Christine Griffiths: Official Site

From The Melbourne Yarra Leader - 30th November, 2005

RUNNING
SAM MORLEY

RECURRING health problems from a bone marrow transplant 18 years ago and the training regime of an elite athlete means that Christine Griffiths has to be tough.

But Griffiths, who lives and works in North Melbourne as a helper at the Bone Marrow Donor Institute, couldn’t imagine a different life.

“Running and sport has been my life for over 30 years. I guess I’m just a pig-headed and stubborn person,” she said.

Griffiths, 56 - a Melbourne Leader Sports Star nominee - recently competed at 2005 World Transplant Games in Canada, finishing fifth both in the 3000m road race and road walk.

She also competed in the super seniors’ category for table tennis, winning gold in the doubles and bronze in the singles.

But Griffiths’ hardest battle has been her health, with problems continually interfering with her training and lifestyle.

“I have to take 31 tablets a day,” she said.

“I’m continually getting sick and getting well. In my training I’ve always got to find a happy medium.”

“I got sick before these games and I couldn’t believe it. But I said ’stuff it all, I’m still going to go’.”

Griffiths received a bone marrow transplant in 1988, just one year before she set the world record for the 3000m track run in the 1989 World Transplant Games.

Since then she has competed in four games, claimed 12 international medals and more than 100 Australian title medals.

Griffiths has also been chosen as one of eight Australians to carry the Olympic torch at the Winter Olympics in Italy in January.

“The awards aren’t important to me, but the competing is,” she says.

“Competetion has kept me alive, it has given me a focus in my life because it didn’t matter how sick I was, I would always go out and run.”

Griffiths is unsure about whether she will compete at the 2007 World Transplant games in Thailand.

“I’ll take life as it comes, there are a lot of hard blows, but it doesn’t bother me because I’m a person who’s always on the go,” she said.

From The Melbourne Herald

By GERARD WRIGHT

CHRISTINE Griffiths refers to it, by way of introduction, as “this particular thing”.

Her doctor, Jeff Szer, calls it “a time bomb” and offers some daunting odds about the likelihood of it being overcome: 50/50 and 4/1.

It is known as chronic myeloid leukeamia and is every bit as serious as it sounds, although not as bad as it could be.

It is a cancer of the bone and the blood. Left alone, it can kill its unwitting host within three years. Most often, according to Dr Szer, it occurs because of a chromosonal abnormality.

Next March or April, Christine Griffiths’ body will be given some assistance to fight the cancer through a transplant of bone marrow from her sister Carmel.

In the meantime she has her plans: to go to the beach, watch some television, train hard for the next month, at at 7.30 am on Saturday, January 30, take her place in the only women’s team for the Doxa Two-Ton Run, a two-day, 200 kilometre team relay around Port Phillip Bay.

At 38, Christine Griffiths is to weekend fun running what Bob Hawke is to social golf - a part-timer and borderline obsessive who finds friendship, fitness and satisfaction from a largely solitary pursuit.

She has run 50-60 kilometers a week for the past eight years since she took up running as an asthmatic, fitting her training between stints of part-time secondary school teaching at Epping and nursing at Latrobe University’s Chisolm college.

In mid-winter this year she found that try as she might, she could not progress. In fact, she was going slower, in defiance of her body’s best efforts.

She told her training partners that she was just taking it easy, and herself that she was tired from training and the fun-runs she competed in each weekend.

The diagnosis at the end of August crystallised a few ambitions. “One of my aims when I found I had this particular thing was to run in the Veterans Games and to go in this (Doxa) run.” And give to those who knew her a picture of remarkable emotional resilience.

“She’s very determined when she’s racing,” her friend Jill Robinson said. “When she’s running, nothing will get in her way.”

Says Christine of the disease: “You just have to accept it. It’s not going to go away.” Her options for treatment are simple.

“This disease is a bit of a time bomb,” Dr Szer said. “You are eventually going to die of it unless you have a transplant. That’s the only way out at the moment.”

