Lawrence Bose feels alone out in Winnipeg.
He’s lived in Manitoba eight years now but grew up in Merritt and is a member of the Lower Nicola Indian Band.
He said he hopes to return to Merritt and often thinks about coming back to his home province.
Bose, 29, was diagnosed with stage four rectal cancer in February after having an emergency colonoscopy in Carman, Man.
Stage five is terminal, he said.
Bose said he currently lives at the Lennox Bell Lodge next to Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre hospital with his girlfriend, who has been by his side the entire time.
He said aside from her, he has no friends or family with him for support.
Though he may not have many people by his side in Manitoba, back in Merritt, Bose has a friend who is raising money to help him with medical expenses as he fights cancer.
Merritt resident Alison Cisco has known Bose since they were kids.
Cisco held a bottle drive for her friend in April, which raised about $200 for him.
Now, Cisco is holding her second fundraiser for her friend on Saturday at the Hitch ‘n’ Post restaurant. The event includes a dinner, a loonie auction and a 50/50 draw.
Cisco said the reason she decided to do this for her friend is because she felt if she was in his position, she couldn’t imagine doing it alone.
“I think it was the fact that he didn’t have anyone to help him. Just hearing his story, I couldn’t picture myself doing that much with no help and no family support, or no friends or anything,” Cisco said.
Bose said the fact people he doesn’t even know have been making donations to his cause is amazing.
Bose said he commutes to the St. Boniface Hospital three times a week for chemotherapy treatment.
He said at first he took a taxi back and forth between Winnipeg and his home in Winkler, Man. – about 100 km southwest of Winnipeg – which could cost up to $300.
Bose said his cancer has also spread to his liver.
“I got a tumour on my liver and it’s making some little masses form on the other side of my liver,” Bose said.
He said doctors are trying to eliminate the cluster on his liver, then surgically remove the half with the tumour.
He also said he has been trying different types of chemotherapy, the first of which made the cancer more aggressive and grow.
He said doctors now have him on another type of chemo, which they hope will shrink the tumour so they can perform surgery.
Bose said he was working as a roofer prior to discovering he had cancer and first noticed he wasn’t healthy when he began bleeding from the rectum.
He said he spent many nights awake due to the pain and was in and out of doctors’ offices in Winkler.
“They all just kept on saying, ‘Oh, it’s nothing, it’s nothing, you might have a fissure or internal hemorrhoids.’ I said, ‘No, I know my body. There’s something seriously wrong with me,'” Bose said.
He told the Herald he had been bleeding like that for a year but Winkler doctors shrugged off his pleas for a colonoscopy, claiming he was too young to have cancer.
Bose said he saw about six doctors before seeing his girlfriend’s doctor in Carman, about 40 km north of Winkler. He was sent for a colonoscopy and a tumour was discovered 10 centimetres into his rectum, he said.
Once discovering he had cancer, he was sent to Winnipeg to be treated.
“Everything just stopped. I quit my job, I just left my house behind and came to the city and [have] been here ever since,” Bose said.
Bose said when he first came to the Health Sciences Centre, doctors told him his cancer had travelled far into his liver and the best they could do was try and keep him alive as long as possible.
“They basically sent me back to my room in tears, and I was sitting there not knowing what to do,” said Bose, who soon received a phone call from a doctor from the St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg.
Bose said Dr. Ralph Wong told him he had a team of 12 oncologists who were interested in his file and wanted to try to find a cure to save his life.
Excited by the good news, Bose went to see the doctor, who set out the plan he had for him.
Bose said he told him they had 15 different types of chemo to try and though it would be a long fight, their goal is to cure him.
Bose said he goes for a CT scan to see if this second batch of chemo has helped on July 3. He’ll find out if he needs to continue taking it or try a third type of chemotherapy.
He also said there’s a possibility he might be sent to Toronto to try a trial drug, which has been found to stop breast cancer from spreading and can be used to treat rectal cancer too.
Bose said he is not bleeding anymore and the tumour in his rectum has shrunk about 30 per cent in the last few months.
As for medical expenses, Bose said when he abruptly had to quit work due to his illness, he had to go on social assistance.
Bose said social assistance will usually pay for all the prescriptions he needs but sometimes there are complications and inconsistencies with coverage.
He said this has been the case with Aboriginal Affairs too.
“It’s just off and on. Some days it’ll be covered and some days you never know, so I always try and keep money on me when I can,” Bose said, adding he’s had to use his food money to pay for those medications at times.
He said he transferred to the Swan Lake band in Manitoba – where his girlfriend is from – so he could work on the reserve as a security guard, which he did for four years.
He said the Swan Lake band will send him about $200 a month or so, but because he lives in the city, that money doesn’t go a long way.
He said if all goes well, he’d like to move back to Merritt and continue chemotherapy here.
Bose said he’s still hopeful as he’s tried just two of the 15 combinations of chemotherapy so far.
“There’s always one they can find that will stop it or shrink it, so I’m pretty confident. I have my hope. I’m not giving up yet,” he said. “I still feel pretty confident that they’ll find a cure, but my journey’s just begun. This ain’t going to go away anytime soon.”
