The Life Of Bryony - Can You Learn To Love Your Body? With Adele Roberts

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Welcome to the very first episode of Life of Bryony, the podcast where we dive headfirst into life’s messier bits and skip the shame. Today’s all about bodies—the bits we love, hate, and everything in between. GUEST: ADELE ROBERTS I'm joined by the incredible Adele Roberts, a woman who not only survived bowel cancer but ran a world record marathon with a stoma. She’s here to talk about body acceptance, breaking records, and how she came out the other side stronger (and faster!) than ever. 📚Adele’s Book is Called ‘Personal Best: From Rock Bottom to the Top of the World’ and is out now!  💸 Adele’s Just Giving Page - https://www.justgiving.com/page/adeleandaudreyruntheworldforcruk  GET IN TOUCH 🗣️If you want to get in touch I’m only a text or a voicenote away send your message to 07796657512 start your message with LOB 💬 Whatsapp Shortcut https://wa.me/00447796657512 📧You can email [e-mail]   FOR MORE INFORMATION AND SUPPORT It’s worth noting that we do discuss cancer and disordered eating on this podcast. For more info and support you can visit: https://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/about-bowel-cancer/ https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

so i just start again the whole thing i'm gonna just do the whole thing again sorry welcome to the very first episode of the life of briny a podcast where we embrace the messier parts of life with no shame and absolutely no filters. This week it's all about bodies of course. I'm joined by the incredible Adele Roberts. We chat about everything from bowel cancer to self-acceptance to the unbelievable determination and passion for running that led her to break world records as you do and once i started to change my mindset that's when it really was the catalyst to change my life trust me you do not want to miss this so this week i have obviously been launching this new podcast, obsessing over doing this intro.

But I've also been easing my daughter into her new life at secondary school. Also tried to write my next book. Like no pressure, Bryony. And I do this to myself every year. So I'm a freelancer. Probably some of you listening, quite a lot of you listening are freelancers. And when you go freelance, you're like, this is a way for me to take back control of my life. I'm going to be my own boss. Yeah. And I'm going to show you how to do work life balance. And then of course, you proceed to absolutely show people how not to do work-life balance like I have this friend who always says you know balance briny you swing past it when you're

going from one extreme to the other which is a lovely friendly thing to say but what she means is I'm kind of an all-or-nothing person and I'm guessing that if you are listening to this podcast and if you follow me on Instagram, if you've read any of my books, you are probably an all or nothing person too. And the freelance lifestyle, lifestyle, I'm making it sound like really bougie and it's just not, is that you're always working, right? This elusive work-life balance. I was like, this summer, I'm going to achieve it.

I'm going to take August off. Of course, that doesn't actually mean I'm going to take August off what it means is I'm going to go on quote-unquote holiday and continue to work while I'm on holiday I'm imagining this sort of like idyllic swallows and amazon style summer holiday like you know those books and those movies you used to read and watch when you're a kid like the coming of age ones where the girl goes away and her parents take this grand house in the hamptons or whatever for the summer like the summer i turn pretty and then something amazing happens like in my mind at 44 that's what i am going to like create like i probably need to get over this so I was

like right we're going to Greece we're going to Cornwall and we're going to have this amazing holiday and because I'm a freelance I can get all the work done before we go and then I can just put this boundary down and then I can return to my normal life in September I will have won at parenting I will have given my daughter these precious memories of this precious holiday with her mother. And of course, I did it really badly. So I was kind of like, oh, all the time on the beach, I was like, all the people I work with on my freelance contracts, they're going to just be thinking, who does she think she is taking August off? So I was sitting on the beach, having these imaginary conversations, where people were basically firing me from my freelance contracts, stressing myself

out, but not doing any actual work while I was doing it. And so that kind of backfired. And then of course, come back and come straight into 5000 emails, 25,000 words to write of the book. Do you know what I could have done? I could have said, I'm going to write a thousand words a day in August. I could have got up early, tap, tap, tap, written a thousand words before anyone else woke up. And that would have been balance. That would have been balance. And then gone to the beach and then got on with my day. But no, I just ignored it all, came back and spent the last two weeks basically in a state of total overwhelm work-life balance is not something I've ever managed to achieve yet and I'm now 44

I'm really interested if any of you have ever managed to achieve balance and if you have could you please like write down the neat equation to getting balance in your life and send it over you can do that by emailing me at life of briny at mail online.co.uk or you can whatsapp us on 07796 657 512 that's 07796 657 512 and what you need to do you'll get how this put lob lob lob me a message so start the message with lob and then it will get to me and share it with the rest of us because so far there is no balance i'm all or nothing we have a guest and my first guest is the amazing adele roberts who i first met back in 2017 when i was running my first london marathon in 2017 for heads together which was the mental health campaign launched by william and katherine and harry and adele was also running it. And we met and we really got on.

