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0 Corinne Truslove was burnt out after working a 9-to-5 corporate job for 25 years when she decided to put her laptop away, aged 48, and sail the world – but little did she know an impending cancer diagnosis would throw a wrench in her plans.
The now 52-year-old, from Western Australia, affectionately known as Cozzy, told FEMAIL that she bought a boat with her partner in May 2020 despite none of them ever sailing before.
‘We had our own event business – we organised food and entertainment for children’s parties, a bit like a travelling food circus, so we knew if we had our laptops we could work from anywhere,’ she said.
Western Australia Health requires all residents who turn 50 to get a bowel cancer check – so when Cozzy sent her sample in, she flagged other issues she’d been having with her stomach like cramping and distension.
Those little symptoms turned out to be the sign of something much more sinister – with Cozzy soon being diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer that required surgeons to remove an 8cm tumour along with 50 per cent of her liver.
Corinne Truslove was burnt out after working a 9-to-5 corporate job for 25 years when she decided to put her laptop away and sail the world
Cozzy and Mitch had spent two years sailing around Australia and all the way up to Indonesia before she started to feel strange.
The couple regularly posts vlogs on their YouTube channel, Sailing Ocean Life.
‘I thought my cramping might have been IBS or a result of me not looking after myself properly and my poor diet,’ Cozzy said.
‘But after my sample results came through my doctor wanted me to do a colonoscopy as soon as possible, and I was terrified.
‘Not only about the thought of having cancer, but I’d never had such an invasive medical procedure before.’
The colonoscopy found 14 polyps – which are small clumps of cells in the lining of the colon, and they can eventually develop into colon cancer.
Cozzy’s doctor wanted her to get another colonoscopy for a better look, but she soon went back on the boat. She didn’t go back and get it done until after she turned 51.
She shared that she kept pushing the appointment back because it wasn’t a high priority.
When Cozzy’s results came back, the doctors told her she developed cancer because she’d been taking birth control pills for too long
The couple went to the Montebello Islands to visit a few friends, which is a radiation risk because the land used to be a British nuclear bomb testing site in the 1950s.
Cozzy and Mitch couldn’t buy any food there, so all they had for the month was what they brought with them.
‘The fresh food ran out and we were left with instant noodles, which I hate. But I loved being on the boat and with my friends, so I powered through.’
She added, ‘I’d rescheduled the second colonoscopy so much that I needed another referral from my GP, which is when I called her about three months later.
‘She asked me how I was feeling, and I confessed to being a little bloated. I thought it was because of all the junk I was eating on board, but I just wasn’t used to it.
‘My doctor scheduled me for an ultrasound just in case, and I went in for it the next week.’
Cozzy and Mitch spent had spent two years sailing around Australia
Cozzy recalled sitting and casually chatting with the ultrasound technician while she scanned the left of her stomach.
But as soon as she moved the probe to the right, the technician’s face went pale.
She instructed Cozzy to go sit in the waiting room while she spoke to the doctor – but what she didn’t know was Cozzy could hear the duo speaking from outside.
‘I could hear them talking about a lesion – and they kept saying the number ‘six’. I didn’t know if it was millimetres, centimetres, or inches, but I was trying to look things up on my phone.’
The doctors revealed that it was a 6cm lesion, but weren’t sure if it was on her liver or lungs, so Cozzy had to go back for a PET scan and another follow-up appointment.
Cozzy spoke with a surgeon after they confirmed the mass was on her liver in January 2023, and they scheduled to take it out in March because of pre-made plans.
‘My partner’s sister, her husband, and their kids were supposed to come visit us. We were going to go sailing, so I couldn’t have the surgery until after.’
The surgeons discovered the mass was actually bigger than expected – 8cm – and required them to remove 50 per cent of Cozzy’s liver
The months flew by and it was soon time for the mass to come out. Cozzy wasn’t too worried – the doctor originally said that since the mass was 6cm, they only needed to remove 19 per cent of her liver.
But that didn’t end up happening.
Instead, the surgeons discovered the mass was actually bigger than expected – 8cm – and required them to remove 50 per cent of Cozzy’s liver.
‘I woke up terrified in the ICU,’ she recalled. ‘The cancer had grown out of my liver and attached itself to my diaphragm, and it was lining my lungs.’
She came extremely close to having lung cancer – a diagnosis that would have been fatal.
When Cozzy’s results came back, the doctors told her she developed cancer because she’d been taking birth control pills for too long and the extra oestrogen in her body caused cancer cells to develop.
‘They told me it had been slowly growing for 15 years when they found it.
‘It hadn’t been giving me much trouble, but after it gets to the size it was – that’s when it starts to get a bit more aggressive.
‘If we had waited even weeks longer to take it out, it would have been a lot more serious, and it terrifies me to think of what could’ve happened.’
Cozzy marvelled at the fact that she might have never known until it was too late if she hadn’t gone for the colonoscopy.
The mass was a result of well-differentiated cancer cells – which look and behave more like the normal cells in the tissue they started to grow in.
However, tumours that have well-differentiated cancer cells tend to grow and spread slowly – and in Cozzy’s case, it had taken 15 years.
While she didn’t need chemotherapy or radiation, Cozzy needed to take it slow and rest because of how much of her liver needed to regenerate.
Cozzy spoke with a surgeon after they confirmed the mass was on her liver in January 2023
She needs to get MRIs every three months for the foreseeable future to make sure the cancer doesn’t come back.
‘It’s made me very fearful,’ she admitted. ‘Every time I’m a bit unwell, I get scared. But I just need to remind myself that I’ve had an MRI recently, I’m in the clear. Other illnesses exist, too.
‘The doctor was confident he removed all the cancer, and took swabs of the area around the incision – which came back with no cancer cells.
‘But it’s hard to be confident that they got it all when you’ve been through that. It’s a little terrifying, but I’m trying my best to do my due diligence.’
Cozzy immediately went back to sailing once her surgeons gave her the all clear.
The couple had to go back to working full-time in January 2023, but they’re presently building a business that produces high-quality sailing equipment.
‘We really just want to get back out there and go around the world,’ she said. ‘We want to see as much as we can via sailboat and cruise around – it’s an amazing lifestyle.’
