Ollie's heading to the USA for treatment

At 17-years-old, our nephew Ollie Ratnik was working towards his dreams; to complete his plumbing apprenticeship; get the coolest of cars and work towards buying a house!

On April 29, 2022, Ollie's normal teenage life was turned upside down with a diagnosis of a rare cancer - Synovial Sarcoma. This saw Ollie put his dreams on hold, and all his drive, determination, amazing human spirit and humour into undergoing six rounds of chemotherapy and seven weeks of daily radiation at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Sadly this aggressive treatment plan hasn’t resulted in the outcome Ollie wanted, the cancer has persisted and spread to his spinal cord. While three weeks ago, Ollie had surgery to relieve the pressure off his spinal cord, Ollie and his family have been informed there are no further avenues of treatment in Australia.

Ollie will now turn his treatment journey to a clinical trial in the USA, which is providing hope as the trials are having good response rates targeting this type of cancer. Without this treatment Ollie's prognosis is incurable.

This next step in Ollie’s cancer journey will be challenging, on many fronts and during these times we all look for ways to provide support. This can come through your love, care and on this occasion assist in funding some costs that will come with the USA treatment. We invite you to assist with funding Ollie and his family with two return trips that are needed to be made to the US. The first trip is to prepare for the treatment with a series of tests for around 10 days. The second trip will be one month later will be for the Car T cell treatment, which involves chemotherapy and the Car T cell transfusion.

On both return trips Ollie will be required to fly Business Class, as he is unable to sit upright for prolonged periods. If there are additional funds these will be used for Ollie to assist his mum or dad travelling with him for their daily support/carer expenses through this arduous and challenging time overseas.

Ollie, Lindsay, Carolyn, and his big brothers, Tom and Jack have been overwhelmed by the support they have received from the people that love them. We know that many of you are looking at ways to continue to support them, if you in are in a position to funding support for Ollie’s next part of his cancer journey, it will be overwhelmingly appreciated by the family.

Thank you from Ollie's Aunty Jodie & Uncle Chris