I have started to write-up the naturopathic protocol I have been following since early 2023 here:

https://lawrenceoconnor.com/2023/12/24/naturopathic-oncology-pancreatic-cancer-protocol/

Supporting others who are facing a similar challenge, particularly through the Always Hope group that has been of so much help and support to me at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1666326947166815/

I am eternally grateful for the amazing support I have received. There are so many wonderful, kind and generous people in the world.

To all the people who have contributed to my Yes to Life justgiving fund, including those who contributed to me directly as a result of it:

.....•.¸(*•.¸♥¸.•*´)¸.•.....

♥•°THANK YOU°•♥

....•*(¸.•*´♥`*•.¸)*•....

You been a critical part of making it possible for us to get through a dark time which, wonderfully, we now seem to be on the other side from and now have all we need financially and I am pleased to be able to close this page from accepting contributions.

I should be fit enough to soon be able to start making and sending contributors their solitary bee houses that I promised for each contribution. The Yes to Life charity, under whose auspices this page is set up, is not allowed to release to me any name or contact details of contributors that are not made visible on the page when they make their contribution. I will do my best to identify who each of them are and hopefully be able find a way of contacting them so I know where to send them their bee house.

UPDATE 29th March

Still working the protocol hard. Continuing to respond to the many enquiries I have from people who want to find out more about my diagnosis, prognosis and what I did and who I have worked-with to get to be 'NED' - no evidence of disease.

While a long way off from my former physical fitness as it was before the effects of the cancer and of the chemotherapy, I continue to regain my health and stamina, week-by-week.

Still on oral capecitabine, which causes painful stomach pains (one of its known side-effects) to keep any residual cancer cells that might still be floating around from propagating and also spending more time than I would like to have to inside the HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy) chamber but this helps mitigate the effects of the chemo. Finding ways to make the time in the chamber productive.

Walked 17.Kms across a mountainous trail this month!!!

UPDATE 1st March 2024

Had scans and TACE chemo round two weeks ago with Professor Vogl who has confirmed all the previously seen activity is now gone. On oral Capecitabine to ‘mop up’ any rogue cells still floating round my system but, currently, I am ‘NED’ – no evidence of disease. Next scheduled appointment is a control scan in early June.

UPDATE: 14th January 2024

The Cancer Appears Again

Had the results of the scans in November looked at by two, wonderful and skilled consultants who have been like guardian angels to me through this experience: Professor Thomas Vogl of Frankfurt University hospital and Professor Edward Leen of Princess Grace hospital, London. Turns out there are currently two newly identified ‘likely’ and ‘almost certain’ tumours in my abdomen.

Interestingly, the Multidisciplinary Team at Hammersmith Hospital met recently, including oncologist, Professor Harpeet Wasan, and was of the opinion that there is no cancer activity. Nevertheless, I have been shown the sites of activity in the PET scans by Professor Leen and Professor Vogl also agrees that this is recurrance activity, for which I have resumed oral chemo and will be travelling to Frankfurt University for TACE chemo and/or perfusion chemo.

UPDATE: 4th September 2023

I have been making steady recovery since my surgery in May to remove the tumour in my pancreas.

Last week, at what we were all hoping would be my last round of TACE chemotherapy at Frankfurt University Hospital, signs of cancer cell activity were identified by the radiologist.

They've been identified at a very early stage and I fully expect that I will get in front of this sneaky disease again. It does mean continuing with chemo, though, along with the supporting naturopathic protocol that I have been prescribed.

Any donation of any size that anyone can make (that does *not* compromise their own finances, please!) makes a big difference in helping me fund this treatment.

If you have or anyone you know has donated, please message me to make sure I have full details to be able to send a proper thank you (I can't get the info from yes to life, whose charity my page is under) and also to be able to send the solitary bee hotel made from recycled materials that I am making for each person who makes a donation.

With love,

Lawrence

*******************************

Previous updates...

At the end of August it will have been a year since my wife, Tara, and I sat in the consultation room as the surgeon told us that there was a tumour growing in my pancreas and that it was malignant.

Since then we have been through hell and back.

Wonderfully I am now cancer free and I need just one more round of TACE chemotherapy at Frankfurt University Hospital to help ensure there isn't a recurrence.

A year of treatment with me being too ill for most of it to work has tested our reserves, including financial and now Tara has spent most of her savings and we need help.

*Anything* you can donate will be a great help, as will sharing this request with others.

THANK YOU!!

Thanks for taking the time to visit my Yes to Life charity JustGiving page.

A brief bit of personal history...

January-February 2022

St George’s Hospital, London

Start experiencing abdominal pains.Taken into A&E with acute abdominal pain. Discharged after 36 hours with mis-diagnosis of ‘constipation’.Then admitted via A&E a couple of weeks later with further pain.

Discharged after 4 days.

After a few days without confirmation of the CT scan appointment that had been promised when I was an in-patient, I had a phonecall with the doctor who had been monitoring me in hospital, Dr Georgina Kelly, and received the following immortal wisdom :

Dr. Kerry:  “pancreas cyst looks benign”, ”to be honest, having the results of the scan wouldn't make any difference as it will still be just a question of managing your symptoms"

Me: "so this is it, is it? Too debilitated and weak to be able to work, study or properly function for the rest of my life?"

