Cyclist looks to ‘give back’ after undergoing radical brain surgery

A 56-year-old man who underwent complex brain surgery while awake will bike-ride over 4000 kilometers to raise funds for the Alfred Hospital.

Anthony Moffatt will ride from South Point near Tidal River, the mainland’s southernmost point, up to Cape Tribulation in the very north of Queensland.

He will make the trip after being diagnosed with a brain tumour known as an Oligodendroglioma in 2020, a diagnosis which devastated his young family.

He was told by his neurosurgeon, Associate Professor Martin Hunn, in order to get the best outcome he would need to be awake during the operation.

“Whether it’s your brain or the tumour, it’s all pretty much grey, so it’s hard to distinguish where the tumour starts and finishes,” Mr Moffat told Neil Mitchell on 3AW Mornings.

“So intermittently he’d be poking around, giving minor electric shocks to see if it interrupted the pathways, and if it did, he’d steer clear of that area.

“So his advice was ‘if you’re awake, I’d stand the best chance to remove as much as I can’.

“So I thought if that’s your best chance lets go with the awake option.”

The surgery managed to remove around 65 per cent of the tumour and is now “stable”, meaning it’s not growing.

“There’s no prognosis at the minute on time, except that it never disappears,” he said.

Anthony will hit the road on Sunday with the whole trip expected to take around six weeks.

“It was just an idea I had when I got home from the hospital, and a way of giving back to the hospital,” he said.

“For treatment that was free for me … and there’s a lot of people involved.

“It just seemed like a good way of giving back.”

You can head to the fundraising page here.

Press PLAY to hear the full interview below 

Image: River to Reef Fundraising Bike Ride Facebook Page