Hi All, my name is Anthony Tyler, I live in Philadelphia, and I immigrated here from Ireland in 1994. I am married to my wife, Val, and have two beautiful daughters, Hazel, who is a nurse, and Lillybelle, who is in college. I myself have had many different careers and have since 2011 dedicated myself and my life to making a difference with other people through Therapeutic modalities, which include Somatic work, Life Coaching, and day-long one-on-one meditation practices. I find this work to be deeply fulfilling, and it makes a huge difference for people.
About five years ago, I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer: Appendix Cancer. It’s the sort of diagnosis that comes out of nowhere with no explanation, and once it spreads, there aren’t many clear paths forward. Since then, I’ve had three surgeries and multiple rounds of chemotherapy, including one major operation (abdominal debulking surgery) where the surgeons opened my abdomen from between my ribs down to the pubic bone, went inside, and for eight hours searched for any tumors and removed all visible cancer, followed by several more rounds of chemotherapy. While I’ve been incredibly lucky to receive excellent care at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Penn Medicine, and Memorial Sloan Kettering, the cancer returned within six months of that surgery. Chemotherapy has helped keep things relatively stable, and I tolerate it reasonably well, but several tumors came back, and my current regimen isn’t a long-term solution. At this point, another surgery isn’t an option, and we’re looking carefully at what comes next.
This journey has been humbling. For the last five years, my world has gotten smaller in some ways and clearer in others. I’ve had to slow down, step back from the work I care deeply about, and accept help in ways that never came naturally to me. Which is why even writing this message is difficult for me. I have to tell myself I’m doing it for my family, otherwise I might be taking a different path.
In asking for help, my gratitude for my family has grown exponentially—especially for my daughters, who keep me grounded and moving forward on the days when things feel heavy. I’ve been carried by the steady support of my wife, siblings, extended family, and longtime friends, and by a community that has shown up again and again with kindness and quiet generosity. I’m deeply thankful for every meal, every message, every check-in, and every act of care along the way.
It turns out that being vulnerable has its benefits, and the work I do in my community has opened a new path: through the generosity of a friend, it has come to my attention that there are new personalized approaches to treating cancer which have not made their way into the standard of care. I have learned that it often takes a decade from when new approaches to treating cancer are clinically validated until they are adopted broadly by doctors and reimbursed. I have the opportunity to gain access to these new approaches from experts through my friend
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I have a very insidious type of genetic mutation (the "driver mutation"), and there have been no drugs available for it - until now. Just recently, a drug has been developed, and while it is still in early clinical development, there is a chance that I can access it. But this requires resources that my insurance company does not cover. But this is just the first step.
After a tumor is activated by the driver mutation, individual cells in the tumor acquire additional mutations that allow the cancer to evolve around targeted therapies. The second step is to sequence the genetic material in my tumors to understand the complete profile so that a combination of targeted therapies can be put together to comprehensively address all of the cancer cells in the hopes of eradicating the tumors.
The path to get there will require very specific testing and medicines that go beyond what my insurance will cover.
I am asking for help. I do not have the resources to fund the comprehensive genetic testing of the tumor, the integration of this data, and the selection of combination therapies. While this will become the routine way that cancer is treated in the years to come, and be covered by insurance, it is not covered today. I want to beat this.