Fuck cancer. I mean, I usually don’t know what else to say when a contact reaches out to tell me that another metal artist is facing off against that dragon cancer. But if there’s anything I’ve learned over the years when dealing with this sort of topic, it’s that the metal community regularly rallies together to help out one of their own.
This time around, we’ve got Carnal Forge bassist Lars Linden staring down the barrel of a pretty serious diagnosis — colon cancer that’s spread to the liver — and he’s got a new GoFundMe to help out. He’s been living with this diagnosis since April 2023, but only recently has his doctors given him the horrific news that he’s only got “weeks to months” left on this earth.
Having endured “several operations on my colon, which resulted in a stoma, a pouch on my stomach and a catheter, as well as the removal of the main tumor and 25 cm (9.84 inches) of my colon” and “27 treatments with chemotherapy”, he said he’s been forced to adjust to this new normal.
And while that would be hard enough to deal with, he was also told that the Swedish healthcare system doesn’t have anymore viable treatment options to consider. Seeing as he’s at the young age of 53 years old, he’s not ready to give up the fight just yet, so he’s set up a GoFundMe page to seek out help from anyone that can spare some funds to help him seek treatment abroad.
“Unfortunately, the cancer, i.e. the liver metastases, has grown and become more extensive, and is unfortunately not operable at the moment. There are currently no treatment options available in our Swedish hospitals that can give me the help I so desperately need. My doctor said that I ‘should come back when I start to turn yellow, because that is when the liver is shutting down’. He said that ‘I wouldn’t worry about pain in the end because you will go into a coma first anyway’. Truly uplifting coaching.”
Great bedside manner, doc…
As of right now, he’s hoping to hit a goal of kr200,000 ($18282.87), with just kr17,950 ($1640.89) raised so far from 28 donations. If you’d like to help Linden out, be sure to head over to his GoFundMe page and kick in some funds. Could help keep this family man and metal head on the planet a little while longer.
