Brave dad in new cancer fight as disease returns

THE family of a man whose cancer has returned are appealing for help to fund more treatment that could save his life.

Nick Dipper, 52, from Highmoor, learned in the summer that he had a new tumour, having been given the all-clear a year ago following treatment which cost more than £140,000.

Now his wife Lisa, 39, has launched a new appeal to raise £75,000 for more treatment, saying it’s not just for her husband but also for her and the couple’s four-year-old twin sons, Ely and Ezra.

She said: “If you do one good deed in your life, please do this one. It’s not only Nick’s life, it’s my life and two boys’ lives you’re saving. We have got this far and to the stage where my children will remember who their dad is. These years are vital for the kids.”

Mr Dipper, a project manager, was diagnosed with the disease in his pharynx, which connects the back of the nose to the back of the mouth, in 2018. He then learned it had spread to his bones, lung and liver and was given a year to live.

However, he was denied treatment on the NHS because the tumour was in the “wrong” place, so his wife launched an appeal for pioneering treatment called immunotherapy.

Mr Dipper had recovered well until a scan at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford in July revealed a tumour in his left armpit.

A biopsy showed that the nodule was cancerous and contained the nasopharangeal cells from his original tumour.

Mr Dipper underwent 11 hours of surgery for a full lymph node dissection of 13 nodes in August. Only one was cancerous.

However, the family need to pay for further immunotherapy treatment and the development of a new vaccine to target the disease.

Mrs Dipper said the previous treatment had worked well and she believed it would do so again.

“Obviously time is of the essence with cancer,” she said. “We’re sitting and waiting for the next tumour to pop up. The downside is how long can you keep fundraising for?

“Health-wise Nick is doing okay, I suppose. He was looking at potentially returning to work and was doing really well.”

Her husband tried to be optimistic after the latest diagnosis.

Mrs Dipper said: “He buried his head in the sand a little bit and wanted to believe it was a rogue tumour that had popped up in an unusual place and nobody could understand why.

“It wasn’t until I thought about it and came to the realisation that rogue tumours don’t just pop up. We need to kill the stem cells off.”

The couple are paying to have the tumour tested privately and the results will help in the development of the vaccine.

On Monday, Mr Dipper flew to Stuttgart for a dose of the immunotherapy drug ipilimumab, which he has been given previously.

He returned on Tuesday night and will have his latest round of monthly immunotherapy treatment at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading today.

Mrs Dipper said: “It is believed by the doctors in Germany that he has relapsed because he needed the two drugs to work in combination with each other.

“That’s why we need the test to find out how the tumour is behaving and potentially create a new vaccine because it has obviously changed its behaviour.”

The family have raised about £4,000 so far but an anonymous benefactor has agreed to match-fund the total donations.

Mrs Dipper said: “We couldn’t do it without them. I’m lost for words, which is a first for me!

“I put the phone down just relieved that somebody was just prepared to help us and who had as much belief as I do that we can get him better. I’ll never, ever be able to thank them enough. In the current climate it’s a lot more difficult to raise funds and it’s always hard to raise funds the second time around.

“We’re firing on all cylinders because ultimately we have got no choice — we have been left to paddle our own canoe again.

“I’m home-schooling the children who couldn’t start school in September because I couldn’t risk Nick getting covid.”

Mrs Dipper said her husband’s previous scan in March was all-clear and the doctors initially believed the nodule in his armpit was due to infection. This was because tumours had not been found there previously.

Mr Dipper had been undergoing two courses of immunotherapy — one in Germany of four doses, which finished a year ago, and his monthly treatment at the Royal Berks.

On top of this he had his original vaccine, which was designed specifically for him and which targets his cancer, in March.

Mr Dipper was originally diagnosed with nasopharyngeal carcinoma, where malignant cells form in the tissues of the upper part of the pharynx, in the summer of 2018.

He began chemotherapy treatment immediately and then had radiotherapy as well. The treatment caused severe side effects as it aggressively targeted the hard-to-reach tumour.

Mr Dipper lost the ability to swallow or speak and lost his hearing, taste and vision.

Then in December 2018 he suffered multiple organ failure. His kidneys were shutting down, which meant he was overdosing on morphine as his body could no longer process it, and one of his lungs collapsed.

He was transferred from the Royal Berks to critical care at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford for specialist cardiothoracic surgery where two blood clots were removed from his right lung.

He spent six weeks in hospital and then had a week of recuperation at the Sue Ryder hospice in Nettlebed.

Mr Dipper appeared to be out of the woods when an MRI scan in January suggested  that the cancer had gone. However, days later the couple learned that it had spread and there was nothing more the doctors could do.

Mrs Dipper looked into alternative treatments and was recommended immunotherapy by an oncologist friend.

She suggested the treatment to the consultant at their next meeting and was initially told her husband could have it.

However, the couple then discovered that in fact the NHS was only licensed to offer it up as far as the mouth and that they would have to go private.

Mrs Dipper started an online appeal for the £40,000 needed to begin treatment and another £100,000 for the rest of the course.

The couple received support from as far as Australia, South Africa, Canada and America as well as in their village.

To donate to the latest appeal, visit www.gofundme.com/f/team-dipper-needs-you