Ocean Grove’s Nicole Trimboli, 51, has survived cancer twice and now lives with an ostomy bag. Jena Carr speaks with Nicole ahead of the launch of her first book which details her health journey.
Surviving cancer once is an incredible feat for anyone, but for Ocean Grove’s Nicole Trimboli, cancer was just the beginning of her health journey.
It was 2006, and just over five months since Nicole had her second child, when she received the news that no one wants to hear.
“I had some neck and back pain in my shoulders, and my doctor said to me that perhaps maybe I needed to go and see a physio… but I didn’t really get any relief from that,” she said.
“I remember going to a work Christmas party (in 2005) and having to leave early because I had so much pain in my neck and my shoulder that we left and went home.
“Then the night sweats started to happen, where I was waking up wet, and I was like, ‘no, this is not right’, but I pushed through it, as I used to do, and went on holiday my family.
“I was standing out the front of a cabin at a caravan park, and I put my hand on my neck, and discovered that I had a big lump in the ditch of my collarbone about the size of an egg.
“That’s when I started to really freak out as I knew that something was really wrong… and it was probably February (2006) before I was actually diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma (an immune system cancer).”
After learning to cope with her initial cancer diagnosis, it was 15 years later in 2021 when Nicole received further devastating news that she had bowel cancer, which led to her bowel being removed.
“It was quite frightening because I only had a little pain in the left-hand side of my stomach… but after having a colonoscopy, a surgeon told me I had bowel cancer,” she said.
“He said that if I had waited any longer, he reckons that in probably another three days, I would have been completely blocked and I would have come into hospital as an emergency case.
“I just thought, ‘oh, here we go again’, as to be told that you have cancer a second time is pretty tough, and I was given options for how to go forward because doctors found the cancer in two places.
“My doctor said to me, ‘look, I can cut it out (the parts of her bowel with cancer) and rejoin the sections, but I’ll probably see you in four to five years’, and he said the prognosis then may not be as good.
“Or, he said that we could take the whole bowel out, which would mean I could live my life with an ostomy bag, so I said, ‘take it out’.”
Nicole then had to learn how to live with a stoma (surgically created opening on the abdomen to allow for waste to exit the body) and ostomy bag (disposable bag attached to the stoma).
“It wasn’t even a decision really for me, whereas a lot of people may not have wanted to have the bag, but I’m all about getting the bag out because I think awareness is a good thing,” she said.
“The first 12 months with a stoma and ostomy bag are really tough, and I liken it to bringing a new baby home, as you have to learn how to live with it.
“People do stare, but I think the worst thing is that people look at you with pity, but I don’t look at it that way as I look at it as what is keeping me alive, so I’m proud of it.
“You will get through it; you can get back into life because it’s not about what you can’t do, it’s about what you can do… and you’ve got to be body positive, so I get out there on the beach with my bikini on and I don’t worry about it.”
The now 51-year-old has had to make a lot of changes to her life following her two cancer diagnoses, and her main focus has been on healing.
“I’ve just had my six-monthly blood test…and I’m all clear, so I’ve got another six months,” she said.
“I live in six-to-12-month blocks in between the blood tests, and you just live the best life you possibly can until it’s time to go through that again.
“I’ve done a lot of inner work on myself and a lot of it’s been done at Ocean Grove in the last few years and I’m so in love with this town because it has healed me in so many ways.
“I had to completely remove myself from everything to be able to work through the healing process, and it was walking my two dogs on the beach every morning that got me to the answers I needed.”
Nicole’s book ‘What A Sh!t Show!’, which shares her journey through cancer and her experience living with an ostomy bag, will be released on October 6, ahead of a book launch at Ocean Grove Surf Life Saving Club on October 11.
“The purpose for writing the book was to show that no matter what you’ve been through, whether it be illness or anything, you can come out the other side,” she said.
“I have had the idea for a book in my head since I got sick the second time, but I’m glad that I wrote it when I did, which I started writing in February and finished last month.
“I think it would have been a very different book had I written it straight out of surgery, and the focus probably would have been more on the illness and not on the healing.
“Now that I’m holding the book in my hand, it’s amazing and I hope it helps a lot of other people… and I believe the book will be just the beginning of something amazing.”
Visit eventbrite.com.au/e/what-a-sht-show-ocean-grove-book-launch-tickets-1646311083769 for free tickets to the book launch.
