Rob's fight against Stage IV colorectal cancer

06/07/2019. This is the date that our family got thrown a curve ball in life. This

is the date that the head of our house hold, my husband and the father of 2

daughters and our 3 sons was diagnosed with bowel cancer- The second highest

cause of cancer death in New Zealand. And then we were told he had Stage 4

terminal disease. It had started in his bowel and moved to his liver….. All

without any signs or symptoms…. Rob is only 54 and our 3 sons are 9, 16 and

22.

Our family has been rocked to the core and the last almost 3 months has been a

rollercoaster of emergency surgery, tests, biopsies, injections, appointments,

blood tests, scans, medical interventions, chemotherapy, ED visits and the list

goes on!

Rob’s oncologist has ordered an intensive fortnightly Chemotherapy regime

which commenced on the 23/07/2019. Even though treatment and it’s side

effects are not fun (to say the least!), Rob is taking it all in his stride and making

us so very proud! His second scan recently has shown promising results and we

are all so happy! His oncologist has asked we consider adding another drug to

work along side his chemo. Cetuximab is a medicine that interferes with the

growth and spread of the cancer cells in Rob’s body and we would dearly love

him to receive this…. Unfortunately, this drug is only funded for head and neck

cancer in New Zealand and not colorectal cancer. The initial cost of this is

approximately $37 000. After this, if further treatment is deemed to be

beneficial, appointments will be approximately $2000. Unfortunately, this is not

something that we can afford and is therefore, the reason for our Givealittle

page with an open goal. Our hope, if Rob is able to access this drug, is not only

that it gives us more quality time together as a family, but also contributes to

our over all goal of remission and a cancer free life. In addition to drug therapy

to fight this, we are also looking into and using supplements, nutrition and

lifestyle changes to further improve Rob’s chances of fighting this.