AWARD-WINNING VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY – NZCNA Wednesday, October 27, 2021
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ALEXIA’S CANCER JOURNEY INSPIRES CHILDREN’S BOOK By ZOE GARDEN
A
woman’s terminal cancer journey has inspired her to write a children’s book. Alexia Stevens’, 34, recently released book titled The Octopus Visits Doctor Puss is a humorous story that stars a nervous Octopus named Alex who goes to see Doctor Puss after he suffers a missing tentacle. Doctor Puss takes Alex on an adventure around the world in search of his tentacle. The sights visited by these two characters – Egypt, Greece, Australia – were drawn from Alexia’s own experiences. Born in England, Alexia’s parents travelled around with their kids. “Mum and Dad always wanted to travel,” Alexia says. “We ended up in Australia and in Brunei.” This installed a love of travel within her. Alexia, who lives in Cockle
Bay, studied interior design in London. She would go on to do retail management, which was interwoven with interior design as she would sell furniture and remodel houses. She also had a parttime modelling gig with K&K Fashions. She has been in New Zealand for 10 years and lives with her husband Warren and beloved cat Isaac, who Doctor Puss is based on. When she was 28, Alexia was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had all the treatments offered. It was during this time that she thought about writing a children’s book because all her friends were having kids, and her doctors told her she’d have to wait five years to have her own. “I thought about it,” she says, “but I put it on the backburner.” Two years later, the cancer came back in her bones and brain. Her diagnosis is terminal stage four breast
cancer. “I stopped work and felt like I needed to have a job,” Alexia says. “I started writing.” The words portion came easily, she says. The illustrating of her hand-painted watercolour book took her a year. “It was a lot of work,” she says. “My cancer journey inspired the book.” Her later-life journeys to Egypt and Greece, her early memories of Australia and Brunei, were the locations that her characters would travel to when finding Alex’s tentacle. Alex’s experience of his missing tentacle throughout the story is a journey of self-acceptance. “He learns that he’s perfect the way he is,” Alexia says. This was something she herself experienced. “I had a mastectomy when I was younger,” she says. “It was a struggle, learning to accept myself the way I am.” ➤ Turn to page 2
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INSPIRATION Alexia Stevens, 34, with her beloved cat Isaac.
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