🚨 Imagine being at a music festival and suddenly losing feeling in your arm! 😮 That’s what happened to 38-year-old Matt Collins from Aberdare. What he thought were just pins and needles turned out to be a warning for something much more serious—a glioblastoma, the most aggressive type of brain tumour.
Matt had already been dealing with anxiety and challenging life changes, and then this bombshell dropped. After several rounds of chemotherapy and surgery, which unfortunately couldn’t stop the tumour, Matt took matters into his own hands. 💪
With an incredible £100,000 raised through the generosity of strangers, Matt underwent a private vaccine treatment called DcVax-L. Even so, hurdles like improper tissue storage limited his doses, a reminder of the crucial need for improved medical processes. 🧬
Determined not to back down, Matt’s now looking into treatment options in Germany, despite the £16,000 per cycle cost. Why, you ask? Because many potentially life-saving treatments aren’t available on the NHS, leaving patients like Matt in the lurch. 😔
Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer for under-40s, yet only a sliver of the national cancer research budget is allocated for them. Matt’s story is a call to action: we must invest more in research, open up access to clinical trials, and update the NHS to provide better options here in the UK. 🚑💡
Dr Karen Noble from Brain Tumour Research echoes this sentiment, stressing the urgent need for change so more families don’t have to fight this battle alone. Let’s rally behind Matt’s story and push for the changes needed to give hope to so many. 💜 #BrainTumourAwareness #SupportMattCollins