Brooke with her family in happier days. Her strong Christian faith has helped her navigate the loss of daughter Sofie, centre, who died of an aggressive brain cancer two years ago.
Brooke Turney grew up in Millbrook across from the Fairgrounds.
Now married, Brooke Roberts has traded Millbrook for a home in Peterborough where she lives with her own family, She has spent many hours with her two girls in town, introducing them to the charm and support of this small-town community. Brooke was recently in the news for one of the worst reasons possible: the loss of one of her children to brain cancer.
Brooke’s nine-year-old daughter Sofie died in May 2024 from a high-grade glioma— a type of tumour that occurs in the brain or spinal cord. She had originally been diagnosed in September 2022 with a low-grade version of the tumour which had been successfully removed, but a more lethal version returned a few months later. Valiant efforts including craniotomies and 33 trips to Toronto for radiology were unable to address the disease that took over Sofie’s brain.
Brain cancer in adults and children is incurable. The median survival for the most common and most aggressive adult brain tumour, Gliblastoma, is 15-18 months. Shockingly, a child diagnosed with brain cancer today faces the same prognosis as one diagnosed 60 years ago. Surgical removal is sometimes effective, but these tumours are complex, frequently resistant to treatment and, as in Sofie’s case, they often recur.
One of the most challenging features of this terrible disease is how it changes patients long before they succumb. The progress of the disease and the treatments patients undergo dramatically impacts their physical and mental capabilities. As with Alzheimer’s patients, their personalities often change, making families feel they have lost their loved ones long before they succumb to the disease.
Another challenge with brain cancer treatments is that many traditional cancer drugs are able to penetrate the blood/brain barrier to reach the affected area. Surgical treatments are also very complex because of the way the tumours become woven into the brain tissue. Adult patients can also face financial barriers as some medications are not covered by provincial insurance plans beyond childhood.
Brooke explains that Canada is behind other countries in immune therapies and other modern treatments, such as Germany, Israel and the US. By the time Sofie’s doctors dis-covered a promising treatment in the US, she was too weak to travel. Brooke is hoping her work with Brain Cancer Canada will help expedite these treatments in Canada.
While she was undergoing treatment, Sofie understood her situation and hoped that her tumour might help others facing the disease. This courage inspired Brooke to under-take this mission in Sofie’s honour, deciding to represent Brain Cancer Canada as an Ambassador, with the objective of helping to transform Canada into a leader in brain cancer initiatives by helping raise funds for research and patient support. This research requires philanthropic support because government research does not tend to support research that is high risk/high reward so new technologies that could be highly beneficial for brain cancer patients do not receive significant financial support from traditional sources.
Brain Cancer Canada was launched in 2015 to promote the expansion of brain cancer research investment in Canada. It seeks to address critical fundraising gaps for cancerous brain tumor research in Canada and to raise the standard of care. It is run by more than 40 volunteers with no paid staff, so all funds raised go directly to research and patient support. Most of the volunteers are driven by a personal connection to the cause: they have lost a loved one to the disease.
Last weekend Brooke hosted the third annual fundraising walk she calls 5K for Sophie Maye, where she was aiming to raise $5,000 for Brain Cancer Canada. To learn more or to donate, visit www.braincancercanada.ca.