Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from the local news teams of the ACM network, which stretches into every state and territory. Today's is written by Bega District News journalist Jimmy Parker.

A single Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, or Dawn Fraser would have been sweet, but, no, apparently my body can't produce any gold medal Olympians.

Not even dog paddlers clinging to kickboards. It seems there's a permanent 'no swimming' sign erected internally. No swimmers, not even bad ones.

I'd always pictured the Australian dream - house, marriage, kids. I imagined calling out to my son, who had wandered off to smell the lavender around our cottage.

Five years ago, standing in my doctor's apple-green room, a throwaway question changed everything.

"Hey, so...um... I have always had

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