's interesting anyway the next day when we were in the green room the

tea room we were talking about it and Emily she said you know I never would have achieved the things that I've achieved and I would never be where I am now in my career or in my personal life if I hadn't stopped drinking and so I am so looking forward to having that conversation a broader conversation around that on stage because I think Emily is she's so she's honestly the life of the party she's so inspirational and I think her approach to alcohol is something that's very very relatable to a lot of us she's also such a breath of fresh air she's got so much energy and she's so chatty and she's so happy she's just like one of those people that you love to be around so i'm super excited about that but then speaking of inspiration we also

have kelly finlayson you guys might have heard the episode we did with kelly a little while ago so kelly is adelaide based and she has been battling bowel cancer which spread to her lungs stage four for quite a long time she sort of found out immediately after she was pregnant she had it when she was pregnant so she's got a little girl and we're going to catch up with kelly and talk a lot about what that process is like where she's at now because it was spreading and she was trying some new alternative treatments i know you guys loved that episode so much she's also the most positive and bright and bubbly person as well so adelaide is going to be incredible i'm really looking forward to it even if you haven't listened to kelly's story you'll get enough of it

at the show but if you have listened to it there'll be plenty of things that are new to follow on from it as well. But yes, go and get your tickets. It's lifeuncutpodcast.com.au. There is a ticket link page on the website and you can get tickets to all the shows there. But Adelaide, you are our number one baby and we are coming for you in two weeks. All right. It is time for Accidentally Unfiltered. And Britt has been pissing herself the last 25 minutes about this one. But sometimes I wonder, sometimes I find things funny and I'm like, does anyone else find this funny or am I a sicko? Okay. Hey ladies, it's taken me a while to write this one in. It is a memory I'd rather forget when i was 19 or 20 i went through a weird phase where my discharge stunk i must have had bv

or something and just not known it but i'm talking really bad obviously i was really self-conscious and worried about it as it has never happened to me before anyway one day i was hanging out with this guy i was in love with and he grabbed my phone to google something and my last search result came up he reads it out loud why does my vagina discharge stink he had a shocked look on his face and i tell you my survival instincts kicked in i said oh ha ha very funny michael very funny for googling that michael and acted unfazed as if our mutual friend michael who is known as a jokester had taken my phone to google that i think he believed me and it just got brushed aside and never discussed again but i tell you my fight or flight kicked in

good lie that's a solid like michael the jokester no it is not michael the jokester took my phone and googled why does my vagina discharge stick as a side note we got an update as a side note i am now 26 and have been with the above mentioned bloke for four years we own properties together and live together and my discharge no longer stinks my unsolicited advice to listeners go to the doctors and delete your search history happy ending but the trauma lives on wow i reckon there'd be so many stories about when something when you've googled someone and then you open your phone and that person sees it i feel like it happened to me a couple of weeks ago actually i just got a flashback i'll have to sit on that and think who it was i was at work this is many many

many years ago when i used to work in an office and i remember one of my colleagues opened something on his phone and he'd been watching porn just came up as i reckon that's really common i reckon that's really but also can i i also want to say getting bv is also common fucking everyone has a stint of it at some point in their life just go and get some antibiotics yeah but i think the moral of the story is here is that like if you get it fine but go to the doctor yeah but the problem is is because nobody ever talks about it no one's ever like i've got bacterial vaginosis yeah when i was in my early 20s i had it i've never had it oh fuck it was the worst i was like what is happening fish why does my vagina smell like a dead fish and my boyfriend at the time was a doctor

and he was like you have bb and now it turns out there's been research that's come out that it's from the man actually catch it from guys yeah and he was cheating on me so you know what that doesn't checks out that is so funny but yeah so just like go and get yourself checked because it's like it's not normal to smell that bad and it's also shouldn't be embarrassing and it's so easy to treat but it's also so easy to ignore i have one which i think is cute and it's podcast related. I was listening to your episode from quite a while ago where you were talking about squirting on the way to school pickup in the car. When I got out and I started walking through the school, I went to open my phone and somehow managed to hit play on the podcast. And it was

right when Laura said very loudly, well, it really depends on how much liquid and what can be defined as squirting. And it came out so loud through my speaker right in the middle of the school pickup when all of the parents were standing there waiting for their small children. I fumbled with my phone trying to turn the volume down but instead I hit the emergency call on the home screen I panicked turned my phone off everyone was looking at me and everybody heard that I was listening to a podcast about squirting to be fair they were probably listening too yeah if they're mums I hope so yeah and if they're not just tell them about it life on cut you live your best squirting life there's nothing to be ashamed of bv and a squirter

that is so funny what a way to round that episode out okay well should we talk about what the episode is about oh look yeah no now we shouldn't we should just we should just end it here no look today i'm really excited to bring you this episode and the reason i say excited is because this story is a friend of mine a friend i went to school with and she has a truly incredible story and she's so passionate and happy and vibrant and positive that i just feel like i wanted the world to know her story so her name is allison wilcox allison and her sister sally are three years apart. Alison went to school with my sister Sherry in the same year and I was in Sally's year. So like we all have known each other a very long time. When Alison was only 18 years

old, she was in a really bad car accident where she nearly died and she was left as a paraplegic. She has since over the years had upwards of a hundred operations all from these secondary conditions from the accident like it's not like she had the accident was done she's just spent her whole life literally since that day in hospital six months at a time and her sister Sally who I went to school with has just been like a savior for her they're best friends they call each other soulmates then they've really looked after each other I recently thought again about Ali's story because I saw her on the project talking about this bucket list that she's ticking off she's decided to go and travel the world tick a bucket list off because she doesn't know how long she has

to live when the time comes she has decided to do voluntary euthanasia so she has decided that she will be in charge of when her life ends as opposed to letting her injuries and her body decide whether you know someone or you don't hearing somebody that's your age go through that and she was so happy and positive when she was talking about it and I just thought I just want to tell your story like let the world know how amazing you are for me I mean I loved speaking to Ali and I think you know you nailed it so well Britain saying that like she's so positive which I think for a lot of people you think how could you be so positive when you're faced with such adversity but Ali is the type of person that I think she deals with tragedy with dark humor like

it's that whole anecdote of like if you don't laugh you'll cry but I think one of the parts of this conversation that's so interesting is Ali's speaking about euthanasia and what she considers and wants to do with her end of life because it is such a complex topic and she's speaking about it from her own personal experiences, but also touching on how that affects her family and her parents and her sister. It's a really beautiful chat. And I think her story is just profoundly incredible. Ali, welcome to Life Uncut. I appreciate it. Well, Ali, it's always good to start at the bottom and then work our way back up from there.