Christine agrees. “The chances are 50/50 that I will come through, or not be able to tell the story. I want to live to be an old person, rather than disappear off the face of the earth.”

Chemotheraphy is the treatment that will both traumatise and cleanse her body. Running has seen the balm for her spirit.

Last Saturday she covered 10 kilometers around Princes Park in 47 minutes and 26 seconds, her fastest time since April.

That, she says, was because she has always had things under control. “I have never stopped running the whole time, even when it was taking me an hour to run 10 kilometers and it was harder to do it then than when you are really running hard. That was what kept me going. I would go out feeling awful and come back feeling good.”

Complicating the affliction and her proposed recovery is a problem with her renal system.

Some people are born with fatalism, others have it thrust upon them. Christine’s attitude, is, if anything, even more positive for these setbacks.

For the bone marrow transplant, the chances are one in four with each brother or sister, that their marrow will be compatible with the recipient.

With those odds, Christine considers the fact that her sister was compatible with her a head start.

She talks of chemotherapy and morphine drips with a candor that many people would find off-putting. Her friends say this is her way of helping people come to terms with her illness.

In the meantime she will live very much for the present.

“I don’t really want to think about how bad it is because I’ll face that at the time. You enjoy things now and when the time comes, put up or shut up if you can.”

(Photo Caption)
OUT FRONT: Christine Griffiths leads the women’s relay team in training for the 200km Doxa Two-Ton Run around Port Phillip Bay

PICTURE: BRUCE HOWARD

The Melbourne Post-Times, Monday 4th September, 1989

TWO Preston City residents will be in Australia’s team for this year’s World Transplant Games in Singapore.

More than 1000 people from 37 countries will compete in the games from September 10-14.

Reservoir resident and kidney transplant recipient Mrs. Carol O’Brien said the Games “make us realise we’re not zombies and that we’re not alone”.

She said they gave the recipients a new lease on life, made them feel worthwhile and allowed them to participate in sports.

Mrs. O’Brien will compete in senior swimming events. It is her first time at the Games, although she received her new kidney six years ago.

She took up swimming after the operation and believes there is a good chance Australia can take out a gold medal.

Bundoora resident and bone marrow transplant recipient Ms Christine Griffiths will represent Australia in tennis and sprinting.

Ms Griffiths has been a long distance runner but will compete in the sprints because longer events are not on the program.

“I’ve never done the 100 m and 200 m sprints before, so I’ll be trying out something new,” Ms Griffiths said.

She expects to come across some tough competition, particularly from the Soviets, who are competing for the first time.

“The more the better,” Ms Griffiths said.

As part of her training she is running seven times a week, taking tennis lessons and playing four times a week. She took up tennis after her operation.

Both competitors have been sponsored by Apex.

(Photo Caption)
CHRISTINE Griffiths puts her best tennis shot into action as she prepares for the World Transplant Games.

Christine Griffiths is set to give Australia gold in the world transplant games in Manchester following funding for the trip by the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind.

Christine, 46, who has a vision impairment, is Australia’s top chance in bringing back gold in several athletic events at the games held August 14-20, which attracted 1500 competitors worldwide.

“It has always been a dream of mine to compete internationally and now thanks to RVIB I’m confident of improving on the form I had at the Australian transplant games last year,” said Christine.

She collected a string of gold medals and in the world
transplant games she is tackling the 200, 800 and 1500m on
the track and the 3000m road walk and the 3000m road run.

Christine will join up to 60 Australian competitors for the transplant games, aimed at making people aware of the need for more organ donors while showing the benefits gained.

“Transplant recipients are able to enjoy quality of life thanks to families of organ donors,” she said.

Christine, who received a bone marrow transplant in 1988 after suffering leukemia, is learning computer skills at RVIB.

RVIB (Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind) newsletter. 1995.

By TANIA KUTNEY

MS CHRIS Griffiths, 39, a nurse and educator from LaTrobe University, is an avid long distance runner whose only concern is not to win a race, but to make it to the end.

