When Kate Fitzgerald discovered she was pregnant with her first child in June 2020, she was elated that, at 37, she and her partner, Lachlan, were going to be parents. But like so many Australians, for Fitzgerald, the chief executive and deputy secretary of Emergency Management Victoria, that elation was tinged with anxiety thanks to the complex overlay of the Covid-19 pandemic. Check-ups were conducted via telehealth or not at all. Support was limited, as much of her family was trapped over the border in New South Wales. “It was exciting – there was this pure joy of being pregnant,” she says. But when things began to go wrong, it became very, very difficult.
Fitzgerald began experiencing unusual symptoms – severe constipation, blood in her stools, extreme fatigue – about two months into her pregnancy. She had a suspicion something wasn’t right, yet she struggled to access adequate medical attention. “Gastroenterologist and GP appointments were all telehealth,” she says. “And everything was dismissed as pregnancy related.”
In fact, after being passed from health professional to health professional, her symptoms became so pronounced she took herself to the emergency department of her local hospital. It turned out Fitzgerald had a tumour the size of a baseball in her bowel –
