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Labour MP Kiritapu Allan Returns to Parliament Three Months after Cancer Diagnosis
Labour’s Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has returned to work at Parliament, three months after a cervical cancer diagnosis.
[…] “I want to acknowledge in particular the overwhelming amount of support that I’ve received in my time off. I was brought to tears frequently by the love, care and compassion from people of all walks of life – that was something I hadn’t expected.
“Too, I want to acknowledge just how cancer and terminal illness, it impacts every single one of us … we all know somebody that has been impacted by these taumaha illnesses that sit within our lives. So that has meant for me personally it really was a wake-up call, a real reordering of priorities.”
[…] Allan said she will have check-ups every six months.
“The body is feeling a lot better today than it did prior to taking leave and that’s something that I’ve really welcomed. I didn’t know I was living with that much pain until it was gone.”
Allan had this advice: “First is, and this is a message to myself and to all of us. If something doesn’t feel right, please go and take the time out even if it feels a little selfish to cut away … get the checks that you need. In my case it was getting a smear test and that was something that I was afraid to do.”
[…] “A diagnosis like this, you’re confronted by your mortality… Any of us may be hit by a bus tomorrow, but we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what the impact of that might be, on our friends, on our family.
“Particularly for me I’ve always lived a ‘go hard or go home’ type ethos in that approach … to work. This has been an enforced time to sit in quiet.
“I think I’ve come back with a renewed sense of what it is that I want to do whilst I’m here and whilst I have the privilege of being here, however long that may be.”
NZ Herald
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