Adam Kelliher tells of his struggle to survive bowel cancer
In a five-part series, the Herald investigates controversies in cancer testing and treatment and reports on the moving stories of people afflicted with cancer. In the second part of the series, Herald health reporter Martin Johnston turns his attention to bowel cancer
Adam Kelliher glances at the pictures of his children taped to his work computer screen as he describes how he has struggled against the tumours slowly growing within him.
"I would do anything to survive for my daughters," says the 43-year-old jewellery designer, who with wife Trish has two girls, Amber-Lee, 12, and Charlize, 9.
"That's my only thought. I don't entertain anything about not getting through this," says this tall, well-built man, his eyes reddening.
A believer in the power of positive thinking, Mr Kelliher says he has spent "heaps" on alternative therapies.
He admits his statistics don't look good on paper - diagnosed with bowel cancer at 40, tumours that have spread to his liver and now his pelvis - and this has made him wary of those with scientifically derived "doom and gloom" data on patients' chances.
Mr Kelliher's cancer was diagnosed by colonoscopy after he had waited for three months on an urgent waiting list for the bowel investigation. His GP had referred him after he passed "frothy" blood. He had already been on a lower level colonoscopy list for six months after experiencing a tiny amount of bleeding that had been ongoing for about a year and had been attributed to haemorrhoids.
Adam Kelliher is determined to beat his cancer and survive against the odds for his daughters. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Surgeon Andrew Connolly removed a large section of his bowel and referred him to liver surgeon Adam Bartlett, whose treatments have included feeding minuscule "beads" of radioactive material into the liver.
The treatment is delivered - like heart angioplasty - through a thin tube slid into a blood-vessel incision at the groin. It usually costs more than $30,000 but Mr Kelliher was treated for free as part of a clinical trial and he also received chemotherapy.
"Without Adam Bartlett I wouldn't be here today. It was him and Andrew Connolly who worked together in the beginning to make it all happen."
Dr Bartlett says internal radiation was Mr Kelliher's only option and the tumours began melting away in his liver. They shrank enough to permit surgery to remove three-quarters of the liver which later grows back to normal size.
"The only downer with that operation," Mr Kelliher recalls, "is that the oncologist said they took tissue from the ... last tumour site and it still had active cells."
The chemotherapy resumed but Mr Kelliher stopped it last year, against medical advice, because he felt the sad environment of the cancer centre, despite the nurses' positive attitude, was harming him.
Subsequently blood-test markers of cancer have crept up and scans have shown the liver and pelvic tumours.
The current plan is: more liver surgery, followed by more radiotherapy and then pelvic surgery.
The Series
Yesterday: Breast Cancer Today: Bowel Cancer Tomorrow: Lung Cancer Thursday: Melanoma Friday: Prostate Cancer
