He had a good job with Australia Post, three happy kids and in August 1999, he married Jenny. Two months later, a doctor who was suspicious of a chest cough that wouldn't go away discovered Stephen had mesothelioma. We couldn't tell anybody about it originally. But by September the next year, Jenny and Stephen could not hide the fact of his illness any longer. But I ended up walking into Wollongong Hospital on the emergency on 12 September and the next day I suffered the paraplegia.
Malignant mesothelioma is a form of cancer.
It is one which is resistant to all known forms of cancer therapy. Most cancers are unpleasant but mesothelioma is a particularly unpleasant one which is virtually 100 per cent fatal. Most patients survive for only about a year after diagnosis. As if the pain wasn't bad enough, Stephen discovered he'd contracted the disease more than 30 years before while works as a labourer on a housing development north of Sydney. He was employed by a now defunct company which had been contracted to do the work by the Sydney Water Board.