Patty Kikos interviews Bronte Campbell, who knows a thing or 2 about achieving her goals in the swimming pool, as she’s been a competitive swimmer for many years. So far, she has secured 14 gold medals, 9 silver medals, and 4 bronze medals in her career. Today, Bronte tells us about the gift that she received on her 4th birthday, when her little brother Hamish was born, and how her and her family’s life changed when he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. GUEST: Bronte Campbell - Instagram SOCIAL MEDIA: Follow Patty on Instagram Follow The Benevolent Society on Instagram Follow Carer Gateway on Facebook Follow The Benevolent Society on Facebook CREDITS: Host – Patty Kikos Producers – Patty Kikos and John Hresc Sound Engineer – John Hresc GET IN TOUCH: Carer Gateway is proud to offer emotional and practical services and support for carers with the aim of making your life easier. You can call us on 1800 422 737 to find out more about peer support groups, counselling, coaching, online skills courses, tailored support packages, emergency respite, other government supports, as well as tips and information, or visit our online home at www.carergateway.gov.au Got some questions or thoughts for Patty or the team? Email us at cgconnections@benevolent.org.au and put ‘Attention Patty’ in the subject line. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The Benevolent Society acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Patty Kikos interviews Bronte Campbell, who knows a thing or 2 about achieving her goals in the swimming pool, as she’s been a competitive swimmer for many years. So far, she has secured 14 gold medals, 9 silver medals, and 4 bronze medals in her career. Today, Bronte tells us about the gift that she received on her 4th birthday, when her little brother Hamish was born, and how her and her family’s life changed when he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
GUEST:
Bronte Campbell - Instagram
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Follow Patty on Instagram
Follow The Benevolent Society on Instagram
Follow Carer Gateway on Facebook
Follow The Benevolent Society on Facebook
CREDITS:
Host – Patty Kikos
Producers – Patty Kikos and John Hresc
Sound Engineer – John Hresc
GET IN TOUCH:
Carer Gateway is proud to offer emotional and practical services and support for carers with the aim of making your life easier.
You can call us on 1800 422 737 to find out more about peer support groups, counselling, coaching, online skills courses, tailored support packages, emergency respite, other government supports, as well as tips and information, or visit our online home at www.carergateway.gov.au
Got some questions or thoughts for Patty or the team? Email us at cgconnections@benevolent.org.au and put ‘Attention Patty’ in the subject line.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
The Benevolent Society acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Patty
And I know you wouldn't have realised this at the time because you wouldn’t have known anything different, from your family, but you were a young carer essentially. You all were for Hamish, weren’t you?
Bronte
Yeah, I think it's a funny label because I don't really feel like that. I was a young carer. I mean, I was.
If he needed to be fed, we'd feed him if he needed water, we'd get water for him.
If he needed to be moved from one room to another, you'd pick him up and move him.
I mean, it's what you do for any member of your family that needed any of those things. It is if you had.
If you have a young member of your family in particular, say you've got a new baby in your family.
You would do all of that without even thinking. It's just that his needs sort of stayed constant. He didn't.
He didn't grow out of them. Yeah, over time. But yeah, I think it's been brilliant that our whole family has never really seen it as like anything extra, it's just that this is what Hamish needs and Bronte needs to be driven to the pool at 4am and Hamish needs to move from the couch to the dining room.
It's like which one of those is actually more difficult?
Probably the 4am thing is the least the least appeasing of those two. So that's probably the more difficult.
Special needs in those sorts of ways, because the dedication that my family also put into mine and my older sister’s swimming is pretty big as well.
---
Billy:
From the Carer Gateway at the Benevolent Society, we welcome you to, Carer Conversations with your host Patty Kikos.
The Carer Gateway is the Australian Government national care hub and provides reliable services, support and advice especially for carers.
This podcast is where we share interviews with guests that have specialized knowledge to help support carers to look after their emotional, mental and physical well-being.
We are recording on Aboriginal country, on lands which were never ceded. We acknowledge the traditional custodians and cultural knowledge holders of these lands and waters. We pay our respects to Aboriginal elders, past and present.
Always was, always will be.
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Patty:
This is an exciting episode, folks, as I am bursting to tell you that I have held a gold medal for an Olympian.
