Ep 28: Twelve weeks at a time: cancer, champagne and showing up anyway with Toni Mackay

"I carry the weight of it… and it’s heavy."

In this deeply personal and quietly powerful conversation, Toni Mackay shares what it’s like to live life in 12-week cycles — the rhythm of CT scans and waiting for results that come with stage four bowel cancer. But this is more than a story about illness. It’s about self-worth, independence, boundaries, love, and what it really means to carry the weight of it and still choose joy.

Toni and I go way back — to teenage years in country Victoria — and this episode tracks not just her health journey, but the arc of self-discovery that came with it. From learning to let others in (just a little) to discovering how to live more

We Cover

• Facing your own mortality — and still making room for French champagne

• Why Toni chooses to attend appointments solo

• Boundaries, busyness, and the unlearning that comes with hard-earned wisdom

• Letting go of the need to fix others (even when it’s part of your job)

• The difference between validation from others and validating yourself

This is for you if…

Whether you’ve lived through something similar, or you’re just trying to work out how to live a little more intentionally, Toni’s story will move you — and probably stay with you.