Preface
Several of my followers have graciously let me know that reading through the individual sections of my story, on this blog, has seemed… heavy. Not emotionally – albeit it is that in places too – they've indicated it's felt heavy from a practical standpoint; i.e., there are numerous variables to keep track of (science, timelines, etc.)… essentially, too many hospital corridors and protocols to hold in your head at once.
Which is very understandable.
My experience with cancer was complex, and so has likely been the manner in which I've documented it; I have tried to write it like I did nd do live it – intensely, analytically, and without much editing for brevity.
Therefore, I have decided to create this condensed version, for ease of reading.
One story told in three acts. An unbroken narrative. The spine without branches. The arc of humanity as opposed to the full technical instruction manual.
While each of the deep dive topics – hyperbaric oxygen therapy, ketogenic nutrition, red light therapy, off-label medication – will still be available to review separately, I believe this format provides a better vehicle for following the overarching narrative thread of my journey.
And, if you were among those who began reading along with me at the onset – thank you again for continuing to read along – I will continue writing the full story, not least as it’s helping me with the timeline and content for the book (release TBC – pre-order website is however live, but I won’t be releasing updates until nearer the time – www.killingdave.com)
ACT I – I didn’t suddenly get cancer…
First thing I want to say here is that the way we talk about illness creates this illusion of instant-ness. A healthy before. A sick after. One bad day that will explain everything.
This was not my experience.
My experience was a slow and grinding decline. Years of small warning signs that never really seemed to add up to anything serious. Years where nothing was dramatic enough to take seriously. Years where I was simply…uncomfortable. Then increasingly limited. Then quietly terrified.
It officially started sometime around 2016-2017, although I wouldn’t have realised that at the time. It started very un-notably with acid reflux, the type we all experience at some point in our lives. It wasn’t until a few years later that it slowly and unassumingly progressed to the type that wakes you up at night with burning in your throat and nose. Then, even longer until it became the type of pain that occurs after eating that doesn't seem to be indigestion, but rather feels like pressure from somewhere deep inside of you. A slowly spreading discomfort across my chest and back that felt very similar to angina (same nerve cluster), but has enough inconsistency to dismiss it as such.
I followed the typical protocol for this situation… I went to my GP (my family doctor for my US followers).
He gave me omeprazole (a Protein Pump Inhibitor – a medicine which lowers stomach acid). He reassured me. He gave me more omeprazole. I returned. And returned again. The symptoms took different forms, but never went away. Eating became something I prepared for rather than something I enjoyed. There were times when the pain was severe enough that I would lay flat on the floor after meals, bend my knees, and wait for it to pass. Sixty minutes. Ninety minutes. Enough time to wonder if this was just what being an adult was for me now.
There was a point, later on in my pre-diagnosis journey, when I visited a body dynamicist and chiropractor due to the nature of the pain, which had become muscular and relentless by that point. My back hurt. My chest hurt. It felt mechanical. As if something was pushing against something else that should not be pushed against. Looking back, that's precisely what was occurring. At the time, it was just another dead end.
Anyway, life continued to move forward. I find it usually does…
I launched a business. I worked long hours. I told myself I was stressed. I lost weight without attempting to and claimed to be thrilled about it. When people commented on it, I laughed it off. "Must be stress." "Must be my metabolism." "I've always had a sensitive stomach."… if you’re here, you probably know the drill (albeit I really hope you don’t).
When swallowing began to feel a little bit off, I'd already developed a habit of not making a big deal about things. It didn't hurt. Maybe it’s just an intolerance. Or, it was simply…sticky. As if food did not always want to go down on the first try. I adapted instinctively. Smaller bites. More water. Smaller, slower meals. You don't even notice these adjustments as you make them gradually.
Ana noticed.
She herself had experienced some sort of health scare. In August, she was sent to the emergency room with what everyone believed may have been a heart attack. Chest pain, jaw pain, shoulder pain. An ECG eliminated heart problems, but someone decided to order an x-ray anyway. This decision changed everything. They found a small nodule deep within her upper right lung.
