Emmah Money 65 Roses Day Interview

Emmah Money 65 Roses Day Interview

The month of May celebrates 65 Roses Day - an annual fundraising and awareness initiative of Cystic Fibrosis Australia. Australia marks 65 Roses Day on Friday 28th May.

For more information go to: www.65rosesday.org.au

Emmah Money
I'm 23 years old and suffer from Cystic Fibrosis (CF). In the last 3 years, 8 of my childhood friends under the age of 21 have lost their battle with CF; a harsh reality I face.

The chronic cough all day and night, 40 I take to digest my food, oral antibiotics and vitamins, inhaled medication and physio are part of my normal day.

I was diagnosed with CF when I was born in October 1987. My birth parents decided to give me up for adoption after they were told I wouldn't survive to see my fifth birthday.

My new parents would be Joy and Arnie Money, a very special couple who overcame their own obstacles and disabilities to adopt a CF child.

My childhood memories are very different to an average child. I remember groups of us CF kids running around the hospital, being chased by nursing staff and physiotherapists to do our treatment, and doctors replacing endless drip lines that had tissued in my veins after intravenous antibiotics 3 times a day for 3 weeks.

I had a nasogastric tube in my nose for about 5 years before a gastrostomy button in my stomach. These treatments helped keep my weight at a healthy level. Having CF meant that my normal diet wasn't enough to help fight bugs so it was supplemented with a horrible, high calorie milk via the nasogastric tube and gastronomy button.

Once, I was so full from my night feed and then breakfast that I vomited. The nasogastric tube came out of my mouth but was still in my nose. Mum had to thread it back down my throat that morning so I could get off to school.

The gastrostomy button wasn't as visible so I didn't get teased as much at school, but sometimes while I was sleeping the tubing would disconnect and I would wake up in a pool of thick sticky milk. My mum had to rip the carpet up in my bedroom because it had stained the floor and the smell was sickening.

I basically grew up in hospital right through my high school years. The long hospital stints were spent with 8 - 12 other CF kids. We got each other through the toughest of days, when treatment wouldn't work so we'd all be lined up for theatre all in one day, taking it in turns as we each were wheeled off to surgery.

We were like pin cushions; I have scars on my stomach from operations and scars on my arms from where needles tissued in my arms. Our schools would send work to the hospital so we wouldn't fall behind, we'd fit it in with our treatment times.

In 2005, I entered Girlfriend Magazine Girlfriend of the Year competition. I had to explain my dream in life and what I had done to achieve it so far. I had a lot of evidence to support my dream of raising awareness for CF, finding a cure, and finally, to be here when the cure is found. 2 days after I sent my entry, I got a call from the magazine to advise me I was one of six girls in Australia to have made it to the semi-finals.

I went with a childhood friend to Sydney for the weekend of judging. A few months later I was back in Sydney for the ceremony with my Mum, sister, boyfriend and Terry Stewart, CEO of Cystic Fibrosis Australia, who had heard about me and wanted to meet me. The luncheon was held and the announcement was made, I couldn't believe it, I won the 2005 Girlfriend Magazine of The Year! I donated the majority of my prize money to CF Australia research, and kept a small amount to help pay for new medication and nebuliser. The same day I was asked to be the National Youth Ambassador of Cystic Fibrosis Australia!

Cystic Fibrosis affects my life every day and the loss of young people I know scarily reminds me that my lungs are slowly deteriorating. I try to live as normal life as possible, and I'm fortunate enough to be confident to speak of my experience to help raise awareness.

My goal is to raise as much money as I can towards the research of finding a cure for Cystic Fibrosis as well as raising awareness so people understand what CF is.

I'm young and have my whole life ahead of me. I would love the day to come were I was cured; I could turn back to you and personally thank you, for supporting Cystic Fibrosis.

With your help, the days where I and many others can breathe easy is just around the corner.
- Emmah Money

Interview with Emmah Money

Question: How does Cystic Fibrosis affect your life every day?

