Gracie is my beautiful and courageous 28 year old daughter living in Penticton BC
She has an aggressive form of Ewing’s Sarcoma which has spread to her lungs. Gracie has been battling cancer for 5 years and now more than ever needs our urgent help for life-saving treatment options.
Throughout the past 5 years, despite her on-going health battles, Gracie has always strived to live her life as happily as possible. She enjoys her job as Medical Associate at FYidoctors and also has a keen interest in fashion, photography, music and fitness, Gracie especially loves her friends and family where she can share her spirit for adventure, her humor, her warm heart and her amazing ability to connect candidly and authentically.
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My beloved daughter’s cancer ordeal began in 2017 after several months of pelvic to foot pain became so severe she was hospitalized, scanned and transported by air ambulance to Vancouver to be biopsied. To our horror, Gracie was diagnosed with a rare form of Ewing’s Sarcoma on her sciatic nerve.
She then spent the next 2 1\2 months bedridden in Kelowna Hospital unable to walk and tormented by a never-ending list of dire medical complications including blood clots and infections. At times Gracie’s nerve damage pain in her foot was so excruciating she would plead for amputation; it was truly heart-wrenching bearing witness to the agony my girl suffered through. Yet she bravely fought for the next 10 months undergoing an aggressive 41 chemotherapy and 31 radiation treatments.
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Our prayers were answered in the Spring of 2018 when Gracie went into remission. After another gruelling year of recovery, and despite unrelenting nerve pain, my resilient daughter did her best to put the pieces of her life back together.
But to our shock, Gracie’s scan in December 2020 revealed the cancer had spread to both her lungs. My courageous daughter endured yet another 20 brutal rounds of chemotherapy and 10 radiations.
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By May 2021 we were relieved and thankful to learn Gracie’s cancer had shrunk and her health was classified as stable. But by March 2022 devastation returned as scans showed more growth and now more than ever it has become imperative we find new solutions to help my daughter once and for all beat this horrific cancer.
Help has finally come our way through
wonderful friends who have connected us to Cancer
Treatment Options and Management (CTOAM) located in
Vancouver BC.
CTOAM is a
precision cancer medicine research & advocacy service that helps
patients and their doctors access the most advanced diagnostics,
including genomic profiling and next-gen sequencing, and treatments,
such as immunotherapy and targeted therapies.
After consultation with one of their team
members, we quickly realized there is a chance for new solutions,
and for Gracie and I…HOPE.
CTOAM has recommended several genomic tests for Gracie, and we anticipate costs related to advocacy work, and treatment costs as well. The money donated will go directly towards these life-saving services for Gracie: Tumor DNA sequencing; RNA overexpression testing; expert analysis of the test results; direct consultations with CTOAM’s lead cancer research scientist, Alex Rolland; consults between Alex Rolland and Gracie’s oncologist; related advocacy work to access the recommended treatments; treatment cost; liquid biospy treatment monitoring. To give you an idea of the potential treatment cost: If immunotherapy turns out to be the right treatment for Gracie, it would cost approx. 3,500 per treatment, with 3 to 6 treatments being the typical recommendation.
Please donate to support Gracie, just 28 years old, in beating this horrible disease.
If you are unable to make a financial contribution, other ways of showing you care are extremely appreciated, like a kind message of support. We welcome your support with open arms.
You can read more about CTOAM below, and in the FAQ here.
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Thank you for choosing to be a part of someone's fight against cancer!
We are here because traditional cancer medicine is not always enough. Oncology physicians will take whatever treatment is shown to work for a sample of the population and apply it to everybody. But, just like no two people are alike, no two cancers are alike.
Cancer patients face enough adversity; harsh side effects from their treatments, financial complications, difficult choices, high levels of stress… and, here in Canada, the standard of care for these people – our friends, family, neighbours, colleagues – lacks specified, life-saving diagnostics and treatments.
But there is hope! REAL hope…
Studies have proven that through advanced – and personalized – diagnostics and treatments, which looks at the molecular profile behind each person’s individual cancer, patients experience:
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This is called Precision Oncology, or Personalized Cancer Medicine.
