THE triumph of climbing Mt Kilimanjaro to raise money for breast cancer research turned to devastation for East Fremantle dad Rick Parish. Four days after arriving home his son was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Brain tumours kill more Australian children a year than any other disease. Treatment usually involves surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Survival rates vary widely from 10 to 90 per cent.

Medulloblastoma is the most common, and 50 per cent of children diagnosed survive.

But not young Elliot: “[He] was diagnosed with brain cancer when he was two, in 2009 and passed away when he was four in February 2011,” Mr Parish says.

• It’s a beautiful, but heartbreaking image as Elliot Parish celebrates his fourth and final birthday with mum Emily. Shortly after Elliot died from a brain tumour, but his parents’ quest to help find a cure hasn’t diminished.

Fundraiser

The youngster celebrated his fourth, and last, birthday with a pirate party, but mum Emily and his dad were already raising money for research by establishing the Telethon Adventurers.

“We have raised almost $9 million in the past five years,” Mr Parish says.

The Adventurers are dedicated to finding the cause, and ultimately a cure, for childhood cancer, raising money through adventurous, arduous and sometimes dangerous activities all over the world.

In less than a year more than $920,000 was raised for a 3D molecular imaging machine for the Telethon Kids Institute.

Named after Elliot, it was the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere.

• Rick Parish and son Elliot.

With 99 per cent of money raised going to a Subiaco laboratory, the Adventurers have been making a difference, and not just in WA. Chemo and radiotherapy are hard on anyone, but even more so for little bodies and with help from Fiona Stanley and the Telethon Institute, protocols to lessen the impact have been put in place, Mr Parish says: “Our protocols are now across the world.”

He also helped get 40 experts on child brain cancer to Perth, kicking off an international pool of collective research: “Now there is a global collaboration.”

During their son’s treatment Emily and Rick Parish met up with the Colgans, whose son Conor also had brain cancer, one that so far has responded to treatment.

Pirates were a passion for both youngsters and the two families set up the annual Pirate Friday raising funds and awareness, taking the idea to schools where it’s been embraced with lots of swash and buckle and plenty of pirate costumes: “It’s now gone national,” Mr Parish says.

Friday July 1 was Pirate Friday, but you can still donate at theadventurers.com.au 

by JENNY D’ANGER