More than 2.7 million people have now watched the moment Ross Aldred tried to come to terms with the news that he had advanced colon cancer.
Perched on a hospital bed and hooked up to an IV drip, the 43-year-old fights back tears as he recounts – in heartbreaking detail – the chain of events that led to the devastating diagnosis.
Lean and healthy-looking, Ross tells his 38,000 Instagram followers that only weeks earlier he had been ‘living a normal life.’ ‘I was going to the gym, I was seeing my friends and family… I was getting ready for summer,’ he says.
What he didn’t realize was that the ‘funny’ lumps that had suddenly appeared on his neck were the first sign of something far more sinister.
‘They discovered through the biopsy of the neck that I have stage 4 colon cancer,’ he says, explaining that the disease had already spread to his liver, spleen, lungs and the lymph nodes in his neck.
The video ends not in despair but with a plea for help funding treatment that offers him the best chance of extending his life. But Ross lives in the UK, where it isn’t available through the National Health Service.
Ross and his husband Matt, 38, launched a fundraiser they hoped would raise enough money to pay for private treatment after learning it could cost the equivalent of $140,000 a year.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Ross, a TV and film digital director, says: ‘I thought, well, OK, we’ll refinance the house. I won’t take sick leave and I’ll keep working full time. Maybe I can ask my parents to withdraw part of their retirement savings. We’ll make this work.’
More than 2.7 million people have now watched the moment when Ross Aldred tried to come to terms with the news that he had advanced colon cancer
Only weeks earlier he had been ‘living a normal life.’ ‘I was going to the gym, I was seeing my friends and family… I was getting ready for a summer,’ he says
Instead, the GoFundMe appeal, which Ross and Matt had hoped ‘might add a couple of thousand’ took on a life of its own. Shared by celebrities including Dawn French and radio presenter Zoe Ball, the clip has so far helped to raise in excess of $300,000.
Ross believes one reason his story has resonated so widely is the ‘terrifying’ reality that colon cancer is increasingly striking people his age.
And the numbers suggest he’s right.
Once considered a disease of older adults, colon cancer diagnoses among adults under 50 have risen by about 50 percent since the 1990s.
Earlier this year, actor James Van Der Beek, best known for starring in the 1990s teen drama Dawson’s Creek, died at age 48 – just over two years after his diagnosis.
Doctors treating these patients say many are otherwise fit and healthy. Ross certainly fits that mold. A regular gym-goer, he follows a healthy vegan diet and hasn’t had a drink in three years.
Scientists have proposed a range of explanations for the rise in early-onset colon cancer – from pollution and foodborne infections to, most commonly, the consumption of ultra-processed foods.
‘The majority of the patients I treat are now young, mostly under 50, and otherwise healthy,’ says Dr Ravindhi Murphy, a consultant medical oncologist. ‘Most of these cases are diagnosed at late stages. Either they’re missed by doctors who assume it couldn’t possibly be cancer because of their age, or it just happens to be a particularly aggressive form.’
Ross is a keen gym-goer, he follows a healthy vegan diet and hasn’t touched alcohol in three years, yet was diagnosed with colon cancer at just 43
Now preparing to begin the treatment made possible by the fundraising campaign, Ross says he still struggles to comprehend how quickly his life changed.
It never occurred to him that the lumps in his neck, which he spotted while brushing his teeth, could be a warning sign.
‘When I moved my neck from side to side, I saw a little lump in the mirror, about the size of a pea,’ he says. ‘And by the end of the week, there were two of them.’
He assumed it was simply a throat infection – a sign he was run down. ‘I just carried on. I thought the funny thing on my neck was an inconvenience that would probably be nothing.’
While Ross’ primary care doctor urgently referred him to the hospital, the specialist who reviewed his ultrasound reassured him it was ‘a low-grade infection.’
‘They said, “It’s probably just swollen. You’ve probably been run down,” – that sort of thing.’
On May 22, specialists performed a biopsy and told him to expect the results in about a week. They also prescribed antibiotics to ‘get ahead’ of any infection.
But within 24 hours, Ross had developed what he describes as a ‘hideous clamping feeling’ in his stomach. ‘It was the worst pain possible,’ he says. ‘I thought it could be a hernia, or maybe even a reaction to the antibiotics.’
Earlier this year actor James Van Der Beek, best known for starring in the 1990s US teen drama Dawson’s Creek, died aged 48 – just over two years after his diagnosis
BRAF colon cancer accounts for about one in ten cases and is the same subtype that affected Dame Deborah James, who died from the disease aged 40 in 2022
That bank holiday weekend, on his way to the theater, he vomited on the subway. ‘I called my primary care doctor the next morning and said, “Something’s not right here.”‘
The doctor referred him for further testing of his digestive system, but he was told he faced at least a six-week wait.
Three days later, he was vomiting blood.
