Fighting fears for cancer research

According to the Cancer Council NSW, “Cancer types with the smallest improvements over 20 years include cancer of the brain (148 fewer deaths), pancreatic (69 fewer deaths), and oesophagus (64 fewer deaths).

“Most cases of pancreatic cancer result in the death of the person,” the Cancer Council NSW website states.

“Relative to how many people are affected by pancreatic cancer, this cancer type results in more deaths than any other known cancer.”

(Ho ho ho, and Merry Christmas.)

In 2007, 2248 people died of the disease in Australia. While every life saved is priceless, that’s still only 70-odd people more still walking around, still here and spending time with loved ones, than in the 1980s.

So, what does one do?

My mum, who lives at Winmalee, began three rounds of chemotherapy at Nepean Hospital’s excellent cancer care centre, where what seems like thousands of thank you cards line the office and angels disguised as nurses tend to the weak, frail, and terrified.

Two drugs, once a week for three weeks, a week off, repeat. And repeat.

One of the drugs in the little packet pumped into the veins — Abraxane — is approved under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for use in breast cancer patients, but not for pancreatic cancer patients. That means each chemo round using that drug costs the pancreatic cancer patient $2800 a pop, not refundable through private medical insurance. I have a good job, I could pay for it, but what do other people do? Hands up if you think that’s right?

When her hair began falling out in clumps and led to way too much vacuuming, mum decided to have it shaved off. Both mum and Joanna, hairdresser and friend, cried. I called mum Baldilocks and the Three Hairs to lighten the mood.

After being told doctors couldn’t operate, mum began six weeks of chemoradiotherapy in May. That meant five straight days of both intravenous chemotherapy and getting zapped with radiation, before just radiation for three weeks every day, then chemoradiotherapy again, then radiation again.

Suffice to say, things start to get a little uncomfortable by the second week of chemoradiotherapy.

While she remains determined and focused, mum gets down and wishes the treatment was over. It’s almost worse than the cancer, she says. She finds it hard to get into the car and go to work, but has kept working from home. Some days she can’t manage that.

Again — what to do? Doing the cooking and cleaning isn’t enough when you are watching someone going through all this. 

So, I decided to face my own fear. When the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) advertised a fund-raiser that involved a tandem parachute jump from a helicopter at 14,000 feet, I filled out the form and sent it away before I could think twice.

The ACRF funds world-class cancer research in Australia to help find a cure, awarding more than $86 million in cancer research grants since 1984, $60 million of that in just the last seven years.

The response has been amazing: at the time of writing I had raised more than $3800 for my jump.

My friends have donated. My family has donated. Strangers have donated in memory of people I don’t know.

The Springwood Branch of the Australasian Order of Old Bastards (AOOB), of which I have been a proud member since the late 1990s, has agreed to donate the proceeds of their Saturday morning barbie at the Royal Hotel on July 27 to the cause.  To Grub, Graeme, Grant, Duffy and the rest of the boys, as well as Kay and Zak for their continued AOOB support: thank you.

Come to the barbie and buy a snag sanger or an ACRF ribbon. Go to my fundraising page and pledge your support.

I am hoping that by flinging myself out of a helicopter — which, to me, is bloody scary — I can not only raise money so someone, somewhere can perhaps find a cure for this disease, but so I can face some fear of my own and overcome it. 

Just like mum is.

To go to Krystyna Pollards's fundraising page visit: https://jumpforcancer.everydayhero.com/au/krystyna