Rosie Skene:

Hello and welcome to episode 35 of Triumph Beyond Trauma. I'm so grateful to have you
here with me today. As we approach the holiday season, it is a great time to
reflect on how far you've come this year and to set yourself up for a stronger,
more empowered future. Imagine stepping into the weeks and year ahead, feeling
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That's exactly what the First Responder Mental Wellness Method
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Participants are experiencing incredible changes, not just in
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discussions with their treatment teams about reducing medications, which is
just extraordinary. If you're ready to prioritize your wellbeing during this
busy time, visit tacticalyogaaustralia.Com and take that first step today.

Now onto today's episode, I am so excited to share this
conversation with an incredible woman, my very good friend, Cheryl Leung,
better known as Cheungy. If you're looking for inspiration, resilience, and a
journey that will move you, then you are in the right place, my friends.

Cheungy and I first crossed paths in 2015 on our weapons
instructor's course, and we connected instantly. We were both just a couple of
down to earth, hard working chicks there to train, have some fun, and maybe
stir up a bit of mischief. After hours nerf force? Check. Throwing each other
around the mat room?

Definitely. Many, many Peronis? Absolutely. Those memories are
still some of my favourites and they cemented a friendship that has lasted to
this day. I've always believed that the right people come into your life when
you need them most and Cheungy has been one of those people for me. Her
strength, humour, and light have been such a gift, and I am so honoured to share
her journey with you today.

That said, this is going to be more than just a light-hearted
chat between two old friends. We are laughing and crying together, we swear a
little bit, and we dive into some deeply emotional topics, including suicidal
ideation, PTSD, grief, and loss. Please take this as a content warning. If
today's not the day for you to listen to this episode, please come back to it
at another time when you feel comfortable to do so.

Finally, I want to thank Cheryl for being so open and honest,
for sharing her incredible journey and for talking about her partner, Tony
McCann and their life together. This conversation is an absolute gift and I
truly hope it reaches someone who needs it today.

Welcome to Triumph Beyond Trauma, the podcast that explores journeys of resilience and hope. I'm
Rosie Skene a yoga and breathwork teacher and founder of Tactical Yoga
Australia. As a former soldier's wife, mum to three beautiful kids and a
medically retired NSW police officer with PTSD, I understand the challenges of
navigating mental health in the first responder and veteran community.

Join us for incredible stories from individuals who've
confronted the depths of mental illness and discovered their path to happiness
and purpose, as well as solo episodes and expert discussions. Together, we'll
uncover the tools to help you navigate your journey toward a brighter, more
fulfilling life.

Whether you're looking for helpful insights, practical tips, or
just a friendly reminder that you're not alone. Triumph Beyond Trauma has got
your back. You matter and your journey to a happier, more meaningful life
starts right here.

Cheryl, welcome to
Triumph Beyond Trauma. It is, I always say it's a pleasure to have my guests,
but it's such a pleasure to have you because you're one of my most favorite
people in the whole wide world.

You always make me laugh and smile and I. Can't wait to have
this chat with you today.

Cheryl Leung:

Thanks,
Rosie. Thanks so much for having me today. It's been a, it's been a minute
since we've seen each other. And has.

Rosie Skene:

So we
usually just start at the start. Let's start with where you were born and where
you grew up and like your whole family life as a kid.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
sure. So, um, I was born in Melbourne and I moved to Central West New South
Wales when I was a wee thing. I was about 18 months old. And I grew up in a
really small farming community. I loved my childhood and I wouldn't have
changed it for the world. I I moved to Sydney when I was 18 and then I worked
in hospitality in different, you know, hotels and establishments around the
city.

Spent some time in Queensland on an island before I came back
to Sydney and I eventually joined the police in 2009. I was sent straight to
Mount Druitt where I spent 10 years in GDs. And for anyone who doesn't know,
Mount Druitt's like a, it's in Western Sydney, and it is low socio economic,
low education, high unemployment, and largely housing commission.

It was a pretty tough area to police. It's like the

Rosie Skene:

It's
like the perfect conditions for crime, right? Like, perfect. They tick all the
boxes.

Cheryl Leung:

Exactly. If there was a
checklist, they'd all be ticked. Yeah. The crime rate was really high, but it
was a great learning station and I, I loved my time there. I had, I had a lot
of fun.

Like, the best team, we had so much fun, and the camaraderie
throughout the whole station as a whole was second to none. It's also where I
met my partner, Tony, and he's, like, really intertwined into this journey. And
I think, Rosie, I met you in about 2015 ish, is that right? Yeah, nearly 10
years

Rosie Skene:

ago, I
can't believe it.

Cheryl Leung:

I know.
We were such babies then.

Rosie Skene:

I know.

Cheryl Leung:

We
spent nine serious weeks together down at Goulburn on the OSI course. I think
just some of the best

Rosie Skene:

days. So
good. I love, I actually really love thinking about those, that course. It was
a lot of fun.

Do you want to go back a bit? I want to ask, why did you join
the COPS?

Cheryl Leung:

Don't
ask me that because I joined as a joke.

Rosie Skene:

Oh, did
you? Yes. Well, this is great. Let's hear it. Really? Yeah, I want to know.

Cheryl Leung:

Right.
So, I, I ended up joining the police because, um, my partner at the time, he
was in the police and he kept saying to me, oh, you know, you'd be, you'd be
really good in the Cops, blah, blah, blah.

And I was still working in hospitality and one night I had the
most terrible night of my life. Like people were just abusing me. It was a
Friday night. And I went home and I cracked it. And I went on to the next day.
The police website and got them to send me an application form, and so I filled
it in and thinking, I'm never going to get in, and then they invited me to
their psychometric testing and PT testing, and so I went and I still thought,
I'm never going to get in.

And then the next thing it was. Come on down to Goulburn. And
then next day, next day I was down at Goulburn, you know, becoming a police
officer.

Rosie Skene:

Isn't it
funny like going from hospitality where you're like, people are the worst, like
I'm going to do a job that, like policing, because that'll be so much
different.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
yeah, because I don't have to deal with Anybody I'm not gonna like.

Rosie Skene:

Ever.
Oh, that's so funny. Oh, alright, let's go back.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Rosie Skene:

Let's go
back to your early days in Mount Druitt. Like, where were you living in Sydney
before? You joined the Cops. Were you living in that area, like around there in
the West, or?

Cheryl Leung:

No, I
was living, um, sort of South West Sydney, so maybe about, I lived probably
about 20 minutes away from Mount Druitt. Half hour. And I was living with my ex
at the time. Um, yeah.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
How was Mount, how, like, how was the crew at Mount Druitt? Because sometimes
in those real busy stations the crew can be good.

Because you're so busy and everyone's got to support each
other, and sometimes they're not. How was it for you?

Cheryl Leung:

We had,
like, my team, my actual team was fantastic. We used to have the best team.
Everybody wanted to be on it. We used to have team nights all the time, and
just as a whole, the station was fantastic.

Like, I don't really think there was a lot of dramas in the
beginning, and you know, everyone just knuckled down and did what they had to
do. That's

Rosie Skene:

good.
Yeah, we also

Cheryl Leung:

had a
really great commander when I first started. So that made a big difference.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,
for sure. So things changed then? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they

Cheryl Leung:

did.

Yeah.

Rosie Skene:

So what
happened?

Cheryl Leung:

Hang
on, what happened? Yeah, like in the station,

Rosie Skene:

let's
talk about the station first.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
okay, cool. Um, after our first commander, or the first commander that was
there when I started, we, there was a people who caused a few issues and made a
few complaints that upended the whole station and caused a lot of infighting,
um, and It was, it was almost like you had to pick a side.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

It was,
yeah.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

That

Rosie Skene:

sucks.

Cheryl Leung:

Hmm.
You know what that's

Rosie Skene:

like.
Yeah. Oh, okay. So, and how far into your career was that? Were you still
pretty junior?

