SPEAKER_00: 0:00

I've invented something that's bigger than antibiotics, bigger than vaccines, two of the biggest biology and medical breakthroughs in history, and it's very early, but I can promise you it's going to scale. And Joe will be responsible for saving many millions. And Aaron, even more so, if I'm successful in his case, I'd trade it all to have Joe back.

Matt: 0:41

Their insights on navigating the journey after the death of their partner or spouse, loss, healing, and finding their way back to living again. I'm Matt Bradley, your host, and I am honored to join you as we explore the complexities of grief, the challenges of solo parenting, and the struggles of getting back to living. And maybe even some adventures of finding love again. Each episode we'll sit down with courageous dads who are bravely sharing their experiences, insights, and lessons learned along the way on this journey. Sharing how grief has impacted them, their children, and their lives. We might have a crosstalk conversation with widows and widowers sharing their experiences, the similarities and the differences in grief and being a solo parent. Occasionally we'll have grief experts on to dive deeper into the understanding of grief and healing. So whether you're a solo dad or solo mom or a friend of a solo parent, or you're wanting to just understand more about this journey, you're in the right place. Don't forget to visit our website, solo dad.life for more resources, episode updates, and to connect with our growing community. You can follow us on all the social media platforms, find our group on Facebook, look for us on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and on the YouTube page. On YouTube, you can find more content and some behind the scenes moments. Just search the Solo Dad Podcast. And remember, don't forget to subscribe. Lastly, if you've enjoyed what you've heard or found it helpful or insightful, we would appreciate your support. Head on over to buymeacoffee.com slash the Solo Dad Podcast to help keep the show running and fuel our mission of supporting solo dads everywhere and giving them a space to have open and honest conversations. Thank you so much for being here. And let's dive into today's conversation. Welcome to another episode of the Solo Dad Podcast. This one is going to cover a lot of really cool stuff, um, as most of them do, but this one is going to go into some pretty cool uh medical potential breakthroughs that um one of our fellow solo dads is doing all on his own. I am gonna go ahead and say Mark and I are friends because we actually met in real life outside of Sioux Falth, South Dakota's. Uh we we crashed Mark's house, a couple of us, and we had a barbecue, and it was great. And it was so wonderful to be in the presence of, I think there was four of us, right? Five of us total, solo dads, um, hanging out with our kids. And it was it was wonderful to not be on a screen. Mark, thank you for being here. I know your days are full with lots of challenges, so welcome, and we'll dive into it. How are you right now today?

SPEAKER_00: 3:37

Thanks, Matt. Yeah, man, pleasure to be here. Yeah, uh, I'm always tired, forever tired. Yeah, that um, but happy to be here. You know, it's funny actually, because we always do these group calls. I think we've talked one-on-one before. I think the only person I'd spoken one-on-one with on a call was Jeff, because usually we're in a group, even when we met in person. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know what that's like for other guests on the podcast, if they've been in our group calls much, you know, we have them every week. So yeah.

Matt: 4:09

Shout out to Jeff, right? I mean, I tell him all the time, like, if it wasn't for him, that call would have died a long time ago. Because one thing I'm really consistent at is being inconsistent. Um, let's touch on, let's let's touch on why you're so tired. You have three times, and then we'll put an exponent challenges that I have. I have one, you have three. So let's talk about the three challenges with with some exponential factors that you have on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00: 4:35

Yeah, so I have a now three-year-old, four-year-old, and five-year-old. Um, the three-year-old is severely autistic, the four-year-old is neurotypical, the five-year-old is severely autistic, and a bunch of other genetic abnormalities, even more serious than that. So, two disabled, one non, and at the time of widowhood, they were one, two, and three. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: 4:59

Walk, let's we're gonna kind of jump. We're gonna I want to take a full jump backwards. Let's talk about how you met your wife, Jillian, right? Jillian. Let's talk about how that worked because uh you sound funny, so I'm gonna assume you're not originally from South Dakota. Yeah. Uh walk us through that, and then uh I have a follow-up question.

SPEAKER_00: 5:18

Yeah, so uh we met on Facebook, and it wasn't like dating, it was just mutual friends of interesting things in Facebook. One of the things that Joel and I were both really fascinated by was um gosh, esoteric stuff, um metaphysics, politics, um, just a wide range of things, philosophy, psychology. So we would actually be in these sort of niche friend groups on Facebook that would follow these types of niche subjects. You can see you if you're watching, you can see the books I've got up here, but I've got everything from transhumanism to uh quadrivium to Socrates to Aristotle to aliens to tarot books. We're gonna love it. What was it? Would you like astrology? A lot of that was Jill's too, by the way. So most of it's mine, but some of it was hers.

