My role is to investigate the myriad of options now open to a cancer patient as a result of the rapidly evolving science, and to explore in an in-depth way any that are of particular interest. Find medical researchers whose work is of particular interest to their colleagues, who are particularly respected and whose theories and approach are considered innovative.

Someone dealing with a dire medical diagnosis faces a variety of challenges. The first challenge is to develop the mindset of a survivor. Sounds easy but it isn’t. The tendency is to surrender to the oncologist or other medical specialist even if they hold little or no hope of recovery and quality of life. The second tendency is to fall victim to the emotional roller coaster of ups and downs — good checkups, CT scans, MRIs followed by setbacks followed by good results. Cancer, and any serious disease, is a journey of conflicting and confusing information and a healthcare system that will try to turn you into a number and process you like a widget — a highly profitable widget — regardless of your quality of life and the ultimate outcome. My research and support services are for those who truly want to survive and are willing to make sacrifices to achieve that objective. Those sacrifices may, for instance, involve travel to meet with health care professionals doing innovative work in clinical trials.

There’s nothing wrong with just going along with your oncologist’s advice. In fact, if statistics indicate that the standard of care outcome is likely to be positive — recovery with a good quality of life — you don’t need or want my services. Therapies are constantly improving. If however your diagnosis is dire, or the treatment likely to mean significant adverse changes in your quality of life, and you are willing to put effort and financial resources into your recovery, I may be able to help you. My skill is uncovering crucial, difficult-to-get information through interviews and AI. I’m offering to help those of you dealing with a dire diagnosis by finding who is doing the most promising research relevant to your condition. I’m also available, should you want it, to help you with advice on diet (gut health), sleep, exercise and other important lifestyle considerations. Cancer can be a lonely journey. I’ve been through it twice so I know. I am offering to be good company, a shoulder to lean on, a good listener, but most of all a crucial ally in a search for solutions based on science-based research and results. The struggle to survive will likely be challenging and difficult.

I specialize in addressing one challenge faced by patients dealing with severe health challenges: sorting through the substantial amount of research, medical claims, trials of new drugs and therapies, alternative treatments, and standard of care statistics in order to identify a way forward that offers the most promising outcome. I’m not a medical professional. I find and recommend medical professionals doing the most promising research. My background is in investigative research. I acquired these skills doing pre-offer due diligence for corporate acquirers on Wall Street and in surviving cancer twice. Both times I opted for a combination of standard of care, in one case chemo and in the other radiation, and innovative drugs developed in Europe and Japan. I’ve enrolled in three clinical trials. Only one of those three had a positive result but that one result was crucial to my ultimate recovery. I’ve studied a number of what I think of as supportive behaviors: the role of sleep in preventing disease, good diet and gut health, and exercise. I have lived the emotional ups and downs of cancer treatment, and can be part of your psychological support system, but my real strength is in-depth research and finding obscure but crucial information.

My two cancer journeys; stage 4a non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and prostate cancer, Gleason score of 7. The lymphoma, at the time, before the advent of Rituxan, was considered incurable. Stage 4a means the disease had migrated to my bone marrow. I had 52 tumors throughout my body including one in my mesentery that was 15 x 22cm. I was told by my oncologist that of the thousands of people diagnosed every year with the form of lymphoma I had, there was only one documented case of long term survival that he was aware of. It was in the hospital getting experimental treatment for lymphoma that I taught myself how to paint. And seven years or so ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. That was successfully resolved by radio implants after an experimental treatment with a modified virus developed in Japan proved helpful but ultimately unsuccessful.

I’ve mentioned my diagnosis from time to time in Heron Dance over the last three decades and readers have frequently been in touch to tell me of their recent diagnosis. Lately this has become more and more common. Some months it occurs several times. I’m often asked for any advice I might have. I’ve put many, many hours over the years into sharing how I survived and forwarding research that might be helpful.

I’ve decided to offer my experience and research skills to no more than two readers considering or undergoing treatment for a potentially life-threatening diagnosis. I also plan to publish a free Substack on subjects related to cancer and using AI to research emerging treatments. I’ll publish on anything that has the real potential to be helpful.

Though I refer mostly to cancer, these research techniques apply equally to other life-threatening diseases such as Alzheimer's, ALS, etc. If you have one of these diseases and want to talk, please reach out. For those who are diagnosed and want to be made aware of options, I offer the following consulting and research services:

Research Into Survival Rates By Those Undergoing The Prevailing Standard of Care

What are the overall survival rates? What are the differentiating characteristics of those who survive long term and those who don’t, including treatments received, age, co-morbidities, exercise regimen, diet, etc.? An often surprising amount of this data can be found in the research at the National Institute of Health and in university studies.

