Defrag Blues October 2022-April 2023

The Cancer Revolution

Hi, my name is Gary Collier. 

I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma which manifested as a tumour in a lymph node in the left side of my  neck in late November 2020. My cancer was quite rare in that it is classified as CUP, this acronym stands for “Cancer of an Unknown Primary”. Because staging cannot be done when you have CUP I was never assigned “a stage”. All the oncologists knew was that the cancer had migrated to the lymph nodes in my throat where it was confirmed by a needle biopsy in late November 2020. There is a good chance that my immune system did it’s job and knocked out the initial primary tumour without me even knowing that it existed. 

At the outset I entered the mainstream oncology system and had 2 operations and loads of tests in the first 6 weeks to determine where the primary was. It was never found. The head and neck oncologists recommended that I have surgery to have the lymph node removed plus a whole lot of other lymph nodes, just in case! I was told that I was going to have a “really cool” scar plus other potential side effects but it would probably save my life!

Due to the primary never being found my head and neck team could never officially diagnose what sort of cancer I had although based on the signs it was postulated that it was head and neck cancer. My speculation is that my cancer was brought on by many years of alcohol addiction, over consumption and metabolic syndrome which manifested in obesity, high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, high triglycerides, fatty liver and other metabolic pitfalls.  

The time in which I was part of the mainstream oncology system was the scariest and loneliest period in my whole experience. I felt that my fate was in somebody else’s hands and that I just had to be patient and wait until they did their thing. I know theses guys cared but there was a lot of contradiction and uncertainty. This is when I decided to become the “Boss” of my cancer journey and learn, research, understand, delve as deep as I possibly could based on what was then my very limited knowledge of cancer and how it functioned in and affected my body. This is a link to an article I wrote recently. I wrote lots of blogposts at the time but this one stands out. I make comparisons to Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” (read it here)

I was 68 years old when I was diagnosed. Lucky for me I had started a complete overhaul of my lifestyle, diet and bad habits in February 2019. By the time I received my cancer diagnosis about 20 months later I had already lost almost 20 kg, resolved issues with high blood pressure, fatty liver, metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes and a huge drinking problem. I had turned my life around and was feeling great.

This is something I wrote back then at the beginning of my cancer adventure. “My visualisation is that I am the life force of a tree, my body is the trunk and roots and my microbiome is the soil. Somewhere in that mix there is a big rock that is obstructing the health of the tree. My attention will be on the soil. I plan to make it as healthy and full of rich minerals, vitamins, phito-nutrients and healing properties as is possible. I’ll let the arborists take care of the rock.” 

Long story short, I had adopted a low carb, almost ketogenic diet, did daily exercise, did daily journalling and started learning as much as I could about the metabolic processes of my body, I had completely stopped drinking alcohol in February 2019 when I began my new lifestyle. 

I suspect that what I began back then ultimately had a profound effect on where I am at today, currently cancer free, healthy, strong and fit.

In late December 2020 my daughter, who works in natural health, suggested that I do some research into Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. I visited a HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy) centre in Melbourne, Australia, even after my first consultation I felt that I had found something that I could feel comfortable pursuing. From here I was referred to a Melbourne GP named Dr Peter Eng . Peter specializes in IVs and re-purposed drugs for cancer treatment. At this stage he was 82 years old and had cured himself of cancer 12 years earlier plus he had many other cancer patient’s success stories to share with me. Around about this time I ramped up my ketogenic diet. I studied what a real keto diet really is. I lowered the carbs, upped the healthy fats, limited the protein and got really serious and disciplined about what went into my body as well as daily blood testing of my blood sugar and ketone readings. I buckled down on study. I figured that even though I had no foundation in biology or matters of metabolism, cells and the general workings of the body that if I was going to beat the cancer I would need to at least understand what was happening in my body and also what alternative options there were.

I agreed to do a minimum of 60 hours of HBOT and start a course of IV’s ( high dose Vitamin C and Curcumin amongst other natural products and re-purposed drugs). I was also exercising regularly and walking up to 10 kms each day. Around this time I also started using an Oura ring to monitor the quality of my sleep. I aimed for 8 hours of good sleep each night. In the course of my studies I came across the research work of Dr Thomas Seyfried and the press/pulse theory that he champions. His speculation is that cancer is a mitochondrial metabolic disease, according to the original theory of Otto Warburg. Even though I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to biochemistry his research and theories made sense to me on a very basic common sense level. Through listening to his lectures as well as research on fasting by Dr Valter Longo, practicalities of a ketogenic diet by Miriam Kalamian, use of HBOT in cancer treatment by Dr Dom D’Agostino and Angela Poff I continued to improve my knowledge of cancer and became more and more confident about ridding myself of the “disease”. I was becoming more and more aware that one of my biggest weapons was my own immune system and my willingness to keep researching outside the normal mainstream realm of cancer treatment.