The weeks that followed were a blur of visits with specialists, cautiously worded statements, and a sense of foreboding that arises from being told something is "likely" nothing whilst everyone acts as if it may be something. By September, she was meeting with a surgeon. Surgery was scheduled soon. On the 2nd of October 2024, she had the entire upper right lobe of her lung removed. She returned home on the Saturday. The nodule turned out to be small cell lung cancer. It was, very thankfully, caught early and dealt with.
Therefore, whilst my body was quietly failing, Ana was recovering from significant surgery, prohibited from lifting anything greater than an orange, her lungs physically repairing themselves back together. Her parents flew in from the US to help us with the boys. My dad (Sam) and his girlfriend (Liz) were coming by to visit on their way back to Guernsey Too.
And somehow, amidst all of that, my symptoms worsened.
After many months of waiting for an appointment, a lovely and thankfully switched on gastroenterology specialist picked up my file and quickly pit together my pain and weight loss, and raised concerns. That was the first time anybody appeared to be genuinely concerned. Atop the endoscopy, a CT scan was ordered "for safety reasons." Although, I was assured, repeatedly, that it wouldn't be cancer. Possibly an infection. Most likely an ulcer. However, they wished to eliminate the possibility of other issues.
The CT scan was completed on Sunday the 13th of October.
I had been waiting for nearly seven months for the referral to undergo an endoscopy at that time. Referral. Lost. Chase. Referral. Delayed. The type of bureaucratic red tape that doesn't appear to be malevolent, merely woefully ineffective.
The endoscopy was eventually scheduled for the afternoon of the 15th of October.
Cole’s – the younger, and wilder, of my two boys – First Birthday.
That day remains vividly etched in my mind in fractured, disjointed pieces rather than in a linear sequence. The waiting room. The horrible rotten banana flavoured numbing agent (normally this is done under local anaesthetic, but with Ana still recovering and my little boys birthday to get home for, I chose to take the difficult route). The sensation of pressure and choking that no amount of reassurance can prepare you for. And then the tone shift. The immediate seriousness. The manner in which healthcare providers cease to provide narrative when something is wrong.
They displayed the image for me to view, it was unavoidable given that I had been awake throughout.
I observed it prior to them stating it. A mass. Encircling. Calcified. Jagged. Massive. Unattractive. It was unambiguous. It was unobtrusive. It resembled something that had existed for a considerable period of time.
The clinician tried to chose delicate wording. "Of concern." "Suspect." "Biopsies will be required." Nevertheless, the message had already arrived. You don't require a medical degree to identify something that does not belong. She confirmed the worse, she was certain it was cancerous.
I returned home that evening to a residence filled with individuals, balloons, and cake. Cole was one year old. My mother-in-law and father-in-law were present, smiling nd joyful. My dad and Liz were also there. Ana was still recovering from her lung cancer surgery and still not supposed to lift our boys; however, she watched me as if she was seeing me for the first time.
I smiled. I hugged my eldest boy (Axel) tighter than he’d ever been hugged before. I sang Happy Birthday. I attempted to be present. I attempted not to stare at the calendar and realise how neatly life had decided to pile up its punches.
On the 17th of October, I made the drive down to Somerset to tell my mother face to face that I had cancer.
She had worked as a palliative care nurse in the NHS for nearly her entire career. She comprehended illness, and death for that matter, in a manner that many individuals do not. She comprehended what actual cancer appears like once the sloganeering stops. I had a deep need to tell her properly and with care, not over the phone. I needed to witness her reaction. I needed her love and support.
She attempted to be courageous for me. I attempted to be courageous for her. We both failed miserably.
Then everything increased speed.
Results from the biopsy revealed that I had an oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Large. Advanced. A PET Scan was scheduled for the 1st of November. The language began to alter from "therapy" to "management." From "choices" to "routes."
On the 27th of October, my mom passed away.
We got the call from a family friend the following morning. On Axel's Third Birthday.
