Voiceover:

Welcome to The Raw Nerve, the official podcast of MS Australia, a conversation space for all things multiple sclerosis. Join us for news and views on the latest research, treatments and advocacy efforts, as well as candid and informative interviews with our community, those living with MS, and their families and carers, together with leading clinicians, researchers and advocates.

Jeremy Henderson

Welcome to the raw nerve, I’m your host Jeremy Henderson,

On today’s episode, we’re joined by Lynda MacCallum, a professional cutting horse trainer,

accredited health and wellness, coach wife and mother of 2A former high school teacher. Lynda, not surprisingly, has a passion for teaching. and an interest in nutrition, fitness and health.

Lynda believes that if we focus on our health, our well-being and developing a strong mindset, anything is possible.

We’ll talk to Lynda about her 2018 MS diagnosis, how she copes with the physical challenges of a big horse cutting event.

Lynda’s story came to our attention by a member of the public, who was  inspired after attending one of Lynda’s motivational clinics and felt that Lynda would be a wonderful voice to share with the raw nerve audience – a reminder to all of our listeners if you or someone you know, has an inspiring story to share – We would love to hear it, so please prop us a line.

Lynda, welcome to the Raw Nerve. Thank you very much for joining us.

Lynda MacCallum

Thank you so much, Jeremy and thank you for having me on the Raw Nerve podcast.

Jeremy Henderson

Now Lynda, there are a lot of places we could start, but I wonder whether you could tell us a little bit about your life in Woolbrook NSW where I understand you have a large property where you raise cattle and horses.

Lynda MacCallum

Yeah, for sure. So I was actually born and raised in the Upper Hunter Valley near Scone, so the thoroughbred horse capital of the world or of Australia, I shouldn’t say the world, probably Kentucky is; but of Australia. And my husband and I were born and raised in that community in the Upper Hunter and we lived there all our lives until four years ago when we made the decision to move to Woolbrook. And that decision was based around the fact that I had received my MS diagnosis and we were looking for a cooler climate. So that’s why we moved to Woolbrook, which is near Walcha, about an hour north of Tamworth. Beautiful regional community here at Walcha. It’s still very much a farming community, mostly beef, cattle in this area, some sheep, but it is a lovely, I guess rural lifestyle, have two and a half thousand acres here that we run and we have a property on King Island as well where we run beef cattle as well. So yeah, we’ve got the two properties and it’s yeah, it’s a beautiful place to live up here.

Jeremy Henderson

So Lynda, tell me a little bit about horse cutting.

Lynda MacCallum

Yeah, so I guess when I was young and for the listeners, know, people who understand horse disciplines, I was interested in different horse disciplines than I am now. So I was more equestrian based or English based. I used to show ride, pony club and ride hacks and show horses. And we always had station horses and I would attend our local camp draft, which is a very Australian cow-horse discipline. But when I was married and I had my children 15 months apart, and when they were little I felt quite isolated. We lived on a rural property near Scone, half an hour out of Scone. And I wanted something to get involved in that would enable me to train but actually maybe not go to as many events because I found it difficult because my children were so small. And so a friend introduced me to the sport of cutting. And that’s how I got interested. could train a horse with a goal in two years’ time. And if I just showed up every day and trained my horse every day, I could get a great outcome and that horse would end up trained. So that’s where my interest in cutting started. But basically it’s cow-horse discipline. what happens is horse and rider have two and a half minutes to separate one beast from a herd of cattle. And once they separate that beast, they then put their hand down and the horse mimics. the movements and the actions of the cow or the beast and eye to eye, you know, trying to mimic exactly what that beast does through instinct and training. And then you can actually quit that cow and turn around and cut another one. So you have two and a half minutes to cut up to three cattle. And it’s based on, I guess, the skill of the horse, the read of the horse, the smoothness of the run, the ability of the horse to control a cow. So it’s very refined. It takes a lot of a lot of training because you don’t have your hands to help you. yeah, it’s a great discipline and I really enjoy it, but it also feeds into many other Australian horse disciplines that are typically cow-horse related, like camp drafting and the cow-horse discipline. it all feeds in together and I actually have horses in those disciplines as well for people in training. So yeah, that’s the sport and that’s what we do. And every day we have to turn up to the arena and work cattle and every day you can never expect to take off from what happened the day before. Every day is a new day and yeah, it brings its challenges, but it brings so much reward at the same time.

