Cancer patient ‘terminal’ after operation held up by pandemic
CANCER sufferer Adrian Rogers has become the first known patient to reveal he is now terminally ill after his surgery was cancelled at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 46-year-old was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in July 2018 and after 18-months of chemotherapy he was told his condition was operable. His surgery was scheduled for early April – but when the pandemic hit Manchester Royal Hospital decided it was “too risky” to go ahead with it.
The scaffolding supervisor from Retford, Notts, has now been told his diagnosis is terminal – as the number of tumours on his bowels and liver has since swelled from six, to 20.
Adrian, who is step-dad to wife Amanda’s three grown up children, said: “I feel like the Government left us high and dry. We were hearing in the news how there were all these private hospitals that were supposed to be set aside for people with other illnesses to have treatment.
“But they were apparently just empty.
“It is hard to take in that there were places where I could have gone to have treatment, but they just chose to cancel it instead.”
However, his family are not giving up hope and have set up a fundraising page for the drug Avastin, which Adrian is not eligible for on the NHS, but could buy him time. It costs £600 per fortnight and already many generous supporters have contributed £10,000 to the fund in just 10 days.
A spokesman for Cancer Research UK said: “Covid-19 has undoubtedly put a huge strain on people affected by cancer.
“We’ve been hearing many of these stories over the past few months.”