A firefighter diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor is raising funds for a pioneering treatment in the hope of spending more time with his family.
Paul Whitaker, 42, from the Huntingdon area of Cambridgeshire, was told in April 2024 that he had grade 3 astrocytoma, a rare and unpredictable form of brain cancer.
Mr Whitaker, who has worked as a firefighter for 17 years, received various treatments but needed to raise more than £140,000 for an “innovative” immunotherapy which is not available on the NHS or through private insurance.
He hoped ADCV treatment would give him the opportunity to watch his children grow up and hold his wife’s hand “a little more.”
Mr Whitaker underwent an awake craniotomy at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, followed by weeks of daily radiotherapy and recently completed a year of chemotherapy.
“When I heard the words ‘you have a brain tumor,’ it shattered everything we knew,” he said.
“I have a wonderful wife, Hayley, and two amazing children (aged six and eight) and they are my world and everything I am fighting for.”
His prognosis is terminal, with an average survival of only a few years, but Whitaker said he wanted to spend more time with his family.
She added that it had been “the most difficult year of our lives” and that they had done everything they could to ensure that their children had a happy life.
On October 14, Whitaker said his latest MRI showed his cancer had shrunk and stabilized, which was “the best outcome we could have hoped for at this stage, especially as we prepare to take the next big step: joining the ADCV special program” (supplied)
The treatment Whitaker was fundraising for is manufactured in the same way as the DCVax-L vaccine, whose clinical trial was successfully completed in 2015.
It was a personalized vaccine that helped the immune system recognize and attack tumor cells.
“It’s amazing. It really is something groundbreaking… and the side effects are almost non-existent compared to chemotherapy,” he said.
“That is why we are raising funds, not for a miracle but to have the opportunity to see our children grow up, to hold my wife’s hand for a little longer, a chance to live and to give our children more years with their dad,” he added.
He praised people’s kindness after more than £30,000 of the £140,000 target was raised in about 10 days.
“Time is a really precious commodity and a situation like this really highlights that,” he said.
“There are still a lot of things I want to do, and a lot of them revolve around my two young children.”
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