Young cancer fighter's beacon of hope

When Tegan Kubler's medication for her leukaemia suddenly failed her, she almost lost all hope.

BEST BUDS: Tegan Kubler has been fighting leukaemia since she was 13 and is now designing Bravery Buddies to support other children diagnosed. Picture: John McCutcheon

WHEN Tegan Kubler's medication for her leukaemia suddenly failed her, she almost lost all hope.

The pill that prevented Tegan from having to endure chemotherapy stopped working after 16 years of helping her battle the disease.

"I was thrown back to when I was first diagnosed at 13, to that feeling of not knowing if I'm going to live or die,” she said.

"Going through it all again, and being forced to feel that fear again that I hadn't really experienced since I was a child, changed something inside of me.

"I was no longer content in my life. I wanted to do more.”

While reflecting on her time as a child with cancer, Tegan remembered the one feeling that haunted her: loneliness.

"I wanted to create something to counteract that feeling of loneliness, so I designed the Bravery Buddies,” she said.

Bravery Buddies are a collection of dolls for children who are either battling cancer or who have a loved one with the disease.

The 30-year-old put her heart and soul into producing the little dolls with a big message.

"Cancer has this way of making you feel like you are the only person in the world,” she said.

"So I just want children to know that they're not so alone, which is what Bravery Buddies stands for.”

Tegan decided to design the dolls without hair so children could see themselves being represented.

"They're created purely so children can look at their little Bravery Buddy and have a friend that's just like them,” she said.

Last December Tegan gave her dolls to kids at the Queensland Children's Hospital and said it was the most rewarding experience of her life.

"It was what I had spent my whole life searching for, because I never really reached fulfilment until I did that,” she said.

"I just knew that by embracing what I had been through, I had finally found what would make me happy.”

Tegan relies on donations and has a goal of producing 5000 dolls this year.

Visit www.facebook.com/braverybuddies for more information.