Looking Good Feeling Even Better

When Zrinka Barnjak went through tough times, it had a dangerous impact on her body

- Bess Browning

Whether we’re running around after our families or travelling far afield for work, life throws unexpected challenges at us. Looking back, I realise it was during those most chaotic periods of my life that my body started to change. One moment, I was active and slim. The next, I didn’t recognise my reflection.

Growing up, I was always hitting balls around a tennis court or doing lengths in the swimming pool. Taking after my parents, I was slim – and while my friends complained about the extra weight they put on during their teens and 20s, it was never an issue for me. At 6ft 2in, it was easy for me to keep trim.

When you live 28 years of your life like that, you never imagine your body changing or having to worry about the pounds you’ve piled on. But that’s what happened to me after August 2012, when my mum Dusanka and father Rinko sat me down one evening and told me they had some news.

Mum had been unwell for the past six years but doctors had never been able to pinpoint exactly what was wrong. But now they’d given her a diagnosis. ‘I have multiple melanomas,’ she told me. Cancer. It completely threw me. My mother had always been the one making the rules in our family, ensuring everyone else was cared for and content. Now she was the one who needed looking after.

Determined to help my parents, I stepped up and helped out more with the family business distributing water purifier systems, while my dad accompanied my mum to countless hospital appointments.