Jeremy Henderson

I’d like to talk to you about your MS journey. How has your MS impacted the things you love including your work with horses, work that is clearly very demanding and very physical.

Lynda MacCallum

For sure, Jeremy. when I was first diagnosed, it was 2018. My first symptom that I can recall, I feel like possibly I had a few symptoms before this time with extreme fatigue and possibly feeling weakness in my left side predominantly for me. But the most defining moment for me was I was at an event, at a cutting horse event.

I was still teaching at this time. I wasn’t training horses professionally. I was just training them for myself before and after school. So that’s a big thing. My days would start very early and they’d end very late. I had two children that were at school and they were involved. My son was a very good cricketer. So we were running everywhere, taking him to cricket and my daughter loved to ride. So we were trying very hard to provide for them. We also had a local business in Scone. And it was a family business. So we were very busy and we ran a property. So I probably ‘glorified’ busy and my lifestyle was full on. So we’re at an event and the defining moment for me was, I’ll never forget, was sitting in the arena on a horse watching some cattle and I started to feel numbness around the left side of my face. So mostly predominantly around my mouth and my nose and I had a very strange feeling at the back of my throat. Like it was almost a little bit like it was an anaphylactic reaction. I felt like it was swelling up, but it wasn’t. That was the first symptom. And I was unwell there. I had headaches. I competed. I had an incredible event. I did very well. But what I have worked out over the time is when I’ve been extremely sick and I, and this is why I love, I’m very much into performance mindset. When I’ve been extremely unwell, all my thoughts just go to execution.

I don’t put the outcome before the process. I just want to enjoy every moment of what I’m doing and competing in that arena. Because since this time, since I’ve got a diagnosis, I feel like when I feel my symptoms, I never know just when this lifestyle may end. So I want to be able to take everything I do, never with a grain of salt and enjoy every moment. So when I have had moments where I’m unwell, I just go to the process so that I, it’s been an incredible thing for me to learn about, you know, being, I guess, in that ultimate sports performance mindset. So had that feeling, went home and I went back and forth to the doctor, just explaining these feelings I was having. And it took me, I think, a relatively short time to get a diagnosis.

Because I kept pushing forward and living my busy lifestyle, within two months I ended up in John Hunter Hospital not able to walk. And that was when I received my diagnosis of MS. So from then on, we thought it was very devastating and I thought the life as I knew it was over. And it was two weeks off our biggest event of the year, which is the NCHA Futurity. And we train a horse for two years to compete at that event. And they compete there as a three year old.

I was only two weeks out of hospital. I’d had a lumbar puncture and unfortunately it had leaks. I would have to have a blood patch. I’d really had not a great time in that period. But my husband said to me, think if you can ride, you should because you don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to ride for. And I’m so glad he did that because I feel like if I had pulled up then, I may not have kept riding and horses are medicine as we know. So I did compete.

And I was very in the moment and I had an incredible event. I won nearly everything I went in. was way beyond my wildest dreams when all I wanted to do was be there because I didn’t know if the next year I would. So probably what I have done as a result of my diagnosis is I’ve pulled more towards the horses. I’ve given up my career as a teacher and we moved to this cooler climate at Walcha in northern New South Wales.

I have taken up training professionally, which means I ride instead of riding five or six horses a day, I now ride 25 to 30. I have also done my health coaching course and my mindset coaching course. And I’ve been able to combine, I guess, all of those great things that I’ve learned as a result of my diagnosis to create this business called MacCallum Performance. And ultimately, you know, someone said to me, if you had to give your diagnosis back, would I? And I wouldn’t. I would keep it in a heartbeat because although there are very hard days, it’s changed our life for the better. My husband has, we’ve given up the family business as a stock and station  agent. It was a fantastic business, but my husband always wanted to run cattle on a property. So he’s been able to more make that decision to do what he wants to do. And definitely I have as well. it’s changed our lives in ways we never thought it would have – for sure.

Jeremy Henderson

Lynda. I’m curious, what was your understanding of MS prior to your diagnosis? How familiar were you?