Ross and Matt, a marketing manager, rushed to their local emergency room, where scans revealed several growths on his liver. But doctors initially reassured him they were ‘likely benign’ and ‘nothing to worry about.’ A few days later, he returned to the hospital for an examination of his stomach and colon – an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy.
‘The following evening I got a phone call from the colorectal cancer department asking me to come in two days later,’ Ross recalls.
When he arrived for the appointment on June 1, he was greeted in the waiting room by a Macmillan cancer nurse.
‘I thought, “That’s not a good sign.” It was the first time it hit me that this could be something pretty serious.’
Minutes later, an oncologist delivered the body blow. Ross had stage 4 colon cancer that had already spread throughout his body.
Only one in 10 patients diagnosed at this stage will still be alive five years later.
‘I was in shock,’ he says. ‘I found it very difficult to make the connection between lumps in my neck and colon cancer.
‘And I was doing everything right. I hadn’t had a drink in three years, I was vegan, I was at the gym all the time. Clearly what I was doing wasn’t enough.’
His family – including his mother, who is undergoing treatment for leukemia – were ‘heartbroken’ by the news, but resolved to take it ‘one small step at a time.’
Ross’s diagnosis marked the beginning of a whirlwind of surgeries and treatments – all within the space of a month.
First, surgeons performed surgery to create a stoma after finding an 11-inch tumor was blocking his colon and leaving him in agonizing pain.
But while Ross was recovering, doctors uncovered another life-threatening complication.
Tumors in his liver were blocking the ducts needed to flush waste products from his body. As toxins built up, he developed jaundice – causing his skin and the whites of his eyes to turn yellow – and was at high risk of liver failure. Worse still, without a functioning liver, chemotherapy – the only treatment available to Ross through the National Health Service – would not be safe.
‘The liver is responsible for clearing chemotherapy drugs from the body,’ explains Dr Ravindhi Murphy. ‘If it isn’t working properly, the medicine builds up to toxic levels.’
Ross’s oncologist proposed a high-risk procedure to drain the toxins using a series of tubes and stents inserted into his liver.
‘I thought, if I don’t get this tube put in I can’t have chemotherapy and that’ll be it for me,’ Ross says. ‘I had no choice but to go ahead with it.’
The procedure was successful and his liver function slowly began to recover.
‘But then,’ he adds, ‘of course, I got sepsis.’
The life-threatening condition, in which the body’s immune system begins attacking its own organs in response to an infection, is a recognized complication of procedures involving the liver, says Dr Murphy. Remarkably, Ross recovered within a week and was discharged home.
Then, at last, came some much-needed good news.
Genetic testing of Ross’s cancer revealed that he had a subtype known as BRAF – a particularly aggressive form of the disease that also responds especially well to a new combination of drugs.
BRAF accounts for about one in 10 colon cancers and is the same subtype that affected Dame Deborah James, who died from the disease at age 40 in 2022.
‘These cancers tend to affect younger patients and are often very aggressive,’ says Dr Murphy.
Advocates argue that BRAF patients have been neglected by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which has denied access to promising experimental treatments.
In 2023, the Daily Mail published experts’ calls for more UK clinical trials offering targeted therapies to BRAF patients – drugs designed to destroy tumors by attacking their genetic mutations.
A recent international study involving 637 patients found that giving the combination of encorafenib and cetuximab alongside chemotherapy doubled life expectancy – from about 15 months to 30.
What’s more, patients given the three-drug combination faced no greater risk of side effects – such as nausea and extreme fatigue – than those receiving chemotherapy alone.
However, the treatment is not routinely available through the National Health Service.
Some British patients have accessed the treatment through clinical trials in recent years. However, there are currently no UK trials recruiting patients.
Genetic testing of Ross’ cancer revealed that he had a subtype known as BRAF – a particularly aggressive form of the disease that responds especially well to a new combination of drugs
Ross, who is due to begin treatment within days, remains positive. ‘When you’ve been faced with the possibility of your life ending sooner than you thought, suddenly everything else becomes more important,’ he says
PIC
Two of the drugs – encorafenib and cetuximab – are available through the National Health Service, but only after chemotherapy has stopped working. By that stage, studies suggest the treatment is significantly less effective than when all three drugs are given together from the outset.
Private hospitals can offer the full three-drug combination alongside chemotherapy, but at eye-watering monthly costs – prompting Ross and his family to launch a fundraising campaign to cover the treatment.
Ross, who is due to begin treatment within days, remains admirably positive.
‘When you’ve been faced with the possibility of your life ending sooner than you thought, suddenly everything else becomes more important,’ he says.
‘Whether it’s just eating dinner at home with friends, or spending time with my mom and dad, it feels precious. Euphoric, even.
‘That’s what life is about, isn’t it? Being with the people you love and making the most of the time you have. That’s what I’ve done since the day I was diagnosed. And that’s how I’ll continue.’
