Cancer fight fuelled by tale of survival

Roslyn Novakovic's triumph over cancer is just one of the incredible stories driving 16,000 Queenslanders to walk in Relay For Life events across the state.

Cancer Council purple and yello ladies

Roslyn Novakovic's triumph over cancer is just one of the incredible stories driving 16,000 Queenslanders to walk in Relay For Life events across the state.

IN 1992, Roslyn Novakovic’s life was just beginning. She was young, healthy and happy; a newlywed, full of hope for the future and what lay ahead. But, then she got the news nobody wants to hear.

Then 22 and living in her hometown of Ipswich, Roslyn started experiencing pain in her legs. She put it down to a sporting injury but the pain kept getting worse — and then came the excruciating stomach cramps. It was a Friday when she went to see her doctor, who suspected it might be a bowel infection.

“He sent me home and told me to go back in if I didn’t start to feel better over the weekend,” Roslyn says.

“But late Saturday, early Sunday, I started vomiting and couldn’t stop. My father-in-law took me back to the doctor and I was sent to Ipswich Hospital. The doctor there did a scan and found something he didn’t like the look of, and on the Tuesday I was transferred to the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital.”

After extensive testing, doctors found a tumour the size of a tennis ball on Roslyn’s left ovary, and two tumours on her liver, all of which were putting pressure on her sciatic nerve. She was diagnosed with high grade B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in April, 1992, six months after her wedding to husband Zoran.

“It was so scary waiting for those results,” Roslyn says. “We’d just started our lives together and then all of a sudden I had cancer and was told I’d never have children.”

One day after her diagnosis, Roslyn was operated on. She had the tumour and her left ovary removed, and started chemotherapy straight away. Over the next year, chemotherapy combined with radiation therapy, along with 14 lumbar punctures, helped to kill the lymphoma cells throughout Roslyn’s body and today, she’s fighting fit and cancer free. Shortly after beating the disease, Roslyn even managed to prove doctors wrong by welcoming into the world two sons, Luke, 20, and Kyle, 18.

Now 49 and living at Durack in Brisbane's southwest, Roslyn is one of Cancer Council Queensland’s biggest advocates. She’s been taking part in the Relay For Life fundraising event since 2011, and in 2012 she became a Cancer Council Hope Ambassador, dedicating her time and effort to helping those affected by cancer through other initiatives such as Daffodil Day and an annual afternoon high tea and fashion parade that raises money for researching women’s cancers.

Relay for Life began in the United States in 1985, with the first Australian Relay for Life taking place in Victoria in 1999. The event now raises more than $14 million a year for Cancer Council research, prevention and support programs. Relay participants walk through the night to symbolise the fear that a patient feels when diagnosed, and there are multiple relays planned across Queensland in 2018.

Roslyn's fundraising efforts, which have seen her raise about $100,000, even resulted in recognition as a Global Relay For Life Hero of Hope by the American Cancer Society. But it’s not just firsthand experience that has made Roslyn such a fighting force — she lost her brother Brian to leukaemia when he was just 10, and her father to gall bladder cancer 16 years ago.

“Before Dad passed, he and Mum were heavily involved with the Leukaemia Foundation and we’d take part in the Ipswich Relay in honour of Brian,” she says.

“Back then, when Brian passed, you couldn’t do much about it. But today, thanks to fundraising events like Relay For Life, we’re closer to finding a cure for all kinds of cancers.”

Roslyn and her team Raising Hope have raised about $45,000 for cancer research and patient support since they first took to the Relay For Life track, walking 18 hours through the night from 3pm on a Saturday to 9am the next morning.

“It’s a team effort and we take turns at walking, usually three on and three off, with camp sites set up around the track along with food stalls, entertainment and fundraising for each team,” she says.

“At the start of each relay cancer survivors and carers do a lap of honour with everybody cheering them on, and there’s an afternoon tea and an evening candle bag ceremony to remember those we have lost and celebrate the survivors who have fought back.”

There’s also an award for best-dressed camp site. In previous years Roslyn and her team have decorated their camp site to winter wonderland and starry night themes, but this year they’re doing something a little different. It will involve butterflies, but that’s all Roslyn is giving away.

“What we really hope for Relay For Life is to get more people involved,” she says.

“It’s such a great event and a truly wonderful way to meet so many special and inspiring people, but a lot of people don’t even know what Relay is, or they’ve never even heard of it. What we want the community to realise is that anybody can get cancer — one out of 10 Queenslanders are diagnosed every day, and Relay raises money for research for all of the different types.

“Even if you haven’t been affected by the disease in one way or another, get involved, support Relay and help us in our fight against cancer — the more people we have raising funds for research the closer we are to finding a cure.”

Register for Relay For Life at relayforlife.org.au or call 1300 65 65 85.

Originally published as Cancer fight fuelled by tale of survival