Helene Barron is an elite trail runner, a high-performance physiotherapist, a coach, a wife, a mum, a daughter, a sister, a legend and now a survivor- after being diagnosed with tongue cancer.
In early 2023 Helene was on top of the world: she’d just finished top 5 at the Tarawera 100 Miler, one of the toughest tunning races in the country.
Life was good: Career, family, everything was lining up.
And then, just weeks later…everything changed. Helene became one of the 77 New Zealanders every day who get told they have cancer.
In this episode, we get into:
+ The moment she discovered something wasn’t right: a tiny sore that turned out to be aggressive cancer
+ The phone call that no one ever wants to receive
+ Recording goodbye messages for her kids before surgery
+ What it’s really like going through six weeks of radiation
+ And how she found the strength to keep moving forward when everything felt uncertain
We also talk about resilience, perspective, and why she lives by one simple rule now: don’t drop the glass balls (I’d never heard this theory before but I love it- I hope you will too)
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