Lynda MacCallum

Not at all. All I can remember is doing the MS readathon. You know, for me, that’s all I knew about MS. I had a cousin, my husband’s first cousin had been diagnosed, but I probably had never taken the time to fully understand what she was going through or to ask the questions. So definitely a big learning curve for me to find, you know, to understand this diagnosis.

I think the hard part in the beginning was when we told our parents, my parents, my mother and Jim’s parents, well, my mum, I know she very much went to your life’s over because I believe in previous times and in history, you know, the prognosis for somebody who’d had an MS diagnosis is not great. And, you know, she associated with wheelchairs and I understand, you know, that definitely can happen, but…, for me, getting to live this lifestyle as I do, I never take a day for granted and it’s much better than I originally thought it may have been.

Jeremy Henderson

So Lynda, what sort of accommodations are you making day to day to manage your MS?

Lynda MacCallum

So I feel a big thing for me definitely is being aware where my body is at every single day. So I definitely have a mindfulness practice and I’m very aware of mindfulness practices, knowing where my body is at and I guess creating an environment where I can react accordingly. So very careful with my diet.

That’s how I nourish my body and with what foods is very important to me. So, you know, I don’t drink alcohol. I eat a very whole food based diet. Originally I did cut out, you know, a lot of red meat, things like that. But now I just, eat what my body tells me to eat. I’m very much into bio individuality, feeling what my body needs and I eat that. What feels good? Sleep is a huge thing. I was never a very good sleeper and I’ve had to train myself to get a much better sleep routine.

And I know when I’m starting to not feel well, I have to work out what it is that has been lacking and work on getting that back strong again. So have I had enough sleep? You know, have I had a stressful time? Do I need to give myself some self-love, self-care? I definitely like to be physically fit. So I really have to work at that all the time. And how I nourish my body in what I eat, but also, you know, what I listen to, what I read, what I take on board. So they’re the main changes for me. And sometimes, you know, I’m not a superhero, only mid-November, this is being recorded in December, but only mid-November, I did end up with a relapse and I ended up in hospital for three days. And that I believe,  on methyl prednisone. And when I look back on that, it was coming and if I’d heeded the warnings, I feel like I may have been able to get myself back on track.

But I’d just been incredibly busy. I was trying to do a lot. Like you said, sometimes when you’re talking about time management, sometimes it takes me to get a little bit of a smack in the forehead where I end up in hospital to realize the road I’d been down. But I hadn’t had a relapse for three years before that time. So definitely I need to listen to my body more and I still try to stay very active, fit and strong, but on where I’m at on those days.

Jeremy Henderson

Lynda, how empowering is it having that agency around diet and around exercise.

Lynda MacCallum(

Yeah, definitely very empowering, Jeremy. And I guess because I feel the empowerment when I do those things, I, when my health or MS actually doesn’t want to play the game and my body lets me down a little bit, I have to work very strong, very hard on having a strong mindset because they’re the times when I can go to a bad place.

So during those moments, I have to just honour where I’m at. And it is great to have that, I guess, self-discipline to know that maybe, for example, it’s Christmas time, we’re invited to a lot of Christmas parties. My husband and I have decided we’ve got a few this week. We can’t do them all. If we do them all, I won’t end up well by Christmas, especially when we’re working so hard. So, you know, we have to say no.

And I’ve actually become very okay with having a small circle because if people don’t understand that, then they weren’t meant to be in my life in the first place. And that’s how I manage that because I think that can become difficult as well, is trying to manage that circle around you when they don’t have a great understanding of where you’re at. That can be one thing. That’s a whole new field to navigate.

Jeremy Henderson

You’ve touched upon fatigue and you mentioned in terms of heat sensitivity that you intentionally moved to a cooler climate. I’m just wondering, you know, how, how difficult is that and managing that, that heat sensitivity and particularly when you’re competing or when you’re riding and undertaking extreme physical activity.

Lynda MacCallum

So today at our place here, it’s 34 degrees. In Tamworth, which is only 45 minutes away, it’s 41. So we are that little bit, quite a bit cooler and I have an indoor arena. So I’m very lucky I’ve managed to provide that. And I often will get up very early to beat the heat. However, exactly like you said, when I’m at an event, I can’t control those things.

