WHEN talkback radio host Stan Zemanek told his family he had a brain tumour, their lives changed immediately.
“From then on it was like a fast-moving train wreck and 15 months later he was dead,” his widow Marcella said.
Doctors initially told Zemanek he had six weeks to live.
But the former 2UE broadcaster was granted a little more time in which he celebrated important milestones, such as his 60th birthday, and shot another 30 episodes of Beauty & the Beast, despite struggling to read the autocue.
But his health quickly deteriorated and his wife decided her mission would be to help find a cure and to raise awareness of brain cancer in order to help others going on the same cruel journey.
She met Jo Quinn, whose father died seven months after his brain cancer diagnosis.
And she became friends with Robyn Leonard, whose daughter Lucie, 32, has had two procedures to debulk an inoperable tumour.
The North Shore women acknowledged they shared a real desire to do something positive and started planning Australia’s first Brain Cancer Awareness Week, from May 2 to 9.
“I never dreamed of getting involved in anything like this, but I was surprised that this was a cancer that impacts all ages,” Ms Quinn said.
“It’s the leading terminal disease in children and affects young people in their prime.”
She said young scientists should be encouraged to use their bright brains in this field, but money was needed for research grants to attract them to the work.
Mrs Leonard holds out hope that one day brain cancer may be easily cured, in a similar way that life expectancies for patients diagnosed with leukaemia have dramatically improved.
“Twenty years ago, if you got leukaemia, there was a 95 per cent chance you died,” she said.
“Now it’s 95 per cent survival rate and we want that flipside,” she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment