Connie Johnson receives OAM at hospice beside in final days of breast cancer battle
Connie Johnson receieved an Order of Australia while in her hospice bed. Photo: Facebook
Two months after she entered a hospice in the final stages of her battle with breast cancer, Connie Johnson’s “time is nigh,” her actor brother Samuel Johnson wrote on social media.
“Let’s prepare, villagers. It’ll be very soon,” said the Gold Logie-winning Molly star.
“This is an awful time, we won’t bulls—, but please believe that she feels SO cushioned by your love and has been finding so many rainbows.”
The mother-of-two, 40, was well enough for her eyes to “dance like a kid” when Governor General Peter Cosgrove awarded her the Medal of the Order of Australia at her bedside at Canberra’s Clare Holland House on Thursday.
“She looked so live,” wrote Samuel.
“Afterwards, she looked at me sideways, because she can’t move her head too well, and she kept saying, in her weak and raspy voice … ‘Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Look what we did. We did something’,” Samuel wrote on social media.
But in breaking the good news, Samuel also spoke plainly about Connie’s condition and asked her supporters to prepare for her death.
“This was just in time,” the actor said on Facebook following the OAM presentation.
The siblings set up charity Love Your Sister when Connie was diagnosed with breast cancer about seven years ago.
Samuel took a break from his 25-year acting career and unicycled around Australia to devote his time to raising funds for cancer research.
So far, the charity has raised $5.6 million towards its $10 million target for “cancer vanquishment”.
Connie has been in hospice care since July this year and has withdrawn from the public eye after making the decision to end all treatment in April when doctors told her she had run out of treatment options.
She’s received a string of visitors at her hospice bedside, including her two sons, Willoughby and Hamilton, and therapy alpaca, Hercules.
Following the official ceremony at Clare Holland House, Samuel thanked his “new mate”, the Governor General, for making the cancer-fighting siblings laugh among all the pomp.
Sir Peter Cosgrove described Connie as “a determined, inspirational figure and a great Australian”.
Secretary to the Governor General, Mark Fraser, said Connie’s creativity and leadership of the Love Your Sister village had encouraged many Australian women to undergo regular cancer screening and raised vital funds for cancer research.
“Through her drive and determination, and in the face of significant obstacles, she’s achieved in a few short years what most people could only hope to achieve in a lifetime.”
Supporters of the Love Your Sister Facebook page have given an outpouring of support to the Johnson family.
“My heart is breaking for someone I have never met but has affected and educated me deeply, Sam, what a magical moment that must have been to witness,” supporter Rachel Wilkins wrote on a Facebook post.