Simon has stage 4 Bowel Cancer which has metastasized to his liver. His family need help funding his treatment.
Hawke's Bay
Simon, a fit, healthy 43 year old was in the prime of his life, living and working in Napier with his wife Bec and two beautiful children, Mia 8 and Will 4. Out of the blue, in September last year (2017) Simon experienced some abdominal pain, which was initially thought to be kidney stones. The stones never passed and it was with a huge shock that 4 weeks later, Simon was delivered the devastating news that he had Stage 4 inoperable bowel cancer, which had metastasized to his liver.
Simon started chemotherapy immediately travelling down to Palmerston North. After 7 months of intensive chemotherapy treatment, in April this year, Simon’s blood tests started showing signs of decline. His oncologist ordered a CT scan which revealed that the current treatment was no longer working.
Plan B was then devised and it was highly recommended by his two oncologists that the most effective chemotherapy drugs for his treatment moving forward would be Irinotecan and Avastin. Unfortunately, here in New Zealand Avastin is not a PHARMAC approved, so it is not government funded. The cost of the Avastin is $4,300 a cycle, which is given every 3 weeks.
Any amount will be greatly appreciated and we thank you for all your love and support.
We are local friends of the Hardy family, Nadine, Joanna and Anna who want to help this lovely family through their tough journey.
The purpose of this Give A Little page is to help raise funds for Simon’s Avastin treatments and help him beat cancer.
Treatment update after the start of a new cycle 17 July 2018
Hi everyone, I thought it was about time I posted an update on my progress over the last month.
It's certainly been a month of ups and downs.
The start of cycle 3 was fine and things were tracking well, until I came down with the chicken pox. It's certainly something you don’t want to get as an adult, especially while going through chemo. Just as well my oncologist gave me a strong dose of medication to help me through it.
On the upside the kids had their dose of it too, good to get that out of the way for them at a young age.
This hiccup delayed the start of my 4th cycle, I thought it may disrupt my trip to Sydney for my Mum's 80th. It didn’t, we got there in the end and had a great few days with family and friends.
So it was off to Palmerston yesterday for the start of my 5th cycle on the new regimen. Treatment went well and I'm now back at home resting up. Mind you there's not much rest with the kids being home on school holidays, should be fun though.
At this stage I will be having another CT scan towards the end of August, so will keep you all updated. In the meantime it's a case of remaining positive and doing everything in my power to beat this.
Cheers Simon
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