23 yr old Fighting Stage 4 Melanoma Cancer

You can visit his facebook page at facebook.com/rise4patt

Jeff is fighting his cancer with a combination of surgery, radiation and immunotherapy drugs.

Now that the government has made funding available for Keytruda and Opdivo, Jeff no longer needs to pay for these immunotherapy treatments. However there are other ongoing costs associated with his illness, such as complementary drugs, integrated medicine treatments and pharmacy expenses; supplements and transport costs. Your donation will go straight to Jeff and help him pay for these costs

The treatment Jeff needed was so expensive at the time as it wasn't funded by the government.

Unfortunately no, because Jeff has had tumours on his brain, he does not meet the criteria for the clinical studies.

Patt is short for Paterson, Jeff’s surname. A nickname given to him by his mates, it has turned into a call for action! Used across social media as #rise4patt

2009

Jeff’s first skin cancer was at age 16, with a mole and the surrounding tissue in his right forearm having to be excised.

March 2014

A mole on Jeff’s back was found to be an aggressive melanoma, and a wider excision surgery was performed in April. The melanoma had spread to the lymph nodes in Jeff’s neck. Jeff had surgery to remove these nodes 3 days after his 21st birthday.

May 2015

Just after his 22nd birthday and celebrating his graduation with a Bachelor of Architecture, Jeff underwent surgery again to have all lymph nodes removed from under his arm after discovering a lump in his armpit. 32 nodes were removed, and 2 were positive for melanoma.

September 2015

Starting study on his Masters of Architecture Jeff began getting headaches and aura seizures. This was due to a golf ball sized tumour in his brain, specifically the left temporal lobe. Jeff underwent brain surgery on the 2nd September and metastatic melanoma was confirmed. While recovering from this surgery, they found a melanoma tumour in the muscle just below his right buttock. Jeff had surgery to remove the tumour.

October 2015

Jeff started having more seizures 5 weeks after his brain surgery. A scan revealed he had ANOTHER brain tumour in his left temporal lobe – the same location. Fast growing and aggressive, the tumour had grown from nothing to bigger than a golf ball in six weeks. On 16th October Jeff underwent his second brain surgery. Before leaving hospital Jeff was scanned and found to have 4 more tumours, located in his lungs. 3 in the left lung and 1 in the right. These are inoperable, and Jeff needs immunotherapy drugs to get rid of these tumors.

November 2015

12 days after Jeff’s second brain surgery, Jeff began local radiation treatments to his brain. Ten sessions, finishing on the 10th November.

November 2015

Jeff starts a treatment of BRAF Inhibitors to shrink and stop the grow of his tumours. The treatment is successful, but the drugs are expected to only work for 3-6 months.

April 2016

After suffering symptoms of dizziness and muffled hearing in his right ear Jeff had a MRI scan and another brain tumour was discovered. His third in 8 months. This time it's behind his right ear, and lower down in the brain.

May 2016

Jeff has a course of stereo-tactic radiation on his brain tumour, with the hope of it shrinking and disappearing completely. He also has 8 definite tumours which are on his lungs, but there could possibly be 14. Jeff has yet to start treatment for these.

June 2016

Unfortunately, Jeff’s stereo-tactic radiation wasn’t completely successful on his brain tumour. Because of this, Jeff had his third brain surgery to remove the latest tumour. Because of its location, the surgeons were only able to remove 90% of the tumour, as removing the whole lot would have effected his speech and swallowing even more. His recovery from this operation is challenging, and on going.

July 2016

Jeff starts physiotherapy to help with the side effects of his last operation. He starts radiation on the remainder of his brain tumour, and will hopefully start on immunotherapy drugs after finishing the course of radiation. This treatment will help Jeff fight the tumours on his lungs and hopefully prevent more cancer from returning.

Thank you for your support! If you could share Jeff’s Givealittle page to as many people as possible that would be great. And any fundraising ideas / support is much appreciated, please email rise4patt@hotmail.com or visit facebook.com/rise4patt

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