She ran 60 km a week in training for fun runs and races with the Veterans Athletics Club and the Malvern Harriers, until she was told by doctors last October that she had leukaemia.

This life-threatening illness did not deter her from running. She continued racing and jogged 8 km only weeks before a bone marrow transplant.

Chemotherapy

She was admitted to Vaucluse Hopsital in Moreland Rd, Brunswick, for chemotherapy treatment 10 weeks ago.

Visitors have to wear a mask to protect her from any germs.

Medication caused her hair to fall out and made her weak. She said she was also having problems with her mouth, caused by the steroids she was taking, and could only eat soft foods.

When asked if she was ever frightened of dying, Chris said no.

“If you keep dwelling on the fact that you have leukaemia, it can become an obsession and you may never get well,” she said.

“I try to push it as far back in my mind as I can, keeping my mind and body active.”

Before the transplant operation Chris would often hop on an exercise bike and vigorously pedal away.

She said that riding the bike helped her block things out.

She is also judging the works of students from a college to keep herself busy.

Her positive attitude and strong spirit, she said, made her strong enough to fight the disease.

She looked up at a poster on the wall of a lone runner facing a long, winding, uphill road and said: “That’s me”.

Below the poster were the words: The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running.

“I’m facing a long road and I don’t care if I win, as long as I make it to the end,” said Chris.

Leukaemia is a disease that causes a high count of white blood cells.

Although white cells are meant to kill germs in the body, an over-production of them renders them useless as they are too immature to be effective.

Chris said she was lucky to find a donor, considering there was only a one-in-four chance of a sibling being compatible.
Doctors say that only siblings can be compatible bone marrow donors because of complications with genes.

Finding donor

Donating bone marrow is not like giving blood; not everyone is suitable. It is also rare for parents to be compatible with their children.

Chris has two sisters, Carmel, 35, and Catherine, 31. Compatibility tests showed that only Carmel could donate, which she did.

Carmel entered the Alfred Hospital’s bone marrow until, Victoria’s only centre that does bone marrow transplants, six weeks ago.

Doctors removed the marrow from the base of her spine and administered it to Chris intravenously.

The bone marrow, which Chris describes as blood-like with a jelly type substance, will find its way through her body to the party in need.

Chris is expected to be out of hospital this week and she hopes to return to a normal life.

Her first aim is to visit a local hot bread shop in Bundoora and buy an Italian sesame bread that she has been dreaming about.

She is also looking forward to teaching again and beginning another health course.

Her illness has not stopped her passion for running, but she will have to wear a mask to protect her from germs.

She admits it may be some time before she is able to run 60 km a week again, but is happy that she has a better chance of survival since the transplant.

Her advice to other leukaemia victims is to “Do whatever you have to do to keep you alive”.

Her life span before the transplant was between two and three years.

Doctors will know in 12 months whether or not Chris will lead a healthy and happy life, but Chris is convinced she is cured and is looking forward to getting on with life.

(Photo Caption)
LEUKAEMIA victim, Ms Chris Griffiths . . . The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running.

By Katrina Peach

Leukemia and a bone marrow transplant haven’t stopped Christine Griffiths from doing the things she enjoys most.

The former science teacher, 40, will be among more than 1000 competitors in the Sussan women’s 10 km classic tomorrow.

“Running has always been my sanity bow, it gets rid of all the built-up tensions,” she said.

Two years ago Christine discovered she had leukemia and feared her jogging days were over.

“I started to notice my running was getting slower and slower, so I went to my doctor and had a blood test and found out I had this,” Christine said.

About 18 months ago her sister, Carmel, donated bone marrow for a transplant. But her medical troubles continued and Christine has had to spend five months of the past year in hospital as a result of infections.

In her build up to the 10 km event, Christine said she had been running about 6 km a day, and hoped she would be fit enough for tomorrow’s race.

“I’ve competed in the last five classics, but this one will be a real hurdle to finish,” she said.

She sports a T-shirt with the words “Don’t take your organs to heaven; Heaven knows we need them here”.

Last year she competed in the first Australian transplant olympics and won a gold medal for a doubles tennis match and a silver in her singles.