Cheryl Leung:

I was
probably seven or eight years in at this stage.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,

right.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then how, what time, 'cause we went down to
do our OSI course together in 2015, like you said. So how long had you been in
when you did decided to do that?

Cheryl Leung:

Uh, I
had had applied I think in early 2014 to do it, and I don't know whether I
didn't get on the course in 2014 for some reason.

I can't remember why. Yeah. I think it was something to do with
staffing or I don't know whether it was staffing with, um, the weapons unit or
whether it was staffing at the station.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah. It
was pretty tricky to get in to those courses at the time. And I'm pretty sure
ours was the last one they ran for ages, wasn't it?

Because they did the, um, active armed offender training after
that. Yeah. Yeah. So what drew you to weapons training?

Cheryl Leung:

I, I
have a bit of a background in martial arts and I really, I really loved doing
like the deaf tax side of things. So I wanted to be part of that.

Rosie Skene:

I think
when you've got a background like that too, you just want to make sure other
people are doing it right as well, you know? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So.,
When did you get together with Tony? Don't ask that question. Oh, okay. Is that
a little bit

Sounds saucy.

Cheryl Leung:

We were
together when we did the OSI course, Rosie.

Rosie Skene:

Oh, were
you really? Such a cheeky girl.

. So you guys were together for a while then?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
we were together for about nine years.

Rosie Skene:

Wow. Oh,
I didn't know that. So let's talk about what happened in 2018 and, and what
happened with work and all the things that happened there and.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
sure. So I was, I was in GDs and so we did a roster that was four days on and
six days off.

And in my six days off. in June of 2018. I had five people in
my personal life pass away and that was from cancer, heart failure, and there
was a SIDS death. And for whatever reason, I just thought, oh, I'm just going
to go back to work because there's really not a lot I can do about this, right?
So I went to work and I, for that block, I was supervising and on one of the
night shifts I was 14, meaning I was the mobile supervisor out on the road and
I was in the car by myself.

And early in the shift, radio called a job for a 50 year old
male in cardiac arrest. And I didn't pay much attention to the address, I was
just really, like, focused on getting there, you know? And when I rolled up to
the house, I went, Oh, shit, it's this house. And the paramedics were already
there on scene.

And I ran into the house, and laid out on the floor was one of
our really well known drug dealers. And in that, in that split second, I
remember thinking to myself, why are we trying to save this bloke? Yeah. And I,
I, I said to the paramedics, like, what do you want me to do? And they said,
we're just, we, can you just do the next round of compressions?

And they were setting up the defib. And so they did all of
that. And for the next two minutes, I pumped that guy's chest like my life
depended on it. And I remember looking up and I saw his family standing there
watching and the paramedics, they did take him to hospital and he passed away.
And I remember walking out onto the veranda and saying to another constable, of
all the effin people I could have saved this week, it was this effin C.

Because in that moment, nothing aligned with my value or my
moral compass. Because in my mind, this guy had ruined so many lives. And yet
here I was trying to save him. And I call that my catalyst incident. And I
didn't realise at that, in that moment, how significant that two minutes of my
life was going to be.

And I didn't realise how significant the moral injury it was
going to be.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,
like, I can't even imagine that, like, as soon as you said that, like, the,
your moral compass is definitely going to be like, what do I do here? Because I
don't want to look after this person when I, especially when you've just lost
five, loved ones of yours.

Um, and you know that this person's just like not doing a great
thing with his life.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
not a great human.

Rosie Skene:

No. Not
a great human. You know, I've done a lot of deep work into people and, ,
everyone's life is important and all that sort of stuff, but, sometimes you're
allowed to think those things as well.

So, what happened from there? Did you just go back on shift?
Did you go home?

Cheryl Leung:

No, I
Well, that was the start of the shift. It was really, really quite early. And
so we just went about our business. We obviously, you know, did the usual stuff
for a deceased and. We just, I just wanted off to the next job like you
normally do in GDs.

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

Um, it
was probably a couple of months later, I think, I started having like
flashbacks and nightmares. I think that's how it starts for a lot of people,
right?

Rosie Skene:

Yeah. Of
that one particular, um, job or just other jobs that you'd been to as well?

Cheryl Leung:

Mainly
this one particular job. Yeah. And not long after that, like I, I would drive
to work and I would drive usually the same way and I would pull onto this
particular street.

As I pulled onto the street, I would start to cry, and I was so
mean to myself, like, I'd say, you know what, you can cry until we get to the
shops, you know, and That's all you're allowed. The shops were like, yeah, it's
like two or three Ks, you can cry for that two or three Ks. And I'd get to the
shops and I'd say, right, get it together, because you're going to work.

And I'd stop crying when I get to the shops. And I'd finish.
driving to work and I pull up in the car park and I take this big deep breath
in you know you

and I'd get out of the car and I'm wandering to the change
rooms and my locker was like right over the back in the very back corner and I
put my uniform on and I had this little this weird little ritual where I'd put
my uniform on and I'd close the door and I'd knock on it and I'd say like out
loud you know game on and Looking back on that now, that was me putting on my
mask and going from, you know, that girl crying in the car on the way to work
to being that professional police officer with no emotions and I'm untouchable.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,
yeah, I did that too. Like, I wasn't knocking on the door and yelling, but I,
um, I did like. I always thought, and I've talked about it before, putting on
my police shirt was like definitely game on and then taking it off again was me
just being Rosie again. And I did that for such a long time and I still don't
know why I stopped doing it.

I think when we moved to Walgett like it was pretty acceptable
that you're a police officer so you didn't have to get changed at the station
because you only lived about a minute and a half from there. Um, so that's
probably where that changed, but I think that's pretty powerful to do that. Do
you know why you started or it was just was something that you did?

Cheryl Leung:

It was
just something I did and I don't, I don't even know when it started to be
honest. Like it just was something that I, I would automatically do.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah. My
Psych talks a lot about armour on armour off and I think that's what it is, isn't
it? It's like putting on some sort of armour, like a little shield that protects
you from all this shit you're about to like see and have to deal with.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah, and I think, like you've spoken about it in a few of your episodes about how
you present really well.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

And I
think that is definitely part of it, putting on that mask and being able to
mimic and mask your emotions and other people's action. Yeah,

Rosie Skene:

yeah,
presenting really well sometimes to my own detriment, but I don't even believe
what's going on, I think.

Yeah. Um,

Cheryl Leung:

I'll
come, I'll come back to that later. Yeah, I think

Rosie Skene:

we will
later. Yeah, for sure. . So you said it was a few months until you sort of
twigged that things weren't going real well for you. , but it was subtle,
right?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
it was really subtle and I don't even think I realised what was happening at
the time.

Okay. I do remember thinking to myself, like, just get over it,
like, seriously, you need to move on, like, just suck it up. And, and, to be
honest with you, nobody knew what was going on, like, I never, I never let on
to Tony, I never let on to any of my friends that any of this was going on,
because I honestly thought, at the time, like, ugh, fuck it.

This is just a phase. I'll get over it.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
And also, we didn't, we didn't talk about it much then either. The literacy of
what No. Like, there's nothing there for us.

Cheryl Leung:

Oh, I
have learned so much in the last five years. It's phenomenal.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

And if
I knew then what I knew now, it'd be a different story.

Rosie Skene:

Wouldn't
it just be so much easier Right. To navigate if we had all the knowledge that
we do now.

Cheryl Leung:

Wishful
thinking.

Rosie Skene:

Hmm. And
so what happened? . How did, how did it come about for you?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
Uh, so, it was February of 2019. I went on leave and Tony and I went on this,
we went on this amazing road trip.

We went, you know, down the south coast of New South Wales, and
we just stopped off wherever we wanted. We were having, , pizza. And beers on
the beach watching the sunset and, , sand in our toes and the smell of the salt
air. It was fantastic. We went all the way down to Port Ferry in Victoria.

