Inverkeithing: Funds to help Steven Fry battle brain cancer
Steven Fry had to be cut out of the tanker and airlifted to hospital, where doctors discovered the cause of his blackout was a previously undiagnosed and malignant tumour.
It's inoperable and the 32-year-old, who used to live in Inverkeithing and still has family in the town, says his "last hope" is immunotherapy treatment that's not available on the NHS.
Steven, whose daughter Piper will turn two in January, said: "It's just something I want to do as I want to see my wee lassie grow up and get married and everything.
Steven Fry with his daughter, Piper. She turns two in January. (Image: The Fry family)
"I want to see her graduate from school and uni, to be in her life."
Steven and Chloe, 29, married in 2019 and by the following April he started suffering from headaches that would "last for weeks and weeks".
He said: "Painkillers didn't work, I started getting a horrible aluminium taste in my mouth, a sickness feeling and numbness down the right side of my body. It was freaking me out.
"Four or five weeks before the lorry crash I asked for an MRI scan as I knew there was something wrong." The fuel tanker he was driving careered into an empty shop in Beauly in September 2021 after he passed out. Thankfully no-one was hurt but it was life-changing for Steven. He said: "The surgeon said if I hadn't taken the seizure I would have been dead within two months. "That was an estimate, it could have been longer, but it was lucky as the tumour was massive and it had spread. "However, when they did the operation to see what tumour I had I took a bad reaction and had a bleed on the brain." Steven underwent emergency surgery to save his life but it left him paralysed down the right side of his body. He had to learn to walk and talk again while Chloe was heavily pregnant with their daughter. He said: "One of the doctors told me I'd never be able to walk again. "A while later I walked over to him in the ward, tapped him on the shoulder and said 'Remember you told Steven Fry he wouldn't walk again? I'm Steven Fry'." After three months in hospital he was discharged just before Christmas 2021, Piper was born two weeks later on January 11. Part of his skull is now titanium and he has a shunt to take excess fluid away.
He got rid of the crutch last February but in May of this year Steven suffered another blow with the news that he has brain cancer. "They told me I could die in 14 years, basically." He's already undergone 28 days of radiotherapy and is undergoing chemotherapy, which is giving him headaches and sickness, in a bid to prolong his life with the gruelling course of treatment not due to end until August. What he believes would be far more effective, and buy him more time with his family, is dendritic cell therapy. His sister-in-law, Hayley, set up the Go Fund Me page which has raised £5,500 in two weeks. She explained: "Cell-based immunotherapy can be the last hope for many cancer patients who have an inoperable tumour and terminal diagnosis. "However, it can also be the first and last treatment needed for all cancer patients. "In the UK it costs around £50,000 and following an initial consultation with a team of specialists he has been informed that he is a suitable candidate and the chances of it being successful are high. "This has been the news Steven and his wife have been hoping for."
He said: "I go to London for this. They take about 200ml of my blood, it's sent to Germany and the immune stuff is put into my blood and then it gets put back into me to fight the cancer cells. "It's been on the go since 1971 and it's been proven to work." With that extra time he's also hoping to re-train and go back to work as a nurse. He currently volunteers on the hospital ward in Inverness where his life was saved in 2021, supporting others who receive a cancer or similarly frightening diagnosis. Steven said: "My family know I'm a fighter. I don't quit." Donations can be made here.[4]Steven Fry with his wife Chloe and their daughter Piper. (Image: The Fry family.)
Doctors discovered that the seizure Steven Fry suffered, causing him to crash his lorry into a shop in September 2021, was down to an undiagnosed brain tumour. (Image: The Fry family)
The treatment that could save Steven Fry's life costs around £50,000. (Image: The Fry family)
References