'It was difficult and at times tense': My interview with Elle Macpherson

Elle didn't want to focus too much on her breast cancer in our interview. That was the message we got beforehand.

She'd written her book to help other women navigate life's challenges by sharing how she'd navigated hers.

It was her journey from her head to her heart, she said, and how ultimately love is everything.

Breast cancer was just two chapters out of 18 and there was lots else to talk about, we were told.

Right, good luck with that Elle.

For one thing, she'd kept it a secret for seven years, so it was a big disclosure from a woman not in the habit of making big disclosures.

And the second thing was that after her lumpectomies, she spurned all other conventional cancer protocols and took herself to Arizona for eight months of holistic treatment, which she believes has healed her.

You can't just gloss over all that and get back to the part where love is everything.

So I told Elle we would need to drill down into her cancer revelations and go into more detail about her treatment choices than either of us would probably be comfortable with.

We sat down with Elle several days before her book hit the stands and the uproar broke out about her controversial choices.

So we were still in a bubble of confidentiality.

It was the calm before the storm that I knew would greet her news.

Our challenge was to counter Elle's belief in holistic treatment with the hard science around conventional treatments, while also respecting her right to do whatever she wants and her equal right to talk about it.

It was difficult and at times tense.

We tried to forge a path down the middle of those competing narratives, remembering she is a cancer survivor who had half her breast removed in her second lumpectomy and whatever you think of her subsequent choices, that's no picnic.

Where do I stand on the issue?

Well, I'm not a doctor but I think Elle owes more to her two lumpectomies than her eight months of spiritual/herbal/dental/chiropractic therapies in Arizona.

I think medicine performs miracles. One hundred or so years ago the average lifespan of an Aussie woman was around 65 years old.

I'm 64 years old and back then I'd have been planning my funeral instead of my next holiday.

It's medical advances in multiple areas including surgery, antibiotics, and more recently immunotherapy that have lengthened the average lifespan.

So like most people, I trust conventional medicine.

But that's not for everyone and, as I said, Elle owns her body and her right to decide.

She says she's in remission now and being vigilant.

I hope she has a long and happy life.

You can watch the full interview here.