Episode 11: My Husband’s Cancer
From Left: Ben Huggins, Kristie Huggins and children
Bio: Believe it or not, Kristie is a very private, introverted, shy, focused lady who loves to read. Up to 4 books a week, she has overcome some of the hardest pain & suffering I've known, being illiterate most of her life until aged 30, she chose to rise above it all to share her message of courage and inspiration for something bigger than herself. - Ben Huggins
Find Kristie on Facebook: Look for Kristie Huggins
Podcast transcript below:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents. Where broken, beaten, scarred people come to learn maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about.
In my ongoing investigation of the damage self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There's a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side whole.
Those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them, let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today we're going to talk with Kristie Huggins. She has many roles in her life, mother, wife, best-selling author, and more. We'll talk about how after being married for 10 days she found out her husband has terminal cancer and how they're muddling through. Let's talk.
Welcome Kristie to Relatively Damaged. We're so glad to have you here today.
Kristie Huggins: [00:02:08] Thank you so much for having me.
Damaged Parents: [00:02:10] Yeah, this is the show where we talk about struggle and how to find hope. Now I was really interested. I'm actually really excited to talk to you because when you answered the form of your biggest struggle, you said my husband's terminal cancer diagnosis. And the reason I think I'm so excited about that is because a lot of, I don't think many people realize is someone that what happens to our loves one loved ones is also a struggle for us.
So tell us about that process and some of those feelings that came along when you guys found out that he had terminal cancer diagnosis.
Kristie Huggins: [00:02:54] So it's only 19 months ago. Uh, so he got diagnosed terminally only in September. back on in 2019 on July. 29. Cause you don't forget the date. So July 29, 2019. We'd only been married 10 days. We just got married 10 days beforehand. And we just eloped actually, because I was 13 weeks pregnant with my third child and we had just finished mapping out, like he's only 35 or he was only.
What is he? He was only 34, 33 at the time. And now he's 35 and I'm 40. So long story short, he didn't tell me there was anything wrong. This is a man, right? This is a bloke. He was in the mines. He worked in the mines. You know, like doing like in a coal mine as a big digger driver and all that other men.
Toy stuff. So he didn't express anything that was happening. So when he told me that he's going to go to the doctor's and I was like, well, have fun. And we had a little argument and because I was pregnant, I've got two other children as well. I dropped him off at the front of the hospital. I said, have fun.
You're going to be a big pain in the ass kind of thing. Right. And I went right. Bad me. And then, um, and I, and we lived across the road from the hospital. I said, you can walk home, but what I didn't realize was he was going in, for a colonoscopy
Damaged Parents: [00:04:23] Right.
Kristie Huggins: [00:04:23] and I had no idea what that was.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:27] Okay. Hold on. So he had been to the doctor and they scheduled a colonoscopy. Okay. And you have no idea at this point, what that means did you, so didn't have to drink a bunch of stuff so that his bowels were empty and everything
Kristie Huggins: [00:04:41] Yeah, he had to do all that, but, I don't know, like he doesn't really talk about it. He does all these weird things.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:47] So you were just frustrated and upset when you're dropping him off.
Kristie Huggins: [00:04:51] yeah. Cause I wanted to go do something else and he was like, you got to take me here, but I was pregnant. So my emotions were going through the roof.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:59] Right.
Kristie Huggins: [00:04:59] A child I'm just like, anyway, so those that process, so yes, I dropped him off and then they said, Oh, we'll call you in about one to two weeks. He got called the next day.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:10] So were you worried when you got the call the next day? Or did you even know
Kristie Huggins: [00:05:14] I didn't even know he got the call, like he said, Oh, I've got a doctor's appointment. They've asked me to come in and I went, huh? And for some reason, call it divine intervention. I have no idea. Yeah. But for some reason I said, Hey, I'll come with you. I'm bored at home. Cause I'll stay home. Mum. I'll come with you just to get out of the house.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:38] Great.
Kristie Huggins: [00:05:38] And I don't know about you in California, whatever. But when you wait in the doctor's office here, you have to wait like an hour or more
Damaged Parents: [00:05:45] Seems like it sometimes.
Kristie Huggins: [00:05:47] Yeah. But we walked in. And the doctor literally saw us and he said, come straight through. Didn't even get to sit down.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:57] Okay. So what in that moment were you thinking when you get in there?
Kristie Huggins: [00:06:02] this is strange. I've had three babies. I'm 40 years old. I've been to the doctors. I never once have, I never had to wait. And for some reason, my heart started to beat just that little bit faster. And when we went into the doctor and sat down, he looked over, he goes, I'm so pleased. You brought your family
Damaged Parents: [00:06:27] Oh, no. What, what did that feel like? Did your heart sink
Kristie Huggins: [00:06:30] I looked at him and I'm, I'm not, I probably not. I won't, I'll try not to swear cause I'm conscious of that. But I looked at him and I did this. Like, I don't know if people see my face or whatever, but I just went right. Our doctors don't say that shit unless there's something wrong.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:45] Yeah. So you're looking really confused. The face you made to me looks like, what are you saying? And why are you saying it?
Kristie Huggins: [00:06:53] 'cause I had my 15 month old daughter, like I was still breastfeeding her and pregnant at the same time.
Call that ridiculous of the most stupid mistakes there, but no. So I had my baby and my baby daughter, um, and. The doctor, I can see it so vividly. Like Ben was sitting next to the, you know, how you got the chair next to the desk and in this doctor's office, it was quite big.
So you have the bed and there was a chair next to the bed. So I went and sat, about two meters away. Cause I, I was breastfeeding a baby daughter and then he goes, okay, Ben. Now I shit. You not. When the doctor starts crying and you see tears down his face, shit's not cool. And I
Damaged Parents: [00:07:41] Oh, and you're breastfeeding
Kristie Huggins: [00:07:42] and I'm breastfeeding
Damaged Parents: [00:07:43] emotions are a mess.
Kristie Huggins: [00:07:46] completely dead.
