Your gift today could mean that when someone hears the words ‘you have cancer’, they’ll also hear, ‘but we have good treatment options for you – and you’ll be able to get on with your life.’

This Christmas, will you donate towards research that could help the ONE IN TWO Queenslanders who’ll be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetimes?

It seemed to Ann that the biggest interruption to ‘normal’ life would be a few weeks of self-isolation with her husband, who had just returned from work overseas.

It was during that two-week period that she started getting back pain. Ann had previously had some treatment for sciatica – but this was different. Her pain rapidly became unbearable.

She remembers: “My GP organised for a scan, and I had the scan the next day. At the Wesley, they called in a surgeon to look at the scan and he said, ‘there’s a tumour that’s wrapping around your spinal cord. It’s extremely dangerous and you could become paralysed at any moment.’”