A dad is in a race against time to save his life amid a gruelling cancer battle – after his options on the NHS for treatment have run out.
Serdar Ferit has been fighting stage 4 colon cancer, and given the devastating news that the chances of surviving five more years with his condition is about 10%.
Despite undergoing three-and-a-half years of treatment in the UK to fight the cancer, the 45-year-old is now looking elsewhere for further help to prolong his life.
The dad-of-one has dubbed himself “one of the happiest stage 4 cancer patients in the world” because he loves his life, family, and friends – and his goal is to be around for as much of it as possible, particularly when it comes to his little boy, Jaxon, 12.
“The most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life is tell my son that I’ve got cancer,” Serdar, who is from London, told Need To Know.
“Navigating that was the most challenging thing I’ve done in my life.
“I was advised to tell him somewhere that wasn’t a place we went to regularly, as he might develop a negative association with it, so we went to the little green area behind a local church.
I started with ‘you know I’ve been going to the hospital lately. Do you know what cancer is?’
“He was eight at the time, and he said, ‘do you have cancer?’ and I said ‘I have a type of cancer, yes’.
“He burst into tears immediately.
“He was inconsolable and kept asking ‘why is this happening to me when I’m just eight-years-old?’
“He also kept asking ‘but you’re going to be OK right, you’re not going to die? The doctors will help you.’
“It’s a really difficult position to be in, not to be able to reassure your child that everything is going to be alright.
“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Serdar, who is a documentary filmmaker and co-founder of an education platform called Lyfta, put off seeing a doctor after discovering blood in his stool back in February 2022.
He says he “convinced himself it was nothing to worry about”, and after researching the issue, believed it was haemorrhoids.
The problem continued, on and off, until an appointment with his doctor in July and a colonoscopy, where a camera is used to examine the rectum and large intestine, in September.
By the time he had the colonoscopy, Serdar says it was “too late”.
Recalling the moment he was told the diagnosis in 2022, Serdar said he felt “shocked, numb, [and] lost”.
Doctors found it was already at stage four, had spread to the liver and was showing signs of spots on the lungs.
He added: “I went to see my oncologist alone and felt so disoriented when I was going back home.
“When I got home, I did a lot of Googling and saw that the five-year survival rate was 10% on the UK Cancer Research website.
“I’ll never forget that moment.”
Serdar has faced a lengthy battle for his life since his diagnosis, having undergone more than 30 chemotherapy infusions with targeted drugs, many of which lasted 48 hours.
He has also undergone 28 sessions of radiotherapy to his pelvis, which he says left him bottom so sore he couldn’t sit.
Serdar also had a number of ablations – a medical procedure that uses energy to destroy small areas of tissue – to his lungs and liver, which were “very painful” and required morphine.
He added: “The thing that crushed me the most was the thought of not being able to see my son grow up.
“In the first few months, I cried regularly.
“I’ve always been a very happy and relentlessly optimistic person, and I think those first few months were as close as I’ve come to being depressed.”
Serdar currently has seven small tumours in his lungs, which chemotherapy and targeted therapy are keeping stable by ensuring they don’t grow.
However, this treatment will not cure him and he was told in mid-2023 that the cancer is likely to adapt and become ‘immune’ to the treatment over time.
The news came after a short period of “seeming remission” and a break from treatment, and Serdar described it as “devastating.”
Now, Serdar is looking at alternative treatments outside of the UK – particularly an immunotherapy in Mexico.
He is hopeful that immunotherapy can help his body do something chemotherapy often cannot: keep recognising and destroying cancer cells over time.
The proposed treatment plan includes four different personalised immunotherapy drugs – CAR-T therapy, two types of cancer ‘vaccine’, and monoclonal antibodies.
Serdar says his focus is on staying around for his 12-year-old son, as well as his ageing parents.
He added: “I want to spend as much time with my son as I can.
“I want to be here for him, and be beside him as he navigates this complex and messy world of ours.
“I want to see him grow from a boy into a young man, and I want to love him and support him as he does so.
“I also want to be here for my parents.
“My dad is 75 and my mum is 71, and while they are fit and healthy now, thankfully, I would love to be there to support them as they get older.”
Serdar is now raising funds to help pay for immunotherapy treatment in Mexico.
And, while the odds may be against him, he is determined to prove the statistics wrong.
He said: “I’m three-and-a-half years into this journey and I genuinely believe that I’m going to be in that 10% who live beyond five years.
“I believe that I’m going to live for many years to come.
“However, I know that that’s not going to happen by chance, and that’s not going to happen on its own.
“At this stage, the treatments available to me in England are not very likely to prolong my life for a significant amount of time.”
After finding the Mexican clinic, Serdar travelled there to meet with the team, and is currently fundraising to be able to go back and have treatment – a two-year plan they have devised for him.
He estimates the cost of travel, treatment and insurance to be £290,000, and has already raised £97,000 on his GoFundMe page, something he is “hugely grateful” for.
He added: “It has been overwhelming in an amazing way.
“I actually started the campaign on the day we signed our divorce papers with my ex-wife, which was quite emotional.
“Receiving so much love and support on the same day was so helpful.”
And despite all he has been through over the past few years, Serdar says his cancer battle has seen his perspective on life change dramatically.
He said: “Honestly, most of the time I am very happy.
“I am trying to have as much joy as I can with friends and loved ones. I am saying yes to more experiences.
“I have always been a positive person, but my perspective has shifted dramatically over the last few years and I am really loving life.
“I just hope I can live for a while longer so I can really enjoy this new outlook on life for a good number of years.”
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