A NUMBER of great things came out of the Relay for Life event that was held in Griffith this year, including a heart-warming gesture from raffle winner Bill Roche.
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Mr Roche won a $250 Rod McNabb Caltex Distributor voucher but upon hearing the news decided to pass the fuel voucher on to the Williams family, which has experienced the hardship of cancer first-hand.
In October of 2013 the eldest of the Williams children, Brandon, was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma (a form of brain cancer).
“I would like to pass on my fuel voucher to David Williams,” Mr Roche said.
“I feel that he and his family would get better use of this.”
After hearing news of this gesture, the fuel voucher was doubled to total $500.
Rose Williams said she was extremely grateful.
She said the family was still struggling to come to terms with the diagnosis.
“It was definitely a shock for that news to come through,” she said. “It is a brain tumour and what happens is that it spreads through he spinal cord - we were lucky that it was caught at a very early stage.
“Brandon had to get life-saving surgery pretty much immediately.
“We spent 10 months in Sydney while Brandon underwent surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
“But the true warrior that he is he takes it all in his stride, he is very stubborn and doesn’t give up.”
Although the chemotherapy is complete, Brandon and the family still make regular trips to Sydney and Wagga to keep an eye on how he is travelling.
“His treatment is done but we’re still travelling to Sydney every 12 weeks so that doctors can keep an eye on the cancer,” Ms Williams said.
“We also still travel down to Wagga to see a specialist because of the after effects from the treatment.
“He has been stable for almost 12 months and although the doctors weren’t able to remove all of the cancer they said as long as it doesn't grow any more he's safe.
“It definitely warms your heart, because the fuel voucher goes so far as now we can afford to take our other kids with us to Sydney or Wagga instead of that separation that would come otherwise.”
The family were also members of a team in this this year’s Relay for Life, under the team name ‘BJ’s Crew’.
“We found that the Relay for Life was a moving experience,” Ms Williams said.
“It was actually Brandon's idea to go in the relay and get involved, in the end we raised a bit over $3000.
“We would just like to thank Mr Roche as well as Rod McNabb Caltex Distributor for this gift and just let them know how much this means to us.”
