A 22-year-old poker dealer has been given a devastating prognosis after what initially seemed like a painful stomach problem turned out to be an exceptionally rare and aggressive form of cancer.
Nickodemus Dacres, from Croydon, south London, was working a shift in July 2024 when he suddenly developed severe abdominal pain.
He went to the bathroom during his shift, where he noticed blood when he tried to urinate. Alarmed by what he had seen, a colleague rushed him to hospital.
Doctors began investigating the cause of his symptoms, but it would take months before they identified the underlying problem.
Eventually, scans revealed a small tumor on Nickodemus’s right kidney.
By February 2025, doctors had confirmed that he had stage four medullary renal cell carcinoma, or RMC, a rare kidney cancer that had already spread to his lymph nodes and lungs.
One of the rarest kidney cancers
RMC is considered an exceptionally uncommon form of kidney cancer and is also known for being particularly aggressive.
The Ricky Casey Trust, a UK charity dedicated to the disease, says the available medical literature contains fewer than 400 documented cases worldwide, although the true number of cases is not known.
Nickodemus’s mother, Donna Dacres, 59, said the rarity of the disease made the diagnosis even more difficult for the family to comprehend.
She said doctors told her that Nickodemus’s condition was shared by only a handful of other people in the UK. For a family who had rarely dealt with serious illness, the news came as a devastating shock.
Nickodemus’s condition continued to worsen
In December 2024, surgeons removed Nickodemus’s kidney and several lymph nodes so they could be examined.
But the cancer continued to progress.
He began chemotherapy, with doctors warning that if the treatment did not work, his prognosis could be less than a year.
The disease has since spread to his liver and bones.
Nickodemus has also spent two consecutive months in hospital, dealing with severe pain and vomiting. His condition has become so difficult that he has struggled to eat properly for weeks, with his weight falling from around 74 kilograms to below 55 kilograms.
His family is now fighting to fund treatment
Because RMC is so rare, Nickodemus’s family says a targeted treatment they hope could help shrink his tumors is not routinely funded by the NHS.
They say the treatment costs around £8,000 every 28 days, with the overall bill expected to exceed £50,000.
The family has therefore launched a fundraising campaign to help cover the cost.
For Donna, watching her son become seriously ill has been one of the most painful experiences imaginable.
She described Nickodemus as a previously “bubbly” young man and said it has been heartbreaking to watch his health deteriorate.
“As a mum, nothing prepares you for watching your child suffer knowing there is so little you can do to take the pain away,” she said.
The family is now hoping the treatment will give Nickodemus more time and another chance in his fight against the rare cancer.
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