Research Into Emerging Treatments

There are hundreds of trials of new drugs and new approaches to surgery and radiation going on around the country, including the use of modified viruses that can stimulate the production of protective anti-bodies. There is research, often cited in the press but rarely available to patients, on the genetic analysis of a particular cancer and individualized treatment protocols most likely to defeat that particular disease. Research using artificial intelligence can help find where these options are available.

Interviews of Leading Researchers

When I worked on Wall Street, I did pre-offer due diligence for corporate acquirers. Mostly I looked for hidden problems — where the bodies were buried and the skeletons hidden in potential acquisition candidates. In other words, what acquisitions might lead to disaster. I researched asset values, emerging competitor technologies and customer viewpoints. I found that if you approach a hundred people for information, you might get crucial insights from one or two and helpful collaboration from four or five more. When addressing my two cancer diagnoses I followed the same practice — finding out who was doing groundbreaking research and asking them for an interview. Few responded but those who did provided valuable information. Sometimes they would point me towards others they particularly respected or who had special knowledge. This research led to me enrolling in two trials — one at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland (for lymphoma) which did not help and one at the Brigham and Women's in Boston (for prostate cancer) that did.

Ultimately, I found a drug developed by Fritz Kuehne, a chemist who headed the Red Cross in Germany. It was originally developed to treat physicians who returned from Chernobyl with sublethal radiation exposure. That drug — WF10 — had a dramatic, positive impact on my health. It allowed me to survive until Rituxan was developed and available. The combination of Rituxan and WF10 saved my life, I believe. Before that, I had been enrolled in an experimental bone marrow transplant program at the Dana Farber. I was removed from that program (luckily) when my blood counts deteriorated as a result of chemo. I was anemic and a borderline hemophiliac.

Cancer is a maze of conflicting information and rapidly changing science. Oncologists and surgeons who practice in the area are often too busy with their caseload to keep on top of latest developments. For patients, it can be a difficult landscape of conflicting opinions, of treatment results that are favorable one month and adverse the next, of emotions and vague half-answers that sometimes make no sense. It is my intent to use what I’ve learned to be on the side of a few patients navigating these difficult waters.

Research Into Alternative Treatments

I am not a big fan of most alternative treatments, including those espoused by naturopaths and by clinics in Mexico and South America. I will never suggest a cancer patient ignore modern medicine and focus solely on these alternatives. Pursuing them in addition to modern medicine is fine. I’m happy to find out what I can about the actual supporting (or contradictory) data, with an open mind. My experience though, and I do have substantial experience with alternatives, including injecting 714-X into my lower abdomen, is not good. Nor is it good among those readers I have kept in touch with who rejected modern medicine and instead relied solely on homeopathy, naturopathy, on clinics in foreign countries or other alternatives. All I’ve known have ultimately died of the disease they were diagnosed with. In my case, the alternatives I tried — macrobiotics, uncooked fruits and vegetables, 714-X mentioned above, and a number of others — had no discernible positive result. These alone, or in combination, may be helpful for some. I don’t know. But many of these alternatives are offered without verifiable data. If I was running an alternative cancer treatment clinic in Mexico, I’d certainly publish the data if it was favorable.

On the other hand, there are drugs that are not part of modern American medicine that have substantial data to back them up. I am a believer, for instance, in Beta-Glucan, a drug widely used in Europe but that is not patentable and therefore not marketed to US physicians by US drug companies. I interviewed a researcher at Biothera, a Beta-Glucan manufacturer, years ago who told me that he was giving it to his mother who had non-Hogkin’s Lymphoma with favorable results, and that the US government had stockpiled it to treat soldiers in the event they became exposed to radiation. This has some significance since the side effects of radiation can have a severe impact on one’s immune system and thus leave us exposed to other pathogens and cancers. And, as I mentioned, the drug that may have saved my life, WF-10, also had properties that countered the negative effects of radiation. Both dramatically boost the production of macrophages.

Fasting, Diet, Exercise

Lifestyle has a major effect on whether or not we get cancer. It probably has an impact on Alzheimer's (sleep habits, oral hygiene). After diagnosis however, while certainly helpful and worth doing, lifestyle modification has the problem faced by many cancer treatments. The cells that are susceptible to the treatment die and those that are not replicate. I’ve known people who tried to deal with cancer solely through healthier choices. All died. I’ve read about survivors — for instance in books about Macrobiotics — but not ever encountered an actual survivor. I note that the primary advocate of Macrobiotics in the United States, Michio Kushi, his wife and his daughter all died of cancer. Michio was 88 at the time of his death, which undoubtedly was a primary factor, but nevertheless one should treat alternative treatments with skepticism unless backed by data.

