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Greece to buy French warships in multibillion-euro defence deal

The Greek Herald
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Greece to buy French warships in multibillion-euro defence deal

France and Greece on Tuesday announced a defense deal worth around 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion), including Athens’ decision to buy three French warships as part of a strategy to boost its defense capacities in the Eastern Mediterranean amid recurring tensions with longtime foe Turkey.

French President, Emmanuel Macron, and Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, announced a defense and security strategic partnership in a joint news conference in Paris.

“This partnership expresses our will to increase and intensify our cooperation in the defense and security sector based on our mutual interests,” Macron said. It will “help protect the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of both states.”

Greece will purchase three French frigates to be built by defense contractor Naval Group in Lorient, in western France. The deal includes an option for the acquisition of a fourth frigate.

The agreement also stipulates that one country with come to the aid of the other in the event of an attack.

READ MORE: France to ink Greek defense deal after losing sub contract with Australia.

Mitsotakis said it comes “out of national motivation to shield our country,” but also has “a European motive as it strengthens our common defense industry.”

“Greece and France are today taking a bold first step towards European strategic autonomy,” he added, saying it’s paving the way towards “a Europe that … will be able to defend (its interests) in the wider region, in the eastern Mediterranean, in the Middle East.”

Mitsotakis and Macron gave a joint press conference.

When asked whether this deal risked raising tensions in the eastern Mediterranean, Macron said the accord did not target a country specifically, but Greece, as the outer border of the European Union needed to be protected.

In response to the deal, Greece’s main opposition party, SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, said on Tuesday the agreement “is strategically sound” but the country will “pay dearly” for it due the Conservative government’s delays in completing the talks that had started in 2018.

“We wonder, beyond the Navy’s needed frigates and the Air Force’s upgrade of F-16s, whether other defense choices are of such priority, and whether they exceed our economy’s expenditure capacities,” SYRIZA said.

‘Stop being naive’:

During the press conference, Macron also said Europe needs to stop being naive when it comes to defending its interests and build its own military capacity.

French President Emmanuel Macron. Photo: Ludovic Marin/Pool via Reuters.

France was plunged into an unprecedented diplomatic crisis with the United States, Australia and Britain earlier this month over a trilateral nuclear security deal which sank a multi-billion dollar French-designed submarine contract with Canberra.

READ MORE: AUKUS: Australia, the US and UK announce landmark new security pact.

That has caused much soul searching in Paris over its traditional alliances. Speaking for the first time on the issue, Macron on Tuesday seized the opportunity to urge for more European autonomy as Washington increasingly reorientates its interests towards China and the Indo-Pacific.

“The Europeans must stop being naive. When we are under pressure from powers, which at times harden (their stance) , we need to react and show that we have the power and capacity to defend ourselves. Not escalating things, but protecting ourselves,” Macron said.

“This isn’t an alternative to the United States alliance. It’s not a substitution, but to take responsibility of the European pillar within NATO and draw the conclusions that we are asked to take care of our own protection.”

READ MORE: AUKUS: France slams Australia over move to ditch $90b submarine deal.

Source: AP News.

Fronditha Care officially opens its state-of-the-art facility in St Albans

The Greek Herald
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Fronditha Care officially opens its state-of-the-art facility in St Albans

Fronditha Care is excited to announce that it has opened its new 90 bed residential facility in St Albans, with more than 60 residents already enjoying their new rooms and luxurious, surrounds.

Faye Spiteri-Tsolakis OAM, Fronditha Care CEO, noted:

“The team went to great lengths to guarantee the new building was ready for residents as soon as practicable. Despite ongoing lockdowns and imposed restrictions, it has delivered the $22M project before its due date. The completion of the St Albans facility, during the global COVID -19 pandemic is a real testament to the team and Fronditha Care’s commitment to ensuring residents have the best care in the most wonderful accommodation and environment possible.”

The main entrance of Fronditha Care St Albans.

