Helping out, when we feel helpless!

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After battling serious back pain the worse case scenario is on our door step - Pancreatic Cancer

Taranaki

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In April 2014 Shane injured his back, tearing a disc and causing him a great deal of pain, since then it has been no real alarm that he was in and out of hospital trying to manage his back pain and injury.

2 weeks ago things changed - he was admitted to hospital urgently - this time with a blocked bile duct causing some serious health concerns. A CT and various MRI scans later, he was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. Something we did not want to hear and as you could imagine a huge shock for such a young family.

Shane is a candidate for surgery to remove the head of the pancreas along with the tumor (a chance only 25% with pancreatic cancer get) a major surgery with a major recovery. He will be flown to Auckland today, 7th March 2016, and will be operated on, tomorrow 8th March 2016, by the best pancreatic surgeon in New Zealand so he is in good hands. Then he will likely need chemotherapy to kill any residual cancer cells still floating around.

Shane has a loving wife (Mel) and a gorgeous two year old son at home as well as two older sons living outside of the province. The last 12 months has been financially draining with Shane having to cease work due to his injury and with his latest diagnoses Mel is having to put work on hold to put her family first.

Kylie Hancock's involvement (page creator)

Right now I want to do everything I can (as well as many other friends) however its a case of what can we do when there is nothing we can do, the answer... Love, support and help with taking away any stress that doesn't need to be there... and this is where I need your help, any donation towards Shane's funding would be felt with heart warming love from me, Shane and his beautiful family. Giving them less to worry about financially is a gift we can give them.

I am Kylie, Melanie's and Shane's close friend, it breaks my heart to see them going trough this, if only I owned a magic wand, but if 'give a little' page can help me help them then I will do it!!

Latest update

Merry Christmas! 3 January 2017

On the 21st December we met with Shane's Oncologist for the results of his CT scan. Unfortunately she didn't give us good news for Christmas and we all left feeling pretty deflated.

Shane had been in remission since 19 October when treatment finished, but never really seemed to bounce back like the oncology team expected him to. He still has some major pain issues we are dealing with too, so they ordered an urgent CT scan.

The results are in and Shane has Stage IV Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer with spread to the lymph nodes in his chest and abdomen and spots on his lungs (still to be monitored to see if they are cancerous or due to his bout of pneumonia a while back). This is considered terminal.

Shane has 3 options:

- Sit tight and wait to see what happens

- Start chemo with gemcitabine/abraxane combo which is not funded by the NZ Government. $1000 per cycle (4 weeks) - capped at $9000

- Start a chemo called folfirinox which they are concerned will be too hard on Shane.

These options will only buy him time - maybe an extra couple of months.

Shane has decided against chemo and has just started taking Te Kiri Gold which is a clinical trial and the same treatment Colin Meads has had great success with. We are hopeful that this will be the miracle cure, or that it will at least buy more time to make beautiful memories with family and friends. Reports we have heard so far sound amazing!! A bit of hope to cling to...

To everyone who has helped us so far with all sorts of things - thank you so much!! Its near impossible to thank you all seperately, but you have helped so much and we appreciate it more than we can express!

We will be taking on some fundraising in the near future - first up, a garage sale which is a work in progress. We will continue to keep you all updated when we have more news.

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