
When Koroit's Bruce Brown was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) in 2016, life expectancy after diagnosis was about five years.
He says ground-breaking research has since changed that and is encouraging people to dig deep this World Cancer Day.
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Mr Brown was getting a routine prostate specific antigen test at his GP in 2010 when a high reading prompted a biopsy.
When a half-millimetre tumour was found, a CT scan was used to see if the cancer had metastasized, but instead revealed a "house brick-sized" tumour in his abdomen.
"It was a shock because you couldn't really tell," Mr Brown said.
"We had a biopsy done of that and it confirmed it was Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, so the prostate cancer sort of went into the background because it was at an early stage so we had plenty of time to worry about it.
"The lymphoma came to the top - I had chemo all done in Warrnambool hospital and I responded to it. I ended up in remission after about 12-18 months and once I got over the chemo I had another prostate biopsy and found the cancer in the prostate had gone from a low grade to fairly aggressive grade.
"That was surgically removed to get rid of it and then it was just a case of regular visits to the oncologist in relation to the lymphoma.
"I had some non-descript problems along the way, I had quite a few scans which went on until around Christmas time in 2016 when I had a bone marrow biopsy. They found MDS which is a blood cancer caused by one of the chemo drugs, it was always a known possibility and side effect."
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While he said the MDS "will accelerate at some stage" his levels had been reasonably steady, albeit low (reading of 0.4 when levels should be about six).
He said thanks to continued fundraising efforts, treatments were being developed.
"The importance of the fundraising that goes into research - since I was diagnosed with MDS six years ago there's been developments of drugs so that when it does start to turn bad it will assist me and they've been developed in just those few short years," he said.
"All these treatments don't pop up from nowhere, they cost a lot of money.
"Some of the drugs are already in existence but are normally used for something else. They're finding through the research they have the desired effect on MDS as well. Without that money to do the research, they wouldn't know."
On World Cancer Day this Friday, February 4, Cancer Council Victoria will launch its first Cancer Research Giving Day from 9am-9pm.
Every dollar donated will be matched to support the average 34,675 Victorians diagnosed with cancer every year.
Donations can be made here.
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Jessica Greenan
Journalist at The Warrnambool Standard. Send me news tips at jess.greenan@austcommunitymedia.com.au or call 0456 901 194
Journalist at The Warrnambool Standard. Send me news tips at jess.greenan@austcommunitymedia.com.au or call 0456 901 194