the 2h project

At 2h we continue to get excited about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Janine Hardy fits the bill perfectly. This amazing single mother of five lives her life in a way that is totally inspiring. And a little known secret is Janine was pretty much responsible for ‘dragging’ Kate Taylor through her Bachelor of Midwifery at UniSA!

With five children ranging in ages from twelve through to two Janine made a decision to head to Uni and begin her degree in 2002. “Janine was always looking out for others. If they didn’t quite understand she’d be the first to say I’ll stay back and help” says Kate, “She was motivated to teach and train. We hit it off straight away. Probably because I needed so much help!”

Janine juggled a busy family life, graduated with ‘Most Outstanding Graduate Award’ and was offered a job as a practicing midwife before completing the course. Following her graduate year at Flinders Hospital she secured her dream job at North Eastern Community.

In 2007 Janine was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. MS created some major challenges, “rotten headaches, tiredness and more recently difficulty in being able to walk and see”. Being confined to bed for days and sometimes weeks made work and family commitments hard to meet.

Life didn’t get any easier. Two years ago her mother’s partner died, her mum was diagnosed with breast cancer and six months later tests showed Janine also had the disease. Her prognosis was not a good one; two years to live.

Knowing she was booked in for a bi-lateral mastectomy Janine (once again) turned the situation to help others, ‘Janine’s Boob Tube – 60 Days from Mastectomy to Fabulous’  is an amazing blog - “I wanted women facing similar challenges to be aware of their options”.
Blog exert, September 11th 2011  - “I think I knew even back in high school and most certainly now, that it takes more than the ‘right’ body type or perfect hair or great legs to be beautiful” (http://janinesboobtube.wordpress.com/).

Two and a half years after Janine’s original diagnosis she continues to concentrate on living. “Life now, is good. Provided I look after myself I can still do what I want but at a slower pace”. And that involves being a wonderful advocate for the mothers and babies and traditional birth attendants of Cambodia. Janine regularly recruits 20 or more people to our movie nights and writes motivating posts on her Facebook page rousing support for the Safe Arrivals project.

In fact, she now has an article in the pipeline for the 2h website. Watch out for it!

Happy Mother’s Day Janine – we love you