Emmah Money: When I'm healthy, managing my CF is a bit easier, however I have a chronic cough so to maintain everyday health I have treatment that I need to do as well as physiotherapy daily. It does affect me in the ways some days even though I look healthy, I'm not always feeling 100% on the inside, I definitely would say never judge a book by its cover, I may look good on the outside, but on the inside I feel awful. Feeling tired and having no energy, breathing can be quite difficult, for some one who doesn't have CF imagine breathing through a straw, that's how it feels at times.


Question: What treatments do you currently use for Cystic Fibrosis?

Emmah Money: The treatment I use is a bit of a variety, for the days I am healthy I have to have 3 inhaled nebulisers in the morning before my day starts, this helps to loosen up the chest and make it easy to breathe. I also have to take vitamins and antibiotics everyday to maintain my health. Also, every time I eat I have 6-10 pancrease tablets to help digest my food as my pancrease system doesn't digest my food properly, if I don't have the pancrease I get very painful stomach aches! But that's when I'm healthy. As well as physio daily, I try and go for a run or walk for 30-45 minutes to keep my chest moving!

That's when I'm healthy, when I'm sick, it can usually be a six week "recovery".
A simple cold can turn into a chest infection, especially in the winter the cold air does not agree with me!There will be 2 weeks on oral antibiotics to try and kill the bugs, if this isn't strong enough I end up having 2-3 weeks of intravenous medication, the nebulisers become more intense I have the normal 3 in the morning followed by a nebuliser every 3 hours.
Physio is really encouraged at least twice a day when you're on IVS because you need to move the bugs around, again I will either have postural drainage or go for a walk.
So all up it's a bit of a long process but fortunately for me I only have this 2-3 times a year.


Question: How have you overcome Cystic Fibrosis to have a professional career in modeling, inspirational talking and writing?

Emmah Money: Cystic Fibrosis has definitely got its downsides, but it's good too. It's because of my CF that I have been given the opportunity to be a motivational speaker, as well as become the youth ambassador for CF Australia. It's been an amazing journey with many fun filled memories. I think being able to get on the catwalk or in front of the camera is also a good confidence booster, knowing that I have an illness but I'm still able to do things as glamorous as "model" its exciting. What girl doesn't like wearing designer dresses and having hair and make up done!

Question: Can you tell us about The Words Inside?

Emmah Money: The words inside is quite personal, I wrote this when I was 16-17 and I used to write down my feelings and experiences as a way to overcome things.
Finding my biological parents after they thought I had passed away due to CF, that was a very emotional time - I have talked very openly about this chapter of my life, as well as my role models, my parents, my dad is a paraplegic + ex Para Olympian and my mum is the strength, my rock.
My book also talks about the bullying and depression I went through in high school as well as growing up with CF. like I said, it's a personal story, but I'm glad that it has been able to help people.


Question: What is your personal goal, in regards to Cystic Fibrosis?

Emmah Money: I have so many goals in life, but the main one is to live as normal as possible with CF and try not to let it get in the way too much. My ideal Goal would be to make sure that I am alive and well when the cure is found and hopefully that's not too far away!


Question: What does 65 Roses Day mean to you?

Emmah Money: 65 Roses Day is a special day for the CF community; it gives us a date where we can promote CF and raise the awareness. For me, it's definitely about promoting the illness as much as I can on the day, make people realise that just because it's on one day of the year, and doesn't mean it goes away. I live with CF every day, I have lost many childhood friends to the illness as well, and so 65 Roses Day is definitely a good chance to really promote CF.


Question: How can Australians participate in 65 Roses Day?

Emmah Money: There are many ways Australians can participate.
They can go to our local supports like Big W to buy the merchandise, all the money raised goes to the research of finding a cure.
I have my own personal website were I am raising funds to go to the research, so people can jump on there and donate: www everydayhero.com.au/emmah_money
Or they can simply visit the website www.65rosesday.com.au - People can check out my story and TV commercial on here as well as my live interview about 65 Roses Day.
Everyone's support means so much not just to me but the CF community, CF is not the nicest illness to live with, it does unfortunately find ways to interrupt me from living a normal life, but with funds raised I have a better chance of medication improving and most importantly, hopefully one day soon a cure :o)


Interview by Brooke Hunter