Did I earn it? No.
Did I train for it also? No.
Am I the annoying person that asked to hold it and take a pic with it? Quite possibly.
A dual Olympic gold medallist, triple Olympian, a five-time World and Commonwealth Champion, Bronte Campbell knows a thing or 2 about achieving her goals in the swimming pool, as she’s been a competitive swimmer for many years. So far, she has secured 14 gold medals, 9 silver medals, and 4 bronze medals in her career.
And I could interview her about swimming, health, the mindset of an Olympian, growing up as the 2nd eldest of 5 children or even her intention to compete in the 2014 Paris Olympics.
And while we might touch on some of these topics, this episode will share light on the gift that Bronte received on her 4th birthday, when her little brother Hamish was born.
Why is this significant? Because Hamish has severe cerebral palsy and requires around-the-clock care.
Cerebral palsy is caused by damage or abnormal development in the parts of the brain that control movement.
These events can happen before, during or shortly after birth, or even in the first few weeks of life. While the brain is still developing, his story is incredible, and I think that Bronte is the most qualified to share it. But before we get there, Bronte, hello.
Bronte:
Hello, thanks for having me.
Patty:
Oh, it's absolutely our pleasure. But before we get started, along with millions of other Australians, I have a para social relationship with you – and for those tuning in that are unfamiliar with this term, para social relationships are one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, in this case Bronte, is completely unaware of our existence.
So I'm not saying that you've won all the gold medals because we all cheered for you like crazy. But I'm not NOT saying it either.
Bronte: {laughs}
Oh, I don't think it's that parasocial I’ve already met you twice before now. Patty:
This is true.
Bronte:
I think that it means that we actually know each other a little bit.
Patty:
Well, I'm just really curious from an emotional and even maybe an energetic perspective.
How do you deal with so many people feeling as though they know you all feeling like they're connected to you?
Bronte:
I think firstly it's it's a really nice thing. People are normally when they're coming up to me, they're saying nice things like they watched the race or they really enjoyed watching the Olympics.
Something along those lines, so that's it's normally pretty kind. It can be a little bit overwhelming when you're say at an actual sporting event.
There's often lots of sporty people there. If you're just trying to enjoy yourself and there's a lot of people coming up, it's fine. I just think back to when I was a little 7 year old who loved swimming.
I mean often people are coming up and they're coming up for their kids or they're bringing their kids with them or they want a video to talk to Chloe and tell her that she should keep swimming because she loves it so much and it's really it's a few seconds or minutes of my time and energy and it could have a really nice impact on someone else. So, I really don't mind it at all.
And I like hearing from people, and hearing their stories as well. And I remember when I was a teenager listening to when I think it was George Clooney or someone was interviewed and he said,
for you, this is an interaction that happens very often, but for them, if someone comes up to you, it's a onetime interaction and their whole perception of you is going to be shaped by the one interaction that they have with you.
So I'm quite aware of it and try to make it a positive one.
Patty:
I imagine you'd also be getting so many people coming up and saying I met you 10 years ago at this in this event and hey, you inspired me to keep swimming.
Bronte:
That's very sweet when I've been swimming for so long now and I’ve been competing internationally for over 10 years now.
There are literally kids who I met when they were 7 years old who are now 17 or 18, who were in the same races as me, and that's always pretty sweet.
When someone pulls up a picture from, yeah, 8 or 9 years ago and they were, you know, down by my waist, and now they're powering above me and that's a pretty nice thing knowing that you've...
Well, I don't know whether it's nice to have been around that long, but I definitely think it's an achievement to stay in the sport that long.
Patty:
You know, at the time of this recording, which is today, you actually celebrated your birthday yesterday. So even though you've been swimming for over 10 years.
I can categorically state that you're still in your 20s, so that is 1 big achievement, isn't it?
Bronte:
Well, I am on my 30th year, but yes, this is my last year being in my 20s and I was 29 on Sunday along with as you were saying, my brother, who's obviously not turned 29, he's turned 25. We share a birthday.
Patty:
That's right, you do. You were actually born in Malawi. Do you consider yourself to be bicultural or do you consider yourself to be Australian?