Catastrophic would be the word
Damaged Parents: [00:07:49] I think for me, I might think, I don't even know what to feel at that point.
Kristie Huggins: [00:07:53] Well, I wrote a book on this called stage five because these feelings were just off the charts, right? So I'm looked over and I went now, if the doctor's crying, shit's bad and nervousness that you kind of go, what is happening? I looked over and he goes, look, Ben, I don't know how to tell you this.
Your colonoscopy revealed you have bowel cancer.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:20] And he's 34
Kristie Huggins: [00:08:23] he was 33 at the time.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:24] 33 at the time.
Kristie Huggins: [00:08:25] I looked over now, I don't know if you edit the blips or whatever, and I looked over it. I'm always polite to the doctors and I've gone. What the did you just say? And it was a really angry authoritative loud. . You did not just say that.
And what happened was every cell of my human being felt like napalm had caught fire and I fainted,
Damaged Parents: [00:08:51] with the baby.
Kristie Huggins: [00:08:52] the baby holding my baby. I couldn't feed her. I had to stop feeding her. All of a sudden the doctor's helping me cause I was pregnant as well. So I was like, shit, I'm going to miscarry here. Like my whole body collapsed on itself. And I looked over didn't I didn't even look at my husband just looked down like, and I'm crying uncontrollably, like shaking, like an epileptic on a chair. And I looked over at my husband and like Ben and I've gone. Oh my, I knew, okay. How do you, like, what the, what does this mean? Like, and then all of a sudden shit just got really fast.
It was almost like, you know, when you press the fast-forward button on a DVD,
Damaged Parents: [00:09:35] yeah.
Kristie Huggins: [00:09:36] That's what it felt like for the next six months, you've got to go see this surgeon, this chemotherapy guy, this radiation person, this, but it was just a conveyor belt of medical interventions, tests, scans, CTS, whatever else, blood tests and other frigging tests and shit they do.
Right.
And then what he said was now we don't know what stage it's at. And he showed us the pictures of it. Right? Cause he had the little photos down. I'm like, Oh my cause cancer to me meant you're dead. He's going to die. I'm like, I'm goddamn pregnant. I'm 13 weeks pregnant with my third baby with a 15 month old.
And I have a ten-year-old
we had decided I waited until I was later in life, had my career to have babies.
I closed my company to be a mother. And I was like, why? So, my husband, he was the only income Werner, the whole shebang,
Damaged Parents: [00:10:38] So you're all of a sudden thinking I'm going to have to do this alone.
Kristie Huggins: [00:10:41] Single mom. I'm going to be a single mom that has no job, no savings, no nothing, because I had put all trust and faith. To allow my husband to financially support me and be the, um,
Damaged Parents: [00:10:55] The breadwinner.
Kristie Huggins: [00:10:56] the breadwinner, that's the word. And I surrendered to be the stay-at-home mum,
Stay-at-home mom was not a genetic easy thing for me to consider because. I love business. I love purpose. I love impacting people, but I consciously chose to be a present mom in their lives. If I was going to have them.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:15] Right.
Kristie Huggins: [00:11:16] And then all of a sudden it was like whipped out from under me.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:20] totally. And were you, so in some ways I think I would be panicking. Do you think you were panicking?
Kristie Huggins: [00:11:27] Oh no, no, no. I didn't panic. I went into shock.
So shock to me actually, um, was, uh, how would I explain it? What is a survival tool? So it actually puts the, um, the hot back to a natural rhythm, but shock allows you to stop and not feel the intense emotion so you can function.
So it's just a, it's a, it's part of the chemical balances of the brain.
So if you, because shock is so severe, you actually wouldn't be able to live with yourself. So the body sends off chemicals to the rest of the body and the brain and all of this that it's actually almost in-between denial. So you, that you don't fully feel what's happening. So it puts you in a bit more of a calmness where you stop talking, you stop rushing, you stop panicking, so to speak. And then the doctor explained, you know, stages one, two, three, four, and he's like, well, I hope we've got it early enough. You know, if it's stage one or two, you know, we can just cut it out and do the thing and it's fine. And I was like, Oh great. Well, it's the first time we've heard about it. So he'll just be stage one. And I was like, honey, it's a simple cut and paste. Like I've had two babies take, I've had us as their, I need to pay six weeks as you'll be out. You'll be fine.
Damaged Parents: [00:12:49] Right.
Kristie Huggins: [00:12:50] Well, he did all the tests. He was straight stage three, borderline, four straight up. And we're like, and then when we went to the surgeons. So the surgeon said, I'll look, you're stage three, borderline four. And we're like, well, what the hell does that mean? They go, well, We can't really operate. I said what they go because of where his tumor is in the colon. It's in the sigmoid now I won't get too graphic, but it's pretty much when you've got a kitchen sink, you've got the pipe that goes straight and then the bends. And just before the, you know, the, all the waste comes out. Which is behold you like your, your bum? I don't know how to
Damaged Parents: [00:13:34] You're aiming at it. Well, the technical word right. Is anus.
Kristie Huggins: [00:13:37] So it's in the bend. So that makes surgery super hard and sometimes it won't heal. Because it's on a bend and because of the nature of the function.
So they said, we can't really do this. It's not going to heal. I'm like, well, now what
Damaged Parents: [00:13:54] right.
Kristie Huggins: [00:13:55] they go, well, you'd have a stoma bag on. But we can't guarantee that you will get that removed because it was all too complicated because of the nature of where it is. And he would lose, the function of going to the toilet and.
all other functions that resolve with the reproductive system and the butt everything he would lose all control and would never be able to use any of it again.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:18] If they did the surgery.
Kristie Huggins: [00:14:20] if they did the surgery and so at 33, he's like, well, hell no. And then they said, well, look, we could attempt radiation and chemotherapy to shrink it, but we can't guarantee it.
And we were like, well, you're telling us, you cannot guarantee that this shit's going to work and I'm pregnant. And I got another baby and I've got an other child and we're here and you can't guarantee what you're about to do. Now. I couldn't handle that doctor's visit. So I walked out, I left Ben in there, call it divine.
