Love Your Sister

Love Your Sister

By Danielle Briggs

As much as I love Samuel Johnson’s acting, I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about the Sammy Johnson that got on a unicycle in 2013 as a dare from his sister Connie who was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and rode it around Australia yes, he travelled 15,955kms around the county and by that wrote himself into the world record books. Sam raised an incredible $1,477,630 in the process. To remind mother’s to check their breast, to be breast aware and to vanquish all cancer.

Sam is an OAM recipient (Order of Australia Medal) for research, Victorian of the year 2018 and Advocate of the year in 2018. When he first started Love your sister with his incredible sister Connie, he promised her they would raise 10 million dollars for cancer research. In August 2019 after seven years the charity reached the 10 million milestone and he is not done yet.

Now Sam’s on a mission, he is going around Australia again spending six weeks in every state, he has already been to Queensland and Tasmania. If you are in Victoria, ACT, New South Wales, South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia go and see Sam at the locations that can be found on either the Love Your Sister Facebook page or over on the website and click on the on the road section on the top right of the website and the locations will be posted there.

Visiting as many towns as he can and telling everyone about personalised medicine hoping to raise enough money off Australia to take to parliament at the end of 2020 and talk to the Health Minister Greg Hunt. Hunt has come out in support for personalised treatment but has said 15 million for 2030 which is too late. We need personalised medicine now.

For those who don’t know what personalised medicine is, it is getting a sample of the cancer cell as soon as it has been found they take it to the lab to be tested to find out which treatment would work for that cancer. So, our money wouldn’t be wasted to taking a drug and then waiting three months and finding out it was a false line and trying a different one and then so on. When they could already be on the right one the first time saving more lives in the process.

After Connie passed away in 2017, Sam took a year off and went to the researchers to find out more and what they needed what they needed was an advocate to get the government to start personalised medicine on all Australians at any state not just in the small locations they have now.  Personalised medicine can not only help cancer patients, but it can also help all other diseases. This got my attention.

In 2013 I was diagnosed with Psoriatic arthritis, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue and after having test after test and trial drug after trial drug and some reactions to most of the medication I was put on. Had the personalised medicine had been made available then I would have been put on the right medication right away I may not have got hepatitis one single dose of medication gave me hepatitis thankfully they were onto it straight away and given medication to get rid of it. So many people around Australia and not just Australia, but  people around the world can be helped if we had personalised medicine now.

Sam and the Love Your Sister team created the Fuck Cancer Bank. Love Your Sister is asking people to make a monthly donation into the bank.

You can join internationally but for anyone outside of Australia you won’t be able to claim for tax purposes as you don’t pay tax in Australia.

I promise you, Sam is worth going to see and listen to everything he has to say, you will understand why we need to do something now we need to support him and not just Sam, for us, for our families for the future generations before it’s too late. The passion and wisdom that comes out of him is incredible, you will want to help him and sign up. I am very proud to be a member of the FCB.

When you meet Sam, you will notice it’s like seeing someone you have known forever, he is a friend that has just come to say please help and talk to you about important information. You can’t help but love him. He makes you feel loved and valued. Sam always takes the time to talk to you and gives you the warmest hugs filled with nothing but love.  Sam’s hugs are the best, when the right person hugs you, it’s like medicine, one of the best types of medicine.

I went to see him quite a few times and I have had the chance to talk to him about a lot of things, not only does he make the time to get to know you and talk to you he inspires you to do better and do things that you wouldn’t do or just didn’t have the courage to get up and do something about it.

I have a massive phobia of birds, and after going to see Sam I got the courage to ask a fellow Love Your Sister villager Melissa, if I could meet up with her and her McCaw Apollo. Not sure if my phobia has gone but I did it, I got Apollo on my shoulders and had some photos taken. I met Melissa at Bunnings at one of the times I went to see Sam and I had a conversation with her and she was aware of my phobia but for some reason I was fine being around Apollo so I wanted to see how far I could go. I took little steps at first but then I said no I must jump right in and just do it and so I did. I would have never of done this if it wasn’t for Sam for inspiring me to do it. I am a huge believer that people come in your life for a reason, a short time, a long time, forever or to inspire you. 

Apollo the McCaw and I

If you wish to join the FCB, you can either go to one of the events Love Your Sister is doing around the country until the end of 2020 or go to loveyoursister.org click on the cancer bank tab and register to donate $10 a month or more if you can afford it. You can also make a one-off donation by shopping in the market page on their website. Pick up some merchandise while you are there or a book that Sam has out Dear Dad, Dear Santa and the Love Your Sister book.

Samuel Johnson and I

Sammy, Myself, Hally and Canada from Love Your Sister