She’d been ill herself for a long time – scleroderma, which caused the fibrosis in her lungs. She fell at her home. Likely shortness of breath. Likely her lungs. She was unaware that I was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, only that they’d found cancer. That reality still hits me in the chest like a physical force whenever I think about it. Life has a definite irony to it at times.
And, grief isn’t polite. Grief places itself on top of everything that is currently there and demands to be heard – intrusively!
By the time I received formal confirmation that I was incurable – on October 31st, just a few days after my mothers death – I was already drained in a manner unrelated to the disease. The PET scan revealed that my lymph nodes were heavily involved in multiple locations. Retroperitoneal. Para-aortic. A cluster of nerves located near my solar plexus that explained why I was lying on the floor for years experiencing the pain.
They deemed me inoperable, incurable – Palliative Care Only…
Those terms do something odd to time. They compresses it. They produce a feeling of both urgency and futility simultaneously.
I was 35 years old. I had two young boys (then just turned one and three). A partner who was recovering from a major lung operation, for her own cancer. A company that was halfway through its big launch. A truly life-changing deal with a major high street bank on the books – it was due to be signed on the 17th. Rather than preparing for that meeting, I was preparing to inform my mother – my dear mum who then died before even finding out how ill I actually was.
In some strange way, I’m actually glad of that last bit. Having to go through this myself is bad enough, but going through it as the parent of someone in my position (child or adult) must be hell on earth. If you’re one of those parents, I feel for you – truly.
The pain intensified rapidly. At this times it consumed me. Swallowing was agonising. After each meal, the pressure in my chest grew until I was lying on the floor after every mouthful, waiting for it to subside, and wondering how much longer I could endure this. A few weeks later, I ended up spending time on a palliative ward – it was all individuals who were decades older than I. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I wa half the age of the next youngest person in there. I saw and confronted death numerous times on that one hospital stay alone. That visit in particular taught me the distinction between diagnosis and deterioration.
In the midst of that chaos, something within me solidified.
Not denial. Not optimistic thinking. Not refusal either.
I didn’t yet know what I would do. I had no strategy. I didn’t know there were other solutions. But, I was aware that I wasn’t willing to completely relinquish my agency. I was aware that if this was the sole existence I was granted, I was not going to drift through its demise easily.
ACT I ended there.
Not with optimism. Not with solutions. Only with a line in the sand.
I was still alive.
And I was not finished.
ACT II – Grind
December was an anticlimax.
It was paperwork.
Consent forms. Endless appointments. Phone calls that began with "just to check…" and concluded with additional burdens being placed upon me, quietly. At that point, my existence was confined to a series of limits: what I could consume. For how long I could remain standing. If my pain would intensify, or only simmer. If I'd have a decent night's sleep without waking to be soaked in sweat, having a tight chest and racing heart, and worried that this was the exact moment things would tip.
I had mixed feelings about the possibility of treatment from the onset.
Not due to any animosity towards medication; nor was I being naive; nor holding onto fantasies. I simply couldn't find any logic in the numbers provided by the doctors, those regarding what the most probable outcome would be of the chemotherapy course being offered at that juncture. The response was candid and unsettling in its candour: nothing (in terms of quality) would probably be purchased with the chemotherapy: at most two extra months, but of poor health and as a shell of my former self.
It's simple to toss around phrases such as "quality vs. quantity" until you're faced with making a choice between them In your own life.
I'd already reached a private decision. If the price tag of that treatment was 11.5 good months of life as opposed to 13 bad ones, I would opt for the former. I wanted my boys to have memories of me as someone who was able to sit on the floor and play with them. Who was able to hug them. Not as someone who had essentially disappeared into a bed, poisoned by the treatment designed to save me.
This was not courage. This was clarity – the sort my mum would‘ve been proud of, especially given the insights she’d gained in her career.
However, clarity doesn’t often survive first contact with a system built around urgency.
At the start of December, I attended a meeting with my NHS oncologist. The tone changed rapidly. What had been presented to me as openness to exploring "other options" quickly transformed into ridicule and threats once I explained the options outside the narrow window of conventional care that I was considering. I was informed that I was taking unnecessary risks. Silly. People who choose to follow “alternative” treatments typically die faster. If I continue to do so, my treatment may be taken away.
