The Blood Bath

In gratitude for this community.

When everything was said and done I made it through 4 blood baths.

As a community we raised $3,601 and thoroughly smashed the original goal of $750 by a whopping 380%.

Each plunge was cold in the way I remembered. The shock of it, the held breath, the strange clarity that follows. But this time the water held something different too: the knowledge that people were standing with me on the bank, even the ones who never got in.

To everyone who donated, thank you. To everyone who shared the post, or sent me a message, or simply held the story with me, thank you. 

Going into this challenge was never something I could do alone, and I did not have to. Every part of this outcome belongs to you as much as it does to me.

Thank you to Diarmaid Fitzpatrick who joined me on the day and everyone who made this possible. 

It mattered more than you know.

A triple for today

Money like this will go directly towards helping people in the darkest of times and moving treatments towards a whole person approach in cancer care. 

Thanks for the hospitality, Inner Studio Collingwood.

A Dad's Day Dip

We ‌drove a bus through the ‌target. Thanks to everyone who has supported this challenge we have raised $1,041. 


Money like this will go directly towards helping people in the darkest of times and moving treatments towards a whole person approach in cancer care. 

We got the goal, but there's no reason we can't go higher. If you haven't given yet, or just want to add a little bit more, the challenge is still going strong for the rest of September. 

Thanks for the hospitality, Inner Studio South Yarra.

One blood bath down. Who knows how many to go.

The Blood Bath Begins

The Blood Bath

This September I'm freezing my balls off for the roughly 170,000 Australians living with blood cancer right now.

Please join me in raising funds and awareness for a disease that deserves more attention than it's getting.

It all began with fatigue

In 2023 I blamed my perpetual tiredness on what it was like to be a young parent. Little did I realize that these were actually symptoms of blood cancer, so I rationalized every single one of them away.

Then came the sentence you're never prepared for. "You have cancer." In my case an acute form of leukaemia.

It didn't knock first, it just rammed my life with a bus. One week I was well, the next I wasn't, and everything else remained the same, still waiting there: the housing, the kids, the career, and the small, yet monumental issue of my own mortality within a medical system that I didn't understand.

For a period there I didn't think I was going to make it.

But then the people around me came through in a way I couldn't have predicted. They all surrounded me, and a few of them took me into cold water. Communal cold plunges became a sort of medicine. It gave me something to grab onto on the worst days, and a bit of strength when I had little to offer.

So this month I'm doing it four times, but with intent. It's my way of saying thanks, and standing with every family that knows what a blood cancer diagnosis does to a household.

Blood cancer is one of Australia's hidden tragedies

• 1 in 12 Australians are predicted to receive a blood cancer diagnosis in their lifetime.
• Someone in Australia is diagnosed with blood cancer roughly every 26 minutes.
• 17 Australians lose their life to blood cancer every day.

Although blood cancer is one of Australia's most frequently diagnosed cancers, comparatively little attention is given to it in the public eye. 

This is where I come in.

It isn't just medical

A diagnosis can be financially stressful for families, added to all the other crap that they have to deal with.

This is where the Leukaemia Foundation steps in. They assist Australians with the weight of blood cancer: providing accommodation for regional families who are required to relocate to the city in order to receive life-saving treatment, as well as reliable information and support so that no one has to make impossible decisions alone. They've been doing this for fifty years, and the demand is only continuing to rise.

They can't keep up without our help.

What your donation will be used for

All donations raised go directly to blood cancer research and supporting people going through one of the toughest periods of their life.

If you can spare a few it would mean a lot to me.

• $31 answers the call from someone living with blood cancer, providing them with the reliable information that they need.
• $90 provides a regional family with a place to stay for the night as they are required to urgently relocate for life-saving treatment.
• $200 funds a day for a PhD scholarship researcher, the type of work that results in the next big thing.

Most people generally give $31, please give whatever you feel you can.

If you can't donate at the moment sharing this page with someone else will make just as much of a difference.

Thank you for reading this and anything that you can offer.