They told me I had an 11% chance.
Eleven percent. That’s the number an oncologist gives you when he’s already decided the ending. He compared my cancer to weeds in a yard. “We’ll keep pulling them,” he said, “but eventually the yard gets overrun.”
I was 47. Healthy. Strong. The last person you’d expect to hear “stage 4 colorectal cancer.” And yet there I was, sitting in a sterile room, watching a doctor read my future off a chart.
I didn’t accept it.
Not because I’m braver than anyone else. Not because I had some secret advantage. I didn’t accept it because I realized something that changed everything: the statistics describe populations, not people. That 11% number tells you what happened to a group. It says nothing about what will happen to you.
So I started digging. I read every study I could find. I built a supplement protocol — with my medical team, not around them — that eventually aligned with my exact genetic mutations. I found a clinical trial that three professional research teams missed. I became the first person to receive a T-cell therapy engineered for my exact mutation — TP53 Y220C — applied to a solid tumor.
Four doses of a treatment that puts most patients in the ICU after one. 73% of my liver removed — and my body grew it back. Four major surgeries. A 41% tumor reduction from a therapy that had never been tried in a human.
I’m still here.
I’m writing this because I remember what it felt like to sit in that chair and hear those numbers. The fear is real. The grief is real. But here’s what I want you to know:
The moment you accept a statistic as your sentence, you stop fighting. And the fight is everything. That doesn’t mean rejecting your doctors — it means refusing to let a number decide how hard you fight alongside them.
This website, this newsletter, this community — it exists because no one handed me a roadmap. I had to build one. And now I’m sharing it so you don’t have to start from zero. Everything here is my personal experience, not medical advice, and every real decision in my story was made with my medical team, not instead of them.
If you’ve been diagnosed, if you’re supporting someone who has, or if you just want to understand what this fight looks like from the inside — you’re in the right place.
More is coming. Practical guidance. Supplement protocols. How to navigate the medical system. How to advocate for yourself when no one else will. All of it, written by someone who’s lived it — and none of it a substitute for your own doctor.
You are not a number on a chart. You are not a percentage. You are not a statistic.
You’re still here. And so am I.
— Aaron M.
Keep reading:
- FOLFOX Chemotherapy: What It Actually Feels Like
- Off-Label Medications for Cancer
- Scanxiety: How to Survive the Wait
I’m not a doctor — this is one patient’s experience, not medical advice. Always talk to your own oncologist or care team before changing your treatment, medications, or supplements.
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