Mother Deb Graves battles cancer to be with her five children

A Queensland woman who ‘spent her whole life helping people’ is facing death in a hospice, leaving her five children without any parents after their father’s shock death. SEE HOW YOU CAN HELP

Deb and her immediate family

A Sunshine Coast mother of five children who will soon be left parentless as she succumbs to severe breast cancer that she has battled beyond all medical expectations.

Deb Graves, 52, has outlived her initial terminal diagnosis of 13 months in 2023, which loved ones say is purely due to her love for her family.

Deb Graves and her children.

She and her husband Jason Bent immigrated from England to Minyama on the Sunshine Coast in 2008.

In 2013, Ms Graves was pregnant with their youngest child when Mr Bent, who was a fly-in fly-out electrician, suffered a seizure and suddenly passed away.

Jason Bent is Deb Graves' late husband who died in 2013 following a seizure.

The Minyama woman said it was her children who kept her going throughout that tragedy.

“When Jason died and I was pregnant, I had no choice but to carry on because the kids needed me,” Mrs Graves said at the time.

“I’m all they’ve got.”

In February 2023, Ms Graves was interviewed by this publication when she was diagnosed with terminal triple negative metastatic breast cancer and given 13 months to live.

Deb Graves has defied doctors’ expectations in her breast cancer battle.

Twenty-five months on, in 2025, she has defied the odds again and again and always remained positive and full of hope, even when going through the most excruciating and debilitating treatments.

A couple of days ago, she was admitted to the hospice with doctors saying there is nothing else they can do as the cancer has progressed too far.

Ms Graves is in palliative care and being kept comfortable, surrounded by her family and friends, according to close friend Tessa Tamvakis.

Tessa Tamvakis and Deb Graves met when Mrs Graves became Mrs Tamvakis's support worker. Picture: Contributed

Ms Graves is worried about her children and who will take care of them.

The three adult siblings have have taken custody of the others, the youngest being 11-year-old Ruby.

“Deb is very worried about what will happen afterwards and we’re all trying to reassure her everyone will help in every way they can,” Ms Tamvakis said.

Ms Graves’ older children are organising the younger children’s school days and routines but Ms Graves did not want them to shoulder the responsibilities of a parenting role.

Deb Graves' two youngest children, 11-year-old Luey and nine-year-old Ruby.

All Ms Graves’ family is in England but the children’s lives are embedded in the Sunshine Coast.

Ms Tamvakis said the family in England had to call to say goodbye yesterday as they wouldn’t make it in time to do so in person.

“Anything I can do to help Deb after she spent five days a week for four years caring for me is the least I can do,” Ms Tamvakis said.

Deb Graves' older children, Chloe, Harry and Ellie Graves.

“She spent her whole life helping people and doesn’t deserve this.”

They met in 2020 as Ms Tamvakis needed a support worker when she was battling brain cancer, which Ms Graves’ care helped her beat.

“She just stepped into our lives and has been there every day since, honestly like my soulmate,” Ms Tamvakis said.

Ms Tamvakis said Ms Graves had “done everything right” when it came to treatment.

Deb Graves and her family mark her late husband Jason Bent's birthday at Point Cartwright.

“Ever since she turned 40 she’s been getting mammograms and she’s always been very healthy and active,” she said.

“It’s just horrific bad luck she’s had to suffer this.”

Ms Graves was in hospital on Christmas Eve last year, and all her children were saying goodbye as the doctors said there was not much hope.

At the same time, her oldest daughter, Ellie Graves, was giving birth to her first grandchild, Ziggy on the floor above.

Miraculously, Ms Graves pulled through and got to meet the “little angel”.

Deb with baby grandchild Ziggy

Ms Tamvakis has started a gofundme page to fund funeral costs and a celebration of her friend’s life as well as support the younger children through this traumatic period.

Back in 2023, Ms Graves said “I’m terrified, very anxious about the future and the impact it will have on the kids because they’ve been through enough.”

“But I’m going to put on the biggest fight that I can, because I don’t have a choice,” she said.

You can donate here.