My father, János Kovács (aged 58, with two children and one grandchild), is battling a brain tumour!

At the beginning of January, following our GP’s advice, we took him to A&E at the hospital due to unbearable headaches and slurred speech. From one day to the next, he was forgetting words, had difficulty speaking and his head was in terrible pain. Previously, our dad had hardly ever taken any medication, let alone been ill. He never suffers from anything; he’s a real tough nut, so we were absolutely terrified. Unfortunately, after a series of tests (CT, ultrasound, etc.), we were faced with the worst possible news that nobody would ever want to hear: he has a brain tumour requiring immediate surgery, and his condition is life-threatening. During emergency surgery, a 4 cm tumour was removed at the Semmelweis Neurosurgery Clinic in Budapest, where our dad was admitted immediately and his life was saved within a matter of days. We are incredibly and indescribably grateful to his doctors. The time came for his follow-up appointment, for which we were also awaiting the pathology results. It turned out that his brain tumour was a so-called glioblastoma (WHO Grade 4), which is an extremely aggressive type of malignant tumour. They recommended radiotherapy and chemotherapy for further treatment, but the chances of survival for this disease are extremely slim; our doctor didn’t even want to talk about life expectancy. We were devastated! We didn’t know what to do next, when we heard of a similar case involving a friend of ours who is currently being treated at a clinic in Germany with a newly developed series of immune-boosting vaccines, which have shown extremely good results against cancer. Many of their patients have already survived for over six years, which gives us hope. Here is a scientific article on the treatment:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51315-8

Unfortunately, this treatment is not available in Hungary, so it is not covered by the National Health Service either. The treatment costs nearly €80,000, which is an enormous sum for an average family; for us, it is simply out of reach. So, at the moment, we can do nothing but ask for help; we are turning to you and asking you to support our father’s chance of recovery. We believe that many small contributions add up to a great deal, and that with solidarity, anything is possible. Please help us so that we can go fishing with our dad again, and so that he can once more prepare his beloved game recipe for us on New Year’s Eve, prune his fruit trees, and continue to repair people’s cars. Please support him so that in a few years’ time he can make a fishing rod out of reeds, a sandpit and a little playground for his 9-month-old grandchild, and so that our beloved dad, who is never ill and never takes medication, can now get better. Even if this donation is just the price of a chocolate bar or a coffee, it would mean the world to us! Thank you for all your generous support! 

How can you donate?

The donation process is very simple:

1)Look for the red "Donate" button: on a desktop or laptop, it’s in the right-hand sidebar at the top of the description; on a mobile, it’s pinned to the bottom of the screen. After clicking, you’ll first need to select an amount; alongside the most popular options, you can enter your own amount under "Other". Donations can be made in euros; we chose this platform partly because neither your bank nor Revolut will charge you high fees for this, and payments to the clinic must also be made in euros, so we do not lose valuable forints in the exchange. 

2) After entering the amount, you can select your payment method.

3) Next, under the ‘Support the4fund.comteam’ section, you can decide whether you’d like to support the website itself or the fundraising platform. By default, the slider is set to 20%; you can adjust the amount of your support by dragging it left or right (you are not obliged to support the platform), so this amount is not donated to me, but to the development company.

4) Next, scroll down,enter your email address and, if you wish, your name.

5) Finally,click the ‘Donate’ buttonto start the familiar card payment process.

If you have any questions regarding the condition or the treatment, I am happy to assist you in person!

Email: [email protected]