We did the Great Ocean Road. And for anyone who does the Great
Ocean Road, the Bay of Martyrs is by far my favourite place. But on the way
back, we were driving and we were coming up the Hume Highway and we got to
Pheasants Nest. And Tony looked at me and he goes, , do you feel relaxed? And
And I could feel the anxiety building in me and it was ridiculous because I
still had a week off work and I just looked at him and I said, no, not really.

And then we got home and we unpacked the car and stuff. And, ,
I sat on the floor in the loungeroom and I just started crying and I mean like
proper sobbing like I sounded like a whale and,

and Tony couldn't get anything out of me for ages. Like he, he
thought we were breaking up. He thought I was leaving. He thought I was mad at
the kids he, you know, and after, I don't know, hours of crying, all I could
say to him was, I'm so angry, I did CPR on that guy and looking back on it now,
I think there were two parts to it.

There was, you know, the anger and the shame that I had tried
to save this person who I had deemed a bit of a low life, but there was also a
real feeling of guilt. In his last moments, I couldn't show him any compassion
and I wasn't, I wasn't able to be empathetic with his family. When they were at
their lowest.

So Tony sent me to the
doctor the next day and that's when I went off work. I got referred to, you
know, a psychologist and a psychiatrist and a few months later my stepson moved
in with us full time. So I had this 15 year old boy now living in my house full
time and so I was trying to juggle this new diagnosis and having a teenage boy
in my face.

All day.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

And it
was rough. It was rough in the beginning. I um, I said and did some things that
I'm really not very proud of. And one, one day I just thought to myself like,
shit man, you're the adult here, like you've got to make the effort. So I sat
down with him one night at dinner and Tony was at work, so it was just me and
my stepson.

And I, I was just honest with him. I just said, you know, like,
this is what I'm going through. I'm really sorry I'm not used to having you in
the house. And, you know, I'm just really sorry for my behaviour. So, we now
have a really, really beautiful relationship and I'm really fortunate to have
him in my life.

Rosie Skene:

How did that conversation go from he, like, with him? Did he, as a 15 year old boy, I
have a 13, almost 14 year old boy, it's pretty understanding. So how did he go
with it at 15?

Cheryl Leung:

He was
really good about it.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

He's,
he's very emotionally mature in some way. Um, and he was really understanding
about it, and we, we actually, that night we had a really quite a deep
conversation about what we were both trying to deal with at the time.

Rosie Skene:

That's
beautiful.

So after that, that
conversation that you had with him, did that help you within the house then
and, and to do what you needed to do in relation to your PTSD?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
It made it, I think, because before we'd had that conversation, I hadn't really
spoken to him about what I was going through.

So he was, he was obviously adjusting to coming into our
household as well. So I think it just helped him understand Why I was maybe
being irrational sometimes and flying off the handle.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah

So you saw the GP and they wrote your certificate Did you go
back at all after that first certificate?

Cheryl Leung:

No, no,
I I genuinely thought for about the first Oh, maybe 18 months that I was going
back to work, I genuinely thought like, Oh, I just need to get some coping
mechanisms and I'm going to be okay.

And one day I woke up and went, Oh, fuck that. Like, no way.

Rosie Skene:

I know I
was in full denial, but mine didn't last very long. I went in to my first psych
appointment going, I'm never going back, I can't go back. And then after a
couple of weeks of seeing her, I was like, Hmm, maybe I could go back. And
she's like, What are you talking about?

I thought you weren't going back. I'm like, I just don't know.
And then like the next appointment, I was like, no, I'm definitely not going
back. And she's like, okay, are we clear now? I'm like, yeah, I've made the
decision. I can't go back. I'm done.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
Well, I, I walked into my psychiatrist's office and I just looked at him and I
said, well, I can't, I can't go back there.

I, I, I'm not going back. And he just looked at me and he was
just, he's this wee little man. Right. And he just said to me so softly, he was
like, Yeah, I know, but you had to come to that decision, right? And I was
like, this guy, like, this guy.

Rosie Skene:

Uh, so
funny, yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

Oh, you
knew this whole time? Why didn't you just say, like, God, make me wait 18
months to work this out?

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
So, yeah, you got your certificate, and then, um, how did you go with your
psychology stuff? Did you find a good psychologist straight away? Because it
can be tricky. It can

Cheryl Leung:

be
really tricky and so when I first went off I was really fortunate I found a
psychologist that I really clicked with and he has been, I have been seeing him
for the past five years and I will probably see him for the rest of my natural
life to be honest, poor bugger, but also during like this whole journey, there
have been other psychologists that have come with or because I've been on a
course or as part of a course.

I've seen other psychologists along with that as well.

Rosie Skene:

But
still got that main guy.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.

Rosie Skene:

So you,
, did some EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing.

So for people that don't
really, and I'm sure there's a lot of people that are listening that don't.
What is EMDR? What does that involve?

Cheryl Leung:

So
EMDR, you,

it's, it's to mimic, like, so you'll talk about your trauma.
And you'll get to a point and they might ask you, you know, like, where do you
feel it in your body? Like, what does it feel like? Like, you know, I feel it
in my chest and it's really heavy. It feels hot, that sort of thing. And then
you might follow their finger or the end of a pen and they'll like wave it in
front of your eyes and you just watch it with your eyes.

Then that is supposed to mimic like your REM sleep cycle to try
and process that memory.

Rosie Skene:

So
interesting, isn't it?

Cheryl Leung:

It is.
It was very interesting. It was extremely exhausting. And I used to come home
very tired and very cranky. And Tony would send me to bed every Friday
afternoon.

Rosie Skene:

Go.

Yeah. I remember talking to you in those very early days. I
think you must have been at your very first psychologist when you're like, I'm
about to go in. I'm like, well, and then we spoke afterwards and you're like, I
am exhausted. I'm like, yeah, it's fully exhausting. I had forgotten how
exhausting those first appointments are because it's such a lot.

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

It
really is that EMDR also, it like, it was almost like an unlocked Pandora's
box. Because I had gone in thinking, oh, this is my one trauma, this is my
catalyst, and this is my one trauma that has filled, filled my bucket and I'm
overflowing, and then I go into the EMDR and all of these other things start
flying out and I'm like, why thought I dealt with this?

Like, I thought I was over you, you know?

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,
and then here they all are.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
just sitting there looking at me. Yeah. Okay.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
Wow.

Cheryl Leung:

So this
brings us to about the start of 2020. So January 2020, I had surgery on my
wrist for a physical injury that I got in the police. And so then I had started
rehabbing that as well as my psychological injury. And then a month later in
February, Tony was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer called multiple
myeloma.

And we had actually thought that he had ruptured a disc in his
spine. And so. This diagnosis of cancer was, like, totally left field.

Rosie Skene:

So he
just had, like, sorry, he just had a sore back? Yeah,

Cheryl Leung:

so he
had, had this really sore back for a little while, and he'd been going to the
physio, and it got to the point where you could actually see a lump, like,
just, um, sort of just between his shoulder blade and his spine.

And we, we, that's why we thought it was a ruptured disc or
something. And then when he had scans, he actually had MRIs about five months
apart and it, the one in October showed nothing. And the one in February showed
a five minute, five centimetre tumour on the back of his ribs there. Yeah.

Um, yeah. So, you know, we had to tell his family and telling
his kids was really. really hard. We had literally found out that day and we
sat down with the kids at lunchtime because Tony was going into hospital that
afternoon to have all of these tests run.

And so, we were in shock, and we were trying to tell them, and
they're in shock. So, all of a sudden, my mask went back on, and I was
terrified and angry, but I had to put on this really positive face of, you
know, it's going to be okay. Like, there's heaps of treatments out there, and
they're always bringing out new treatment, that sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah. So, that was a really difficult time.

Rosie Skene:

So how
did the kids go? What was their, like, obviously, how old were they?

