An online fundraiser has been launched to help a beloved local personality of country music.
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Alby Pool has been a perennial fixture on Australia's music scene for over 40 years, with his presence on the stages of the annual Tamworth Country Music Festival as assured as the event's hellish temperatures.
In recent years the proud father from Kurri Kurri might have become better known to music lovers as "Melody Pool's dad", having nurtured his daughter's career since his award-winning offspring first joined his live band as an eight-year-old.
"Throughout my life, I watched my Dad dedicate himself to music, whether it was touring or singing Nina, Pretty Ballerina to me when I was little," Melody Pool wrote in a recent dedication on Instagram. "He and Mum took in dozens of musicians to live with us when they had nowhere else to go, and he hosted a residency every week for 10 years that fostered young talent by teaching them how to work in a band."
But Alby was presented with the fight of his life when he received a lung cancer diagnosis around June 2020. The elder statesman of Australian country music responded to treatment but took a turn in February this year when he suddenly forgot his own name.
He was taken to hospital where the impairment proved a mystery until doctors confirmed it to be autoimmune encephalitis, brought on by his cancer medication. With his brain severely inflamed, Alby almost died. While the musician has responded to rehabilitation and is now able to stand, his neurological impairment persists and he has been deemed too unwell to visit therapists. "While he's improved so much, he didn't pass his rehab assessment and being over 65, it means he will need to be cared for in an aged care facility," Melody said.
"Which is just harrowing for us because the improvement he has made has been through physio and a speech pathologist - neither of which will be available to him in a home."
Therapists can visit Alby in aged care but their attendance will be at significant expense to the Pool family.
The average recovery time for autoimmune encephalitis is 14 months and the Pool family has been told that Alby has a far better chance of recovery with the assistance of therapists.
A GoFundMe page has been set-up with the goal of $20,000 to cover Alby's therapy expenses. "Anyone who is close to me knows that my Dad is my hero," Melody said. "The last few months have been full of fear, heartbreak and exhaustion for me and my Mum. We just want to get him as far as we can [in therapy], in the hopes that he can come home."
The fundraiser can be found on the GoFundMe page under "Bring Alby Home".