So my biggest goal when I go to an event, and our event can go for 10 days, my biggest goal at an event is to try and be as well by the end of it as I was at the start. So for me, that means starting an event with my energy and my whole health and wellbeing being in like a fuel gauge, I say over the full mark. And then by default, even if I eat well, even if I maintain my mindfulness practices in the morning, know, I’m competing all day, riding lots of horses. There’s mental fatigue as well as physical fatigue. So by default, my fuel gauge is going to come down a little bit. So when I go to those events, I definitely have to put my own health and wellbeing at the highest priority. I compete my heart out, but maybe I don’t go out at nighttime or maybe I don’t socialise too much or I have to be very aware of looking after my body in those moments. And yes, when it’s hot, my body has let me down before. And that probably is the hardest part for my mindset to navigate that.

But you know, I had a lady say something very interesting to me once at a clinic and that’s what I love about doing the clinics I do because you always learn as much from other people as they learn from you, you know, and I’m very open and I said that, you know, that’s my biggest fear is that I’ll go to an event and it might be hot or it might be incredibly busy and I may not have started in full health and by the end of the event, my body might start to give out on me. And I said, I worry about that when I’m competing and mostly in men, it’s a very male dominated sport. They’re supportive, you know, they’re physically, they’re just so much stronger and their ability, I guess, to maintain in those circumstances, I always felt was greater. But this lady said to me, she said, Lynda, I think you need to understand that at least you’re honouring what hardships you are facing in your life. And you can put a name to them and you’re working out strategies that help you manage where your body’s at every day. She said, just think about how many people have adversity going on that maybe they’re not even A, recognising or B, willing to try and work through, know, whether it’s depression, you know, alcoholism, you know, your ability to maintain or manage your emotions, relationship issues, anything financial, just because I am facing an MS diagnosis, I know what I’m facing each day and I’m starting to get better at managing that, it’ll change, I know it will change every year. But she said, at least you can put a name to it and you’re very willing to work at it.

Where she said so many people in our population, they may have something going on that they’re not actually willing to A, put a name to and B, to work out how to manage it. And it really brought me a lot of comfort because I thought if I can stay strong mentally, then hopefully I can execute and my body and my training that I’ve done to that point will pull me through and my horses will pull me through. And I’ve had horses that when I’ve been sick, they are, I fully believe they’ve just taken the reins and executed for me. And I definitely believe that horses have that ability to do that if I’ve created a great bond and done a really good job even to that point.

Jeremy Henderson

Lynda, you have said that horses reflect what you are and you’ve noted that you need to be 100 % present. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about your love of horses, that connection and what you think they can actually sense about people?

Lynda MacCallum

I think this field is very much a growth area and it is only getting more and more, we’re getting more knowledge in this area, however. And horses are being used so much for therapy these days and it seems like it’s getting more and more common. I’ll give you one fantastic example. I was reading a book recently; it’s called Horse Sense for People.

And it’s about a fellow who lives in Wyoming and he started off just doing little shows for people who would come and he ends up now doing big corporate retreats with horses for his he has Microsoft Group come each year. He also has criminals, so people from the local prison will send a group to go there each year. And he does an exercise with the prisoners that come where he’ll put them in the arena and make them space out and he will let a wild Mustang, so the American wild horse, go in the arena

And when they do that, he said, it’s so amazing. That horse, he said, you have the most hardened criminal who has done the most terrible things and has very little remorse for his actions. And he said that Mustang will go up there and he will put his ears back and turn around and snort and kick out.

And he said, and then he’ll just continue making his way through these prisoners. And he said, and there’ll be a guy there who is so remorseful for what he’s done. He’s very regretful. It may have been an accident. You know, it’s taken him away from his family and a silly moment in time. And he says, the horse will radiate to that person every single time. And I love that story.

And I love that exercise because I believe that that just says so much about horses. I’ve got some horses that, especially mares in particular, they’re very perceptive. I’ve got one mare in particular that if I am in not a very good mood or I’m a little agitated or angry and I go to work her, she can tell. she just, she will not respond very well. She’s very fractious. That day she’ll be particularly fractious.

