It was a pretty big trip, so we lashed out and stayed overnight in Adelaide to break it up.

After the tension of the procedure and the five-hour drive home to Nhill, we walked in the door to hear the telephone ringing.

The medical professionals had stuffed-up and the test was useless - dad would have to return to do it all again.

Dad's beautiful humility and kindness in such an incredibly inconvenient and frustrating situation was a lesson to me.

SPORT:

Unable to arrange more time to repeat the trip with dad, he had to go back to Adelaide alone, and made the mistake of watching over someone's shoulder as slice by slice his brain tumor was revealed on the screen.

Dad didn't remember a thing about the trip home.

I had the opportunity to mimic dad's grace recently when I arranged a day off work to take mum to Ballarat for a couple of procedures.

Only a measly two hours there and two back, we found ourselves messed around when mum's MRI appointment could not be attended.

In agony with a suspected fracture, mum's bone marrow sample was never going to be taken in time to get to the MRI appointment and then see her oncologist to hear the results.

NEWS:

I had my private little cry of frustration but managed to keep my mascara on.

There was apparently nothing anyone could do to make the MRI happen that day as it had been booked in an emergency slot.

My tears weren't for me, but for mum.

Incredibly brave, mum has attended her cancer treatment every week for seven years and kept busy with her volunteer work, but this drive to Ballarat had her bracing for the shock of pain every time we hit a bump in the road, while getting in and out of the car was difficult and walking short distances cost all her breath.

We did get to see our wonderful Professor George, who without the magnetic resonance imaging details reluctantly allowed mum to avoid immediate hospitalisation.

Missed MRI was a blessing in disguise?

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