A lifetime of memories

Just two years after they tied the knot, a shock prognosis has left Brook and Abby Fawcett trying to cram a lifetime of memories into a few months.

Just two years after tying the knot, a Waikato couple are trying to cram a lifetime of memories into a few months. Brook, 41, and Abby Fawcett, 30, who are based in Cambridge, are seizing life together or, as they put it, ‘‘making memories’’.

Their fairytale of love took a cruel turn when Brook was told a few weeks ago that his brain cancer had returned and he had months left.

He and Abby are set on making the most of every moment and ‘‘just take every day as it comes,’’ said Brook.

‘‘Things have become a bit more normal now, the last three weeks,’’ said Abby. ‘‘We’ve had a lot of visitors, a lot of family which has been lovely, and now it’s quietened down.’’

Six or seven years ago, when Brook was living Australia, he began to have irregular seizures.

‘‘I woke up one morning . . . I knew something was wrong, because you don’t normally have seizures.’’

In 2016, after having several, Brook visited the doctor and was found to have three brain tumours.

‘‘I got sent for an MRI . . . Where the brain tumours are, it all lights up. It was a pretty lit-up scan.’’

The then 37-year-old overcame his first battle, but not without emergency brain surgery after getting seriously unwell.

The silver lining came while he was back at home receiving treatment and Abby came along.

In January 2020 the couple got married and have been by each other’s side ever since.

But, in the last four weeks, Brook and his family were told his brain cancer had returned and, this time, chemotherapy and radiation couldn’t defeat it.

It has left him paralysed down the left side of his body and he is using a wheelchair to stay mobile while also taking regular pain and seizure medication to soothe the pressure on his brain.

Unless another form of treatment came along that his body could handle, doctors said there was nothing they could do.

‘‘I was pretty shocked . . . pretty upset,’’ said Abby.

‘‘But Brook’s got such a positive way of talking and going about it and you can’t not feed off that.’’

Brook has kept his head up, but there are times when it gets hard to comprehend because of the strain he feels he creates for his family.

‘‘It’s just unlucky, it’s just the hand I’ve been dealt,’’ he said. ‘‘If anything, I was worried about upsetting my family.’’

‘‘Feeling guilty . . . especially knowing what I’m dragging my family through.

‘‘But if everything hadn’t happened the way it did, I would never have met Abby.’’

From a distance, Brook’s younger sister Anna has had to watch her older brother fight. A passionate sportsman, Brook went from an active healthy man, she says, to going through the hurdles of a health battle.

‘‘It’s been devastating . . . Watching him go through the emotional effects of that, it’s hard,’’ she said.

‘‘You want to break down and cry, but you also want to be there and be strong to support him and help as much as you can.’’

Brook and Abby have made a pact to continue to value their time together.

Travelling has been a bucket list passion for each of them and over the past two years they’ve explored America and Europe.

Brook has also returned to his old stomping ground at Pak’n Save for three shifts per week.

‘‘He really wanted to get back to work and his big thing around work is people, he loves people,’’ said Anna.

There’s been a village surrounding Brook and Abby as they’ve taken on the twists and turns of his prognosis.

His family and friends are there for however long Brook has, and they want him and Abby to have the best quality of life possible.

‘‘I want Brook to be comfortable and not worry because he does worry . . . I just want them to go and enjoy things,’’ said Anna.

‘‘It’s about making memories, and it’s about not having that stress of having to worry about bills, so they can spend that time together.’’

The pair hope to tick off other travel endeavours over the next few months, including adventures across the North and South Island with their dogs.

This includes skiing in Queenstown and a camping trip in the Bay of Plenty.

‘‘We know now that we might have limited time, so now’s when we’ve got to make the most of those opportunities,’’ said Abby.

‘‘You just have to keep on going,’’ said Brook.

Brook and Abby’s Givealittle page has been put together by Anna Fawcett in hopes of helping them to have more quality time together.