Tara Hanley was used to being the nurse — not the patient.

In this episode, Tara joins Barbara to share her journey from a persistent tongue ulcer and repeated biopsies to eventually hearing the words: “It’s cancer.”

As a public health nurse and mum of two young children, Tara talks candidly about trying to stay positive for everyone around her while privately confronting her own fears. She shares how she prepared her children for surgery, why she recorded herself reading their favourite stories before treatment, and what it was like returning to work and everyday life afterwards.

They also explore the parts of recovery that others don’t always see: scanxiety, lymphoedema, changes to eating and speech, survivor guilt, and the strange experience of everyone else moving on while you’re only beginning to process what happened.

Warm, funny and deeply relatable, this is a conversation about becoming the patient, finding your new normal and recognising that you don’t have to have had the “worst” cancer experience for it to have changed your life.

If you’ve been diagnosed with tongue cancer (or are supporting someone who has), you can find help here:

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