2025 in Review

I began the year with international travel on my mind, and I’m ending it the same way. It’s funny how certain themes bookend our lives. For me, travel has always been one of those themes — a tug in the chest, a restlessness in the bones, a desire to see what lies beyond the familiar. Even after everything that has happened to my body in recent years, that instinct hasn’t left me. If anything, it has sharpened.

And that instinct is already shaping my plans for 2026. I’ve mapped out a trip that feelz both exciting and symbolic — a reminder that my world hasn’t shrunk, even if my pace has changed. First on the list is Bangkok, a city I’ve always loved for its energy, its food, and its ability to overwhelm the senses in the best possible way. From there, I’m travelling back to Sweden for the first time sincev 2017, to visit Stockholm and Lulea, located above the Arctic Circle, and hopefully experience the Northern Lights. And there are also a few days in London, to see some theatre shows. It’s only about 6 weeks until I fly out.

2025 started with me scrolling through travel deals, half‑seriously, half‑wistfully. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for another big trip, after my health problems in the last couple of years.

Only weeks before flying out to China, I’d been lying in a hospital bed at RPA, staring at the ceiling while an orthopaedic surgeon explained my options. The x‑rays had confirmed broken ribs and a fractured hip. The surgeon — calm, clear, and reassuring — recommended a full hip replacement. Given my age, activity level, and the nature of the fracture, it made sense. Better to do it properly now than face another surgery later.

My prosthetic leg drew some attention in China — at one point, an older woman stopped dead in her tracks, pointing at it in shock. I smiled and reassured her it worked well. Across the entire week, I didn’t see another visibly identifiable amputee. It reminded me of a rural trip 15 years ago when I’d seen a man without legs begging on a footpath — not because amputees don’t exist in China, but because they’re far less visible.

The tour itself was demanding. Cobblestones, heat, long distances — all of it pushed me hard. On the day we visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, we clocked 18,000 steps. For an amputee, that’s effectively double the effort. Two older women hired wheelchairs and assistants for the day. As I pushed through, I wondered if my stubborn independence had been misplaced.

Only one day truly defeated me: rain, slippery surfaces, and boats with almost no handrails. But the 41‑person group was wonderfully supportive. Offers of help came not from pity but kindness. I usually declined — “I need to do it myself” — but occasionally accepted with a grateful smile.

Travel, as it often does, reminds you of your own resilience. It also reminded me of the quiet ways people show care. And it reminded me that independence doesn’t mean refusing help — it means choosing when to accept it.

This year also deepened my understanding of disability in ways I hadn’t anticipated. After decades in broadcasting, I thought I understood disability. I considered myself a good ally. But becoming a lower‑limb amputee revealed how much I’d missed. My authority at work shifted. My capability was questioned before I even reached the microphone. I began to see the everyday barriers and assumptions people with disability face — not in theory, but in practice.

That shift became especially clear on IDPwD — International Day of People with Disability, a United Nations‑recognised day held every year on 3 December to promote awareness, understanding, and inclusion. Sitting alongside colleagues on an in-house panel at work, along with a wide range of disabilities, I was reminded that disability isn’t a monolith. Over 5.5 million Australians live with disability, most of it invisible. Treating it as a niche issue means ignoring a fifth of our audience.

You don’t need lived experience to report on disability well — but it helps. It sharpens your focus from pity to rights, from “what happened to you?” to “why isn’t this accessible?” That shift in perspective is part of what inspired The Limb Shift, the podcast I’ll be launching in 2026. It will explore the real, complex stories behind limb loss — identity, resilience, fear, humour, and everything in between. No two stories are the same, but the emotional terrain is deeply shared.

The hardest part of the year was losing some family members. A nephew and his son were killed in a tragic accident which made the front page of the papers in Brisbane, and my last remaining sister, Patsy died.

Despite the distance between Sydney and Lismore, we spoke every day. I knew her routine by heart — when the cleaner arrived, when the nurse came, what she watched on television, the best times to call. Our lifelong closeness had deepened into daily check‑ins after I became unwell. She worried constantly about me living alone.

Then one Sunday, she didn’t answer. Her husband rang back to say she was unwell. She was taken to hospital and died the next morning. The silence since has been profound.

The last time I saw her was in September, after a family funeral for my nephew and his young son, both killed by a drink‑driver. Weeks later, a close friend lost her son in another road accident. Grief seemed to circle my life this year, touching everything.

While preparing her eulogy, I found her only Facebook post: “Life is short, don’t be sad for too long.”

It felt like her final message to us.