Support has been overwhelming
Onslow Mountain man o to U.S. to receive special cancer treatment
In late November, Stephen Saunders was informed by his doctor he had mere months left to live.
On Wednesday, however, the 58- year- old Onslow Mountain man departed for Boston to begin a medical process that he and his family are hoping and praying will greatly improve, if not reverse, that prognosis.
“I work in a cancer ward and I know that his diagnosis is not a good one,” said Saunders’s daughter, Hailey Macdonald. “If you are going to have cancer, you don’t want his type of cancer.”
Saunders has a rare and progressive form of cancer called Non Hodgkin Lymphoma, which requires a form of treatment called CAR-T cell therapy to combat it.
e treatment is not available in Canada and the nearest Saunders can receive it is at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston at a cost of almost $900,000.
After travelling to the institute in late December for a consultation with medical sta , Saunders was told he is healthy and strong enough to qualify for the treatment.
“When we went to Boston we got the great news that he is an ideal candidate,” Macdonald said.
Shortly after returning home with the news, Saunders received a call from his oncologist saying the Nova Scotia government will cover the cost for his treatments.
On this trip, Saunders will spend a couple of days in Boston to have a collection of his T-cells removed.
e cells will be transported to a special laboratory in California where they will genetically modi ed to recognize the proteins in his speci c type of cancer.
“When they put them back into his body, they grow rapidly and they recognize his cancer cells and attack it and essentially kill them,” Macdonald said. “So, it uses his own body to do these things.”
After having the cells removed, Saunders will return home for a couple of weeks while they are being modi ed. He will then return to Boston to have the cells put back into his body, during which time he will be hospitalized there for about three weeks.
After that, he will have to remain in Boston for several months for follow-up monitoring, during which he must reside no more than an hour’s travel time from the cancer institute. He must also have someone with him at all times.
If successful, the treatment will greatly enhance the chances of the cancer being put into at least partial remission, thereby extending his chances of survival for an undetermined period.
Saunders has tried to remain positive and as active as possible, but that doesn’t mean the ordeal has not been trying on everyone involved.
“When your number is called, your number is called. That is the way you’ve got to look at it. But you’ve got to look around at everybody else, partners, kids, everything else,” said the father of four adult children.
“I never think of myself as having cancer. Yes, I have it, but I try not to think about it. I’d rather go out and do something.”
Macdonald said her family has been “overwhelmed, in a good way” with the amount of moral and financial support they’ve received so far and, especially so, regarding a letter-writing campaign to government officials to convince them of the importance of funding her father’s treatment.
Then to finally receive word that her father would be able to receive the treatment he requires, was especially rewarding after watching him for so long and feeling like there was little they could do.
“I don’t know if there’s really words to say the reaction. Kind of just felt like a huge relief, I guess. There was a weight that was lifted off our shoulders,” she said.
“It finally felt like we did something to help him. It was like we did finally achieve something to help him get through this battle that he has been going through.”
But while the provincial government will also pay a portion of Saunders’s travel and accommodation costs, his family estimates they will still require about $10,000 in personal finances to fully cover his expenses.
To help out, a Gofundme page, Send Stephen to Boston for CART, has been established.