The problem we face is NOT the cost of the treatments determined by these methods. It’s almost always possible to get even the most expensive treatments covered. The problem is the cost TO GET THERE is not covered.
This means patients pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for:
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That brings us to why we're here today... we're going to help someone get there!
Cancer care takes a village. And some of those suffering from cancer need a bigger village than others. This is where YOU come in!
By donating to help someone suffering from cancer, who has run out of options in their standard care, YOU provide options. YOU provide a second chance. YOU PROVIDE HOPE.
And you can do that in two simple ways...
- DONATE - Support our friend along a cancer journey toward an enriching life
- SHARE - Your power is in SO MUCH MORE than what you donate... It's in who you inspire as well. Spread the word - hit those buttons near the top of this page and share this campaign via social media, direct email, or embed a widget onto your website.
Together we can provide access to the most advanced cancer care in the world!
Highlights
See all activity66What is CTOAM and why do we exist?
We are here in support of cancer patients and their loved ones. Cancer Treatment Options and Management (CTOAM) is a Canadian-based team of cancer research scientists, counsellors, and advocates who assist cancer patients in accessing the most current advancements in medical science to provide you with better outcomes (longer life expectancy and fewer treatment related side-effects) than you could have with standard cancer care alone.
Why Does CTOAM Exist?
Did you know that, right now, there are over 98,000 clinical trials, pertaining to innovations in cancer diagnostics in treatment, taking place around the world?
Each of these trials will ultimately produce a peer-review paper and critical information regarding treatment options for patients with certain genetic predispositions. That’s a lot of information being released every year! And one of those studies could very well contain the perfect treatment protocol for you.
The public healthcare system, and oncologists on the front lines, are not prepared to absorb and review this vast amount of data in a timely manner. So instead, what happens? The patients suffer. Because often patients end up being given standard chemotherapies, radiation, or limited surgical procedures, when in reality there are far more beneficial treatment options available to them, if their oncologist only had the time and resources to find them.
In fact, it can take up to 10 years for a Health Canada Approved treatment option to be utilized in Canadian Medicine as standard of care.
10 years! Cancer patients do not have 10 years to wait!
Standard care alone is simply not good enough. Cancer patients need better options, and fast. That's where CTOAM comes in...
Who founded CTOAM?
Cancer expert & research scientist, Alex Rolland, and cancer care specialist & counsellor, Michelle Morand, co-founded CTOAM over 10 years ago.
Alex Rolland has 25+ years experience as a highly respected research scientist in cancer and oncogenomics. He has spent time both on the frontlines with patients in hospitals and in labs researching the newest diagnostic and treatment advancements. Alex has developed highly successful treatment plans for oncologists and patients at leading cancer centres around the world, including the Mayo Clinic (USA), Johns Hopkins (USA), MD Anderson (USA), BC Cancer Agency (BC, Canada), among many others. He is recognized among the best in the industry as an expert and thought leader. Read more about why Alex started CTOAM.
Michelle Morand (MA, RCC) has a successful 30+ year career in mental health education and program development. She's helped hundreds of clients overcome hardships and live fulfilling lives. Deeply passionate about helping others, Michelle is an expert in cancer advocacy and works with cancer patients across Canada and worldwide to help them access better care and leading-edge treatments. Read more about Michelle’s journey to co-founding CTOAM.
Where is CTOAM located?
CTOAM works with patients and oncologists around the world. We are a virtual service, so patients do not need to leave their homes in order to work with us. This saves them money, energy, and time. CTOAM headquarters and labs are located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
What is Precision Oncology?
Precision Oncology is considered around the globe, by leading oncology associations such as ASCO (the American Society of Clinical Oncologists) as ‘the evolution of cancer care’. And with very good reason: here is a list with over 1800 recent studies about the benefits and use of Precision Oncology in many types of cancer – and on the need for oncologists to be better educated on the benefits of genetic testing and targeted therapies for cancer.