Whereas if I go there and I feel great, she will work the house down. And it’s happened when I’ve shown her as well. If I go to show her when I feel like that, she won’t be very good at all. She won’t be terrible, she’ll barely cut. Whereas if I’m feeling great and in control, she will, you know, win nearly every time. I think, one, you’ve got to build a bond with them, but two, they have so much perception from where you’re at every day.

And it’s a great lesson for me as an individual because I have to show up for them as my best self so that they have the ability to learn. And it’s not unlike when I was a teacher for 20 years, you know, stepping into a classroom of 16 year olds. If I had a bad morning and I turned up at school and I was in a bad mood from the start, I’d be in for a terrible day. Whereas if I had a bad morning and I had the ability to take a big deep breath and force a smile on my face before long, I felt better, and my class would be a lot better in their behaviour mannerisms as well. I think, you know, definitely they can tell where we’re at, just like 16 year old kids, and definitely they will respond accordingly.

Jeremy Henderson

Your coaching work, your work with the horses, obviously an extension of the teaching career that you had. Do you miss those two decades you spent as a teacher?

Lynda MacCallum

I absolutely do. when before I started training professionally, I was missing teaching terribly. And then now that I’ve been able to incorporate it into this business, so I still get to teach people. I do a lot of lessons and I do the clinics that I do. And I actually mentor some teenage girls. try to take on that mentorship business is fantastic. I actually have more demand that I can field.

So I have a mentored girls from around mostly girls and adults as well. But the teenage girl mentorship program that I have going is fantastic. And I love working with them and they can contact me whenever on their phone. We text back and forth if they’ve had a bad day, but if they’re at an event and they feel a little nervous, I can help talk them through that as well. So I am lucky I still have that connection piece. I’m just not teaching the subject matter that I was before.

Jeremy Henderson

Now we’re going to go off in a little bit of a tangent. We don’t often do TV talk, but I’d like to talk to you about the TV show Yellowstone.

is there a surge in popularity or awareness and interest in the sport of horse cutting? And is that being driven by interest in the TV show.

Lynda MacCallum

Yeah, most definitely. Jeremy, my son has been working in the USA at a cutting horse ranch and we go over and back quite a lot, probably once a year, twice a year to Texas where the heart of it is. They definitely talk about the Yellowstone effect and it has had a huge impact on their industry, elevating horse prices, elevating the interest in horses.

And a lot of, I guess, corporate owners that either are happy to watch their horse from the sideline or come to an event, fly to an event, you know, go and hop on these horses. It’s a safe environment. The horses are so highly trained so they can have a go, hop on a horse and they just love the cowboy lifestyle. So, and also the cowboy code of ethics, I guess, and the morals of that way of life. So, we always seem to follow on, I believe, here in Australia. The Australian performance horse industry as a whole here in Australia is very strong and has grown enormously, I believe, in the last five years. And we have a lot more owners. We have a lot more sort of weekend people who would love to buy horse and be able to go enjoy it on the weekend. And to have a horse that’s safe for that, needs to have a lot of training and great genetics.

So, we have had a great flow on effect and we have definitely, you know, courses and training that people can just go and enjoy. There’s such a great demand for that. So, you know, the cutting horse industry is in a growth phase, but I believe our industry feeds the camp draft industry, which is huge. And it has the greatest membership in Australia. And basically a lot of those people are after our genetics and our training.

So it does feed well and I take a lot of those horses on as well. So it does feed well into that discipline, but it’s so interesting. And it’s just so great to see people, don’t know if they’re watching the latest season. When I’ve been over there and competed myself, I’ve competed at Taylor Sheridan’s ranch. And I was walking around one day and Taylor was there and he’s got his bodyguards sort of, they stay a little bit back, but they’re sort of around and his wife’s there as well.

He has done fantastic things for the industry as far as cutting and reining and cow horse over there. And I know there was a little going on about him being involved in the series in this latest season. There’s been a little talk about that. And in the episode where he was highly involved and he was the trainer at his ranch, there were a lot of well-known cutting horse trainers in that actual episode and Bella Hadid.

So, you know, it’s been fantastic for the sport, I have to say. And even Bella Hadid being involved in the sport over there has brought so much awareness for this sport. it’s, yeah, there is definitely Yellowstone effect and I love the show. I enjoy it very much.

