Politics

Cancer survivor’s story brings the PM to tears for a very personal reason

We don’t often see a pollie openly weeping, least of all the PM. But it was the usually stoic PM who broke down today, showing emotion in Parliament House during a moving speech.

Malcolm Turnbull, as well as Bill Shorten, listened to Anne-Maree Muldersone talk about her battle with ovarian cancer at the Teal Ribbon Day event in Canberra.

“The courage in which you have battled this disease and the courage in which you told your story here is quite unforgettable,” Turnbull said, reports Yahoo!

“Every single person here has been moved by it.”

Mrs Mulders shared her personal journey of fighting ovarian cancer and how it affected her life and family.

“18 months ago a new thing barged unexpected and uninvited into my life,” she said.

“I went from being a relatively fit and healthy working mum, to being a bald, weak, exhausted patient”.

It’s shocking when you think about the statistics of this seldom talked about disease – nearly 1500 Australian women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year.
Mr Turnbull added, “statistics tell us but one side of the story…They don’t describe the impact such a diagnosis has on each woman, their family, their friends and their subsequent journey after hearing the news sent out,” he said.
Mrs Mulders spoke of her doctor calling her to discuss her ovarian cancer diagnosis, and how the only things she had in front of her were a big white envelope containing test results and a red pen.

The mother of two said she madly started scribbling notes.

The image of her sitting with that envelope was enough to move Malcolm Turnbull, who attended the breakfast with his wife Lucy – he said it was very powerful, reports the Daily Mail.
But why the story touched him so much is also personal – one of his advisers’ mother died four years ago from ovarian cancer.

‘By the time she was diagnosed she was, as is so often the case, in the very advanced stages of the disease,’ he said. Mr Turnbull said the fact the woman’s daughter didn’t have an inkling still haunts her to this day.

‘Greater awareness is a critically important step in the road to early detection,’ he said.

Opposition Leader Bill Shortenexpressed that he was also moved by Ms Mulders’ story.

‘You are reluctant conscripts in a war which you never sought,’ he said. ‘Your story does remind me how much I hate cancer’.

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