Celebrating a unique relationship between Wellington and brain cancer research, Doctor Brindha Shivalingham of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (and from the popular show RPA) said the Brain Ball was part of a beautiful story about passionate locals from a small town looking for a cure for brain cancer.
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In its second year, the fundraiser for Brainstorm came about after local Georgie Cross was diagnosed with a tumour the size of a golf ball positioned on the nerves behind her left ear.
Thankfully the tumour was benign. Despite major complications that could have arisen during the operation, the amazing neurological team at RPA, under Dr Shivalingham, were able to remove Georgie's tumour successfully during a 10-hour operation. To date there have been no complications resulting from that surgery.
While her tumor was benign, it brought about a realisation of how devastating brain cancer was, as well as how it affected many people in small communities like Wellington, so Ms?Cross and her childhood friend Lizzy Rich set about organising the Brain Ball.
After last year's success of raising $47,000, Ms Rich was keen to see the ball continue, organising 50 Shades of Grey Matter at Hermitage Hill.
It was a fun pun on the recently released film 50 Shades of Grey and also a chance for her to declare her love of grey matter on Valentine's Day.
Dr Shivalingham said she had loved watching the story unfold from the time when she met Ms Cross and Ms Rich to now when she got to see a whole town passionate about the research.
Despite being rare, brain cancer is very aggressive with 1200 people dying from it in Australia each year. It is also the biggest killer of children.
"That's one person every eight hours," Dr Shivalingham said.
"Often they are fairly young people from the age of 25 to 50 so it is a devastating disease that is killing children and adults in the prime of their lives."
She said while Australia had many talented researchers, they were being lost to other countries due to lack of funding.
That said, awareness was growing and it was an exciting time for cancer research with Dr Shivalingham moving her practice into the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse this year.
"It is the first national cancer hospital under the same roof for patients with cancer and brain cancer. Because is quite a rare cancer patients can often feel very lost and don't know what's happening, so the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse brings everything together," Dr Shivalingham said.
She said the concept of the facility had been worked on for nearly 20 years and Mr O'Brien would have been thrilled to have seen it come to fruition.
Helping out for the second year running was Katrina Taylor of Put the Kettle On.
Ms Taylor said since she first heard about the girls' plight to raise money and awareness, she had been very passionate about the cause.
"I realised how many people in Wellington alone were affected by this. It affects friends, families and whole communities," she said.
The Brain Ball had an auction and featured performances by Mat Verevis of The Voice 2014 as well as local talent Sam Coon.