Matt: 6:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:14

Yeah. So we were into that kind of stuff. So we're on Facebook, so tarot astrology, uh, early religion, psychology, all this kind of stuff, um, esoteric politics, what's really running things behind the politics. Um but when I first saw her come up as a friend suggestion, this was I guess 2016. Uh I was like, uh she stopped me in my tracks. I was like, she is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I was just like, I've got to be friends with her, but I didn't think anything would come of it. Sure. And then we just started talking organically about a year after that on Skype. Remember Skype? Oh, Zoom destroyed it. Oh, yeah.

Matt: 6:55

And unfortunately, Skype went away and they had such a great little bloop, bloop, bloop when you when you rang it, was fantastic.

SPEAKER_00: 7:00

Skype was how we started talking. Love Skype. And then um, honestly, the the the day we started talking, uh, I loved her straight away. And and she felt the same way. We never went back. She came to England to visit a month later after we started talking, and then uh that we that day I met her was the best day of my life at that point. Only succeeded by our wedding day. Sure. And uh yeah, she she wanted to get married the week we met, uh, a month after that. That's fantastic. And we got engaged the next visit, which was two months later, so within three months, engaged, within six months I'd moved to America. Yeah. Wow, that is it happened very quiet, very fast.

Matt: 7:46

Well, I mean, you know, I mean, there's a lot to be said for when something happens, you just make it so. Like, I mean, I you know, I there's a quote going around from her name's Mel Robbins, which I think she's got it from, I'm pretty sure one of the stoics, but it's okay. It's like, you know, if they wanted to, they will, right? Like if you want to make it, if it's important, you make it right. If you want to lose weight, ever and it's your number one person, you'll make it happen, right? Like, uh, you know, if they wanted to, they will, you know, not to go down the rabbit hole of dating post loss, but like, you know, you see the posts in different groups of like, well, they didn't text me back. Well, if they want to, they would. Like, and not to be a jerk, but it's just kind of like right, like if you want to get married, you can do it in three months. Look, Mark did, and he lived on the side of the ocean, right? So, like, if you wanted to, you can. And if it's right, it's right. I think there's that part too.

SPEAKER_00: 8:31

Nobody thought it was right, by the way. Uh, everyone's insane. Yeah, I mean, because uh like when I told my friends I was gonna get I was gonna ask her to marry me, they were like, You've only met the woman once, you spent one week with her, and then I came here to the States, Thanksgiving 2017, and asked her to marry me. She said yes, and everyone and then decided to move here. Um, and sh and everyone just thought I was crazy. They're like, doesn't like nobody believed it was real. Everybody thought it was just like lust or crazy summer love type energy. Yeah, sure, of course. Yeah, but no, she and I knew.

Matt: 9:07

How old were you guys when how old were you met? And then real quick, tell me about the the wedding, because you said that was the best day. So there's obviously something special there uh for all of us in those days. And real quick, I want to pause. Uh, the other day in the Facebook group that's part of this podcast, which is uh the solo just solo dad parenting group, solo dad group, uh, Jeff or one of our admins asked, like, you know, rather the question, but it was like post picture of our wives and both in the solo parenting group, solo dad group. I'm looking at these pictures, and no offense to anyone, but I've come to the conclusion every single one of us married out of our league. Like I'm seeing these pictures, I'm like, that married him? Like, I know that guy, but I've really like even myself, myself. I'm like, yes. I so um I I think that yeah, when when love's involved, I think there's a lot that happens, especially if it happens fast.

SPEAKER_00: 9:56

There you go.

Matt: 9:57

Yeah, there's one person she was. Yeah, there's one person more attractive in that photo than the other for sure. And I'm a good looking guy, but right? I mean, right?

SPEAKER_00: 10:05

And you're like, I'm not half bad, but yeah, it's punching a button.

Matt: 10:08

And also, right, and it's also not just about that. You talk about what you guys are similar to, there's a lot in there, too.

SPEAKER_00: 10:13

I couldn't have been I it it it blew my mind to find like I genuinely thought she was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. But to to add that we had so many shared niche interests, right? To add that the the love was so deep and real, that's why there was never any doubt for me or her when everyone on the outside was doing, right? I was like, no, there's no doubt at all. Like I'd never been more sure of anything in my life.

Matt: 10:38

You know, I'm glad so I I don't want to I people would ask me, like, because how how old were you guys when you met? Like officially, like in person.

