Grief and advocacy are more closely linked than people realise. I am Julie Crawshay, and much of the work I do through The Neuro Farmacist grew directly out of grief — the anticipatory grief that comes with a glioblastoma diagnosis, and the determination to make it mean something.

Grief that arrives early

With GBM, grief does not wait. It arrives the moment you hear the diagnosis and lives alongside you through every scan and milestone. It is non-linear — ordinary mornings can suddenly be undone by a song on the radio. Naming that grief, rather than hiding from it, helped me carry it.

Channeling it into purpose

I could not change Nic's diagnosis. But I could decide what to do with the energy that grief produced. I chose to build something — The Neuro Farmacist — so that other families would have the resource I wished I'd had. Advocacy became my way of refusing to let the experience be only loss.

Why it matters

Turning grief into advocacy does not erase the pain, and it is not the right path for everyone. But for me, it transformed helplessness into purpose. You can read more about why I created The Neuro Farmacist and follow the mission on Instagram.

Grief, I have learned, is love with nowhere to go. Advocacy gave mine a direction.