Help Elliot fight brain cancer
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The day after my son's first birthday, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour - Glioblastoma grade IV. Please help me raise money for vital treatment.
My story.
Four years ago, I married Jess, the love of my life. A year ago we were blessed with our wonderful son, Aein. Life was full of joy, and the future couldn’t have looked brighter.
A day after my son's first birthday, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour. My MRI showed a Grade IV primary glioblastoma—a highly aggressive and rare cancer, especially for someone my age. I’m only 42.
I underwent urgent brain surgery at the John Radcliffe, where a brilliant team managed to remove 95% of the tumour. I’m half way through six weeks of combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the current standard treatment.
Glioblastomas are notoriously resistant. They infiltrate healthy brain tissue, making it impossible to remove them entirely, and even after surgery and chemo-radiation, left unchecked the cancer always returns.
But there are many patients living with stable tumours leading normal lives.
Why I’m fundraising.
Glioblastoma is so rare that it receives little state funding and almost no private investment.
In fact, despite the amazing care I’m getting from my NHS team, the standard NHS treatment hasn’t changed for 20 years. Fortunately, international centres are now offering promising approaches and new clinical trials are starting all the time, leading to many long-term survivors living relatively normal lives.
I’m young, I’m fit, I have everything to live for and the support of a loving network of family and friends - statistically all of these will help me reach long term survival. I want to be Aein’s dad and Jess’s husband for as long as I possibly can. And who knows, thanks to breakthroughs in fields like AI and personalised medicine, there may yet be more options on the horizon that can contain these tumours indefinitely.
I just need time.
With your help I want to access treatments not available in the UK that could give me a real fighting chance.
Promising Options We’re Exploring
I’ve already had incredible support from friends and family. People have spent many hours researching potential treatments and contacting experts who might be able to help.
The research consistently points to individualised treatment giving me the best chance of longer survival, with detailed tumour analysis and collaboration with the best clinicians, wherever in the world that may be.
Some of the most promising include:
- Tumour Treating Fields (TTF): Clinically proven to extend survival, but means wearing a cap hooked up to batteries for 18 hours a day. TTF uses alternating electric fields to disrupt cancer cell division and is standard treatment in the US and Germany (but not in the NHS).
- Dendritic Cell Vaccine Therapy: New but promising personalised immunotherapy that trains the immune system to recognise and attack glioblastomas, Germany is the European leader and commonly offers the treatment as part of a personal plan.
- Molecular Profiling + Individualised Therapies: These enable tailored treatments based on my tumour’s unique DNA, again used in Germany to build an individualised treatment plan offering better-targeted, potentially more effective options.
- Immunogenic Cell Death Induction (ICD): A promising treatment that enhances the effectiveness of other therapies by priming the immune system.
- Oncothermia (Modulated electro-hyperthermia): An established complementary therapy used alongside conventional treatments to potentially enhance drug uptake and stimulate anti-tumour immune responses.
I'm still waiting for formal recommendations and quotes from UK and German specialists, but here’s what I know so far. I’ll update this page regularly with any developments and will be fully transparent about how funds are used.
Estimated Costs
- Dendritic cell vaccine – Full course: £20k+, or DCVax-1: £200k
- Tumour Treating Fields (TTF) – Approx. £15,000–£20,000 per month, typically for 6–12 months. Total: £100k+
- Immunogenic Cell Death Induction, approx. £5,000–£10,000 per cycle (possibly 4–5 cycles). Total: £25k–£50k
- Oncothermia with Vitamin C – Approx. £5,000 per cycle (4 cycles are usual)
- Accommodation and travel – Estimated at £20,000+
Total estimate £200,000 to £300,000.
With the support of friends and family, we’re funding what we can. But the truth is, we can’t do this without your help.
How You Can Help
If you’re able to contribute, no matter the amount, it means everything to us. Each and every donation – even if it’s the price of a pint or a coffee - brings us closer to life-extending treatment.
Even if you can’t afford to spare anything, you can help me just by sharing this page. You’ll be helping give me a real chance to watch my son grow up, to walk beside Jess through the life we built together, and to fight this disease with every tool possible. I’m so grateful for anything you can manage.
THANK YOU
Thank you for reading, for sharing, and for being part of this journey.
With love and gratitude,
Elliot
Organizer
Elliot Godfrey
Organizer
England