Cheryl Leung:

Uh, so
my stepson, he was, he was 16 at the time, and my stepdaughter, she was 20.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,
yeah. So they're definitely old enough to understand that it's not real good.

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
And they're two really different people. And I remember my stepson just froze.
And my stepdaughter, she started crying and she, she didn't know where to turn.
She literally did not know where to turn. She didn't know whether she wanted to
turn to Tony and hug him or turn to her brother and hug him. It was just really weird
situation where nobody knew what to do.

Yeah.

Rosie Skene:

Did they
come to the hospital for the testing and everything or that afternoon? So Tony,

Cheryl Leung:

yeah,
so Tony, it was probably. Half an hour after we told the kids, the hospital
rang and said, we've got a bed for you. And so I ran around just throwing stuff
into a bag, dude, we've got to get up there. And he, he was in hospital, I
think maybe for three or four days, just getting, um, because of, because of
the type of cancer it was, a lot of the markers are in, in his urine, was in
his urine.

So he had to do like a 24 hour urine test as well as bloods.
And a bone marrow biopsy.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,

so intense.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.

Rosie Skene:

So, you
had your mask on, and you're going to the hospital to see him, and you're
dealing with the kids. How did that go for you?

Cheryl Leung:

Um, it
was, it was hard. It was really hard.

Like, I'm still trying to deal with, , the psychological
injury, the work trauma over here. And then I'm trying to juggle everybody's
emotions here, as well as, you know, just running the house just day to day,
that sort of thing. And, you know, the insurance company, I think felt bad
about cutting me off from that EMDR course and put me onto a trauma course at
St.

John of God, at Burwood. And so it was a group course and it
was the first group course I did. And it was, it was really confronting because
you went into this group and there was 12 of us And I don't think any of us
really knew each other and the next thing we're all sharing our traumas from
work and then sitting there and validating each other and discussing the
emotions that we're all feeling and why we're feeling them, that sort of thing.

I think group therapy, I think has its place.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

And I
think. I think the one thing I learned from group therapy is that you just have
to keep a really open mind because there's always, you know, It's always this
nugget of wisdom that's going to come out of somebody, and it might not be the
facilitator.

It's sometimes like, you know, Joe Blow, who's in your group,
and they say something wild, and you go, Oh, well, why didn't I think of that?

Speaker:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

Where
did that come from, you know? Yeah. Or sometimes, you know, your brain finally
starts working, and it puts two and two together, and the cogs finally click,
and you go, Okay.

Oh, well, that makes sense.

Rosie Skene:

The
little light comes on. Ah! Yeah. Yeah. Ah, so how long, so two days a week, how
long was that one for then?

Cheryl Leung:

It was
a 12 week course and it was really, it was, it was quite intense. Um, it, I was
on that when I think COVID started as well and things at that point, things
hadn't shut down, but COVID was sort of just beginning.

And that's when Tony had to go in for his stem cell transplant.
And he, he, he went in and the following day they gave him this, this dose of
chemo, Malfalan, and it wipes everything out in your body. And then they. They
reintroduced his stem cells back into him the following day, and I spent pretty
much all of my free time with him up at hospital, and he hit rock bottom on
about day five, and he was so sick, like he wouldn't let them bring any food
into the room because it would make him more nauseous.

And he would make me take the slice of bread off and eat half
so it looked like he had eaten something.

And he didn't want to drink or anything and he didn't really
want to even get out of bed. And I think, for me, that's when I went, oh shit,
this cancer thing is for real. Like, it's for real. And this thing happened in
my brain where I call it pre grief grief because I'd started, I'd be like, I
realised that it was real and I realised what the outcome was going to be and
so I started to grieve, even though he was still here, I started to grieve the
loss of Tony and our future together and all of the plans that we had had made
for, you know, decades.

Like, I suddenly went, oh shit, what if this doesn't happen?

Rosie Skene:

What was
the prognosis at that time?

Cheryl Leung:

So
multiple myeloma is terminal

Rosie Skene:

from the
diagnosis.

Cheryl Leung:

From

Rosie Skene:

the,

Cheryl Leung:

yeah.
Yeah. Um, so life expectancy is around about five years .

Rosie Skene:

So you
already knew that at some point he was going to pass away from this.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
Um, but I also in my brain had been like, Oh, you know, he's strong and young
and fit and he'll be fine.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
So I think a few weeks later we got the results of his stem cell transplant and
they weren't perfect, but they were pretty good. The medical team, they decided
that he was okay to go on to a maintenance program. And my course at St. John
of God finished up. And lockdown happened. So we were in, this house was
basically in complete lockdown, we didn't see anyone, we didn't go anywhere,
because Tony was so paranoid about getting COVID.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,
for sure.

Cheryl Leung:

And I
remember sitting there thinking, man, I wish that course was on because it was
the one time where I could just unleash, unleash all of my emotions and not
give a shit. And then we fast forward to like, February of 21, and I was
medically discharged from the police. And, you know, everybody talks about
that, that loss of identity, and I don't think I realised how much I was going
to grieve for the end of that chapter of my life.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

I don't
know if you went through the same thing, Rosie, like, but I, I thought I was
going to be a cop until I was 60, and I thought I was going to be, you know,
that crusty senior constable sitting in the back of the office growling at
everybody that walked past, you

Rosie Skene:

know?

Yeah, I think I felt, I definitely felt that. I felt robbed,
um, of a career that I thought too would take me a little bit further than it
did, and definitely into retirement, so yeah, I felt that too.

Cheryl Leung:

That's
a really good way of describing it, yeah. I did feel robbed, and you know, I
don't know about you, but I, I lost contact with a lot of people, and I really
missed, like, the adrenaline rush of going to jobs, and, and It was just this
weird state of limbo that I found myself in, I guess.

Um, not long after that, Tony's first treatment failed and we
had to go back to the medical team and reassess. He started the second protocol
and he had to have surgery to remove a tumour. He didn't stay on that second
protocol for very long and he moved on to a third protocol, the Daratumumab,
which had just come onto the PBS.

And it was around this time that one of our work colleagues
took their own life, and that had, like, huge impact on both of us. Like, we
had worked with this guy for a number of years. And for me, I'd had, I'd had
some suicidal ideations. Throughout this whole thing and I never acted on them,
but I sat there and I, I really felt for our friend and I thought far out, you
know, like those voices must have been so loud and, you know, I get it.

Sometimes you would just do anything to make them quiet. And
Tony was, Tony was really confused about it, because, and he, I remember he was
really upset, and he just said to me, he said, you know, I don't get it, like,
I'm fighting for my life. And those words, it sort of changed my mindset in
that moment.

Rosie Skene:

In
relation to your own suicidal ideation, or just

Cheryl Leung:

in
general?

It changed my, my perspective on Suicidal ideations because I
thought, oh yeah, that I could understand why, why Tony would be upset about
somebody taking their own life when he's, he's going through all of this stuff.
So, it did change me a little bit. Um,

the third protocol that Tony was on, it ended because it failed
and the cancer was coming back again. And

Rosie Skene:

it's
medical

Cheryl Leung:

team
ways.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
What are the protocols? Is that, are they stem cell transplants or is that a
different, they're different types of treatment? Or what is that?

Cheryl Leung:

Oh,
sorry. So the protocols are different types of treatment.

So yeah. You might have, like, a specific chemo that goes with,
that pairs up with another drug, or an immunotherapy that pairs up with
something else, and they're, they're pretty stock standard. Like, they come as
a package, almost.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
Yeah. . So, Tony's. Transmedical team, they got him onto a clinical trial for
belantumab, which was being run out of Liverpool hospital.

