Help to secure Peter's life-saving treatment

Another Chance for Peter!

 

This is the story of Peter, 53, diagnosed pancreatic cancer. Despite the low statistical survival expectation he does not want to accept that his life should already be over.

From Peter:

Today is Tuesday, February 1st, 2022 at 10:23 am. As I write this, two bags of cytostatics are slowly but steadily dripping into me. They should protect me from what has formed in my body not developing further. I have cancer. Not just any one, but a pretty mean one on the

pancreas. And it spread. My liver now has a handful of metastases that pose another threat to my life. If left untreated, they will slowly make me weaker, my digestion will stop working and I will eventually die. But not now, not yet - I don't want to!

Actually, life has treated me well: three healthy children, 24, 20 and 9 years old, a great wife and a fulfilling job at BMC Software, a great company with many very human bosses and colleagues. They all deserve that I'm there for them. But in February 2021 everything changes when I see my doctor with an insane headache. Unsuspectingly, during an ultrasound scan, which is supposed to check my kidneys, he tells

me that there are some masses in the pancreas and liver. This is followed by a chain of examinations: MRT, CT, colonoscopy, gastroscopy, biopsy until the certainty: pancreatic cancer with metastases in the liver! The typical life expectancy: a few months. Could that

have been it?

The chemotherapy that follows bothers me, it doesn't do much, it can hardly stop the cancer. My hands and feet go numb. hair falls out. I lose almost 20 kg in a few weeks, I don't want to eat anymore. Even walking is a strain. A permanent fear of how things might go further

downhill accompanies me, and I am constantly tormented by a leaden tiredness that makes my eyes close after a few minutes. The second chemo can do it better. Little by little the lesions are getting smaller. The appetite comes back. Exercise is fun again. But then, in late

summer, the disillusionment: The tumor marker increases again. It is a measure of how many cancer cells in my blood are threatening my body. I realize it can't go on like this. I have to stop the process or I will lose the fight. Special procedures are being developed at the Frankfurt University Hospital to combat cancer in the liver and other organs. A cocktail of drugs is injected into the arteries and the

bloodstream is closed so that the effect stays in place and the tumor is killed there. Because chemotherapy alone is not sufficiently effective, I decide to have a treatment known as TACE carried out three times. The first successes can be seen: The tumor marker sinks a little. The treating professor is in good spirits that things can continue. So I am now facing further treatments that are supposed to “cook” the metastases in the liver with microwaves on the spot. And finally even on my pancreas. Certainly, I will never be able to live as carefree as before. But maybe the wise man up there will give me another chance...?

How could it be otherwise: Unfortunately, these special treatments are not covered by statutory health insurance. Each of the three TACE sessions cost up to €3,000 each, and microwave ablation is likely to cost even more. My decision not to insure myself privately but

to remain true to the solidarity system is now taking revenge. The health insurance company would simply put me on another chemotherapy, knowing that I don't tolerate it well and that it probably won't stop the cancer. So I'm sitting on a mountain of costs. In the end it will probably be €25,000. But my children and my wife deserve that I don't just give up.