'I got nothing to lose, except my life': B.C. cancer patient says health system is leaving him to die

For two years, Luke Harris has been fighting cancer. But he jokes that you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at him.

“I’ve still got my hair, I haven’t lost any weight,” he said, giggling.

Harris is only 38 and has already beaten cancer once, but he’s now been told he only has a few months left to live. In 2020, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer. He has been undergoing chemotherapy ever since, and the treatments have been hard on his body.

“I’ve had a blood clot in my neck, I’ve bled out because they gave me the wrong blood thinners, I’ve almost died a few times,” he said.

Last November, doctors removed 65 per cent of his liver and declared him cancer-free, but the cancer grew back just one week later. It’s only on his liver and has not spread to any other part of his body.

“I thought I had it beat and then all of a sudden, kick in the pants, here you go, gotta start all over again,” he said. “Within a week, I was up here and then right back down to ground zero.”

Harris lives in Sicamous and has been receiving treatment in B.C.’s Interior. He believes the health system has failed him by only offering chemotherapy as treatment and not helping him explore other options.

“I find it hard to believe that I’ve just been told to go home and lay down and die. I don’t know how you can justify that when you’ve only done one treatment,” he said. “I’ve seen two surgeons and they’ve both said no (to other treatments), another oncologist said no and this doctor says no, is there someone out there that will say yes?”

Harris’ family has started a second GoFundMe, this time to raise money in the hope that he can fly to another country for a liver transplant, a procedure rarely done in Canada for cancer patients.

Harris said he’s not ready to give in to cancer, and never will.

“I got nothing to lose, except my life,” he said.