She has been on the most incredible journey in the years since. We're talking bodies, breaking records, and Adele's incredible journey of resilience after her bowel cancer diagnosis. A gentle warning. In this episode, we obviously talk about cancer, but also disordered eating. If you'd like more information and support on these topics there are some great links in the show notes but for now enjoy the chat with adele thank you for being my first guest on life of briarney great name by the way who thought

of that um maybe it was me i mean i didn't come up with the name brianine my mom and dad did so i wanted to do a podcast that's all about like the things that i think about but i don't often hear spoken about yeah and i wanted to talk this week about bodies sounds good like not where i've buried them or anything like that but we've all got them and yet i feel we all have very complicated relationships with them I myself have uh accidentally become a bit of a body positivity body acceptance body confidence whatever you want to call it campaigner because I ran the London marathon in 2018 in my pants I remember I really enjoyed it but also we a couple of weeks the two of us, along with Lorraine Kelly and Ellie Simmons, we stood in the shop window of John Lewis

on Oxford Street. I was just in my pants and bra. I wasn't in much more. You weren't in much more. But for me, an outfit that I would never have worn back in the day. So that's why I'm so glad that you're talking about bodies and our complicated relationship with them. Because like you say, say we all have them we all have the privilege of living in

them and yet we don't always appreciate them but actually more often than not we hate on our bodies yeah i feel like i wanted you on because you have arisen to the challenges that your body have given you over the years and we'll get to more of that but what was so moving standing in that shop window was you weren't wearing much more than bra of that but what was so moving standing in that shop window was you weren't wearing much more than bra and pants but what was really visible was your stoma Audrey yeah so when did you get a stoma and can you talk can you explain to listeners what a stoma is yeah absolutely so um my stoma is I've been calling it a front bum recently it's the way that I go to the toilet it's the new improved way that I go to the toilet

so in 2021 I was diagnosed with bowel cancer I had a really big tumor in my large colon luckily the NHS could help me I was treated and they removed that tumor but removing it meant that I had a massive gap basically where in a part of my body where I'd need to go to the toilet right so while it was healing while they were fusing it back together, they gave me a little diversion, got my small intestine and poked it out the front of my stomach. And that is what a stoma is. So stoma is Greek for mouth. And it's any opening on the body that has been made by surgery. So lots of people have stomas, but my stoma is called an ileostomy because it's formed from my small intestine, which now sits outside my body about two inches, if it's behaving itself. And that's where all the output of my food and drink now goes rather than me going to the toilet.

Very early on, you gave your stoma a name. And I feel like, I mean, I'm like Adele's here, but Audrey is also here. Absolutely. Can you talk me through why you called the stoma Audrey yeah so uh my stoma happened very quickly so I didn't know if I was going to get a stoma as a result of surgery because they didn't know how big the tumor was so it was a little surprise they said it could happen but I wasn't sure so when I woke up from the surgery looked under the covers and saw that I had a stoma um what so like they didn't tell you no I didn't know I was like surprise yes totally like but did they do like a bit like a like an unveiling like it's like you know like gender reveal things like

will there be a stoma here or not seriously they didn't say to you oh by the way Adele when you lift up your covers you will see that you've got a stoma no no they were just like let let you get on with finding out um so it was weird as well because it was during Covid so I never actually properly saw anybody's face so I'd only ever see people's eyes lots of kind eyes and because everyone was wearing masks yes that's right right but when I woke up I was alone and so first of all I was like thank I'm alive. And I made it through surgery, pulled back my covers, saw that I had a stoma. How did you feel at that moment? Grateful. Really?

