CAL D's JOURNEY

A beautiful northern Gold Coast family has been enduring through a rough patch of late and need our support! Callan Gunn, father to Jayden, Stella 10 and Harpa 7 and beloved husband of Andrea, local business owner and avid wakeboarder and Australian RC racing champion and enthusiast, has been battling Non-Hodgkins Peripheral T-Cell Lymphomas, since 2022.

To date, Cal has had chemotherapy, radiation therapy and stem cell therapy. To many of us, this may seem a world away, but for this amazing young family, this has, unfortunately, become their norm battling this disease.

On August 14, 2022, Cal was diagnosed with stage 3 Non-Hodgkins Peripheral T-Cell Lymphomas (to give context, this affects 5% of T Cell lymphoma patients, making it extremely rare and difficult to treat).

Following this diagnosis, Cal completed 3 months of chemotherapy, which was working and was essential to prep him life-saving stem-cell transplant, which he would receive later that year. Unfortunately, this meant that Cal’s local Molendinar-based business, Signwayz, was closed for 3 months, putting further stress on the family.

In December 2022, Cal underwent a stem-cell transplant using his own stem cells, which took a major toll on his body. The family was very hopeful that, following this, they would have their dad and husband back, healthy and happy. Cal was able to spend this time, including the Christmas period, with his family and friends, feeling positive that the worst was behind them post his stem-cell transplant and that he could start the new year with a healthy outlook.

Unfortunately, come the new year on February 24 2023, post-transplant, a small spot was found in a routine PET scan in Cal’s chest cavity. Four days later, Haematology reports confirmed that this was cancerous and Cal and the Gunn family were yet again dealt with another blow. Eight rounds of radiation therapy commenced, in June 2023.

In July 2023, a PET scan showed the results of the radiation therapy that Cal was desperate to have worked. The results showed that not only had it not shrunk, but that the cancer had increased and later that month, a second scan showed that the cancer was widespread throughout his body.

Following this devastating news, in August 2023, the family officially registered Cal on an international stem-cell donor register in the hopes that Cal would find a match to undertake a second, more invasive, stem-cell transplant. He was officially diagnosed yet again with the same lymphoma that had returned and had spread throughout his torso. The family was told by specialists that they were shocked by how quickly it had returned. The family needed a new plan of attack.

On September 9, 2023, it was confirmed that another stem-cell treatment was the way to go. Cal immediately started more chemotherapy treatment to shrink the tumor's, which ideally would allow for more effective Bone Marrow transplant to occur (he would require 10 rounds of chemotherapy).

On November 1, 2023, a PET scan showed that the chemo treatment that Cal was receiving, was in fact helping and that the cancer cells had shrunk in size, making Cal more eligible to receive a donor from the international stem cell transplant program that the family were desperately searching worldwide for a match.

On November 10 2023, a 10/10 donor match was found from Germany – this news was brought with both positivity and apprehension from the family, as the enormity of what was about to happen, sunk in. On November 27, Cal received the last of his 10 rounds of chemotherapy, and on December 18 Cal enters hospital for 4-5 weeks as an inpatient where he will have intense chemotherapy treatment, which will deplete his immune system to basically nothing (studies show that 1 in 5 people pass away during treatment, making it incredibly risky) to prepare him for his stem-cell infusion, which he will receive on December 21.

Cal faces many risks during this time – one main risk being graft-versus-host disease, which is one of the biggest risks after a transplant of this kind. Cal’s body with go through a rough period of transition, where the new cells could not only attack the cancerous cells, but Cal’s healthy cells and organs as well.

Cal, Andrea and his daughters need to stay in accommodation for 100 days that is within 50km of Royal Brisbane Hospital, to have around the clock monitoring after having this transplant. This means the family cannot stay in their home on the northern Gold Coast and their business will shut down for the foreseeable future.

Our plea to our generous Gold Coast community and friends, is that we can help this beautiful family in some small way with not only the financial burden they have to carry, but with the emotional toll that this horrific illness has inflicted on them.