I don't know. I just like this shit is just ridiculous. Because to me, it was like, she was telling me how she's going to slowly kill him.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:59] Ooh, ouch.
Kristie Huggins: [00:15:01] And I was like, I just, I cannot cope with this. So I walked out and then when we got in the car to drive home, I say, honey, that has to be a different way. And he's like, well, what other way is they? We don't know. There's another way that this could happen. And I'm like, so we started to look for alternative ways and I was like, well, what other way is, if you don't have medical intervention, what other way do you go?
And we stumbled along. it's called natural. Healing neck cancer naturally, or, , like natural healing, alternative holistic therapies, like, changing your diet, changing your environment, your emotions, the chemistry of the body. You go plant-based, you do all this stuff,
Damaged Parents: [00:15:49] so like a book or a place that you went to that said you need to do this, or how, how it?
Kristie Huggins: [00:15:56] There are coaches. There are coaches and mentors and practitioners and natural paths and all those types of people, which was lately new. Well to us, we didn't know this existed.
Damaged Parents: [00:16:09] so did you how'd you find it, if you didn't know it existed, you just. Okay. You Googled
Kristie Huggins: [00:16:14] just Googled. Alternative cancer healing therapies will. I don't remember exactly what he typed in.
We put on Facebook, Ben has stage three cancer and people were like, Oh my God, it's Ben. No way. This is Ben.
So we got inbox. A lot of people who were telling us. You've got to see this person, go see this person, all holistic healers.
Right. And we're like, okay. So that's where we also got our information from, from other people in the health alternate world.
Damaged Parents: [00:16:48] So did you join groups on Facebook to, and that's where you posted this and then you were getting all this information back. Sounds like people were pretty helpful.
Kristie Huggins: [00:16:57] It was in the beginning. going to be very blunt during this and say, this was horrendous to go through our family. The people you think support you like your family and friends.
And I can say this openly because we've gone through 19 months, both our families, including our mothers and fathers do not speak to us anymore. Our friends we've lost all of our friends that I've had since school close. People do not talk to us anymore. He actually in the end, refused chemo, radiation and surgery because he chose quality of life over quantity.
He watched his own father go through chemotherapy. And the horrendousness that it is, he watched his own mother with a brain tumor and he's own people. He goes, if I don't have long to live, he was told he was not going to make Christmas. So he was only going to get from him.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:50] well, yeah, so that brings up another just a quick, I mean, just something that, goes through my mind. I mean, it's, I don't, is it really up to me to decide for someone else what they should do?
Kristie Huggins: [00:18:03] No. So in like we wrote, uh, like I said, when we wrote in our book, it doesn't matter what we've come to the conclusion through this experience being the target. It does not matter what a person decides to do. It matters that the person decided to do it themselves. And you support that person's decision.
Now, if they want to go and have chemo, radiation, and surgery, because that's how they feel, they're going to win and survive and cure themself. It doesn't matter what I think. And it shouldn't, it doesn't matter that you go, Oh, they shouldn't be doing that. You surrender all judgment. Because that surrender is the thing that's going to support them emotionally.
And that's, what's undoubtedly going to help them heal through the process even more. And if they choose to go natural therapies and just ate a plant-based diet and take some CBD oil or, do nothing, if they, even, if they choose to do nothing and surrender. And use denial shock as a empowerment tool go.
I don't believe I have cancer. Cancer's an illusion someone's told me I've got something. I don't believe it. If they go down that path, you've got to surrender. Just surrendering old judgment is 99% of the healing.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:25] well, so those people made this judgment. And in your thank goodness, he's got you, right? Because it sounds like you're very supportive and understanding, and that also must have hurt your friends, your family, because they have the choice to not use Western medicine. What were the emotions when you started recognizing these people just were not going to talk to us anymore or they just weren't going to care.
I mean, what was that?
Kristie Huggins: [00:19:55] So, this is where it brought me to doing what I'm doing. So when I. We get out that my friends and family weren't going to be there.
And
the aloneness that I felt, I actually was like, I was more distraught than Ben was with cancer. I became the depressed person. I became the friggin emotionally unstable. Rec. I couldn't, I felt okay. I'll give you a real life experience. not pretty, this was not pretty. Ben's got cancer, right? He's got terminal cancer. Now let's fast. Forward it a little bit. Yeah. He's got terminal cancer. He's now stage four. It's in his livers, it's in his other things. We're actually waiting on his scan next week. He's just, he's implemented some other treats like natural treatments, and we're literally waiting for his results that he's been implementing, but I'll give you a real life experience.
This was the turning point for me that made me realize there was no support for the carer. Like no real support and I'm talking people with the cancer or a disease or terminal illness or any disease of any sort. It's all relevant. Like you could have frigging something, but it's just as traumatic, right? Ben has the cancer and I felt that this is a personal experience. This may not be for everybody. And no one may relate to this, or I may have a whole heap of people relate to this. But I am so blunt that I say this out loud.
Support for a carer does not exist in the way people think, because I felt one I'm not allowed to say there's anything wrong with me because I'm not dying of cancer.
And I don't have a disease and there's nothing wrong with me because it's a mental, emotional thing. Right. You can't see it. And I felt I was not allowed to express that. And I was not as important because I'm not dying
Damaged Parents: [00:21:59] Yeah, because all of this attention, you've got to take him to doctor's appointments him here and their support groups for him. And I'm sure there's a whole bunch for him.
Kristie Huggins: [00:22:10] and here's the thing I was pregnant. I was not allowed to be excited having a baby. Because no one even asked, I gave birth by myself in the hospital. No one even asked about my baby or has your pregnancy going? The only people who asked me it was when I would go to my doctor appointment and they would say, Hey Kristie how's everything going?
And
there. My doctor, my, what do you call them? The gynecologist or the, the pregnant doctor would set aside two hours for me.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:42] Wow. So you got your support with
it at the doctor's office.