Dr. Kerry:  "yes, I'm afraid it is, but you should start feeling better as the reduced LFA means that there is no longer a complete blockage”.

There continued to be bouts of pain for months and, very disappointed by the approach to my symptoms made by St George's hospital, I contacted Dr Davinder Bansi at Hammersmith Hospital who had removed my gallbladder ten years or so previously. And then there began a series of tests, scans and ERCP procedures that eventually led to the opinion of the Multidisciplinary Disciplinary Team being  'malignancy suspected' in the pancreas and a biopsy sample being taken in July 2022.

 August 31st 2022.

Hammersmith Hospital, heptobiliary clinic appointment.

I had returned home to London the previous week after cycling to Paris with my daughter, Siân, and at that appointment heard the consultant relay the term we all dread - the bit of my pancreas that was being tested in a lab while Siân and I peddled our way through the French countryside was confirmed to be “malignant”.

But, not to worry I thought to myself at the time, the tumour that had been found looked operable according to my amazing surgeon, Mr. Duncan Spalding, who illustrated with a biro on a scrap of paper how he was going to cut out the tumour some digestive tract and a bit of my pancreas and, after disconnecting various bits of my digestive system was going to reattach them, albeit in a new arrangement in a procedure known as a Pancreaticoduodendectomy or ‘Whipple’. The date was set for the operation..

September 12th 2022

Hammersmith Hospital

Plans and preparations had been swiftly made and I found myself in the pre-op room, being got ready for my Whipple by Mr Stumfle, the anaesthetist, and the medical team.I had been alerted that I would wake from the operation with drain tubes and a pancreatic stent coming out of my abdomen and was told to expect that, as an extremely complex and difficult operation, it could take 12 hours until it was finished. The pre-op sedative was injected and I was out like a light, feeling positively excited that when the operation was over, I'd be waking up with the tumour gone and, after allowing a few weeks for the surgery sites to heal, life would go on.I came-to in the post-operative recovery room.

A look at the clock - it’s too early!

My heart sunk.I had a big ol’ incision (I would later count 48 metal staples and countless sutures) but no drains and I was awake from the operation way too early.I was gripped by a sense of dread.Then the anaesthetist appeared and relayed how that all had looked good to proceed until they had got to see the tumour inside my body and had found that the tumour had become too’ involved’ with a main artery to be operable.My heart sunk even further and the tears came - how was it going to be for my wife, Tara, or for my kids Lorcan, Lily and Siân when they got the news…?During subsequent ward visits from Mr Spalding and other members of the team, I was reassured that there were other ‘options’.These ‘options’ boiled down to being given chemotherapy.

Overwhelmed with the often contradictory and sometimes just plain wrong advice on the internet, together with my amazing wife, Tara, we sought expert naturopathic oncology advice and I began to take a daily regime of supplements, instigated a diet change (it became all about the ‘massive salads’), juicing and started doing a once weekly Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy session.

As of January 2023 the prognosis my oncologist, Prof. Harpeet Wasan, gave me for the progression of the adenocarcinoma tumour in my pancreas after four rounds of aggressive chemotherapy that in his opinion 'did not work' was that I might live until July 2023 without further chemo and 12-18 months survival if I elected to continue with chemo. The type of chemo I was being given is called Folforinox. A powerful concoction of cytotoxic chemicals that made me really, really sick. All I was fit for while on it was rest with box sets to take my mind off the pain and nausea. I still have the nerve damage in my feet and fingers which has left them numb.The oncologist told us that there was "nothing you can do" that could affect my survival other than chemotherapy  and that the chances of a second attempt at surgical removal of the tumour were "one in a million”.  After this devastating news and a day or two in a state of shocked grief, myself and my wife Tara, my amazing powerhouse of love and support, picked ourselves up off the floor and re-evaluated what the oncologist had relayed and, instead of giving up and accepting the prognosis of an early death as an inevitability, resolved to redouble our efforts toward me becoming cancer free.

Before January's terminal prognosis I had been following a supplemental treatment protocol based on our own research and a consultation with an integrative oncology researcher. This protocol included having the weekly  60 minute hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) session, juicing, radical diet and lifestyle change and dozens of nutritional supplements.

Following January’s terminal prognosis, I had a consultation with another integrative oncology researcher who added-in off label drugs, alternative supplements and cannabis oils to my treatment protocol and increased my HBOT to a minimum of two 90 minute sessions, weekly.At that time I started a campaign to make the amazing and powerful resource that is my Buddhist practise of the past 37 years the foundation for recovery  and to consciously involve other local members of my lay Buddhist organisation -  Soka Gakkai International (SGI-UK) - as well as encouraging others to do the same to address areas in their own life that they want to change.

A trusted Buddhist friend, Dave Whatley, encouraged me to give my campaign a name, which I did - Mud into Lotus! You can see the Mud into Lotus emblem I created on this page.

Since January I have been fortunate enough to have been able to feel the support of these inspiring fellow Buddhism practitioners and, especially on the darkest of days, their chanting and prayer have felt like a thousand pairs of hands holding me up when I didn’t have the strength to do it on my own.