Update: 2nd May 2021

Last week I underwent a scan that revealed the number of tumours in my lungs had decreased again, this time by 60% since my last scan in February! Over half of the tumours that I had at my last scan have now completely disappeared and all remaining tumours are significantly smaller and continue to show signs of necrosis. A handful of these remaining tumours barely lit up on the PET scan at all meaning that the majority of these tumours are ‘dead’ or in the process of ‘dying off’.

The results that I have managed to achieve since arriving in Mexico in October feel like a miracle! Due to the results more treatment options have now become available. I’ve had numerous positive meetings with doctors to discuss additional treatments that I can now add to my protocol going forward to boost my chance of reaching my goal of having no evidence of disease.

I’ve now been in Mexico for just over 6 months with my girlfriend Sarah. And although the outcome since arriving here has been a very positive one there is still lots of work to be done. Unfortunately this continues to come at a huge cost financially. I would be so grateful if you could continue to share my page to help. I feel like I’m now really on the home stretch and I’ve been given an opportunity at life again. I really can’t thank everyone enough for their continued support. I look forward to the future and being able to return to life as I knew it pre cancer as much as I can and I’m still hopeful that one day I will be able to return to the pitch and kick a football again.

Spencer x

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Update: 7th March 2021

We finally have hope!


I want to apologise for not posting an update sooner. Before I share my journey I just want to thank you all again. To every single person that shared my story/donated towards my treatment fund, thank you. I’m so grateful to have been given the opportunity to explore treatment outside of the palliative care that was offered to me in the UK and I know that without the funding it is very likely that I wouldn’t be here writing this today.

After raising the funds my initial plan was to travel to Germany to have Cyberknife radiotherapy on my lungs, followed by immune boosting vaccines. After raising the funding necessary for this I was so excited to begin this treatment in August but unfortunately at the last minute I was told that my disease was too advanced. Thankfully I was able to still travel to Germany for a procedure named TACE which is the innovative process of injecting a high dose of chemo directly into a tumour. I underwent 5 sessions of this treatment but although it was a hugely successful treatment, only one area of each lung could be treated in one session meaning there’d be a mandatory rest session in-between. Unfortunately between treatment sessions the disease was progressing far too quickly and it was decided that I’d need to seek alternative options.

I also travelled to Latvia on 4 occasions to receive immune boosting CIK vaccines. This procedure was to boost my natural killer cells and although this has been an extremely valuable part of my treatment plan, on it’s own it wasn’t enough to control my disease.

I needed alternatives fast but we felt like we were back to square one. Luck was on my side and a close friend of mine had come across a success story of a fellow sarcoma patient who was receiving treatment at the Immunity Therapy Center in Tijuana, Mexico. After reaching out and consulting with the doctors at ITC and understanding their approach of mixing alternative therapies with traditional medicine, I realised fairly quickly this was a great opportunity for me. Within a week of the poor news in Germany I’d managed to have a new treatment plan and was on my way to Mexico. Myself and my girlfriend Sarah travelled on the 28th October to Tijuana and I started treatment the following day!

I’ve now been continuously receiving treatment in Mexico for just over 18 weeks, 6 days a week. I receive a huge variety of treatments here, specifically tailored for my type of cancer. The facility is amazing, every staff member is so compassionate and caring and I’ve formed a bond with my lovely nurse Liz! I’ve been given a diet plan and see a nutritionist daily, I also receive many immune boosting treatments alongside traditional treatment (chemo) and this has made the biggest difference to my health. The way they administer chemotherapy here is totally different to how it’s done at home and I haven’t had to endure the gruelling side effects I had to go through last year and the previous year when I had chemo in London. I haven’t lost my hair and my blood counts haven’t dropped throughout my entire stay here. I’m looking and feeling the best I have throughout my whole cancer journey and I know it’s because of the whole body healing approach the clinic has here. This being said, treatment hasn’t been a complete breeze and I still have to endure many minor side effects on a daily basis.

Now for the results:

The first scan I had here was just over three weeks into treatment. This was compared with a scan I’d had prior to arriving in Tijuana that was done in Germany and showed tumour shrinkage and slight signs of necrosis (dying cells). To have this result after such a short period of time was a complete shock! Of course it was agreed we would continue with therapy for the foreseeable future.

Just before Christmas I had another scan that showed again that my lung tumours were either remaining stable or had decreased in size. There was also significantly more necrosis present than the previous scan, a strong sign that the treatment is working!

