Part A
If December marked the moment the plan entered my bloodstream, January was when reality hit back. Hard. It came at me from every side: physically, emotionally, logistically, and existentially. The oncology community doesn’t prepare you for January, a time when many people struggle. They highlight the start date on the calendar, explain cycles and blood counts, and then quietly fade into the background while the second round strikes like a hammer.
For me, the year began with chemotherapy still surging through my body, the grief for my mom still fresh, Duke’s absence echoing in the house, and Christmas feeling like a surreal fever dream I’d stumbled through. Nothing about me felt stable. Not my body, not my emotions, not even my sense of time. Chemotherapy blurs everything, like life smeared with petroleum jelly.
But January was also when I started to build the discipline that kept me alive long enough for science to catch up.
This is the chapter where nothing improved, yet everything started to shift.
1 January – Survival Mode
New Year’s Day came without any celebration. There were no resolutions, no fireworks, and no hopeful toasts about fresh starts. Just the same pain, the same neuropathy, and the same fatigue clinging to my bones like wet sand.
Cold neuropathy was the worst. Anything below room temperature felt electric. The outdoor air stung. Gripping a glass felt like shaking hands with a live wire. Even the downstairs bathroom was too cold to use safely, so we installed an electric radiator just to manage.
Fatigue followed me from room to room. It wasn’t normal tiredness – it was cellular exhaustion. It felt like it was sitting behind my eyes, making even breathing feel like a task.
Swallowing was still a negotiation with my oesophagus, which decided even lukewarm water required vetting. The tumour was still very much present and had its opinions.
Pain served as the background soundtrack. Sometimes it stabbed, sometimes it burned, and sometimes it felt like someone was pressing a fist into my solar plexus and refusing to move. The aftershocks of the first CAPOX infusion still hit me like waves.
The truth is: on 1 January, I didn’t feel like someone fighting cancer. I felt like someone being dragged by it.
But I kept going. Not because I’m heroic, but because I have two sons who deserve a dad who didn’t give up just because the year changed.
The First Hospital Stay of the Year (Early January)
I don’t remember the exact day. That month exists in fragments. But at the start of that first week, the pain escalated again. I called the 24-hour oncology triage line, and they told me to come straight in.
There were no beds available.
I spent two days on a gurney, in a room off A&E, listening to the sounds of a hospital trying to keep up with itself. It would have been degrading if I’d had the energy to feel humiliated. But January stripped life down to basics. I needed help, and they provided it. The surface details stopped mattering.
They adjusted my pain medication, increasing the oxycodone, maintaining the pregabalin, and monitoring everything. At times, I was half-conscious, drifting in and out as nurses moved around the room like quiet shadows.
This stay didn’t have the drama of December’s palliative ward; no one dying next to me this time, but it offered its own kind of reality check. There’s something about starting the year on a trolley in a hospital gown that sharpens your priorities with chilling clarity.
I wasn’t trying to thrive. I was trying to stay alive just long enough to try.
7 January – Cycle Two Begins
Chemo cycle two started before my body had even stopped reacting to cycle one.
They say the second round is tougher, and they’re right.
Oxaliplatin accumulates. The neuropathy gets worse each cycle because your nerves don’t heal quickly enough. Plus, your bone marrow is still dealing with the aftermath of round one. It’s a one-two punch, first to the nervous system and then to the immune system.
I couldn’t drive myself. Yes, I’d bought the chemo commuting car in November, a 4.4L V8 BMW 650i that made no sense for a man who could barely manage stairs. But it was symbolic. It made me feel alive when everything else made me feel like a patient.
On chemo days? I couldn’t even handle the temperature outside, let alone grip a steering wheel. Ana had to drive me, wait for me, and then drive me home again. She watched me stumble from the car to the house like a soldier trying to walk off a blast.
That’s what they don’t tell you about chemo: your independence takes a hit long before your hair or taste buds do.
The Science of Why Round Two Hurts More
Just briefly, in plain terms:
- Chemotherapy accumulates. Nerves become more sensitive. Cold causes spasms, and your extremities feel foreign.