She hopes to go to the International Transplant Olympics in Singapore later this year and is looking for a sponsor.

The Sussan classic will start in the Bourke St Mall at 9 am. Late entries will be taken after 8 am.

The organisers expect a record 1500 people to compete. The race is open to any female over 12 years old and the oldest competitor this year is 76.

The winner will be flown to New York in June to compete in the largest US all-female race, the Mini L’eggs 10 km Classic.

(Photo Caption)
Christine . . . despite suffering from leukemia, training hard for a 10 km race.

From the Waverely Leader: June 29, 2004

click picture for a larger view

CHRISTINE Griffiths was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia 16 years ago.The news came as a complete shock, she said.

After extensive chemotherapy treatment and a bone marrow transplant, Ms Griffiths began a long road to recovery. The major recovery phase took about one year, but the fight for optimal health is never ending, she said. “There have been many hiccups on the way, but I am still alive,” she said.

Ms Griffiths lives and works as a nurse at the Bone Marrow Donor Institute Accommodation Centre in North Melbourne. The institute supports people receiving treatment for bone marrow transplants and associated cancers with accommodation and care. It is currently fundraising with the help of the institute’s Waverley branch. The branch has arranged proceeds from the Waverley Theatre’s next production, Same Time Next Year, to go to the institute.

Two six-day trips to Canberra in September and October organised by the branch will also help raise funds for the institute. The cost of the trip is from $625 a person, twin share. When Ms Griffiths was diagnosed with leukemia she was a residential college nurse and spent most of her recovery time living at a La Trobe University College.

“It was very difficult, as I was sharing with a person who was doing a masters degree,” she said.

“I was looking after myself and because of this I spent most of the first year after the transplant in hospital.”

Despite the difficult times, Ms Griffiths now enjoys sport and recently carried the Olympic torch when it came to Melbourne as part of its global tour before the Athens Olympics.

Since fighting the illness, Ms Griffiths has also become a track athlete and race walker for the World Transplant Games.

This year she plans to work as a volunteer nurse at the Athens Olympics for the equestrian event.

Three silver medals - for the 3,000 metres road walk, and 1,500 and 800 metres track running events. That was the impressive tally for La Trobe graduate Christine Griffith at the recent World Transplant Games in Manchester, UK.

Ms Griffith has been living with leukemia since her diagnosis in 1988. She underwent a succesful bone marrow transplant in 1989, but the years since have been fraught with much illness.

She was part of a fifty-strong Australian team at Manchester that competed against 800 people from more than thirty-five countries. An appeal by the La Trobe University Credit Union raised $5,000 to send her to the Games.

Well-known on the Bundoora campus for her spirited determination, Ms Griffith, a resident tutor and nurse at Glenn College, trains for sporting achievement whenever she can. At last year’s Australian Transplant Games she won five gold medals.

Illness during games

Ms Griffith has a Bachelor of Arts degree in social sciences and a Diploma and Bachelor degree in education from La Trobe, as well as a Master of Nursing degree from RMIT. Despite being ill during the games and suffering from a painful hamstring injury, she went on post-game bus tours of the UK and Europe.

Thanking those who donated to the appeal to send her to Manchester, she said: ‘These were possibly my last games and I may never again have the opportunity to travel and catch up with many of the people I met. I’m glad I did it and made the best of it at the time.
‘However, seeing the next World Transplant Games will be in Australia, I might get my old determination back and compete again.’

Having a transplant improves the quality of your life, she said. ‘But it doesn’t mean you live a life like most people. I often still spend long periods unwell and in hospital.’

Ms Griffiths is now ‘looking desperately’ for a regular part-time job. Her College post reduces her rent, but does not pay. ‘I have done so many things in my life that I never dreamed I would be doing since the transplant,’ she concluded, ‘but now I would just love to get a regular job.’

