Fit and healthy father diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer reveals first warning sign - The Independent

Geoffrey Seymour discovered blood in his stool just before his 41st birthday, which turned out to be stage four cancer.

A fit and healthy father diagnosed with stage four cancer says he was left looking like the “Nightmare on Elm Street” after a horrific reaction to chemotherapy left him too embarrassed to go to his young son’s cricket matches – and is now hoping to save his life with a ground-breaking vaccine.

Geoffrey, who lives in Richmond, London, with his wife Santa, 44, and their son Marco, 10, was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer, which had spread from his colon to his liver – a situation so severe and seemingly hopeless he likened it to “being wrapped in a paper bag that is on fire”.

Research in this area is at an early stage, according to Cancer Research UK, and so the treatment was not cheap – just one injection in Germany, on October 17, cost £17,000 and Geoffrey is now waiting to see if it was enough to help him, while continuing to fundraise to pay for it.

And in late March at Kingston Hospital, he was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer, which had metastasized in the liver.

He said: “The side effects have gotten worse, worse, worse, and now, chemotherapy is just not effective anymore, the body’s gotten used to it.”.

Explaining why he reacted badly to a chemotherapy drug, he said: “Essentially it kills all your fast-growing cells, which include your cancer cells, but also includes your hair and nails.

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