Kristie Huggins: [00:22:47] and they even gave me social workers to talk to because no one ever asked how was Kristie going?
Damaged Parents: [00:22:55] Yeah. And you think there would be something over through the cancer doctors. Office that for family support and there's nothing.
Kristie Huggins: [00:23:05] nothing. Now I've been to now there's a, there's an organization here called cancer council Australia. I went and had a meeting with them because I'm an action taker. Right. I'm a born blooded entrepreneur. Right.
I'll tell you the other bit first, to backtrack that story, this real life, but it was, it was 11 o'clock at night.
Ben was in the hospital. He had his stoma bag put on. Now this is very, I'll try not to cry through this. He was laying on the floor one afternoon in excruciating fetal position in pain. Let's fast forward a little bit. I'd had my baby, right. birth.
Damaged Parents: [00:23:44] Right.
Kristie Huggins: [00:23:45] But they taught, he wasn't going to Ben even sent me cards of like, he sent the I'm going to die now cards because he went away for 10 weeks to do some natural therapy treatment and he wasn't going to make it, he got to 47 kilos.
He couldn't even stand up. He was bedridden. His parents had phoned me. We're going to call the ambulance. This is, this is it. I was like, well, it's not because Ben's put a, do not resuscitate. You actually cannot help him. He's got a, do not resuscitate in his legal documents. You're not allowed to help him.
The only thing that ambulance is going to do is witness his death time. And he's mum and dad, like what Ben hadn't even told anybody this. So, there was a do not resuscitate. So when I got that phone call, I got put in like my body shut down again in shock. And at 29 weeks pregnant, I went into early labor.
Damaged Parents: [00:24:38] Oh, my gosh.
Kristie Huggins: [00:24:40] It took them four days to stop it.
They gave me whatever stuff they do to stop it.
Damaged Parents: [00:24:45] But you've got two kids at home
Kristie Huggins: [00:24:47] exactly. So I had to take them with me
Damaged Parents: [00:24:50] to the hospital.
Kristie Huggins: [00:24:51] I rang my sister and said, can you come and help me? I'm in, labor in the world, like I was in labor in the supermarket. I had a supermarket attendant this shit sounds crazy.
The more I'm , remembering this, I had the supermarket attendant, you know, like the checkout chick come and sit next to me and she watched my kids.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:10] Oh, how sweet
Kristie Huggins: [00:25:12] got random people anyway. So then my sister had to leave work, come and get me and take me to the hospital. And then I was like, Oh my God. And I said, I rang Ben.
I said, I'm in early labor. He can't move. By the way. He's like dying in a bed, 14 hours away from me. A lot of this story's a bit choppy, changing, cause it's not really flat because I'm remembering as I'm going.
and he's like, I'm coming home. And I was like, he couldn't even go to the toilet. He was bedridden.
Right.
And then I was like, Oh, he's going to miss it. And I'm going to give birth at 29 weeks. And I'm in a regional town. So you can't give birth at 29 weeks, you have to get a helicopter to Sydney. And I was like, so they had the helicopter prepping to take me to Sydney.
And I'm like, yeah, I can't go to Sydney.
I've got no one to watch. And I was still breastfeeding my daughter. So she wasn't even winged. And I'm like my life's a mess, but fast forward to the day that he was I'd given birth by myself,
Damaged Parents: [00:26:18] Now was it, it wasn't 29 weeks then how far did you
Kristie Huggins: [00:26:21] I
Damaged Parents: [00:26:22] it?
Kristie Huggins: [00:26:22] it to 40 weeks. I made
Damaged Parents: [00:26:23] Okay.
Kristie Huggins: [00:26:24] So, my 40th day where they, my due date, I went into labor naturally.
Thank God. And then, you know, The hospital, 30 minutes, I had an epidural then, and then, you know, within a couple of hours, I was 7 centimeters and then Ben went home to get my stuff and then the cold around my baby's neck and he'd lost his heartbeat.
And I'm like, now my baby's life was going to die.
I was like, what's going on? So. When I, when that happened, your code one, that means they knock you out. You're gone to theater. And I was like, don't knock me out. Let me, you know, so don't code one, me. So they will preface in the elevator. So they took out all my jewelry, my earrings, my phone stuff, shit went everywhere.
I don't know where it was. So they lost my phone. They couldn't call Ben. And they're rushing me in the theater prepping me in the elevator to give birth because the court's wrapped around my baby's neck. So I gave birth by myself. And that was about, I think it was like four o'clock in the afternoon
or four or six o'clock in the afternoon.
It was just going dark. Ben, didn't get to know he had a baby til eight 39 o'clock that night. So I couldn't ring him because the hospital was searching for my phone.
Damaged Parents: [00:27:46] and they didn't have the, his number in your church.
Oh, no.
Kristie Huggins: [00:27:51] So then they came and it was COVID right.
Damaged Parents: [00:27:54] Right.
Kristie Huggins: [00:27:55] you weren't allowed, you weren't allowed. Anyway, so they let him come up with the kids at nine o'clock at night, see the baby, but it was only allowed to stay one hour each day. And because he was quite frail at this point. But he could still manage bringing the kids up fast forward to when his name, my new baby's name is Neo. So now I have three kids COVID hit. No one's allowed to go to hospital. Ben's on the floor, in our house, in the fetal position in excruciating pain. I'm like, what's up, babe?
Like, what's going on? I'd had a cesarean so I was not very mobile. And I was like, Oh my God, like I had to take him to the hospital. He didn't want to go to the hospital, but he was in so much pain. And because of COVID, I wasn't allowed to go in with three kids. I had to drop him off at the emergency exit of the door.
And I said, ring me and let me know what they say.
Damaged Parents: [00:28:51] So you're you see him in the fetal position you've had to cesarean
are you scared? Are you thinking this is it what's going through your mind?