The basic idea or layman’s version of press/pulse is to create an antagonistic environment for the cancer and to do whatever possible to remove anything that can aid in its proliferation. Take away the glucose, sugar and carbs and replace them with ketones and the cancer is deprived of fuel while the body still has fuel in the form of ketones to create energy. Do exercise, eat well, put a bit of “healthy”stress on the body and this as well makes the cancer very unhappy. But cancer cells don’t die (apoptosis), they are immortal. Normal healthy cells die and recycle. The intermittent fasting also gives the body a rest and deprives the cancer cells of excess fuel. All in all, the healthier “you can make the soil” the harder it is for the cancer to proliferate. Then the “pulse” (kill the cancer) part is brought about by the hyperbaric oxygen, the vitamin C and curcumin and other “medicines” that actually go to war against the cancer and wipe it out. In my case the radiation also attacked the cancer cells but the good news is that all of the other things that I was doing helped my healthy cells go into protective mode while the cancer cells became more vulnerable to the treament, hence making it more effective and the side effects of the radiation far less. It’s far more complex than my simple explanation but hopefully my words will explain the basic concept.

So by now it’s probably February 2021, around 4 months into my cancer journey. I was working my butt off and putting all of my energy and resources into becoming healthy and beating the cancer, slowing it’s ability to proliferate and ultimately destroying these immortal cells that were possibly going to kill me if left unchecked.

Here’s a list of what I was doing at this stage.

• HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy)
• Strict ketogenic diet aiming at 20 grams of carbs and high healthy fat with medium protein.
• Intravenous Vitamin C, Curcumin and other drugs via the veins.
• Re-purposed drugs like melatonin, metformin, naltrexone and a few others
• CTC test (circulating tumour cells)
• Daily vitamin supplementation
• Daily time restricted eating/intermittent fasting. I started on 16/8 and worked up to 18/6 and sometimes did only one meal a day.
• I recorded everything that I ate in an app called Cronometer which gave me accurate readings of my macros etc and helped me with my dietary discipline.
• Daily blood testing for blood sugar and ketones with the aim of a 4/4 ratio based on Dr Seyfrieds GKI (Glucose, Ketone Index)
• Regular infra red saunas and cold plunges where possible
• Daily walking (about 10 kms) … I listened to podcasts on cancer while I walked and while in the sauna.
• Daily journalling – I wrote about my thoughts, feelings, actions, fears, wins, thoughts about death and how wonderful life is, wins and set backs. I wrote every day and it’s all on my blog ( garycollier.com.au ) under the section called Defrag Blues. I haven’t ever looked back on this but it’s all there and I will read it one day. I also did blog posts on my health, cancer therapies and subjects that I felt might help others.
• No alcohol, complete abstention.
• I did not receive the nRMA covid vaccination on the advice of my doctor and my own common sense based on my studies and research. I eventually had 2 shots of Novavax because I had to travel to Indonesia, this was in February 2022 after I was deemed to be cancer free.
• I continued to lose weight throughout the whole period. This was a healthy loss of excess fat, not muscle wasting. I went from 108 kgs in February 2019 to 77 kgs in 2022. I continue to monitor my weight, body fat (now 12%) and muscle and bone density.

Probably around February 2021 Dr Eng suggested that I have a meeting with a radiologist named Dr Samuel Leung. I must admit that this freaked me out a bit but based on my trust of Dr Eng I went to an appointment. The interesting thing was the age of my doctors. Peter was 82 and Sam was in his mid 70s. They were both very experienced and not at all flashy. They were simply good at what they did. Sam recommended a course of radiotherapy. Very precisely directed at the tumour in the lymph node in my neck. In all I would be receiving about 66 greys of radiation over 33 treatments given on consecutive days. The radiation was to be precisely directed at my tumour and the immediate area without blasting unnecessary parts of my body. Once again I started studying and discovered that the ketogenic diet, fasting and pretty much all the stuff I was doing would make the radiation more effective to kill my cancer cells while my healthy cells would be protected. This was based on research by Dr Valter Longo into fasting and Angela Poff on HBOT and the ketogenic diet. I had other blood tests around about this time which showed that my C Reactive protein was below 1, which is great as it shows a reflection of inflammation and my natural killer cells were very high which shows that my immune system was quite powerful which it needed to be to fight the cancer. 

As a side note at this point I would like to try to explain the relationship between my cancer doctor and the radiologist. Firstly, they tolerated and respected each other and I suspect they liked each other as individuals. Apart from that they had almost nothing in common BUT were prepared to work together. Sounds weird! Luckily for me though this bizarre relationship worked, even though the radiologist would constantly demean Dr Eng’s voodoo approach to cancer. I just looked at it like they were 2 general’s in my “army” who were good at what they did but had differing points of view.

