Only six months after receiving a devastating cancer diagnosis, Queensland’s Police Commissioner, Steve Gollschewski, is returning to work with an important message.
Gollschewski, 66, took sudden leave in February after learning he had stage four cancer — less than a year after taking on the top job in April.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Gollschewski talks to 7NEWS about his return
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He received the call from his GP while at a swearing-in ceremony in Townsville with Police Minister Dan Purdie.
“It was one of those moments where the world kind of stops,” Gollschewski told 7NEWS.
The fit and healthy husband and father, who has never smoked, was told the disease had spread from his lungs to his liver, through his bones, and into his brain.
Northern Region Assistant Commissioner Virginia Nelson was with Gollschewski when he got the call and asked what he wanted to do.
Not wanting to disappoint the new officers and their families, Gollschewski decided to continue with the ceremony before rushing back to Brisbane and handing over the reins to Deputy Commissioner Shane Chelepy.
“I thought that’s it, I’m done. I thought that was the end of me,” Gollschewski said.
“And then my mind turned to supporting my family.”
After a month-long ordeal of tests and scans, Icon Cancer Centre oncologist Dr Jim Coward discovered Gollschewski cancer was the result of a genetic mutation, and that treatment options were available.
Gollschewski said he was preparing to “get his affairs in order” before he got the news from Coward, and for the first time there was hope that the diagnosis would not be a death sentence.
“The fact that we were able to find this mutation and the fact there was a treatment available for this was a stroke of luck,” Coward said.
“I’d actually go and say if there were a few more weeks we’d have to wait, I think we wouldn’t be having this interview.”
After six months under Coward’s care and with the help of genomic testing, chemotherapy, and a precision targeting of the mutation with a new drug, the Commissioner is now in the clear.
“The day Professor Coward says to me the brain cancers are gone, the liver lesions are gone, and the lung lesions are significantly reduced — it was a high five moment thinking ‘how can this be?’” Gollschewski said.
Coward said, although this type of disease is not curable, there is hope for patients like Gollschewski.
“It’s being controlled, unfortunately a disease such as this is not curable, (but) it’s certainly treatable,” he said.
Gollschewski acknowledged he had been given a second chance at life, and urged others in his position to never give up hope.
“When you get the news that you have metastasised cancer in three parts of your body and then two weeks later you’re told it’s in your brain as well. I thought I was gone. Steve was finished,” he said.
“(But) don’t ever give up hope. Keep getting yourself checked, if you think you’re not well, and you think there’s something, keep getting checked.”
With more than 40 years on the frontline and no thought of retirement, the Police Commissioner with a new lease on life is heading back to the office on Monday, committed to finish the work he started — making the world a safer place for the community and for his daughter, with domestic and family violence issues front of mind.
“I’ve got a little girl in grade four, I want her to grow to be whatever she wants to be and be treated with respect and not subjected to crime and misogyny and some of the other things going on in our community,” he said.
“I’ve committed to my frontline that I will deliver this for them.
“I haven’t done it yet, so I feel obligated that we will make our community safer, and make sure our community feels safer, and I will support them to do that in the best way possible.”
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