A Chance To Cure Kevs Cancer – Can You Help?

This letter comes to you in the hope that at this moment In time myself and Kevs family are desperate for your help in saving the life of my precious inspirational boyfriend. As many of you will be aware Kev and I met in what could be said as the worst circumstances possible, both of us were fighting for our lives at the Christie after being diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia in 2007.

Amazingly, this brought us together and we have never looked back since, we have become soul mates, best friends as well as lovers. Unfortunately, as I completed 2 and a half years of chemotherapy, we realised Kevs Leukaemia had always been aggressive, with necrotic bone marrow each time it was biopsied. In 2010, we were told his cancer was back and his only chance of survival would be a stem cell transplant.

The Peak, Wyoming

This journey brought tears, worry and sleepless nights. Kev’s brother was a perfect donor match, what more could we want you may wonder? The consultant had doubts though due to previous bouts of pneumonia causing his lung functions to be a lot lower than normal, this meant the total body irradiation Kev had to undergo before taking his brothers cells would make his lungs weaker and could kill Kev during transplant. On one of the darker days in 2010, the ultimatum was given to Kev, a stem cell transplant or three years of controlling the disease and then the inevitable – DEATH. Both Kev and I were always looking through a half full glass and continued to believe that it would work and we were not going to GIVE up of life that easily....
I WRITE TO YOU AS WE REACH THE FINAL STAGES OF KEVS UNBELIEVABLE BATTLE WITH SUCH A DREADFUL DISEASE. THEREFORE I CANNOT GIVE UP AND AM APPEALING FOR YOUR HELP.

On Tuesday 1st March 2011, after Kev had suspicions of a relapse, because he was experiencing similar pains to the first and second time he was diagnosed.We were given the most devastating news that after having the best possible match for a potentially lifesaving stem cell transplant, Kev’s bone marrow was showing ‘enough’ leukaemia blasts for them to tell us his life expectancy is now between weeks – months. After all the family and myself staying remarkable calm, the choice given to Kev was to make the most of the time he had left and when needed the Christie would be there for blood transfusions and anti-biotics etc or the consultant said: 'I think I know you well enough now Kevin after treating you for over three years, that you would not want to go on current trials which have no evidence of cure which will inevitably hospitalise you and make you poorly and could in fact kill you.’ With that we left the hospital in silence trying to take in this awful news. Kev remained strong however I could tell inside his heart was breaking with the thought of having people behind.We couldn’t give up but we were told there was nothing that could be done. The next few weeks became blurred; Kev was in and out of hospital with infections, transfusions and scans.Suddenly, a glimmer of hope became apparent; Kev’s friend had read an article in the Sun newspaper about a woman (originally British) now Australian who was currently in Germany undergoing a new trial specifically centred on relapsed B Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. I felt my heart miss a beat as Kev also had relapsed B cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia so I decided to email the women’s fiancé and see how we go about getting on it. The trial is a phase 2 trial of a drug called Blinatumomab. Blinatumomab is a monoclonal antibody which can destroy B-cells. The results so far are very encouraging. Its use has been described in three patients who relapsed after transplant and all three achieved another remission. In one case it allowed a second transplant and a durable remission.