And I know, yeah, I know that might be really surprising. But getting told you've got cancer, I thought it was over for me. So when I was diagnosed, there was this really sort of like strange second where I felt like I had no life. And then the doctor said he could help me and it felt like I got my life back. And it was a massive defining moment in my life. And I just felt everything had gone and then everything had returned. And even though I didn't know when I went into that room that I was going to be told that, coming out of the room, I was transformed forever. In a lot of ways, it was scary, but also, in that moment, I was so grateful, Bryony, for a second chance at life, and that's how it felt to me. So, when I got my stoma, I was just like, this is the new me, the improved me, and what's

really strange is when I eventually was able to be well enough to go to the toilet to go and see the stoma, see myself stood up, it felt like I was finally complete and it was me. And I finally liked what my body looked like. Really? Really. Because I'd struggled so much when I was younger with body image. Let's talk about this because I first met you in 2017, I think. And we were both running the London Marathon for Heads Together. Yeah.

And I always remember thinking you were lovely, but quite quiet. And then I remember asking you to take, I did this 10 10Ks in 10 days thing in 2022. So it's just after you got diagnosed. And I asked you to come and run a 10K with me. And I remember we were out there. We ran from like uh hamstead heath down to regents park didn't we and i remember around primrose hill i remember you saying to me that you would never have had the guts to say yes to doing something like this or

to even talk to me properly and that you were really shy and that basically cancer had changed your whole life and your whole outlook about your body and about stuff and I had no idea that there was this kind of whole world before Adele Roberts Radio 1 DJ successful where you know there's a quote in your book where you said you spent your like early years feeling like a toad absolutely yeah feeling grotesque and I think looking back inside and outside I just felt like I never fit in I felt like yeah I didn't deserve good things and like you say I was just incredibly shy and that might seem strange to people because people might have seen me on Big Brother or they might have seen me on the radio so you were on Big Brother when you were 23 yeah but did you feel like a toad when you went on Big Brother or they might have seen me on the radio. So you were on Big Brother when you were 23? Yeah. But did you feel like a toad when you went on Big Brother? Yes. I'd gone on to Big

Brother to hide in plain sight and I didn't realise how much I self-harmed within, how much I talked down to myself and hurt myself within and had negative thoughts. On the outside it looked like I was successful so it looked like I was working my way through radio and going from local radio to the regional to national radio eventually being on radio one but it seemed like the more success I got the more I didn't like myself or love myself or rate myself or look after myself you said self-harming from within so obviously talking down to yourself but what were the other ways in which you self-harmed was that food or absolutely food yeah so I was a lot bigger I think by the time I met you in 2017 I'd started to change my relationship with food and lifestyle

and start to look after myself most of my adult life I've been quite overweight and I think that I could never deal with my feelings I used to ignore how I felt inside and I used to comfort myself with food also when I was younger we didn't really have much and I don't think there must have been much food around so I think it was like for the first time I can afford food so I think I'd almost over indulge on that as well well like but it is true that our brains if we are in starvation mode or if we don't get enough as soon as we're able to we want to eat so you grew up in Southport yeah gay in the 80s yeah you see this is it i didn't know i was gay i didn't work out as gay till i was about 15 but i knew how people would speak about gay people yeah i knew how in the 90s a lot of health conditions were attributed to gay

people i knew all the derogatory language i knew that people that were gay and on tv would often be ridiculed and then they would die of AIDS yeah I mean that was that was the misnomer that was the solo storyline that gay people got in the 80s and 90s right absolutely so not not particularly like cheery or and if you're a gay woman you're in a prison and you probably had a fight with someone you know so the representation just wasn't there no a lot of things that happened to me when I was younger um and so I kind of wasn't the best at coping with emotions because I think you know where I grew up up north you just get on with it you don't talk about it and so yeah as I

got older I just used to bury my feelings and I think that that manifested in terms of me not looking after myself not dressing well not doing my hair properly overeating and just feeling very quite sad inside I think the thing we don't talk about now is sort of how we can treat food like a drug yeah it was my drug I've had periods of binge eating disorder and it's such an effective way to numb yourself yeah and we in a way we have quite a lot of empathy for people and i know this myself as a woman in recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction we have quite a lot of i mean still there's a lot of way to go in terms of understanding of alcoholism and addiction but we kind of like we still can't understand food as a sort of an addiction and a way and we still really shame people who