Fronditha Care’s St Albans residential facility will offer an environment where residents receive a high standard of professional, individual, and respectful care with lifestyle services designed to benefit everyone. Residents will also be able to enjoy movies in a private theatre, a great library, a charming chapel, private function rooms, hair salon services and several garden and courtyard areas.

Spiteri -Tsolakis OAM added: “We are absolutely thrilled with the new building and our staff are very much looking forward to welcoming new residents.”

A 30-bed-memory support unit, designed in consultation with Dementia Australia, will cater for elderly living with dementia. The memory support wing is proudly named after Evangelos and Elli Ioannou, who generously bequeathed $850,000 to Fronditha Care.

Fronditha Care’s President Jill Taylor (Nikitakis), with CEO Faye Spiteri- Tsolakis OAM, EGM Residential Care Jim Scantsonihas, Fronditha Care St Albans management and residents during the ribbon cutting in St Albans.

Fronditha Care’s President, Jill Taylor (Nikitakis), added “I want to thank the Fronditha Care family and the community for their ongoing support. It’s a big milestone for all of us, and the resident’s joy, seeing the delight on their faces in their new home is so touching. I am very proud of what we have achieved through our collective efforts.”

Fronditha Care looks forward to celebrating this great milestone with residents, families, supporters and the community once restrictions in Melbourne have eased.

Fronditha Care opened its first facility in St Albans in 1997, caring for 30 residents. An additional 30 beds were added in 1999, bringing the total number to 60, which included a 13-bed memory support unit. Following a successful ACAR bid another 30 beds were allocated to Fronditha Care by the Federal Government in 2017.

Professor Mari Velonaki believes in a future where robots enhance human experience

Alex Anyfantis
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Professor Mari Velonaki believes in a future where robots enhance human experience

Mari Velonaki is a researcher in the field of robotics and she shares with The Greek Herald how machines can be applied to many everyday life scenarios to make things much easier and help us move towards a more inclusive society.

Mrs Velonaki is a highly distinguished expert in the area of human-robot interaction. She is one of the co-founders of the Centre of Social Robotics and the Director of the Creative Robotics Lab. She was also a major contributor of the “Fish-Bird: Autonomous Interactions in a Contemporary Arts Setting” project in 2003. And these are but a few on the long list of her achievements.

Speaking to The Greek Herald, Mrs Velonaki tells us why she first got into the field and what it was that attracted her interest:

Robotics researcher Mari Velonaki is working to create a society where robots help people live better lives. Photos courtesy of UNSW.

“My undergraduate degree was in responsive systems, it was in a cultural context in media. So, after doing that for quite some time, I moved to robotics. Post my PhD, I was interested in working with physical agents that share the same space (with people),” she says.

“I started working in robotics, I designed the first robot Fish-Bird in 2003 and my first academic position was at the Australia Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney in the same year.

“So that was my transition from designing interactive systems to designing physical systems. I started social robotics in Australia in 2003. Up to that point, social robotics as a terminology didn’t even exist and now it’s become mainstream and that’s wonderful.

“What we identify as “social robotics” are robotic systems, designed with the public as a user. Not for experts, not for factories, but systems that are designed to interact with people, to interact with society in their daily activities and hopefully enhance those activities. Hopefully. We’re not there yet.”

These are just a few of the robots that Mari Velonaki and her team have been working on. Source: UNSW

But in what ways can robots further enhance our daily lives? According to Mrs. Velonaki and the work she’s doing with her team, there are many things that machines could help us with.

“Of course this is filtered by my own personal belief system but the three areas that we’re working on and we think robotics could be useful [in], are assistive technologies, culture and education, for example in museums [but not replacing teachers as part of learning] and the third one would be in human futures, which is a much bigger area,” she says.

“A near future robot, for me, would be an autonomous car for example. Because an autonomous car would have an agency, not now that we’re still in semi-autonomy, but the next generation that could scan outwards in order to understand how to move on its own, but also inwards, to see if people are comfortable in the car. I think transportation is one (area) within the human futures (field) which is also assistive.

