Transcript: Cass and Jason's story
CHRIS BATH: She was the hottest girl in high school. He was two years older but too shy to ask her out. What eventually brought them together was a unique friendship that grew into an unforgettable love story for Cass and Jason had a common bond - they both had cancer. And in the toughest of times, the two of them were there for each other. Theirs is a friendship filled with tears, laughter, honesty and love. And who better to tell this special story than guest reporter Sally Obermeder, who had her own battle with cancer.
JASON CARRASCO: I want you to really sing it. Let's go. (SINGS ALONG WITH MUSIC) # What is this I'm feeling... # (MUMBLES) (HUMS ALONG TO MUSIC)
SALLY OBERMEDER: This is Cass. (BOTH HUM ALONG TO MUSIC) Her mate, Jason, is doing the filming. (BOTH SING) # And look up to the sky. # I first met them last year. We shared something in common - each of us had battled cancer. That meeting, at a fundraising event, saw the three of us become good friends.
JASON CARRASCO: I think we just kicked off like a house on fire, it was just... We were showing scars, we were sharing experiences.
SALLY OBERMEDER: I'd undergone a double mastectomy and chemotherapy which had cleared me of breast cancer but Jason and Cass were still in the thick of the fight... # She's up all night to the sun... # ..lifting each other's spirits every day.
JASON CARRASCO: I'm a better singer than you.
SALLY OBERMEDER: There's is a unique love story.
JASON CARRASCO: I never forget being introduced to her and stuttering because I was just so overwhelmed by her beauty. I think we all have a day where we can say, "That day changed my life" and that day is when everything changed for me.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Cass Nascimento grew up near Wollongong, south of Sydney. What was Cassie like growing up?
GLORIA NASCIMENTO She was always a really happy child. Really easy to look after. Had great friends, loved the outdoors. Yeah, she just loved life.
SALLY OBERMEDER: What about as a teenager?
JOE NASCIMENTO: Oh, usual sort of getting up to mischief.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Was she?! The youngest of three, mum Gloria and dad Joe adored their little girl.
JOE NASCIMENTO: She really enjoyed life and it, and it showed. She just had that beautiful smile on her face all the time.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Very popular, wasn't she?
GLORIA NASCIMENTO: She was, yeah. She was just, she was a good friend, you know, she just, yeah, everyone that knew her loved her. (LAUGHS)
SALLY OBERMEDER: What did she tell you when she first started to feel sick?
GLORIA NASCIMENTO: She just had a few headaches and then a few days later she had a lot of back pain and shoulder pain.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Cass was 16 when the symptoms first surfaced. Her headaches worsened. In hospital, an emergency MRI scan revealed a tumour deep in her brain. Initially surgeons said nothing could be done.
GLORIA NASCIMENTO: I just sank in my chair and I thought, "If they don't operate, my daughter will die." So it was, yeah, it was horrible until we spoke to Charlie Teo and he said, "I'm gonna operate and she's gonna be OK" and that just, you know, little words just made such a difference.
SALLY OBERMEDER: One of the world's leading brain surgeons, Dr Charlie Teo, operated on Cass for four hours. Afterwards she began chemotherapy and the long, tough road to recovery. She lost her hair...
MAN: Do you want a towel?
SALLY OBERMEDER: Nup. ..but not her attitude.
CASS NASCIMENTO: Even wearing wigs, it's not me, really. I like my head bald!
SALLY OBERMEDER: Cass was doing well. But in a nearby suburb, 18-year-old Jason Carrasco was doing it tough. His own struggle with cancer was just beginning.
JASON CARRASCO: So they said I had testicular cancer stage two, so it had spread from the testicle through my abdomen, so...
SALLY OBERMEDER: What did you think?
JASON CARRASCO: "How am I gonna get through this? "How am I gonna get through this?" I was 18 and having cancer, it is just the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard of in my life. I was so healthy. I'd just finished school, I was playing soccer three times a week, I was going to the gym, I was even on a diet because I was just so serious, because I was like, "I want to get all muscly and impress the women," whatever.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Jason and Cass had met a couple of times growing up. He was two years older but too shy to ask her out.
JASON CARRASCO: She was kind of like one of those girls you could never talk to face-to-face.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Too hot?
JASON CARRASCO: Too hot. Just one of those girls, you talk to her on social media so you know you can actually think about what you can say and not stuff up. It was always like, to all my friends, "Who's the hottest girl?" "Cass Nascimento, come on!"
