He Oranga He Oranga - Healing Journeys

It looked like this monster inside of you, lurking in there; because the picture wasn't very clear.

– Morehu Te Maro on how his cancer looked

The money that we had, we just chewed through it, until we had nothing left. And that was gone after six months.

– Peter Watson on the costs of dealing with cancer

You don't have to be a great drawer. All you have to do is put pen, pastel, paint, whatever you want, on to paper. And that's art therapy.

– Roberta Soper on art therapy

I knew that it was trying to teach me something. I knew that there was something I had to learn from it. I knew it wasn't just a random event.

– Vanessa Lukes on getting through cancer

...I would play music of all different types to raise my spirits, and I would meditate to help me relax, bring myself down and calm myself. And I found writing about what I was experiencing a really great outlet.

– Phil Kerslake on getting through cancer

On the one hand you feel happy, obviously that you're still here, but on the other hand you can sometimes feel guilty as well; guilty for the fact that you’ve made it and others haven't. That's often a hard thing to deal with. But, obviously, I'm eternally grateful that I've made it this far. God's blessed me in a very big way.

– Sven de Breens on making a recovery from cancer

We tried to walk in lovely places: anything to calm the soul, and make you appreciate what is around, what you've got.

– Georgie Simpson on getting through ovarian cancer

I found that when I got cancer, that the birds would be just around me all the time. They would fly to tables that I was sitting by...I took that has a tohu from the ancestors, a sign from the past.

– Artist June Grant, early in this documentary

I did everything that I felt was going to be good to heal my mind, because your body heals anyway with cancer. You have to get your mind well. And when you start thinking dire and desperate thoughts then things can go to putty very quickly, because you mind can take you to all sorts of dark areas.

– June Grant, near the start of this documentary

It certainly…it makes you grow up very fast.

– Sven de Breens on suffering from cancer as a school pupil

I'm too scatterbrained to meditate, but I can visualise pretty well. And I visualise myself in nice places, doing healthy things, walking on the beach, being with friends. And as far as the cancer goes, every time I had a shower, I would visualise it washing away. Down the drain.

– Georgie Simpson

...it's a spiritual strength you need to grab hold of. Because in a lot of cases that's all you need, that's all you've got left. When you can reach into yourself, and get a hold of that, as they say, your mauri, that spiritual part of you ... it'll steady your mind.

– Morehu Te Maro

...life is all about perception: how people perceive you, and how you perceive the world. People look at you for two seconds — they think about you no further than that. They might say "Oh, she looks funny with that hair!" and that's it. They don't even think about you again that day. So, you've just gotta get over yourself, really.

– June Grant on losing her hair from chemotherapy, early in this documentary

...I believe that when you take time out to just reflect upon things that are going on in your life, and learn to let them go, and learn to just have faith in whatever you're doing — that everything will be okay.

– Martelle Christy, near the end of this documentary

...I use my intuition a lot at times, in conjunction with my head, to come to decisions on treatment, or not treatment, or whatever.

– Phil Kerslake

It stopped me doing things, you know ... And when it's something that I love, I hate being stopped. I couldn't surf, and I hadn't surfed for 12, 14 months. It's a long time away from the sea, aye? Only surfers can understand that, I think. Or people that are close to the sea.

– Peter Watson

I got so many flowers; it was so beautiful. I had the most flowers, and that's such a good thing to do.

– Fleur Sullivan, at the start of her interview

I suddenly had to face my body, which I'd probably been ignoring for quite a long time.

– Fleur Sullivan after finding out she had a tumour

Had I been more aware of my personal situation, I would have got treatment earlier and when they took my prostate out, I would be healed of the cancer. So, I wouldn't have the fight that I've had since.

– Danny Boulton

Oh, I did everything — everything and anything. If I had people say "this is the miracle thing; you know, take this, do this — it's gonna heal you," I just did it. The most wackiest things, I was going to do it, because I just thought I wasn't going to give in.

– Martelle Christy on trying any treatment that might help