Jeremy Henderson

Lynda, to bring this interview to a close, I’d like to talk to you about what you think is the secret to overcoming adversity.

Lynda MacCallum

I believe 100 % with my heart that the best thing that ever happened to me when I received my diagnosis is I have a great friend of mine and within a week she said to me, I’m gonna get you, she knew of a psychologist in Double Bay that she knew was extremely good.

She took me to that psychologist within a week of my diagnosis and that was 2018 and I have spoken to that psychologist either once a month or once every six weeks ever since and she has been fantastic for me absolutely in a lot of the mindset I guess exercises that she gives me or techniques to be able handle certain moments. it’s okay to be sad at times because I can definitely go to a very sad place, especially when my body lets me down. And for an example, mid-November in 2014 where I had a relapse and I hadn’t had one for years.

And my body was not working towards me, but I was for me, sorry. But I was able to handle it much better than I had in the past. And that was she sort of says to me, it’s okay to feel like that, but just don’t stay there. And I guess that’s the biggest thing for me. And know that every day that I can do the things that I want to do, I’m going to live them. I have that attitude every day I can, I’m going to live it to 100% because there will be days when I can’t. I know that will happen, whether it’s I’m feeling unwell or whether it’s my body’s given out on me or I’m just extremely fatigued. So yeah, believe that I try to live every day that I can, but I also heed that when I’m feeling low, I try not to stay there.

Jeremy Henderson

Lynda, obviously having a supportive community of family, of close friends, of health professionals is just so, so important for somebody living with MS.

Lynda MacCallum

Very important. And you know, one of the things I’ve found hardest is to educate my close people around me about MS. You know, even though I’m having a bad day, it doesn’t mean that I’ll stay there. And I do believe one of the hardest things with MS is that you look okay, but you don’t feel okay. So it’s hard. I find psychologically for me and for my family to understand that I can look fine but I don’t feel well on the inside and educating those people around me, I believe that’s the constant quest to get them to understand what it’s like and also my friends and also the general public. The work that I do in my clinics, I find it just so important to people just want to know what MS is. They want to know how it impacts me, why it’s different to me than it is to someone else who’s diagnosed. So I find that work incredibly important is just to bring an awareness about MS and what it is and how it impacts us for my friends, family, but also the general public that I get to meet in the business that I do along the way. That’s very important.

Jeremy Henderson

And perhaps just one last question before we wrap things up. What would Lynda today have told Lynda a few years ago around that time of your diagnosis? What do you wish she’d known then that you sort of know now or appreciate now in a way that you perhaps didn’t before?

Lynda MacCallum

I wish that I’d listened to my neurologist in the beginning. I have Professor Michael Barnett at Sydney Neurology, he’s my neurologist, he’s fantastic. here we talked about starting disease modifying medication in the beginning. And I was very, I wanted to try and do things naturally

And so I battled for two or three years and I felt quite unwell in that time and I didn’t realise how well I felt until I started, I’m on Tysabri and I have a Tysabri infusion once a month and I feel very well on that drug. It’s been fantastic. So I wish I’d listened to him and little things like this is off topic a little bit but when we talk about Tysabri and very interesting for this audience, you now can receive Tysabri subcut and that is an option so I wouldn’t have to go and sit and have it IV once a month. And I’ve been going down that path and I went to my local GP just in my small town in Walcha the other day and they weren’t willing to facilitate that for me. So, you know, that’s just one example of, I guess, the difficulties that you may face with it. And I was so upset in the moment because I was like, this could make my life so much easier, and they just had to sign up for the program. It wasn’t hard, but they didn’t really want to go down that road. So I will find another GP to deliver that for me. they’re the kind of things we face, I guess. And I know I’ve talked to the ladies in the program. They said they found other GPs have felt the same. So one thing is I wish I’d listened to my neurologist. And the other thing is I really wish that somebody could have told me that this wouldn’t, that my life wasn’t over. I just had to modify things and I wish I’d been braver to make a few of those changes a little earlier in my diagnosis and just to keep living each day.

Jeremy Henderson

Lynda, that is a great positive note to end on. Thank you so much for your time today. It’s been a delight chatting. Thank you.

Lynda MacCallum

Thank you very much, Jeremy.

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