BRIAN STACE

Why I’m walking for cancer

Helen, my wife of over 50 years, died in June 2023 of ovarian cancer. She loved bushwalking and continued walking through her treatment (over 3 years). Walking post diagnosis gave her an enjoyable quality of life in the face of a terminal diagnosis. I am confident that her relative fitness extended that quality of life, even during the palliative care stage.

Two years ago, I ran a cancer fund raising project “Walking 4 Health & Helen: Over 50 Tassie walks in under 50 days”. I did over 60 walks and raised over $40,000! This year, I am supporting Relay for Life with more walking, but this time in New Zealand. I will be doing 4 days of bushwalking near Queenstown NZ, starting March 7^th followed by 12 days of walking as part of the Walking Legends North Island 12 Day Bucket List walking tour (see https://walkinglegends.co.nz/our-guided-walks/the-bucket-list-walking-tour/ and check out the itinerary).

Those walks will be an even greater personal challenge than my Tassie walks of 2 years ago. I had a major break of both bones in my left leg just above the ankle (with a large chunk of bone sticking out through the skin) on January 26 last year on a bushwalk. It required a medic being flown in by helicopter and me being helicoptered to hospital for emergency operations. I faced over a year of rehabilitation and am now hopeful, that with lots of physio etc and hard work that I can do all of these NZ walks.

Please sponsor my NZ walks via this website. Double the effect of your donation as I will match the first $5000 donated via this webpage or that of the Right on Cue Relay Team of which I am part (Right on Cue is my choir).

Together we can reduce the incidence of cancer and its effect on those diagnosed with cancer and on their carers and families.

Join my Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/753443253288814 (or search Facebook for “Walking 4 Health & Helen”) to follow my journey. I plan to post on it about each walk, including Tassie preparation walks.