SPEAKER_00: 10:47

26. She was slightly too.

Matt: 10:50

Okay, so so not, I mean, not young, but not old either. Like, I mean, yeah, yeah, life had happened, you guys had had some and it's like I remember when people would ask me, and one of my wife's really good friends, we call her Aunt Kiki now, anyway. She's still very involved with Blair's life and stuff in mine, she's great. Um, she I remember polo side one time, she's like, like, what are your intentions with you know, Marcy? Like, as a circle of friends do, right? And I was like, At the time, I I was like, Whoa, you know, I want to I want this to go as long as far as possible. And I remember because I couldn't really articulate it, and now I can, which is like all I knew was I wanted to spend as much time with this human as I possibly could. If I'm in marriage, great. If I'm in family, fine. If that didn't, fine too. Whatever I could have this present because it was one of the only times in my life where I was like, this is just somebody that I'm better with them around me in all facets of my life. And we and like you said, we had so many other shared things in common where like a lot of times I don't want to pick a hot topic, but if there's some heated topic inside a relationship, it was almost like we talk it through and we both agree at the end. It wasn't like one of us was right. We'd just be like, Yeah, that checks out. Okay, moving forward. What's the next hurdle in our life, right? Like, what what do you think about this? And we'd talk about it, we're like, Yeah, we both kind of ended in the same place. And the phrase I love that actually I give credit to my mom is, and I think you you're gonna you're gonna nod on this one as well, which is like, I struggled for a while to find somebody, not that I'm that smart, but that was intellectually as curious as I was. But every now and they just go, like, why is that? You know, why? Or tell me more about your thoughts behind, you know, yeah, rice trade in the mid in the middle of the way. Like, and they just kind of they think of something and you go, like, wow, you've thought you whether I agree with you or not, you've thought it through, and I see where you can go. And that's and Marsh and I had that from the get, right? Like our first date was we shut the restaurant down. It was like a nine-hour date, and our second date was 18 hours. Like we spent and we just talked, we walked, and so yeah, when it happens, it happens. And so I there's never too fast from the outside, it may look that way. We know that you know those judgments didn't happen. Um, tell me about the wedding day. What was that like? Because was it here in the States?

SPEAKER_00: 12:55

Yeah, we got married in Santa Barbara. So I moved here six months later, and then we got married six months after that, so a year after meeting. Okay. Um, uh, which is about how long it took to get all the immigration stuff done, which and that was as fast as we could possibly do it. Uh yeah, so we got married in Santa Barbara, November 17th, uh, 2018. And uh yeah, it was it was wonderful, man. It was just a wonderful day. You know, it was like uh the courthouse there is beautiful. Um, doesn't look like a courthouse, looks like a kind of uh almost like a Spanish cathedral. It's the the nicest courthouse I've ever seen, so it's beautiful. Just you know, perfect weather, great friends, family. We just it was just a wonderful day. Couldn't ask for a really a better day. And um, even just the speeches, everything just felt very organic, it felt very right. So, yeah, and again, there was never like I remember a good friend of mine, Lou, saying who who's the godfather of my children, uh, he and Laura the godparents, and as he was walking up with me as we went in to the ceremony, and he was like, This is the walk, man, are you ready? And I was like, Yeah, of course. It's like I've never been sure of anything. That's the thing, and I always felt that way with her ever since I met her, really.

Matt: 14:16

Yeah, that's I mean, it yeah, I I think so many times when I sit and have these conversations, though, you know, uh your run was probably short like mine as well. Uh shorter than any again, we all want one more minute, one more month, one more act. But but it's also like it was just so when I say easy, it doesn't mean it wasn't without its, you know, some ups and downs and left and rights, obviously. But it was like it was never a doubt. It was just like, yeah, this is this is what we want to do as a cut, this is what we're doing next. This is this all makes sense, it feels right. Um, you know, all like you said, all the shared things of whether it's common goals or or interests and how you want to go through life is also, I think, part of that, right? Like if you have common interests that leads to how you want to live your life, right? Whether it's um you really enjoy recycling or you don't, like whatever it might be. So, okay, so you guys met quickly, got married, and how soon did your son's the oldest, right? Yeah, how soon was it? Yeah, Aaron. Uh how soon did Aaron come along?

SPEAKER_00: 15:21

He was born uh March 12th, 2020, right when the world locked down. That's right. Yeah, that's right. We've talked about this. Yeah, so we went into the hospital just as it was starting, the the closing down was happening. Wow. Came out a couple of days later, and everything was it was like a ghost town, and we're in just outside LA. So imagine what it's like to feel like that's a ghost town.

Matt: 15:40

I remember the first time driving on the freeway outside of Chicago during lockdown and going like, this is too many lanes that are open. Like, I mean, when I say open, I mean it's 16 lanes and there's two cars on either side. You're just like, this isn't right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:52

So coming out of that with Aaron as a baby, and then we moved to Arizona, and Iona was born uh a year and a bit later, and then we moved to South Dakota, and Skye, the final baby, was born here a year and a bit after that, and then she got cancer about six months later.

