Helping Anilkumar Patil

My name is Anil and live in Southeast Victoria along with my wife and two kids who are studying at Monash University. I have been a fun-loving person, a nature admirer and I like to spend my time in regional areas of Australia. I am content with basic needs.

Everything seemed to be going fine until about 4 years ago, when I was first diagnosed with IgA Nephropathy while being investigated for hypertension. It was shocking news, but thought should be manageable. 

This year in the month of May 2024, suddenly felt some twitching and numbness on the left side of my face, that resolved and reappeared a couple of weeks later again. On presenting to the Emergency department, I was diagnosed with a tumour in the Brain. Initially, it was thought to be a low grade. Unfortunately after my surgery for resection of the tumour, the pathology report was shocking revealing it was Unmethylated Glioblastoma. It did take quite a while to come to terms with the diagnosis.

My son Anikait and myself did a lot of research at the same time as discussing with our treating team, who are fantastic and helping us in every way. On further research, we found two most promising effective interventions that would help my condition but are expensive, which are the Tumor Treating Fields – Optune and Vaccination therapy. Optune being non-invasive, was approved for use in Australia, couple of years ago. However, this modality of treatment has not been launched in Australia. It is being used extensively in the USA and Europe. Around 25,000 people are currently using Optune with good effect, I believe. 

I am currently also in the process of procuring a personalised peptide vaccine from Germany and SurVax, another form of vaccine known to be effective for my condition. Both the vaccines together are likely to cost around AUD $220,000/- and travelling costs to Germany and USA.

 I am positive thinking and believe something will work. Hence an appeal to donate to make the treatment affordable.