Kristie Huggins: [00:29:02] So in my mindset, because I'm very strong at mindset, like I actually teach mindset, like I'm a personal development. Like I've been a personal development mindset coach for 10 years, but I gave up my company to be a parent. So I have emotional intelligence training. I have, mindset training. I help people in trauma.
and I'm using my only skills that I teach people. So I surrendered to God. Like I never believed in God before this. I mean, I did, but I did it right. But I found a prevail, a profound thing in God, When Ben had cancer and I will, or not, when he still does, I found God was the only person that supported me.
I started doing that stupid praying shit at the side of the bed. I did like, they're like, okay, Kristie's people when I sit there, like they're looking at me and they're like, okay, Kristie's found God, shit's bad.
Like I have a military background and I'm like this motivating. In-between a Joe dispenser, Tony Robbins motivator, right on the positive thinking person.
Now when Kristie finds God, we're all right.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:16] Okay. So you're, but that's really interesting that you're saying that because it's almost like you're like, I can't believe I'm having to use these tools. I know these tools and you hadn't had to use them before and now thank goodness you knew about the tools, right. Even if you hadn't gotten to use them.
So it sounds like it, even though you didn't, hadn't really used that tool before. Just knowing that it existed and it was possible was enough to give you peace in that moment.
Kristie Huggins: [00:30:48] These tools. Give me the ability to wake up and function. And live in the moment without the constant thought of the future of my husband's going to die like that. These tools give me the peace every single day without living in depression, without the panic, without the constant anxiety, without, what other label can I give it?
That people, emotional breakdown.
Damaged Parents: [00:31:16] Right and it sounds like though, you've, definitely could say you've experienced that, right? Like you've experienced those feelings.
Kristie Huggins: [00:31:24] There are times that I've been in the corner. This was that other story. It was 11 o'clock at night. I'm in the, trying to put my kids to bed. My daughter won't sleep. My I've got a newborn. He won't, he won't sleep. My ten-year-olds like he's had to now become the parent. I'm like Archie, you put Shenique to bed, I'll put the newborn to bed.
It was horrendous. And I just collapsed on the floor crying. And that's the moment I surrendered. I couldn't parent my own children. I had no help. And then it was like one o'clock in the morning. No sleep for days. Ben was in the hospital for a week and I'm crying failure as a mother failure, life suicidal thoughts.
And I'm talking. I give up on life. My life is shit. Why did God give me this? Why is this happening to me? Like life was
Damaged Parents: [00:32:21] Yeah.
Kristie Huggins: [00:32:22] and I'm alone with no help because when we need the support, the most I went, there's no one here. only me. No one could do it. And that's when I started to go, you know what, I'm the only one that can help myself right now.
Damaged Parents: [00:32:39] Yeah.
Kristie Huggins: [00:32:41] responsibility and I did something completely strange. I went, so I was super sleep deprived, right. Cause newborn,
Damaged Parents: [00:32:50] Yeah. Yeah.
Kristie Huggins: [00:32:51] and I like, you know what? I just surrendered. And I said, all right. I'm not going to put the kids to bed. You know what? Kids let's make some popcorn. This is one o'clock in the morning.
Keeps let's put some, let's make some popcorn. I put my baby in one of those front sling things, you know, the baby carrier. All right kids. What movie do you want to watch? Who wants a Bible boss? Who wants some popcorn? And I became the motivated mummy, right? like, it. I'm not going to do the, put the kids to bed at seven o'clock.
You know what? Forget all that shit. Forget my kids sleeping. You know what? Let's have a party, put a movie on kids, anything you want? I put on all the lights I put music on and I started to empower myself. And you know, what happened? something absolutely magical happened
The kids were laughing. The stress of me putting him to bed was gone because the program running through my mind was it's 11 o'clock.
It was 1:00 AM and the kids should be asleep.
The thing I had to overcome was I needed sleep to function. But you know what? I didn't need sleep. I needed a new attitude. I needed to pick my pity party up off the floor. No one was there to save me. This was the most empowering thing I went. Wow. There's people that dedicate saving, you know, helping you between the hours of 9:00 AM and 5:00 AM,
but there's no one there from 11:00 AM to 5:00 AM when you
need them the most. Because the program, we should be asleep.
Damaged Parents: [00:34:27] So do you think in that moment, maybe you were waiting for some, or at that point you had this expectation. Someone was going to come and help someone was going to come and do for you
Kristie Huggins: [00:34:38] Someone was going to come save me and no one did.
Damaged Parents: [00:34:41] So in that moment, maybe was it.
Your pain is touching me so much. I'm sorry. But in that moment, that at your worst, that you finally learned to give yourself that hug that you needed. And to do that for yourself,
Kristie Huggins: [00:34:59] That is the ultimate self-love is. Surrendering in such a way that the only person you can love is yourself. You've got to love going. You know what? God has given me this moment to bring out the creator and the greatness that I am. He just goes, you need this to unleash and know how good you are and know how powerful you are. Know that I would not God, no, that I would not give you something you couldn't handle. Your circumstance does not define you. It defines your greatness.
Damaged Parents: [00:35:32] I liked that quote. I'm going to quote you on that one.
Kristie Huggins: [00:35:35] just reference me and you can go your hardest. I remember this chick , but that's what I live by my circumstance. And I tell it like, that, just that thing, surrendering, my circumstance does not define me. It defines my greatness is my driving force that I use when I'm helping people. Now, I now, for some reason, suddenly coach people in this space, but what made the difference was I changed the way I eat
when Ben, remember when I said, that we had to look for alternate things for Ben while the doctor said he couldn't eat meat because, he couldn't digest it and it's bowel cancer. Right. So that shit's going to hurt. So I became a supportive wife and I was a full-blown meat eater. Like we had, meat and three veg, like that's the typical thing.
We had fast food. We had takeaway our diet was really shitty. The self-discipline got hot. It was, it sucked. One of the things that we changed was I only changed because of Ben. I did this, I was the cook of the family, right. I'm the mum. cooked the meals and Ben went plant-based he went, plant-based eating.
