A Tale of Two Cities
Catching up over lunch in Sydney this week were two friends who share a modern-day “Tale of Two Cities”.
Eldred Clark (on the left of picture) visiting from London, and Keith Rowe from Sydney, share a remarkable story of survival. Both diagnosed only months apart in 2015 with Stage IV Metastatic Melanoma and having been able to meet up only once since then, they had plenty to catch up on, and an awful lot to celebrate.
Keith was a participant in the (2015 Immunology Clinical Trial) testing of the tandem Ipilimumab/Pembrolizumab treatment at Westmead Hospital in Sydney. Aware that his friend in the UK was suffering the same dire prognosis, he regularly passed on the MIA trial progress reports to him.
This positive news encouraged Eldred, whose Melanoma Oncology team at St George’s Hospital in London (with wonderful support from Macmillan’s Nursing) ultimately took him down a similar immunology pathway to recovery. He is forever grateful for their support … and as they say in the classics, “the rest is history”.
We are two very lucky blokes”, says Keith, “and we certainly owe a huge debt of thanks to the MIA team. Fingers crossed; we may even be able to meet up again in another seven years to swap yarns”.
If you know someone who is suffering from skin cancer, please share this post … it’s a message of hope from the team at Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA)
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