Penelope Bell backs Parramatta Walk4BrainCancer to support Cure Brain Cancer Foundation

After watching brain cancer ravage her husband, a western Sydney mother is ready to pound the pavement in a bid to ensure others don’t suffer the same fate.

Michael Bell with his wife Penelope, baby Jasmine and daughter Mikayla.

Western Sydney mother Penelope Bell endured the anguish of watching her husband lose his memory and physical strength before he succumbed to brain cancer at the age of 38.

Now, six years after his death, she is inspired to improve survival rates and treatment of the disease so fewer patients don’t have to face the same fate as her husband, who had glioblastoma multiforme – the most aggressive form of brain cancer.

Along with daughters Mikayla, 10, and Jasmine, 7, she will participate in her eighth Walk4BrainCancer at Parramatta on Sunday to raise funds for the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation.

Her sports-mad husband, who was a physical education co-ordinator at Clancy Catholic College in West Hoxton, was diagnosed in 2013.

“It was quite a shock because he didn’t have normal symptoms,’’ Ms Bell, of Riverstone, said.

Michael and Penelope Bell with their daughters Mikayla and baby Jasmine shortly before Michael died of brain cancer.

“Normally seizures are the main giveaways.

“He was having headaches but he had migraines as a kid … it wasn’t until we asked for a CT scan and that’s when it showed he had a tumour the size of a fist and it had been growing for 10 years or so.

Michael died eight months after Jasmine was born.

“It was something under the surface so it was quite an unexpected shock.’’

Two days later, Mr Bell underwent surgery that successfully removed the tumour.

But it returned in 2015 when he started experiencing seizures and three more growths were detected in the brain.

Subsequent surgery revealed it was worse than expected and growths deposited throughout his brain and spread to the spine.

Penelope Bell with her daughters, Mikayla and baby Jasmine, at a Walk4BrainCancer fundraiser.

The family had gone through the ordeal just two months after Mr Bell helped deliver Jasmine during an unexpected home birth.

Ms Bell said her husband was a shadow of his usual self after the disease impaired his mind and body.

“He didn’t have much memory,’’ she said.

“He lost a lot of who he was.

“He lost a lot of weight because he couldn’t eat, so it was a terrible existence for him and for our family.’’

Mr Bell died in January 2018, a month shy of his 39th birthday.

Sadly, Ms Bell said he was another brain cancer statistic because he died five years after diagnosis.

Michael Bell helped deliver his daughter Jasmine at home.

While survival rates have steadily improved for other types of cancers over the past 30 years in Australia, the five-year survival rate for brain cancer has stayed low at 23 per cent.

The disease also kills more children in Australia than any other disease and more people under 40 than any other cancer.

About 1900 people are diagnosed with brain cancer in Australia each year and more than 1500 will die from the disease.

The grim facts drive Ms Bell to continue fundraising in the Walk4BrainCancer with the Trailblazers, a group she named after Michael’s favourite NBA team, the Portland Trail Blazers.

The graphic designer and marketer has helped raise almost $50,000 since 2017, when Michael was in hospital.

She felt “so helpless” but felt participation in the walk was a way to counter that.

“They lose who they are a lot and it’s horrible to see, and I wouldn’t wish that upon anybody and I don’t want anyone to go through that,’’ she said.

“We walk 5km once a year and it’s the hope I can contribute to anyone experiencing it, and improve survival rates.

“It’s also to show my girls terrible things happen, and it was a terrible thing what happened to them, but some good came out of it and we have to look out for others.’’

The Parramatta walk begins at Government Farm (behind the Old Kings Oval), in Parramatta Park.

Register and donate for the Walk4BrainCancer here.