Help Paul access life-saving cancer treatments

Hello everyone,

We have set up this page to help enable our incredible brother, Paul, to access the medical treatment he so desperately needs to turn the tide in his battle against Stage 4 (metastatic) bowel cancer.

If anyone deserves a second chance to live, it's Paul. In 2018, he was widowed at the age of 36, having lost his first wife to breast cancer.

After starting to rebuild his life, and falling in love with Rachel in 2019, just one year later, Paul himself was diagnosed with Stage 4 bowel cancer, despite being completely asymptomatic.

Since then, he has shown tremendous grit, determination, and courage in battling his way through major surgeries and chemotherapy, getting to a place where he had no evidence of any ongoing disease and with the hope that treatment had been curative.

Paul and Rachel married in April 2022, and within weeks they were overjoyed to find out they were expecting a baby. It's almost unbelievable that the very next day, their world shattered once again when Paul was informed that his cancer had returned.

Following this relapse, there are now no further curative treatments available in the UK.

No NHS treatments can now enable Paul - a new daddy to our 11-week-old nephew and an adored step-daddy to Reuben and Eden (5 and 8 years old) - to live and watch his young family grow up.

But there is still hope.

Paul's prognosis will radically change if we can help him access new life-changing treatments, immunotherapy, targeted drugs and trials that are only available in the US. Accessing medical care outside of the UK, however, requires substantial funds.

Therefore, Paul and his family would be forever grateful for anything that you can give and for sharing this fundraiser as widely as possible with your family, friends and through your networks.

The Cancer Charity MacMillan works by this simple but powerful statement: "So whatever cancer throws your way, we're right there with you". That is our commitment to Paul and Rachel.

So thank you for standing with us as we fight for Paul and his family and take our stand against cancer.

Your generosity and support are greatly appreciated and could help spare this young family from further tragedy.

Rachel, Paul's wife, has shared a more detailed and personal reflection of the journey they have been on together below.

With our thanks, the Garratt brothers,

Neil, Mark and Jamie Garratt

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My amazing husband's cancer journey - Dr Rachel Garratt (NHS GP)

In October 2020, just days after his 39th birthday, and having only just recovered emotionally and psychologically from losing his first wife to breast cancer, Paul was given the shocking diagnosis of metastatic bowel cancer. After curative surgeries to remove his ascending colon and part of his liver, Paul then endured almost a year of chemotherapy.

Those of you who know Paul will understand just how positive and determined he is. After changing his diet and beginning a strict exercise regime, he made a full recovery, becoming fitter and stronger than ever before, returning to full-time work in the charity sector and playing tennis for his local tennis club! By September 2021, Paul had responded so well to treatment that we dared to believe we had beaten cancer.

In April 2022, on what was an incredible day, Paul and I got married. Shortly afterwards, we found out that I was pregnant with our longed-for child, and that Paul was going to become a father. We believe this was a miracle given the amount of toxicity his body had been exposed to and my own previous fertility journey.

Sadly, just the very next day, in one of life's cruel twists, Paul's Oncologist broke the devastating news to us, that cancer had returned to his lungs and pelvis, swiftly moving him into the 'incurable' camp. Words can't begin to convey how hard this news hit us.

At a time when we should have been celebrating the prospect of a new baby, I was filled with grief at the prospect of losing my husband and our unborn child's Daddy.

So we set out with fresh resolve to do everything we could, managing to access state-of-the-art treatments at both UCLH and The Royal Brompton Hospital in London. Despite subsequent clear scans in late 2022, just after our son Elias was born in January this year, we were again told that cancer had returned to his lungs.

Paul's cancer has a specific genetic mutation (KRAS G12-D). This means that the only treatments now available to him on the NHS are over 40 years old (standard chemotherapies) and can only extend his life by a small margin - certainly not long enough for him to take Elias for his first day at school.

As you can imagine, we have been desperate to find hope in what has felt like a hopeless situation. After extensively researching our options and discussing these with oncologists both in the UK and the USA, we have learned that MD Anderson Hospital in Houston, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, both offer a range of immunotherapies, targeted treatments and trials for Paul's specific type of cancer mutation. These are not available, even privately, in the UK and will likely take many years to arrive and be approved for NHS funding; time we, unfortunately, do not have.

MD Anderson and Memorial Sloan Kettering are leading cancer centres, providing patients with new therapies years before they become standard in other hospitals. Many of those who have received these proven treatments have had nothing short of a miraculous response. Furthermore, MD Anderson is the first hospital in the world to trial a targeted therapy that specifically locates and attacks the KRAS G12-D mutation. Although no one in the cancer world talks about a cure (yet!), those treating Paul believe that it is very realistic that with the right immunotherapy and targeted therapy, Paul could be able to manage cancer like a chronic illness.

So for us, the choice is stark.

We could just continue with the standard NHS treatment, which may give Paul a few more years of life.

Or we could do everything possible to access the bespoke drugs and trials in America, offering the hope that Paul can live many more full and fruitful years with us as a family.

Until we have our first clinic appointment with Memorial Sloan Kettering in May, we are yet to know the full extent of the total costs. However, in the immediate term, Paul's oncologist here in the UK has recommended that we self-fund the drug Bevacizumab (Avastin) which he will start next week. This is a targeted treatment that costs approximately £2,000 per dose and is given on a 2-weekly basis, in addition to Paul starting back on standard chemotherapy.

Avastin is provided as standard care in the USA and many other countries, but is still not funded by the NHS, despite extensive campaigning and clear evidence for its effectiveness. Following Paul's initial assessment at Memorial Sloan Kettering, we will then use funds raised to cover the associated costs to access the most suitable treatment plan suggested for Paul. Based on a trusted US oncologist's advice, we have set a financial target of £200,000 to cover the above costs, enabling us to pursue this.

Although raising this amount seems like a massive challenge, as Paul's wife and mummy to Elias, no price can be placed on the precious years ahead that we will be able to enjoy together as a result of your generosity.

Thank you,

Dr Rachel Garratt