23rd September 2023
21:45 London
This post is perhaps long overdue . . .
I’m going to speak frankly about my health.
Late last year I started sneezing and smelling a strange ammonia-type scent. Naturally, I did what most of us do these days and Googled my symptoms.
Google returned a consensus of opinion to visit my doctor which I promptly did.
The doctor referred me for an ultrasound, then an MRI, then a CT Scan, then a few more MRIs, one more CT Scan and, finally, a liver biopsy.
Up until the time of the biopsy I was fairly sure that I was okay. Aside from the occasional whiff of ammonia when I sneezed I had no symptoms, none that I recognised as ‘symptoms’ anyway.
When the biopsy results came back earlier this year, it rocked my world.
It was just after getting the results that I stopped posting here and elsewhere. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t believe what the doctors were telling me: I had liver cancer and suspected advanced-stage cirrhosis.
I just couldn’t get my head around it. I’m someone who keeps myself fit and healthy, I always have. I don’t drink more than occasionally and I don’t use drugs. How could I have cirrhosis of the liver, let alone liver cancer?
Another round of tests followed, more MRIs, another CT Scan and a nuclear medicine scan.
After re-analysing my previous results and including the latest round of tests the doctors concluded I didn’t have cirrhosis after all, not hepatocellular carcinoma anyway. Unfortunately, though I didn’t have the type of liver cancer they initially thought I had, I still had cancer, neuroendocrine cancer to be more precise.
It’s the same ugly type of cancer Steve Jobs and Aretha Franklin died of, though theirs started in different parts of the body to mine.
The prognosis is grim: the cancer has metastasised from an unknown primary source to my liver. I’ve seen the scans, my liver is potted with these small neuroendocrine tumours.
The doctors have started me on a treatment called Lanreotide. It basically suppresses the hormones that these horrible little tumours excrete and, hopefully, helps shrink some of them in the process.
Nevertheless, the prognosis is dire: the doctors have said the condition is terminal and that the best they can do is prolong my life for around 75-90 months using this medication. I’m only 47, I thought I’d have at least another few decades left but, as it turns out, this neuroendocrine is trying to wipe me out early.
The doctors said I’m unlucky to get this type of cancer, particularly at my age, but lucky that it is relatively slow growing. I have to say, I don’t feel very lucky. I think they quoted the median anticipated lifespan in months to try and make it sound more perhaps but, whatever way you cut it, it’s just five or six years.
When the doctors say there is nothing more they can do, it’s time to see what you can do.
I have no intention of taking this prognosis lying down. The cancer may eventually get me but I intend to give it hell.
For the last few months I have been adapting my lifestyle to make it as hostile as possible toward the cancer that is slowly growing inside me: I’ve cut all sugar out of my diet, I’m exercising regularly and I am supplementing with various micronutrients. Finally, I’m fasting for long, extended periods. I’ve long done intermittent fasting but recently I’ve started fasting for ten and twelve days at a time, hopefully trying to induce autophagy. I’m convinced fasting can help me rid myself of this horrible disease but either way, it’s the only chance I’ve got so, in poker terms, I’m all in.
I’m currently trying to get to thirty or forty days of fasting, water only. It will take me to the very edge of existence but, if it kills me, I’ll die with the satisfaction of knowing that I did everything I could and perhaps managed to kill a few of the cancer cells along the way before they finally killed me.
Anyways, enough of the doom and gloom. Let’s talk a bit about my trading.
I’m still trading, mainly to take my mind off of things to be honest.
As some of you will know, I recently embarked on a few prop challenges after being something of a sceptic since their inception.
I was midway through a challenge with My Forex Funds . . .
Yeah, turns out my scepticism wasn’t altogether unfounded after all.
Still, I’m not overly perturbed. There are good and bad in all walks of life.
I’m currently doing a $60K challenge with the5ers. I trust them and I’m reasonably confident that I will pass both the challenge and verification phase within the next two or three weeks. I will post the completion certificate as and when I get there.
I’ll then get back to the small account challenge. I have an insane new strategy with a 1:1 reward to risk ratio and a very high win rate that I can’t wait to try out. As always, you’ll all be able to follow my progress on myfxbook so stay tuned.
For now, I just wanted to give you all a general update on how I’m doing and the reason I haven’t been posting so much recently.
Kind regards,
Dan
