Cassie and Jason battled each hurdle as a team. Source: Channel 7
JASON Carrasco and Cassie Nascimento’s friendship is a bond like no other, fighting cancer together on-and-off for three of their teenage years in the fight of their lives.
In tonight’s episode of Sunday Night, Carrasco pays tribute to his beautiful friend who sadly passed away in November last year.
Helping him to tell his story is Sally Obermeder who was cleared of her own battle with breast cancer two years ago.
The pair say they were each other’s strength through their illness. Source: Channel 7
Carrasco was diagnosed with testicular cancer at age 18, while Nascimento had been told she had a rare brain tumour at 16, but they battled each hurdle as a team.
A year after her death, an emotional Carrasco tells of the cruel twist of fate he received the same day he was given the all-clear.
“The day they told me that I was cleared of my cancer”, he told Obermeder, “that same day Cass went for her standard three-monthly check up and the next day she was diagnosed with another brain mass that had come back in two parts of her brain.
“Cassie and I have never really had a time when one of us hasn’t been fighting. It was really hard.”
The pair decided to film their friendship “in the hope people could form relationships like ours through their own battles,” he says.
In a beautiful moment of that footage, Nascimento tells Carrasco the impact of his friendship on her.
“Do you know what your friendship means to me?” she asks him, adding: “I felt like I didn’t have a reason to feel shocked that it was me, because it wasn’t just me.”
The pair, who became involved in the Sony Foundation’s YouCan project hope that no one will be alone while fighting their own cancer battle.
If you would like to donate to the Sony Foundation’s You Can Program for teens fighting cancer, click here.
Carrasco’s story airs on Sunday Night tonight at 6.30pm.
An emotional Sally Obermeder during the interview. Source: Channel 7
