Keith vs Cancer

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to visit this page.

Keith has been my best friend since we met when we were pupils at North Walsham High School. We are now both in our late forties… How time flies!

Keith was sadly diagnosed with bowel cancer in April 2023. Medical imaging showed that cancer was also present in his lymph nodes and liver. From July 2023 to October 2023 Keith had weekly chemotherapy, which was paused whilst he underwent 5 weeks of daily radiotherapy. Medical images showed in October 2023 that Keith was responding to treatment and would be able to have surgery to both the bowel and liver cancers, as they had both reduced in size. Keith’s specialists decided that, to get the best results for surgery, he should continue weekly chemotherapy up until January 2024.

At the end of January this year, Keith had a treatment review appointment where surgery planning and future treatments would be scheduled. Scans did show that the original cancer and metastasis were still responding to treatment and had halted their growth; but sadly, a new larger and more complex mass has grown within the liver, taking surgery off the table.

Keith’s cancer has now been deemed incurable by the NHS. Keith is now on a palliative care treatment pathway. His treatment is primarily through the NNUH, however, since his worsened diagnosis, Keith’s parents have paid for him to see a private consultant in London for a second opinion. The private clinic have said that if they can halt the growth of the cancer and reduce the size of the new mass with palliative chemotherapy, they would not take surgery to remove the tumour off the table. His private consultant will also intervene if new treatments or clinical trials would be beneficial to Keith’s case, which would not be available on the NHS.

Palliative chemotherapy commenced this week (Feb 2024); we are keeping our fingers crossed that this is successful in halting the cancer’s growth, meaning Keith will be have more valuable time with his family and friends.

Keith has remained incredibly strong throughout this diagnosis. Those who know Keith well will be aware it has come with some very comical moments! As Keith is going to lose his hair during this next course of chemo, a group of his close friends and I decided to also shave our hair off in support of him. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is!

Keith is the most genuine and friendly guy you could ever wish to meet and it breaks my heart what he and his family are going through.

We have decided to start this page to help Keith’s parents with the cost of the private treatment; also to provide Keith with the opportunity to spend more time creating lasting memories with his loved ones.

Any funds exceeding our goal, and which are not needed for Keith’s care and treatment, will be donated to Bowel Cancer UK to help others in the same situation.

We are planning fundraising activities to raise money, starting with the hair shave. We are also doing a fancy dress pub crawl and a charity football day in the coming months.

Your generosity would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

Craig (the one with the pink hairband!)