We do a thing at the start of every interview. It is called an accidentally unfiltered story, your most embarrassing story. And I hear you have a good one. I'll get you to choose which one my first period or a nude story my first period or a story we go both but I reckon go a nude story okay all right good I'm like I don't know all my male friends will listen to this within the first weeks of being home from the hospital after my accident all my friends were around Port Macquarie and we used to party a lot so we hired a townhouse that was up the road from my house two-story townhouse so we're having a party there and I found out they had a spa which was just a hot spa so I was like I need to get in there it'll be good for my body

and I was dating this Mexican guy at the time and there's a huge language barrier between us and all he could say was mummy and all I said was puppy all that was a great connection you guys yeah exactly I'm like this is good so we went in this spa him and I and we pretty much skinny dipped in the spa and I got out of the spa he lifted me out he was great like all the guys I've dated since my accident they've just been really caring and kind so he would lifted me everywhere so he lifted me out of the spa and when I got out of the spa I realized I didn't know how to dress myself because I was so new to my accident and my mum would dress me for about two three years and I was like fuck how am I going to put my undies on how I'm going to put my bra on

oh my god I just flipped my boob tube dress over and then we went back to the townhouse and he piggybacked me up to the second floor and we sat on the veranda and I was in my wheelchair and I don't know if it was the wine or if it was dark but I started to roll and I didn't realize that there was no railing on the veranda oh my god I fell three meters off the veranda onto the concrete on the ground I rolled out onto the road as soon as I hit the ground my boob tube went up and down and went around my stomach Ali this is messed up many people in this house party and he was at the top and he was screaming mommy mommy and I was like puppy help me and we were screaming so loudly that everyone in this house came out and they were just saw me

laying flat on the ground nude and I couldn't sit up or do anything at that time so my best friend raced out and like lifted me into my wheelchair and I was like oh that's the worst we can't laugh at this Ellie this isn't a news story that's fucked that is trauma you fell off onto the road I was laying on the ground I was like if I ever become unemployed I could be a leveler for a builder builders could pay me to go into houses and tell them when the floor's not level because you'll roll off yeah after that I was like I need to date someone where there's no language barrier. I think the best part of this is laying on the ground naked, screaming, mommy, puppy. That is incredible. It is incredible. But now I need to hear the period story. Cause if

it's almost as good as that one, I don't know if you can top it. So I was a bitch to my mom when I was 15. I got my period when I was pretty late. So I used to surf a lot. So the first day I got my period was after school. It was like 3 PM. And mom was like, do you want me to help you with anything and I was like pretty much like fuck off leave me alone so I put a tampon in and then I went out to her and I was like drive me to the beach I want to go for a surf so she drove me to the beach and my boyfriend at the time was out body body and I was like cool he's here it'll be nice to see him I feel like crap so I went out and I just caught away stood up and I felt something dropped between my legs and I just looked down and there was the most inflated tampon

like it looked like a marshmallow sitting on my surfboard he looked at me he looked at that he caught a wave in never said anything to and then I got in the car to my mom and I explained what happened she was like how did that happen and I was like well aren't you just supposed to put a tampon like in between your lips like a sausage it was like no you're supposed to put it up like a hot dog you put it in like a hot dog literally it was like a hot dog that is so yeah it was just awful and then I was like I should probably be nicer to my mom she was like offering to help me and I was like piss off but it's also crazy that at 15 through your friends or through school or some kind of chat you haven't been taught how to put a tampon in on one hand you're

like I feel like my parents should have told me this at some point prior to needing to put a tampon in but also like how did at no point of sex education or like schooling was there not a class where someone said here is a pad and this is a tampon just so that we know that there's some consistency to the education that's going out the more you actually picture and think about like pulling the lips apart and just horizontally putting the tampon in and it was so easy and everyone was saying how hard it was to put them in when you first got your period I was like oh that was too busy she's like what's everyone talking and that didn't raise any red flags it's so good must be loose or something I don't know oh my god that's an important I mean that's

a really important part of this story so before your accident at 18 no before you're 18 you were super active you were an amazing I remember like you're an amazing surfer you surfed every single day so tell us a little bit about your life before the accident so I was very lucky growing up I had mum and dad living at home. They were both chefs. They both became nurses when I was about 12. But it was a very caring environment. I have an older sister who's four years older than me and we were both really active. I got into a few sports when I was young, but nothing beat surfing. So when I was about 10, I got into surfing competitively and I did it every day. And I built really good friendships from that. My house was across the road from the beach. So I literally

could just walk across the road every day and go for a surf. And back then I could be at the beach from 10. My parents would just let me go do whatever. In Port, we grew up in a really nice town, really good community. So everyone was outside being active. Yeah. So I had a really good childhood. Ali, how old were you when the accident happened? It was six weeks after my 18th birthday. Can you talk us through what happened that day? Like what was the sequence of events? I was going on my first road trip with friends out to Narrabri. We were going to the races so we left on Friday and we're coming home on Sunday so it's the races on the Saturday and then we left early on the Sunday to get home for work and stuff on Monday and Narrabri is

through welcome mountain ranges so it's about a five hour drive west from Port Macquarie and they're really windy mountains aren't they yeah really windy and steep and it's not trees and stuff on them it's just like cliffs that drop off started raining just a little bit and everyone was exhausted in the car I was in the front seat my best friend was in the back seat Tim she's still my best friend to this day and then the driver she was texting and driving and back then I didn't think much of it I was 18 I didn't think that was bad or anything but she looked down at a text message and then over corrected the car and then we rolled 14 times off the mountain cliff embankment and we're still pretty far away from Port Macquarie like two hours so it was pretty

rural area so it took three hours for an ambulance to come but yeah we rode 14 times down the mountain and so what happened at the bottom of the mountain had you knocked yourself unconscious on the way down or were you conscious the whole time yeah so on the third roll I got knocked out before that I was thinking oh this doesn't happen to my friends or family we'll be fine I'll just be sitting on the car and I just envisioned us getting out and seeing a small ding on the front and being in trouble for crashing so that's all I thought when we were crashing that when we got to the bottom I became conscious and I couldn't breathe and I knew then that something was seriously wrong I never knew exactly how wrong but when I couldn't breathe I was like this is not good

