“It's down to people power" - Paul
When Paul and his beloved wife, Carol, attended a casual barbecue with friends, they never imagined their lives were about to change.
A friend of Carol’s, a senior nurse, noticed Carol’s face drooping on one side. Fearing a stroke, she recommended Carol be rushed straight to hospital.
Very quickly, the couple received the shattering news – Carol had stage 4 glioblastoma, an aggressive and incurable form of brain cancer.
“The grieving process starts from day one,” Paul says. “It doesn’t start down the track. It starts from that first day.”
Determined to fight, Carol underwent surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Throughout it all, the couple held onto hope — hope that research would deliver a breakthrough in time.
But it never came.
Tragically, just 14 months after her diagnosis, Carol died. She was, Paul says, “a fun-loving person, the love of my life, my soulmate.”
Paul and his family are now channelling their grief into action, through fundraising for Cure Brain Cancer Foundation. Their hope is that they can help save other families from experiencing the devastating loss of a loved one to brain cancer.
“I’ve seen the work Cure Brain Cancer does – the walks, raising money to fund research – and I wanted to get involved to try and help find a cure, hopefully during my lifetime”
- Paul, Community Advocate
“It helps me and my family with our grieving process, knowing that we’re striving to find a cure along with many thousands of other people that will go through this and have gone through it.”
Paul’s hope is simple but powerful: that through research, other families might be spared the heartbreak he and his family endured.
Thank you, Paul, for driving us closer towards a future where surviving brain cancer is the expectation not the exception.