And what that means is he had to remove meat. Seafood dairy eggs, processed sugars and processed meats, and anything else that didn't serve the body. Right. And I thought, well, what am I going to make you, I sell I'm set. Like I, chuck any took away breads as well
because bread has sugar and all that other stuff in it.
He couldn't digest that either. And I was like, well, me. What am I going to cook? You? I'm like, do I even cook me out? Like, so that forced me to get creative.
I started looking up and I was like, I'm not a vegan. This is almost vegan. As of like, I am not a vegan. I was like, vegans are these people that go around with Ben is going, don't kill animals.
And I'm like, Oh my God, save the planet, dude. I'm like, I care for the planet, but I didn't care that much because I was still eating whatever. But I realized that I had well, and a new realm was opening up that I had to become really. And I'm doing this reluctantly, right? not something I chose, but what happened was I started to go, okay, well, I'm going to get my side dishes like mashed potato and pumpkin and broccoli and cauliflower and carrots.
And I'm like, Well, I'm going to pretend that potato is now my new meat. How creative can I get with potatoes and how creative can I get with cauliflower and fruits and veggies? And I went my side dishes and now becoming my main meal. So that's what I decided I went, okay, well, I'll just eat triple the amount. So that's what we did. So now we're, plant-based whole food eaters and at my diet helped me emotionally and I feel that's the biggest thing because I found myself with more energy and more ability to handle what was happening now, what I'm about to tell you will be too hard for anybody to hear. But emotionally something happened because I changed my diet.
I'd been on this particular thing for now six months and my emotions are now under control.
Damaged Parents: [00:38:58] so you didn't even go to the, I mean, you reluctantly went to eating this way.
Kristie Huggins: [00:39:03] I hated it.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:05] you didn't want to do it.
Kristie Huggins: [00:39:07] it. I was angry. I was pissed off. I blamed him and like, You're an asshole.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:12] So you're mad. And is it what, a few months or less than that you did you start noticing that you were
Kristie Huggins: [00:39:19] 10 days. It took to notice the emotional changes.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:22] okay. So 10 days and tell me the emotional changes, what were, or maybe an example of something you're noticing that was different in your reactions on day 10 and after then, before that?
Kristie Huggins: [00:39:37] So I had a skin condition called vitiligo right now for those people who don't know what that is. It's an uncurable auto immune disease that affects the skin and makes you look all patchy, like a cow.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:52] right. Cause if I remember correctly, I think one of my kids, , had a patch on their leg. It, so that little patches, like very white.
Kristie Huggins: [00:40:02] It's white. So it takes the melanin out of the skin
and it looks like white sunburn. Like it's like almost like skin peeling. It's red. Sometimes it's a raised, it's white. It's a pigmentation. So if you've got dark olive skin, it's really white patch. It's very obvious. It's very ugly. And I had it from my neck down to my belly button. So covered my torso. ugly, and at day 10 after changing. So, I mean, I'm wearing this turtleneck, not because I covering my skin, but because it's a bit cold.
Um, it's not cold, but it's cool. And day 10, I started noticing like, I don't have them now. The patches started to disappear.
Damaged Parents: [00:40:50] So I, and I'm seeing your arm and there's no patches on your arm now. And was that, so you had no expectation
Kristie Huggins: [00:41:00] I did not go to him. My middle. I go. And I was when I started playing bass, I was pregnant. Right. So I wasn't allowed to implement a lot of the things they do because right? You're not allowed to detox while pregnant because it can harm me baby or whatever. And I was like, well, I feel really good.
I'm not going to change anything I'm not to be detoxing
like my own bit of Vitalogo diagnosis. Right. But I had it since I was 15, so it was normal, right to me. I lived with it. It was ugly. I hated myself.
I looked ugly. I thought I was an ugly person, and day 10, it started to disappear now by day 90. Hundred percent gone. I've got photos. I can send you, in fact, on my Facebook, I documented my journey before, after, before and after photos and stuff like that. And I don't know if you've heard of Dr.
Robert Moore in America. He's a natural healing. Person, but Dr. Robert Morse, we wrote our books and he featured us on his video
and I was like, Oh my God, this is cool. Because when you have an auto immune disease, you told you it's uncurable, but for some reason, mine did
Damaged Parents: [00:42:20] Isn't that a nice surprise, right? Considering everything that happened up until that point. I mean, you were down in the depths of despair. So, so at that point, were you starting to feel like, Oh, I think it happened back when you said, okay. There's there's God. And you were praying, but it, so at this point though, are you starting to go, okay.
Life is going to be okay.
Kristie Huggins: [00:42:44] When I knew God was back at me, all was fine.
Damaged Parents: [00:42:47] You were fine. So then everything else is just surprises on top of it.
Kristie Huggins: [00:42:51] It's just cherries on top. Because there's a profound thing. When you know, God's back in you all like an invisible source of universe or backing, you're never alone. And I had a spiritual awakening is, I didn't know that's what it was, but I had what was known as a spiritual awakening and it was record.
It was a rapid spiritual awakening. Now I can hear voices. I'm not psychotic by the way, but in my dreams. And you know, I hear God talking to me and all this stuff, and I know I'm safe. He makes me feel safe. And that meant I could handle what I'm about to tell you when he, Ben was on the, on the floor, in the fetal position and I dropped him at the hospital, he went in and they gave him scans.
Like if he was in excruciating pain, this was April last year. So this is only a few months after they did scans and they told him your tumors grown. You've got 72 hours to live. They gave him 72 hours to live
and I didn't get that phone call till 11 o'clock at night. He goes, babe, I don't know how to, this is COVID right.
So not allowed to be there. So I got told over the phone, he goes, babe, they've come in. They've told me I've got 72 hours to live and I'm like, are you kidding me? What the hell? And then suddenly I'm on the phone call, my eyes out. I'm like, okay. Something comes over you when you hear that 72, like that's three days, right?
What
that three days,
Damaged Parents: [00:44:29] Three days.
