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A fit and healthy dad diagnosed with stage four cancer says he was left like ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ after a horrific reaction to chemotherapy left him too embarrassed to go to his young son’s cricket matches – and now he’s hoping to save his life with a breakthrough vaccine.
Geoffrey Seymour, 41, a procurement specialist, enjoyed playing tennis, basketball and cricket and was always healthy until just before his 41st birthday when he started having blood in his stool.
Geoffrey knew this was a symptom of cancer from TV commercials, so he quickly went to his doctor.
Geoffrey, who lives in Richmond, London, with his wife Santa, 44, and their son Marco, 10, was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, which had spread from his colon to his liver – a condition so serious and seemingly hopeless that she likened. it is “wrapped in a burning paper bag.”
He also had a bad reaction to chemotherapy, causing severe blistering of the skin on his face and, according to Geoffrey, making him look like Freddy Krueger from the 1984 horror film Nightmare on Elm Street.
However, the chemotherapy stopped working and now, in a bid to save his life, Geoffrey traveled to Germany for dendritic cell therapy – where a personalized vaccine is created in a lab to boost the immune system.
Research in this area is at an early stage, according to Cancer Research UK, so the treatment has not been cheap – just one injection in Germany on October 17 cost £17,000 and Geoffrey is now waiting to see if it was enough to to help. him, while he continued to raise money to pay for it.
He said: “I couldn’t even wait until the end of the fundraising to do it just because I’m so worried that the disease was going to spread.”
Geoffrey was determined to find a new approach after three sessions of five doses of chemotherapy failed and left him with such bad side effects that he no longer wanted to go out in public, even to see his little boy play cricket
“I had a really bad reaction on my face, it was full of painful blisters that made my face feel like it was on fire,” she said.
“I just got to the point of looking a little like A Nightmare on Elm Street. If I didn’t go there with a bag on my head, I’d have other people come up to me and look at me thinking, “What’s wrong with this guy?” when I’m more than happy to blend into the crowd.”
Jeffrey’s ordeal began in April 2021, just two weeks before his 41st birthday on March 4, when he got the first warning signs of cancer.
After spotting blood in his stool, Geoffrey decided to see his doctor, knowing it could be a symptom of cancer. And in late March at Kingston Hospital, he was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, which had metastasized to the liver.
After being diagnosed in March 2021, he underwent five rounds of chemotherapy every three weeks which initially reduced the damage to his liver. At this point he says he was feeling “hopeful.”
In December 2021, he underwent surgery to remove a third of his liver, and the medical team began preparing him for radiation therapy to be used on his colon – he even had radio markers tattooed for laser alignment.
A month later, a CT scan showed more tumors in his liver, so he had another round of chemotherapy. This time it was successful and the liver surgery was scheduled for June 2022.
But as things began to progress, a few weeks before the surgery, a scan revealed the progression of the disease. Geoffrey was put back on chemotherapy with a different agent and the surgery was called off.
After just two cycles, blood work and a scan again showed disease progression, and the side effects became unbearable for Geoffrey.
He said: “The side effects have gotten worse, worse, worse and now, the chemotherapy is no longer effective, the body has got used to it.”
Explaining why she reacted badly to a chemotherapy drug, she said: “It basically kills all your fast-growing cells, which includes your cancer cells, but also your hair and nails. I had a really bad reaction to it on my face.”
Determined to find an alternative, Geoffrey began doing his own research by searching the internet and found dendritic cell therapy, but was told it would not be available to him in the UK.
He decided to fly to a workshop in Ulm, Germany to receive the weekly treatment on 17 October 2022. Friends and family rallied to contribute to his Go Fund Me appeal, which has raised over £14,000 and helped pay for £17,000 injection.
“I’m still in pain, a lot of pain, trying to find a good balance with very strong drugs,” she said.
Geoffrey is due to meet his oncologist on November 1 in the UK but knows he may well have to pay for further doses of vaccines and more treatment abroad and is continuing to raise money to pay for it.
Cancer Information Specialist Nurse at Cancer Research UK Caroline Geraghty said: “Dendritic cell therapy is a type of vaccine that can cure cancer. Dendritic cells help the immune system recognize and attack abnormal cells, such as cancer cells.
“To make the vaccine, scientists grow dendritic cells together with cancer cells in the laboratory. The vaccine then stimulates your immune system to attack the cancer. It is still under investigation, so the evidence base is not yet strong enough to be available in the UK.
“Decisions about the best course of treatment must be based on valid evidence of benefit – so it is important that patients talk to their doctor about any alternative treatment they may be considering.”
He added: “Thanks to ongoing research developments, there are still many new anti-cancer drugs showing efficacy in clinical trials, providing potential options for people with cancer.
“But while regulators have improved the speed with which they assess them for routine NHS use, there are still, unfortunately, times when certain medicines are still not easily accessible for people who might benefit. We understand how frustrating this can be.”