use food as a way to numb themselves yeah and and I think for me it was uh maybe a little bit of a control thing because I couldn't control a lot of the things that happened in my life or that happened to me but I think with food I felt like that's my thing and that's my thing that makes me feel good and so I think I just like you say used it as a drug it used to sort of take me away from having to deal with reality so food was something that you could control it was it was it was like your own private little yeah world yeah the moment I got a job I knew that I could afford my own food I was like get in honestly yeah because it was one of the things that I felt confident about I wasn't confident about clothes I wasn't confident about my body and I think looking back now this stems uh down to the way that um my mum was treated uh I thought my mum was the most beautiful gorgeous woman I'd

ever seen she gave me five brothers and sisters so she had six kids she had this most beautiful gorgeous big body and the way people would speak about her body sorry I don't want to get upset it's just because um it was a birthday yesterday and I miss her but um she because she passed away earlier this year I'm so sorry thank you um she had this to me she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I loved her but the way people would speak about her body her skin color her stretch marks um it it hurt you know it hurt a lot and I think that that made me not appreciate my own body I think that I made my body look like my mom my mom's body because I loved her so much and and I think looking back my mom coped with her tough life with food I think that was one of the things she could control um she had me really young as well she had me when she was 16 she lost her parents when she was 13

so I think that food was one of the things she could use to help herself and make herself happy and um yeah I think I just sort of like copied her behavior but didn't realize it was wrong and it wasn't until I met Kateate that i realized that i wasn't really coping i was ignoring things burying things and not dealing with things properly but i think yeah a lot of my body image issues come from me thinking my mom was so beautiful yeah society rejecting her so you see you say that food like this is so i'm gonna hold your thank you i hope you don't mind yeah for anyone listening and not watching i'm holding adele's hand and um uh the thing you say about how food is like the wrong way to cope with things but i think it's like we we just don't

have this conversation enough and it's a it's the way lots of people cope with things you know and i think that word wrong is like it's not wrong it's just how it is and i think it's really important that we have these conversations because like we know that a lot of food companies purposely design food so that it is addictive or it's you know comforting and it's so i think there's a kind of like we shame ourselves and then you always get people who are like well i just eat health you know happy healthy you know have you tried losing weight with willpower and i'm like oh fuck off do you know what i mean and then for a lot of people also like they don't understand that food is not about like for me my relationship with food isn't about my weight it's about like it's about the numbing and the yeah you know it's like i want to have a relationship with food that is about nourishing

myself and not punishing myself does that make sense absolutely and it isn't about a number on scales you know totally because i think everyone's healthy looks completely different that was why standing in that shop window was really powerful because it was like i wanted to say as a size 18 to 20 like this is my body you know like and i have every right to stand in this shop window whatever size i am yeah like if i lost five stone if i gained five stone i'm a human fucking being you know like let's see each other for who we are yes there was a moment we were standing in that shop window and you could see audrey and these two women i don't know if you remember this i'm pretty sure yeah these two women stood there and they were kind of like i was watching them they were like women of a certain

age sort of in their 60s and they were like flabbergasted and quite emotional because clearly one of them had a stoma do you reckon I think that was it they hadn't seen I think they just hadn't seen somebody had they they'd never seen someone publicly showing their stoma yeah and and I think they even waved at Audrey they waved at me I mean that was totally what I read from the situation that they were really moved by seeing you standing there so proudly with Audrey on show I just knew how important it was for that visibility and to show that there's nothing to be ashamed of I'd made that mistake in the past I'd been ashamed of a

lot of things in the past and not wanted to openly be gay or be proud of my heritage or be proud of my body so I thought you're not doing that anymore you know going forward you can actually help people and you can help change people's minds because I think a lot of the time it's just normalizing things but also like just listening to you I'm thinking that there are so many you know the kind of racism homophobia all that stuff that you know you've had to really fight quite hard to accept yourself on your like for who you are yeah so you heard people commenting negatively about your mother's body yeah which you thought was beautiful yeah absolutely and my mum would always give everything to her children instead of looking after herself so I think I saw looking after yourself as being selfish instead of self-care right so there's a lot of messaging that I got

wrong and when I met my partner Kate she helped me to start to change my mindset and Kate's here yeah yeah it's all right can we can I ask how long have you two been together is it nearly 21 years now 21 years my god How did you meet? Kate came to my radio station. I'd been out in Blackpool the night before and seen a girl DJing and I was like, wow, that's what I'm going to do with my life. So we had a mutual friend that introduced us because Kate wanted to be a DJ. Right. And then she came to my radio station.

