Fighting Against Time- Help My Husband Beat Cancer

To everyone who is reading this..

Hi, I’m Hazel and on behalf of my loving husband Sylvio Thunnok and father to our 15 year old daughter Sara, i humbly ask you to help us buy his time to live with us a little longer and help him fight for his life. I’m struggling to put this into words but as

painful as it is, he is dying. I hope you will take the time to read his story. 

My husband has always been the picture of health. An active, fun and loving person. Anyone who knows him knew that he very much enjoyed working in the garden trimming the hedge, planting and tending to the plants, reading his favorite Spiegel magazine, traveling to our destination Italy in the summer and what he loved most by far is being home enjoying family movie night, winding down in his leisure time with us.

But in October last year, we have noticed he had slowly begun developing neurological symptoms. 

His eyesight had tremendously deteriorated and he was losing his motor power in the left side of his body to the point where he is unable to move his hand or walk normally. Never would i have imagined seeing my husband sitting on a wheelchair at present.

The day we went to the hospital was the day our whole lives changed. His CT scan and MRI showed there is a lesion close to his Central Nervous System and that he need to undergo Biopsy. After 5 weeks of waiting, we were shocked and heartbroken as we were told that he has an aggressive brain tumor cancer called Astrocytoma Glioblastoma Grade 4 that is inoperable. Our world was shattered in an instant. How could this have happened twice to us because I myself am still recovering from a benign brain tumor operation in 2020 and is scheduled for radiotherapy to eliminate the rest of my tumor which I have no option but to postpone it since I have got to care for my husband and everything else at the moment.

So in December 2022, he started Radiation and Chemotherapy and it went on until January this year; but it was an intensive treatment that left him so weak, and his liver almost damaged. When i see him suffer from the side effects from all the treatment, i think if only that cured everything, it would be one hundred percent worth it but it did not.

Earlier this month in March, Sylvio’s repeat scan showed us 3 new tumours growing aggressively and that the cancer cells have spread towards the other side of his brain. Our hearts sank. The doctors have told us there isn’t any treatment that could improve his clinical condition and that double dose chemotherapy would damage his liver and lower his quality of life even more.

At only 56 years old, my husband has been given a prognosis of 6-8 months time to live. He has been offered palliative care which essentially means, to stop everything and just keeping him comfortable. Our worst nightmare has come true and this could not be the end of it.

Many times, I question myself “why him” but I know I will not get the answer and I owe him and our daughter all that we have to try and fight this cancer and keep him with us for as long as we can.

Evening after evening i’ve continuously researched anything that may help him, and I came across a new treatment called Dendritic Cells Immune Therapy that could prolong or even save his life. This is why we need your help.

The treatment costs €35,000 and my husband needs it by April. Since it is experimental, it isn’t covered by our insurance. Sylvio was the sole breadwinner of our family. His income is used to cover our basic living expenses, medications, supplements, hospital trips to name a few and we are struggling to come up with the Dendritic treatment cost at this moment. And this is why I’m here - asking for your help to fund this treatment by donating to his GoFundMe. 

My husband deserves to have the last fighting chance he can get to be with all of us for longer. He is a fighter through and through and he HAS NOT given up.  Even with his strength gone, he still makes funny jokes whenever we are with him. He still holds my hands tightly and told me over and over to stay strong by his side and fight this cancer with him. He is our loving husband and father, he is still the Sylvio who is beloved and respected by many colleagues and to many of you who knows him, knew how special he is.

Thank you so much for taking time to read his story and we are forever thankful and grateful to each of you who donate any amount or share this link to your friends and families via social media because it would bring us one step closer to giving him his Dendritic Cells Immune Therapy so he get to live many more new days with us.

With much gratitude,

Hazel, Sara & Sylvio Thunnok