Matt: 16:12

Okay, so let's what was what what was the the finding out of Aaron's uh medical difficulties? I I'm trying to figure out the right word.

SPEAKER_00: 16:24

With a disability, or yeah, like how did that come about? Like how yeah, well the this is so the autism severe autism, so he's like non-verbal, completely non-functional, right? Can't he the only thing he can do is like sometimes he can drink out of a cup, sometimes he can feed himself, but he can't use cutlery, right? Certainly can't use the bathroom or or anything like that. Uh can't speak a word, can't really watch TV, certainly can't use an iPad. I mean, we're talking like pretty much incapacitation at every level. It was obvious very young that he had severe disabilities because he was just always struggling, even as a newborn. Uh Iona was the opposite, and you've met her, she's very communicative. Um, and she she she was always super smart. Yeah, even as a nine-month-old, she was like talking and eating and stuff. So um it became very apparent then uh after she sure, almost like a stare and compare, right? Because yeah, older but yeah, which and then Skye, uh Skye is diagnosed as severe autism, but she just behaviorally you can see the difference. She doesn't have this compounding uh genetic abnormality that he has on top of the severe autism. So in her case, also nonverbal, very restrictive behaviorally, sensory overload, but she can watch TV. Uh she can be super smart in the way that she structures her ways of doing things. Sure. Um, but Aaron struggles uh at a much more like every layer of life.

Matt: 18:01

Yeah, and what was you know, Sky, I think Sky was napping when we were there. And what I with Aaron, I'll I'll just give you my little anecdotal however long we're there, a couple hours, you know, hang out, chat, watch them. Like, I will say, like, I know he wandered off to the tree, and you explained why he's over there doing what he does and whatever. And I will say, like, it sure seems like inside there is a very soft soul inside of him.

SPEAKER_00: 18:26

Oh, yeah.

Matt: 18:27

Right? Like, and that's just my read on being around. I was like, I was watching how he kind of like, you know, I'll say played with his food or whatever, but I'm like, he's not like he's off, you know, just going. I mean, I'm sure you have your bad days for sure, your bad moments, but like when we were there, I was like, yeah, he's I have a friend who has a son that's you know got a lot of difficulties as well, and and is on it's it's he's on two, it's it's a whole different conversation, you know. You know the umbrella anyway, in the spectrums. But and it's like, you know, yeah, but you turn on music and his son Christopher all of a sudden wants everyone to dance, right? Like it's just this really soft soul inside of there. So that was really neat to see. And yes, Iona's probably too smart for her own good. So because she definitely was she definitely has what I like with Blair, right? I say she has strong leadership skills. I guess we're putting her bite together, right? And you see her going, like, will you hurry up? Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_00: 19:16

Like, lock it down, get a wrench, let's make this like you know, with Aaron though, you're right. I mean, he's a he's a wonderful boy, and yeah, I uh see in him like I I've seen this with kids with Down syndrome too. Uh he's he mirrors this simplicity where you know he he his face and his life lights up at very simple things. Yeah, he sees the profundity and things that we often right that we completely miss.

Matt: 19:43

Right. And so I just just again anecdotally, not that yeah, I just wanted to make sure that like when we were there, I was like, Wow, this you know, I've you know, I mean it was it yeah, you envision the worst and then you get in it and you're like, Wow, there's there's this really amazing soul in there. That is is got their challenges, but at the same time is is still living, existing amongst us. I you know, I don't know the right words, but yeah. Okay, so you get so so okay, so Aaron diagnosed, you know, you see Iona, we'll just say she's beyond fine. Um and then you have Sky, and then you you you kind of off-handedly but quickly said, and then Jill is diagnosed with what type of cancer again?

SPEAKER_00: 20:27

Yeah, triple negative breast cancer. So it's a it's um a rare subtype of breast cancer. Was there any sort of symptoms? Yeah, I mean, just the the breast tissue, yeah, you know, hardening. But the thing is is that Jill had the uh most aggressive form of cancer that is possible. So this is called KI67. This is the cell replication rate of cancer. Okay. So this is how many cancer cells in somebody are dividing and replicating. Gotcha. What's considered an aggressive cancer is above 20% of the cancer cells replicating. Okay. Still at 100%, every cancer cell replicating. So literally peak aggressive.

SPEAKER_01: 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:14

So um, and unfortunately got much worse than that because uh she had every type of uh mutational uh treatment resistance, as well as um a bunch of unfortunately uh refractory conditions, which basically just means her genes would not respond to treatment. They were hyperaggressive, they were hypermutated. It's it's pretty much the most lethal profile in medicine. Um, I mean, for context, for Jill's type of cancer to live more than four months is under one percent from the moment treatment fails, which would be in Jill's cancer profile.

