Four months ago, Colleen Brooks was training for the Buffalo Stampede.
A 20km mountain running event, it was a fair effort for a grandma who pulls shifts in the dairy and the local hospital.
Her and her notoriously fit family, love a challenge.
However, they had no idea what type of challenge was coming their way.
Milking 800 cows across two dairies north of Barooga, four generations of the Brooks family spend their days growing wheat, barley, canola and pasture crops.
Their life revolves around the dairy, the herd, the crops, the grandkids — 2023 had, by all accounts, been a good season.
That was until Colleen experienced some bloating and indigestion.
Fairly bland symptoms that could easily be put down to a big meal.
“I started a new fitness program and diet in March in preparation for the mountain run. I figured I was bloated from that,” Colleen said at home with husband Shane and their trusty pet pugs.
On June 28 after a trip to the GP and an ultrasound, Colleen was diagnosed with C3 Ovarian Cancer and has been put through a physical and emotional wringer since then.
“The tumour was originally in the ovaries, and it spread to the peritoneal (the stomach). For my 57th birthday I had my stomach drained of fluid and a seven-hour round of chemo,” Colleen said.
“I have a chemo session every three weeks, I’m four down, two to go and I had my ‘breeding bag’ out six weeks ago too,” Colleen said.
Keeping her sense of humour, Colleen points out that that’s how her mother-in-law (and long time dairy farmer) June Brooks described the radical hysterectomy.
When Country News spoke to the Brooks family, Shane and his son Riley were busily wrapping up the hay and silage season.
These days their lunchtime conversations revolve around the weather, the work and the chemo schedule that looms large over their existence.
In Colleen’s opinion, ovarian cancer is the forgotten cancer and it is nearly impossible to test for, pointing out that cervical screening tests do not detect ovarian cancer.
But thanks to her son Callum, awareness is on the rise locally.
With running in their genes, Callum and Riley, the couples 30-year-old twin sons, were training for the Melbourne Marathon and their sister Spencer signed up for the half marathon.
“Four weeks before the Melbourne Marathon while I was getting chemo, Cal decided to set a target of raising $3000 for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation,” Colleen said.
He then went one step (or technically thousands of steps) further by committing to run 100km around Barooga if he could raise the $3000.
On Saturday, October 21, just five short days after completing the Melbourne Marathon, Cal Brooks, flanked by friends and family, ran 100km around the Barooga Sports Precinct and raised awareness and funds for ovarian cancer.
He also made it abundantly clear how much his Mum mattered.
“He was never alone during the run. Even our backpackers who work in the dairy came in and did a lap,” Colleen said.
“There were golfers handing him cash and cheering him on along Golf Course Rd, it was really overwhelming and an emotional day.
“At the 80km mark I had to go home and re-group, it was hard watching him go through it.”
They raised $13,500 and there was not a dry eye at the finish line when Cal embraced his mum, who herself completed a 5km loop just weeks after her hysterectomy.
Colleen is focusing on staying healthy and fit and spending time with her family and pugs and will begin 12 months of immunotherapy once her current treatment is complete.
For more information or to donate towards ovarian cancer research, visit: https://www.ocrf.com.au/