And so for us, that just meant that we had to travel a little
bit more and there was a lot of tests that were involved in that. So he had to
do a lot of like blood tests and urine samples and bone marrow biopsies. And
there were a lot of eye scans and body scans that he had to do regularly. It
was really fascinating to watch how a clinical trial works.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

And how
much money is poured into it. Like it's just phenomenal. But it was also really
terrifying because You don't go on to a clinical trial unless it's getting a
bit dire, and I think, I think he was only on the clinical trial for two
months, or maybe a little bit longer, and the team decided that it wasn't
working, and He'd also, during this time, he'd also had radiation on a number
of tumours that had popped up in his body.

So there was, you know, on his ribs, on his, in his sinus
cavity, on his arm, um, and he had a big one on his sternum, and we We had
joked that he should be a glow stick because of all of the radiation that he's
had.

Rosie Skene:

So,
like, he obviously had a really good sense of humor. , I'm going to ask about
him later and what he was like, but he obviously had a good sense of humor.
Like, he would, I know you well enough to know that you couldn't be with
someone that didn't like having a giggle. Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. He was pretty funny.

He was a bit of a trickster. You would have liked him, Rosie.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,
yeah, I know.

Cheryl Leung:

Oh
yeah, so I'd been doing a course at St John of God through this whole thing as
well. A second one. Did I say this?

Rosie Skene:

No, I
didn't know that you did a second one. .

Cheryl Leung:

So just
before I was medically discharged I'd also started and a second course that's
been St John of God, which was the RODBT course and That ran through for six
months and when it was about to wrap up I was Diagnosed with COVID and I had to
ring New South Wales Health and I was in tears going I, I can't stay here like
my partner, he's immunocompromised.

I have COVID. What do I do? And they, they came and whisked me
away that night. They took me to a hotel and left me there in quarantine for
two weeks. And being that far away

was so hard

because I was, I was trying to manage my treatment and Tony's
treatment from so far away. Um, I was trying to deal with the cancer care
clinic because Tony and my stepson were effectively in an isolation period
because they were close contacts.

And so Tony couldn't go and have radiation or anything like
that if there were other people in the building. So he had to wait to the very
end of the day to go and have any treatment or any blood tests or anything that
needed to be done.

So my stepson, he was looking after Tony through that whole
time and I'll, he did such a fantastic job and I'll never forgive myself

because he, he,

he had to watch his dad,

you know, wasting away. And when I
finally got out of quarantine,

um,
Tony wasn't able to walk

and we had to go back and see the specialist because the
clinical trial had failed and They, they, they sat there and had a bit of a
round table and they decided that there was a really old school treatment that
was still available to him. And I think in hindsight, I, I feel like they
should have just said, go home and spend time with your family.

Um, so. It was early October in 21 and he was admitted into
hospital and he had this dose of chemo, this really old school chemo, and it
was brutal. It was 96 hours of straight chemo just being poured into him. Like,
it was, it was crazy. He, he was so sick. He, you know, lost all of his hair.
He didn't want to eat.

He was just so sick and he was admitted I think for about 10
days before they released him and they actually released him on my birthday and
I took him home and I got him out of the car into the wheelchair and as I
pushed him up the driveway he passed out. And I called the AMBOS and they came
and they treated him and I think it was seven days later, seven or eight days
later, Tony, I woke up and I tried to get Tony out of bed and I sat him up and
he passed out on me and I laid him back down and he came to, and then I sat him
up, this happened a couple of times, and then I just thought, I don't know what
to do here.

So I called the paramedics and they came and they took his
blood pressure and they were. They were really concerned because it was so low,
and they took him to hospital. I think it was about an hour and a half later,
this doctor from A& E called, and she said, Cheryl, how long has Tony had
this cough for?

And I said, What are you talking about? And she said, he's got
a really bad cough. How long has he had this cough for? I said, he didn't have
a cough when he left here. And she scoffed at me and I just said, listen, I am
the biggest dibba dobba when it comes to him. And if he had a cough, I would
have fucking told you.

And

later that day, he was admitted into ICU. He had fluid on his
lungs and he had sepsis. And 36 hours after that, he passed away.

Rosie Skene:

Stop it.
You stop it.

Cheryl Leung:

So

that was
like Were you able to be there? Sorry, you go.

Rosie Skene:

No, I was were you able to be there that whole time?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
So, we I was able to be there. Tony didn't want anyone in there. He didn't want
anyone seeing him in the state that he was in. And there was a moment that made
me laugh. In the ICU where he was sitting there and looking out the room

and he said to me,

Where'd those fucking stormtroopers go?

I said to him, What? And he said, Where'd those fucking
stormtroopers go? I said, I

I don't know. And he goes, well, go and find them. And I had to
walk out into the ward and do a lap. And come back.

And I come back in and I said, I, I don't know, I must have
been too slow. He goes, oh, fuck's sake.

You can put that in. You can put that story in there. I tell
everybody.

Rosie Skene:

Poor
guy, , so he's just up to his eyeballs on meds.

Cheryl Leung:

Oh,
morphine, morphine's fantastic. Yeah,

Rosie Skene:

At what
point, , after he went to the hospital, did they say, did they tell you, like,
when he was going to see you? Yeah. So ,

Cheryl Leung:

were
you

Rosie Skene:

able to
prepare for what was about to happen? Like, and I know that you said that he
didn't want anyone there, but were his kids able to come in and say goodbye and
all that sort of stuff?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
so the doctors and the nurses This is up there.

You know, I see they were so fantastic. They, they pulled me
aside, um, and sat me down and just said, you know, it's not looking great.
This is what, this is what is going to happen. And I didn't really believe them
at the start. I was like,

no, no, that's not going to happen. Not at all. And I remember
I said, I remember the doctor saying to me, he just looked at me and he said,
look at his heart rate.

And he. It was at 136. I said, yeah, it's been at 136 since
he's been in here. And he said, yeah, he's been in here overnight. He's been
here for, you know, 18 hours or something like that at this stage. And he said
his heart is going to get really tired and he's going to, he is going to get
tired. And I was like, okay, I said, I know that he's, he doesn't want anyone
to see him like this.

I said, but. I can't, I can't not let his family come in. And
he, the doctor said to me, he said, look, I would wait until he settles down
because at this stage, Tony was still really agitated, he was, I wouldn't say
he was coherent, but he was really agitated. He said I would wait for him to
settle down. He said at some stage he's going to slow down and he said we can
give him a little bit more morphine.

And maybe that's when you bring them in. And so I waited until
it was quite late at night. It was like 9. 30 or something. And I, I brought
the kids and his parents and his sisters in to see him and we were all there
when he passed.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
Did he know that everyone was, like, did he know that the kids were there?

Or was he not really coherent at that time?

Cheryl Leung:

He wasn't, he did know because

he told them. To find

Rosie Skene:

the
Stormtroopers.

To find
the Stormtroopers.

Rosie Skene:

Sorry, I
shouldn't joke.

Cheryl Leung:

They were looking for the E box.

Oh, of course. Silly.

No.

He did know that they were there because he, he told them that
he loved them and the kids spent a little bit of time with him and his parents
and his sisters spent some time with him. Yeah,

Rosie Skene:

yeah,
it's such an intense time. And when you're saying that, um, when the doctors
were like, yeah, he'll, he will calm down soon.

I spending that last,
you know, 24, 48 hours in hospital with my dad. Yeah. I remember the same
thing, , he just really agitated for a little while, and I left the hospital to
go, because I know from previous experiences with family members that once they
get put in, in Coffs Harbour Hospital, they get put in their own room, um, not
real good.

Um. And so I was like, no, hey, I'm going to go. My mum lives
about 45 minutes from Coffs, uh, the hospital. So I said, right, I'm going to
go. I'm going to grab everything we need for however long we're going to be
here, like phone charges and some clothes and that sort of stuff. And I'm going
to come straight back.

So I did the bolt. And by the time I'd gotten back, he was just
so quiet. And just in bed and didn't really move until he passed away, like a
day and a half later. But it was so bizarre leaving him when he was so agitated
and then coming back. And he was just so quiet. Yeah, it was wild. Yeah. And
that's, that must be the morphine, right?