Bronte:
I very much think of myself as Australian. When I moved to Australia was a long time ago. I was 7 years old, and I think growing up in Malawi always gave me this really brilliant perspective.
There's a lot of poverty in Malawi. People don't have a lot and coming to Australia and just seeing, you know, paved roads and everyone with their electricity and all these amazing areas that you could hang out as the public, like South Bank and Brisbane and I think it really grounds me in a sense of gratitude for even the little things.
And you forget a lot of the time, but it's nice to look back and remember that. But when we moved to Australia, the idea was that we would become Australian and giving up supporting the Springbok team over the Wallabies team was the first step of that. It is.
Patty:
That is very controversial.
Bronte:
It’s VERY controversial
{Both giggle}
It's possibly not been a brilliant move in the last few years, but I believe in the Wallabies they'll come back. So, it was always about being Australian and then.
I think I've also been able to put on the green and gold and represent the country and stand on top of that on the podium and sing the national anthem.
And I think all of those things make me feel very much like I'm an Australian.
Patty:
Yeah, I can imagine. And I don't believe that you changed languages either. You already spoke English at home, didn't you?
Bronte:
Yeah, we always spoke English at her mum and dad speak a bit of Afrikan.
But we didn't. We knew a little bit of the local language, which was to Chichewain Malawi, but definitely not enough to say that I was at all bilingual in that way.
Patty:
Yeah, well, swimming is in your blood. Your grandma was a swimmer and your mum taught synchronised swimming. You and your older sister are both Olympians as well as world commonwealth champions. What drives you to continue competing?
Bronte:
I don't know. I love swimming. I love the idea that you can try, put everything together within a minute.
So it's my race to last for a minute. All day lasts for 30 seconds and you're trying to put, what, 4 years worth of work into that? It's a unique challenge. I just don't think you get it anywhere else. I've always loved sport.
I really wanted to be a swimmer since I was a kid.
I don't know why. I don't know why something spoke to me, but as you were saying, my grandma used to teach people to swim in her backyard.
My mum used to teach people to swim. I grew up around water and loving water and it just seems like a natural flow.
Patty:
Yeah, it's in your DNA
In fact you're the second of five children.
And out of all of you, there's something even more distinct about your brother Hamish being the only boy, isn't there?
Bronte:
Yeah, Hamish is the only boy. There's. Yeah, four of us girls and then Hamish. She's there's a lot of female energy in our household. That's for sure.
Patty:
Yeah. And he's got cerebral palsy, doesn't he?
Bronte:
Yeah. So, Hamish had trauma at birth and that resulted in cerebral palsy. So, he's 25 years old now and he went to a school in in Brisbane, which was a special school for people with special needs as well as vision and PET.
Hamish has quite low functioning. He can't sit or move himself, or walk or crawl, and then his vision impairment as well means that there's a lot of things that he can't do, so he's pretty much completely reliant on my mum and dad, who are his primary carers, and then he gets respite care a few times a week now.
Patty:
And can you take us back 25 years ago to his birth? Because that was quite a traumatic experience for your mum, wasn't it? And your family and Hamish, of course.
Bronte:
Yeah, I think probably more traumatic for mum than Hamish and the adults in the room. I was 4 years old and I was just annoyed that my birthday party was interrupted, you know, like not as bad for me, but Hamish was born in Malawi in Africa and he had to be airlifted.
Due to all the complications at his birth, he had to be airlifted out to South Africa, where there was better medical facilities and mum went. Mum went with him.
And then he was in hospital in ICU and South Africa for. I don't even know quite a few weeks.
Yeah, we went down South Africa and stayed down there for a few weeks and I would visit him in the hospital. So yeah, it was. It's probably very difficult for my for my parents.
But you're a kid. You just sort of go along with it and think about the day that you're gonna bring your brother home.
And I think that that naivety makes it a little bit easier.
Patty:
Yeah. And you said that you emigrated to Australia when you were 7, which means that Hamish would have been 3, is that right?
Bronte:
Yeah. Hamish was really young.
Patty:
Yeah. Well, I feel like we need to get your mum on the podcast. What an incredible woman.
Because if my mathematics is correct, not only was Hamish 3 not only did Hamish have very, very specific needs. Wasn't your mum also pregnant with your little sister? Your littlest sister?