- Bone marrow suppression peaks around cycle two. This means fatigue and vulnerability are at their highest.
- Inflammation rises. Everything aches more, swells more, and reacts more.
- Your gut lining gets thinner. This makes digestion, pain, and nausea much worse.
- Your energy reserves are already depleted. Chemotherapy doesn’t start at zero each round; it picks up where the last cycle left off.
That’s why the second cycle often sends people back to the hospital.
It’s not about weakness; it’s physiology.
And Through All of This – the Discipline Begins
January was when my routine became a survival mechanism.
HBOT
I still traveled` to HBOT several times a week. Sitting in that pressurised chamber was oddly calming. I read, listened to podcasts, and imagined oxygen moving deeper into the tumour than chemo could reach.
Keto and fasting
Vegetarian keto remained my daily foundation. Fasting windows emerged naturally because food became a negotiation. My blood ketones stayed high, and my insulin stayed low. This mattered, even before I had proof.
Breathwork
Every morning, I did 15 minutes of Wim Hof breathing. It wasn’t spiritual or mystical; it was just chemistry and discipline. When everything else hurt, my breath was the one thing I could still control.
Sauna
The sauna became my refuge. It was the only place I could still feel something other than the effects of chemotherapy.
Red light & PEMF
Nights on the mat became a ritual. It served as a reset button when my nervous system felt frayed.
Supplements
Still no off-labels; my NGS results weren’t back yet. But the foundations were forming.
Nothing felt like it was working yet. But January is when the groundwork was laid for everything to come.
9 January – Ana Starts Phlebotomy Training
I won’t go deep into this here; the blog after next will focus on her journey.
But this day mattered.
I spoke to Dr. Hari Kuhan and Dr Isabella Cooper about high-dose vitamin C. We needed IV access, and with hospitals overwhelmed and appointments scarce, we needed someone we trusted to help us at home.
Ana was only two months post-lung surgery. She wasn’t supposed to lift anything heavier than a bag of sugar. Yet she walked to her first phlebotomy class in the freezing January air, determined to learn how to cannulate me safely.
By the time she finished her training, she could place a cannula as confidently as any nurse.
If you want to understand love in a crisis, start there.
Since she wasn’t qualified yet, we contacted Jo, a nurse I knew from my time on Guernsey who happened to live nearby. She stepped in immediately, without hesitation, to help guide those early vitamin C sessions and oversee everything we did at home.
But again, that story deserves its own spotlight.
14 January – Mistletoe Enters the Chat
Mid-month, I had my first consult with the NCIM (National Centre for Integrative Medicine). Mistletoe therapy had caught my attention, but January was the first time I had the mental clarity and support to start.
It wasn’t emotional, spiritual, or symbolic.
It was practical and evidence-based. It was one more tool in a toolbox that desperately needed more.
They explained everything calmly. No promises, no magic – just science that complements conventional treatment, with a reasonable safety profile.
I began shortly after.
Mistletoe didn’t make January any easier. But it became part of the framework for what lay ahead.
Mid-January – The NGS Results Arrive
Mid-January brought something I desperately needed: information.
The Datar portion of the Astron report arrived.
Finally – I finally had a molecular map of what I was fighting.
And suddenly, the plan became clearer.
I learned:
- where my tumour was vulnerable
- what drugs it was likely sensitive to
- which pathways mattered
- what I shouldn’t waste my time on
- which off-labels actually matched biology rather than just the internet’s narrative on cancer
For the first time since my diagnosis, I felt like I wasn’t stumbling in the dark.
The full off-label regimen didn’t begin until the last week of January, when the prescriptions arrived and the timing synced with my chemo cycles.
But mentally, January changed everything.
A Mercury Filling and a Moment of Control
Somewhere in the haze of mid-January, I also visited the dentist.
I had an old mercury filling removed and replaced. I’m not convinced mercury fillings cause cancer. The evidence isn’t strong. But I wanted to clean up every possible environmental variable. It felt significant in the best way – a moment where I could still take control of something, even if it was small.
January is a month when you cling to anything that gives you a sense of agency.
Even in dentistry.
End of Part A
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