Help Buddha beat cancer

This is a little story about a young dad, husband, brother, son, grandson and mate, Adrian. Or as most people refer to him… Buddha On the 9th of February 2017, Adrian’s youngest son Roman was born. On this same day the new father, (35 years of age); was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer after having a routine colonoscopy. Talk about a whirlwind of emotions in one day! Stage 4 is the final stage before being deemed terminal. What’s strange is that all his blood tests, and stool samples were negative for bowel cancer which as you can imagine came as a complete shock when the news was broken to him.   Buddha being the type of man he is, with admiralty, held off from telling his wife Loredana of the devastating news. Loredana had just given birth to a baby boy, and Buddha wanted to allow her time to recover, and ensure that stresses were minimised while bonding with newborn baby Roman. Buddha then proceeded to tell Loredana the life changing news on Valentine’s Day of 2017.  Within the next week and a half, Buddha underwent major surgery to remove close to one third of his bowel, and a few short weeks later, commenced aggressive chemotherapy and was blasted with 3 different agents to ensure success. This was considered a ‘just in case initiative’, as at that point, no other cancer was noted to be in his body. 6 weeks toward the end of his treatment he started to notice pain to his right flank. Doctors reassured him it was just kidney pain, a typical side effect of chemotherapy. Nothing more was worried about. He concluded his chemotherapy regime on October 29, being hailed a success. Life was starting to get back to normal for him, his 2 young sons Crusoe and Roman and his wife Loredana. What was even more amazing was that Buddha continued to work full time after surgery and during his chemotherapy, supporting his family and trying to live the life they had created for themselves. On December 15, Buddha who had recently completed cancer treatment, and was now getting his life back to normal received a new low blow. After a bout of uncontrolled pain, he presented to the local emergency department. His Oncologists were concerned of what appeared to be several new tumours that have suddenly appeared in his liver, the largest 9cm in size. Buddha was immediately scheduled for tests in days following to ascertain malignancy and extent of such. What had baffled doctors at this point was that if this is cancer, how had it developed in and around what had been an aggressive chemotherapy regime which was carried out to prevent any further malignancy growth (post successful surgery). December 18, Adrian and his wife received devastating and gut-wrenching news. Buddha now has an aggressive cancer which is inoperable and incurable. What is more unfortunate is that the colorectal cancer (surgically removed earlier) had BRAF mutation. BRAF is a rare and deadly form of cellular mutation. His cancer was no longer considered isolated and will slowly progress throughout his entire body. Buddha now has, in better terms, metastatic colorectal cancer. At this time, given his age, oncologists were going to attempt additional chemotherapy and enrol him into several trials to assist in delaying the progression of his illness. Worst case scenario, Adrian has been given 12 months to live, at best 3 years. In January, Adrian and his wife met with oncologists to determine a new path of care. Because he had recently developed a blood clot (complication from liver tumours) he had been excluded from what is known as the BEACON trial. This trial is the only known trial that uses a pharmacological agent specifically designed to attack BRAF mutated colorectal cancer. This was blow number 3 for Buddha and his family. Instead of the BEACON trial, he was enrolled into the BBI608 trial which used a similar drug, but not specific for his cancer. The oncology team felt that based on known results to date, treatment could be promising. After a bumpy 8 weeks on the BBI608 trial, Buddha has his 8 week post commencement of trial scan. As he and his family were getting ready for this appointment, feelings were positive, his blood work was looking great, pain started to dissipate, and he was starting to feel his old self.  Adrian and Loredana had agreed that if this treatment didn’t have the desired effect, he would leave work (still working full time mind you at this point) to travel with their 2 sons to Europe for 3 months. They wanted the opportunity to show their kids the families home villages in Italy.  March 21 came and blow number 4 was delivered. 2 tumours in the liver have grown exponentially, and another 2 have developed in his lung. Oncologists advised that the December predictions of life expectancy were wrong. The previously mentioned European holiday is now off the table for the family. Adrian, 36 years old, a proud father of 2 boys (aged 1 and 3 years old), a loving and devoted husband now has 2 months to live.  The heartache, gut-wrenching pain, and shock are indescribable. This was something never imagined. Everyone believed that the worst-case scenario that oncologists would advise would be that his life expectancy would be closer to 1 year as predicted rather than 3 years, not shortened to this unimaginable time frame. How does one digest this? Nothing can ever prepare a person for this type of news, no matter age, sex or stage in life. How does one wrap up their life in 2 months? Where do you begin with attempting to get things in order for your wife and two children that you are potentially leaving behind? What makes this story even more heartbreaking, is that while all of this is happening, November 2017 saw Adrian’s mother also diagnosed with terminal metastatic pancreatic cancer, and given 6 to 9 months to live. Even while battling his own health crisis, he still managed to visit his mum in the country and helped support and assist her relocation to Melbourne to be closer to family and help give the best care possible in her remaining time.  Buddha has always put the needs of others before his own, countless times he has rendered assistance without being asked, been a friend to call late at night for help, a son, brother, husband and father that that has always been depended on. He is a man of his word and has worked extremely hard to get to where he is.   We ask now that people help us to support him, raising funds to assist with funding to source medical treatment and financial stability so that he can leave work to maximise his health, and share quality time with his dearest family and friends. Please support a great cause for a great man and give Buddha every opportunity to survive. Unfortunately like many young Australians, he never imagined he would need life insurance while still young and fit in life. We also hope by sharing Buddha’s journey, it will help bring awareness to Bowel Cancer in younger people and that it should not be considered an old persons cancer. Of the 15,000 people diagnosed each year, 2000 are under the age of 55, with 10% of these younger people dying as a result. 1 in 7000 under 30 years of age and 1 in 1200 under 40 will be diagnosed with bowel cancer in the next 5 years.