First Nations

I was born in 1950, to a black lady, my mum. She was a Biripi Walpari. We come from a place called Taree.

I’m a Stolen Gen. I was taken away from my mother at two weeks old. I was born white, my twin brother, as I showed you a picture, was black.

And from two weeks old, right up to late thirties, I was in and out of boys’ homes and jails all that time. I spent the next 30 years banging needles into my arms, drinking. We do take alcohol because the pain, there’s no pain there.

As I got older, things didn’t get better, it got worse. I tried to brush it away because I don’t want to remember things. I found it a bit hard because I couldn’t work out why I was put away.

And being put away was one thing, but what happened to me in them years, that was terrifying, terrible. And I blame meself for all this. I never blamed the people who was committing these crimes towards me.

I went in for a CAT scan of my hernias. The CAT scan showed up on my liver, had a lesion on it. And he called me back in the doctor two days after and said, we’ve got to take it off.

Just like that. I tried to get out of it because it was my birthday and I wanted to party on. He said, we’ve got to take it out.

And I said, well, look, after Christmas, he said, I’ll do you a favour. And I said, what’s the favour? I thought I tricked him. He said, you come tomorrow at six o’clock.

He said, I’ll have it out by nine. And anyway, four days later, I see him walking through into the room where I was in. You just walk along freely.

He said, Kerry, he said, that was cancer, but you’re cancer free. I was shocked. I mean, I was shocked.

Through the alcohol and drugs, I got cirrhosis. And I thought maybe it’s, that’s what I thought it was. But then I got told by other people, cirrhosis, you can get cancer.

That’s why you’ve got to get onto them straight up. You don’t have to die. Drinking stops, all that stops.

That’s all rubbish. And Dr. Deb has got me up eight years ago. I’ve been off alcohol.

I do not have soft drinks. I do not eat lollies, chocolates. I used to have, I was a smoker.

I look after my liver. Every day I get stuff there to clean my liver out, to detox it. I do anything that saves liver.

The liver, if you don’t look after it, you will go. People, because I’ve been around, they’ve got to learn to stay away from the drugs. Theirselves.

Got the alcohol. And I didn’t realise a couple of drinks there, a couple of drinks there can. No, you can’t drink.

You bugger that, that picnic’s over. To get that extra part of life, you’ve got to stop what you’re doing to yourself. You’re actually killing yourself.

Aboriginal people, if you’ve got something wrong with your liver, get off your arse and go and do something. Don’t, people don’t have to come and crawl to you. Come and, can I help you? Can I help you? They put their hands out, you grab their hand.

You need something, they’re the people you need. I feel good. I really do feel good.

I’m lucky. And that’s why I’m here today.