Dad’s radical treatment in fight for life after four-year cancer battle

Mark Hayes calls from his hospital bed in London where he is about to go into surgery for a Nanoknife ablation. The procedure – which involves sending a current of electricity into the tumours in his liver – is his second to be carried out thanks to donations from the public.

The 42-year-old has also undergone immunotherapy (DCT) in Spain as a result of the money raised, which he likens to receiving a vaccine made up from your own blood.

The treatment gives him high-tech multivitamins to help his body recover from the gruelling multiple rounds of chemotherapy he has been receiving in University Hospital Galway (UHG) since being diagnosed in 2017. So far nearly €100,000 has been raised, which has been largely spent.

“The mixture of the DCT and the Nanoknife have got me where I am today,” he reflects.

“The Nanoknife surgery gives me time. They couldn’t offer me normal ablation which is all that’s available here because I’ve a legion on the main blood vessel to the liver.

“I know of other people who have had what I have and it’s spread to the lungs and they’re not in a good place. So it’s either sit on my hands and watch it spread or seek other treatments and hopefully see my girls grow up.”

The secondary school teacher in Merlin College Doughiska, who lives in Kilmacduagh, near Shrule on the Galway/Mayo border, started on his cancer rollercoaster shortly after the twins, Emma and Olivia, were christened.

Read Mark’s the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download our digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie

Donations to Marks’ cause can be made by searching Mark Hayes on the GoFundMe online fundraising page.