I am lucky to call Greg & Trish Pearsall my friends. What a beautiful family. Their journey has been big and they have had to endure more challenges than they deserve.

If we can help by donating a little or a lot - it may allow them time away from adult responsibilities to create everlasting and loving  memories . 

Here is Greg's story as it is stands today...

Today was the day that finally broke me, broke my spirit and sent me crashing. Since January 2020 when first diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, I’ve fought a long, tough and sometimes very public battle. A fight I was never trained to fight. Each blow that came my way has been dealt with learning on my feet as I’ve gone along. Four rounds of chemotherapy, a life saving bone marrow transplant, many more trips to hospital, countless medications, the hundreds of blood tests, or taking it back in by the bag full when needed. It feels like I’ve done it all.

I remember that first couple of days after being told I had cancer, googling it to be met with the words 25% survival rate inside 5 years. Despite the shock of it all, I decided then and there, I was going to beat those slim odds.

I also remember a few days later being told by a member of the health profession that I had to ‘own this’......and own it I have. So much so that even when it came back at real low levels in June last year, I was still on top of it. In January it was at an almost insignificant level and I was winning, by late February I was feeling so good that I returned to work, and life finally was normal again. Back then, just a few short weeks ago I sat back and thought Fku cancer, I won!!

Maybe it was that moment that was my downfall, where I let my guard fall for just a microsecond too long. We’ll probably never know.

Whatever, however, two weeks ago it bit me on the arse. A routine biopsy came back with alarming results. Within the space of four days after that test I received a call from my doctor.....Greg, the cancer is back. The next words hit a little bit harder.....we can’t do clinical trials with you because of your kidney function. There is a medication that can be used with success we just need to get it signed off to use. “A solution I thought, I’ll be right after all. That was the Friday afternoon. On the Monday that same doctor called me again. I anticipated the phone call in my head, you’ll need to come in so we can get the process started. The reality rang a largely different tune. I’m sorry Greg, they won’t give it to us for you – kidney function again, there’s nothing we can do. What the actual fk? I feel fine, and you’re telling me you can’t help me?

That was May 16th. Ironically, fatefully, cruelly, the same day my Dad lost his battle with cancer in 2016.

Since that day just on a week ago, myself and my family have been through an enormous amount of emotions, questions, confusion, tears. It just hasn’t stopped. Questions like “who will walk me down the aisle?”, “who do I do my first bridal dance with” or knowing that a set of sad 9 year old eyes have so many questions but he’s too afraid to ask. How do you deal with them? What should be taken for granted is now harshly ripped away from us all. And the rock that has somehow managed to hold the family together in an absolute hellish two and a half years is now crumbling. What does life look like for her in the coming months? How will she manage to hold it?

Overnight I went to Melbourne for appointments, supposedly to be met by Trish to see the doctor tomorrow to get all the answers we are both desperate to have answered.

But even that could not work out for us. The day started bad and right before my eyes, things started unravelling. I spiralled out of control not able to withstand the damage. Shit became real, to the point where I packed up and came home to the only safe place I know.

What happens from here is anybody’s guess, the outcome inevitable as I negotiate this brand new challenge.

We have our dreams, we have our little bucket list we have only our hope that time will allow us to fulfil it all.....