Harvesting your health

It would be everyone’s dream story.

But it has become the location and setting for Gaby’s nightmare situation.

Barely 12 months ago Gaby was diagnosed with melanoma cancer.

It started as a mole on her neck and was initially dismissed as being ‘fine’.

It wasn’t; and now nothing else ever will be.

After noticing a lump where the mole had once been, Gaby spent months advocating for herself, attending appointments, following up results, undergoing scans and biopsies, and pushing for answers.

In June 2025, she was diagnosed with melanoma cancer. By then, the cancer had spread. Despite intensive treatment, Gaby has since been told her cancer is incurable and is now relying on palliative treatment and hoping for access to clinical trials.

When asked what she wishes she had done differently, her answer is simple: “My biggest regret is not going to a skin clinic/specialist when I first noticed the mole. Things could have been very different if it had been picked up and treated earlier.”

Gaby says she also wants others to know: “If you think something isn’t right, keep asking questions. Keep advocating for yourself”.

“Don’t give up because you think it’s probably nothing – if it turns out to be nothing that’s great. But what if it doesn’t?

“Whether it’s your health, wellbeing, or something, anything, that doesn’t feel right, follow it up.

“No matter how big or small, you matter,” she insists.

Gaby says people, too many people – and especially farmers – don’t always think about themselves – and they should.

Because, she says, “when you are thinking about yourself, and your health and wellbeing, you are thinking about all those who depend on you, who need you, who love you”.

When was the last time you checked yourself?

As farmers and rural community members, you’re always checking something.

You check the water, the fences, the stock, the machinery, the weather forecast and the bank balance.

And spend countless hours looking after your farms, businesses and families, making sure everything else is running as it should.

But when it comes to your own health, it’s often pushed to the bottom of the list.

Harvesting Health Event was created to change that.

Taking a few moments to check in on your health at the Gunbower event could ensure you have a lot of next weeks, and years, ahead of you.

After all, the most important asset on any farm isn’t the land, the livestock or the machinery – it’s the person keeping it going.

Gaby says the free skin check being offered at the Harvesting Health Event could be very important to you.

It could be life changing. She knows.

“I have been getting treatment, but in November was told my immunotherapy wasn’t working, and there was nothing more the doctors could do for me – if that service (health checks) had been there in front of me, I probably would have done it,” Gaby explains.