A personal walk for many

By Michelle Porter.

Tony Lucas was a devoted father of four, with a thriving career at the helm of a consulting company. He was strong, fit and loved to surf and ski. In 2008, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour after having a scan to check an incessant ringing in his ear.

“After being diagnosed no one knew how long Dad’s tumour had been there,” says his eldest daughter, Bec Lucas. “We hoped the tumour was benign but a year later a scan showed that it had grown significantly.”

After multiple rounds of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, Tony had his first surgery with leading neurosurgeon, Dr Charlie Teo and had another one year later when they discovered the tumour was tripling in size. Despite these rigorous efforts, in 2010 doctors told him there was nothing more they could do. “Dad never accepted the end, but did tell us he wasn’t scared of dying. He just didn’t want to leave us.”

Tony passed away in June 2011.

“It is actually the leading cause, of cancer death in men 40 years and under – not many blokes know that yet,” says Cath Stace, CEO of Cure Brain Cancer Foundation.

“So you can check other parts of your body: you can check you’re prostate and other areas, but your brain is like a black box – it’s really hard to get in and often the symptoms aren’t forthcoming until there is, really serious issues like blurred vision or severe migraines.”

Brain cancer also kills more children in Australian than any other disease and compared to other cancers has a high mortality rate, which hasn’t fallen in 30 years. However, the disease only receives a fraction of Government funding.

“Children who face brain cancer are the most inspirational, courageous, joyous children; they are all special,” says Ms Stace.

“We have seen too many beautiful children die and they’re the ones that impart their wisdom and make the greater impact in their short time, than many do in their whole lifetime.”

Due to the lack of treatments beyond neurosurgery, patients are not given much hope for long term survival. Although Dr Teo has given countless people the gift of more time, he found this unacceptable and established Cure Brain Cancer Foundation in 2001 to invest in medical research.

Their vision is to find a cure in a compressed amount of the time, while the mission is to double the five year survival rate in Australia by 50 percent in 10 years. The global mission is to achieve this in five years.

“Today, where we stand: we have this radical, global strategy,” says Ms Stace.

“We are absolutely fierce in our determination and compassion for patients. What we have is a patient-led strategy, where we’re taking the best assets around the globe and the science community to develop the right treatments and we’re making sure they get to clinical trials, so patients have early access to those treatments.”

Tony Lucas was passionate about the Foundation’s work and used his remaining time to help them raise funds and awareness. Soon after he died, his daughter didn’t want this commitment to diminish and collaborated with the organisation to establish a research grant in her father’s name. It would launch selected medical projects and support the mission of increasing the five year survival rate.

“To fund the grant we started the first beach walk for brain cancer, a fun 5km walk from Shelly Beach to Manly, which is now part of a national month of walks,” says Ms Lucas. “Australians are getting to their feet to all over the country sending the message that we want action on brain cancer.”

With the walk in its fourth year, they hope to raise $150,000, which will contribute to overarching goal of $700,000 for all walks conducted nationally. As all event costs are covered by the work of volunteers and sponsors, all money will go directly to research.

“Dad showed me by getting out there and sharing our story we can raise much needed awareness and funds for research. With this, I’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people who share a similar story to mine.”

The Manly walk will be held on 30 November at 9am. It will be attended by Dr Teo, NSW Premier Mike Baird; Manly Sea Eagles players along with other sporting and local personalities.

Registration: walk4braincancer.com.au or on the day