By Rhonda Massad
www.thesuburban.com
A Laval couple hopes for a miracle. Laval resident Matthew Schreindorfer, who is currently in New York thanks to a crowdfunding campaign for a last-ditch cancer treatment, is praying for that miracle.
Schreindorfer was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), an aggressive form of blood cancer, in August 2014, at the age of 24. Having exhausted all possible treatments here in Canada, Schreindorfer’s doctors explained his only chance would be to undergo an expensive clinical trial which is only available in the U.S.
Schreindorfer’s wife Katia Luciani started an urgent last hope crowdfunding campaign to raise the $800,000 it would take him to go to New York for an experimental gene therapy called CART-19. The treatment has only been tested on a handful of patients but has a high success rate so far. In just over a week the campaign has raised close to $450,000 and has given the Schreindorfer the financial boost he needed to get to the Urgent Care Facility in New York.
According to Luciani’s Facebook plea after a nine year courtship the high school sweethearts got married in June 2014. Only three days after returning from their honeymoon, Schreindorfer started developing symptoms such as exhaustion, abdomen pain, night sweats and fever. Initially the doctors thought it was a virus that he picked up while on vacation in the Caribbean. He was later diagnosed with mononucleosis at 98 per cent certainty. A final biopsy later confirmed ALL.
Medical expenses at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute in New York are expected to run between $600,000 and $800,000. For more information or to make a donation visit www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/help-save-matthew-/301257.
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);
ga(‘create’, ‘UA-45892555-1’, ‘auto’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);