I remember thinking, oh, she's beautiful, but I just didn't know that she was gay. She comes into my studio and she casually mentioned that she was going on a date with a girl and um I just chased it out I thought right go on the date and then I'll see if like you'll consider going on a date with me it took me a while actually Bryony she didn't want it for a long time I wanted it I was just pretending I didn't want it I wasn't going on a date as well that was my little code so that was your code to say I'm a lesbian as well yeah yeah this is pre-social media it was all very clandestine like lesbian visibility is still quite low isn't it yeah it is yeah like you were talking about your friends the queen lesbians oh Linda Riley the head lesbian of the world and you were like there's so few public lesbians that you know like we have

to make the head lesbian of the world yeah deputy head lesbian of the world there's a whole system i think you two are high up there oh thank you well we're trying our best because um jane hill actually jane hill news because i always say people's social media handles jane hill news yeah she's the news presenter on the bb Yeah. And she pointed it out to me. She said, when you look around, you'll realise there's not many gay women in terms of like media.

And then when I did, I was like, oh yeah. There's just you and Jane Hill News. Well, no, to me, there's the Balding, Claire Balding. Yeah. You're just going to list famous lesbians now.

No, that's it though. Claire and Sandy, isn't it? In this country. Yeah. Yeah. Can you think of any more that aren't sporty see perkins oh yeah let's see let's have a go let's see how many try and name five go and you're you work in media go uh okay sue perkins don't out anyone it's not out how odd i mean like one i don't know about you it felt

like a really magic moment in terms of like the conversation as well about mental health because you had william catherine harry i just remember the feeling like this real magic and what was so magic about it was that there was this it was like the first time I saw people come together to do exercise for the way it made them feel yes rather than the way it made them look absolutely we were talking about moving for our mental health rather than to make ourselves look smaller it was not about making ourselves smaller it was about making our lives bigger absolutely I think that's when I really understood the power of looking after your mental health yeah that campaign helped me even though I was part of it I learned a lot from

it yeah me too speaking to people like you too and I realized how much my mental health had not really been looking after that enough and once I started to change my mindset that's when it really was the catalyst to change my life yeah I mean it changed my I got sober that's pretty good how amazing is that that's that's huge though but then the work doesn't finish there does it so then you get diagnosed in 2021 with cancer with bowel cancer I always remember on that run we did together and yeah and you said like it had improved your life yeah and I was thinking wow that's amazing we started talking about gabalmarte and stress in the body and stuff and I just was really blown away by you saying that and then since in your

book you talk about this quite a lot how again that was another moment that changed your life and not for the worse. Yeah. And I really want to spread that message that sometimes what might feel like the worst thing that's ever happened to you in your life could be in a way, the way you respond to it, the best thing that's ever happened to you. I would never wish cancer on anyone. I also wish it hadn't happened to Kate. It hadn't happened to my family. I wish I never had to say those words. I have cancer to them. happen to Kate it hadn't happened to my family I wish I never had to say those words I have cancer to them but I know it's made me a better person and I am grateful for this journey that I'm on and I'm even more grateful for my stoma because I think it almost was the cherry on the cake to fix the way that I look at my body really yeah so you saw Audrey and you suddenly were like oh my god look what my body does I can mean I can literally see what my body

is doing for me yeah almost like my insides had to come to my outsides for me to appreciate this beautiful machine that I've been given you know yeah it works how lucky am I to have a body that works but I always remember you turning up for that run that 10k and you were like in chemo yeah yeah and I remember you came and Kate you were there you met you were like in chemo yeah i was on chemo yeah yeah and i remember you came and kate you were there you met you were at the beginning and then you met us at the end and you were like your feet yeah or the bottom of my feet so the chemotherapy damaged the bottom of my feet yeah my foot would bleed yes i mean you still turned up and did that 10k with me yeah and were a bit like you were a bit slow briny she didn't say that she

didn't say that but given that then a year later you ran the london marathon and got a guinness world record for the fastest time a woman running with an ileostomy yeah it was what three hours 30 minutes and 22 seconds let's go back to 15 year old adele in southport who felt wrong you know to say oh by the way just fyi when you're 42 when you're 42 you're gonna get a guinness world record for running a marathon really fucking quickly like i just i feel like that, you'd be like, no, I think you've got the wrong Adele. Absolutely. You saying that, it's just giving me goosebumps.