Mari Velonaki. Photos courtesy of UNSW.

“But assistive technologies could expand to other areas such as rehabilitation and that’s something that can be applied for all people. Again though, I would like to point out that I don’t believe that robots should replace people, so the model of an anthropomorphic robot that is your nurse or the neighbour that you don’t have is not the one that I believe in. Replacing humans is not what we set out to do, unless there’s a special reason for it, like safety for example.”

In order to move closer to such a scenario, where robots comprehend human emotions to such an extent that they operate in response to them, there’s a fear within some people that these machines may begin to gain their own level of consciousness.

But the robotics expert doesn’t put much weight on such a hypothesis.

“I don’t think that robots are becoming more responsive to human emotions. When we talk about human emotions and social robots, emotions are with double quotation marks. Machines don’t have emotions,” Mrs Velonaki says.

Mari Velonaki with some of her robots. Photos courtesy of UNSW.

“I know there’s all these other fields of technology and people who are asking “are they learning?” Look, everyone has a preference but, realistically, I don’t believe a machine can have emotions. That’s why I don’t believe in “evil” AI or “evil” robots.”

As for the one thing that she hopes to achieve by the end of her career, Mrs Velonaki has a very important goal in mind:

“My vision with the national facility is to create systems that enhance our experiences, that are playful, not strictly utilitarian, that embrace our humanity, what it means to be a person. Even when you use machines that are creative,” she says.

“But I would also like to see an expansion of what we presume as a public space by making room for people from various areas such as different age groups, different disabilities, etc, to partake and feel that they belong, that they’re not the ones with the difficulty and get that sense of inclusion from these spaces. Because all of us have abilities and disabilities and things we can and cannot do and that’s where the field of robotics comes in and helps to fill that part in.”

George Confos’ neobank given licence for small business lending in Australia

The Greek Herald
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George Confos’ neobank given licence for small business lending in Australia

Emerging Sydney fintech, Avenue Bank, has been granted a restricted banking licence by the financial regulator APRA.

Avenue was founded by entrepreneurs, Colin Porter and Dale Hurley. In July last year, it recruited former Commonwealth Bank executive, George Confos, as CEO.

Avenue proceeded to raise $37 million in a Series B funding round, which closed last February.

The digital bank is backed by Sherman Ma’s Liberty Financial Group and is looking to push into the small-medium business lending territory currently dominated by Judo Bank and fintechs such as Prospa.

The APRA approval means Avenue can offer short-term working capital lending to SMEs. The neobank is hoping for a full licence by mid 2022.

Avenue will also use the Series B money to build its core banking technology and activate its launch plans.

Avenue co-founders Dale Hurley and Colin Porter with CEO George Confos.

Avenue CEO, George Confos, said the impacts of the pandemic lockdowns had improved the company’s value proposition and their mission remains the same – to explore more ways to leverage the company’s position as a bank and offer unique services in the market.

“Avenue’s innovative and digitally enabled product suite will deliver a much-needed cash injection to help Australian businesses. We’re solving real problems for real people, focusing initially on small and medium-sized enterprises,” Mr Confos said.

The company, he added, had the potential to inject some “much-needed competition into the underserviced SME sector.”

“It’s time small businesses had access to a new kind of bank which finds more ways for small businesses to access valuable cash flow,” Mr Confos said.

“We have fresh ideas to solve an age-old problem SMEs continue to face.”

Source: Startupdaily.

The Battle of Salamis: When the Greeks defeat the Persians

The Greek Herald
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The Battle of Salamis: When the Greeks defeat the Persians

On September 28, 480 BC, the Battle of Salamis, which is one of the most famous naval battles of antiquity, took place. During the battle in the straits of Salamis, the Greeks, under the leadership of Themistocles, defeated the mighty Persian fleet.

