Widows take up brain cancer fight

BRAIN cancer strikes so fast it takes your breath away. Or in the case of Sue Dale, widow of the late great Matt Price, it took her loved one's breath away in just seven weeks from his diagnosis. Or in the case of Sue Dale, widow of the late great Matt Price, it took her loved one's breath away in just seven weeks from his diagnosis.
Three days before that, there was no sign anything was wrong.
"Seven weeks -- we went from a normal, happy, healthy Matt to one day him saying, `I'm not feeling that well'," she recalls of her husband, The Australian's much-loved and respected parliamentary sketch writer, who died in November 2007.
Seven weeks is fast, even for brain cancer, but many patients with the disease fare only slightly better. This creates problems not just for their doctors, but for researchers trying to find the cause of the illness.
"It's what we call a `black box' disease -- we don't know what causes brain cancer, we don't know how to identify it or to catch it early, and there have been no fundamental changes to treatments for over 30 years," says Andrew Penman, chief executive of the Cancer Council NSW.
The figures say it all. There were just over 1400 new cases of the disease in Australia in 2006, representing 1.3 per cent of all cancers -- but 2.7 per cent of cancer deaths. Five-year survival is just 19 per cent -- one of the lowest success rates in the nation.
Encouraging awareness, and fundraising to improve research into the illness is the purpose of the council's inaugural Brain Cancer Action Week, launched yesterday at the Prime Minister's Sydney residence of Kirribilli House by federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon.
Sue Dale helped to launch the week with three other widows of famous Australians claimed by the disease: Gail O'Brien, whose cancer surgeon husband Chris O'Brien died in June last year; Marcella Zemanek, wife of broadcaster Stan Zemanek; and Annette Olle, whose husband Andrew died in 1995.
Ms O'Brien said her husband's diagnosis was "so shocking" and that the public had little idea of the "agony and anguish" his illness had caused.
"I would hate to think that in 10 to 20 years someone gets the same diagnosis as Chris, and still has the same prognosis, and still has to go through what we went through," she said.