The nurses at the cancer/radiotherapy centre warned me of the side effects of the radiation. I told them what my protocol was and that I was confident that I was doing the right thing for me. I continued every part of my protocol and even ramped it up during the 6 week radiation period. I would start my day with a 40 km drive to the radiation clinic, then I would go to my HBOT session and then onto the IV clinic. I had absolutely no side effects from the radiation apart from a bit of red skin on my throat and a tiny bit of hair loss in the section of my beard that was being radiated . My taste was normal, no other manifestations. I was happy, healthy and doing great throughout the whole radiation period. I don’t think the nurses could work out what was going on, they kept telling me that the side effects would kick in “tomorrow”. In actual fact I continued to get healthier throughout the whole cancer experience. After my 33 blasts of radiation I continued on my overall protocol.

Soon after the radiation finished I did a PET Scan and the results were that there was no sign of any cancer, the tumour had gone and everything was looking good.

For whatever fortuitous reason I made a decision in February 2019 to change my life, my habits and my addictions. I was well on the way to a positive future when I was diagnosed with cancer around 19-20 months later. I’m certain that this was my “get out of jail” card. If I was still overweight and metabolically compromised I believe that the outcome would have been totally different. Because I didn’t have any mainstream treatment apart from my dose of radiation and a couple of biopsy operations I surprisingly did not suffer from any side effects or symptoms. I felt healthy, mentally positive and fit the whole way through my treatment. Maybe it was luck or maybe something more esoteric, I’ll never know. I believe that my incredibly strict ketogenic diet and blood sugar/ketone monitoring acted as a powerful foundation for my recovery.

Needless to say I decided to continue my treatment/daily protocols. My wife and I went on a short road trip up the east coast of Australia during one of our “unlocked” down periods that took some pressure of the lockdowns that we were subjected to during Covid. This was an interesting period because I could have just stopped my treatment now. I was in remission. I was out of money, at the same time I was feeling really healthy and well. But after consulting with my “Team” I decided that my best and wisest course of action was to continue my treatment and daily protocols. This was going to be a lifelong mission with the goal of remaining in good health and to not give the cancer any open doors to proliferate again.

This brings me to the money.

I’ll try to explain a bit about myself. I’ve lived a pretty good adventurous and creative life. Sure I’ve had ups and downs but overall I have been able to pursue the things I love doing and my life’s journey has been full of wonder and great people. I suppose I never fully unburdened myself of my old hippy habits.  By the time of my diagnosis I was almost 70 years old. I didn’t have any savings and had only an infinitesimal amount of superannuation. The way things are set up in Australia is very bright and financially supportive if you choose to go down the mainstream oncology road. We have an amazing health care system that is very nurturing of our citizens BUT if you  decide to go via the alternative route and opt out of the mainstream then the financial burden is yours alone. You have to pay for pretty much EVERYTHING (apart from the PET Scan and most of the radiation and radiology fees which is partially subsidised thank goodness).

Dr Eng’s fees and the IV treatments are not covered, HBOT is not covered and on and on it goes. Some of the re-purposed drugs are covered by health benefits while others like melatonin from the compounding chemist are not. The mainstream medical people are not very sympathetic toward anything outside their own area of “expertise” and will even go to great lengths to attack and discredit practitioners who offer alternative treatment and medicines. Such a huge pity.

I never added up what I spent on my cancer treatment. Maybe $100,000, maybe more. How can you put a price on a healthy life or any sort of life really. Life is such a miracle and once you’re dead all the money in the world can’t help, sure you can leave it to your loved ones but I’m sure that most people would want their mother or father, son or daughter instead of a large bank balance.

On a positive note, when you are on a strict and healthy ketogenic diet and doing intermittent fasting your food costs can go down even if it’s due to not eating breakfast of having no snacks between meals. I’m not certain but I think the overall cost of my food and particularly food wastage went down.

I’ve got no idea how we pulled it off financially. It was a series of magic moments and good luck, family support and lot’s of love. Like I said, we started off with virtually no savings, we still had a mortgage and we didn’t really have any wages coming in. My whole family pulled together to support me.

It’s tricky when you aren’t what might be classified as financially viable. If you are well off and have reserves stashed away then it doesn’t matter in the slightest but if you are on the edge financially you start thinking twice when you have to confront a $10,000 bill for 60 hours of HBOT or $4000 plus for a specialised circulating tumour cell test. Personally I just dove into the deep end and decided that magic would happen and that I would survive the financial onslaught as well as the cancer. Luckily for me, it did. The magic kicked in. I’ve got some great stories about this part of the journey but I’ll save them up for later.

As of December 2022 I have had 2 very positive PET scans that show that any sign of cancer tumours has gone, I’ve had 3 CTC (circulating tumour cell tests) that show my CTCs are decreasing all of the time.

I never felt let down by the mainstream cancer system because I personally made a decision to take my cancer into my own hands. I did not expect doctors who did not know me personally to really care whether I lived or died. Why should they? Unfortunately so many people die as a result of cancer.  I know that the oncologists are good people but it’s a job after all. I was dealing with my life and as such decided that it was my responsibility alone to assemble a team of people I trusted. This was the very best decision I ever made.