Before the Battle:

After the fall of Thermopylae, the Persians of King Xerxes advanced on Athens and easily occupied the city because the Athenians had abandoned it. 

The Athenians had heard from the Oracle of Delphi that only “wooden walls” would save them and they considered their ships as such, to which they resorted for battle.

Only a few elders who did not believe the “wooden walls” were the ships, stayed in Athens, locked themselves in the Acropolis and built real wooden walls around them. When the Persians arrived, they killed them and burned Athens. 

The Battle of Salamis begins.

Meanwhile, the Persian fleet was anchored in the bay of Faliro, having sailed to Evia and Sounio.

The Athenians, after transporting their women and children to Aegina for more safety, boarded their ships and prepared for confrontation with the Persians. 

The war council of the Greeks, which took place at Salamis, was stormy. The Spartan, Eurybiades, suggested the naval battle be fought in the Isthmus of Corinth, with the main argument that in case of failure they could take refuge inside the Peloponnese and continue the fight from there. The Corinthians supported him. 

The Athenian, Themistocles, insisted that the naval battle be fought in Salamis and the Megarians and the Aeginians joined him. He believed that if the small Greek forces fought on the high seas with the huge Persian fleet they had no hope of victory. On the contrary, it was an ideal place for naval battle in the Strait of Salamis, where the numerous Persian ships could not grow in number.

The plan for the Battle of Salamis.

The Battle of Salamis:

Eurybiades may have been formally the leader of the Greek forces, but Themistocles was the mastermind of the operation. 

In order to speed up the naval battle, he used the following trick: He secretly sent Sikinos’ teacher to the Persians to tell them that the Greeks were supposedly preparing to leave Salamis and if they wanted to defeat them, they would need to rush to catch them. 

Xerxes fell into the trap and ordered the Greek fleet to be surrounded and to block its retreat to the Isthmus of Corinth. 

The Persians lined up around 1,200 warships, although newer sources estimate them at 600 to 800, while the Greeks had about 371 triremes, according to Herodotus. 

At the dawn of September 28 or 29, 480 BC the two fleets found each other facing each other, ready for naval battle. Xerxes, confident of his victory, sat on a golden throne on Mount Egaleo to enjoy the spectacle of war.

The Battle of Salamis, being watched by Xerxes, King of the Persians.

The Greeks were the first to rush. Their war songs, the trumpets, the war cries, the fires aimed at the Persian ships, the smoke, but above all the bravery of the Greeks, saw victory begin to lean towards them.

The battle continued all day, until at night the sea was full of wood and Persian bodies. The Persians had been defeated. Diodorus of Sicily reports that the Persians lost 200 ships and the Greeks 40.

During the naval battle, Aristides in a parallel operation landed in Psyttalia with a group of select Athenian hoplites and destroyed the Persian garrison.

After the Battle:

Xerxes, ashamed of the defeat, took refuge with the remnants of his fleet in the Hellespont. In Greece, his general Mardonios remained with 300,000 men to continue the fight. The Persians had not yet had their last word.

The glorious victory of the Greeks is largely due to the strategy of Themistocles and the superior naval art of the Greeks. The Athenian politician and general was awarded exceptional honours. 

When he once attended the Olympic Games as a spectator, all those present adored him as the saviour of Greece.

Source: Sansimera.

Crete earthquake: 1 dead, 20 injured, tents set up for homeless residents

The Greek Herald
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Crete earthquake: 1 dead, 20 injured, tents set up for homeless residents

Greek authorities set up tents for the homeless residents of the village of Arkalohori in southern Crete on Monday evening, after an earthquake registering 5.8 on the Richter scale killed one person and injured 20.

The majority of the old buildings in Arkalohori sustained heavy damage and were deemed unsafe. Tents were also set up at villages along the municipality of Minoas Pediadas, where hundreds of homes have been damaged.

Tents have been set up in the village of Arkalohori. Photo: Intime News.