The use of Precision Oncology, which includes the use of genetic testing and targeted therapies (including immunotherapies) has been repeatedly proven to massively improve the success of cancer treatment, with patients living well beyond standard care timelines, and often finding themselves in long standing remission because their treatment has been directly targeted, using genetic testing, to the root cause of their cancer.
Learn more:
See
thousands of referenced papers
on the value of this approach to cancer care here.
Download our
Precision Oncology ebook, “7 New Ways to Beat Cancer Now!”
What does CTOAM do to help cancer patients get the right treatment?
At CTOAM our role in getting you the right treatment, right away, has 3 main steps:
- We facilitate the testing you need to prove which mutations are driving your cancer
- Our team conducts 30+ hours of personalized research for you to ensure we generate the most comprehensive and accurate treatment plan possible.
- We advocate for you, with your current oncologist, to assist them in accessing the treatments that are going to be most beneficial to you.
CTOAM will ensure that your oncologist has the most current medical science data to work with and that they have all the information they need about what has caused your cancer and what treatments have peer-reviewed evidence to show they will be better for you than your current standard care prescription.
This allows your oncologist to have confidence in prescribing you innovative treatment options that will provide you the best possible outcome.
We will do everything we can to ensure you get the treatment you need, ASAP.
Why Isn’t This Covered?
Canadian public healthcare – especially where cancer is concerned – is ranked around 23rd in the developed world, which is not great. Decisions for which tests and treatments to offer the public are based largely on budgetary and logistic limitations – NOT on what’s best for the individual patient.
The main factors for choosing the tests & treatments that standard care offers are:
- Which ones cost the least
- And which of those provide some benefit to the largest number of people…
As you can probably guess, this is NOT precision medicine. And it’s not personalized cancer care. It’s lightyears away from the best cancer care that’s actually available right now (if you know how to find it, like we do at CTOAM).
But, I need to reassure you that Canadian healthcare is definitely not all doom and gloom. First, we are extremely lucky to have access to free healthcare, even if it’s not the best. Second, even the countries that rank in the top 10 for healthcare can’t provide the latest advancements as fast as they are available…And those patients also need to pay out-of-pocket if they want to enhance their cancer care.
The point? There’s NO healthcare system that can keep up with delivering the very newest medical advancements to their citizens in a super timely manner.
Right now, the CTOAM team and I work within the public healthcare system as a way for patients like you to enhance their standard care, if they choose. To put it simply: we help public healthcare oncologists access better treatments for their patients – and provide better care and significantly longer lifespan – than they otherwise could.
Because your oncologist is obligated to stick to standard protocols unless they have scientific proof that something will work better for you.
So if your oncologist doesn’t have the data that CTOAM’s experts give them, then their hands are tied about what they can offer you. Your doctor will have no choice but to only offer you standard diagnostics (like CT scans, which are often inaccurate) and standard treatment (like chemo, which is often not even useful for many types of cancer or could be much more beneficial when paired with newer treatments, or avoided altogether with new targeted therapies…) And it’s not your oncologist’s fault. It’s just due to the nature of our medical system.
Because the proof is in the studies and the clinical trials: People are living longer, with fewer side effects, when Precision Medicine is used (correctly, as we do at CTOAM). However…until Precision Oncology becomes more integrated into standard healthcare, we are stuck with the system as it is. It’s sad but true.
And accepting reality is the first step to creating change. So, for a short while, yes – patients with more money will have the option to pay for better cancer care. This sucks, I know. I hate it, too.
Our ultimate goal at CTOAM is to show government officials, as well as doctors and patients, how much less expensive and time consuming Precision Oncology actually is – for the public medical system and for patients, too. It’s remarkable!
Using Precision Medicine (aka Personalized Cancer Care) saves time, reduces cost, and is basically a win-win all around, for everyone. In the future, there’s no doubt that more and more Precision Medicine will become adopted into public healthcare. But as long as people are vocal about what they know is possible, but aren’t being offered in public healthcare, change will happen.