Tim climbed over me to get out of the car and she kept saying to me come on Ali get out get out get out because there was fuel everywhere I could feel fuel burning me so she was screaming at me to get out and I couldn't even talk because I couldn't breathe but I was saying I can't move I can't move help me and then she ends up tearing all the quads in her leg so technically she shouldn't be able to walk it's one of those stories you hear with adrenaline but she got me out gave me CPR got me awake so I kept going in and out of consciousness and stop breathing so she got me out of the car and then climbed to the top of the mountain and screamed for help and she did that with two torn quad muscles like which like you just said

physiologically that should mean you are not walking around like this is what is connecting your knee to your hip you should not be walking but she managed to climb a mountain and find help yeah exactly wow what happened to the driver she was fine she didn't get any serious injuries I think she was shocked she just seemed really shocked at the accident I don't remember much of her I think they sat her away but I remember Kim sitting next to me when I was waiting for the ambulance and I had so much blood in my eyes I kept saying to her you're bleeding you're bleeding but it was coming out of my brain through my eyes oh my god and why you said that you felt like I mean you couldn't breathe what was happening to your lungs at the time

so I broke all my ribs and they went through my lung so I was slowly drowning in my own blood oh my god Ellie so I had like a liter of blood in my lung were you in pain at that time or do you sort of go past the pain threshold because you hear sometimes people in these intense situations they don't actually have any comprehension of how bad it is I could feel the pain that's what kept bringing me out of my life when I was unconscious it kept bringing me out and the police officer didn't know what to do with me because I would stop breathing he kept sitting me up and every time he sat me up I felt my neck collapse oh my god I could feel just pain all over my body but he didn't know what to do he was the new police officer he was the first one on the

scene with all emergency services so I think he freaked out a bit and so what happened when the emergency services arrived what did they do to you how did they treat you and then how did you get out of there so the ambulance came I think as soon as they saw me they were like yeah we can't take you to port base god no survive there no our port macquarie base hospital for everyone is like port's a retirement town I mean I worked at that hospital for 10 years it's equipped for low-key emergencies but not something like this so they came and then as soon as they saw me they were like we need to call a helicopter so the helicopter came from Newcastle the ambulance gave me a green whistle and they had to lift me up the hill and I was having the best time of life like as soon as

they gave me that green whistle I was like this is great then it took about three hours to get there from the ambulance I think and I had a really lovely helicopter driver I'm pretty sure it was like a pastor and then I had a paramedic and they took me to Royal North Shore they were supposed to stop at john hunter but their paramedics said i would die if they stopped there because they weren't equipped to deal with me because it was that bad but usually you get triaged to john hunter so i was that bad that they just skipped that and they ended up getting reprimanded for that and like i'm pretty sure the paramedic lost his like four days or something i heard you speak about this and the paramedic who was flying the helicopter he made the decision that he was like

the Newcastle hospital is just not equipped enough. And he, without the approval and against their wishes, he took you to another better equipped hospital. I remember them arguing. So they put me into like an induced coma in the helicopter, but my pain kept waking me out of that. And I remember a nurse trying to get me off at John Hunter because they had to refill petrol there. And he was just like, no, you're not taking it. I mean, it's such an incredible, but also a huge risk that he took in order to do that. I mean, it's probably what saved your life, but also that's such a personal risk for his own career. And also, you know, who knows what could happen between that flight from Newcastle to Sydney? Exactly. Something happened. He would

be in so much trouble. Alison, what's your relationship like now with your friend who was driving the car? I ask this because, you know, at 17, 18, like we all did stupid things when we were driving whether it be texting or driving too fast or just not paying attention because we all think we're invincible have you got a relationship with that friend still no we don't talk anymore I think at 18 we both didn't understand the consequences of what happened yeah so I didn't realize what my journey was and she didn't realize what her journey would be so she lost her license but I think our parents made the decision to cut contact for the both of us because I think for her to see me in a wheelchair every day would have been a lot for

her and then also the first five years after spinal injury you go through so much mental health issues so yeah I think my parents made this decision for us we spoke a couple of times and she apologized and she was really upset about it it must be I mean I can't imagine I can't put myself in that position but it must be hard for you to hear that a part of the reason you're not friends is because she couldn't bear to look at you like she couldn't bear the grief there must be part of you that's like how the fuck do you think I feel like I'm the one that's now in a wheelchair like suck it up a little bit yeah there was a few things I wanted to do I was like when I get home I'll take her out for lunch and I'll go to a place with Des and just not be able

to get in and then I was like okay no that's awful for both of us yeah yeah so at 18 like now I don't have any anger or I don't feel any emotions at all because I know it wasn't out of maliciousness yeah and I see people texting all the time my friends still text and drive it's just that common and I know it's such a little mistake it must infuriate you though when it's your friends and you're like this is why I'm like I am now yeah yeah can you talk us through like what were the injuries that were sustained I got fucked up yeah so I broke an iron vertebrae in my back from c3 to t6 the biggest one was a burst fracture at t4 which caused a spinal cord injury so they said i had a complete spinal cord injury so that means my spinal cord was fully squished

there's no blood in that section and then i broke my collarbone my right hand i popped something behind my eye with that's why there was so much blood i broke my jaw i lost a lot of my teeth broke all my ribs punks and lungs was your brain okay like could you imagine that you'd have a bleed on the brain or something because it sounds like yeah all right well when the car rolled the car collapsed onto me and for the first few months they thought I had a brain injury because they kept coming in and doing all the tests but I was on a lot of drugs so then they ended up doing a test six months after and it came back normal but then I think to myself the amount of times I've been under anesthetic and medications like there's got to be something yeah there yeah what did your

recovery process look like so when you went into rehab and then for how long were you in hospital like not just your recovery process but like how your family were able to support you through that like what was that period like post the accident so that was really difficult for my family my best friend kim called dad the night of the accident the cops didn't she did and he packed me one day's worth of clothes because he thought he would bring me back the next day so just no and they drove down at 9 p.m we crashed at 6 p.m they left sports at like 9 or 10 p.m and got there like 3 a.m and i just remember looking at my mom i don't i was on a ventilator by that point i remember looking at my mom as she walked through the door and she just collapsed onto the ground

