Crowd sourcing for Medical treatments

[GomiGirl]

Just putting this up in case anybody knows this chap - Matthew Dons (AKA Karamoon). Matt is a friend of mine (hacker, marketer, entrepreneur, teacher) here in Tokyo and he has recently been diagnosed with advanced cancer. He is raising funds for some immuno therapy treatments here in Tokyo. He only found out about this about 2 months ago.

He is posting a heap of videos right now - partly to help fund raise but also leaving behind a digital record of himself for his young kids. Even if yuo don't know him, if you can find a few dollars for a fellow FG who is totally farked. He is a great guy. I still can't believe he is dying.

The GoFundMe is http://matthewdons.org

His Facebook is here:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012914049677

Here is a video.

[Wage Slave]

Link doesn't work.

Anyway, because but for the grace of God, does national health insurance not cover the treatment? Or did he decide to opt out and go private?

[wagyl]

Until the link is edited, try two t's in Matthew.

As far as insurance cover for treatment goes, some treatment options are regarded as experimental and not covered.

Speaking generally, and without any comment on the particular treatment being followed here, when it comes to the Big C, people seem to think that they are entitled to bombard the patient with advice about any old snake oil. Maybe their hearts are in the right place, but often times the patient has more than enough to deal with without having to study, consider and reject lavender oil, turmeric and drinking cooking oil by the litre.

[Wage Slave]

I see - Thank you.

[GomiGirl]

Fixed link:
The GoFundMe is http://matthewdons.org

I think the chemo is mostly covered by National health but the "experimental" immuno-therapy treatments which are the ones that will have the most benefit isn't covered. As everybody is different, I think the issue is that it is nearly impossible to get any sort of study of immuno-therapy which is needed for these treatments to move into mainstream and thus covered by national health.

These treatments are tailored to each patient as they take your own blood, give it a boost with special treatments to make your own antibodies into cancer fighting agents and then give it back to you. The clinic in Tokyo has been doing it for over 20 years now with some good success. All of this depends on the type of cancer, the stage it is at etc. Often it is in conjunction with chemo and other therapies so again it is hard to see if success if due to a single element of the protocol or the combination of everything together. If you have the big C, then I don't think you want to just try each one in turn to see which one works. You are going to go after it with everything you can as early as you can to give yourself as much time as possible.

He is also looking for clinical trials of course. As he is very young for bowel cancer (37 years old) he is a good candidate. But if you watch some of the videos he does explain why his cancer is likely to kill him fairly soon. He only found out about it by accident in July/August of this year and he still has no symptoms of cancer which he finds really bizarre.

He is fairly realistic and has prepared his young kids (8 and 3 years old) that he is dying so at this point he is mostly looking at just getting more time. It is very unlikely that he will beat it - it is a very very long shot - but he does keep that hope alive while he is actively fighting this.

Some of the videos are fairly graphic as he very matter of factly describes what is going on - without too much pathos or self pity. Even if you don't know him, it is informative if you have never been close to anybody with cancer before or you are close to somebody with cancer and are too polite to ask the details.

This is a really great guy - I'm devastated that he is ill.

Here is another video:

This year has been a shocker one for me. Too many people around me have died, way too young - Cyka for example. I'm really needing some good news and perhaps if Matthew can get his money to get all the treatments, he might beat it.

[wangta]

Sorry to hear about this, Gomigirl. Actually some cancers have no symptoms for some or even a long time. I knew a friend's father who found out he had kidney cancer cause he fell down from a ladder while doing garden work. The medical treatment after revealed cancer. And pancreatic cancer is one evil bastard - it hides and then when the symptoms come on, you're likely to be dead in a matter of months in many cases.

Hang in there Matthew - there are people who have beaten cancer. Why not you? Keep strong.
Is there any way we can donate anonymously? I don't do crowdfunding and I'd be happy to send some money another way. But anonymously - bank accounts will reveal my name and I aint into revealing myself.

[wagyl]

Is there any way we can donate anonymously?

If you care to click on the link you will see that other people are listed as anonymous donors.

Unless you are asking whether you can stuff some notes in an envelope and leave them on a table for when he next goes in to the clinic......

[GomiGirl]

You can totally be anonymous. But you just need to tell the website your credit card details etc for billing but this will not be public.

Seriously - any bit helps.