I didn't walk into that appointment expecting my life to split into "before" and "after."
One minute you're thinking about ordinary things — work, training, family logistics, what's for dinner. The next, you're hearing words that don't feel like they belong to you: lymphoma, chemotherapy, treatment plan, cycles.
What I remember most clearly isn't a single sentence. It's the sensation.
It was like I stepped out of myself. Like I was watching a film of my own life and the main character was doing a decent job — nodding, asking calm questions, taking in information — while inside, everything was happening at once.
That "third-person" feeling is hard to describe unless you've felt it. Your body is present, but your mind is trying to protect you by distancing you from the impact. You can look composed while your internal world is rearranging itself.
And then you walk outside and realise the world looks exactly the same. Cars still pass. People still laugh. The sky is still the sky. But you are not who you were five minutes ago.
The emotional curve nobody warns you about
People talk about fear, but the reality is a whole sequence — and it looks a lot like grief.
Shock. Disbelief. Bargaining. Anger. Sadness. Control. Losing control. Repeating the loop.
Not because you're weak — but because something has been taken from you in that moment: certainty. The version of life where "next month" felt automatic.
For me, it arrived in waves.
You think you're steady. You're making tea. You're replying to messages. You're "being strong."
Then it hits you in the chest like a delayed punch and suddenly you're crying at nothing in particular.
The strange part is the mind's ability to reboot. You wipe your face. You take a breath. You tell yourself,
"nothing is as bad as you think."
And for a few minutes, you believe it. Then it hits you again.
The quiet pressure: protecting the people you love
One of the hardest parts is that you're not only dealing with your own fear — you're carrying everyone else's. You're trying to protect your loved ones from the full force of it.
You learn quickly that "strength" isn't a permanent state. It's a choice you make repeatedly, in moments. And sometimes that choice is simply: give the emotion its space so it doesn't own you later.
I started doing something simple:
- Give the emotion its airtime. Acknowledge it when it comes.
- Breathe until the body calms.
- Then get focused again.
Not toxic positivity. Not denial. Just a rhythm: feel it, release it, refocus.
The question that steadied me: "What would my dad do?"
At some point in the early chaos, I asked myself something that cut through the noise.
What would my dad do? You seek those childhood days of having a reference point. What would my kids want me to do comes next?
The only answer for an Engineering graduate who spent his childhood taking things apart — much to the annoyance of his parents — was to get practical. Get organised and work out how this is fixed. Then take the next right step. And then another.
That question became a handrail. Not because it removed the fear, but because it reminded me who I wanted to be inside it.
The turning point: when fear turns into fight
Eventually, the emotion changed.
The fear didn't disappear — but it stopped being the main character. Something else stepped forward: anger, determination, a refusal to be passive.
I remember saying to a friend, with total clarity:
"I just want to be given the chance of a fight and I will kick the shit out of this."
It wasn't bravado. It was a switch flipping from "this is happening to me" to "I'm in this — and I'm participating."
The fork in the road
Early on, most of us hit a fork.
Option A: "Listen only."
Hand everything over to the medical experts. Follow instructions. Wait. Endure. Hope.
Option B: "Listen — and lead."
Follow the medical plan, but take control of the controllables:
questions, routines, tracking, recovery, nutrition, mindset, movement, sleep, support.
To be clear: I'm not here to replace medicine. I'm not a clinician. I was on a rigorous medical regimen — O-CHOP chemotherapy and immunotherapy — and I respect it completely.
But I also decided I wouldn't drift through this.
That decision became my strategy: 1% better, repeatedly.
Ice baths. Water fasting. Sauna. Heavy resistance training. Lymph drainage. Supplements. Diet overhaul. Tai chi. Meditation. Breathwork. Each one a small, controllable edge. None of them a cure on their own. All of them, stacked daily, adding up to something.
In March 2026, six months after diagnosis, I received the results of my PET scan: 100% metabolic remission.
This blog is where I document everything I did, everything I learned, and everything I'd tell someone sitting in that consulting room right now.
If you're at the start and you feel like the ground has disappeared under you, start here:
Don't panic. (Or rather: panic if you need to — then breathe.)
Let the emotions move through you.
Then focus on what you can control.
One percent at a time.
Nothing I share is medical advice — it's my experience. Always run any changes past your oncology team. That said, the subject of how those conversations go is exactly what the next post is about.