and she couldn't look at me so she didn't come into the room because i just looked awful had blood they couldn't clean the blood off me for months because they couldn't roll me or move me and then dad he was really proactive and like logistical about it so he came in and just started organizing everything my sister flew down the next day we ended up spending a year in hospital I spent six months in acute spinal ward and then six months at royal rehab in Sydney did you realize how bad it was before this moment or when your mum walked in and she couldn't be in the room or look at you was that a moment where you were like fuck this must be worse than I thought well you don't really understand unless you work in the medical field that spinal cord

injury means forever so I was like oh yeah I'll just do rehab and it'll be fine yeah so I never really understood any of it until six months in when I wasn't getting better and like I had so many secondary complications from spinal cord injury that I realized I was going to be sick forever so it wasn't until then I just thought I'd be doing rehab like a broken leg yeah how many surgeries have you now had as part of your recovery process probably over a hundred so every year I lose function in mum and that due to spinal fluid that gets caught on the scar tissue it's called a syrinx that's really rare it's like three percent of people with spinal cord you just get it. So every year I become a quadriplegic for a few months and then they

drain the fluid and that surgery is 15 hours long. So just to be clear on that for those that are listening. So Alison's situation is that she can't use her legs and she's in a wheelchair, but because of this condition for a few months, you become a quad, you can't use your arms or anything. They drain it and you get the use of your arms again, correct? And then that is changing now in the future, they can't do those operations anymore. Is that right? Yes. So each time that surgery happens, I lose a bit more function. And each time they do it, I get more and more complications from the surgery. So last year I was in hospital for six months. They did the surgery, but they couldn't close my back because it just won't

close anymore. So I had a giant hole in my back for six months and then I had a hole in my spinal cord so all my brain fluid was leaking out so my brain was sitting in my neck for six months and then your brain fluid kills muscles when it touches it so my trap in my back died all my muscles in my back died so they had to do like a full reconstructive surgery on my back that was six months in hospital laying flat with a massive migraine and you could feel my brain in my neck That would happen again, except I will end up passing away from it. Probably get meningitis or an infection after the six months and they'll just never be able to close it back.

So from the next time that that happens, that's what they say, the next operation? So they put a shunt in every year, but because I'm so active, it's just a really complicated, secondary complicated, like there's only one surgeon that can operate on it in the world. Wow. They put a shunt in and then it slides out. or it breaks so they have to put a new shunt in so when the next shunt fails I'll just lose

function in my arms and then my brain do you know what that looks like in terms of time frame so I usually could only get a year between surgeries the most I've had is like two years back but leave it and don't operate I'll probably get like three or four years but once the shunt comes out it could either be a slow decline or a fast decline but it'll be very painful and is that what you've decided to do have you decided to do an operation again when it happens or to not do no so the doctor said they don't want to operate so they were there one to make the call as they said it to me and they're standing at the end of the bed and brad was sitting next to me and sally and they just looked horrified but in my brain i was like thank god

someone said it I would have felt like I failed if it was me making the decision yeah but they made it for me so I was like finally I can be at peace and not do medical stuff all the time like you were almost relieved and Brad is your partner you almost relieved that they were saying don't choose we're telling you we can't operate anymore yep and I could find some cowboy neurosurgeon that would do it, but it would just go terribly. So the best neurosurgeon for this in the world said no more. So yeah, it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. Alison, how do you even begin to compartmentalize this going from being 18, looking forward to having all of, you know, whatever the plans were for life ahead of you to then being given this

diagnosis that seems to just be compounding as the years go on. How do you manage to maintain even a glimmer of positivity? And I know that you are very stoic about this and you seem to have still so many things that you're looking forward to. Yeah. So the first five years was really difficult. I spent four years in hospital and I just like, I had a million things go wrong. I've had my bowel removed. I've had a million bladder surgeries, like just a lot of stuff, doing a lot of chronic pain so as soon as I'm feeling well I don't know what it is I just feel happy yeah so the days I'm feeling good I have anxiety or depression I don't know why I think it's like a coping like I want to use the day I feel well so yeah I'm not sure and I always have something to

look forward to and my support system is really huge well speaking of your support system I mean we'll come back to what your future looks like and your plans because your plans sound amazing but let's go back to brad your partner how long have you been with brad and how did you guys meet because we love a love story here so brad was actually captain with sherry at school yes and he was dating one of my best friends at the time he dated her for eight years and we remained friends been friends since we were 12. we started hanging out a lot about four years ago and I got into jet skiing and he was like oh I could make you a hoist to get on the jet ski went home to sell and I was like this dude can make me shit he'll be able to make me

the coolest stuff I need to keep him around he was like yeah she's like you should date him and then my aunt and my sister for like six months every day were like you need to date Brad you need to Brad and then yeah I asked him on a date and he said he's been waiting for that so it was really sweet. I mean, what was it like for you when you started dating again after having an accident? I would assume that a lot of people might feel a bit insecure or a bit worried about, you know, the complications that come from even just the mobility side of things. Were you ever worried or were you just like, let's do this, Brad? As soon as they told me I couldn't walk again, I called one of my friends and I said,

do you think I'll be able to do doggy? Probably if you just lay on your tummy, right? Yeah, and I was like, okay, I need to try. I love that that was your first thought, Ali. Like, fuck. Yeah. Priority's bad. I think my wheelchair is a good deterrent to fuck boys too. Yeah, amazing.

So every man I've dated after my accident has been the most caring human you could find. So I've been quite lucky. But, yeah, the first year I just went a bit wild. I was a bit worried I wasn't going to be attractive anymore and I was like really insecure but as soon as I got home guys that I was with before like were asking me on dates and stuff so it was fine and I can still do doggy so I mean I mean that's a question that I think a lot of people the doggy one not yeah the doggy but I think that's a

question a lot of people probably wonder with somebody in your situation is like I'm not sure exactly where your feeling stops is it from your waist down I have all feeling so my injury actually isn't complete and it took me years to work it out but yeah i lost my wheelchair virginity when i was still in hospital i had a neck brace on and my hands in calf and someone you and i both know signed me out of hospital for the night and we went to a hotel you need to tell me this he just threw me around all night are you kidding so someone we know came in kidnapped you from the hospital, signed you out, fucked your brains out, put you back in the wheelchair, wheeled you back in.

