This post is to give details and our experience of Martyn's (my husband) journey to seek medical treatment abroad in Germany at the specialist lung hospital in Coswig, where he endured two operations to remove secondary cancer (tumours) from his lungs, which had spread from his primary cancer in his rectum (bowel cancer).
Martyn's story
The biggest fight of Martyn’s life began at the age of 31 when he was told he had cancer in January 2012, but in December 2012 the fight got even bigger when he was told his cancer had spread to both his lungs. He was told there was nothing more the National Health Service (NHS) could do to cure his advanced bowel cancer; other than palliative care consisting of fortnightly chemotherapy and a super drug called Avastin, which unfortunately had caused blood clots in his lungs. Being realistic, we knew that there was only so much of the palliative care his body could cope with so Martyn (now age 33); who has not once given up hope of finding someone who could help him, increased his own research and for many hours trawled the internet in the search for someone who might be able to give him hope.
After looking up various leads, one particular medical paper he found stood out from the rest and was about a German surgeon called Professor Axel Rolle. The report detailed information about a laser machine (Nd: YAG 1318) that had been developed by the Professor in which he could remove multiple lung metastases (+100) by resecting areas of the lung. The results showed there were minimal complications and a very good success rate. The main criteria for a referral is that there is no other cancer outside the lungs. Martyn met this criteria, as in September 2012 his primary cancer had been successfully removed so he decided to pursue his find further...
The biggest fight of Martyn’s life began at the age of 31 when he was told he had cancer in January 2012, but in December 2012 the fight got even bigger when he was told his cancer had spread to both his lungs. He was told there was nothing more the National Health Service (NHS) could do to cure his advanced bowel cancer; other than palliative care consisting of fortnightly chemotherapy and a super drug called Avastin, which unfortunately had caused blood clots in his lungs. Being realistic, we knew that there was only so much of the palliative care his body could cope with so Martyn (now age 33); who has not once given up hope of finding someone who could help him, increased his own research and for many hours trawled the internet in the search for someone who might be able to give him hope.
After looking up various leads, one particular medical paper he found stood out from the rest and was about a German surgeon called Professor Axel Rolle. The report detailed information about a laser machine (Nd: YAG 1318) that had been developed by the Professor in which he could remove multiple lung metastases (+100) by resecting areas of the lung. The results showed there were minimal complications and a very good success rate. The main criteria for a referral is that there is no other cancer outside the lungs. Martyn met this criteria, as in September 2012 his primary cancer had been successfully removed so he decided to pursue his find further...