GLORIA NASCIMENTO: Jason was having a hard time and Cassie was in remission. She heard he was having a hard time and, you know, unless you've been through it you really don't understand what it's like. So she rushed to his side even though I said to her, "Are you sure you want to go back in the hospital "when you've just come out of it?" She said, "No, Mum, he needs me, I have to go to him."
CASS NASCIMENTO: When I went to your house and you had a tantrum because I was out the front, you're like "No, I don't want to see her!" I was like, "Oh, 0K." You screamed like a girl.
JASON CARRASCO: I didn't want to see her because one, I was going bald. Two, I hadn't shaven for, like, a month, so my beard was all patchy. And then three, I lost, like, 20 kilos.
SALLY OBERMEDER: And then the hottest girl you've had a crush on for the last five years turns up.
JASON CARRASCO: I said, "This is not happening with me looking like this. "Not a chance!"
SALLY OBERMEDER: Tell me about the day you went into surgery. What kind of state were you in?
JASON CARRASCO: That night before I went...I went crazy. I'd never been so scared in my life. I'm in a lot of pain right now and I just wanted to say that... ..one day, remember this pain. You can do it, mate.
CASS NASCIMENTO: Jason, this is my green juice. I have to drink it twice a day. A bit of spinach.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Cassie spent months with Jason, cheering him up, getting him through it.
JASON CARRASCO: How do I look?
CASS NASCIMENTO: Hot.
SALLY OBERMEDER: And finally, after a year of chemo and radiotherapy, Jason was given the all clear. (LAUGHS)
JASON CARRASCO: The day they told me that I was cleared of my cancer, that same day Cass went for a, you know, her standard 3-monthly check-up and the next day she was diagnosed with another brain mass, had come back on two parts of her brain.
SALLY OBERMEDER: So you only had the briefest moment to be happy?
JASON CARRASCO: Yeah. Cassie and I have never had a time when one of us hasn't been fighting and it was really... ..it was really hard. I couldn't imagine a world without Cassie, I mean, she'd done so much for me.
CASS NASCIMENTO: I used to think no-one could touch me, like I was... Invincible. ..invincible, that's it. And then I guess being diagnosed and going through everything, I've kind of learnt that life is so short and you can be gone at any moment, so you're not really invincible.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Cass was now 19 and spending a lot more time in hospital, on a cancer ward, surrounded by patients more than three times her age.
CASS NASCIMENTO: It was just for adults and during the night there was an old man who kept coming into my room 'cause he was confused and lost and didn't know where he was and, like, the guy next to me farted all night! (LAUGHS) One of them would just walk around naked. It's like, when you're going through something, you don't really want to be around that. You've got enough to deal with as it is.
SALLY OBERMEDER: While children have their own cancer wards, teenagers and young adults, like Jason and Cass, don't. They're treated in hospitals that mainly cater for older people. Cass and Jason want that changed.
CASS NASCIMENTO: My name is Cass Nascimento. I am 19 years old and I've had brain cancer for the past three years.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Two years ago, they became ambassadors for the Sony Foundation's You Can campaign, which aims to build cancer wards for 16- to 24-year-olds all over Australia.
CASS NASCIMENTO: After being there for Jason throughout his cancer and him being there for mine, I have realised how important it is for young cancer sufferers to help each other. (APPLAUSE)
WOMAN: There's such a lack of women engineers...
SALLY OBERMEDER: The first You Can cancer centre opened a year ago at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth.
DR ANTOINETTE ANAZODO: In the midst of what you feel is the, you know, time of your life - just finishing school, just starting university, first boyfriend, first girlfriend, you're told you've got cancer.
WOMAN: I was just frustrated...
SALLY OBERMEDER: Dr Antoinette Anazodo has worked in similar youth cancer centres in the UK.
DR ANTOINETTE ANAZODO: They've got a designated area where young people can, you know, relax, meet other young people in between waiting to see their doctor, nurse, psychologist. It's an area where they can share stories or just relax or escape.
WOMAN: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
WOMAN: See, that is a bloody mouthful!
BRONWYN KILBY: All I wanted so bad was to meet someone my age to see how I should be progressing, where I should be at, just someone to bounce off, you know, for the emotional support, the physical support.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Bronwyn is a fashion conscious young nurse. Stevie, a student who loves horse riding. After finding each other here they're now helping each other.
STEVIE MARCON: I was adamant about delaying treatment or just... I'd lost a lot of weight, I was just completely struggling with it and I was just essentially giving up and then I met Bronwyn that day and everything changed and I was kind of like, "Well, if she can do it, I can do it too."