Yeah. That is that one of, got to be one of the best stories. Do you want to edit their name out? Do you want to know? Yeah, tell me. This has got to be the great, I can't wait to tell Sherry. I'm like, it was so good. The doctor's like, what are you doing?

Where are you going? And I was like, oh, I'm just going to go shopping. And then I just never came back to the night. And then my doctor grounded me. She was like, you're not allowed out again. And I know what you're up to. Well, you're like, I'm having an orgasm, bitch. Let me go and do my thing.

I know what you're up to. You're like, yeah, I'm being an 18 year old. That's what I'm up to. I love this because I think that often there's, I mean, we've spoken to many people in the past who have been through disabilities and coming into disability from being fully able bodied. And there is this like feeling of insecurity or this feeling of like, how am I going to date again?

How am I going to love again? And like, and I think there has been many beautiful stories about how people have overcome that, but I love that for you, that that wasn't a barrier. And I think that that's an amazing message because I think we get fed this idea that it should be a barrier. And I think a lot of it does come down to your own perspective and your own feelings around yourself and how, how you perceive yourself rather than how other people perceive you.

It hasn't slowed Ali down. She was fucking in the hospital. I was chatting about this the other day with one of my friends and I don't think it's disability that stops you I think people that were insecure before it just heightens everything yeah and you were this confident vibrant active person and nothing changed like you still do all the things you do you're still dating you're still fucking you're still surfing you're still traveling the world like your personality and persona hasn't changed it's just made it a bit harder well I mean do you feel like it's psychologically changed anything for you I mean obviously it's changed

loads of things for you physically but from like a psychological perspective do you think it's had an impact on your personality at all I was a brat before and I am so much more grateful as soon as I had my accident I was best friends with my parents and we had a really great relationship they passed away mum passed away when I was 21 and dad passed away four years ago but from 18 until then we had a really great relationship so I think it's made me more grateful for things yeah and I don't get angry anymore I think it's like helped that a lot I'm just really calm in all situations so most small things trivial things they're not issues for me anymore. What was that time like? Your family obviously looked after you a lot, Sally and both

of your parents. And then your mum passed away, I think it was only three or four years after the accident. Is that right? Yeah. What was that like to have two out of three of the people that literally looked after you pass away? I think it was way bigger if I didn't have my accident. Mum was my best friend for the first four years. It was very lonely because I was that sick, being in hospital all the time all my friends still the world kept turning but mum's didn't hers stopped with me so it was very lonely after she passed and I had a sense of guilt after because you could just see the stress that she was under you could just see as soon as I had Max and she wasn't the same person and it was a lot for them to see me sick all the time yeah so

it was really difficult I'm so sorry you went through that Ali I think yeah I mean when I was listening to your story and I think when you're a mum my first thought was like I can't imagine what that would be like as a mum to have to see their child suffering so much and all you want to do is take the pain away and I'm so sorry that you had to go through that with your family but also it's truly beautiful that it's something that brought you and your mum closer together and that you were able to have that friendship with her. Yeah. I'm very lucky.

I have a very good family. Sally and I are inseparable. We can't go a day without seeing each other or talking. So it brought us closer too. And do you guys live together now or what's your setup? I'm going to sound like a freak. I lived in her garage for a bit trying to save money to travel. Hang on.

Did she know you were in the garage or did you just like wheel in there and park and you were like, I'm done? She's like, yeah, she tried to kick me out. No. I moved across the road and we both decided that was too far away. Oh. Back into the house. And Brad keeps saying it's like everybody loves Raymond

and I'm like, it's the best thing ever. I actually love that and seeing your bond because I try and put myself in that situation and I would have done exactly the same thing as Sal has done and I love seeing how close you are and how much you both mean to each other. Does Brad live with you now as well? Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about what life is going to look like now. So you have been told that you

possibly have a few years left, which I cannot imagine, but it seems like you've taken that in your stride and you've made some really big life decisions on what you're going to do for the future. What have you decided to do with your remaining time? I am going to blow all my money. Love that. So we sold our house and I'm going to just travel for the next two to three years. I bought my insurance and got Brad paid as a carer so now I'll be able to go to any country I want and he'll be able to care for me so moving to the USA for six months and then down to Mexico for a few months then to Canada I want to learn how to ski or snowboard and I'm going to ship over my mountain bike to Whistler and then we're going to go to Europe for a year or two years

and I want to see everywhere in the world. When people always ask me, what's on your list? I'm like, everything. Well, I think I said to you what's on your bucket list is like 300 things. Yeah. And have you written it all down? Like have you written down like an itemized bucket list of the things that you both want to do together?

Yeah, so I have like Morocco, Turkey, Croatia. It's mainly places over experiences. Like I don't want to go skydiving and stuff like that. I just want to explore the world. What impact does it have on your relationship with Brad when you are so aware of your own mortality? And I say this because, you know, most of us have no idea how much time we have with our partners, whereas you have a much greater understanding of what and how many years you have left. How does that affect the two of you? He's of course been morbid all the time

because I make jokes about it. We talk about euthanasia a lot. I'm usually just joking about it so he gets really upset the first six months after my surgeries last year I couldn't really bring it up without him getting upset but all of this happened because he never saw me go through something so big so I've only been dating for two to three years and he wasn't that close you have to be family to really understand the impact six months of hospital has so after all that happened he was like I understand why you are the way you are because I can't sit still I want to do a million things when I'm well I just travel three months a year so he's like okay I finally understand that and he's on board with it the start of my surgeries last year he said for every week you're

in here we can go away for a month and he thought I'd only been there for two weeks and then I was in there for six months and I'm like well you better keep this because you've promised it so yeah he's really on board with all of my plans now before he was on board and supportive but he was a workaholic now he's not a workaholic your priority shift yeah um do you feel like you guys don't fight or argue or sweat the small stuff because of that because you know you've got this limited time that you're like why are we like let's not waste our breath yeah he's like the loveliest person and so supportive we never fight we're just happy to be hanging out together you spoke about then and said you make jokes about euthanasia but i did listen to you talk about how

your dad actually signed some sort of documentation around euthanasia can you talk me through what that was and what that looked like for you so around year three after my accident my stomach stopped working so I had like a nasal tube in and they're like we need to remove your whole stomach and I was so unwell like to the point like nausea is the worst I just felt like I had a hangover without the party book yeah so it was pretty shit so my mom spoke about euthanasia a lot and he signed me up to Belgium and we actually had a date set and then Sally didn't know about it but she saw it on dad's computer and she ended up throwing the computer across the room and she was like this is ridiculous so that was it was really difficult at that time because