Fear can be a compelling motivator. I recognised the methods immediately. I spent most of my career working in financial crime and compliance, observing fraudsters and criminals utilise fear and authority to pressure people into making decisions they weren't prepared to make. This was the exact same playbook, merely re-packaged in a white lab coat.
I didn't agree to sign anything at that point.
Instead, I did exactly what I'd always done when confronted with uncertainty. I stopped. I took a deep breath. And, I researched. Relentlessly. Not Facebook groups, blog posts, forums, etc., but systems, pathways, metabolisms. I listened to lectures, podcasts and books near constantly, especially whilst driving. I read research articles and papers into the early hours near daily. I ordered books online (yes, actual paper ones – I love the feel of real pages) and devoured them with a level of intensity that is reserved for situations where your life hangs in the balance.
I studied cancer as a group of behaviours. I studied glucose metabolism. Hypoxia. Immune evasion. Why certain tumours react to chemotherapy and others do not. And, most importantly, why some people experience rapid deterioration under treatment while others stabilise.
I had a chemo sensitivity test performed prior to agreeing to undergo any treatment. Not because it would guarantee success, but because it would provide me with information. When the results of the test were received, the scenario altered. The chemotherapy I had been offered was not completely ineffective. It had a specific purpose. A supportive role, not a starring role.
That distinction made all the difference.
I signed.
My first infusion took place on December 18th, at the Bracknell Health Space. I arrived at 8:30 am and left nearly 12 hours later, feeling beyond drained. In addition to the chemo, I also underwent immunotherapy, pembrolizumab to be exact. The oral chemo came home with me in blister packs that seemed ridiculously small for something as potent as that medication.
Swallowing was already extremely difficult. The tumour ensured that. I was instructed to dissolve the tablets in fruit juice for both taste and to enable swallowing. Bitter. Metallic. Each swallow served as a constant reminder that my body was currently a battleground.
The side effects from the treatment manifested themselves fairly promptly. Neuropathy caused by cold temperatures that resulted in touching something cold feeling like an electrical shock from zeus himself. Waves of nausea that weren’t sufficiently controlled by anti-emetic (anti-sickness) medications that failed to effectively control my symptoms, and keep anything solid inside me. Fatigue that was not simply tiredness, but collapse. My body did not reject the treatment. It recoiled from the treatment.
I spent nearly a week unable to leave my bed.
The pain escalated further sometime around the 20th. Pulsating. Unrelenting. Radiating from my oesophagus and stomach. Ana called the oncology triage line and an ambulance arrived. Blue lights. Sirens. An odd sense of ceremony surrounding something that felt remarkably unceremonious.
I was admitted to the hospital again. To another palliative unit. Another example of how much younger I was relative to everyone else in the hospital. One of the patients in the unit died loudly that night. Another patient with dementia screamed for hours. Sleep was impossible. Pain management was increased. Oxycodone was increased (I didn’t get on well with morphine). Pregabalin was added. Discussions about "long term management" and “planning hospice care” began to emerge in the background.
I was released from the hospital late on the 23rd. Just in time for Christmas. It involved a lot of begging and smiling through waves of pain, and even then I only just managed to get them to discharge me. I needed to be home for Christmas, to spend it with Ana and my boys – especially if it was potentially going to be their last with me there.
Christmas felt fragile that year. Smaller. Quieter. It was just Ana, the boys, and myself. No extended family. No noise. Simply the four of us moving cautiously around each other. I missed my mother intensely. I missed Duke – our big silly Great Dane puppy – we’d had to take him back to the breeder sometime in November, because with Ana still recovering, and me hospitalised more than I was home, the poor dog was being neglected and we loved him too much to do that to him – it nearly broke me losing him. Grief piled on top of grief until it was challenging to determine which grief was speaking at any particular time.
On Christmas morning, Axel gave me a small gift. A Superman aftershave set that he had chosen himself at a school Santa event. He said it was superhero medicine. Something to help Daddy defeat Dave – the name we gave my tumour.