Kristie Huggins: [00:44:30] three
Damaged Parents: [00:44:31] Okay
Kristie Huggins: [00:44:31] COVID exists. You can't go anywhere.
the hospital, I've got three kids and a newborn. You actually go, what are you going to do in three days? What are you going to do in three days? You know what? You don't do anything. You literally sit there and you go, sit here.
Damaged Parents: [00:44:52] like, sit this, like sit there
Kristie Huggins: [00:44:56] together.
Damaged Parents: [00:44:57] just be.
Kristie Huggins: [00:44:58] Yeah. So brought us to that awareness to love unconditional, and we surrendered the fight because the more we were fighting it and trying to kill it and get rid of it. It was like winning a never ending race. Like it's like going down in a sinking ship. It's like trying to save the Titanic, no matter how much you're holding on and panicking and to try and fight it, you're still going down and we're like, well, if we're going to go down, let's let go.
Let's just enjoy the ride. You know what? Ben can die tonight. He can die tomorrow.
But we're not going to go down, fighting it. We're going to go down surrendered and enjoy what we have left, because I don't know if you saw the Titanic movie and you know, like she's on the board and like, he's there, you've got to surrender at that point.
We found that when you surrender. And I'll just try and compose myself that moment that you surrender. That's the gift in life. That's where you feel the ultimate love like a love you've never known before and I'm talking. It's almost like the love of a child when it's smiling or when it's asleep or when the sun comes up and you feel that bit of warmth. And I'm talking, when you look in the eyes of somebody and you feel that unconditional love that unconditional support, that unconditional emotion, where it's an indescribable feeling that I hope.
I don't wish this upon anybody, but I hope people find that moment in the surrender to feel that much love, support, and encouragement and nurturing and compassion. That part of me hopes that people get it just to feel bad because it's worth it. But the other part of me goes, you know what? We've been we're in this.
And I'm here to deliver that, that wisdom or that quantified time. You don't have to go through that to get that because we're passing on this wisdom and we pass it on for free. We pass it on as the gift. And that's what we're giving. We are giving this to people and that's why we're traveling Australia, giving this message.
and yes, we've done things and yes, we have programs. I give my book away. Ben gives his booklet. Yes. We became an Amazon bestseller
money. Doesn't matter to us. Money is the ability for us to impact. Yes, but we give it away. Like I'm doing this because I want people to hear that moment in surrender.
That wisdom that love. And you know, what if Ben dies tomorrow and I got that as the message, then that's what I'm going to deliver. If that's the vessel that his conscious soul has chosen to come to earth and awaken within me in, in my heart and awaken that spirit that love that in our heart. And if that comes at the sacrifice of his body, that can only be beauty in that.
Damaged Parents: [00:48:25] Thank you. So three things, tools, guidance, anything you want to share with the audience that you would like them to walk away with when they hear your story?
Kristie Huggins: [00:48:38] Number one, if you've ever been given a diagnosis of something. I encouraged. This is not advice, but from personal experience, I encourage you to stop. If you're alive, you have time. I encourage you to stop. Do not make decisions in that moment of panic and emotional trauma. If someone is telling you. Hurry up. You've got to do this. Hurry up and you're going to die. Hurry up. You've only got given this amount of time. Oh, that's my second one. But the first one is to stop. Go home and say, I need troll bells. Oh, but you don't have to have bells. going home stick with yourself. Oh your children. If you have them, your husband, if you like him.
someone that is not going to give you the opinion, that's going to shatter, your decision. I encourage you to one either sit by yourself or someone you really trust, just stop.
Do not make any decisions. You have time find a support person. If you don't know them, find a coach or a mentor that is trained in this stuff. That is unjudgmental of family and friends. That's the first one you have plenty of. If you're alive, you have time. There's always more ways than one to resolve. The thing is to get informed, do not make the decisions. Uninformed find all your information. You have plenty of time by the way. You'd be surprised how fast you can find information.
Trust me, there are things you don't know that you don't know until they come upon you, that the universe says he know this. You are not alone. You're not the first person to ever happened to. There are people one to 10 years in front of you that have gone through this. Find that out. You have plenty of time.
Even if someone gives you time, Oh, you've only got 72 hours to live. Well, I'm telling you he's 10 months down the track. He's still here. You have time. Trust that trust the time is on your side and trust that the divine, the God has given you this moment to say, Hey, look at my lifestyle. What do I radically need to change?
This is a. This is a guidance from God to say, Hey, your lifestyle and the choices you're making are not serving you too. Well, you need to change now. You need to change something. You need to change your mental or emotional States, your internal self take responsibility. You're the only person you can save yourself.
Find the knowledge and radically change your lifestyle. Or you've this diagnosis is a premonition of what's going to happen. You've been given a chance. If you didn't get a chance, you'd been a sudden car crash and die, A disease or a diagnosis is actually a premonition You actually now have a chance to change.
And if you don't change well, Take the slippery dip down that decline. Cause it's gonna happen fast, you know, but that may take one to five years or you may not, you know, you might even also go, you know what you guys are, you know what? That's okay too.
Damaged Parents: [00:51:45] yeah.
Kristie Huggins: [00:51:46] sovereignty.
Yeah. Know your sovereignty. That's number one. Number two. Never let anybody decide for you. Get back you sovereignty, I suppose it comes back to that. You get a choice what to believe and what not to believe. and number three would be what skills do I need to overcome this? What, what tools can I now learn and believe me? I do that. I actually do this with people. People go, Oh, there's no tools for this. is, there absolutely is. And people may not be thinking of learning something new right now, but there is, there are tools and I teach them. I mean you're in America. So, um, I encourage your people to feel like I'm, uh, I'm trained as a neuro-linguistic programming trainer, like an NLP trainer, right? If there is somebody in what your state, where are you, California, wherever you are, find somebody who was trust, who is a trusted educator. Now, there are hundreds out there.
Not all the good. , but I know there's, um, the Todd James company and Adriana James in America who teach NLP coaching. You don't have to become a coach to do this, but you can coach yourself with the tools. It's a seven days training. I encourage people to go and get, because what NLP does. It gives you the tools to handle emotions.
