Nicholas Umali
Nicholas shares his story of persevering through stage 4 cancer and how he views his diagnosis as a blessing that's given him a new perspective on life.
More Than Our Story
Kevin Culliney
Kevin Culliney advocates for cancer awareness and seeking out second opinions and alternatives. He shares his remarkable story of survival, from diagnosis with stage IV metastatic cancer, to his immunotherapy treatment leading to his complete remission.
Highlights
I had a telephone conversation... I remember exactly where I was standing outside in the street with some light drizzle coming down on an autumn evening in London. And the surgeon said, "Okay look, it's all very successful. We've done some analysis, we've looked at it - you've got a stage four". After he said that, I didn't really hear much else of what he said until I sort of recovered myself and said, I can't help but notice you said stage four. That to me sounds pretty serious.
The company is called Smartomica. Two doctors from there came to see me in London and said, okay, we need to have a very serious conversation with you. You need to have some more in-depth tests... What they found was some proteins on my cells that indicated that immunotherapy might be a possible treatment for me.... I started six rounds of immunotherapy and when they scanned me [after] four months.... There was no discernible trace of cancer at any metabolic level at all in my body. That's now nearly six years ago, and I'm pleased to say still cancer free.
That's the dreadful thing about this disease - it's I'll use the word ‘clever’ - for something that I absolutely abhor. It disguises itself, and part of the trick from an oncology point of view is trying to release that disguise. And that's really what they were able to do.
If your immune system can can find it, can identify cancer, then your immune system can take it out.
I'm not being critical of my oncologist but I was aware and certainly after the event, I was aware that I was just part of a big system, and I was going through that system... There was no discussion about anything that was alternative. When I met the Smartomica team that morning, all of a sudden a whole world of opportunities was opened up and a very realistic approach of, what you have is stage four, very rare. We don't have too much data on this, but we've got some data that sits around it that we're going to try here and help... and I felt immediately that I had people who were focused on me rather than following a protocol.
If you'd asked me in 2016 what I thought about using the power of your own mind to help you recover from an illness, I might have nodded at you and smiled, but I probably inside would have been a bit cynical. I couldn't be more opposite now. [I practiced] deep meditation, picturing what my disease was and how I would actually get rid of it... So I was going into my day feeling actually I'd already started to fight with it, and then I was able to compartmentalize it and say okay, I’m doing all I can and I’m not going to worry about this.
For me mentally, I felt I was taking the fight to my disease. I never saw it as my disease, for me it was always an alien that was there, rather than my body trying to destroy itself in the ridiculous way that cancer does.
It’s only quite some time later, when you stand back from it, you look at it and go, okay, that was quite something.
There's something in getting your mental state as well prepared as you can, because you know you've got to live through it. You don't just want to survive through it... Some of them may well find that their journey is going to be 20 years... They could be having treatment throughout that time. And to all of them I say you've just got to live with this, not survive it.
I'm really grateful for the opportunity today and I mean that genuinely, because it's good to talk about it, and it's good to share with others. I'm lucky enough to have friends who said, look do you mind if you have a chat with X or Y? And I've done a few of those and I find them very good conversations to have with people. It's not a club any of us would choose to join, but if you're in this club, I think there's a camaraderie, if you like, that comes with it. And it's helpful to share as much as you can, and to be as candid as you can with it as well.
Some people find it very difficult to talk about it. They internalize it. They don't want people to know, and I'm not saying that's the wrong thing to do, I think everyone has to look at it differently. For me, I was very open and for me that really helped. Not in a 'oh feel sorry for me' way, but in a 'no, I've got this thing, I'm going to fight it'.
I would always say cancer, the word cancer, because people tend to whisper it, I don't believe in hiding from this enemy. This is this is an enemy of ours that we want to we want to destroy.
Positivity is really important, keeping an open mind, listening to other people - because you will have a certain view on things which is just going to be yours, and it's created in part by your circumstances. Some others around you might be seeing things that perhaps you don't and being open to people helping you is a good thing.
You can you can make yourself ill, I believe that. I think we could all say that certain things do it. Stress is a terrible thing for people, but you can also either make yourself better or very much help make yourself better. So give yourself the best chance by positivity, listen to other people and then just, as you said, get on with life.
Look outside of what you're being told by well-meaning professionals, because understanding how they go about their really difficult job I think is quite important. They haven't necessarily got all the answers, and it sometimes just pays to look around and certainly get another view on something if things are not looking as good as you would like them to be.
Smartomica
Bringing the wisdom of many to the care of one. Smartomica creates health opportunities with bespoke cancer care and prevention solutions.
Smartomica is the company that helped Kevin overcome his aggressive stage IV cancer.
Daniel
Daniel is an extremely curious person, a wealth of random knowledge and facts. Extremely passionate about a vast array of interests ranging from health to history, science to athletics, everything culinary and the list goes on. Trust us, you would want to be on his team for Trivial Pursuit.
Daniel is also years into his battle with brain cancer. He experienced a seizure while on a Zoom call at work in late 2020 and quite literally, his life changed within minutes. After his operation he started to talk about his story but had always known it was more than just him. From then, More Than Our Story became a PROJECT that has evolved into the starting point it is today.
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