The Athens Geodynamic Institute said the 5.8 magnitude quake struck at 9:17 a.m, with an epicenter 246 kilometers south southeast of the Greek capital, Athens.

READ MORE: On This Day: The 1956 Santorini earthquake and its devastating aftermath.

The quake sent people fleeing into the streets in the city of Iraklio, and schools were evacuated. Repeated aftershocks — described by witnesses as feeling like small explosions — rattled the area, adding to damage in villages near the epicenter.

Aftermath of an earthquake in Arkalochori, eastern Crete, Greece, 27 September 2021. Photo: Nikos Chalkiadakis/EPA.

“The earthquake was strong and was long in duration,” Iraklio mayor, Vassilis Lambrinos, told private Antenna television.

Of the 20 people treated for injuries, ten of them received first aid according to hospital officials.

Greece’s Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry said one man had been killed. He was pulled from the rubble of a partially collapsed church in Arkalochori, authorities said.

READ MORE: Strong earthquake in Aegean Sea kills at least 14 people in Turkey And Greece.

Firefighters stand next to a demolished Greek Orthodox church of Profitis Ilias after a strong earthquake in Arkalochori village. Photo: AP Photo/Harry Nikos.

Local media said the victim was a 65-year-old builder who had been working inside the church when the roof collapsed on him.

Government spokesman, Giannis Oikonomou, said there were no reports of people missing or trapped under rubble.

Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Christos Stylianides, arrived at the area on Monday afternoon, heading the team that oversees the reconstruction work. He declared a state of emergency in the area. 

READ MORE: Greece and New Zealand become the first to use android earthquake alerts.

An elderly man stands inside his house after a strong earthquake in Roussochoria village, Crete. Photo: AP Photo/Harry Nakos.

The fire department said it was flying 30 members of its disaster response units with sniffer dogs and specialized rescue equipment to Crete, while all its disaster response units and the fire department services on Crete were placed on general alert.

Numerous aftershocks struck the area, with the EMSC giving a preliminary magnitude of 4.6 for the two strongest.

Greece lies in one of the most seismically active parts of the world, but strong quakes that cause extensive loss of life or widespread damage are rare. In 1999, an earthquake just outside Athens killed 143 people.

READ MORE: On This Day in 1999: Earthquake strikes Athens, killing 143 people.

Source: Ekathimerini.

France to ink Greek defense deal after losing sub contract with Australia

The Greek Herald
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France to ink Greek defense deal after losing sub contract with Australia

France and Greece will sign a major defense deal on Tuesday — a signal Paris is cementing military ties within Europe after a diplomatic falling out with Australia and the US over a canceled submarine contract.

The new deal will include commitments from Greece to purchase roughly €5 billion worth of French warships and fighter jets, as well as a clause on mutual defense assistance, according to three Greek government officials.

Greece’s Prime Minister (right) and France’s President met in France on Monday.

“We are heading towards a substantial deepening of the strategic cooperation between Greece and France,” Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, told semi-official broadcaster ERT in an interview from the French capital on Monday evening.

The partnership occurs in the shadow of a diplomat blow for France. Nearly two weeks ago, Australia, the US and the UK unveiled a surprise military pact, known as AUKUS, that prompted Canberra to rip up a €50 billion submarine deal with Paris.

For Greece, the agreement is the latest step in a military buildup for the country, spurred on by growing tensions with Turkey in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean Seas.

Greece has already agreed to buy 24 Rafale warplanes from French planemaker Dassault Aviation.

Greece has already agreed to buy 24 Rafale warplanes from French planemaker Dassault Aviation, 12 of them used. 

The deal will likely include six warships — three frigates and three corvettes set to start arriving in 2025 — with the option of two or three more ships in the future, according to Politico. Greece is also expected to purchase six more Rafale fighter jets.

The mutual defense clause contents were not available on Monday, leaving open the big question of whether or how France will commit to backing Greece if tensions flare up again with Turkey.