More recently I had a scan in early Feb which demonstrated that the overall total number of tumours in my lungs had decreased by 40%!

All tumours also show large areas of central necrosis which is an extremely promising sign.

Following this scan it was decided that of course I continue with the treatment here but also undergo radiotherapy (whole lung irradiation) to give things an extra boost. I began a course of whole lung irradiation here in Mexico alongside the original treatment plan, which ran every day for 2 and a half weeks and finished on the 3rd of March. I’m now back to just my original treatment plan until I can have a scan in approx. 8 weeks time which I’m very hopeful will give even better results.

Unfortunately this has all come at a huge cost and now I’m having to seek additional funding to help see me through the final leg of my treatment. The cost of my core treatment is approximately $6,000 per week. My aim is to continue with therapy here for at least 8 more weeks until the scan as a minimum. The next step (when I have less/smaller lesions) will be to finally receive Cyberknife radiotherapy as originally planned, which I can undergo here in Mexico. Following this, I will continue a remote programme at home in partnership with the clinic here in Mexico as a maintenance therapy for the foreseeable future.

With the additional funding required to fund my ongoing treatment I have had to up the original fundraising target. I really appreciate that the pandemic has had a huge financial impact on many and asking for additional funding has been a difficult decision that I’ve been putting off until now. To say I’m extremely grateful is a complete understatement and I cannot express how thankful I am to everyone that has supported me in my journey to fight this disease!

I will never forget the day when I was sitting in the doctors office in London last summer with Sarah and we were told that nothing more could be done for me. To have been given hope since and to finally be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel is a feeling that I can’t quite put into words. With your help I’m really looking forward to the future. 



Spencer x

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10th July 2020:

In February 2019, I was given the most devastating news, after months of believing a football injury was a stress fracture I was told that my leg pain was actually a rare bone cancer called Ewing's Sarcoma. By time of diagnosis my tumour was 7cm in size and I immediately put my life on hold and started chemotherapy.

I was given 14 cycles of chemotherapy between February and September 2019 which was intense. I spent 8 months enduring the gruelling side effects and underwent 3 major surgeries in a bid to rid my disease. In September 2019 I finished chemo and was given the all clear. Allowing me to put full focus on the reconstruction of my leg.

Two weeks after my 25th birthday, after striving to getting my life back on track, my life came crashing down for a second time. In February 2020, a routine scan showed that my cancer had spread to my lungs and there were multiple tumours in both lungs. Despite the news, I was given confidence by my oncology team who got me started with chemotherapy again, this time the drugs would be targeting the lungs.

Unfortunately after 5 extremely demanding cycles including two different chemotherapy drugs, scans had confirmed that my disease is still progressing aggressively.

In June this year I was given the heartbreaking news that the traditional chemotherapy protocol wasn't stabilising my disease. In the UK there is no alternative treatments that can be offered to me other than chemotherapy and continuing with this offers a poor outlook and unfortunately disease free status would not be achieved. Chatting to experts within the UK including my oncologist, who's been with me from the start, they have recommended specialists within this field, who offer innovative treatments available abroad that are not yet available in the UK.

Specialists outside the UK have come together and formed an individualised treatment plan for me that would offer me a better outcome. The NHS have been absolutely amazing in many ways and will continue to support me and my decision to seek alternative therapies abroad. Even with the most recent appointment with my oncologist, she was moving treatments and scans here in the UK around to accommodate the European team.

The promising new treatment plan includes the innovative radiotherapy, Cyberknife and Immunotherapy in two German Clinics and Dendritic Cell Therapy in Spain. We have been advised by our new medical team that undertaking these new treatments in a particular order and in inconjuction with each other that they enhance the success rate and increase my chance of battling my disease.

We have also been advised to begin a regime of non-toxic supplements and medications which we've began already. This is already amounting to a cost of £1,500 per month.

The costs so far include approx £29k Cyberknife, £22k for Immunotherapy, £28k for Dendritic Cell Therapy in addition to the £1,500 per month supplement plan for the foreseeable future.

This has undoubtably been a very tough and challenging period of my life over the last two years. Having done everything that has been thrown at me by my doctors I was looking forward to getting my life back on track! I couldn't wait to get back to playing football. My spirit remains high and I am not willing to lie down and accept defeat.

I appreciate that not everyone is in a position to donate, particularly with challenging financial times but there may be other ways you can help me, for example sharing my story may attract the attention of any further help that can be offered. Thank you to everyone in advance.

Spencer

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