WHEN Alex Savage woke up to the smell of burning rubber, he had no idea what was at stake.
“I thought it was a sinus thing,” he recalls, but the communications consultant from The Wirral is now on his eighth cycle of chemotherapy to treat an aggressive brain cancer after being diagnosed when he was living in Australia.
Alex Savage, 34, was diagnosed with brain cancer in April after he woke up and could smell burning rubber
Alex has been helped by the Tessa Jowell foundation, which was set up in memory of the late MP by her daughter Jess
The 34-year-old told Sun Health: “I was a fit, healthy volunteer lifeguard on Bondi Beach.
“Brain cancer wasn’t even on my radar.
“I woke from a nap and could smell burning rubber. I was sure the house was on fire but my fiancé Anna couldn’t smell anything.”
This was in April and Anna persuaded him to see his GP, and after he was referred to an ear, nose and throat specialist, an MRI can spotted a mass and Alex underwent surgery, which revealed he had glioblastoma — a rapid, devastating brain cancer.
It’s what killed MP Tessa Jowell, 70, in 2018.
Her death was a huge loss to British politics, her daughter Jess Mills, 41, her family and all the people Tessa helped during her long career in the Commons.
Alex has turned out to be one of them.
He says: “The horrible thing about glioblastoma is that it grows with microscopic tendrils, so while my surgeon was able to get what he could see — and an eighth of my entire brain too — there’s no guarantee it won’t come back.
“I wanted to settle down, marry, have kids but the average life expectancy is 14 months.
“I know some live longer, some survive and I’m responding well to treatment at the moment, but despite everything, I feel lucky.
“The treatment I’m being given is working, but doesn’t for everyone.”
‘Mum did everything with campaigning spirit’
Alex returned to the UK to be close to his family, and this is where Tessa’s legacy has proved vital.
“My Sydney neurologist knew Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London, where I’m being treated, was a Tessa Jowell Centre of Excellence, which is why I’m here,” explains Alex.
Jess, co-founder of the Tessa Jowell Foundation which funds brain cancer research, sounds so much like her mum — smart, determined, eloquent and equipped with a campaigner’s heart.
She says there is no chance she’ll follow her mum into public office.
But she is passionately committed to a fundraising campaign #TurnUpForTessa.
Launching on Wednesday, July 27, on the tenth anniversary of the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, it will fund the accreditation of Tessa Jowell Centres of Excellence for brain cancer at NHS hospitals.
It aims to transform NHS brain cancer care across the UK and counts David Beckham and Olympian Denise Lewis among its supporters.
David Beckham said: “As a close friend of Tessa, it is my honour to help support her family foundation to deliver her final campaign — to transform NHS brain cancer care in Britain.”
Jess says: “Mum did everything with a campaigning spirit and a campaigning heart.
“This campaign was started four years ago by her in the last four months of her life, and it is fitting, while tragic, that she spent the last few months of her life campaigning.
“It’s something she was born to do.”
What Tessa started to walk with, Jess has happily taken the baton to run with.
“Mum is so present in the Foundation. Her values are such a powerful North Star for us,” says Jess.
“I’m so proud she spent the time leading up to her death campaigning too.
“When you are living under the certain shadow of something inevitable and imminent, it supercharges and illuminates the possibility of every single moment that comes before that.
“My mum was somebody that lived with a sense of purpose, passion and a sense of burning responsibility to do good in the world every day of her life.
“Even in the last few months of her life, she was able to die as she had lived. It was the most extraordinary and amazing thing to see.”
Brain cancer is one of the biggest cancer killers of children and people under 40, but the landscape of care is set to shift dramatically in the coming years.
“What our family witnessed through that year of her being a patient was that a huge inequality exists in terms of what patients can access when they have brain cancer,” says Jess.
“We need to systemically raise standards to an equal bar.”
When Tessa was told she had glioblastoma, the oncologist explained there was only one treatment they could offer her, which was known to fail within 12 weeks.
“And that because of the particular subtype of this disease she had, it was almost certain she wasn’t going to respond to that chemotherapy anyway,” Jess adds.
She says it was this moment that helped to trigger #TurnUpForTessa — a new fundraising campaign to support children and adults with brain cancer.
As Culture Secretary, Tessa was instrumental in helping to win the bid and delivering the London 2012 Olympics.
And so, on July 27, cinemas across the country will show a newly edited version of Danny Boyle’s opening and closing London 2012 ceremonies.
‘My God, she was steely and tenacious’
Proceeds from the ticket sales will go to the Tessa Jowell Foundation, which is working in partnership with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission.
A free viewing — no ticket required — will also take place at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, East London
Alex, meanwhile, knows how fortunate he is to have access to such incredible care at St Guy’s and Thomas’, but feels the pain of those who are not so lucky.
He says: “Gold-star standards and treatments should be available across the UK.
“When you’re diagnosed, you don’t want to have to research a hospital that’s good, you want the same level of care everywhere.
“#TurnUpForTessa will fundraise to make sure everyone diagnosed has the same chances of survival — nothing is more important than that.”
It’s a legacy fitting for Tessa.
Jess says of her mum: “Every day there are people who tell me how much she meant to them, or they will share a story about her.
“She was amazing.
“It never ever gets tiring for me to hear from people who loved her.
“She really was one of the most extraordinary people.
“She was so decent and kind, honest and loving but, my God, she was steely and tenacious.”
- See bit.ly/3yKvsc2, and tessajowellfoundation.org.uk/turnupfortessa.
David Beckham said: ‘As a close friend of Tessa, it is my honour to help support her family foundation to deliver her final campaign — to transform NHS brain cancer care in Britain’