Like just doing its job. Calm them down.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah. The nurses were really fantastic. They actually said to me, like, you can climb
in and have a cuddle with him. And so, they got him and they dragged him to one
side of the bed. And they, I leant over and I said, I'm just going to cuddle
you. And he goes, he said to me, don't.

I did it anyway.

Rosie Skene:

Of course you did. It's just now. It's only one last time. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow.

Like, I just want to ask you what happened next, but let's just
have a minute to

Cheryl Leung:

so it
was just this, this whirlwind. After Tony passed away, like, who thought I was
going to be like 39 and planning the funeral for the man that I loved.

And then, you know, people come and visit you and it's this
weird thing where you, you kind of deal with their grief a little bit because
they come in and they're like, Oh, I'm so sorry. He meant so much to me. And
while that's really comforting, sometimes you just kind of go, I just want 10
minutes. Yeah, I just need 10 minutes and I don't remember a lot of that period
of time.

I remember Again, putting on my mask and saying, you know,
these are the things that we need to do. And I involved Tony's kids and his
parents quite a lot in the planning of the funeral. But I had put on that mask
again where I was like, we need to do X, Y and Z. Tony's parents are Irish.
One's Catholic and one's Protestant.

Oh. And Tony was christened Catholic. And I did, I actually, I
had said to them, Look, the police have offered to organise a chaplain for us.
Would you be adverse being this particular chaplain? She is not Catholic, but
I've seen a funeral that she has done and she was fantastic. And they agreed to
that. So, you know, I had put this mask on and organized everything, but it was
just a bit of a haze.

And I really only remember fragments of the actual funeral. I
remember, I remember getting up to do the eulogy and I remember the hearse not
starting when they were about to drive him away, and me saying, oh, this
motherfucker's not going anywhere. Yeah,

Rosie Skene:

that's
him.

Cheryl Leung:

Oh, no.

And I remember watching him being driven down the, uh, The
guard of honour.

I, at the wake, I was like, it was like being in a pinball
machine where I would turn around and somebody was there to talk to me or hug
me or wanted to buy me a drink. And at some stage, I just said to somebody, I
said, can you please just please walk me to the toilet? Because I really need
to go and I can't get there by myself.

And then one of my mates came up to me, I said, can you please
take me home? And I was so exhausted, I, I came home and I, I just got, I got
wasted on sleeping tablets for two days.

And, I slept on the couch,

and I had reruns of Friends in the background.

I actually didn't sleep in, in bed. In, in the bed for six
months, I slept on the couch the whole time, because, because I didn't want to
wake up alone.

Stop it.
Oh, Cheung.

You know, I didn't want to wake up alone in our bed. And,

Cheryl Leung:

you
know, you lose them a hundred times a day. You know, you lose them every time
you wake up. And every time you, You go to make coffee, and you're not making a

stupid latte with honey or, they're not asking you, oh, can you
make me poached eggs? But you'd give anything to,

Rosie Skene:

right?

Like.

Cheryl Leung:

Right.
Yeah. Absolutely. Um.

And I'm so fortunate that I had built a team prior to all of
this that was so strong. I, I made sure I connected with all of my doctors,
my psychologist, my psychiatrist, my GP. They were all part of my medical team
and I had a really good connection. Connection with all of them. And I had this
amazing, sorry, I have this amazing circle of friends

who, you know, whether it was just them saying, let's go for a
walk, or we're cooking dinner, come

over, or, you know, I'm

coming to you, because, That's pretty much what saved me

Yeah,

Cheryl Leung:

I am. I
don't I actually don't think I'd be here without them.

Rosie Skene:

Can I
are? And we didn't talk about this. Did you, um, have any more ideations after
Tony passed away, or you did? Yeah,

Cheryl Leung:

yeah, they started to creep back in, you know, the grief was really

overwhelming and like my whole world was falling apart, like
I'd lost Tony, I'd lost, you know,

the love of my life and I lost my career, I lost my identity,
my world had started to shrink because I was starting to isolate and I guess
those same suicidal ideations

that were there in the beginning had started to creep back in
then

and I had to actually had to find a new psychiatrist in 2022
because my original psychiatrist He passed away.

And so I had to start that whole process again. And the first
time I met him, I walked into his office and I just said, I sat down and I was
like, Hi, my name is Cheryl and this is my work trauma. I've done courses X, Y,
and Z, my partner's passed away eight months ago, and do you reckon you could
get me a bed in your hospital, please?

And I just remember him sitting there looking at me like, oh my
god, he was so, he was so overwhelmed.

Rosie Skene:

Not like
the usual, like, bye, how are you going? Yeah. Just typical you. I'm just here
to get shit done. Like, yeah, like, let's not, I'm not here to flop about. No.

Cheryl Leung:

. And
he was really fantastic. He organized a three week, I call it a holiday.

In hospital a few months later, and I made some amazing friends
in there, um, people who I'll probably be in contact with for the rest of my
life. And I shared a room with this person who had this connection back to
Tony, and like, we, we've become like best friends. And my stay with the
hospital was for three weeks.

And it didn't fix anything, but it just gave me three weeks to
rest my brain and just to breathe.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
You know, circuit breaker.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
I, I didn't have to worry about a thing. I didn't have to feed myself. I didn't
have to, you know, they told me where to be. I went to group. I went to the
gym, went for a walk around, you know, we played, Uno, flip at night.

I think the comm games were on so we're all sitting there
screaming at the telly at night, that sort of thing.

Rosie Skene:

Was that
a, , first responder program, , specifically or? just all different

Cheryl Leung:

people?
That was on the Xavier Ward at, , Richmond St. John of God. Okay. And the
Xavier Ward is a PTSD ward. Um, it was originally for military, but over time,
a lot of first responders and just people with PTSD from other traumas.

Um, I know when I came home, there was a really, it wasn't,
there was a transition period because, you know, I now had to do all of the
adult things again. I had to look after my own meds and myself and I just
floated around and I think coming back to the house was hard. I remember
sitting in the driveway thinking, man, I don't want to go in there.

That is the house of horrors. Like, I don't want to go back in.
And I started this outpatient support group which was supposed to help you
transition and I hated it, bloody hated it, and I just said to the facilitator
after about two weeks, like, I'm not coming back, like, I just want to be on
your STAIR program, like, that's all I want.

And I think that's really important. You can advocate for
yourself.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

If you
don't want to do something, just, it's okay to say no. Like, don't let people
push you into things.

Rosie Skene:

You're
not going to benefit from it, right? No, it's okay for people to want you to
try this and try that, but if you know that what's the point? You are wasting
your time. Exactly. Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

Exactly. I, that's exactly how I look at it. And, and I think like, you know,
my, my journey is never gonna be the same as anybody else's, and your journey
will never be the same as anyone else's.

Right. Yeah. So I think. You just have to be able to say that
this is what I want, and these are the outcomes that I want to achieve. So, I
just think being able to advocate for yourself is really important. I agree
with you. Um, what are we up to? Oh yeah, okay. At different stages, Rosie, I'm
pretty sure you've had to do IMEs, right?

Rosie Skene:

I literally had my last one, , last week. Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

And you
know, at different stages throughout all of this, cluster fuck, I had, I had to
do some IMEs, and, Like you Rosie, I can present really well.

And

Rosie Skene:

sorry,
I'm just going to come in. So, for people that don't know and don't know the
processes and IME is an independent medical examination and it's what we're
talking about. It's a psychiatrist assessment of our capacity. Right? Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
Yeah, and so I always felt like I had to prove that I had a psychological
injury, and the last IMEI did was with this psychiatrist, and they wrote in
their report something to the effect of she's been able to take care of her Ill
partner, and I see no issues in her returning to work in the next two to three
years.

And I thought, are you fucking kidding me? Like, I didn't have
a choice in this matter. Like, I couldn't believe it, honestly. It was,

I

just wanted to hurt people.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,
yeah. What are you going to do? Not care for your partner that you love? With
all your heart, like, he's just gonna not do that.