I hadn't lived yet where now I feel like I've been able to do everything I wanted but then I just I was like 21 at the time and I was so unwell I can't imagine what that was like for both of you but even a father I can't imagine for your dad to say like to be brave enough to say I love you enough that I will help you sign up to let you go I can't imagine and and you coming to terms with like I'm so tired and done with this that I want to pass away but I can't imagine what your dad was going through at that time and I also get I can sort of understand Sally's reaction by being really selfish and being like I don't want to let you go yeah I think my parents were just as worn down as me by that point and yeah now that I have a niece who I love so much like

she's my favorite person in the world don't tell Sally but she'll probably hear it yeah I don't know how I'd react if she was that unwell I could not let her do euthanasia but then I couldn't let to live like that it would be the hardest was it sally's reaction that stopped you from going ahead you said you had a date booked was it her reaction that made you reconsider no it was this doctor in the port base he was an odd dude i went in and i was like look i'm gonna kill myself i can't keep being this sick and he was like a colostomy will change your life it will revolutionize your life and I was like I'm 21 I'm not getting a colostomy and I went home for a few weeks and I this is really disgusting I started vomiting my own feces so that happened a lot yeah and remember vomiting

and that and thinking maybe this freaking weird doctor's up to something so I ended up going down to sydney i didn't do it at port base i did at the spinal unit and had my stomach removed and the next day i felt fine wow like it was just overnight even after a massive surgery i felt better than i had in four years since my accident is it because where your spinal cord was crushed it corresponds to so many different organs is that why there's been this like ongoing complications my injury is high I'd say it's around my nipple level but that was my nipple level when I was 18 so it's a bit higher than it is now so it's above all your stomach yeah and it's also above your autonomic nervous system so my heart and blood pressure is controlled

lower than that level so if I get constipated I can have a stroke so that was one of the things So it's like, you'll have a stroke or you need a colostomy. How do you feel about euthanasia now? I know you said you had a date when you were younger, but now that you know that there is a time limit and you are going to deteriorate and you can tell us about some of the things that they did say is going to happen to you. How do you feel about euthanasia? Is it something you will relook at?

Yeah. So my psych and I talk about it very often. I'm okay with it now. I'm not okay with it right now because I don't feel unwell. and I still have energy to do stuff and I still have arm function. But I know that in the next four or five years it will be a decision that I will have to make and my family knows what my decision will be, which will be I'm going to do euthanasia before I suffer anymore.

And, yeah, it gets discussed a lot. I think when you get into the position of even deciding euthanasia, it's either go through hell and feel awful or that. so it's a pretty easy decision and it's made for you whereas if you're well and you're like well if I die tomorrow that's really sad but it's sort of bleak either way after suffering for so long the first five years I wouldn't want to do that again how does your sister Sally respond to that conversation now when you talk about it well she's got to keep me as a vegetable in her house I've made deals with my best friends to try and break in and turn off my life support

but yeah she doesn't want it to happen and she'll be fine with it she sees me suffer every day I have really bad chronic pain to the point like it's really debilitating and she sees that every day so when it gets to that point she'll be fine but yeah she would like to keep me in her house What does it look like for euthanasia? And I ask this because it's such a hot debate and I've heard so many people talk about it. So many countries don't allow voluntary euthanasia and some do. The ones that do have this crazy prerequisite where you've got to go through all these psych tests and be of like a stable state of mind to do it. Have you looked into that enough now that you know how that would look for you, where you'd have to go? Can you do that at home here in

australia no you can't my type of illness wouldn't allow it it would only be allowed for terminal cancer i'm not sure what the laws are in queensland at the moment but i know melbourne passed it for terminal cancer like stage four cancer so i'd have to do it overseas and the place where i do that would be belgium they've got very loose euthanasia laws so not sure if it's like that now but when were looking into it if you had anxiety or depression you can get euthanized there which is that is i mean that is crazy to me because i feel like that is something that you can come out of whereas your condition is different you've been scientifically medically given a deterioration whereas it's pretty crazy to think you can go in and say i don't feel great today there was one

story i read i was in a facebook group about it this lady her mom passed away and the grief was too bad. So she got euthanized. Wow. I feel like that is why often it is such a hugely debated and controversial conversation because I think it is such a permanent solution. And if it is a permanent solution to an impermanent state, then that is why I think people feel so strongly about it. But I think anyone who has seen a family member suffer, anyone who's seen a family member just waiting to pass away can understand like that that's not a way to live either it's horrific horrific when I was watching mum die the death rattle yeah everything about that and it just looks so painful and when they become unresponsive I'm like what's the point of watching them suffer

for like a few days a week yeah and it's also frightening you know like you're you're so sad for your family member but also like it's petrifying it's really petrifying I you know I did the same thing with my grandfather and you just you're like what's the point it doesn't make sense and and I think that that they're the instances that really when the debate and the conversation around euthanasia comes up that there is an understanding there yeah in your head how do you know when the time is going to be right for something like that like what needs to be happening to you and in you for you to decide because it's also not i mean fuck ali i can't even imagine it like the preparation that you have to do like you have to travel over somewhere to do it it's not

like you can wake up and say today's the day i feel like it like this is yeah i can't fathom even asking the question i'm like how do i even ask you that question yeah i think once i get to point where there's no quality of life then the decision will be made but until then it'll be on the radar it'll be talked about but I think the final decision when there's no quality of life and as you said you have to travel overseas for it so it's got to be such a drawn-out process where obviously I'd prefer to do it here with all my family and friends around me but yeah Like, so the process of just getting overseas, being that unwell, doing all the paperwork. Yeah, it will be a lot.

I'm so sorry. A lot of my family too. Yeah, there'll be so much for your family. And I also think that there must be some sort of comfort in the fact that this is a conversation that has been ongoing for a long time, even if that comfort isn't brought to, you know, Sally or Brad now. But knowing that it's not something that you made a decision lightly on, it's something that you've really been considered about in terms of how you want

to live out your life. Alison, what's your number one? You have this beautiful bucket list and you have all these places that you're going to visit. What's the most important thing to you over the next couple of years? Eat. That's great Mexican food. Honestly, Ali, there is no better Mexican food.

