It was a chance encounter brain cancer battler Rebecca Szuba had with participants on a 150km trek for the Mark Hughes Foundation 12 months ago that has resulted in her doing the walk this year. or signup to continue reading Ms Szuba was in an elevator in a Terrigal hotel in NSW when she met people who were halfway into a three-day event, called the Big Three Trek. The event raises money for brain cancer research through the Mark Hughes Foundation.
Ms Szuba had been recently been diagnosed with brain cancer at the time. "They invited my husband and I to the dinner they were having that evening and it was there I thought, 'I'd I'd love to be able to do these walks'," she said. She has signed up to trek from Sydney to McDonald Jones Stadium alongside 64 other participants.
They will leave on June 14 and arrive on June 16 in time for the Knights' Beanies for Brain Cancer round clash with the Panthers. Ms Szuba's diagnosis was actually a secondary cancer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021, which travelled to her lymph nodes.
"I went through chemotherapy and radiation and then I had a double mastectomy," she said. "Then I was on another chemo Herceptin straight after." But three months after that treatment she started having bad head and neck aches.
"I had to have my three monthly MRI PET scans and then they found out I had two tumours on my brain stem and one on the right side of my head," Ms Szuba said. "They did surgery to try and reduce the swelling from them becaus.