Her many friends call her the Scottish warrior and, while comparisons with William Wallace are a bit of a stretch, it doesn’t take long in the company of Noosa’s Karen Griffin to realise she truly has the bravest of brave hearts.
Born in Dundee and raised on farms near the village of Killin in central Scotland and near Inverness in the Highlands, Karen grew up tough but happy, revelling in farmyard chores with her four siblings in the sleet and snow, and the long walks down the lane to catch the bus to school.
She recalls: “It was a great upbringing. As kids we were able to run free, eat strawberries from the garden, tear into the rhubarb and make pies, collect eggs from the hens … not my favourite job as I’m afraid of birds, so I’d do a runner when that was being done! But it was real salt of the earth stuff, it was awesome.”
With an adventurous spirit in her DNA, she went to college in Perth (Scotland) and studied hospitality with a view to travelling the world. After stints in Switzerland and at Scotland’s famous five-star golf resort the Gleneagles Hotel – where she served the likes of Jackie Stewart and Sean Connery – Karen and a few friends applied for one-year working holiday visas for Australia.
She says: “At that time it had become a fashion in the hospitality industry for young workers to do that, so it was a long process but we got our visas in the end and we came out to Brisbane in 1989.”
The girls spent their first night in a Brisbane backpacker’s hostel, where they were told there was only one place for work in hospitality – the Gold Coast. Says Karen: “So off we went to the Goldie, got jobs, and that was where I met Joe.”
Joe Griffin was Karen’s boss at a Cavill Avenue restaurant, a successful entrepreneur, somewhat older, and swept off his feet by this spirited lass. But falling in love with a backpacker is never easy. They were in constant contact, but Karen was off hot air ballooning, exploring the outback, climbing up Uluru when you still could, and then her visa expired and she returned to Scotland.
Karen’s husband of more than 20 years leans in conspiratorially across the table in their sun-filled living room in Noosaville.
“What could I do?” Joe asks, beaming. “I sold my business and followed her.”
The couple spent a few years in Scotland and travelling around Europe before the climate started to get to Joe. Karen applied for permanent residency and they returned to Queensland, fetching up at Airlie Beach where they joined forces with some Gold Coast friends to establish Barrier Reef Bungee Jumping which, at the time, was the highest bungee jump in Australia.
Joe and Karen spent six years at Airlie, marrying on the beach at Hayman Island towards the end of their stay. Next, they spent another year in Scotland before settling in Noosa in 2000, where their daughter Isla was born a couple of years later.
So far it’s a happy story of romance, travel and restless adventure with which so many readers will identify. But fate can play cruel tricks.
The Griffins established several successful businesses in Noosa before a heart attack forced Joe to scale back his activities. Then, as the couple planned to enjoy their golden years with Isla, now a teenager, in 2018 Karen was diagnosed with an aggressive, metastatic melanoma cancer, after having a mole removed from the same spot in 2006.
She says: “I was getting ready to go on a walk through the National Park with my daughter when I found a tiny little lump, smaller than a pea, in my right groin. My doctor sent me for an ultrasound and some tests straight away, including removal of lymph nodes, and the results came back that the melanoma had moved to my liver.
“I had a meltdown when they told me, I was in total shock. I didn’t understand the whole journey that was in front of me and my family. But I was referred to the Adem Crosby Centre at Sunshine Coast University Hospital and within three months on targeted therapy tablets, the cancer had shrunk. After a total of six months, the tests showed it had gone.”
But the journey of the Griffin family took a terrifying turn in January last year.
“Without warning, the cancer just turned up in my brain,” Karen says.
Since that diagnosis, Karen has had surgery to remove tumours from the back and front of her brain, many hours of intense radiation treatment as well as numerous cycles of immunotherapy, which have ultimately proven to be unsuccessful.
Karen now lives with incurable Stage 4 cancer. She says: “I’m pretty tough, but I think it’s harder now than when I was first diagnosed because it’s never-ending.”
To make matters worse, her current medication of targeted therapy tablets is not listed on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme (PBS), which means she and Joe are out of pocket more than $1000 every week. Karen explains the dilemma: “The Department of Health keeps moving the goal posts. Today, if I was a new patient going into the hospital, I would go straight onto intravenous immunotherapy and then onto the targeted therapy in tablet form – and would qualify for PBS. But because I started on targeted therapy tablets, and then moved to immunotherapy, I can’t go back to the targeted therapy without paying for the tablets.”
This cruel bureaucratic twist has taken its toll on the family finances and daughter Isla, now studying to be a nurse, has put together a GoFundMe campaign, hoping to raise at least $50,000 to keep her mother alive for another year.
Says Karen: “I’m at that nervous stage now where the medication has been working for a year and we have to keep our fingers crossed that it will keep working. There’s just no evidence on how long patients like me can last on these tablets. I encourage everyone not just to get their skin checked, but to keep getting their skin checked, and checked again!”
Despite her situation, Karen Griffin, now 56, remains sunnily optimistic.
She says: “I just take one day at a time, and some days are better than others. But my best medicine is to be outdoors as much as possible. Walking the beach, having a swim, being on the river, listening to live music, enjoying a glass of fizz …”
It’s the Noosa lifestyle we all take for granted, something Karen can no longer do.
Isla remains the Griffins’ rock. Says Karen: “Isla has been incredible through all of this, so strong and positive. She talked about nursing as a career before my situation developed, but I thought that seeing what I’ve been through might change her mind, but she said no, she’s tough, she’s going for it.”
Like mother, like daughter.
To contribute to Karen’s campaign, search GoFundMe for Karen’s Incurable Melanoma. #kickcancerkaren.
Skin Cancer Action Week begins Monday 15 November.
