By NOEL MURPHY
GEELONG collector Mark Ward went to ground when he discovered he had spinal cancer.
He kept his strife secret from his partner and mother of his brand-new son, from his parents and from work colleagues.
A first-time father aged in his 50s, he was too emotional to make the trip from Geelong to Ballarat where he and partner Ainsley Ball are building a new home.
But his determined partner suspected something serious was afoot – Mr Ward had been suffering excruciating back pain for months – and she extracted the truth.
“I can’t imagine having a baby and not having a father to kick a footy with him,” she told the Independent.
“But when he told me had cancer he swore me to secrecy.”
Both had family members who had succumbed to cancer in recent years and Mr Ward was loath to add to their pain.
It was not until Mr Ward, owner and operator of Geelong’s The Amazing Mill Markets, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which Ms Ball said surgeons believed they could treat successfully, that he let anyone know his troubles.
While in ICU on a ventilator recovering from pneumonia after his second chemotherapy session, Mr Ward is organising fund-raisers to help Cancer Council Victoria and Geelong’s Andrew Love Centre.
“He’s never had children and the thought of finally having a son and, oh my God, being diagnosed with cancer was a bit too much emotionally and he kept it all from everyone,” Ms Ball said.
“He’d been suffering back pain since January and put it down to heavy lifting but it got really bad and he went to emergency.
“It took a while to get diagnosed with a tumour in the spine and came at a really bad time. I was having a baby, we were building a house at Ballarat, he’d just bought a couple of properties and was trying to manage these businesses.”
The Amazing Mill Markets will on Sunday host the first of several fund-raisers for the Andrew Love Centre and the cancer council.
The event will feature a Retroholics Fashion Fair with vintage 1950s hot rods, clothes, rock and roll music, a roller derby, food, a sausage sizzle and more.
Event coordinator Adrian Schmidt said prizes were on offer for best dressed ’50s male and female.
Patrons should expect bobby socks and poodle skirts galore, he said.
The Amazing Mill Markets is at 114 Bellarine Hwy, Newcomb.
