Glenn battling against advanced bowel cancer

Hi, I'm Glenn Utteridge, a 44 year old father with currently inoperable bowel cancer and not ready to die yet. I'm raising money for future cancer treatments to help save my life or at least prolong it. Below are the series of unfortunate events that occurred in the first part of 2023, resulting in being unconscious, 6 fractures, major surgeries and the discovery of advanced cancer.

Multiple terrible events, 1 of which was life-changing

At the start of 2023, I was a fit active 44-year-old-dad enjoying life with my wife looking after our two children aged 7 and 10 until the 6th of February. Whilst cycling I was hit by a coach in a serious road incident; thrown off of my bike knocked unconscious and resulting in fractures to my back and neck. Whilst in hospital, scans also revealed stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to my liver. Just 4 weeks later after, shortly after being released from the hospital, I was re-admitted to hospital for an emergency operation with open surgery to remove the original tumour along with diseased colon to fix a blockage. In the following 2 to 3 months I endured severe finger blisters (losing several fingernails) and fainted hitting my head knocking me unconscious and fracturing my jaw in 3 places requiring further emergency surgery to insert permanent metal implants into my gums.

Those first few months were extremely tough; In the first couple of weeks post jaw surgery I had limited mobility, my hands were still bandaged from the blisters, I couldn’t talk much and needed to take food in liquid form through a syringe. With the support of my loving family and others, I fought hard to recover quickly from the surgeries to get back onto treatment. In addition doing everything within my control to help, including diet, exercise and well being.

Despite recovering from these traumas, I'm still likely to die from cancer

The tumours in my liver are currently inoperable and I have a rare BRAF mutation which is hard to treat via standard treatments with average survival rates typically measured in months. At 44 years old, I am determined to do whatever it takes to see my children through more of their school years and spend a bit more time with my wife whom I married 2 years ago once COVID restrictions were lifted.

Cutting edge treatments and alternative treatments may help:

There are some very promising newer privately self funded drugs and therapy's available outside of what is usually covered. For example adoptive cell immunotherapy via Japan. Combining a personalised cancer vaccine designed to effectively teach the body’s immune response to target the cancer tumour and metastases, plus creation of artificial cells designed to enter the body and attack the cancer. Each round of treatment is self funded with costs totalling typically ~£20k to £30k. Inside the UK not all treatments are available via NHS or private cover. In particular naturalpathic supplements which can help block the various different pathways a cancer uses. These can become expensive but are important to me to add to my treatment. From 16/1/24 onwards I am being moved to 4th line UK treatment and so standard treatment lines are becoming limited with slimmer prospects of giving stability over a reasonable period of time (> 6months).

Since I was diagnosed in February 2023 with late-stage cancer I have spent a lot of time researching different treatments and therapies that may help staying with and seeing my children grow up more into adults. With the type of cancer I have I will be using cutting edge overseas treatment not readily available to supplement standard UK treatment to hopefully extend my life. The treatment I had in Japan alongside other supplemental treatments does appear to have helped beat the odds so far. From 16/1/24 I will be using further funds raised to also help pay for self funded treatment inside the UK but not available via NHS or private cover.

In the event that any of the funds raised here are not used for my treatment, I or my fundraising team will pass any residual funds to Als Pals Cancer Support Charity. A growing local charity who cover the Beds, Bucks, Herts and Northants regions.

Thank you for reading my story and please support me as every donation via this page makes my dream come a bit closer to reality. Thanks Glenn aka #glennthecancerwarrior