This news comes as Mitsotakis was returning from the UN General Assembly in New York and stopped in France on Monday to meet French President, Emmanuel Macron. The two leaders inaugurated the exhibition “Paris-Athens: Birth of Modern Greece” at the Louvre Museum.

On Tuesday, Greek Foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias, and Defense Minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, will be in Paris, where they are expected to sign the deal, according to government officials.

Source: Politico.

At least one dead, multiple injured as strong quake rattles Greek island of Crete

The Greek Herald
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At least one dead, multiple injured as strong quake rattles Greek island of Crete

A strong earthquake with an initial magnitude 6.0 rattled the Greek Island of Crete on Monday morning, the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said.

An elderly man has died while he was doing maintenance works on the church of Profitis Ilias in Arkalochori, Heraklion. Another worker who was with him in the church escaped unscathed.

Local media report that two people are trapped in buildings and nine are injured.

According to the Fire Department, out of the nine injured, seven are minor and were transported for first aid to the Health Center, while two have fractures and were taken to hospital.

The EMSC initially reported that the quake had a magnitude of 6.5, adjusting the magnitude to 6.0 shortly thereafter, with a depth of 6.2 miles (10km). The epicentre was reported to be 16 miles south south east of the city of Heraklion.

A number of aftershocks have also struck the area, with the strongest one registering a magnitude of 4.6 according to the EMSC.

Local media in Crete have reported that some old buildings had experienced structural damage, with walls collapsing in villages near the epicentre.

Vassilis Lambrinos, the mayor of Heraklion, told Greek Skai television that all schools had been evacuated to check for structural damage.

Holidaymakers were also evacuated from their hotels in Crete.

More to come.

Sydney lawyer, Anais Menounos, offers free education to disadvantaged children in Ghana

Andriana Simos
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Sydney lawyer, Anais Menounos, offers free education to disadvantaged children in Ghana

At just 26 years of age, Anais Menounos has already kicked some serious goals. She’s not only a successful Sydney lawyer at Clayton Utz, but she’s also the co-founder of the St Nicholas Mission Academy in Ghana, Africa.

Launched in 2018 with the help of Inusah Amidu, St Nic’s is a primary school in the Ghanaian town of Kokrobite which offers free education to 90 children from families that live below the poverty line.

Anais tells The Greek Herald she decided to open the school in Ghana after she volunteered with an NGO in the country and witnessed for herself the poverty and inequality experienced by some children.

Anais Menounos launched St Nic’s with Inusah Amidu (right) in 2018. Photos supplied.

“When I was there, a child ran up to me and begged me for a book and it honestly rattled me that someone… had that thirst for knowledge that we take for granted. Here, you know, people throw out their books for council clean-up and over there, people are begging for books and can’t afford to buy them,” Anais says.

“So for me, coming from a place where I really value the education that I received and I’m really trying my best to put it to good use, I can see how even just to provide basic education to disadvantaged children in a different part of the world can really change their life.”

Lunchtime at St Nic’s.

According to statistics from UNICEF, 29 percent of children in Ghana do not complete primary school, 53 percent do not complete lower secondary and 65 percent do not complete upper secondary.

Whilst the Ghana government says education is “free,” the reality is very different. Government subsidies do not reach every community, which places a burden on families to cover the cost of books, uniforms and lunch.

Families who earn very little must sacrifice sending their children to school to be able to feed their families and provide shelter.

“The community that we’re in is a fishing community so it’s right on the Atlantic coast with beautiful beaches. But the flip side of that is many young boys are kind of roped in by their dads to learn the fishing trade and they never get a chance to go to school,” Anais explains.

  • Classrooms.

“The young girls sell food on the street with their mum, and they could be married off really young or they just have to work really hard to pay for family expenses.”

The Greek Australian says St Nic’s fills this void in Ghana. The primary school provides free tuition, lunches and drinking water, health insurance registration, books and stationery to children who have no access to the education system at no fault of their own.