STEVIE MARCON: The older you are, your age works against you.
JASON CARRASCO: People can develop friendships like Cass and I have developed and something that, you know...
CASS NASCIMENTO: They can meet someone who will be like how we are to each other. They'll be able to find their Jason and Cassie.
JASON CARRASCO: 1 to 10, how much you love me?
CASS NASCIMENTO: Zero. (LAUGHS)
SALLY OBERMEDER: What was like for you guys to watch their friendship blossom?
GLORIA NASCIMENTO: Um, it was great. There was nothing he wouldn't do for her, you know.
CASS NASCIMENTO: I need to wax your eyebrow.
JASON CARRASCO: Who, me?
CASS NASCIMENTO: Yeah, you've got a monobrow.
JASON CARRASCO: Is it bad?
CASS NASCIMENTO: It's not bad. A little bit.
GLORIA NASCIMENTO: She'd tell him off when he needed to be told off. (LAUGHS) Sometimes I'd hear her on the phone and I'd say, "Who are you talking to?" "It was Jason, of course, Mum."
JOE NASCIMENTO :She wasn't scared of letting him know!
GLORIA NASCIMENTO: So she would let him know when he, you know... But yeah, she loved Jason.
SALLY OBERMEDER: After more chemotherapy Cass went to America for an experimental treatment but then, in October last year, she collapsed. A scan revealed the cancer had spread throughout her brain. She was allowed to go home but doctors warned her family she didn't have long.
JOE NASCIMENTO: She just deteriorated, pretty much, day to day. Really quickly. But yeah, she lasted five weeks from the time we brought her home, so that was definitely the hardest period... The hardest. ..of the whole ordeal.
JASON CARRASCO: Just lift it up.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Tell me that the video. You did a video, right...
JASON CARRASCO: Yeah. ..
SALLY OBERMEDER: of Cassie, right, last few days.
JASON CARRASCO: Towards the end Cass couldn't do much and, you know, I wanted to make her laugh, make her feel better, I guess.
VOICE: Look at its face! It looks scared, doesn't he?
JASON CARRASCO: I used to dress up for Cassie, I used to wear her wigs and she used to paint my nails because she couldn't do much and yes, so...
SALLY OBERMEDER: Anything to make her laugh?
JASON CARRASCO: Anything to make her laugh.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Did she ever talk about dying?
JASON CARRASCO: Never. She never talked about... And you know what? It didn't faze her at all. She used to say to me that every night she would hear her mum in her room crying and she never used to say anything, she never used to complain because she loved her mum so much that she didn't want her mum to be in any more pain.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Did you tell Gloria that?
JASON CARRASCO: Yeah.
SALLY OBERMEDER: What did she say?
JASON CARRASCO: She started crying. I mean, I honestly believe the reason Cass was the way she was and dealt with everything was because of the example her mother set for her and, and, Gloria should be proud of that. (EXHALES)
GLORIA NASCIMENTO: We could see that she wouldn't be long. Pretty much all her friends and all my family did tell her that it is OK for her to go, that we would be OK and I said that to her that night. We said, "Cassie, if you can't get better and you've gotta go, "we're gonna be OK." (CRIES)
SALLY OBERMEDER: You think she felt better knowing that you said that you were gonna be OK, that Joe was gonna be OK?
GLORIA NASCIMENTO: I think so. I think so. I always think she was waiting for us all to say that it is OK. Yeah.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Cass Nascimento lost her brave fight with cancer on November 11 last year. She was 19. A much loved daughter and sister and Jason's very best friend.
Were you in love with Cassie?
JASON CARRASCO: I loved everything about her. It wasn't until the final days where, you know, we kind told each other, you know, how we felt.
SALLY OBERMEDER: What did she say to you?
JASON CARRASCO: She loved me.
SALLY OBERMEDER: Was it so good to hear that?
JASON CARRASCO: Yeah. Just said, "If I didn't make it obvious enough already, "I loved you back."
CHRIS BATH: Sally Obermeder with that story. And a big thanks to the Sony Foundation and the wonderful work they are doing to continue Cass's dream. Next Sunday, they've organised a Walk 4 Cass in Wollongong in New South Wales to raise funds to help build more You Can Centres for young cancer patients. It's a great cause and you can contribute by following the links on our website where you'll also find a special performance by Samantha Jade. And a footnote - after Jason nominated her, Cass's mum, Gloria, was made Barnardos Mother of the Year in May. Back in a moment with Peter FitzSimons' brilliant new account of Gallipoli and your chance to win a copy of his new book.
