Conor N, Dry July

“I’ve been a frequent Dry Julyer as we lost a family member to breast cancer back in the early nineties. The motivation to honour our family, help fight a disease that will likely impact someone in our lifetime and raising funds was always worth the sacrifice of going without the drink for a month.

In 2022, my mum (Emer) was diagnosed with Stage 4 bowel cancer. It was shocking to hear this as you couldn’t tell there was anything wrong with her, but here we found ourselves in and out of hospitals and doctor’s consults in order to best decide how to fight it. It’s a scary proposition to go from thinking everything was alright to hearing that your mum has cancer. With help from her medical team, she began chemotherapy in the hope of shrinking the tumours in her bowel.

Throughout the journey, she was incredibly brave and resilient. She listened to every bit of advice and guidance given to her by doctors, she adjusted to every change in diet and exercise without complaint, and she never let her diagnosis take away from her happy and loving attitude day to day. We even found out her tumours had begun to shrink in July, and she and Dad got to celebrate with a holiday to Port Douglas!

Unfortunately, the cancer had metastasised, and a new tumour was found in her stomach which was inoperable. This was the biggest concern flagged by the surgeon in the initial consult about Mum’s condition. My mum’s fight with cancer ended in November after 6 months of battling it very valiantly. It’s left a very big hole in our family, especially considering she missed her oldest son getting married and her first grandchild being born.

While mum’s fight with bowel cancer has ended, we want to pick up the sword and carry on. Bowel cancer is a horrid disease that robs families of time and future memories together. It’s the 2nd deadliest cancer in Australia, with 1 in 15 Australians developing the illness in their lifetime. I recently learnt that it’s the 6th leading cause of death for Australians between 25-44, an age group I’m currently in. Encouragingly, 99% of bowel cancer diagnoses can be treated with early detection.

This Dry July, my partner Dannielle and I will once again be giving up the booze to help raise both awareness and money for Bowel Cancer Australia. Our hope is we raise enough money to help another family save their own while also remembering Mum.” ~ Conor

If you were inspired by Conor’s fundraising activities and would like to support Bowel Cancer Australia through Dry July, further details are available here.