Alice Coster: Coster: The Body may not be a medical expert but listen to your own

As Elle Macpherson cops backlash for spreading irresponsible messaging about her battle with breast cancer, it’s still important that we remember to know when to listen to our bodies, too.

Supermodel Elle Macpherson is copping a backlash about spreading irresponsible messaging around cancer treatment, given her enormous public profile and platform.

But while there is plenty to disagree with when it comes to the anti-ageing wellness warrior’s diagnosis, listening to your own body and advocating for your health is something that needs to be heard out.

Macpherson’s new memoir, simply titled Elle, reveals her battle with breast cancer and how she underwent a lumpectomy seven years ago.

The 60-year-old details in a chapter titled, Cancer: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, that she was “scared and confused” after having cancer removal surgery, then visiting several doctors and doing her own research.

“Having been diagnosed with breast cancer, I felt as though I could no longer make clear decisions or find the answers in my head. I couldn’t control the outcomes of my choices and nobody would guarantee recovery,” Macpherson wrote.

“I was so frustrated, frightened. I didn’t know what to do as I became aware of the profound effect and changes breast cancer would have on my body – and my entire life.”

While there is plenty to disagree with when it comes to Elle’s self-diagnosis, listening to your own body and advocating for your health is something that needs to be heard out.

The woman once known simply as The Body has a privilege not many of us can afford by being able to see not just one specialist for her cancer treatment, but dozens upon dozens of “second referrals” and subsequently choosing a more holistic approach.

When it is so important for females to get their breast checks regularly, with frightening statistics for cancer among women of a certain age, messaging like Elle’s can potentially detract from this important medical advice.

But we also have to know when enough is enough and to listen to our bodies when perhaps medical professionals have a more, let’s just say cookie cutter, streamlined approach.

Having just had my left ear Freddy Kruegered by a specialist last Thursday night in a hospital emergency department (a Nightmare on Elm Street reference any gen Xer will recognise) I am hopped up on prescriptions and pain is ringing in my ear louder than tinnitus.

Without going into the gory details (well perhaps afford me just a few moments) I have suffered acute ear issues my whole life.

The woman once known simply as The Body has a privilege not many of us can afford by being able to see not just one specialist for her cancer treatment, but dozens. Picture: Getty Images

This was all laid out to the doctor at hand, who then took his Kruger-like instrument and started burrowing into my ear like a meth head trying to squeeze a pimple.

As someone who proudly has an incredibly high pain threshold (and is er, somewhat competitive) just the day before I had “beaten” Jesinta Franklin and a raft of influencers in an icy bath plunge at a wellness centre for a story.

One of the “wellness content creators” remarked to me, “Don’t worry if you only last 30 seconds, it’s your first try, it took me three years to work up to three minutes.”

So, I sat in that freezing bath for five minutes and beat all their skinny arses, to their shock and awe.

But I digress.

Any Grey’s Anatomy fan of the medical TV drama would tell you the hot surgeons always have the biggest egos.

So with high pain threshold and competitive nature established, and a deep respect for our medical professionals, I let the aforementioned ear specialist do his work despite having told him my long history of complications.

The agony was akin to the ’90s Freddy horror movie and at one point I found myself hollering: “This is worse than childbirth”.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he remarked (like he would know) and just kept on drilling.

The red flag should have been the fact he was McDreamy-looking. Any Grey’s Anatomy fan of the medical TV drama would tell you the hot surgeons always have the biggest egos. But really what I should have said was “STOP”.

Dealing with terrible and unnecessary after effects and a plain wrong diagnosis that could have lost my hearing in one ear, it hasn’t taken long for other stories to emerge from friends and family, who have shared their own pain and frustrations at blindly following their doctor’s advice.

Because sometimes just cutting things out should not be the first and only diagnosis. And a GP prodding unnecessarily in your abdomen where it painfully hurts should certainly not result in a, “Maybe you should go see a psychologist” referral to one friend when there was something more sinister at play.

Again, we are so lucky to have the medical professionals and Medicare system that we do in our country.

But only we can know how much our body can take, high pain tolerance or not. Sometimes seeking a second referral, or more if you are able to and if you know something is not right, is right.

Alice Coster is a Herald Sun columnist

Originally published as Alice Coster: Coster: The Body may not be a medical expert but listen to your own