By Shelby Brooks
Thousands of steps will be walked by the community for a Beaconsfield mum in support of a devastating brain cancer diagnosis.
A 24-hour fundraising walk at Lakeside in Pakenham will raise money for 37-year-old Sarah Kelly and her family following the shocking discovering she has stage three brain cancer.
Sarah, who is a passionate runner, and husband Steve, along with young daughter Esther, were blindsided by the diagnosis but have found incredible support from family and friends, particular from the running community.
Pakenham Road Runners founder Michael Soutter, who has run for many years with Sarah, wanted to do something to help the Kelly family.
“Sarah is such a giving and thoughtful person. We thought there was no better way to show her love and support than getting people out and pushing themselves,” Michael said.
The community fundraiser, ‘24 Hours for the Kelly Gang’, will be held on Saturday and Sunday 16 and 17 July for people to pay to walk or run a lap to raise money for the Kelly family.
Michael intends to run for the full 24 hours and there will be an auction and raffle as well.
Sarah’s husband Steve said he was humbled by the offer from Michael and fellow runner Julie McKnight to organise the event.
“One of the things we have learnt out of this whole thing is to not say no when people offer help,” Steve said.
“Before this we probably would have said no to this sort of thing because it feels weird to accept and be the focus of that kind of help.
“We didn’t ask for but people have just done this for us – it does show us how strong the community is. I know Sarah is really looking forward to having all her people around her on Saturday and having lots of people she doesn’t even know.”
Steve said the family was overwhelmed by the support from the community they had received since Sarah’s diagnosis.
“I think we underestimated how many people Sarah has had an impact on,” Steve said.
“Now she needs some help, everyone is coming out of the woodwork and is really keen to help her.”
Steve said the family had experienced many ups and downs.
“It’s been nine months now of really intense heaviness,” Steve said.
“You wake up and remember the situation and it’s hard to get back to sleep.”
Sarah had been having trouble with her left hand when she had the MRI, which found the tumour, before undergoing the emergency surgery the next day.
“She went from never having a night away from our daughter who was 18 months old at the time, to being in hospital for 10 days with no visitors,” Steve said.
“Looking back at that time, it was really hard but it probably was the least hard time.”
After the surgery, they received the call that the tumour was cancer, but the family is remaining optimistic.
“It’s a terminal diagnosis but we’re trying to stay away from that term,” Steve said.
“Sarah is pretty determined, especially for our daughter Esther, to stick around.”
Sarah underwent six weeks of radiation therapy and is now undergoing a yearlong course of chemotherapy at The Alfred.
On top of that, since the first surgery Sarah has unfortunately developed epilepsy and has to endure regular seizures.
“The seizures have been more of a battle than the actual cancer diagnosis,” Steve said.
“They really impact her. It knocks her out for a day or two afterwards and there is a lot anxiety around those.
“When we’re able to not think about those and it’s not a chemo week, in general she’s still doing as well as possible.”
A hard part of the situation for Sarah is not being able to be as active with her young daughter Esther.
“She’s one of those born to be a mum type people,” Steve said.
“So that’s been a really challenging thing not being able to be as present with our daughter as she wants to be.”
But the 24-hour fundraising event has been a welcome distraction for the family, and has offered a positive focus in recent months.
“We are completely powerless, we can’t control the cancer diagnosis and can only try control the seizures,” Steve said.
“So many things got ripped out of our control but this event where we can actually do something is a nice focus.”
The family intends to use any money raised towards getting Sarah into a functional medicine intensive course in Byron Bay that acts as complementary health care alongside her chemotherapy regime.
Steve is hoping as many people as possible will come down and join in on the day.
“There will be a real mixture of running and walking,” Steve said.
“The fundraising is an important goal but it’s also about the community support.
“Sarah thrives on relationships and connections with people so a big part of it is just getting people down there so that she can see people support her and who want to be a part of her healing journey.”
Raising awareness for brain cancer research is also something Steve hopes will result from their ordeal.
“The research for brain cancer hasn’t really changed in the last 30 years,” Steve said.
“Realistically, everything we’re doing, while we hope it could cure her, the next best option is that it keeps her alive and healthy as possible until the research catches up.
“We would never have known this but it is really common in people Sarah’s age with young kids to develop brain cancer.
“It’s a pretty horrible statistic.”
Head to facebook.com/24hoursforthekellygang for more information.
