My beautiful wife Elle has recently been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. She underwent major surgery in September to remove her colon and part of her liver. The surgery went well and after a stay in hospital she has been recovering at home.

Unfortunately, we found out last week that the cancer has a gene mutation called BRAF. This means that chemotherapy will not be a treatment option, the cancer won’t respond to it. Elle also has a DNA mismatch called micro-satellite instability which also affects her prognosis, the life expectancy for a stage 4 colon cancer patient with these two conditions is very short.

We are therefore resting all our hopes on a new immunotherapy drug recommended by Elle’s oncologist. The drug is called Pembrolizumab. It is in the latter stages of clinical trials in London and was approved by the FDA in June this year.

The trial has shown some positive results for patients with similar prognosis to Elle. The key findings suggest that Pembrolizumab can increase the survival rate significantly for 50% of the patients involved in the trial. We desperately hope that Elle will respond to the drug and that it will keep the cancer at bay for a number of years. At this stage there is no cure for Elle but we hold onto hope that this drug can give her more precious years with our 3 young boys.

Thomas and JJ are aware that their mummy has cancer but they don’t know the details or the severity of the situation and we obviously want to continue to handle this sensitively and protect them from this as much as we can. Please do be mindful of who you share this information with, we don’t want the boys to hear something and be frightened.

We are fortunate that Pembrolizumab is available in HK and Elle will start her first cycle of immunotherapy this week. She will need to have 35 treatments, once every three weeks for the next 2 years. The treatment will cost approximately $2million HKD (£200k) for 2 years worth of treatment. Initially we felt uncomfortable setting up any kind of crowdfunding or fundraising events but this latest prognosis and the fact that this immunotherapy treatment is our only hope has forced our hand in this respect.

We initially plan to raise funds to pay for Elle’s treatment, but we hope that this can become a lifelong project for me and the boys. We hope to raise money for cancer research in general as well as funding treatment for other cancer patients in a similar position to Elle.

I am planning to organise a number of fundraising events within the DB community over the next 2 years, we also have friends and family in the UK and in America who would like to do the same. If you would like to support in any way we would be eternally grateful. I already have some great ideas in terms of sporting events that I would like to set up. I will be asking for volunteers and hope to get many people involved, watch this space!

If you would like to make a donation, every little really does help! Thank You so much! But most importantly please get involved in the events we are planning, it's going to be a lot of fun! If you could share this amongst family, friends, colleagues and business associates anywhere in the world we would appreciate it so very much.

Thank you for your kindness, prayers, support and love. We feel so lucky to be in a community as special as DB at this difficult time in our lives and we feel so fortunate to have such amazing friends and family across the world.

In Faith, Hope and Love

Rob & Elle