From surviving a brain haemorrhage as a newborn to navigating multiple cancer diagnoses later in life, Maxine Schiltknecht has faced more challenges in her life than most people. Through it all, she has held on to the same determination and the belief that she will keep getting through whatever comes next.
Maxine says her journey of survival started the day she was born.
“I was six weeks overdue, and at 12 hours old I had a brain haemorrhage,” she says. “I wasn’t expected to survive the night, but I did.”
The haemorrhage left her with damage to the left side of her body, low vision, and later led to epilepsy and the need for a walking stick, but it also shaped the resilience that would carry her through the years ahead.
Originally from Mackay, Maxine moved to Cairns more than four decades ago and has never looked back.
“I would never move back to Mackay,” she says with a smile. “I love Cairns.”
It was here that she met her husband, Pierre, the man she describes simply as her “rock”. In fact, Maxine believes he quite literally saved her life.
Two years before her breast cancer diagnosis, Pierre noticed a suspicious spot on her back.
“He said, ‘I don’t like the look of that, you need to get it checked,’” she recalls. “It turned out to be a stage two melanoma. I couldn’t see it myself, so he really did save my life.”
Not long after, the couple married. Just five months into their marriage, Maxine received another life-changing diagnosis. After going for her very first breast screen at 51, she was told she had breast cancer.
“I was adamant breast cancer wasn’t going to kill me,” she says. “If a brain haemorrhage didn’t kill me, and the melanoma didn’t kill me, then breast cancer had no chance.”
Her treatment journey was complicated by her epilepsy medication, which caused severe reactions when combined with chemotherapy. After experiencing multiple seizures (at times up to 20 a day), Maxine and her medical team decided to continue treatment with radiation and hormone therapy instead.
Following a double mastectomy, she later chose to have reconstruction surgery.
“When I looked in the mirror afterwards, I thought, ‘I’m me again,’” she says.
But in 2022, Maxine faced another devastating loss when her son died by suicide.
“I went into a deep depression,” she says. “All I was doing was sitting at home on the couch and not even talking to my husband.”
Her doctor encouraged her to see a psychologist, a step that would ultimately lead her to COUCH Cancer Hub NQ.
The psychologist was based at the hub, and Maxine still remembers how she felt when she walked through the doors for the first time.
“I walked in here in tears,” she says. “All the ladies came up and hugged me. It just felt like being welcomed into this big family.”
That sense of warmth and understanding made an immediate difference.
“It helped me through my depression,” she says. “It’s such a welcoming place.”
Today, Maxine visits the hub regularly and says the friendships she has formed there have become an important part of her life.
“I come every Thursday,” she says. “I’ve made some very good friends through COUCH.”
She’s also become a passionate advocate for the hub, often sharing her experience with people she meets along the way, including taxi drivers on the way to her appointments.
“My husband and I don’t drive, so I catch a taxi here,” she says. “A lot of the drivers don’t know about COUCH, so I tell them what it is and what they do here.”
Many of them, she says, quickly realise they know someone who could benefit.
“They’ll say they have friends who’ve had cancer, and I tell them, ‘Well, you should let them know about COUCH.’”
For Maxine, the hub provides something many people need after a cancer diagnosis – connection, understanding and a safe space where you don’t have to face things alone.
“It’s such a supportive place,” she says. “I would absolutely recommend it to anyone going through cancer.”
And for those walking through the doors for the first time, feeling uncertain or overwhelmed, Maxine has a simple message:
“You’re not alone anymore.”