EXCLUSIVE: Two minutes is all it took to turn Sydneysider Shinae Ann’s life upside down.
Shinae was driving home from breakfast on a day like any other in early July.
Her friend called her as she was pulling up to her home, so she decided to park her car on the street to talk as there was no reception in her underground garage.
She had no idea what was to follow.
Two minutes is all it took to turn Sydneysider Shinae Ann’s life upside down. (Supplied)
“When I saw her calling me, I thought I’d just pull up, chat to her and go into the car park afterwards,” Shinae, 28, tells me over the phone.
“I’m really glad that I made that decision.”
Within a few minutes, Shinae says she began seeing a film reel of her own memories playing in the upper right corner of her eye.
”I felt so normal, then all of a sudden I started seeing it… It was in my right eye,” she said.
READ MORE: Kate wows in regal white and gold gown and favourite tiara
READ MORE: Where parents-to-be are getting baby name inspiration in 2025
READ MORE: Aussie sisters ‘devastated’ after $80k Ticketmaster blunder
Shinea decided to make a video about her diagnosis and health journey. (Supplied)
“I started seeing flashbacks of my mid to late teen (years) with my friends from school in Queensland… it wasn’t even a flashback, it was actually like I had a TV screen in my eye.
“At first, it would play one of my memories and then it would move onto another one, but then it started going really, really fast.
“It started changing really quickly.”
She quickly realised something was wrong as she tried to open her car door and couldn’t figure out how.
“Something was not right. I didn’t know where I was,” she recalls.
“I said to my friend, ‘Something is wrong with me.’ That’s when I started to freak out.”
Shinae was a regular 28-year-old, working in the mental health industry. (Supplied)
Her best friend and fiancé, Sebastain, had her live location, so her friend called him to find Shinae.
“He just ran straight towards the car, which was lucky that he found me straight away,” she recalls.
“He was trying to get inside the car… he didn’t know what was going on at that point.
“He had no idea how severe it was until he said he saw me. He said I just looked at him with terror in my eyes.”
At that point she knew she just had to get the door open.
She knew something was wrong when she didn’t know where she was. (Supplied)
“I actually remember (thinking), ‘I just need to get the car door open for him, then everything will be OK’,” she adds.
“I focused all my energy on that… he said it took about 30 to 40 seconds, and I was able to open up the door, but I was moving really, really slowly.”
Sebastian moved his fiancée into the back seat and jumped into the driver’s seat, taking her to the nearest hospital – but it was a private hospital that didn’t have an emergency room.
The receptionist didn’t know what to do, and suggested they take a taxi to the nearest public hospital.
But then, Shinae started having a seizure.
”That’s when the doctors came and started helping immediately. They helped get me to the public hospital, where I’ve had the rest of my treatment.”
Shinae was “out of it” for about three hours as she underwent an MRI and CT scans. (Supplied)
Shinae was “out of it” for about three hours as she underwent an MRI and CT scans.
Doctors found a brain tumour and informed her that they needed to operate.
“They didn’t know if it was cancerous, they didn’t know what type it was or anything,” she explains.
“They just knew that I needed to have a biopsy, and then that’s when they booked me in for the surgery.”
A week later, she went under and surgeons removed as much of the tumour as they could.
They also did a biopsy, which showed the growth was a Grade Two astrocytoma – an early form of brain cancer.
They also did a biopsy, which showed the growth was a Grade Two astrocytoma – an early form of brain cancer. (Tiktok)
“I don’t think that it actually hit me into a few days after I was let out of the hospital, my family were here,” she adds.
“My dad had also had a seizure a few weeks before me, so we already had a lot going on in our family.
“That’s kind of when it hit me that I’m actually really unwell.”
Because of where the tumour grew into her brain, it is considered incurable.
“It’s made its way into important parts of my brain that would affect speech, memory and eyesight, so that they can’t remove the tumour, which is why I’ll probably have it for forever,” she says.
“The plan at the moment is to go through radiation and chemo, but even if they can kill the cancer cells and I go into remission, since the tumour is still there, it’s inevitable… the cancer will come back at some point.”
Because of where the tumour grew into her brain, it is considered incurable, but she remains positive. (Tiktok)
Despite a diagnosis that would crush almost anybody’s spirit, Shinae is as positive as ever.
She says she’s determined to fight and she won’t give up.
“It goes from Grade One to Grade Four…Grade Four is the worst.”
“They’ve told me that my brain tumour is slow-growing and it’s not as aggressive as other type, I’m still lucky. It can be a lot worse than what I have.
”I have high hopes, I have youth on my side. I’m healthy, so I’m going to do everything on my end to do as much as I can to still live a long, healthy life.”
She’s so confident, in fact, that she and her fiancé are undergoing fertility-preserving treatments to try and have a child someday.
She and her fiancé are undergoing fertility-preserving treatments to try and have a child someday. (Supplied)
The couple were also forced to postpone their wedding until after her treatment.
“I feel like it takes quite a lot to get me down,” she adds.
“Obviously, I have down days, but I feel like I never stay down for a long period of time.”
Shinae mentioned her “incredible” support system, including her parents and partner, helps her stay positive.
“I feel like I’m quite a resilient person, I just feel like at some point I’m like, well there’s nothing that I can do about it so I may as well get on with it.
“I don’t really dwell on the negatives too much; I always try to look for the positives.”
Shinae revealed that she had been suffering from migraines for years prior, but she never got a brain scan.
Shinea wants people to take themselevs seriosuly and push for scans if they feel they need them. (Supplied)
She says in hindsight, she wants people to take their health seriously and advocate for themselves if they feel something is wrong.
“All it would’ve taken was getting an MRI three or five years ago and we would’ve known about (the tumour),” she adds.
“You know yourself the best, if you have a feeling that there’s something wrong. I think it’s important to push for yourself.”
“Say ‘I think I want to get an MRI done’ just take yourself a little bit more seriously because I didn’t.”
Shinae is due to start her treatment in a few weeks.
FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.