Each day in conjunction with Go Grey for May, I’m sharing incredible stories of our community of Brain Cancer Warriors. Buy a T shirt, Beanie or wear an old grey t shirt to support the movement around Brain Cancer.
Steve Davis. 8 May 1959- 25 November 2020
Steve I were married 37 years, November 2019 he experienced an unusual seizure, where he felt frozen in his car for about 20min and when he could eventually move, he had a period of about 4 hours where he couldn’t remember my, or our kids names, or any of our friends. He recovered and didn’t tell me about it, the next day he had another episode whilst at work. I took him to hospital, and he was diagnosed with left temporal lobe GBM. He had surgery at Royal North Shore hospital a week later, he started radiation/ chemo early December 2019. In early January Steve had an episode where his heart rate dropped to 24, and he went to hospital via ambulance. He was in complete heart block and required a pacemaker. This was probably caused by brain swelling from the treatment. He did fairly well until around August 2020, where he started to show right sided weakness. By September we were aware of further deterioration and we were told that his tumours had returned and options were limited. Two weeks later we, as a family decided to stop treatment. Palliative care not long after. I was able to care for him practically by myself, with some help from my adult kids at home, where he died.
Steve and I have two wonderful children, Heather 35 and Andrew 33. Heathers partner, Rowan was also amazing in the help we received in Steve’s care. Steve never wanted to talk about his illness or prognosis. He trusted us with his care. The tragedy of GBM is that you lose them long before they die. I have kept a fairly detailed journal of events from our battle. I’m not sure how to raise awareness of this monster, except to share our stories, and support brain cancer awareness events.
Thank you for allowing me to share with you and I hope that I can have some involvement in raising awareness.
Lyn.