Story of Simon Birch

In the last episode, everything was going well with life and career after so many ups and downs. But in 2008 I had odd pains in my head, sinus infections, and submitted to minor surgery to help me breathe better. It was assumed a few fights may have damaged something in my face that was blocking my sinuses.

The surgery took hours longer than expected, they found multiple tumours from below my eyes, close to the brain, throughout sinuses cavities, down to my neck and expanding rapidly, on the way to engulf my lymphatic system.

Aggressive cancer, NK/T cell, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, 6 months to live without treatment, low survival rate, normally only seen in older Asian people and very rare, a few people a year. No idea the cause, not genetic.

I spent a day freaking out and dived into research, came up with a plan, and got to work. A project to manage; project don't die!

1. Western medicine, chemo, and radiotherapy for 6 months.

2. Alternative health plan, Reiki, meditation, acupuncture, Chinese medicine.

3. Diet plan, no sugar, gluten, dairy or processed. All organic, fresh veg, fruit, nuts, seeds, berries, sprouts, clean protein...it was very comprehensive.

4. Exercise.

And on top of all that lots of love. Enlisted all my mates to help. Everyone stood by me. Always had a friend on hand to help, drive me to the hospital, and people to clean up, do the shopping and read me bedtime stories. Against the odds, I survived and I’m 12 years cancer-free and very healthy!

I could write pages about this experience but let's leave that for the best-selling autobiography that I'll get around to one day.

It was a huge learning experience in medicine, the body, nutrition, but it was humiliating and extremely painful and took me down to the edge of death. I was never scared, was far too busy fighting. I was at peace with the idea of death, I'd had a great life until then.

I had never felt so alive as when I was close to death. It bought focus and clarity. It showed me how compassionate and loving people can be, it's given me great empathy for people who are suffering. People really wanted me to survive and ever since I've felt an obligation to do something with my second chance.