It teaches you how to understand emotions, how to use them as empowerment tools happening cause and effect, perceptions, projection, like the person we're most intimate with is our deepest unconscious reflecting back a mirror of our internal self. It takes some shit to understand, right? You're like, what, but I encourage someone to do that.
Like I don't do online training.
I do, , I can do one-on-ones online, but I don't do online training as a coach with NLP because I like, you know, you do the whole, I do in-person there has to be an element of in-person. So find somebody in America that does that. It's NLP for those people who don't know what it is, just type NLP coaching, and you will have a list beyond my hands. I'll find a coach that helps with emotional trauma, someone in the field of terminal illness. Now I don't coach terminal to illness. I actually helped people transition from meat, eating to plant-based eating. That's what I do because the first thing, and yes, I do that online, but I help people transition because their emotions, how they eat and you can get control that way.
Yeah. So that's what I do. And I can work one-on-one through a person going through this. I mean, you don't have to have terminal cancer to do it. Right. You can just have depression, suicidal, you know, anxiety or a fear but what I get them to do is look at their diet. I'm going to give you what they do.
Like you don't even have to be coached by me or you or someone else, whatever services you do. But this is a warning to look at your lifestyle, who are the people I'm hanging around with. What am I putting in my mouth? What's the environment I'm living in? What, what is my external reality? Show me that I'm not seeing, are you a toxic person that complaining all the time?
Are you complaining and blaming and not taking responses? I talk about the elephant in the room and the elephant is. No one is going to save you. You have to save yourself. It doesn't mean you can't get support doing it, but you have to be a realization that even as a coach, no, one's going to save you.
People pay me to coach them because it's support and nurturing and compassionate. We are humans connection. It just because I'm telling someone I can't save them. Doesn't mean they don't need me as a shoulder to cry on and say, Hey, I can't see my blind spot. I can't see the predicament I'm in.
Can you be that person who is unattached and help me because trust me when you're emotionally in it, and I'm telling you there a date, like I'm not perfect. I cry.
Even with these tools. I'm not gonna tell you, you're not gonna cry through this. I'm not going to tell you that you're not going to be a heap on the floor because I still am. You're not going to learn these things and be Thor
Damaged Parents: [00:56:26] Yeah,
Kristie Huggins: [00:56:27] woman
Damaged Parents: [00:56:28] yeah,
Kristie Huggins: [00:56:31] That is the gift we have brought here to be on the planet to feel emotion. And you know what that brings human connection. Yeah. I don't know about you, but I would never have found you Angela
Damaged Parents: [00:56:42] I would not have found you either. Had I not made a post on Facebook?
Kristie Huggins: [00:56:47] and I would not have responded if human connection and God that divine intervention did not energetically align us. Now, I'm going to bring, I'm going to make something really magical here that they almost three point. Here's how I look at life. You have the now, which is me and you talking in this physical moment, right? Called time. Time is an illusion because your in America, in California on Friday, it's probably two o'clock in the afternoon. Now. I don't know.
Damaged Parents: [00:57:21] True.
Kristie Huggins: [00:57:24] But I'm in Australia on Saturday at eight o'clock in the morning. So technically I'm your future?
Damaged Parents: [00:57:33] Wow. I had not thought of it like that. I, you know, have you ever seen the movie interstellar with, uh, Matthew McConaughey?
Kristie Huggins: [00:57:41] So I, that is my favorite movie, if you want. I watch interstellar on repeat because we look at cancer like, you know how he goes to Gargantua. Is that the, you know, that, that planet they go to go get, it's not going to get to them, but whatever to get to that planet that for every hour on that planet is seven years on earth.
Right? Whatever that point it's called, go there. So every hour on that planet is seven years earth. And then what happens with time? As it comes down, it's got a density and, and gravity. So what Ben and I've done, he's used meditation, our thoughts and connected to our inner heart and to source itself and energetically altered our perceptions and reality energetically.
So we've thrown it up to source. So we've taken it up to that planet, right?
Damaged Parents: [00:58:40] right.
Kristie Huggins: [00:58:41] instant. But there's a thing called time. It might take one month, two months, three years or 10 years, or in this case, the rest of his life to have a physical reaction here.
Damaged Parents: [00:58:56] right.
Kristie Huggins: [00:58:57] So we've energetically changed our belief system instead of him thinking he's dying. We're looking at how he's living. Death is an illusion to us now. We never truly die when we truly die, we become pure consciousness. Cause have you ever seen the movie Lu.. Lucy?
Damaged Parents: [00:59:16] I love Lucy.
Kristie Huggins: [00:59:17] So Lucy, you know, when you become pure consciousness, you become everything. So
Damaged Parents: [00:59:23] right. Like at the very end of the movie
when he's asking. Yeah. When he's asking where, where is she? And then the text comes over and it says everywhere.
Kristie Huggins: [00:59:35] So particles become phys.. Energy becomes a physical manifestation. Everything that we are I've manifested you you've manifested me and energetically let's say up there in the ether. We've all created. We are co-creating right now just because you're in America, in California and I'm in Australia. You're my mental representation because our third eye, you know, like the chakra system, you've got a third eye, you are a physical theater, representation or vision of my internal self. I have literally manifested you as a vision. And I now get to interact with that consciousness called Angela. Who has taken ownership on created your body too, as a vehicle to communicate through, through you and my energetic self.
As a physical body to connect with yours, we are all connected. Our consciousness was already created in the ether. We are now the physical three dimensional representation of that energetic. Thus, I suppose you call it.
Damaged Parents: [01:00:44] I love it. I absolutely love it. I have really enjoyed having you on the show today. I think you're amazing. I enjoy your perspective and I believe that, the world will be made a better place. Most definitely.
Kristie Huggins: [01:01:00] And thank you, you so much for having me.
. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoy talking to Kristie about how she found a way to get up and keep moving. We especially liked when she explained how she finds joy in every day. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Facebook at damaged parents. We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See ya then.