Mr Doug Andrews, Manager of the La Trobe University Credit Union - which arranged for the Bone Marrow Donor Institute to visit the University recently to encourage people to join the Bone Marrow Registry - said the Transplant Games highlight the need for organ donation, the quality of life of organ recipients, and show gratitude to the families of organ donors.

Details about bone marrow donations from the Bone Marrow Institute, (03)
9342 7286.

NOVEMBER 1995 BULLETIN 16 LA TROBE UNIVERSITY

By CRAIG DIXON

JUST over a year ago, Christine Griffiths was dying of leukemia.

Tomorrow, Christine, 40, a former nurse and keen athlete, will leave the spectre of death flat-footed at the starting line of the 20 km Malvern Mini Marathon - her first major run since a bone marrow transplant last year.

Since the successful operation, Christine has packed as much into her life as possible.

She is studying again at LaTrobe University to fulfill an ambition to teach nurses and in September will compete at the Transplant Olympics in singapore in sprint and distance runs and tennis.

Two years ago, after slow running times, she saw her doctor and a blood test revealed leukemia. Christine underwent chemotherapy treatment but kept running, without knowing just how close to death she was.

Then doctors matched her blood with one of her two sisters and a transplant took place.

Apart from some worrying months earlier this year, doctors are amazed that all trace of leukemia has left Christine.

“I was in a lot of pain and the exercise helped keep my mind off it,” she said.

“It’s been hard work to get back to where I am now but I really think running saved my life.”

The marathon starts at 8.30 am outside the Malvern Town Hall.

(Photo Caption)
Christine Griffiths . . . “I really think running saved my life”.

From The Melbourne Age - Thursday 6th May, 2004

Athletics has always been a focal point of Christine Griffiths’ life, to the point her doctors think it saved her life. After receiving a bone marrow transplant 16 years ago, she completed an amazing recovery by traveling to the World Transplant Games and winning gold.

“I was a runner before I had the transplant, and it’s really the athletics that has been one of the things that has kept me going through thick and thin.” said Ms Griffiths, 55. Having recovered from the transplant, she turned her attention to supporting people in the same position she had been in. As well as holding official roles with the Leukaemia Support Group and St John Ambulance, Ms Griffiths is the live-in manager fro the Bone Marrow Transplant House, which offers accommodation to people whose family members are receiving treatment. It was one of these guests who nominated her to carry the torch.

Ms Griffiths, who plans to volunteer at the Athens Olympics if she can find accommodation, has only one request when she runs her leg of the relay: “I just hope it’s a sunny day.”

From The Melbourne Yarra Leader - 28th June, 2006

AGAINST THE ODDS
Maria Bervanakis

THE sheer courage and determination of some people greatly inspires us all.

North Melbourne’s Christine Griffiths is one such person.

Griffiths, 57, swooped the gold in the 100m, 200m and 400m run and 3km race walk at this year’s Victoria Police and Emergency Services Games in Melbourne.

She also took gold in the open female singles of the table tennis event and silver in the open mixed doubles.

What makes Griffiths’achievement extraordinary is that she is battling a serious lung condition brought on by a bone marrow transplant she had 18 years ago.

Griffiths - a St John Ambulance volunteer - was diagnosed with leukaemia and beat the condition by undergoing the operation. Its effects have been debilitating but that has not stopped her from pursuing competitive sport. “Running was my passion. My best time was 40 minutes for a l0km event,” she said.

In September, Griffiths will compete in the Australian Transplant Games in Geelong in running, race walking, tennis and table tennis events. She represented Australia in the World Transplant Games in Canada, taking gold in the table tennis doubles and bronze in the singles.

Griffiths is this week’s Leader Sports Star.

(Photo Caption)
GREAT RETURN: Christine Griffiths wins medals in a range of sports.

From The Post-Times - Monday 2nd October, 1989

A BUNDOORA resident’s outstanding performance at the World Transplant Games helped Australia earn second place out of 34 teams.

Christine Griffiths, a bone marrow transplant recipient won gold medals for the 3000m track event and tennis doubles and a silver medal for the 200m sprint.

“It was wonderful. Apparently the look on my face said it all,” Ms Griffiths said.