Change will happen when more patients speak up and demand genetic testing. Change will happen when more advocates ask for what their loved one needs – not just accept what they’ve been given. And no, it’s not easy. It’s tiring and challenging. But it means that you’re taking back your power…your power over your health, and over bigger changes at a higher level that might impact many other patients, too.
What's the Problem with Standard Diagnostics?
Standard diagnostics for cancer rely on basic pathology and CT scans. The problem with this is that CT Scans are at best, 70% accurate but require multiple tests so that radiologists can compare one scan to the next and eyeball to see if there has been any change.
CT Scans cannot differentiate between live and dead tissue so any mass, shape or shadow that could be benign or scar tissue etc., has to be observed over 3-6 months or more, using multiple scans, before the radiologist can determine if the mass is growing. Still, they can’t tell it’s cancer. That’s where biopsies and pathologists come in.
And, while basic pathology is critical at the start – to ensure we are in fact dealing with cancer and not some other illness - it does not address the most key elements that patients need in order to ensure they get the right treatment: Those of identifying the root cause of the cancer.
As such, standard pathology techniques cannot identify targeted
therapy options and therefore oncologists who rely on standard
pathology cannot order targeted or immunotherapy options for their
patients with confidence as they do not have the information they
need about what genes have caused this cancer and therefore, which
targeted therapies are going to be right for this person.
Why is Genetic Testing So Important?
Cancer is a disease of genetic mutations. Everyone who has cancer, has cancer because they have one or many mutations in their DNA that has led to the overproduction of certain cells. These cells have formed masses, we call tumours, and are continuing to self replicate out of control, and will, if not properly treated, continue to grow until their host, you, has no more resources to provide them. And death occurs.
The use of comprehensive genetic testing to identify the genetic mutations driving your cancer is therefore a critical element in every patient’s cancer care. At CTOAM we believe every cancer patient should be able to access the most current and beneficial treatments possible.
But at this time in Canada the standard diagnostics tools used for cancer such as CT and pathology mentioned above, do not lead to the use of leading edge treatments like targeted therapies and immunotherapies because without genetic testing to identify the genetic mutations driving your cancer, your oncologist does not know what mutations to target for treatment, so they oncologist cannot, with any confidence, prescribe anything other than standard chemo, surgery and radiation.
What's the Problem with Standard Chemo?
Chemotherapy is like a shotgun approach to cancer care – it simply targets all rapidly reproducing cells, both healthy and cancerous. This is why the side effects can be so damaging. It does not differentiate, and does not get to the root cause. This is why cancer treatments based on chemotherapy often lead to recurrence, or do not ever truly get rid of the cancer entirely.
Why Are Newer Targeted Therapies (like Immunotherapy) Better?
Targeted therapies, including immunotherapies, provide patients with longer life expectancies and fewer treatment related side-effects because they are only affecting the part of your cells that has the cancerous mutation. Your healthy cells are not affected and the cancer treatment is far more effective. We call this a win-win! The issue is that targeted therapies can only be implemented once the genetics, or root cause, of your cancer are identified with confidence. Without genetic testing you are leaving numerous, beneficial treatment options on the table.
Do You Have Case Studies and Testimonials?
Yes, we have many patient success stories and case studies! You can see some of them here:
Do You Have Any Free Educational Resources?
Yes! We have plenty of free educational resources:
- See hundreds of free videos on our YouTube channel
- Download our free Precision Oncology ebook, “7 New Ways to Beat Cancer”
- Read our Cancer Research Blog
- Watch our free webinar on Precision Oncology
- Get our weekly newsletter full of educational cancer care tips
Can I See Stories of Patients You’ve Helped?
What's the Easiest Way to Get in Touch with You?
If you have more questions, please reach out:
- Phone within Canada: 778-999-5463 or Toll Free: 1-833-493-5463
- Email: info@ctoam.com
Can You Help Me with My Cancer Care?
Of course! Here’s the fastest way to get started on our program:
