Woman’s Day New Zealand – August 26, 2019

PICTURES: GETYY IMAGES.

SURVIVOR’S

STORY

You’d think it’s no laughing

matter, but Kiwi David Downs

has a good dose of humour about

his experience surviving cancer. You

might recognise the author from his

days working as a comedian, TV and

radio actor. Contrary to the book’s title,

David’s illness was serious – non-Hodgkin’slymphoma–

and it was terminal. But the businessman and father-of-

three’s story has a happy ending. The book reveals his year

of gruelling treatment, which at one point nearly saw him

having to sell his house to fund $1 million for trial CAR-T cell

treatment in Boston in the US. It was this therapy that saved

his life. David now refers to himself as a “genetically modified

organism” – an unexpected pioneer in genetic engineering

• and he’s assisting Wellington’s Malaghan Institute to begin
  trials of CAR-T cell therapy in New Zealand. All profits from
  A Mild Touch of the Cancer will be donated to charities
  Leukaemia and Blood Cancer NZ, and Malaghan
  Institute’s Down with Cancer campaign.

David Downs

Cancer survivor

and author

Putting Dad on

a pedestal: Your

little one will

never forget the

time you spent

together.

AMildTouchof

theCancerby

DavidDowns,

Bakita Books, RRP

$39.95. Available

from bookstores

nationwide.

A M ld T h f

Woman’s Day 53