Surrey journalist Keven Drews hopes to raise half a million dollars in bid to beat cancer

A Surrey-based journalist battling cancer hopes to raise more than half a million dollars in a desperate final bid for treatment south of the border.

Keven Drews has been fighting cancer for 14 years, but after stints with newspapers in B.C. and Washington State and a career with the Canadian Press, he’s now working on the story of his life: survival.

He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma — a cancer of the plasma cells — in 2003. In the years since, he has run a gauntlet of treatments, remissions and relapses.

Drews is also a husband and father to twins, one of whom is on the autism spectrum.

“Yes, cancer’s scary, but autism creates a tremendous stress, and I’d hate to see what it’d be like in my family if I were not around to help,” the 45-year-old Drews said in a statement.

After trying chemotherapy, radiation and a stem cell transplant, Drews said he’s now running out of treatment options.

He hopes to raise US$500,000 (about C$635,000) for a clinical trial in Seattle.

That trial uses a new method known as CAR T-cell therapy. It involves specialists removing T-cells from his body, re-engineering them in a lab, then infusing them back into his blood stream to fight the cancer.

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But with no private medical insurance in the U.S., Drews will have to come up with the money for treatment up front before he can be enrolled in the trial.

Drews, who is currently on medical leave from the Canadian Press, has kicked off a fundraising campaign with family and friends, hoping to collect money enough for another shot at life.