My husband was fit and healthy until everything changed after his 40th birthday when he was given a devastating cancer diagnosis. He died two years later. This is our story

Josephine O’Brien still remembers a happier time in her family home. Mornings started early, with two young kids climbing into bed beside their dad. 

Her husband Liam would already be awake, answering emails for his compliance advisory business before sunrise so he could be fully present once their children opened their eyes. No matter how busy work became, bath time, books and bedtime prayers belonged to him.

The Brisbane couple had built what felt like a seemingly normal life with their young kids – son Robert and daughter Sophia. Liam had just celebrated his 40th birthday in May 2022. But weeks later, on June 14, everything changed.

At first, the signs seemed almost too small to notice. Liam bruised easily and felt overwhelmingly tired. But he had always been active, healthy, and busy – so exhaustion was a natural outcome.

After getting a routine blood test and a biopsy as a precaution, the doctor asked Liam to come in for the results rather than discussing them over the phone – and Josephine immediately knew something was seriously wrong.

It was the news they never expected to hear. Liam had been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive blood cancer.

‘Our world just shattered around us,’ Josephine told Daily Mail. 

Before the shock diagnosis, Liam had gone in for a routine blood test where it was revealed his platelet count had dropped significantly, and doctors ordered a bone marrow biopsy to investigate further.

Liam had undergone a similar test a year earlier without issue, so the family tried not to panic. But when the doctor asked them to come in for the results, Josephine felt dread settle in.

‘You start to think the worst,’ she said.

The diagnosis shattered them: myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of blood cancer that later progressed into leukaemia. Doctors also discovered Liam carried a rare genetic mutation called RTEL1, which made his prognosis significantly more complicated.

But with a two and three-year-old at home, there was little space to stop moving – and all the family could do was hold on to hope.

Liam initially believed he had years before he would need a stem cell transplant. Instead, his condition deteriorated rapidly. He spent long stretches in hospital while doctors desperately searched for a matching donor.

That search exposed a devastating reality: Australia’s stem cell donor registry was far too small.

While fighting for his own life, Liam threw himself into trying to save others. Together with Josephine, he launched The Life Saving List – a campaign designed to grow Australia’s stem cell donor registry and make donor sign-ups simpler and more accessible for young Australians.

At the time, joining the registry required donating blood and providing an additional vial. Within 18 months, the campaign successfully lobbied the federal government to allow Australians aged 17 to 35 to join via a simple cheek swab.

‘It takes less than a minute now,’ Josephine said proudly.

The campaign became Liam’s mission.

‘He just didn’t want families to have to go through what we were going through,’ she said.

The family eventually found Liam a donor through awareness raised by the campaign itself – something Josephine believes gave them two extra years together.

‘When we got Liam a donor out of this campaign, we effectively got two more years with him that we otherwise wouldn’t have had,’ she said.

‘The gift of time was everything.’

But the transplant process was brutal.

At the Royal Brisbane Hospital, Liam underwent chemotherapy intense enough to completely destroy his immune system before donor stem cells could rebuild it. Josephine described it as being ‘brought to the brink’.

During treatment, Liam lost his hair. Rather than hiding it from the children, the family shaved his head over FaceTime so Robert and Sophia could understand the process gently instead of being frightened by sudden changes.

Then came the isolation.

For 100 days after the transplant, Liam remained largely cut off from the outside world while his body tried to rebuild itself. The children were not allowed into the hospital ward because even a minor illness could become life-threatening.

Josephine’s mother moved into their home to help raise the children while Josephine moved between hospital rooms and home quarantine.

The family developed strange new rituals just to survive the loneliness.

Friends held ‘boot parties’, reversing their cars into the driveway and sitting in open boots while speaking to Liam from a distance through the garage. Others delivered fruit boxes and meals, and one group of friends made 100 paper chains for the children, each containing an activity to help them count down the days of isolation.

Another friend filled a jar with 100 M&Ms so the children could physically see time passing.

‘We just tried to give it the best chance,’ Josephine said.

Some days brought hope. The transplant worked, and Liam entered remission. Other days collapsed into fevers, emergency hospital admissions, and crushing setbacks.

‘You never knew what you were going to wake up to,’ she said.

‘He’d be trucking along okay, and then all of a sudden – wham – we’d be back in hospital.’

Through everything, Liam kept working on The Life Saving List. Even as his own body weakened, he focused on helping strangers find donors faster than he had.

‘He always said friends, family, and faith were the pillars of a happy life,’ Josephine said.

Those pillars carried the family through Liam’s final months.

Robert and Sophia were just four and five years old when their father died in 2024, two years after his diagnosis and shortly after his 42nd birthday. 

Josephine and Liam never used frightening language with them – instead, they explained that Dad needed stronger medicine at the hospital and spoke gently as circumstances changed.

Now, the family looks for signs of Liam everywhere.

Sophia believes rainbows are messages from her father. On Liam’s birthday this year, a double rainbow appeared across the sky.

Robert finds his father in rugby league. During last year’s State of Origin decider – which paid tribute to fathers after player Cameron Munster lost his own dad – he leaned over and whispered to Josephine: ‘I think Dad helped them win that game for your birthday.’

‘We feel his presence all the time,’ Josephine said.

‘And we watch videos and talk about him a lot. I hope the kids retain their memory of him through little rituals like that.’

Friends described Liam as the sort of man who carried everyone around him. He chaired boards, ran a successful business, and supported countless community causes, but at home he was simply Dad – the hands-on father who rushed home every evening to read stories, say prayers, and tell his children to ‘wake up tomorrow with honourable things to work hard on’.

‘Liam was a true gentleman and a very proud and devoted father. He absolutely adored the children,’ Josephine said. 

‘He would get up early before the kids so he could finish work and be there every morning and every night. He was always like that – even when he was unwell, he pushed himself so hard.’

The family continues traditions Liam loved. Every year on his birthday they visit Hellenika in Fortitude Valley for breakfast before taking a picnic to the cemetery with the children. In Townsville, friends established the Liam O’Brien Handicap race in his honour.

Last year, Josephine also held a black-tie gala Liam had dreamed of organising himself once he recovered. The event raised more than $265,000 for families facing blood cancer.

‘We did it for Liam – he always said he wanted to host a black-tie event when he was better to help raise money for people in the same situation.’  

Now, nearly two years after his death, Josephine is preparing to bring The Life Saving List back onto the national stage.

Across Australia, around 145,000 people are currently living with blood cancer and at least 6,000 die every year. For many patients, a stem cell transplant is their only chance of survival.

The Life Saving List is pushing for long-term national investment in the Australian Stem Cell Donor Registry, a larger and more diverse donor pool, and a system that reduces pressure on families forced to search desperately for matches themselves.

‘There are still families having to run their own campaigns while going through the hardest moment of their lives,’ Josephine said.

‘The waiting is terrible and all-consuming.’

For Josephine, continuing Liam’s work has become part of teaching their children how to carry grief.

‘They’ve seen things children their age should never have had to see,’ she said.

‘But I think it’s teaching them resilience and kindness and how important it is to care for other people.’

Australians aged between 17 and 35 can join the stem cell donor registry through a simple cheek swab via Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry or by visiting Australian Red Cross Lifeblood.