Editor’s Letter – January/February 2020

If you haven’t heard David Downs talk about his story yet, you are in for something powerful in this issue. If you have already, you will know what I’m talking about. It’s got a bit of everything. Comedy, cancer, technology, hopelessness, hope and poop jokes. David tells his story better than I could so I will just leave it to him. Actually, maybe go there now and then come back because I’m going to give away some spoilers. Cue hold music…

…Pretty amazing, eh? So as David explained when he was giving us his talk at the M2 Summit, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer but ended up surviving because of a last minute opportunity to trial a cutting edge treatment out of Boston after some dude reached out to David over the internet. There are a couple of things that really stand out about David’s story for me. The cutting edge CAR T-cell treatment stuff is amazing, the fact that David’s friends and family raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for the treatment is amazing, David’s survival is amazing. What really stands out though is just his total optimism and his fight.

I don’t know enough about neurology to really talk with any great degree of certainty but that hasn’t stopped me before, so I’ll just keep going. Anyway, I suspect that optimism is maybe a fuel to this fight. Even though he was feeling like shit, was dealing with his mortality and had every right to feel sorry for himself, David made a conscious decision to take control of his approach to the situation. Even when he was stuck in a hospital room for months. As he says, you can’t choose your room but you can choose your attitude.

Another thing that struck me about his story is the fact that the leading edge treatment that he had to fly to Boston for is also being researched by Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington. They also got regulatory approval in September 2019 to run clinical trials of a new version of CAR T-cell technology. The fact that world leading research into cancer treatment is happening right here is amazing. Go and check them out by the way at malaghan.org.nz and donate if you can. Because while optimism is a powerful force, some world class research and treatment can’t hurt either.