Rafal Tabor (40) was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour earlier this year. Doctors said that they could operate but it was unlikely that he would ever be able to walk or talk again. His only other hope of seeing his two young children grow up lay with him receiving proton therapy from a specialist clinic in Munich – at a cost of up to £30,000.
The treatment uses high-energy particles in an attempt to kill cancer cells. It came to prominence in 2014 when the parents of five-year-old Ashya King were the target of an international manhunt after taking him out of Southampton hospital to seek the treatment in the Czech Republic, as it was not available on the NHS. Ashya has since returned to school and is now said to be cancer-free.
Mr Tabor’s friends and family launched an online appeal and within days Islanders, and people from the family’s native Poland, had helped raise the money.
The builder’s wife, Monika,told the JEP that her husband had just undergone chemotherapy after a programme of proton therapy and that they were now waiting for the results.
‘Rafal just finished chemotherapy and now he’s recovering after it,’ she said. ‘His condition is slightly worse but doctors in Munich warned us about these kind of side effects.
‘It is still too early to say anything because we need to wait three months at least after the proton therapy finished to know how it went.
‘Once again thank you to everyone for what they have done for us.’
Mr Tabor was healthy and active until he suffered a sudden bout of numbness in his right hand and leg in March which prompted him to visit his GP. The GP signed him off work but days later his condition deteriorated and doctors at the Hospital diagnosed him with an aggressive glioma [brain tumour].
