RACE TO THE ALTAR
THIS CHRISTCHURCH FAMILY IS MAKING THE MOST OF EVERY MINUTE
Why Elicia’s wedding can’t wait
Elicia Pask never thought she would be the one proposing to her partner Greg Rolston.
In fact, the Christchurch mum had been known to joke that if Greg hadn’t asked her by their tenth anniversary, the answer would just be “no”.
But everything changed when the couple received the devastating news that Greg has an inoperable brain tumour
– just days before last Christmas.
They are now planning an April 1 wedding to coincide with Greg’s 43rd birthday – and possibly his last.
To say the diagnosis was a shock would be an understatement. The couple, who have four-year-old son Lucas (they say he’s looking more like his dad each day), had been in their first home for just a year and were planning a holiday.
It all started when Greg, a former national hockey representative and member of the New Zealand Pipe Band, thought he had pulled a muscle in his neck.
“I’d been out with a chainsaw doing a bit of tree felling for firewood [last July]. I jumped over a fence and thought, ‘I might have a bit of whiplash there.’”
The pain in his neck got worse and a mild headache intensified. He tired easily and, at times, stuttered. He saw an osteopath and tried acupuncture. His doctor referred him for an X-ray.
In October, three months after his symptoms appeared, Elicia (37) suggested he make an appointment to see a physiotherapist. “Initially I just thought he had man flu and was having a whinge, but soon he was saying he couldn’t go to work because the pain was so bad.” Greg asked Elicia to go with him, but only so she would know how to give him a neck massage. The physiotherapist asked Greg to go through all his symptoms. “Being a typical bloke, Greg had downplayed a few of his symptoms,” explains Elicia. “Obviously the physio had some concerns and thank goodness she did because she wrote to our doctor asking for a CT scan.”
A day after Greg’s scan, his doctor phoned Elicia at home. “That’s when she said he needed to go see the neurosurgeons at the hospital straight away,” she remembers tearfully.
“I drove to his work and being who he is, the first thing he thought was that something had happened to Lucas. We drove to the hospital and that was the end of our world as we knew it.”
‘ We had the doctor telling him to get his affairs in order’
After a biopsy, Greg was diagnosed with an inoperable astrocytoma glioma, a rare tumour that more often presents in children. At their initial oncology appointment, the couple of 12 years were told the tumour was grade two – slow growing and with a median survival rate of five years.
But four days later, their neurosurgeon hit them with a bombshell. It was actually grade three. “Greg was devastated at the five year prognosis,” says Elicia, “and now we had the doctor telling him to get his affairs in order, to not muck around and that he [the doctor] would be happy with a year.”
The shell-shocked couple were walking down the corridor arm in arm after the appointment when Elicia proposed.
“I turned to him and said, ‘Well, I guess we’d better get married.’”
They had originally planned for a June wedding to coincide with their anniversary but it was brought forward due to Greg’s deteriorating health. They will marry at St Ita’s following an offer from Greg’s employer
Isaac Construction to let them use the historic church, and wee Lucas will be page boy.
Talking about their beautiful boy is, as you’d expect, difficult for them both. Says Elicia tearfully, “Thinking about him not having a father makes me cry – he’s such a daddy’s boy.”
“Luccy’s an amazing boy,” adds Greg. “I feel so sad he hasn’t had much dad coaching... and there’s not a lot of time left.”
A close high school friend of Greg’s, Katie Brown, has created a Givealittle page to help them fund the wedding. She says he’s a “happy, caring soul who never asks or expects anything from others”.
And it’s a measure of the thoughtfulness of her longtime friend when Greg says he wants to stress his appreciation for the support shown by friends and workmates, which he describes as humbling.
“You know the diagnosis blew me away but it also made me realise just how many other people are dealing with the same sort of thing. It also made me realise that accumulation of wealth isn’t important. It’s made me appreciate every minute I have with Elicia, Luccy and my family. That’s what life should be about, not about all those other things we can get bedazzled by.
“People need to remind themselves about who they love and who loves them, and what is really precious.”