Notes from behind the book will appear here. I’ll add sections over time.

1. How I approach life

2. How I approach cancer

3. What I would tell you if we had more time

How I approach life — the work continues.

I still train. Weights, walks, the ordinary effort of using the body I have. That is how I approach life now. It is the same approach I took in the months after the radiotherapy finished. I don't want to take my foot off the gas.

I was diagnosed with advanced rectal cancer. NHS radiotherapy and chemotherapy followed. About four months after the radiotherapy ended, the scans still showed a tumour. The clinicians said the response window was over and that an operation was required. I declined it. The tumour eventually went.

I do not credit ongoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy; those had already finished, and the team had been clear that the period in which further response was expected had closed. I credit the work my body did in that interval, and the deliberate work I put in myself during those months. Movement was part of that work.
It remains part of how I live. Its could well be the reason the recurrence I had 2 years later is invisible. The exercise and the repetition of all that came before.

Regular physical activity is associated in the literature with lower cancer incidence and mortality and with a lower rate of tumour recurrence. Reviews note that an improvement in cancer immunosurveillance is likely one of the mechanisms, with immune cells stimulated to infiltrate tumours. That record sits beside what I do. It does not explain my case, and it is not a prescription for anyone else. My outcome is one outcome. Spontaneous regression of colorectal cancer is rare and already documented across more than a century of reports; my history sits inside that narrow pattern.

This is testimony, not advice. It is not medical advice. Anyone facing a similar situation needs their own clinicians, their own scans, and their own judgment. I remain grateful for the interval, for the disappearance of that tumour, and for the ordinary capacity to keep moving.

Fiuza-Luces C, Valenzuela PL, Gálvez BG, et al. The effect of physical exercise on anticancer immunity. Nat Rev Immunol. 2024;24(4):282–293. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-023-00943-0

• Abdelrazeq AS. Spontaneous regression of colorectal cancer: a review of cases from 1900 to 2005. Int J Colorectal Dis. 2007;22:727–736. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00384-006-0245-z

My attitude to cancer.

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I was diagnosed with advanced rectal cancer. NHS radiotherapy and chemotherapy followed. About four months after the radiotherapy finished, the scans still showed a tumour. The clinicians said the response window was over and that an operation was now required. I declined it.

The tumour eventually went.

I do not credit ongoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy; those had already finished, and the team had been clear that the period in which further response was expected had closed. I credit the work my body did in that interval, and the deliberate work I put in myself during those months. That is the exact sequence. It is not a claim that every tumour will behave the same way, or that declining surgery is a strategy for anyone else.

Spontaneous regression of colorectal cancer is rare and documented. Reviews of cases stretching back over a century record it. More recent reports continue to appear, sometimes after incomplete treatment or after a period of observation. The mechanisms are not fully mapped; immune activity is one of the explanations that keeps returning in the literature. My own case sits inside that narrow, already-recorded pattern rather than outside it.

This is testimony, not advice. It is not medical advice. What happened to me is what happened to me. Anyone facing a similar decision needs their own clinicians, their own scans, and their own judgment. I remain grateful for the interval, for the disappearance of that tumour, and for the chance to keep living the rest of the story.

(Word count: 278)

Sources:

1. Abdelrazeq AS. Spontaneous regression of colorectal cancer: a review of cases from 1900 to 2005. Int J Colorectal Dis. 2007;22:727–736. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00384-006-0245-z

2. Shuttleworth PW et al. Complete Spontaneous Regression of Colorectal Cancer: A Report of Two Cases. Cureus. 2023;15(5):e39128. https://www.cureus.com/articles/150381-complete-spontaneous-regression-of-colorectal-cancer-a-report-of-two-cases