Mandurah man raises money for Cure Cancer Australia after diagnosed with rare cancer

It’s been almost 18 months since Geoff Whitehorn was told he had at most two years to live. 

The Mandurah husband and father-of-two had undergone a multitude of tests, and finally exploratory surgery to determine why he had been experiencing painful stomach cramps in the months prior. 

The diagnosis: small bowel cancer – a rare cancer with no researched treatment or known cure. 

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“I just thought I would have a bit of chemo; I'll be right,” Mr Whitehorn said. 

“I got a very big shock when I went to the oncologist and he just came out and said you have one to two years to live. 

“We were just floored; as a family we were gutted. 

“But since then, we've coped as well as we can.”

Despite the prognosis, Mr Whitehorn and his family didn’t give up. His daughter Rachel – who is a medical student at the University of Western Australia – contacted a professor in Sydney who had trained doctors across the country in a complex operation for these types of cancers. 

“It's not like a big tumor; it's spread to the abdominal lining and not many of these operations are done,” Mr Whitehorn’s wife Francine said.  

“It's called a peritonectomy and that gave us immense hope, because he said: ‘I have someone who I have trained in Joondalup’.”

The plan was to put Mr Whitehorn under chemotherapy for six months with the aim of reducing the number of small tumours before trying to remove it in what was expected to be a 24-hour surgery. 

“He was going to go in and finely scrape all these tiny little tumours – almost like it was ash which had been blown over everything,” Mrs Whitehorn said.  

“It's not a bulky cancer; it's very delicate and fine on the abdominal lining.

“So we keyed ourselves up for that; it was giving us so much hope. We thought in six months time this is going to be our answer.

“He was feeling great over the chemotherapy and they went in, and they had to close him up. There was just too much there.”

Small bowel cancer is classified as a rare cancer which means there are less than six incidences per year, per 100,000 people. 

In Mr Whitehorn’s case, he is part of the 0.3 percent of the population who is diagnosed with small bowel cancer. 

But that’s exactly why Mr Whitehorn is using the time he has left to raise money for rare cancer research. 

“Of course the big cancers .... need lots of money because it is the majority but we're forgetting about the rare cancers and knocking them off,” Mr Whitehorn said. 

In 2014, rare cancers accounted for 47 percent of all cancer deaths, however it only received 12 percent of research funding. 

In the past month, Mr Whitehorn has already raised more than $10,000 from friends and family for Cure Cancer Australia. 

But he’s not stopping there. 

Using the online fundraising page Grassroots, Mr Whitehorn has created Beat the Beast in a bid to raise even more money to fund research into rare cancers. 

"It’s made us totally aware about cancer in general and the research which is done,” Mrs Whitehorn said.  

“There are so many cancers and not everyone is aware of all these cancers, and not everyone can give money to all these cancers but as a cover, Cure Cancer is giving their money to young researchers, to use their young initiative brains to pin point and research these rare cancers, so that treatment could be of benefit.” 

About 12 percent of research grants submitted to the National Health and Medical Research Council receive funding.

According to Cure Cancer Australia, in most of these cases researchers need to have a proven track record of results before they can be considered; ruling out young researchers. 

Cure Cancer Australia is a non-profit organisation dedicated to funding early-career cancer researchers to offer new ideas and challenging perspectives key to advancing the fight against all types of cancer – including rare cancer. 

These grants then increase their chances of gaining funding from other grant agencies in the future.

To donate, go to donate.grassrootz.com/curecancer/our-fundraisers/beat-the-beast