Bronte:
She was my very littlest sister, and was the only one born in Australia.
Patty:
I feel like one of your gold medals needs to get given to your mum.
Bronte:
Yeah, absolutely. I think when we moved here, I was 9.
No, Kate was 9. I was 7, Jessica was 5, Hamish was 3 and Mum was 7 months pregnant.
I don't even like getting on a flight to Europe because it lasts 30 hours. Like I can't even imagine doing all of that.
Patty:
With little ones, while heavily pregnant.
Bronte:
Yeah, not fun. Not fun.
Patty:
What an extraordinary woman. Wow, what an extraordinary woman. And with regard to what Hamish's abilities and restraints are, people get uncomfortable asking about the details.
But I know that you are comfortable sharing about how this shows up for your brother, is that right?
Bronte:
Yeah, of course I am. I think cerebral palsy in particular, is one of those disabilities that has a broad range of ways that it shows up in a person. And I think it's very hard for people to understand what it is.
So for Hamish and that means that he's, he's nonverbal, he can make sounds, but he doesn't speak, as I said before, he's vision impaired.
So he's got really high muscle tone through his legs and arms, and because he's never been able to walk there, his growth plates have never been stimulated, so he's quite small. He's 25, but he's a he's a small 25.
He has probably got the biggest core muscles of anybody I've ever met because even though he’s vision impaired, he sort of likes to have his head upright, so if you lie him down on the floor, he likes to lift up his head.
He's in like 1/2 crunch position half of the time, so he's always working on his core is Hamish. But apart from that, any other activities are quite difficult for him.
He likes throwing things. He put things near him. He'll throw them. It's his favourite game.
Patty:
Yeah, I'd get a kick out of that.
Bronte:
Don't put anything valuable next to Hamish. He will chuck it. He thinks it's very, very funny.
But that does mean that to get him around there needs a two person carry or a hoist, you need the shower chair and a shower that you can get him in and out of.
All of these things as he's gotten older and bigger, have been things that have come into play. When he was younger and smaller, you could carry him just by yourself.
But as he gets older, it's more of a group effort.
Patty:
And I know you probably wouldn't have realised this at the time because you wouldn't have known any different from your family, but you were a young carer. Essentially you all were for Hamish, weren't you?
Bronte:
Yeah, I think it's a funny label because I don't really feel like that. I was a young carer. I mean, I was.
If he needed to be fed, we'd feed him if he needed water, we'd get water for him.
If he needed to be moved from one room to another, you'd pick him up and move him.
I mean, it's what you do for any member of your family that needed any of those things. It is if you had.
If you had a young member of your family in particular, say you've got a new baby in your family.
You would do all of that without even thinking. It's just that his needs sort of stayed constant. He didn't.
He didn't grow out of them. Yeah, over time. But yeah, I think it's it's been brilliant that our whole family has never really seen it as like anything extra, it's just that this is what Hamish needs and Bronte needs to be driven to the pool at 4:00 AM and Hamish needs to move from the couch to the dining room.
It's like which one of those is actually more difficult?
Probably the 4:00am thing is the least the least appeasing of those two. So that's probably the more difficult.
Special needs in those sorts of ways, because the dedication that my family also put into mine and my older sister’s swimming is pretty big as well.
Patty:
Yeah, yeah, that has to be acknowledged. I mean, you achieved greater wins than most people when you were so young Bronte, but many of them were tinged with a sense of being..
I don't know. I guess you could say, bitter sweet.
You've spoken about times when you were proud that your sister may have won a gold medal while simultaneously feeling disappointed that you didn't.
There were also times when she beat you by approximately 0.01 of a second and then times when you beat her by the same minuscule of time.
So even though you were thrilled that you won gold, there was also the tenderness around knowing that your sister had not.
But the story that is really profound for me was when you shared about the closing of one of the Olympic Games and you received a call saying that your brother had been hospitalised and given how medically fragile he was at the time and still is, there was a chance that he might not wake up from his operation. I can't help but think how traumatic and humbling that could be for anyone.
How do you navigate this constant sense of uncertainty that Hamish could fall gravely ill and even pass away at any given time?
