LEAH Taylor knows first hand what it is like to physically and emotionally support someone through cancer.
Last July Leah quit her job in Canberra and moved to Stroud to be by the side of her mother, Dulcie Craig, who had just been diagnosed with a grade three aggressive tumour in her breast.
Mrs Craig underwent a mastectomy, six months of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiotherapy.
In March this year doctors found a 10cm tumour in her liver.
A month later Mrs Craig died in her daughter’s arms.
It was a life changing experience for Leah, a single, self-driven career woman who has walked the corporate ladder with great success.
She has no regrets about her decision to quit her job and look after her mother. They knew time was limited and every possible word that could have been shared was.
During the treatment Leah found out about the Hunter Breast Cancer Foundation Inc.
It is an organisation that has been operating for about eight years and aimed to give practical help to women with breast cancer.
It provides practical assistance to women with breast cancer with travel, housework, childcare, lawn mowing and financial support.
Leah thought how places like Stroud, Singleton, Merriwa and other towns of the Upper Hunter could benefit from such a service.
“All the time I was looking after mum I couldn’t help but wonder how she would cope without my support,” Leah said.
Leah helped with her mother’s medication, she fed her and bathed her.
There were times when her mother could do nothing more than slump in a chair.
Together they would travel to treatment and sit in a waiting room with other women with breast cancer.
It was the younger women that they felt most compassion for.
“These women were going through the same thing as mum but they had children and jobs to worry about, you just wondered how they could possibly cope,.
“What happens to them?”
“I know that if I wasn’t there to help mum she wouldn’t have had the treatment, she could not have driven from Stroud every day, she was too sick.
“Mum was only 69 but she would say she had had her life and she just felt so sorry for these younger mums with little children.”
To keep her mind distracted, Leah offered to help organise the Hunter Breast Cancer Foundation Inc’s christmas dinner.
Her skills were immediately recognised and by February Leah was offered a job as the organisation’s chief executive officer.
It is a considerable pay cut to what she is accustomed to but she has taken on the role to follow her mother’s desire and her own: to make a difference in the lives of women with breast cancer.
She hopes to form sub committees in places like Singleton to specifically identify and meet the personal needs of women with breast cancer in Singleton.
The group would raise money locally and these funds would be kept locally to be spent on local women.
The foundation does not contribute money for research.
Funds are spent on things like petrol, lawn mowing or childcare.
“The groups might organise volunteers who can drive women for their treatment or people to do shopping, all the practical things that women find difficult to cope with when they are having treatment,” Leah said.
A public meeting will be held at 7pm at Singleton Golf Club on June 4 to gauge interest and needs.
Anyone who can’t attend the meeting but would like to know more about the organisation is invited to call Leah on 0419 658 875.
The purpose of the meeting is to get a better understanding of Singleton’s needs, identify the gaps and pursue avenues to relieve these pressures.
Last Saturday, Singleton Passmore students Tennielle Perry and Emma Bennett organised a golf day to raise money for the Hunter Breast Cancer Foundation Inc.
Leah said she was impressed and touched by the girls' enthusiasm.
“People do care and they care enough to want to help, the Hunter Breast Cancer Foundation is about helping at a grass roots level and to make sure people don’t go through the struggle on their own,” Leah said.