Storylo · A real story · English

Help Serdar access immunotherapy not available in the UK

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My name is Serdar Ferit, I'm 45 years old and for the last three and a half years I've been living with stage 4 colon cancer. The five year survival rate for my condition is about 10%. Sometimes I think I'm probably one of the happiest stage 4 cancer patients in the world. Because I love my life. I love life. I love my friends. I love my family. And I love people. I love the work that I do and the impact it has on the lives of hundreds of thousands of children. And I deeply love my son. I've got a beautiful 12-year-old boy and I want to be here for him. I want to see this beautiful young boy become a young man and be beside him as he navigates this complex and messy world of ours. The most difficult thing I've ever done in my life is tell my son that I've got cancer. Honestly navigating that was the most challenging thing I've done in my life. And I say this having done 30 rounds of chemotherapy infusions, 28 rounds of radiotherapy, loads of different procedures with general anaesthetic. The care I've received has been amazing. I've been under the care of the oncology team at the Royal Marsden Hospital and I'm so, so grateful. I'm so lucky to be under the care of this team. So I'm three and a half years into this journey and I genuinely believe that I'm going to be in that 10% who lives beyond five years and I believe that I'm going to live for many years to come. However, I know that that's not going to happen by chance and that's not going to happen on its own. At this stage the treatments available to me in England are not very likely to prolong my life for a significant amount of time. I have been looking for alternatives and additional therapies that might be helpful in prolonging my life and hopefully overcoming this disease. During my explorations, I've come across a clinic in Mexico that specialises in immunotherapy and in personalised cancer vaccines in particular. I have spoken to the medical team there on several occasions. I've spoken to and met with several patients who were treated there and were cured there and earlier this year I had an opportunity to visit the clinic and the laboratory. I've come away from these experiences in a very positive way and I think that's because I've had experiences wanting to be treated there. They've suggested a two-year treatment plan for me and I want to pursue this. However, it is very expensive and that's the reason I'm making this video. It's not the easiest thing in the world for me to just ask for money. I would like to do something in return and I've been thinking about what I can do and as a is document and film my experiences and my idea is to make a bank of resources and videos for cancer patients and their families and loved ones on things like speaking to children about cancer, the mental health side of things, regulating your nervous system, the immune system. So if you do make a contribution to this campaign, you'll also be making a contribution to what I hope will become a useful set of resources for cancer patients and their loved ones. So I kindly ask you to consider making a contribution and whether you do that or not, please consider sharing this video and this campaign with your own networks and loved ones. Thank you for your time.

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