Matt: 21:53

It fails immediately.

SPEAKER_00: 21:54

Right. Yeah, it's yeah. So you're talking a lifespan of like six or seven months from beginning to end through all stages, not that at stage four. That's all stages, yeah. Right. Jill's tumors were growing a centimeter to two centimeters a week. So I mean it was powering through. So basically, by the time that we even figured out the breast was, oh, we should go and see what this is. Yeah, one month, and it had already grown to the size of most of the breasts. That's the thing. That was the bizarre thing. It just happened like it was wasn't there and it was just there. It was wild too, because Skye was five months old and she's not long been breastfeeding. So we had thought maybe it was clogged milk that was.

Matt: 22:35

Yeah, of course, yeah. As as we do. I mean, Mars was the same thing. The whole not being able to, she calls it have her trains on time. It was like, oh yeah, it's post you know, post-pregnancy constipation. It happens, it's hemorrhoids.

SPEAKER_00: 22:47

Like it's so confusing with the new post-parton thing, especially because when you're just going through and you have just have the baby, the body has gone through so much that it's just so easy to attribute it to anything.

Matt: 23:00

Well, it's I mean, it's um it's a very beautiful, but it is a traumatic experience for a body to keep another body alive inside of itself and then have it taken or delivered out of it, and then still be surviving. And oh, by the way, then that body's used to keep that other small body alive for a while. Yeah, yeah. It yeah, it's a medical miracle and it's also very traumatic. Yes. Right. And and yes, I think it's interesting. I I'll I'll make a asterisk about how many of us, because it's our wives, get post our there seems to be a peak of it's totally anecdotal. That post pregnancy there is a peak of because I talked to a lot of us that have had cancer. It's found after pregnancy, right? It's like, well, is that because the body is switching, or it did all these you know, these amazing things to to have the baby that allowed the cancer to then go rampant, right? And I that's you can't there's no you can't you can't have a group and say you don't have can we're gonna give it to you after can't after you have a baby and see how it grows. Like that's not a test that anyone's you can't you can't run that that you can't run that experiment.

SPEAKER_00: 24:07

Yeah, you know, it's hard to know for sure because so many things can trigger it. Like, you know, you have like a genetic weakness. Uh Jill had many more than we could have imagined. There was nothing on the surface that could have ever led me to believe she would have such a terminal complex like environmentally, right? Like things she contributed to the subject, right? She yeah, she didn't do anything that would openly contribute. That's what I'm saying, but not just that, but she had like the worst kind of cancer profile as well. So, and it's and it didn't, she didn't have it in the family. She was the first. Wow. So the whole bizarre thing about it is you you do try to think like what could trigger it. The problem is lots of things can trigger it. You know, and whether you're pregnant or not, whether you've just had a baby or not, you know, the reality is it can be triggered by anything. If you have that weakness, bacteria can trigger it, parasites can trigger it. Walking past the pesticides they spray in the farms out here in South Dakota could trigger it. That could have quite easily been what it was. Sure. We moved into this house surrounded by uh constant farm chemical exposures. Boom. Certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that that's possible. So um you only know after the fact, right?

Matt: 25:20

Right, it's that slippery slope of causation versus correlation, right? It's like in and and how in there's yeah, you're right, there's so many factors. So okay, so you have three kids under the age of uh three, four.

SPEAKER_00: 25:33

At that point, three, yeah. Three, three kids under the age old yeah, yeah. Um no, there were zero, one, and two when she was diagnosed, right? And one, two, and three when she died.

Matt: 25:44

Yeah. So she did she did she did survive well beyond four months. So I think this 12 months, right? So let's let's segue into how that happened and how that led you to where you are today.