Cheryl Leung:

Exactly
right. I really don't know what he was, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know.

Rosie Skene:

So what
happened after that then? Because did you seek another one because of that?

How did that affect everything for you in relation to, like,
that policing and claims side of things? That would have fucked things up for
you, for sure.

Cheryl Leung:

It,
yeah.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

It
could have fucked things up for me and in the end, I actually didn't go down
the path of work injury damages.

Rosie Skene:

Oh, it
was for that, was it?

Cheryl Leung:

I actually

i, I had an early, um, settlement, an early mediation
settlement meeting and the insurance company offered me some ridiculous amount
that wasn't even three years wages and I just thought, oh, you've got to be
kidding, right?

Rosie Skene:

But after having that, so after having that, IME come back and read like that. You
can't, I can't imagine getting that and feeling good about myself and, and
because you feel like you have to prove your injury, like I do, because we do
present so well. Yeah. Like what a mind for you. Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

It really was.

I was like, Oh, I guess that'd be going. Well, shit, maybe I
can go back to work. Yes. And I, I was like, fuck, did I make a huge mistake
going down the path of medical retirement? , should I have just stayed? , this
bloke reckons I can go back to work.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah. ,
so what happened from there? , so you had that one and obviously didn't go down
that path that you had the IME for. What, what have you been doing since then?
Like, how did you go, , when Tony passed with your PTSD and you had your
inpatient and then after that when you got home, how was that period ?

It was,

C

heryl Leung:

it was
this weird, it was this state where I just sort of, I don't know, I was, it was
like I was just floating a lot. It was like. Yeah. I just existed. I wasn't
really doing anything productive. I wasn't really,

you know, just was there. And my, my psych sessions, were sort
of halfway between PTSD and then halfway between grief. Yeah. And

it was probably around here where my stepdaughter and I, we
sort of, our relationship became really strained. And that was due to us just
being different people and our grief process being really different. And, but
we, we've started to reconnect and it's been really nice to have her back in my
life. But I, I made a move out of Sydney, I moved down the south coast for a
period of time.

It wasn't long. I loved it down there, like it was me and the
dogs down by the beach, and it was, it was like what my soul needed. Um, there
were a few challenges moving down there because I have some friends down there
but not a lot, so my world got small again, and so I had to work out a way to
try and meet some people.

Also, I started playing sport and I met some people when I was
walking the dogs. And then the last 12, 6 to 12 months, something has happened
in my brain. I don't really know what it is. While I was down there, I, it was
like I could start seeing a future that I wanted for myself. And so I signed up
for this communications course to help me with public speaking.

And I also enrolled in a diploma of mental health. And ideally,
I want these two things to come together so that I can advocate for carers of
terminally ill and long term ill patients. Because I just found that there was

services that were available to Tony, but there was nothing for
us as his carers. Yeah.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
Such a beautiful thing.

Cheryl Leung:

I have
noticed that there is some research going into the mental health of carers with
some of the universities around the place. So I think there's a bit of a
movement there. In that space.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
Yeah. I've read a couple of books actually. I think, I feel like one of them
was maybe called Overwhelmed or something like that.

And they definitely spoke to carers, um, not only of ill
people, but children with disabilities or just elderly parents and that sort of
thing and, and their mental health is obviously deeply affected by that. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So how do you get your diploma?

Cheryl Leung:

Um, I'm
learning how to learn again.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah. Oh my

Cheryl Leung:

God.
That's so hard.

Oh my God.

Rosie Skene:

Your
brain's different, right? Like, it actually is different, but learning how to
use the new brain.

Cheryl Leung:

Oh. Oh
my God. I need training wheels. I need training wheels.

Um,

I started doing the communications course. and they say this
thing, you know, you'll worry less about, sorry, you'll worry less when you
realise that people don't think about you as much as you think they do.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

And so
at some stage, I thought to myself, I'm going to, I'm going to create this
character, right?

And this character, she is going to be like open and honest
and, you know, really raw. And then I just needed to find somebody who was a
neutral ear.

And one day. I met this person, and we started chatting, and I
thought, I'm never going to see this person again, so let's see how this
character goes. And we started with a normal, small talk, like, oh, you know,
blah, blah, blah, where'd you grow up, whatever. And the conversation turned
to, you know, like, what do you do?

And I was like, no, no, no, this is my opportunity, right? So I
just said, you know what, I was in the police, and five years ago, I was
medically retired. with PTSD

and There was no judgment from that person and I was like,
well, that's weird new and the conversation continued on for a bit and Came to
Tony and they said to me. Oh, oh wait, are you meeting him here? And again, I
thought well okay, and I just said actually actually he passed away a while ago
and He passed away from cancer and in that moment that person They showed me so
much empathy, and it wasn't, you know, oh my god, I'm so sorry, like, you know,
it must be so hard for you.

It was, tell me about him. And I thought, far out, this
character is, this is wild. I've never been this person, right? And again, I
still thought like, I'm not going to see this person again, like, what does it
matter? What does it matter? But long story short, I did end up catching up
with them, and when I caught up with them they actually said to me, you know,
since, since we met and you, you told me about,

your psychological injury I actually went and sought a
counsellor myself for an incident that I was involved in,

and I think I said something really profound to them, like,
well that's not good that you were involved in that incident, but I think it's
really cool that you've gone and found somebody to talk to, and I'm really
fucking proud of you, you know? And I think from that little experiment, it
just showed me that being able to communicate and hold space for somebody.

can have such an impact that you might not ever see. So just be
generous with like your time and your words.

Rosie Skene:

Your
time is the most valuable thing that you can ever give another person and I
know that you of course would know that more than most people.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.

Rosie Skene:

A lot of
people don't understand it, how valuable that is for you to give someone your
actual time to be, means so much, right?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
it really does. It really does.

Rosie Skene:

Have you
given that honest and open character of yours a name? Because I know you love
naming things.

Cheryl Leung:

She
hasn't got a name yet. Maybe you can think of one for her. I might do that.

That can be your

task. Oh. Um, when I moved back to Sydney, I came back with
heaps more confidence and I finished renovating the house that Tony and I lived
in and it's still really, it is still really hard to be in this house.

Um, and the grief, the grief is still here, for sure. Um, and
every day it looks really different, like, some days I'll look at a photo and
I'll, I'll turn to water, and other days I I'll, I'll like, be getting dressed,
and the other day I was like, pulling on a pair of blue jeans, and I thought of
this, time when Tony said to me like, you can make any idiot believe anything
if you say it with conviction.

And I was like, yeah, what a bunch of dum dums. And ten minutes
later he said, no vegans shouldn't be wearing blue jeans. And I looked at him
and I was like, Why? I he goes because the dye for blue jeans comes from blue
whales. And I look at you and I go, really? And oh, the side eye that I got. So
those memories will come flooding back and I'll just sit there in fits of
laughter, you know, or I'll have to mow the lawn and I'll mow the lawn
furiously because I think, fuck you and this stupid lawn that I've now got to
mow because you're not fucking here to do it.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah, yes, I can imagine. , can you tell us about Tony? Because I think it's really
important to talk about people. , because they stay with us a bit longer, don't
they? It's when you stop talking about them and remembering them that they,
that they are important. They almost die all over again.

Yeah, yeah.

Cheryl Leung:

God damn it, Rosie. You can

Rosie Skene:

take it.
I've got my tissue ready. What did, what did, what was the thing that started
the spark for you with him?

Cheryl Leung:

Oh, to
be honest with you, I didn't like Tony when I first met him. I really didn't.
And I tell everybody this story. I met him for the very first time I was in, it
must, it was in my first four weeks out of Goulburn because I was still three
up.