Patient Advocate

I can’t offer medical advice because I’m not a doctor but I can find experts who may offer a potential solution. Second opinions can be extremely valuable. I’ll try to find a physician who is respected by his or her colleagues for their insight, compassion and experience with a particular focus on pre-eminent speakers at physician conferences. While, as a non-relative, I’m generally not allowed in patient/physician meetings, I’m available to discuss what was said and to research any options that might emerge from these meetings.

The Use of AI

AI will totally transform medical diagnosis and treatment over the next several years. Diseases will be much more accurately diagnosed by inputing blood test results and other data into computer systems. Outcomes of different treatment regimens — what’s working and what isn’t — will be constantly fed into AI systems, and updated minute by minute based on millions of incoming data points. Treatment protocols will be adjusted frequently, perhaps daily. For now, the main use of AI to cancer patients is in identifying experimental treatment options and leading experts in each cancer or disease niche.

I use four platforms — Google Gemini, Anthropic/Claude, Perplexity and Grok — to research the options available and as the basis of discussion with cancer patients in identifying which possibility might be most worthwhile.

Who I Can’t Help

There are four categories of patients not well suited to the approach I take:

• If you’ve been diagnosed with cancer or other disease which modern medicine can treat with a 80% or higher success rate, take advantage of that. Read my articles, be obsessive about self-care, rest, good diet and be in touch if your prognosis deteriorates. In a follow-up post, I’ll provide signup details on the Substack currently in the planning stages.

• Patients who do not want to consider options or alternatives other than those suggested by their oncologist. When your prognosis is dire, my suggestion is to listen to anyone who has experience in cancer treatment and who has verifiable data to back up their opinions. If you are not open to other perspectives, you and I are not a good match.

• Patients who are not open to modern medicine and want to just focus on alternative medicine. Modern medicine isn’t perfect but it has a lot to offer. For one thing, even when modern medicine doesn’t have a solution, practitioners are highly knowledgeable about the characteristics of a particular disease. I have found it absolutely crucial to listen them, or to anyone, who has a view based on data and knowledge. You never know when you will come across that crucial little insight that leads you in a worthwhile, potentially life-saving, direction.

• Patients without health insurance. If you have been diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease, and don’t have health insurance, get it. Not having health insurance will lead to unwise decisions about options. Many, perhaps all, experimental cancer treatment trials require health insurance because providers can get reimbursement for that portion of the regimen that is considered standard care — blood tests, etc. If you can’t afford health insurance, investigate Medicaid. You may qualify. The quality of care you get under Medicaid is no different from that you’d receive with insurance. Insurance won’t pay for my services, but my services may not be useful without it.

Longevity Versus Quality of Life

Modern medicine will often suggest courses of treatment that have a major adverse impact on quality of life with no real prospect of success. These are treatment protocols that the oncologist himself or herself would refuse if they were diagnosed with the particular terminal disease. I assume they do this because they want to offer the patient and loved ones some hope even if not founded on data. Or they believe that life must be prolonged regardless of the pain and suffering caused. Or they are attracted to the money generated by a fee-for-service system.

I’m here to try and find options that may result in improved quality of life and that may succeed. If none are available, I am unfortunately of very little use, and will communicate that.

Cost

First, before we begin, an extensive interview so we can both try to determine if we are suitable for working together with a reasonable prospect of a favorable outcome. The cost of that interview is $20, just to separate out those who are not serious. If you are a supporter of Heron Dance through a regular monthly or yearly contribution, the $20 will be refunded.

If we both want to go ahead, the cost of this research service is $5000 a month. I commit to spending 40 hours a month per consulting client and will report at least weekly on what I’m finding — more often if I come across something significant and time-sensitive. Forty hours a month is plenty of time to uncover the kind of information I am seeking, especially using AI. I spent probably 10-20 hours a month researching alternatives when I had my two diagnosis. I’m available to consulting clients 24/7 in the event of serious distress. To start, while I continue to work on Heron Dance projects, I can take on no more than two research clients.

How To Reach Me

Please email me at rod@herondance.org. Tell me about your diagnosis. If I think that there is any possibility I might be helpful, I’ll send a link to my appointment calendar. If I don’t think I can be helpful, I’ll let you know right away.