Bronte:
Yeah, I think it's something you adjust to over time, isn't it? And I mean anybody who has someone in their family who's very ill, you really understand that life is not to be taken for granted.
It's not a given thing that we all just get more days and everyone always says that life is short.
We could all not be here tomorrow, but it's hard to actually feel that until you're surrounded by it.
Patty:
And have the lived experience, right?
Bronte:
Yeah. And in 2012, at my first Olympics, that was when Hamish, he'd actually been over in London, the week before, my whole family was over watching, he'd never really had any major gut problems before then, but his bowel almost ruptured.
Patty:
While he was in London?
Bronte:
No, he had just got back.
They got back like 3 days before it happened, which was excellent.
Patty:
Yes, very, very lucky.
He was among specialists that knew him.
Bronte:
Yeah, specialists that know him. And a healthcare system that you can just slot right into because he stayed in hospital for a long time after that. I went from competing at my first Olympics to coming home, and that's when the caring sort of really started because Mum was in hospital 24/7 with Hamish and Dad had to go back to work because he'd used all his leave to come watch the Olympics and I've got two younger siblings who needed to get driven to school.
Patty:
Yeah, of course.
Bronte:
They needed to get going to their after-school activities and all the rest of it so, we had a beautiful community around us that helped a lot as well, but it that's definitely when the going gets tough, that's when everyone has to sort of pull together because as everything just goes along normally, you've got a routine, you've got strategies, but knowing that it can be upended really quickly, that can be the hardest thing because then you need the extra support and we were really lucky that we had that.
Patty:
Hmm, I imagine it makes you hyper vigilant as well that anything could happen at any given time because of that continuous embodied experience that you have.
Bronte:
Yeah, I think it can.
Definitely now, like Hamish is a lot more stable now, but there have been a few times in the last few years where you are sort of always on the lookout because you really don't know what's going to happen, but he's more stable now.
He has great care, and the sort of crises have sort of passed. That doesn't mean that they won't come up again, but it definitely feels a lot more, a lot more stable now that you.
I think it's been a while since he's been in hospital, which is good.
Patty:
Yeah, I think you mentioned that Hamish is currently in palliative care, which means that he's within the hospital system.
So no longer seeking cures, but instead managing for the last 7 to 8 years. I can't help but think aside from proving time and time again that he is indeed a fighter, ever since he was born.
What does that mean for your family?
Bronte:
So palliative care is slightly different to the system within the hospital.
It basically means you're no longer looking for exactly what the root cause of everything is, and trying to do all these investigations, which for Hamish was kind of impossible anyway because nobody 100% knows what goes on in that little gut of his but, I mean for our family, it means you get the extra support and you can get through the system quite quickly when you come in.
You're sort of with the same doctors a lot, which is really good. And I mean it obviously is it's a heavy decision to make to go into that system, but I think it was the right one and he's been in that system for a long, long time.
I mean, normally palliative care, you hear about it towards.
Patty:
3 to 6 months at most, right, if that.
Bronte:
Yeah. Towards the end of life, that's where you end. At the time that he entered it, it was a really a touch and go moment.
But as you said, Hamish is a very tough individual. So he's he's very much stuck it out in the in the system and he's a definite fighter.
He has the this is what blows my mind. He hasn't eaten any food for like 6 or 7 years because he gets fed through intravenous line.
Imagine just not eating. I don't even know that was an option. I didn't know that you could not eat for 6 or 7 years and still be alive. It's... It's incredible.
Patty:
Extraordinary, isn't it?
Bronte:
Absolutely incredible.
Patty:
Yeah. I mean, your mum is a nurse, right? And she and your dad are Hamish's primary carers. What's the greatest lesson? Or maybe inspiration that they've impressed on you while caring for Hamish?
Bronte:
I think the biggest thing was growing up with Hamish and the way my parents always viewed it was to just sort of meet people as they are and not really assume anything or even just look at people and think that they're different. I think a lot of people struggle to interact with disability because they're not sure what's OK and what's not.
Patty:
Yes, I imagine. And what's OK to ask and what's OK to assume?
Bronte:
Exactly all of those things. And I just think growing up with Hamish and a lot of the people who you went to school with, you just feel a lot more confident around anybody who's a little bit different and you ask them about themselves and engage with them.