And we had gone to his house that he was living at the time to,
because he wanted something fixed. And one of the guys that was, I was working
with, with a, a chippy. And we went around there and they introduced me to him
and I was like, Oh, hi, how are you going? He grunted at me and I thought, Oh
my God, who is this guy?

Like, whatever, mate, like, I'm never going to see you again. I
don't care. And then I saw he had a dog and I was like, Oh, What's your dog's
name? He told me, and I said, oh, can I pat it? He goes, whatever you want.
Okay, then. So I walked outside, patted the dog, and then the boys were ready
to leave. So I walked, and I was like, oh, it was really nice meeting you,
whatever, whatever.

And then two weeks later, I walked into the supervisor's
office, and here he is, sitting in the supervisor's chair, and I thought, are
you kidding me? This guy. This guy. And I remember, it was probably 12 months
before. Or I thought, oh, you're an alright kind of human, you're not so bad.
Yeah. Yeah. He was pretty funny.

Like, he could make me, like, belly laugh every day. He was, he
was such a good dad to his kids. He'd give them everything.

He, um,

he was a, he was

always a bit of a shit stirrer at work. He used to like to stir
up everybody in the master room and then just walk away and leave you all
bickering amongst yourselves.

Fantastic.

Yeah. Yeah. Um,

he was, he was a pretty good leader. His, his whole motto was
always that if you look after your troops, they'll look after you. And I think
I, that's always sort of stuck with me. Um, But yeah, he, he was also the guy
that everybody came to when they had an issue,

Rosie Skene:

what
about at home? How was he at home? Did he cook for you? Was he a good cook?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
he was a good cook. He was a good cook, but he didn't like to cook all that
much, which was annoying, because then I had to cook.

Rosie Skene:

What was
the thing that you loved doing most with him?

Cheryl Leung:

I loved
traveling with him. We had, we went on some really great road trips. Like I
said, we did that trip down the Great Ocean Road, and then we did one over in
WA, which was fantastic. We just did, you know, the south, southwest coast of
WA, and had a blast.

Rosie Skene:

You
recently did a trip to Ireland, didn't you?

Cheryl Leung:

I did.

I did. You know, I went over and, like I said earlier, that's
where Tony's family is from. Um, and so I got to meet, oh God, everybody. All
of his aunties and uncles and his cousins. And that's the first time, that's
the first time I've actually been to Europe. Or the UK. And it was really
Really beautiful. Like they, they like aggressively dragged me into a, into
their family.

Right.

Rosie Skene:

I love
that. I love that description. So , I was like, just see them pulling at your
arms,

Cheryl Leung:

like

Rosie Skene:

can't

Cheryl Leung:

be with
us. That's exactly what it was. Like, it was, there was nothing gentle about
it. It was just like, you belong to us now. . And so that was, that. That was
a, that was a really beautiful thing. And, um, and I travelled around by myself
for a couple of weeks and it, That trip gave me a lot of confidence coming back
home.

But it was really hard to do without Tony because it was
something that we had planned to do together.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah,

Cheryl Leung:

but
also that trip also, you know, opened up my world again because it made, it
just made that the world a little bit bigger from, you know, when you isolate
and it gets smaller. So, you know, now you've let a few more people into that
circle.

Rosie Skene:

I was
gonna say, I think I know when I left the cops I fucking hated everyone. Like,
all the people because And looking back now, of course I did, because everyone
that I dealt with was just Either on their worst day or that 1 percent of
society that you spend 99 percent of your time with, you know, like just the
scum of the earth, most of the time, and.

When I started to open up a little bit more and not have to see
those people as much, it's like you said, your world just opens up that little
bit more and little bit more and you realise, Oh, hang on. There's really nice
people out there. Isn't it wild?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
Yeah, like, why have I never met these people before?

Rosie Skene:

Where
have you been? Oh, that's right. I was stuck in a Police Station. You don't
come to those places. Yeah,

Cheryl Leung:

that's
exactly right. And I think, you know, I can, I can see

, the cliche, there's light at the end of the tunnel. And
sometimes it's like, sometimes, some days it's a bit dimmer. Some days it's
like a fucking supernova, you know, and

I think I did this thing with my psychologist not long ago
where I, we sat there and we, we compared, we compared Like me five years ago
where I was that girl crying on the floor to where I am now,

and like I am so,

so proud of myself for how far I have come and how hard I've
worked, get back to here. And I might not be exactly where I wanna be right
now, but I will do everything to get there.

Rosie Skene:

You
should be so proud. I don't think I know a more resilient person.

I'm sure you've broken down so many times over the last five
years, you know, um, but to go and do that trip to Europe, By yourself to meet
his family, that's incredible. I could not imagine doing something like that.
But I just think you're probably the most phenomenal woman I've ever met. Just
how you, just how you deal, how you move through your life and just keep going,
you know, and it's a testament to you.

Being such a strong advocate for yourself as well, I think, and
being so active and informed into your own recovery and your own journey, I
think, you know, you could just sit there and you could have sat there after he
passed away and been a poor me and you went and did an inpatient program like,
that's incredible.

Cheryl Leung:

Thank
you. Thank you. Yeah,

Rosie Skene:

and
you'll get to wherever you want to be. You know, you're going to get there
because it's just the person you are like you're going to get there. I know.

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah,
hopefully soon. Right?

Rosie Skene:

Yeah.
Enjoy the journey. Right?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.

Rosie Skene:

Cheungy I, I don't, I don't know if I've done this recently, but I usually ask people
for advice because when you go through things, you know, sometimes it's nice.

Like you said, you pick up a little nugget from, it could be a
therapist or it could be someone else. So what is your learning or a piece of
advice for people that might be struggling at the moment with anything really?

Cheryl Leung:

Yeah.
Okay. Um,

I just think for anyone out there who is struggling. Like, it
took me a long time to understand the notion that suicide is a permanent
solution to a short term problem. And it doesn't feel like a short term problem
in that moment.

You know, there are
people who love you and they need

you.

I promise that it's going to get better

and that you're not alone.

And I've been there where. The hole is so deep and dark and the
weight of the world is

suffocating. But just hold on for tomorrow

because,

because you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring and it
might just be a bit brighter. So just hold on.

Rosie Skene:

You're such a wonderful human and I'm just so blessed to be able to call you a friend
of mine. And even though we always like, when are we going to get together? We
will. But, um, thank you so much for coming on and sharing everything that
you've shared with people, because I know you and I both feel the same way that
you share these things so other people feel comfort or validation or just that
they're not the only ones having a shit time right now and thank you for being
so generous and vulnerable and for sharing about Tony.

, Just sounds like, and I've heard, you know, from our mutual
friend, um, he was, he was an amazing man. So thank you so much for sharing
that experience and everything that you've been

Cheryl Leung:
through. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Rosie, and giving me a
platform to share. and asking about Tony.

Rosie Skene:

Yeah, I
am. I really wanted to have you on, and I just never wanted to ask,
so I'm so glad that you brought it up.

Thank you, Cheungy I love you so much.

Cheryl Leung:

Thanks,
Rosie. Love you.

Rosie Skene:

Just before we wrap up, I'd like to mention Myeloma Australia and suggest supporting
them by making a donation. Myeloma Australia is Australia's only dedicated
myeloma charity. They receive no government funding. All of their services are
free of charge by their specialist myeloma support nurses, who provide up to
date information and caring support through their support line, support groups,
publications and seminars.

Cheungy says that they were really good to her and Tony, and she
continues to support the charity as we discussed. This disease is incurable and

I'm sure that they would be very appreciative of any donations
they can get to support families like Cheryl and Tony. I'll pop the link to
donate in the show notes under where you can find Cheryl. Have a wonderful day.
Thank you for listening. See you next week.

I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. If you have, make sure
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Your support means the world. My name is Rosie Skene. Join me
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Trauma. Until then, be kind to your mind and trust in the magic of your
consistent and positive efforts. Triumph Beyond your trauma is closer than you
think. Have the best week.