Keeping fit has continued to be important to Scolyer during treatment. Having now passed 270 Parkruns, the longtime triathlete’s next sporting goal is cycling the Tasmanian stages of the Tour de Cure cancer research fundraising ride with Matthew in March. (He grew up in Launceston and still visits his father, 90, and mother, 89, when he can.)

“I’m happy to take risks now,” Scolyer says of the new challenge. “The writing’s on the wall. I’ve been here for much longer than was expected and want to do those things with my mates, getting out there and enjoying life. One thing that’s really come home for me is the importance of doing things that you like doing.”

While still not entirely comfortable being a public figure, Scolyer tries to use his profile to push for more funding for research into brain tumours.

“The biggest thing is to try and make a difference in this field of cancer,” he says. “It’s not funded well enough to push things along. It’s a difficult tumour to get into – it’s inside your brain, it’s got big bones, skull, around it. The brain itself doesn’t have spare cells that are not so vital there. The way some of the tumours grow is through subtle, peripheral, infiltrative growth.

“Basically, you can’t see it on radiology, you can’t see it [during surgery]. The pathologist can see more, but you’re still struggling to find the end of it. So it’s a tough disease to do something about. We’ve got to find ways to do it better.”

The food arrives and proves to be as tasty as it looks. What does he do now when he feels especially low? “Different things at different times,” Scolyer says. “Just lately, my threshold for being disappointed about small things is different. That’s partly the effect of the tumour, but it’s only with close family members. They’ve copped it more than others.

Original source: au