They're just, they're just people. You just meet them exactly as they are. So definitely the way, the way that we went about it was more focusing on the things that Hamish could do, which granted, he can't do a lot for himself, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have things that he loves like he loves his terrible taste in music.
He loves music that has a good beat. He likes to listen to it, nods his head. But he also loves these terrible songs, like the Agadug pineapple song, it's awful. I don't even know what it is.
It’s awful, but he'll listen to that song over and over and over again. He's hilarious. He loves the feeling of going fast so he really likes sailing. Uhm, there's a lovely company that is called ‘Sailability’. They take people with disabilities out sailing.
They go on the boats for it, and he loves the feeling of going fast with like the windows down and the wind on his face and I think he's got a very quirky little personality, loves being around people, and he's always sort of listening in and he's got amazing comic timing.
Like I said, he's nonverbal, but he has a few sounds that he makes and the number of times that he makes a sound that's like, absolutely perfect. For the moment, I'm like, I'm pretty sure, you know exactly what's going on here.
He's a very funny guy, so I think the way that we always looked at Hamish was for all of those things that he liked and could do as opposed to looking at him for all the things that he couldn't, and that sort of informed how I look at most people because for him, the things that he can't do are very obvious.
They're right there and they're physical and you can see them, but I think everybody's got little things that they can't do. And little things that hold them back. And they're not always obvious.
So being able to sort of look past them when they're on the surface and being able to recognise them when they're not, that's probably the the biggest things that.
Patty:
Is that your biggest gift that you've received from Hamish, the ability to be able to see beyond the surface to people?
Bronte:
Yeah, I think so. He's he's pretty special. So definitely I think that's that's something he probably didn't mean to give us, but he definitely has.
Patty:
It's a beautiful gift. And what about how you show up professionally in the pool?
Bronte:
I mean when I would come home from training or competition or whatever, like he's just got no idea that I've been competing. He doesn't care about it; it doesn't change how he would view me or greet me as I walk in the door as well as when he's sick. It gives you a lot of perspective.
It's like why on Earth am I upset about a swimming race that goes from one end of the pool to the other, like it's really not life or death.
No one's hurt if I don't do what I wanted to do. No one really benefits if I do win or do do a good time that I wanted to do so it it lends a a perspective to that, to to know that there's there's bigger things outside of the swimming pool, and that's definitely helpful.
Patty:
Yeah, this is probably why you're so down to earth and humble. That's just my projection, though.
Bronte giggles
Patty:
Our carers and listeners have vastly caring roles over time and as someone who was a young carer yourself, what advice could you give to our guests who are listening today that are navigating that journey that you've probably traversed already?
Bronte:
Yeah, I think I always find it very hard to give advice because I think everyone's situations are so unique. But probably the biggest thing is knowing that you're not alone. And with Hamish he was out with us, we’d would push him around the wheelchair.
His disabilities are very visible, and people would then come up and talk to us about someone in their family who had a disability or someone who they were caring for and.
It sort of opened up this conversation, and connection. So we were aware that, hey, this looks kind of unique, but it's not.
And when you look at the statistics of how many carers there are, what there's 2.7 million?
Patty:
I think there's more, but that's officially that number.
Bronte:
Yeah, there's probably a lot more because those statistics are self identified, right? Yes, but that ends up being almost 1 in 10 people in Australia.
I think the statistic is that 1 in 3 will be a care at some point in their lifetime. So I mean it's not exactly advice, but the thing that always helped us is we knew we weren't alone because people would come up and make those connections.
But so much of caring happens in private and it is sort of this this hidden thing, and not everybody will even know if you're a carer or not.
Knowing that there are other people like you out there, people go through the same things and there are places to connect. That's probably the biggest thing. Trying not to be isolated and it's really hard, asking for help. It feels uncomfortable but people want to help.
Our communities have been so lovely as we've grown up and at any time that Hamish was sick or in hospital.
Whatever you needed to ask for, people were begging for something practical to do, whether it was taking one of the children to school or cooking meals or helping in the house. People are lovely and they want to help you.
I guess there's there's this weird thing where you're like, oh, I shouldn't ask for help, but I know in any time that any of my friends have gone through anything you want to do, something to help.
