Model Annalise Braakensiek reveals her heartbreak and fight against cancer nobody wants to mention
BONDI’S original vegan bikini model Annalise Braakensiek hates the C word. Cancer has taken her father, aunty, stepfather and friends — one only last week.
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BONDI’S original vegan and bikini model Annalise Braakensiek hates the C word. She has lost her father, her aunty, her stepfather and many friends to cancer, burying another dear friend only last week.
It’s the reason she is teaming with a group of high-profile women including ANZGOG ambassador fashion designer Charlie Brown, Olympic athlete Jana Pittman and ultra-marathon runner and ovarian cancer survivor Heather Hawkins, to make a stand in the GO Step For Gynae campaign.
It’s an active campaign where Aussies can register until March 30 to receive a fit band and are encouraged to take 10,000 steps a day for 30 days. The money goes to towards clinical research into gynaecological cancers.
“Cancer has taken too many of my loved ones. I lost another friend last week. My beautiful Papa Bear passed 12 years ago. He worked with asbestos when he migrated to Australia from Norway on the Snowy Mountain Scheme prior to them being aware it was carcinogenic,” Braakensiek shared.
“It never gets easy. He was such a beautiful man. I miss him daily. Then I lost my stepfather last year — he also had lung cancer and same as my aunty. It’s hideous. It’s hard. It’s deeply saddening. To lose a loved in any way is never easy. Whenever I hear of someone having cancer I’m extremely fearful and a have a massive sense of dread.
“Once you’ve had a personal experience of cancer I don’t think it ever leaves your thoughts.
“I’m not alone when I say I’ve been heartbroken from cancer and that is why I’m driven to do as much as a I can. I’m not a doctor or a surgeon but trying and encouraging loved ones to feel fit in the GO Step for Gynae campaign to raise much needed funds for gynaecological cancer research is something we can all do.”
Braakensiek says sadly there is so much taboo around gynaecological cancers: “By comparison breast cancer with all the pink, pretty, palatable imagery starts a lot of conversations and has incredible media and social media support which, in turn, means more funding and thankfully a much better rate of survival.
“However, people don’t talk about gynaecological cancers in the same way. The word vagina isn’t even allowed on daytime TV and I believe that needs to change. We need much more funding for research and trial to help save women’s lives.”
Brown, who has been an ambassador at large with ANZGOG for several years, does pilates at Pure Balance in Double Bay who will be raising funds at their opening on March 30.
She says gynaecological cancer is a silent killer and is hoping to help change that. Fitness is a big part of reducing the rate with obesity a contributing factor to endometrial cancer, which has risen 22 per cent in the past 20 years, she says.
“I hope I can help women. A lot of people don’t talk about it because of the region in the body it’s in. The people who actually do talk about it try to make it a funny thing when they talk about it — so people tend to think that’s crass.
“Breast cancer gets so much money and so much awareness and that’s why there’s a 93 per cent survival rate. There are lots of tests and lots of machines and with gynaecological cancer there are not enough tests, not enough machines, not enough knowledge,” she says. “Let’s get active and make a cure not pie-in-the-sky stuff.”
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