This Go Fund Me page has been set up to support my husband and Bex's brother James Lawson, to raise funds for cancer treatment to prolong his life. James, who is 32 was diagnosed with stage 4 incurable bowel cancer in 2021 and has been receiving NHS treatment over the past two years. The treatment James now needs is not available on the NHS in England due to a treatment break rule (Bowel Cancer UK are currently fighting to have this rule scrapped - https://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/news-and-blogs/research-blog/the-treatment-break-rule-in-england-and-what-it-means-for-advanced-bowel-cancer-patients). As this treatment is not yet affordable for us, and could cost in excess of £30,000, we need your help. This money could fund 12 cycles of Panitumumab which could significantly prolong James’ life. James has been told he is unlikely to respond to standard NHS 3rd line treatment - Lonsurf. These treatments are explained below.

Anyone who's met James knows he is a hardworking, patient, easy going person, who still manages to look at the positives, even after all this treatment...

James’ Story:

Diagnosis

On the 14th January 2021, James and I were called into the hospital to discuss the results of several medical tests that James had undergone – they broke the news that he had stage 4 bowel cancer which had spread to the liver and lymph nodes in the chest and abdomen.

First symptoms emerged (unbeknown to him at the time) as James was just leaving a busy job to start at a new company, only for the global pandemic to hit and redundancy follow shortly after – he was fortunate to find more employment soon after being made redundant. At this point he wasn't feeling 100% which he put down to the stressful year, though he started to think he had a food intolerance or Irritable Bowel Syndrome, due to the stomach aches. Following a visit to the GP, a referral for a colonoscopy was made, along with further blood tests. Finally a CT scan was required to reveal the true extent of his cancer and James was diagnosed with Stage 4 bowel cancer.

Living with terminal cancer

Southampton Hospital have been amazing, despite the pandemic. They managed to identify the cancer quickly and swiftly got James booked in for treatment. James had CAPOX (a combined chemotherapy of Oxaliplatin and 5FU) and a targeted therapy called Panitumumab (a relatively recently developed treatment which acts as an antibody to combat the cancer in the same manner as the body uses to fight infections) which he had a very good response to. All his tumors shrunk – a total reduction in tumors of around 90%. James then went onto maintenance chemotherapy and continued the Panitumumab at a 50% dose. Some of the side effects alleviated and his energy levels started to increase. Watching the film '100 Meters', it gave James motivation to get active again (and the urge to do an Iron Man). He began the Couch to 5k running challenge; every week this pushed him – his legs felt like they were weighed down by kettlebells and his feet were still recovering from annoying side effects. After 7 weeks he started to feel he was able to run again. Without a doubt getting back outside for exercise has definitely helped him both physically and mentally. It's all too easy to shrug it off in favour of sitting in-font of the TV.

With the Couch to 5K complete, he sought a new goal for 2022 and what better way than to do it whilst raising money for charity! He successfully completed the Sheffield half-marathon in March 2022 followed by a triathlon, a 100k cycle around the Isle of Wight, and more recently, the London Marathon in October 2022. We even managed to plan and enjoy a lovely day getting married in amongst these fitness challenges. James’ first line treatment kept everything stable until February 2022 when one tumor grew but everything else was stable. James went onto second line FOLFIRI (a different chemotherapy combination) and Avastin (a different antibody treatment) which kept everything stable until November 2022. Unfortunately, his tumor markers have risen and all tumors have grown and he was told the only option left was Lonsurf (a drug which tries to restrict cancer growth) which has a poor response rate of only 3%. James had been told he is unlikely to respond to this treatment.

Why we need your help

We sought a second opinion from a respected oncologist in London and learnt that James was very likely to respond again to a rechallenge of his first line therapy – CAPOX and Panitumumab. Given that James previously had a very good response to this treatment, he is very likely to respond again. Our second opinion oncologist is now even debating whether he actually progressed on first line therapy. Recent trials have shown that there is a 70% chance of disease control and a 30% chance of partial response with rechallenging this treatment at 3rd line. Unfortunately, the NHS will not fund James’ first line treatment Panitumumab if there has been a break from this treatment for more than six weeks, therefore we will need to fund this privately. We have been quoted £3,000 per infusion for the drugs, this will be every two weeks. We will see if treatment is cheaper elsewhere, but for the 12 cycles, it is likely to cost in excess of £30,000. We will also seek other treatments that can be funded privately to prolong James’ life.

*** Cost Update ***

Now I’m at Sheffield Hospital, we have introduced the Panitumumab (the drug we’re paying for) into the treatment plan. The London Dr recommended this approach, as he believed Sheffield would be cheaper, and boy he was right! We had the first invoice come through this week; To have the treatment at London would of cost £3k per time, at Sheffield they charge for two treatments at a time, costing £1,928.80… That’s £964.40 per treatment, though that’s still a lot of money for every two weeks, it’s a big difference to London.

We were worried we weren’t going to have enough to pay for the full 12 cycles – but thanks to all your donations this is possible.

We’ve debated how to proceed with the JustGive page, as with Sheffield’s prices the Core treatment funds have been raised.

With the JustGive donations and the new price, if we carry on with the original goal, it will enable me to move onto maintenance period which would include Panitumumab, which we didn’t think was possible. This will drastically help in extended the time duration on this treatment.