Hard Decisions

This week I made one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make. One of those potential life or death choices. Chemotherapy is what is currently keeping me alive, but its a double edged sword. The longer you are on it, the more damage it does to your immune system and other organs. Its also only a short term solution too, as eventually cancer cells mutate, making chemotherapy ineffective. This can happen in as little as 6 months and I already pretty much failed my first line FOLFOX6 treatment, after just 5 cycles.

The aim of my chemotherapy is palliative only, with a slim hope that if it works well enough to reduce my mets, I may be eligible for surgery. Surgery is currently considered the only curative path for mcrc. The chances of this in my case, I have been told is very slim indeed. I am also well aware that with the extensive tumour load that I have, chemo is currently keeping me alive and I have already experienced how quickly ones health can deteriorate within just a few weeks.

So, back to my decision. My decision is to stop chemo after the 6th cycle of FOLFIRI, at the end of March. I decided to pack up and move to Germany for 6 months to seek cutting edge immunological treatments that are simply not currently available in Australia.

I already booked and paid for my flight. Its not cheap however, with the cost of around 50k euro per month for daily, intensive treatments. Luckily my family is very supportive and selling the house should cover the bills.

My plan is to try New antibodies like Removab, Debdritic Cell therapy, oncoviruses and other immunological treatments. This was always my plan from the day I was told that there was no cure for me, however Peter Trayhurn’s (Just google him if interested) recent success with similar procedures has provided the inspiration to follow this course of action sooner rather than later.

Is it the right decision? I don’t really know. What I do know however, in my case I have to follow the path less travelled as there is no light at the end of the tunnel otherwise. Time will tell.