Dealing with mum’s brain cancer diagnosis

My mum was first diagnosed with brain cancer in late August. The neurosurgeon told us that mum had an extremely rare type of tumour. They’re still not sure what type she has, although they say it favours ependymoma.

That type of tumour happens in young children but it’s extremely rare in adults. That was so hard to take, because throughout that time we were becoming extremely worried as the doctors couldn’t give us a 100% diagnosis about what type of tumour it was.

We are renowned in Australia for having the best doctors in the world, but our doctor had to send samples to a machine in Boston to identify the tumour as they have better technology than we’ve got here.

We were struggling to deal with not having an answer because we didn’t know what type of tumour it was. It was a real long waiting game and it became frustrating for all of us. So, it was a situation where we just wanted answers.

The neurosurgeon operated in early October and was then able to take out about 25% of the tumour. Mum was in intensive care and the general ward for about six weeks in total, then her aggressive radiation therapy began. She has been healing from the operation ever since.

Joining the Cure Brain Cancer Association

During this time, I started speaking to the Cure Brain Cancer Association and they asked me if I was interested in helping their cause. I jumped at the chance because they've been fantastic.

Brain cancer is such a bad disease. It kills more young kids and adults under 40 than any other disease and it's no-where-near as well funded, so I just wanted to send the message out there and talk about it and raise awareness and much needed funding.

If we are able to have one of those machines that are overseas in our own country it would be a much easier process and people wouldn’t have to go through what mum went through.

I don’t normally tweet such personal things, but I guess the situation that mum was going through was about seeing if anyone out there was going through similar things and to reach out and help and that certainly was the case.

I was really astounded by how warm and generous the football community and the wider public were with the support they gave to me and my family for what mum was been going through.

It was astounding and it really touched us all.

Creating an A-League round

On the back of what was happening to mum I kept on asking myself how can I make a difference? 

I was really passionate about doing something because if I’m going through this then there have to be more families going through the same ordeal. Hopefully they don’t have to go through what we went through in terms of waiting for a diagnosis or finding out that there's nothing they can do about it.

Speaking to the Cure Brain Cancer Association got me thinking that football has been a massive part of my life and the community has been unbelievable in how they treated my situation.

So, I have been working behind the scenes quite strongly with the Cure Brain Cancer foundation and Belinda Woolford, the CEO of Ronald McDonald House - who’s a big football fan - and their response has been fantastic.   

I have spoken to Head of the A-League Greg O’Rourke and he was very welcoming and so was David Gallop. So was John Didulica from the PFA who was excellent in getting the players involved about getting a Football for Cancer Round happening in the A-League and having spoken to them, they are all on board.

I just think it’s a really good message. There are so many different forms of cancer and so many people have their own stories.

Obviously Liam Miller died from pancreatic cancer over the weekend as well. It’s just a horrible, horrible disease.

My goal is to have the Football for Cancer Round in the last round of this A-League season. That’s the aim and having that happen year in and year out.

We've got so many issues within the game and I think with something like this, we really have the ability to bring people closer together.

My mum always put in a smile on my face

I was really close to mum growing up, very attached. Much more so than my father. All us siblings were close to our parents.

Dad would work during the day on a building site and mum would do the night shift, so we rarely saw mum and dad together, except on weekends. Dad was a strong disciplinarian, but mum knew how to communicate better than dad, she was always there to put a hand on our shoulder when we needed it.

She was always the one that put a smile on our face. Mum has a fantastic sense of humour and always made us laugh. Her side of the family are really like that and she carried that on, she was the youngest of seven and definitely the liveliest of the bunch.

In terms of my football career, she would wash my boots, have my bag ready, have my clothes washed and folded, she was always like that. She would come to every game. Mum was incredibly supportive throughout my playing career.

When I became a coach, she would always come and watch those games as well. When I lost a game and was disappointed mum knew how to shake me out of it. She’d say, 'Ah c’mon, nobody died, it’s only a game', She understood that football was my life but she was great at reminding me that it was only sport.

She was really good in taking a lot of those pressures that I put on myself away, whether I was playing or coaching. To see her go through what she's currently dealing with, it’s the absolute least I can do to help her.

Mum’s recovery

Mum is at home now, she left hospital after six weeks, after having 40 treatments of radiation done. The tumour has decreased and some of those symptoms have gotten better, however she has lost her short term memory permanently, which has its own set of challenges.

As people know with brain tumours they can come back, or the tumour can increase. My mum has a very aggressive tumour so while she is on the road to recovery there is a long way ahead of her yet.

The whole ordeal has brought us all so much closer. The impact its had on my father, the way he has supported her has been incredible. My sister Mariana has been instrumental in lending support both personally and professionally. She’s been instrumental in helping me put together a campaign to raise funds.

My younger sister Angela has been really affected by this ordeal. She’d actually booked and paid for a well deserved trip to Hawaii with mum and was supposed to leave the day before we found out that mum had brain cancer. 

It really has brought us so much closer together to see our mum go through this. Mum is the absolute rock in the family, she is the glue that keeps us all together.

After I went public with mum’s diagnosis, the whole football community were very generous and loving, it just urged me on to do something. So, I thought this would be a very good idea and we could really make an impact and make a difference.

As told to Con Stamocostas