Her time for the 200m sprint was 38 seconds.

“For me that was good because I had only been sprinting for two months. I’m a long distance runner.

“I was so nervous for the tennis match but my partner helped me through.

“Running was different because running is my area.”

Ms Griffiths said the Singapore games should have been called the friendship games.

“We all shook hands before we competed. And during the closing ceremony I had people run up and give me mementos.”

She said the game’s biggest problem was the language barrier.

“But I made an effort to speak to the people who could not speak English.”

The United Kingdom came first and the United States third.

The transplant games are held every two years.

Hungary will host the 1991 games.

(photo caption)
GOLD and silver medal winner in the World Transplant Games, Christine Griffiths, is proud of her achievements.

Picture: GEOFF FOLETTA

Tropical Passion

This heading should probably read “Athletic passion” because that’s certainly Christine Griffiths’ life purpose, but pursuing her major ambition has come at a (somewhat crippling) cost.

Our local sports ‘meteor’ recently went public with her plea for donated funding to compete in Bangkok’s forthcoming 16th World Transplant Games.

Restricted to international athletes who have undergone one of modern medicine’s miracles, 100 Australians compete in the biennial Transplant Games. These are run for dedicated athletes who refuse to let major bodily ailments interrupt their life passion.

Nurse Christine will take leave from her work at the Bone Marrow Donor Institute House in Blackwood Street, North Melbourne, to compete in Bangkok’s race walking and sprinting, long jump, table tennis and tennis IF she can gather just under $5000 for fares and accommodation in the Games city.

And her prowess is a sure bet: at the last Transplant Games held in Canada’s London, Ontario, Christine - at 56 - won gold in
the table tennis doubles and bronze in the singles.

“There were no medals in my other events, but that was to be expected,” she admits, frowning. “I had big ventilation problems back then, what with only 50 per cent lung capacity, so the 3-kilometre race walk, road run and mixed doubles tennis were no-go.”

Given her medical history, colleagues probably decry her planned heavy exercise in the tropics; nearly 20 years ago Christine had a bone marrow transplant to overcome chronic myeloid leukaemia and, while the CML was relieved, all cancers - and most treatments - compromise other body parts and there have been ensuing problems.

But there’s no holding this lady down. Her recent application to the City of Melbourne for its Active Melbourne grant of $2000 for sports people would be delivered over 12 months and used to highlight the benefits of her active lifestyle to patients and their associates in both her institute’s treatment house and the wider community.

“I’ve just got a job teaching the COTA (Council on the Ageing) program Living Longer, Living Stronger at Lifestyle Williamstown gym and there is plenty of full-time work elsewhere, but my medicos want me to work only eight hours per week. “This whole thing stresses me out so much, what with the training, and the funding and the money-raising,” she groans, “but I hope to go to the Beijing Olympics as a volunteer in ‘O8, so that’s the next goal.”

And you can bet Christine’s next project will be promoting the 18th World Transplant Games: they’ll be held on the Gold Coast 9-17 August 2009.
Full info on Christine’s Bangkok sponsorship case can be found on www.christinegriffiths.com.

Katrina Kincade-Sharkey

JUNE 2007 :: North and West Melbourne News

Ms Christine Griffiths, 39, a nurse and educator from LaTrobe University, spent five months in hospital last year recieving treatment for leukaemia.

But a bone marrow transplant has enabled her to continue her passion for sport.

Last month she was selected to represent Austrlia in the World Transplant Games in Singapore in September.

She is one of 19 people selected from Victoria who will compete against 37 countries.

Ms Griffiths was released from Vaucluse Hospital in Brunswick last August after 10 weeks of chemotherapy.

A long-distance runner, she will compete in the tennis singles and doubles and the 100 m, 200 m, 3000 m and relay track races.

Ms Griffiths needs public support to help raise several thousand dollars for air fares and accommodation.

Anyone who can help should call 479 2891.

(photo caption)
LEUKAEMIA patient Christine Griffiths: selected to represent Australia in the World Transplant Games.