You carry
enough.

From the founder

In 2020, I was diagnosed with stage three triple negative breast cancer. I spent the following year having treatment in Melbourne, during lockdown.

I had excellent medical care, but there was so much to manage outside the hospital. Some days it felt like a full time job, on top of everything else.

I’d go into appointments with questions I’d carefully written down, then completely forget what I wanted to ask the moment the doctor started talking. Sometimes I’d leave thinking I’d understood everything, only to realise on the way home that I couldn’t remember half of it.

There was the chemo fog, the exhaustion, the unfamiliar medical language. And the scans. That awful dread beforehand, followed by days of waiting for results.

My mum was looking after me through all of it. She was frightened too. After every appointment, she’d get on the phone to family and friends and explain what had happened, telling the same story over and over. Sometimes neither of us could quite remember what had been said.

I often wished we had someone to help us keep track of everything. To remember what the doctors said, hold onto my questions, and keep the people who loved us informed without Mum having to make another ten phone calls.

That’s really where Naia came from.

I remember how much better I felt when I knew what was happening, what had been said, and what came next. Even a little bit of certainty made a difference.

I started building Naia because I wanted other people going through cancer, and the people caring for them, to have some of that weight taken off their shoulders.

I hope it makes things a little easier.

Naomi
Founder of Naia