FIGHT FOR LIFE: Galy O’Connor didn’t let cancer stop her quest to save others

Galy O’Connor was battling asbestos-related cancer but she made it her mission to help others – and at least 25 people are alive today as a result. Galy and two of those people share their stories of courage exclusively with Gary Nunn.

Eight years ago, for her 50th birthday, Galy O’Connor’s celebration was characteristically caring. The enthusiastic mountain climber and personal trainer taught a fundraising fitness class at her local gym, where she asked participants to donate to the 2011 Queensland floods appeal instead of buying her a gift. At heart, she was still the same girl who’d asked her mum if she could bring homeless people to live with them so they didn’t shiver in lonely streets.

“We were having an absolute ball,” says Galy of the class. “Then, as I was jumping up and down, calling out instructions, I felt it.” That ‘it’ – a small lump in her toned stomach – was about to transform her life, and eventually the lives of 25 complete strangers.

The personal becomes political

That lump had been caused years earlier – before Galy had married or had children; even before she’d climbed her first mountain, at age 18, to impress a “good-looking guy” in Kenya. She’d climbed mountains yearly thereafter, and was in training to climb Mount Everest at the time of that 50th

birthday fitness class. But long before she’d even imagined herself on a mountain top, Galy’s first job, aged 13, had been cleaning the asbestos-riddled factory where her dad worked. Now, 37 years later, she faced an asbestos-related cancer diagnosis.

Initially, Galy was nonchalant. She wasn’t about to let a tiny lump ruin her special birthday.

“I don’t have the panic mechanism. I got my hair and nails done, and had a Brazilian [wax],” she tells The Weekly.

But a real battle was brewing. Not only the one for

Galy’s life but the battle to secure life-saving treatment for her type of cancer in Australia. We’re widely considered to be blessed with one of the world’s best health systems but not, until recently, if you had Galy’s rare stomach cancer, peritoneal mesothelioma.

Only a small number of surgeons in the country can operate, and one of the leaders in the field is Professor David Morris. He has an international reputation for the intricate, highly complex and intense 10-plus hour abdominal operation required – a peritonectomy. But Professor Morris’s waiting list was lengthy – six months – and this was time