Try not to get typhoid or? No, the food in Mexico, you'll realise you've never had proper Mexican. Like the Mexican that we do here is rubbish. if they make minced packet mexican i'll be really upset how has that because you've actually traveled a lot you've been to a lot of countries okay two questions what are some things you wish people would know or like what has traveling been like is it just 10 times more difficult to do anything do you have to plan so far ahead oh man this trip that i've been planning my insurance company's been fighting me so much sorry just to go overseas they said they'll cover

my Medicare and then last week they said they wouldn't so going to the US you obviously need good medical insurance but also booking hotels like you can't book a wheelchair accessible hotel online you need to email the hotel bookies don't legally have to keep your room so if I book a wheelchair accessible hotel through them I could rock up and not have a roll-in shower so it's really difficult i've gotten really good at like on airbnb looking at zooming on the windows and looking out to see if it's a two-story building or a one-story building yeah so yeah it takes like four hours to book one hotel and then the airline and the wheelchair gets broken a lot jet stars paid me out 20 grand so far from breaking your and sometimes i'm not even allowed

on the plane because you're only allowed two people with disabilities on the plane at once so if they accidentally ball three you get kicked off is that true i did not know that yeah it's a lot when i first had my accident i got home and i remember having a full mental breakdown because i realized society wasn't built for me the world wasn't built for me no and from that point i realized how hard my life would be but it's worth it like i get a lot of joy and i feel really proud of myself once i planned a really big trip like this and i'm there and everything's going okay also you just need to roll with the punches like sometimes i can't shower for a few days because sorry brad yeah like brad just carries me in there and who pays for because this is a

question i was clocking and i've worked in the hospital system i don't even know when you have had 14 years of these operations and hundreds of operations who's paying for them do you have to pay for a certain amount or does the government it goes through the comprehensive insurance so in new south wales instead of getting compensation go to the government and then they decide what they'll pay for so all of it's covered but i still probably spend 10 20 grand just for medical care like I had to pay for MRI the other day and as you know I had like six different places they're MRIing in my back so it's two thousand dollars so like it's all the little things that are it's such an unfair we're very lucky in Australia oh yeah Medicare covers

a lot I'm legally not allowed to get Medicare because it was from a car accident so I get a Medicare bill every year but they're pretty good if I don't pay it really they sort of let it slide but it's just yeah it's so incredibly unfair and it's so discriminatory in itself that people who are suffering with chronic pain and chronic illness from accidents or from injury that they are still out of pocket because often these are people who are now no longer able to work because of their injuries and yet they still have to fork out these insane amounts of money to be able to live a life or to have better mobility. It is such an unfair system, even though it is one of the better ones, it is still not fair. Yeah. Ali, what is something that you would want

to leave people? Like what's a message right now that you want people to know? It could be an affirmation, a quote you live by, your biggest life lesson that you've learned since going through this, something that people can sit there right now and will change the way they think. That's a big uh i reckon she thought about it oh sally i was just laughing because sally always says when people ask her that 10 out of 10 fun all the time and i'm like okay that's a good one no if you could change something and you're not happy change it and do the things you enjoy like if you're not happy with your job get a job you enjoy or study something you really want to study if you have the opportunity to do so you should do it don't let your own thoughts stop you

Your life is your life. You don't have to do what society thinks. As long as you're not hurting anyone else, you can do whatever you want in this life. Alison, when it comes to disability, what do you think is the biggest misconceptions that people hold? That we can't do dogging. That's a wrap.

That we're depressed. That would be the biggest one. Everyone always thinks I should be depressed all the time, but it's not the case. sometimes I live a better life than some of my friends. Why do you think that is? Mental health, I think. Yeah. We cannot understate like what a resilient person you are and how for all the things that you've been through that you can have the incredible mindset that you do have. It's been a privilege to have a chat with you today and for you to share your story. But also, I don't think

anyone should have to listen to somebody's challenging story to be able to appreciate the things that they have in their life that are just not so bad. I don't think we should have to draw those comparisons. No, but we do. But I think that sometimes people do need that reality check. And, you know, I love that you say that there's this understanding or this thought that people who have a disability are depressed when it's simply just not the case. And that's such an ableist view. It's people who take for granted their own abilities and they think, well, if I was like that, I would be depressed. And that I think really minimizes the feelings and thoughts of people who have to deal with disability every day. Yeah. Yeah. Ali, when are you off on your

adventure I leave in a week today probably right now I'll be on my flight so see you later motherfuckers is that what you're saying to people because you did have a literally well I saw you had a going away party and and you sort of said like I realize there are some people I might not ever see again I've been pranking a few of my friends telling them that I gotta delete everyone's numbers and I don't want to talk to anyone and they've been really sad messaging me every day I'll still be your friend, don't worry. I am so stoked for you and I just hope you have the best couple of years literally that you can possibly have and enjoy every second

and there's going to be some fucking tumultuous moments, I'm sure, but it sounds like you've got a wonderful trip planned. Well, you know we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet, the highs and the lows. Laura, do you want to kick it off with your suck? I feel like you're throwing it to me because you are still thinking about it. I've got one. I can do it.

I'm not scared. Yeah, bring it, baby. Okay. Okay. Well, I've only been back for one day. So my suck can only be within the last day. And my suck will be that I'm super jet lagged. I was up all night.

I feel wired. I was like, you know when you're laying there and you're like, sleep, sleep. You've got to get up in four hours, sleep, sleep. And I was just like, I fucking can't sleep. On the phone to Ben, on the phone to Sheridan. So my jet lag's probably worse than it's ever been. That's my suck. I don't relate to this.

I'm like a fucking, what's the right word? You tell me. You're telling the story. I'm like an anomaly. I don't really get jet lagged. I've never experienced like a wide awake insomnia jet lag. You get on a plane, you barely sat down and you're asleep. I've never seen anything like it.

It doesn't matter what it is, how it is, what the position is. You could have five dogs and kids next to you and you get on and you pass out. Yeah, I could be on that plane where there was the farting dog and I would sleep the whole time. I don't. If you haven't seen that article, there was a couple who got sat next to a dog that farted the entire plane ride and now they want a refund. I could have slept through that.