I went into the bathroom and cried quietly so that no one would see me crying.
Several days later, I met my amazing friend Amanda King for the first time.
I had talked to dozens of practitioners by that time. Functional medicine doctors. Integrative oncologists. Clinics in the UK, the U.S., India, Mexico and many others too. Some of them were genuinely interested in helping. Others were vague. Others were frighteningly optimistic despite a lack of data to support their optimism. Amanda was different. We spoke the same language. She knew the science and she could explain it without sounding condescending. She didn't promise too much. She didn't flinch when I posed tough questions. And, most importantly, she wasn’t afraid to say she didn’t know and to come back to me later, once she’d done her own research and double checked things.
For the first time since my diagnosis, I felt like I was engaged in a conversation instead of being managed, or pushed/manipulated by fear.
By the end of December, my daily routine had undergone some pretty significant changes. I awoke early. I stretched slowly. I read. I drove to a local hyperbaric oxygen therapy centre (sadly, Louise – the owner – has since had to shutter the physical site, but they do still retail chambers for none interested in buying one: https://pureserenitytherapy.co.uk, there may be discount if you mention my name – depending on when you’re reading this). I sat in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber and read some more – not least, the seminal “how to starve your cancer” by my wonderful friend Jane McLelland. I returned home. I ate what I could. I used my infrared sauna. I showered. I read. I walked. I led on my pEMF mat. Bed.
It was eternally dull. Repetitive. Exhausting.
However, it was my own.
No improvements were evident yet. There was no sudden change. No instance where I could claim that things were improving. If anything, January looked like an imposing barrier that I wasn't sure I would be able to climb. The pain was very much still there. Swallowing was still difficult, and painful. My energy levels fluctuated unpredictably. Hospital visits continued.
However, one aspect of my existence was starting to stabilise.
I had order.
I was starting to gain knowledge.
And I had ceased to drift aimlessly.
ACT II concludes not with a sense of relief, but with a rhythm.
The type that allows you to live long enough for transformation to become feasible.
ACT III – Humanity
Improvement doesn’t usually announce its arrival.
It comes with no fanfare, no results from an MRI, no rush of energy. Instead, it arrives stealthily, camouflaged as something so minor, so insignificant, that it can easily be dismissed.
A slightly better night's sleep. A meal that does not have me on the floor writhing in pain after finishing. A morning where I wake up and realise the pain has not already woken me during the night.
January faded into February, and February into something that looked, albeit faintly, like momentum.
The daily routine continued to exist, and I continued to stick to it. That was the first win.
I got up early(ish) not because I felt great, but because sleeping in would only exacerbate the problem. Stretching became a negotiation with my body rather than a fight. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) continued. Reading continued. Daily sauna’s continued to serve as anchors in days that otherwise felt very vague. I was still extremely sensitive to cold. I was still exhausted. I was still having trouble consuming enough food to maintain my weight (I’d dropped c.50kg by this point and had been struggling with cancer cachexia too). However, I was no longer in free-fall.
Off-label medications began to fall into place towards the end of January, based upon my sequencing data rather than optimism. Each medication was added intentionally. And many medication’s were removed with equal importance. I eliminated things that were irrelevant. Compounds that seemed promising but had little relation to my specific tumour biology. There was no sentimental attachment to any of it. Survival has a way of clarifying priorities.
Pain Management was always present in the background. I detested taking pain meds, but I loathed being unable to manage my pain even more. I battled to decrease my dosage of the opioid based meds every time possible, not because I thought that suffering was noble, but because I needed to be able to think clearly. I needed to be able to focus. And, to be able to drive.
Psychologically, February was harder than December.
December had novelty. Emergency energy. Firsts. February was where the grind hit. Where the emergency adrenaline wore off and the reality of living with a chronic disease for the foreseeable future began to weigh on me. I was still in and out of hospitals. Still calling triage. Still being placed on stretchers in the A&E corridors, waiting for a hospital bed that never seemed to appear.
However, another thing was occurring as well.
My scans began to alter.
