A DEFIANT WARRIOR FOR WELLNESS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CANCER
OLIVIA Newton-John used her own 30-year battle with cancer to transform the treatment of others and drive the quest for new cures for the condition.
The Grammy Award-winning actor and singer who passed away peacefully, aged 73, raised substantial funds to set up the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre which is part of the Austin Hospital in Melbourne.
And she leaves behind a lasting legacy of cancer research that in the future will transform the treatment of others with the condition.
Both her father and sister Rona died from cancer and Ms Newton-John herself was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 when she was in her forties. Her cancer returned in 2013.
The granddaughter of Nobel prizewinning physicist Max Born, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, she had a passion for scientific research.
“My dream is that one day the ONJ Centre will only be about Wellness, and we will no longer need cancer centres because cancer will be a thing of the past,” she said.
Researchers at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute are working on a blood test that can tell when breast cancer returns and researchers hope it can be refined to replace the mammogram and detect early breast cancers.
Last year, her fund raising event Olivia’s Walk for Wellness raised nearly $350,000 to fund evidence-based wellness therapies at the ONJ Centre that have been proven to help reduce the side effects of cancer treatment and help people cope better during their cancer journey. “Wellness activities such as yoga, mindfulness, meditation and massage have been very important to me and I feel they have really helped me on my journey,” she said.
“That’s why I want everyone to have this additional support.”
Newton-John was also an advocate for medicinal cannabis to help people with chronic illness or pain, and lobbied the Australian government to make it more accessible for those in need.
She was a regular user of medicinal cannabis to help relieve the symptoms of her breast cancer.