CANNABIS oil could ease the pain for one Coleview cancer sufferer hoping to raise thousands for the unusual treatment.

Viktor Panko was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, in late 2014.

The 24-year-old, has had a knee replaced and surgery to remove cancerous tumours from his lungs.

He says he has spent a year researching different treatments that could help ease some of his pain.

Viktor believes that cannabidiol (CBD) – an oil distilled from the cannabis plant – could help relieve his symptoms.

The young man, who moved to Swindon from Ireland with his family, is hoping to raise £5,000 on crowd-fundraising website JustGiving.

So far, generous sponsors have given more than £4,000.

Viktor said: “Right now new treatments for osteosarcoma are still in early clinical trial stages and will take years before they are available on the NHS.

“Private treatment can cost tens, up to hundreds of thousands of pounds. I have not been able to work as a result of my illness and have been receiving benefits since I got ill.

“Unfortunately, the price of high quality CBD oil is too high for me to be able to afford on a regular basis.”

Viktor is aware that treating cancer with cannabis oil might seem odd to some. But he says he’s rapidly running out of options.

“When people are put into difficult situations and they go through all the options, the whole idea of controversial or not goes out the window, because you’re not left with much to try,” he said.

Viktor still remembers the moment he found out he’d got cancer. It was late 2014 and he’d moved back to his parents’ house.

He had gone to see the doctor about a pain in his leg: “I was quite athletic and I thought it was a sport injury.”

Eventually, he was X-rayed at the Great Western Hospital. “Immediately the lady went in and said, ‘It’s not good news. It’s going to be quite a long journey’.”

Since then, Viktor has been in and out of hospital. He has gone through chemotherapy, had a knee-replacement operation after doctors found that the cancer had spread into the bone and recently discovered that he would need further surgery on a cancerous lump in his lungs.

After years of taking medication to fight the cancer and stem the pain, Latvian-born Viktor believes that the CBD oil will help him manage his symptoms.

He said it was “really surprising” that he’d raised £3,000 in just a week of fundraising: “A lot of people I knew in Ireland have donated, which was really surprising.”

To find out more about Viktor’s fundraising bid, visit: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/viktor-panko-os.