Helen O'Toole - If I Ever Get Out of This Place

Name: Helen O'Toole - If I Ever Get Out of This Place
Start: 2026-09-12T18:00:00+10:00
End: 2026-09-12T18:00:00+10:00
Location: Upstairs at Gleebooks

About

6pm for 6.30pm Saturday 12 September

Helen O'Toole in conversation with Jane Turner

If I Ever Get Out of This Place is Helen's memoir about her teenage years navigating a chronic illness and high school. Helen got sick when she was eleven, and the only treatment at the time was a medical device implanted in her brain. But it kept failing. By sixteen, Helen had been through twenty brain surgeries.

Worse than the brain surgery, was that they shaved Helen's hair for each operation. She hid under wigs and beanies, but the bullies at school always knew.

Helen promised herself if she ever got out, she would live her life fully.

Then her doctors offered her something new - a procedure with no device! For the first time in a long time, Helen felt there was real hope for the road ahead. The operation was new, so it was a risk - but it could be her last surgery.

Helen said YES and was one of the first people in the world to have the operation. It changed her life.

Helen O'Toole is an author, speaker and financial services leader whose life has been shaped by extraordinary resilience. Diagnosed with hydrocephalus at the age of eleven, she endured more than twenty brain surgeries before her sixteenth birthday. Through her speaking, she challenges audiences to rethink resilience—not as something we're born with, but as something we build through the love and support of others.

Jane Turner is an Author Coach, a Publisher, a Ghost Writer, and the author of six books including the best-selling “THE RIPPLE EFFECT: How to write a book that changes lives”, and her groundbreaking new wordless book called “THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT”.
Jane, who was recently diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, not only helps authors to write and publish their books, she also helps them promote their books and build their profile through accessing free publicity and speaking opportunities on stages all around the world - including the State Library of NSW where she runs her popular “Author Showcase” events.