When Kerri Westwood's teenage daughter Lauren became unwell during an overseas school trip, the family assumed it was a virus she picked up while travelling.
Kerri says the 15-year-old saw a doctor and felt "better" so continued on her trip.
"She'd had a bit of tingling in her fingers, she was just sleeping all the time," says Kerri, from Mount Duneed in Victoria.
Kerri says the family was "blindsided" by a glioblastoma brain cancer diagnosis.
"Doctors told us, 'Don't Google it,'" says the 52-year-old.
"They gave her three to five years to live."
Lauren died in July 2020, 21 months after her diagnosis.
Kathy Packenas, from child bereavement support organisation Ladybird Care Foundation, says research shows that "bereaved parents are at increased risk of depression, anxiety, trauma-related distress and complex grief".
Ms Packenas says every parent's relationship with their child is unique and so is their grief.
Kerri says over the past six years she has learnt that a lot of different feelings can co-exist.
Kerri says she sought help from a counsellor but found that sharing her experience with other parents who had also lost a child has been healing.
For the past 18 months she has been a peer mentor for 57-year-old Tonya Shoobridge, from Brisbane/Meanjin, whose daughter Madeline died in 2024.
The pair were connected through the Ladybird Care Foundation.
Despite Madi having cerebral palsy, Tonya says her death was unexpected and sudden.
Professor Breen says connection to the child and others during the grief process is important.