Last Weeks Speaker - Anna Thomas

Our guest speaker at our meeting on Thursday was a Who Am I from Anna Thomas.  Anna transferred to our Club from the Invercargill Club last year and it was great to get to know what her background is.  Anna has now been in Rotary for 9 years , having joined as a youngster when she was 24.
After leaving school, Anna spent a year as an exchange student and on her return followed in her fathers’ footsteps into real estate. Seven years ago she and her dad joined forces and became “Team Thomas” in Invercargill.
Anna was really enjoying her work and life in general when a breast cancer diagnosis in July 2019 . Within 2 weeks she was having surgery followed up by chemotherapy (which she described as brutal) and then radiation treatment, which was very tiring. After 6 months off, Anna then returned to work but looking back thinks it probably took a good year to completely get over the fatigue.
The message that Anna gave was what she had learned from her experience – she realised she was in the right career for her, and how thankful she is for having an incredibly supportive partner and family.  Anna also was fortunate that she was offered genetic testing to find out if she had the BRCA gene (which she doesn’t) where there is a 70% chance of carriers developing breast cancer and a recognised increase in the chances of ovarian cancer. She does however have the CHEK2 gene where there is a 29% chance of breast cancer and a reported increase in developing ovarian cancer.
An opportunity for her partner John to buy in to the Ray White franchise in Dunedin came and despite their trepidations about Dunedin being a “grey and overcast” city (how wrong could they be?) they made the move to Dunedin along with Jackson the schnoodle,  at the beginning of last year. They have no regrets and now love Dunedin!  
Anna is a great addition to our Club - thank you Anna for sharing your story with us.