Community & Business
4 November, 2026
Community fights for a cure
TASMANIA holds a bittersweet place in the heart of Malanda resident Bill Price – it was where he honeymooned with his wife Tammy, it was where the couple experienced “our own 9/11”, and it is where, in 11 days time, he and a team of supporters from Malanda and across the state, will compete in the toughest half marathon in the world, the Point To Pinnacle in Hobart, along with thousands of fundraisers determined to find a treatment for brain cancer.
With the current donation tally at $44,000 and with the hope of exceeding $50,000, the team means business.
Bill lost Tammy to Glioblastoma (GBM) brain cancer in January this year, 28 months after she was diagnosed in 2023.
They had been holidaying in Tasmania when Tammy complained of headaches over a couple of days.
Those headaches had turned out to be mini-seizures, and after various scans, they were told Tammy had a massive tumor on her brain and had to have immediate surgery. It was September 11.
The surgeon was blunt – there was no cure, only a “standard of care” starting with 1. Cut, 2. Poison, and 3. Burn.
The cut was the first operation, followed by chemotherapy and radiation treatment to poison and burn the cancer, six weeks after surgery. This standard of care has not changed for over 30 years.
Tammy reacted badly. After only four weeks of her six-week treatment, her bone marrow collapsed, her blood cells were devastated.
“Four times we nearly lost her, but she kept fighting on,” Bill said brokenly.
But Tammy didn’t just fight – she planned.
“She was totally positive, totally determined.”
The couple had retired from their service station in Malanda a few years earlier, which they had managed for 27 years, and the Tasmania trip had been the first of many planned retirement travels.
So travel they did, whenever Tammy was up for it.
They took a trip through the Hunter Valley in NSW. They made a fly/drive trip along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria and on to Kangaroo Island, and another along the Sapphire Coast from Sydney to Victoria. They travelled the Gibb River Road with the family.
“She was very determined. She would say, ‘I’ve got this’,” Bill said.
And quiet acts of support came in all manner of places.
Bill recalled they had booked a tour of the Kimberley in WA with friends, but Tammy was so ill they had contacted the company and said they would have to cancel.
The company agent said she would on-sell the tickets for them and they would get their full deposit back.
Some while later, Tammy had come good. They contacted the agent to rebook, knowing they wouldn’t be able to join their friends’ tour but still determined to see the region.
“You know what she said? ‘I kept it open for you’,” Bill said shakily.
They had received their refund, believed their tickets had been sold, but had instead joined their friends for a trip of a lifetime.
In between their travels, Tammy’s tumor returned, and she underwent more surgery and more radiation treatment.
She died on 8 January this year, just after her third Christmas, with her family of seven children and seven grandchildren.
Defiantly, she had fought the doctors’ grim prognosis in 2023 that “she’d be lucky to have one Christmas”.
Tammy had also planned her legacy.
Bill said she had researched her brain cancer, which still had no cure, and had also found out that support services for those diagnosed were struggling.
She asked Bill to rally friends and family to fundraise and build awareness of the disease.
“The last thing she said to me was ‘I’m stuffed how you’re going to do it’,” Bill said.
But she guided him to Carrie Brickmore’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer (CB4BC) for fundraising, and to the Brain Tumor Association of Australia, for support services.
After she passed, word got around about Tammy’s wishes, and the response was enormous.
“Within four days of fundraising we had $17,000, and after four weeks we had $34,000,” Bill said.
Tammy (nee Spicer) was raised in Mareeba, the daughter of the local magistrate of the time. She met and married Bill and they moved to Malanda, where they lived for 37 years.
Over the past year Bill has learned much about both the disease and the ways to support research.
Just two weeks ago, he and his eldest daughter went to Canberra to support “Head to the Hill”, an awareness campaign at Parliament House.
Organised by the Brain Tumor Association of Australia, attendees were asked to bring a pair of shoes representing their lost loved ones, to shock parliamentarians into action.
“The number of kids shoes in the display was unbelievable,” Bill said sadly.
The Association has been calling on Federal parliamentarians to fund $725,000 so it can develop an advocacy service to help patients navigate work, benefits, Centrelink and the myriad other bureaucratic hoops following diagnosis.
“You know, they say this GBM brain cancer is rare, that only three in 100,000 people might get it per year.
“Well, my mother was killed by the same brain cancer, so I lost two of the most important people in my life to it.”
Which drives Bill’s own determination to see things change.
In 11 days, he and a team of 39 people will be heading to Tasmania to take part in the Point to Pinnacle fundraising event which raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for brain cancer research each year.
It’s the hardest half marathon in the world with a 21.1km run from the Wrest Point Casino to the top of Mt Wellington, 1,271 m high, within a designated time.
Bill said up to 10 of the Team Grammy Turbo Tambo 2026 team will be going for the Pinnacle run, but the rest will be doing the10km Point to Pub run. Participants can run or walk the events.
Fifteen of the Pub run are family members, including seven grandchildren, the youngest not yet three. And in the pram. Others are coming from the “Tablelands family”, Brisbane, Townsville, and even Thredbo in NSW.
All money raised will go to CB4BC.
“At the moment we have about $44,000 and we hope to reach
$50,000-plus through donations,” he said.
Bill said the momentum for change had been given a dramatic boost recently, with the Federal Government announcing $18.8 million in funding to the Brain Cancer Centre founded by Carrie Brickmore.
Bill said it’s the first time research looks promising in finding a way to break the “blood-brain barrier”.
A landmark collaborative research project aims to develop brain-penetrating drugs for high-grade gliomas, including glioblastoma in adults and diffuse midline glioma in children.
If you would like to support Team Grammy Turbo Tambo 2026 or make a donation visit: https://bit.ly/4iOII7z or click on the QR code below.
Fast Facts on GBM:
It kills more children in Australia than any other disease.
Brain cancer kills more people under 40 than any other cancer.
Only 5% diagnosed with a GBM survive past 24 months, with a mean survival time of 15 months with current treatment options.
One Australian is diagnosed with brain cancer every 5 hours.
80% of patients diagnosed will die within 5 years.
