“Brain cancer is a victim of the fact it is so lethal.”
Fifteen years on from losing her father to brain cancer, Jane Adams still carries the weight of the experience.
“It’s shocking that survival rates haven’t changed,” she says. “With other cancers, you expect early detection means a fighting chance. But with brain cancer, there’s no early detection, no real warning signs—and then almost everyone just dies. It feels like there are very few survivors left to advocate. The lack of funding and progress doesn’t surprise me – brain cancer is a victim of the fact it is so lethal.”
Jane’s father was 67, healthy, active, and still working when, one day in 2010, he drove into a parked car. He had suffered a sudden medical episode. A scan at the hospital revealed a brain tumour. Within days, he underwent surgery. It was glioblastoma.
“At first, the doctors seemed calm and spoke of promising treatments,” Jane recalls. “But I wasn’t convinced. I started researching, and everything I found said glioblastoma was really aggressive, that people don’t live past two years. It didn’t match what we were hearing.”
"We pushed for another meeting and that's when a neurosurgeon finally said, ‘You need to be thinking that this will end your dad’s life'".
From diagnosis in October to his death the following August, Jane’s family focused on creating memories—moments of joy between rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. The family spent Christmas together in New Zealand, and Jane organised a beach holiday to Noosa.
One of her most cherished memories from that trip was surprising her dad with a massage. “His head was shaved and he had scars from surgery, so I wasn’t sure if he’d go for it,” Jane says. “But he absolutely loved it. He said, ‘Why didn’t someone introduce me to this years ago? That was the best experience of my life.’”
As his condition worsened, Jane’s father needed help with everything—feeding, bathing, using the bathroom. Jane’s mother became his full-time carer. Despite her professional background supporting adults with disabilities, nothing could prepare her for the emotional toll of watching her husband deteriorate. “I remember that last weekend I was with them,” Jane says. “Mum had reached a point where she admitted she was kind of wishing it would end—not because she didn’t love him, but because the load was so heavy.”
In the final days, the reality of what was coming became impossible to ignore. “Dad and I were sitting on the couch, holding hands, and he drifted off beside me,” she recalls. “When he woke up, he said, ‘Oh, I thought I’d died.’ I told him, ‘No, you’re still here,’ and he just nodded and said, ‘It won’t be long.’ He really knew.”
Today, Jane works at CommBank and is grateful the bank supports Brain Cancer Australia through the CommBank Staff Foundation Community Grant, made possible by staff who contribute via workplace giving.
“Brain cancer is something that really stays with you. And it helps knowing that the community grant is funding an organisation that is on a mission to change the future for brain cancer patients."
"I absolutely think we’re on the cusp of technology being able to do something. I really believe progress is possible.”