SPEAKER_00: 26:02

Yeah, um, the problem is is that when we did this, we went and got the diagnosis, we did the scans, I came back and I looked at the data on her cancer, and this is before I knew how bad her subtype of the subtype was, like her specific profile. But just looking at the subtype broadly, it's got a very bad uh success rate with chemotherapy, something like an 11% success rate. And that's across the cohort. Now with Jill's is it's zero, right? Her specific profile. Um, and I was like, oh, this is not looking this, she's got no hope with this. So I figured, okay, let's give it like a month. Uh, let's try something else. If it don't work, you may as well, you got nothing to lose. But I think that we've got, I'm gonna look and see if there's something better we can do. Yeah, so I did. I spent the whole weekend. It's funny enough, I've still got them. It's funny we talked about this because I'm gonna show you. This is actually here from the time. If you can follow me. Yeah, you're good. This is actually from still up two and a half years ago. I still have the whiteboards here. Uh, tumor die-off, milligrams per kilogram specific. These are actually, this is a chemotherapy, so I was I was marginal out. But this was uh the very first whiteboard I did. And uh basically what I figured out was um something I didn't know was uh as as revolutionary as it was gonna become. But uh I did two cool things that I tried, uh that I'd figured out. First thing was uh that cancer has like two primary energy sources. So I'm gonna keep this like super rudimentary, yeah. Uh glucose and glutamine. Now the problem is that glutamine is in every food, every food, and uh the body produces it. So cutting out glucose was kind of easy. So actually, you have even uh diabetic drugs like metformin, which do this. Uh and what that does is like blocks the uptake of glucose into the cell. So that was something that I was okay, that's one option, we'll trial that out. Um, there is clinical efficacy on these things, by the way. Um, but that that wasn't really uh that wasn't the thing. So what we ended up doing is we ended up doing a long fast, starving. Lots of good clinical literature on this, lots of good preclinical literature on this. Uh so what we did is like, okay, there's no way to starve out this glutamine. So she went on uh we did a 10-day fast of just like bone broth, no solid foods, and she powered through it, man. And on top of that, I threw high amounts of uh antiparasitic drugs at it. And the reason being is because here's a here's a fascinating thing. The you take a parasitic drug like mibendazole, okay? Now, uh mebendazole is to target the glucose membranes of parasites, the coating, the skin. Well, we're just talking about how cancer cells use glucose instead of oxygen to pump energy. Okay, and that's what's called aerobic glycolysis. So, cancer cell basically doesn't use oxygen even though it has oxygen available to it, it absorbs glucose. So mebendazole, perfect example, antiparasitic drug, it it locks into that extra glucose absorption, thinking it's the membrane of a parasite, but it's actually a tumor, right? Because it's locking into glucose, glycolysis. It's not like it knows, it's not like the biochemical properties of the pill know, oh, that's a parasite. It's it's biochemical, the biochemical attachment.

Matt: 29:35

Right. It doesn't care what the thing is, it's the bio match.

SPEAKER_00: 29:38

Yeah, exactly. So all compounds, you know, and this is the whole point of spending a billion dollars on RD and drugs, is that we try to find what compounds mix with what types of diseases. And it just so happens to be that some antiparasitics, because they share those biochemical properties, worked in this case. Um to long story short, is I I built a three-part system. We did it, and her tumor regressed over 70% because she was diagnosed metastatic. Yep. The breast tumor went down over 70%, and one of the lymphatics tumors disappeared entirely. Okay, so this was a terminal, metastatic, untreatable cancer. And in my basement in the first two days, I'd wiped out almost three-quarters of the primary tumor and one of the metastatic tumors within three weeks. Wow. So we went, we got the scans, confirmed that. But the biggest part about it was in that whiteboard I'd switched on up there, is uh we'd we'd reactivated her genes. So triple negative breast cancer is it silences estrogen and progesterone genes, hormone genes. Yeah, the you know, the female hormones, though we have them too, by the way, but uh is it more important for women. Yeah. Uh in her cancer, those genes are switched off. And in this process, I'd switched them back on. Now, this turns out to be the only documented case in human history of switching genes back on. There is actually no other human being other than my wife, Jillian Malone, who has had genes switched back on from inactive to active. So even when we look at like CRISPR DNA editing, that's a mutation correction, that's not switching a gene on. Right, it's it's splicing and dicing, right? Exactly. Yeah. So not only is Jill the first human to have one switched back on, but we did two separate genes across chromosomes because progesterone is on chromosome 11, estrogen is on chromosome 6. So these are completely different mechanisms. Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we actually surpassed CRISPRs because CRISPR's only gone in one chromosome, one gene section. So um, in addition to reversing the metastatic spread, also reactivated genes for the first time in a human ever recorded, when we got her liquid biopsy back, it showed estrogen and progesterone uh being made again. Yeah, being made again. And uh I was like, oh, it worked because I actually had a hypothesis this was gonna happen, but I it wasn't the priority, the priority was to kill the catheter. Of course, right, right, right. But uh, but I I had a hypothesis this was gonna happen because looking at some of the mice that I'd got this the reason I built this concoction in those first couple of days was because I was looking at human cells and mice, and this was something that happened in the mice with this similar structure. So I had a hypothesis this was gonna happen, but to actually potentially pull it off in a human is wow, whole different ball game. Yep. Um so that happened. Uh then the cancer started to grow again, but much slower. So instead of like a centimeter a week, it was about 0.4, so it's two and a half times slower than the original speed. Wow. And then we were like, okay, we're not because it's not going backwards, even though it's slower, it's still growing. Yeah, we need to throw other stuff at it. So that's when we went into plan B. So she went for a surgery, uh, cryoablation, the hammer it, the primary tumor, that did nothing. Um, and then we went for the systemic, the we actually got like precision genetically targeted chemotherapy, which did nothing. Immunotherapy did nothing. Through lots of other like chemo pills, nothing, like literally nothing. Nothing, nothing. Not even like it didn't even slow it down like 0.1 centimeter, let alone reverse it. Like it literally it did nothing. It was 120 grand personal money, not even including all the insurance stuff paid for.

