Our fantastic kind thoughtful loving clever brother Rick was diagnosed with a stage IV aggressive brain tumour called a Glioblastoma in November 2022 following a couple weeks of increasingly agonising headaches which left him barely able to function. This type of cancer is very aggressive and comes with a devastating prognosis of 12 to 18 months. To say it was a shock to us all to hear this about our previously fit and healthy 37-year-old Rick is a huge understatement.

Within a week of his diagnosis Rick underwent 8 hours of surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible from his brain. He and his wonderful wife Maja took on the task of recovery from major brain surgery with grace and determination and non-stop gratitude for the excellent NHS team and the care they all gave him at Southmead Hospital in Bristol.

Since then, Rick has continued to face the challenges of 6 weeks of daily visits to hospital for radiotherapy which caused him to feel increasingly exhausted, slowed down and wiped out. A few weeks later he then began a 6-month course of chemotherapy which left him exhausted and unable to do anything some days apart from rest.

The latest scans have not been as good as we all hoped and have shown that the tumour has grown and is not responding to the standard treatment. Following consultation with a top Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Rick has had further treatments recommended for him which unfortunately aren’t currently available on the NHS.

The main treatment on offer which could be a game changer in treating his cancer is called Immuno-Oncological therapy. Very simply, this therapy combines an oncolytic virus and the patient’s tumour material with dendritic cells to produce a personalised ‘vaccine’. This vaccine, when applied, helps the immune system to target and kill the cancer cells effectively. Intense research over the last few years has shown that this form of therapy can be highly effective in treating otherwise untreatable cancers. This is an advanced and cutting-edge treatment but is also highly complex and individualised, and as such comes with a high price tag.

This is why we are all appealing for your help, no matter how big or small, to raise the funds needed to give Rick this essential treatment and the best possible chance of fighting this horrible disease.

If you have any ideas for fundraising that you would like to take part in, please let us know (contact details below), cake sales etc or any events that you are taking part in and would like to be sponsored for, that would be wonderful; thank you so much.

Thank you for reading and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for any support in fundraising that you can give for Rick, it means so much to us all; we love our brother so much and can’t even begin to think of life without him.

Sal and Henry (Rick’s sister and brother) and the rest of the family.

Richard and his wonderful wife Maja ♥️.