A 30=year-old man whose rare form of cancer was misdiagnosed by doctors as a pulled muscle is now in a race against time for life-saving treatment in the US.
Stuart Brookes was told he had 18 months to live when the lump behind his knee was eventually diagnosed as Metastasis Myxoid Liposarcoma.
There is currently no care for the illness available in the UK, so Stuart is setting out to raise £150,000 to join a clinical trial in Washington.
The Birmingham Mail reported that the personal trainer, who lives in Cofton Hackett, has so far raised £3,000 of his target.
Stuart first visited his GP in Selly Oak in the summer of 2012 after discovered a lump behind his right knee. However, his complaint was dismissed simply as a ‘pulled muscle’.
“It took a while for me to go to the doctors, as it didn’t hurt” Mr Brookes told the newspaper. “The doctor said I had pulled a muscle, but I wasn’t convinced.
“I was in the process of moving down to London at the time, so it was another three months before my missus forced me to do something about it.
“In the end the lump was almost the size of my fist.”
Stuart’s GP sent him to London’s Kingston hospital for an MRI scan and biopsy in November 2012 and the tests revealed that the lump was cancerous.
“I was told it was completely curable,” Stuart said. “It was a bit worrying as I was going into the unknown.
“But I was mainly concerned about how it would affect my leg, and my job as a personal trainer.
“To be honest, I was worried if there would be scar tissue, and whether I would be crippled afterwards.”
Following his diagnosis, Stuart began a five week course of radiotherapy then in March 2013 had surgery to remove the tumour at the Royal Marsden hospital.
“The operation went really well – they removed everything,” he said. “I was able to do a lot of the rehabilitation myself.”
Over the following nine months Stuart worked on his recovery, going for regular check-ups to monitor the cancer and CT scans and to drain fluid from his leg. However, he soon noticed lumps on his left leg and upper back.
“When I went back to my doctors they weren’t very optimistic, and I could tell it wasn’t going to be good news,” he said. “They looked very worried.”
More tests revealed that the cancer had come back. An MRI scan showed that the stage 4 cancer had spread to his spine, pelvis and hip and he was given the devastating news that he had just 18 months to live.
“It felt as though two or three people were trying to prepare me to die,” Stuart said. “One said, ‘we can make you feel as good as we can for as long as possible’.
“My GP asked me what I wanted to do with my time. I didn’t want to sit and make a bucket list.
“They didn’t even given me any advice about diet – they told me I could eat whatever I wanted. Even for a healthy person, that isn’t good advice.
“I didn’t want to sit and dwell, I want to fight it, so I asked for a new team.”
Stuart started another round of radiotherapy, this time with a new specialist team so the two-week treatment was more intense.
He began doing his own research into other clinical trials in the meantime, looking at those available in both America and France.
“I had been told that radiotherapy and chemotherapy wouldn’t cure me,” explained Stuart.
“But I wanted to talk to someone detached from the medical profession, like a research professor.
“In the UK there are clinical trials available, but I had to have chemotherapy, and that is not something I want to put my body through.”
Finally, he tracked down Professor Robin Jones at the Division of Medical Oncology at the University Washington in Seattle. He explained about the current trials being carried out in the US but as Stuart isn’t a citizen, if he qualifies for the trials he will need to fund for the treatment himself, which could cost up to £150,000.
“It felt great to talk to him. He was the first person not to just pooh-pooh everything.
“He has since moved over to England, and we were able to sit down and talk it through.
“He told me about Dr Seth Pollock who is running a trial where you are given a vaccine, as though you had mumps or measles, and your body will recognise the cancer as a disease and will fight it itself.
“They can’t tell me whether the trial will work.
“But this is an opportunity without which, I don’t really have any kind of hope.”
To find out more about Stuart’s mission, please visit www.supportstuart.co.uk