Matt: 33:31

Yeah, key done. Don't even give me starting. Nothing.

SPEAKER_00: 33:33

And yeah, the stuff I did in my basement here cost me about a thousand dollars compared to the 120,000 and and bought her 12 months instead of three.

SPEAKER_01: 33:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:44

So um, yeah, so we threw everything else at it to try once we realized that we weren't pushing it back anymore, but but it did nothing. We went across the country, went to Arizona, went to a specialist clinic. And boy, oh boy, I'd have to tell some, I don't have to tell you, and I don't have to tell some of the other people, but the memories of watching that I can still feel the trauma, the tenseness of my body, the the inability to eat, the inability to sleep, just that you know, that twisting knot in the stomach. Yeah. When you know the treatments aren't going anywhere, when you know you're like, I gotta have hope, I gotta have hope, but you just know it's fucking just not gonna happen. But you have to tell yourself it's gonna happen because what else are you gonna do?

Matt: 34:28

It is a very man, I wish I was recording a pop. That's a whole nother conversation. If I had been recording my wife's cancer journey, you know how popular I'd be. Um, same with you. Like if we'd gotten on TikTok, right?

SPEAKER_00: 34:40

Anyway, oh gosh, yeah. That's a whole nother about that, yeah.

Matt: 34:43

Not not to judge anyone who has or has, it's fine. Yeah, just never thought to turn the camera. I wasn't thinking about that. Neither was I. It's I'm not, I'm not, and this isn't even a judging of anyone who has. Like, I find most of those people that do that, they already were, like prior to their diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00: 34:58

Well, that's that process.

Matt: 34:59

I'm not, I'm not again, I'm not, I'm not not judging anyone, but you said something right there that brought me right back to a conversation. I I'm thinking it was with my wife. There may have been a therap therap therap theraper, therapist in the room, and it was this weird conversation around because I don't know a lot of other situations where you have hope because you have to, but at the same time you you embrace the reality that of what's going to happen way sooner than you want it to happen. It's a very bizarre because usually you either have hope or you deal with reality, right? Like we don't you don't kind of walk both paths at the same time, right? Like, because in order to do the thing you got to do, that's real. In order to have hope, you can kind of be like, I can still eat Twinkies and lose weight. Right. Um, right? Like that's oversimplification. But you said that, and I it took the same thing. It took me right back. Yeah, it wasn't a therapy. It wasn't, it wasn't a yeah, because I was like, I now remember the couch. And I go, like, oh, we're holding on to hope, but you still deal with reality. And it's like you usually don't that's not something we usually do. It's a very odd space to occupy of like knowing that barring a miracle, you're like, this is I want I you have to, because how I don't know how you go about dealing with your situation of ke just the general cancer diagnosis of it not of being not good of how you go about it. And it's very it's a very odd space. And you're right. I'm thinking about it now, and in the moment, I'm thinking like my stomach doesn't feel I didn't like it. I didn't I I don't wish it on anybody. It's a very odd space. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 36:52

The trauma is intense. Like I actually had this conversation with Jeff where obviously the grief, I say obviously, I mean, for me, the grief was way heavier right at the end of her life and after she died. Sure. But the trauma was worse in that terminal window. Yeah. Because you're, you know, reminds I reminds me of the Dark Knight Rises and the character Bane when he's he's broken Bruce Wynne's back. Yep. And he says to really poison someone's soul, they have to have a little bit of hope. Yeah. And that's what they have that circle in the prison for where the sunlight comes in. Yep. And that's what it does to you. That's why it hurts some that's why it's so traumatizing, and that's why I still feel I can still even like taste the protein shake I used to drink because I couldn't eat. Because I was that anxious.

Matt: 37:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:42

So I couldn't eat. I dropped down 115 pounds. Oof, buddy. Dude, I was nearly as like skinny as Jillian was. Right. Yeah. Um, and couldn't eat, so I can still taste the protein shake in my mouth. These are, you know, I remember hearing these stories of people that have like serious trauma, and they're like, uh, maybe they got abused by a guy in a red hat, and every time they see a red hat, they they their nervous system kicks in. I have so many of those in this specific window. And it is that hope thing. The reason it was so traumatizing is because I hadn't given up hope yet and let grief just crash it all down. I couldn't do that because I needed to still believe, and I needed her to still believe um as well, just in case we were that miracle. So it turns out I actually pulled out another miracle, but um, but it was too late. But the the the the best thing that I'd done was actually after this process. Um so I remember just feeling that heavy trauma. I remember feeling the the the being poisoned by hope. You know, it really was like that.