“We’re really trying to get that younger cohort of students off the street, off from working and putting them into school to ensure that they stay in school,” Anais says.

  • School grounds.

So far, St Nic’s currently rents school grounds in Kokrobite and offers five classes ranging from nursery to Kindergarten Level 1, Kindergarten Level 2, Primary 1 and Primary 2. The response for the local community has been phenomenal.

“The community love what we’re doing. The parents are so, so happy that their children are being given an opportunity to go to school,” Anais says.

“Some of our students started in kindergarten at age 12 so they had never stepped foot into a school, didn’t know how to read or write and they’ve made such amazing progress and everyone in the community is so appreciative of that.”

  • Junior students.
  • Playtime.

But of course, Anais says there’s still more that needs to be done and she won’t stop until St Nic’s has changed the lives of thousands of disadvantaged children in Ghana.

“We’re really hoping to be able to buy land eventually and build our own building,” Anais concludes.

“Hopefully we’ll reach high school [as well] and you know, we can keep supporting students through high school and then we’re hoping for them to get good jobs and to be able to support their families to really try and lift them out of poverty.”

You can find out more about St Nic’s and the amazing work they do via their website at: stnicma.org.

Sally Ioannides shares her husband’s incurable cancer journey during pandemic

The Greek Herald
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Sally Ioannides shares her husband’s incurable cancer journey during pandemic

Sally Ioannides has opened up in the Sydney Morning Herald about her husband Nick’s incurable brain cancer diagnosis and how the COVID-19 pandemic has halted their attempts at ticking things off his ‘bucket list.’

The cancer diagnosis:

In 2018, Nick was juggling three children under the age of five, including a newborn, a busy job as a doctor for Qantas, medical exams and very little sleep, when he collapsed on the couple’s bedroom floor complaining of a headache.

Rushing to hospital, CT scan images showed there was a large tumour in the frontal lobe of his brain which was life threatening and required emergency surgery.

“Recovering in ICU, Nick learnt that the surgeons were unable to remove all of the tumour that had infiltrated his brain. When the pathology results came back, he was given the news that no 38-year-old wants to hear: incurable, malignant brain cancer,” Sally writes in her personal piece.

Nick has been diagnosed with incurable brain cancer.

Nick’s bucket list:

During Nick’s 18-month journey through radiation and chemotherapy, conversations turned towards his “bucket list” – What were the most important things for him to achieve before he died?

For Nick, getting back to work to finish specialist physician training was very important. Travel was also on the top of Nick’s list as he was a man who’d grown up in Cyprus, studied in the UK, worked in New Zealand and settled in Australia.

“So, it was a particularly cruel blow when, weeks away from finishing treatment and with a poor prognosis ahead, COVID-19 took hold in Australia and kicked his bucket list to the curb,” Sally says.

Sally adds that COVID, and lockdown in particular, “wreaks havoc on those with terminal disease” as it “diminishes the precious days and weeks and months that weave the fabric of remaining time on earth, reducing them to a shadow of themselves.”

“No long lunches with close friends, no holidays to leave the kids with lifelong memories of happier times, no trips abroad to reunite with family,” she says.

Sally and Nick are frequent travellers.

“No matter what joy we salvage during this time, it is agonising for Nick to be separated from his family in Cyprus.”

But still, Nick has never complained. Travel dreams have since been replaced with domestic responsibilities such as picking up his children from school, teaching them how to garden or speak Greek.

Nick also attained his fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, despite sitting his specialist exams only weeks before collapsing with intracranial hypertension.

“Nick will never get back the days that COVID, and lockdown in particular, have taken from him. None of us will. But how we choose to live this “lost time” is up to us,” Sally concludes.

“And it’s not necessarily about achieving things, although I’m so proud of all that Nick has accomplished. It’s about making peace with a bad situation and moving forward nonetheless, to find something wonderful in the time we have right now.”

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald.

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