It's part of the caring. Community extends beyond the family. So no, you're not alone and lean on those networks when you need to.
Patty:
Yeah. And I know that you've done volunteer work yourself, you've also been someone that's offered assistance, haven't you?
Bronte:
Yeah, yeah. Actually I used to do it when I was really young. I used to go to Hamish’s school and volunteer and help out at the school there.
I think I used to go for 1/2 day a week. I get out of actual school and go to Hamish's school and help out.
Patty:
Did you get to skip maths?
Bronte:
I hope so {both giggle}
Patty:
What an incentive.
Bronte:
I know, right? But it was very funny as Hamish’s school was for people with a disability but they also have a vision impairment and I had one of the classmates who I was her special buddy to look after her and the first day I arrived she was like, “I want to go roller skating, you can guide me”.
And I was like, “I can't roller skate!”
So, I'm like, there, trying to roller skate. I'm supposed to be guiding her because she can't 100% see where she's going and I was like falling over and like, pulling her to the ground and she was like, you're like, the worst guide I've ever had!
It was very funny. And another lesson of like.
You think like, oh, I'm the person who's got full function of my limbs. And then she was just way better at skating than me and she never asked me to be her guide again.
{Both giggle}
Patty:
Another humbling moment I think it might be time for some rapid fire wrap up questions.
What do you think?
Bronte:
Yeah, that sounds good
Patty:
OK. If you had to be a Disney character, who would you be?
Bronte:
I would probably be Nala from The Lion King, cause she's real badass isn't she?
Patty:
She is. She is amazing. I thought you would just say Moana because she lived in the ocean. You surprised me.
Bronte:
She's actually great.
Patty:
If you could have an unlimited supply of one thing, what would it be?
Bronte:
Water all the time.
{Both giggle}
Patty:
Both to drink and to swim in?
Bronte:
Yeah, absolutely. Both of them.
Patty:
I love it. What habit holds you back the most, if any?
Bronte:
So many habits hold me back.
I’m a perfectionist sometimes so I think people hold up perfectionism as like a badge of honor, but it's really not. It stops you from starting things because you want it to be really, really good.
You're not equipped.
Patty:
Yet so well, it's like a whole spectrum. Like, how perfectionistic are you? Are you a reformed perfectionist? Are you a retired perfectionist? Are you apracticing perfectionist?
Bronte:
I'm no I'm perfectionist who's, I don't know, maybe in remission at the moment
Patty:
If you can learn any language in a week, which would it be?
Bronte:
I would love to learn Icelandic because it's the the most difficult and it sounds pretty cool.
Patty:
Yes, it does actually. Do you watch any of the Viking TV series?
Bronte:
No, I've never watched it. I mean, I I think I watched a little bit of it, but it was a big commitment. There's like 10 seasons or something. I don't have time for this.
Patty:
This is true. This is true. This is true. Maybe when and if you retire.
What subject would you be OK never having to learn about again?
Bronte:
That's a weird one. I like learning about most things. I think I really. I hated learning chemistry, but I think that was more a reflection of the class than anything else, but I think chemistry is actually quite interesting, so I don't know.
I was also learning it in German because I did German immersion at school, so I did all my subjects in German. It was quite difficult at the time.
Patty:
My goodness.
{Both giggle}
That's actually incredible. That's incredible.
And that comes to the end of our chat with the incredibly talented, but also very humble Bronte Campbell. Bronte. Thank you so much for joining us.
Bronte:
Thanks Patty. Thanks for having me.
Patty:
My pleasure.
May you achieve even more success with your efforts at the Paris Olympics. All of us at the Carer Gateway will be cheering for you, especially me.
But at the same time, we're sending your brother, Hamish and your family, our love, our respect and our gratitude for the permission that we had to hear about your inspiring story and his inspiring story as well.
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This ensures our interviews get to the right people so that they too can be informed. Until next time. Take good care of yourself.
Billy:
If you are caring for a relative or a friend who has a disability, a mental health condition, a life limiting health or medical condition.
Or they are frail because they're getting older. Please contact us at Carer Gateway on 1800 422 737, or look us up on www.carergateway.gov.au
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