Initially, not dramatically. Slow, subtle movements. Language that softened. Phrases such as "less pronounced" and "reduced activity." The para-aortic nodes that had dominated earlier reports began to recede. Not gone. Not resolved. But moving in the right direction.
I did not celebrate.
Not yet.
Caution had become second nature to me. I had learned how rapidly the ground could be taken away from under me. How quickly good news could turn bad. Therefore, I viewed it loosely and continued on.
Stability arrived with Spring. Energy came back in bits. I could spend more time with the boys. I could walk farther. I could think clearer. I began writing again, not because I was cured, but because I had to have a place to deposit what I was learning. A place to reflect upon it. A place to leave a record that was not influenced by fear or slogans.
My metastases continued to recede.
At last, the term "resolved" appeared.
I read it three times before I realised it. Then, once again, simply to confirm. Ana read it as well. Then we both sat there, allowing the full weight of it to settle.
That is when she finally cried.
She had maintained her composure for months with a type of quiet fortitude that I am still trying to understand. She did not cry when I received my diagnosis. Not when my mom passed. Not when Duke went back to his breeder. Not when I was admitted repeatedly. She had stood tall, functioning, focused.
When the scan indicated that everything was gone, the dam broke.
Relief is heavier than fear in many ways. Fear provides something to push against. Relief allows you to stand still, suddenly realising how exhausted you are.
For awhile, things felt almost normal.
That is a dangerous word, however, it is the only word that fits. I worked more. I wrote more. I talked to more people. I pursued projects that I felt were meaningful. Advocacy. Business. Projects that extended into the future beyond what I had previously imagined. We even went on holiday… Gran Canaria as a family first. Then, a trip to Mexico for nearly a month to see Ana’s family.
And slowly, quietly, I took on too much.
It was not reckless. It was not denial. It was human.
I wanted to live. Live properly. I wanted to contribute. To make something of use from what I had experienced. Prove perhaps, that surviving was not merely about staying alive, but also about remaining engaged.
By the end of 2025, the scales tipped again.
Not catastrophically. Not dramatically. Enough. Subtle growth. Reminding me that cancer is an opportunistic disease. That it does not concern itself with your intentions or your insight. That it waits patiently until the environment becomes conducive for it to thrive once again.
I had lost some of the discipline that had sustained me throughout the most difficult months. Not all of it. Enough to matter.
That realisation hurt in a different way. Not because it represented failure, but because it represented accountability. There was no antagonist to blame. No sudden reversal. Only the familiar knowledge that bodies respond to environments, and I had created an environment that was noisier than it needed to be.
Therefore, I adjusted. Once again.
Fewer commitments. Less work. More structure. More rest. The tools that had assisted me in the past were still available. HBOT. Nutrition. Light. Exercise. Medications. None of those ceased to function because I had slipped.
That is the aspect of my story that I do not wish to soften.
There is no final destination. No point at which you "win" and then cease to pay attention. Recovery is not linear. Decline is not linear. They intertwine. They cross paths when you are not watching.
What I have learned, if anything, is that:
Agency is significant.
Information is significant.
Humility is more important than either.
I do not believe my story establishes that there is one correct approach for everyone. I do not believe it invalidates traditional medicine or elevates alternative treatments to miraculous status. What it shows, to me at least, is that individuals should be afforded more than passive involvement in their own lives.
I am still here.
Not due to the fact that I achieved perfection.
Not due to the fact that I cracked a secret code.
But because I remained engaged. Because I adapted as necessary. Because I asked better questions over time.
If you are reading this and searching for instructions, you will not find them here. Perhaps you will find permission…
Permission to remain curious.
Permission to advocate for yourself.
Permission to accept assistance without relinquishing your agency.
The other details reside elsewhere currently. In the articles regarding hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Regarding Vegetarian Keto Nutrition. Regarding Red Light Therapy. Regarding Next-Gen Sequencing (NGS). Regarding the off-label medications and why they were relevant for me. They are there if you desire them. Not as recommendations, but as context.
This article is merely the spinal cord.
The lived experience that sustained everything else.
And for now, that is sufficient.
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