I could sleep through anything. What's the difference with a dog farting and humans farting? humans always fart on planes you don't go and get a refund and say the guy next to me farted you would ask to move though wouldn't you i did i have been sat on a plane with the person in front kept farting anyway no did you ask for a refund i just sat in their fart for six hours in their poop particles i just sat and breathing in their fart in a little air-conditioned tin can so my wait did you say your sweet my sweet my sweet was just getting home to little delilah squidlet burger who producer keisha took care of for the two weeks

Producer Keisha had her for two weeks and I really missed her. Producer Keisha looks after her like a bloody princess, but I really missed her. So does that mean that when she comes back she's like, oh, not you again? Pretty much. She doesn't take me back to Keisha's house? She doesn't know who her mum is.

Yeah, we know that. Keisha breaks the rules with her. That's why. Keisha lets her do whatever she wants. I put these strict rules on and Keisha's like, she didn't like it. And I'm like, she's a dog. Keisha's sitting here looking like she's been victimised, but I did see you walk her without her thingy on at one point all the time and Keisha takes

us swimming every day so like she loves it she's like she's on dog vacay she lives her best life anyway that was my sweet do you know what it is and when you think about it Keisha's just the cool auntie yeah she's a hundred percent I'm the disciplinarian and she's the Keisha's the one that lets her do anything Keisha's the cool drunk aunt that everyone wants to hang out with okay my suck for the week is that Lola I am usually Lola's favorite right that kid she is hardwired to me I am like her soul and my soul are conjoined we do everything together she is called attachment issues but yes she is attached and she loves me and we are the same she's still pretty much hanging out of my womb that's how attached we are yeah with your hernia herniated uterus no

no with my prolapse she's hanging on to my prolapse still she's trying to get back in my womb so i came home from this trip seven days first trip away from the kids like decent trip especially international trip she didn't care as soon as i was out of eyesight she abandoned me for matt she was like oh that parent's gone now i need to go to the next one and attach to them she's literally hanging off matt's uterus but i think that's waving around off his testicles trying to get back in there too far i think that's okay she needs some independence that's not independence she just has a new favorite no but that's normal you always go through favorites with parents especially girls favorites are usually the dad that's like across the board i know and that's

why i have held on to being lola's favorite for so long and because because it was always the case right like marley had a transition when she was like two she became daddy became the favorite and daddy's been the favorite ever since but lola and i i am the favorite and i got home and even last night when she was in the bar she's like no daddy do it daddy do it go away mommy daddy do it she didn't even want me to put it in bed nothing shouldn't you embrace her no because it'll come back it makes me feel really sad it makes me feel really rejected i came home and all i wanted i even bribed them with lollies and toys and stuff and she still was like daddy open it daddy do it i was like you ungrateful little shit i didn't say that i was like come back to me here i am hold me

you're like daddy's gone away you've locked him in the basement it's just mommy home now daddy daddy went for a run and I was like daddy's left you he's he's gone now he said he doesn't want to be daddy so he doesn't love you what Laura too far too far I didn't say that I don't want to look we've spoken about this my sweet for the week though is I mean I just got back from a week in Bali that is my sweet for the week honestly sometimes that was the rule I didn't know we could go from our sweet from the last week obviously mine was sex with Ben yeah I would of hope that that was i thought we're starting just from yesterday no that's from the week prior i don't know okay it's not one day of sweet and delilah sex with ben and then coming home to

delilah not sex with delilah sex with ben comma space and also seeing delilah grammar okay punctuation all right look my sweet for the week is i felt really worried about going away and spending so much time without the girls and like i said earlier i do feel like i have to justify you know it was for work and it was a work trip and we worked every single day but that is what my suite was it was so amazing to have serious quality time to focus on getting through work for Tony May and and also just like going with my sister who's my other business partner like you know my sister and I are both business partners on Tony May and being able to focus and when you're a working mom and your concentration is always split across parenting and working you often feel

like you're not doing any job well right you feel like you're doing a shitty job at your work and a shitty job at parenting and just a shitty job and that always leaves you feeling a little bit defeated I had a week where I actually felt like I did such a fucking good job at my job for one week and yeah sure I had kind of like almost completely checked out of parenting except for a few crazy ass facetimes but like I think it's really important that as mums and as working mums we allow ourselves those opportunities to be able to tap back into what's important to us alongside parenting because I think often dads can do it. I mean, I see my, my sister's husband goes away on work trips quite a bit because his job requires it. And I don't think that we have

the same expectations around the guilt that we feel when it comes to a dad traveling for work versus when a mom has to do it. And yeah, I, I just, I really enjoyed it. It was a really amazing What I'm hearing is every month you need to go away for a week to Bali. That's the message I'm getting. Anyway, guys, that is it from us. We will be back on Thursday with our Ask Uncut. If you have any amazing ask uncut questions any big deep juicy saucy ah sexy dilemmas we will answer them also just a little reminder it is the podcast awards coming up and we would love it if you love the podcast to go and jump into the show notes on today's episode there'll be a link there you can go and vote for life uncut in the listeners choice award and we're begging you

no we're not be cool play cool we are because we don't ever get nominated for anything yeah so you need to go hard that cuts so deep i know that we don't ever get a nomination in our category like we try so hard and we just never even get enough you gotta laugh right no because it doesn't matter it's you know what that's all the bureaucracy and the politics of the podcast is the listener's choice is the only award that fucking matters and that's why we're like guys if you love the pod go vote we would love you forever and also brit will give you a puppy i know you say that every year people know i don't give them puppies it's been four years you've said we give puppies out yeah and for the people who voted four times eventually they will receive

four puppies that's going to be a real handful nothing worse than no one's getting the dog but also you can vote from multiple emails so if you have a university email if you have an old school hotmail have you voted yet laura yeah the more emails you vote from the more puppies you get anyway that is it from us guys yeah no but i will laura that vote could be the decider i'll vote now And from Tony May. Don't forget, tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends and share the love because we love them. If we lose by one vote, you're fired.

Who are you going to do this podcast with? Myself. Hey, guys, it's Britt. Just Britt. Keisha's just waiting in the wings. She's like, hello. Britt and Keisha. Okay, bye.

Bye, bye, bye. We'll be right back.