Alice hopes Brisbane test gives cancer patients a chance her father never had

Then came the sucker punch.

“A month later he went for a chest X-ray for his heart, and they discovered the melanoma had spread to his lungs,” she said.

“He’d had no idea. He hadn’t been sick, he was living healthy and he had a bit of a ticker problem, he was 63 and went to get that checked out and found the cancer instead.”

Mr Wehl endured several operations over the next 11 months and the cancer spread through his organs and to his brain. He succumbed to it in February 2014.

Three of his seven grandchildren were born during his year of battle against the cancer, and Ms Cottrell said he was making time for them up until the end.

“It was a busy year for him,” she said. “And he was a farmer, he always said he had too much…