Words by Hayley McLarin
As each of the 1,103 steps started to make her legs burn, Nirupa George dug deep and told herself it wasn’t anything like the challenge her father was going through.
As she climbed up the 51 flights of stairs inside the Sky Tower, while wearing 25kg of firefighting kit that amounted to half her body weight, she remembered the fight for life her dad and hundreds of others with blood cancer endure each and every day.
The Auckland woman was one of the 10 non-firefighters who took part in the 20th year of the Firefighter Sky Tower Challenge last month, a legacy event that raises funds for Leukaemia & Blood Cancer NZ (LBC).
“It was definitely a physical challenge, mentally preparing for it was the toughest thing. And at one stage I regretted having signed up,” the 36-year-old confesses.
“But I thought of Dad, and having witnessed first-hand how blood cancer patients are supported, it kept me focussed. It just it felt like the right thing to do, to play a small part in helping a cause that have been very helpful to us.”
George Arulanantham was diagnosed at 62 with multiple myeloma last year, only weeks before the firefighter event was held at Nirupa’s workplace, at Sky City.
The chief corporate affairs officer had been at the event the previous year and was tempted to take part, but didn’t think she would be physically able to.
“I was put off by the fact that it was wearing 25 kgs of kit. My thought was, ‘No way I can do it’.”
But while there she saw Auckland Airport CEO Carrie Hurihanganui compete as part of the civilian team, Squad 51.
“She is also similar in stature to me,” the 1.5m woman says. “It was inspiration, I thought if Carrie can do it, I can do it. So that gave me a bit more confidence.”
She was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to fundraise $6,000 – through her own social networks and those of her family, who shared their story of George’s cancer diagnosis.
“Having that personal connection to the services I think it helps people understand a little bit more as to why you’re doing it, your personal motivation.”
George underwent his first stem cell transplant in October. It involved harvesting his own cells before enduring aggressive chemotherapy aimed at killing all the fast-growing cells in his body, not only the cancerous ones. Days later his own stem cells were re-transplanted before he spent a month in hospital because he was immune compromised. He went through it all again a second time with another transplant in February this year.
“The second time he was in hospital, it was much worse than the first, he got admitted to ICU. But we were really lucky, our whole family – my mum Anne and my sister Nirusha – are all based in Auckland, and we live close to the hospital.
“We had the ability to take time off and we were taking turns spending nights with him for weeks in a row. Not everyone has that support,” Nirupa says.
“We met people that travelled from other cities and towns and some had even worse medical outcomes than my dad does. So we saw how much the charity does for patients and their family.
“They provided practical advice like how to look after Dad pre and post-transplant. They run support groups for the whole family which I know my mum and dad found very useful.”
Nirupa made the most of the company perk of being able to train inside the Tower with her teammates and set herself a target of 25 minutes. She is proud to have completed it in 20 minutes and 40 seconds.
“I was pleased with that result. I had to really hike up the pants because they were quite long. I looked like I was wearing my dad’s firefighting gear,” she jests.
“There is such a satisfaction in having done it. After I did it my husband Bradley Scott has signed up to do the Step Up Challenge, where you can run up the Tower to support LBC – but you don’t wear the firefighters’ gear.
“Brad helped me with my interval training and he’s actually now working on his running so that he can get a really good time whereas I just kind of wanted to do it.”
Nirupa hopes the remainder of the year will be easier for her dad, who is now back at work as an engineer.
“There is always a risk of infection, he got RSV a few weeks ago. So there’s obviously a heightened sense of keeping him well and keeping him safe. He’s about to start a trial that’s going on in New Zealand. So we are starting to get back to normalcy.
“My whole family, especially my father, was very proud that I did the climb. He came out to support me and helped me fundraise through social media as well. And now Brad signing up to fundraise is just the icing on the cake for him.”
“My dad has always been very active and involved in the community. He received an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for his services to the Tamil community so to have to take a step back from the work he loves has been hard. But now that he is getting better, we are hoping he can return to some kind of normal.”
