Ewen Gilmour reckons his wife Cathy would have made a wonderful mayoress. “She’s really good at accepting flowers,” he smiles, while Cathy quips, “Yes. Recently, I’ve had a lot of practice at it.” Sadly, though, Cathy (36) won’t be cutting ribbons at school fêtes anytime soon. Famed comic Ewen (46) stood down from Auckland’s Super City mayoral campaign last week, citing “serious illness” in the family. He’s disappointed to have made it so far and not be running, but his adored wife is gravely unwell with a recurrence of a brain tumour and her welfare, he says, must always come first.

“Cathy’s been waking in the night and vomiting,” Ewen begins, “and I really need to be there for her. It could be a reaction to the treatment she’s having, and we hope that’s all it is, but she’s my priority.” The treatment Ewen is referring to is a radical new oral chemotherapy medication called Temedol. Cathy – who had a tennis ball-sized malignant brain tumour removed in 2006 – had been feeling “awesome” when she went for a three-monthly MRI scan late last year. “I was feeling great, really healthy,” explains Cathy. “That’s why it was such a shock to get the diagnosis.”

Hospital staff discovered a second tumour growing on Cathy’s right frontal lobe. Astounded at its aggressive nature – from a clear scan 12 weeks earlier, the lump had emerged and grown to 2cm in diameter – Cathy was hurriedly prepared for surgery. “There was no alternative,” says Ewen. “It was very quick, very rushed.”

The pair had just a couple of days at home in Port Waikato to pack up and speak to family and friends before Cathy was back in hospital. “The night before my operation, Ewen and I went out into the sand dunes and we let off fireworks,” she says. “In some cultures they do that to scare away the bad spirits.”

“In westie culture?” asks Ewen and the pair crack up laughing. Despite their shared sense of humour, it’s evident this experience has, yet again, shaken this usually happy-go-lucky couple to the core. When asked if dealing with a tumour a second time is at all easier with her prior knowledge, Cathy says, “It’s scary in a different way. It certainly wasn’t nice news.”

“I thought it was more scary,” admits Ewen. “I cried for a couple of days. I was pretty upset, eh babe? You seemed to cope a lot better than I did.” In fact, for Ewen, being back at the same hospital where Cathy had had her first operation four years earlier brought back difficult memories. “While Cathy was sleeping, I’d speak to families going through it for the first time, and see the fear in their eyes,” he says quietly. “You remember how it felt, and how naïve you were. At the same time, you know the drill. You know where the tea is in the ward. You know the staff, the schedules. It’s the same magazines in the waiting room.”

Recovering from her surgery, Cathy and Ewen learned that as much of the tumour – called a gliobastoma – as possible had been removed. But it was a particularly nasty growth, says Cathy. Gliobastomas are the most hostile type of brain tumour in humans and without treatment they can claim a life within three months. Luckily for Cathy, her tumour was caught in the nick of time and with a combination of radiotherapy and Temedol, she’s hopeful the remaining fragments are shrinking.

“My specialist treats tumours really aggressively,” Cathy explains. “As soon as he learned what type this one was, he was like, ‘This is what we’re dealing with – you need radiotherapy.’ And he had me at my next appointment 10 minutes later!”

Then there’s the oral chemotherapy – five pills a month for six months – that wasn’t available publicly when Cathy was first diagnosed. Ewen still marvels at the leaps and bounds that have been made in a relatively short space of time.

But even with this radical treatment, all the Gilmours can do is hope. When New Zealand Woman’s Weekly first spoke to them in 2006, Ewen said they were aiming for 20 years. “It’s a different picture now,” he tells. “But we’re still looking for good years, quality years.” “We’ve renovated our house,” adds Cathy, “so at least we have a lovely place to be at home in.“ They’re acutely aware of how difficult the next period of their lives could be. Ewen tells the story of a dear friend, Tracey, whom the couple met after the Weekly’s first story ran.

“Her husband Grant came up to me after a gig and said ‘My wife’s got the same tumour.’ And we became mates. Tracey passed away in October. When Cathy got sick again in December, I wanted to ring Grant but I couldn’t. It was too soon, too hard.”

Ewen says he’ll continue working to keep the mortgage paid, but political aspirations will have to wait. His focus is helping Cathy survive her remaining three courses of chemo. She’s also scheduled for another major surgery within the coming weeks. “It’s really difficult to watch your wife go through this,” he says, his eyes suddenly wet with tears. “But I’m not alone – this illness happens to heaps of other people. The way it changes your life...”

Cathy, however, is typically upbeat. “Some patients have carried on leading quite normal lives, having several surgeries along the way.” “Everybody is different,” concludes Ewen philosophically. “And our trip down this road will be its own unique journey.”