Couple’s cancer fight back on track

WHEN Rachel Moylan was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, she and her husband Andy didn’t take things easy.

Instead, the couple from Tasmania’s East Coast focused on a training regime designed to prepare them for the formidable Kokoda Track.

“Once she had gone through her surgeries and her treatment, we literally signed up for this as a motivator to get her fit and healthy, but also to raise some great funds for the Tasmanian Cancer Council,” Andy said.

“The journey was almost a mirror image of what Rach went though. It was trying to overcome negative thought and focus on positive thoughts and taking each day as it comes.”

Andy will shortly begin preparations for his second Kokoda effort, when he joins 11 others taking part in this year’s Cancer Council Tasmania challenge.

And again he has a personal motivation, having recently lost his brother to cancer after a six-week illness.

However, Rachel was last week given the all clear in her own cancer fight.

“That’s been a big weight lifted from our minds,” he said.

Cancer Council Tasmania CEO Penny Egan said last year’s inaugural Kokoda Challenge raised more than $28,000.

She said participants each raised at least $2000 for the organisation, which went towards cancer prevention and support services.

Trek leader Tom Allwright, of Adventure Abroad, said “the raw emotion and the challenge” of Kokoda made it popular for charities, with the fundraising target lifted to $35,000 this year.

The group sets off at the end of October and Andy said his wife was pleased he was doing it again.

“It’s a mind over matter thing — there’s lots of ups and lots of downs,” he said.

“Being fit is good but you don’t have to be an elite athlete, as long as you can put one foot in front of the other for many hours at a time.”