Help save my dad!

Aim

My fundraiser is to pay for PIPAC cancer treatment for my dad.

Hello Everybody,

My name is Raphael Bertassin, I'm living in London since 2016.

In November 2021, after feeling unwell for several days, my father Deocrecio Bertassin, 63 years old, was taken to the GP in the city of Itirapina in Brazil, he lived there with my mom Rosangela.

It took almost 2 months of struggle to reach a plausible diagnosis that my father had peritoneal carcinomatosis due to adenocarcinoma, with an occult primary site.

His chemotherapy treatment was started. After 3 months, his condition did not improve, only weight loss, constant need for abdominal paracentesis to relieve pressure in the abdominal cavity, removing the liquid present there.

In the same period, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, she also started treatment along with my dad.

Her initial surgical treatment was carried out in a private hospital, due to the length of public scheduling and the severity of her case.

As if that were not enough, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer during this same period, the treatment was initially private, and now she is in the public sector undergoing chemotherapy.

After 6 months of treatment (3 cycles of chemotherapy), there was no improvement in my father's condition, the public health system did not give him alternatives, only the alternative of stopping the chemotherapy.

Not conforming to the situation, I went to look for other doctors to explore other paths, we got a private consultation in São Paulo - Brazil, with Dr. Lucas Vieira dos Santos, a specialist in gastrointestinal cancer, he gave us hope and is devoted to discovering the origin of cancer, so he asked for new tests.

However, for my father to be able to continue with chemotherapy treatments, it is necessary for him to improve his current health, as he is not able to walk alone, he cannot go to the bathroom autonomously, nor can he eat food in the normal amount for an adult, due to to the liquid that comes back always increase in your abdomen.

In addition to constant abdominal pain, he feels nausea, a feeling of always being full and immense difficulty swallowing liquids.

His diet is 1 to 2 eggs a day and half a glass of water, and his weight has dropped from 80 kilos to less than 60 kilos, unsustainable for a person of 163 cm tall.

Doctor Lucas indicated the beginning of a treatment called PIPAC, which is an acronym for pressurized intraperitoneal aerosol chemotherapy, is a new means of chemotherapy used for the treatment of peritoneal metastasis.

Patients with peritoneal metastases have a reduced life expectancy compared to patients with metastases located in solid organs.

This is due to the existence of multiple factors, including the therapeutic difficulty of systemic chemotherapy, that is, intravenous chemotherapy, since the peritoneum is not well vascularized, the amount of blood that reaches the peritoneum is very small, and, in addition to reaching a reduced volume, the blood vessels present mostly in the peritoneum are of low caliber, which reduces the final delivery of this drug to the desired location.

Thus, the emergence of PIPAC comes as a successful alternative for the treatment of these patients, since it can significantly reduce the symptoms, and since the technique is given by the application of chemotherapy laparoscopically, through one or, at most, and, two small incisions in the abdomen, being a minimally invasive and aggressive procedure.

An aerosol is used to apply the drug to the peritoneum directly and as homogeneously as possible. This procedure occurs on average every 6 weeks.

The PIPAC treatment will help him to continue with chemotherapy and have a more stable life in the sense of being able to eat right and be strong enough to weather this storm.

The big problem with this treatment is that it is temporary, highly expensive and neither public health nor conventions cover it.

Each application costs around £6,000.00 pounds, every 6 weeks/8 weeks. In addition, this treatment must be done together with chemotherapy in order to have concrete effects.

The new tests ordered by Dr. Lucas, seek to find cancer markers in order to apply hormone therapy or another type of chemotherapy approach.

The new exams should be ready within 1 month so we can get a better idea of how my father can be saved from this terrible disease.

I know that if I were in the situation right now, my dad and mom would move the world to help me, they did that when I was little and living with health problems.

My brother and sister and I are willing to sell the house, to have more time with them, because they are wonderful people. However, even with the sale of everything, it would not be enough to bear all the costs.

If you need hormone therapy, we will fight in Brazilian Court to have access to this treatment.

With PIPAC treatment, he would already benefit from this, but it is continuous and has a high cost and public health does not do this procedure, that's why I'm here. To fundraise the first-year cycle of PIPAC.

I feel that every day my dad's health is going away, but I hope if everyone helps a little, we can get to the treatment that will give him, many more years of life and many more stories to be told.

If you have read this far, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, I believe that prayers and even empathy make all the difference in the current situation.

Thank you and I God bless you.

Raphael Bertassin

This project successfully funded on 14th August 2022