There is no way that I would ever believe that was possible. I wouldn't think that was in me. Now, can we just talk about what you're about to do? Yeah, if all goes to plan. Which it will. I'm hoping to continue my recovery from chemo and cancer uh keep representing ostomates and have the privilege of taking on the six major marathons around the world okay so those are berlin berlin september chicago october new york november then i get a little

break oh that's nice i'll come and see you we'll go and do something nice at christmas yeah yeah yeah maybe we'll run a marathon somewhere let's just do a half okay yeah sorry so then and then in the new year tokyo tokyo boston and then london and boston and london are in the same week what yeah bloody hell can i tell you i ran a half marathon on Saturday. And do you know how long it took me? How long? The time it took you to run a whole marathon. No, it didn't, Bryony. With a stoma. And I had no stoma. A half marathon's a half marathon.

So it doesn't matter how long it takes you. You've done it. Adele, just take the compliment. You're a legend. So hang on. So that's six marathons in... Eight months. In eight months.

And is there a set time that you want to do them in yeah i want to try and break the guinness world record all right okay so i'll try and do them fast and then hopefully if i complete them all i think i might be the first woman with an ileostomy to do it but also aggregately the fastest as well wow what's it like to be able to run that quickly that's just the question with or without a stoma i think there's no easy marathons you'll know this i don't think it's ever easy for anybody it is difficult the point that's the point of doing a marathon but i think you know i think lots of people associate so i think this is the other thing that you're one of, you know, an amazing kind of set of cancer campaigners who are changing the landscape whereby, you know, we always used to think of people dying with cancer.

And actually what you're doing is showing us what it's like to live with cancer. And that's really powerful because 50% of us I think there's like one in two of us will get cancer at some point in our lives and you know and it's amazing to see someone so soon during their recovery from bowel cancer taking on physical feats like this it's really inspiring and then when you add in everything else that happened pre your diagnosis, it's kind of magic. But it's what you did for me with body image. You know, it's you need to see these things that aren't coupled with being healthy, you know, and having cancer, it's not considered anything to do with the health industry. But what if running or walking or moving your body

helps you get better? Because to me, running is my medicine, both mentally and physically. It's helped me recover from cancer. It's helped me reclaim my body from cancer. And it keeps me looking forward and positive. Because like you say, it's a choice for me. I have to choose to be happy. I have to work at it every day. Because otherwise, I'm going to go back to the older doll that wasn't happy.

She's still in there. Oh, yeah. You know, and I don't think she'll ever go away so it is always just having those things built into my routine now that help me stay healthy and focused isn't part of health and I think as I get older is accepting all of those bits of me some of which aren't very healthy but instead of like trying to push them away or wish them away and go I wish that side of me didn't exist it's accepting that they do yes and kind of going with it yeah and I think sometimes if you have unhelpful habits where did that come from you know and just looking at the root of the

problem rather than like you say covering up the symptom or the way that it manifests itself because we shouldn't feel ashamed about just trying to cope in life you know life is the marathon isn't it that's the hardest one it is that's the one are you raising money for a charity yes i'm going to be raising money for cancer research uk and if people want to sponsor you for your amazing challenge adele and audrey run the world We're going to put the details in the show notes. And if you want to read more or hear more of Adele's story,

her amazing book, Personal Best, from rock bottom to the top of the world, is out now. Thank you, Adele. Thank you. Thank you so much to Adele Roberts and Kate Holderness for being my very first guests on

the life of briarney please don't forget to subscribe and this podcast is brand new so i'd really appreciate it if you could rate and review it on your podcast app because it really helps me thank you each week i'm also gonna give you a recommendation i say it's a recommendation but it's basically something i've been loving in the last week and the thing i've been loving not just in the last week but for like the last three or four months my love for this thing is so intense and passionate that i'm going to be devastated when i get to the end of it and that is grey's anatomy i'm afraid i am the last person on the planet to have started Grey's Anatomy. I'm now started in May. So we're September. I'm 10 seasons in. So I'm doing really well. There's

another 10 to go. No spoilers, guys. No spoilers. I'm back on Friday with a bonus edition to answer your emails. You can of course get in touch with me. I'm just a voice note, text or email away. All the contact details are in the show notes. See you Friday.