Don Martin planned a farewell tour across Canada after his cancer prognosis. Then, a faint hope appeared on the horizon. – CTV
April 20, 2026
After a pair of major surgeries, two years of immunotherapy and a daunting round of radiation, the results were in: The insidious beast was still alive and raging within me after a small mole on my neck, which had tested positive for malignant melanoma two years earlier, went metastatic into my lungs with spots on my scalp and hip.
The prognosis? “You’ve got 12 to 18 months,” my oncologist said with the weary empathy of someone who has delivered too many terminal verdicts too often.
It was a sucker punch to my soul as a bucket list of retirement adventures and experiences was abruptly kicked over.
My mind recoiled at the thought of unborn grandchildren I’d never meet, family gatherings I’d never experience and how my granddaughter would not get her insistent wish of this grandfather at her wedding.
“Unless,” continued the oncologist, sensing my shock. “We can find you a clinical trial.”
And that was how my fight for survival began.
For a few months, it was a search in vain. Canada’s pre-eminent cancer treatment program at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre had no trials for my type of cancer.