Matt: 38:53

I it's funny you mentioned the Batman, uh, the Dark Knight Rises. The other one is uh in Shaw, I was I had to use the old Google machine real quick, but the other one is uh in Shawshank, they talk about how hope is a dangerous thing, right? And I I think I've moved away from there, I definitely there's a post I can go find it where I'm like, hope is one of the most dangerous things in a good way and bad that we can have because it will it will make you do things that you are probably well, as you've you've just stated, that are not humanly possible because of the hope that it might lead to something that you desire an outcome for. But it also is like the lack of it, or when you realize when all hope is lost, you go, There is no worse place. Because then that reality that you were doing everything you can, mental and emotional gymnastics to not make it so, even though you knew it was is coming. And it's it you want it that is uh Yeah.

unknown: 39:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 39:55

You know what then? Uh uh it's still better in the long run. Like Even though I can still feel the torment of the time and the trauma of it, I'm glad that I I threw everything. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Matt: 40:12

Because if you didn't have the hope, you wouldn't have.

SPEAKER_00: 40:14

Yeah, exactly. And that I didn't give up, even though it did cause me more torture at the time. Sure. I would have been way better off just to give up and just accept it and enjoy the moments I had with her. Sure. And for sure. But I'm glad I didn't because this is the guy she fell in love with. The guy that goes to the ends of the earth and is like, fuck you, and I'm gonna find a way. And I did. Yeah. Just too late, but still did it. Yeah. And and through that, there's gonna be a lot less guys like us five years from now because of that. So I think that um for me, I'm glad I did it, but I do remember at the time it was torture because I all of me just wanted to accept this and then just like let the depression sink in, which I know sounds kind of crazy on the outside to say let the depression sink in. But actually, when your body is in that highest state of anxiety, it's better to just let it all sink.

Matt: 41:08

Yeah, because it's almost like the resistance is almost worse than the acceptance.

SPEAKER_00: 41:11

It is, I mean, when you're literally starving to death, especially, it's better to just be depressed and drink a bottle of whiskey than it is to the point where you're going to starve to death, which is where I was. So um, you know, you gotta pick your battles, but uh I'm I I have no regrets about the hope though, and I think hope is essential, but I there is no good, there's no free lunch, right?

Matt: 41:33

No, that yeah, that yeah, you're absolutely right. I know that because I've I've heard your obviously you and I have spoken, I've heard your story before. I know Jill's passing was also extremely traumatic because of how aggressive the cancer was. Right before this call, I was sharing with a a friend that I was like, hey, um, I gotta wrap this up because I gotta call with with Mark. And he knew he knew uh we had met in South Dakota, and I said, Yeah, and unfortunately, his wife's cancer was so aggressive it was actually like coming out of her body at the end. Yes. So not to not to scare anybody off, but if you are squeamish or if you uh if this is gonna be triggering for you, you might want to fast forward maybe about 30 to 40 seconds.

SPEAKER_00: 42:21

Um this was actually um, yeah, this was part of the really bad part of the trauma because Jill uh when it broke through, it initially had broken through the breast and like holes, like pierced through holes in the breast. And then her lymph node actually just exploded out of her armpit. And uh this was July 3rd, 2023. And I had to pin her down on the bed to stop her from bleeding to death, you know, on the breasts and on the as 911 came. But this is one of the fucked up parts, man, because I remember when I called 911 and they were like, what is it? And I'm like, it's uh stage four, triple negative breast cancer. And they were like, uh, like they knew, like, well, you may as well basically it was like there's nothing we can do when we get there, you know. And I'm like, yeah, I know, but like maybe she doesn't have to die today, you know.

Matt: 43:16

Like, hey, I don't know if you know this, but our ambulance can't do anything for that. You're like, I realize, but we also have a still have a medical situation, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:22

You know, like she doesn't have to die bleeding to death on on the bed, yeah. Um so it was uh, you know, so the thing is, is it was and man, that happened quite a few times that I was drenched in her blood a number of times. And on top of that, they took the breast. This was in hospice phase. By the way, this was actually um around the time that I'd functionally cured the cancer. We'll come to that because this is you couldn't it it's like one of those movies where you get the pot of gold and then uh you end up in prison or some shit like that. You know, there's always like those Faustian bargains. Yes. Uh love it is. This was like one of those moments where it's like, done it. Too late. Too late. But yeah, the thing is, is um they took the breast just for comfort. Yeah. Uh, you know, because it was obviously an absolute mess. Um, but because the cancer was so aggressive, it would just regrow where the breast was. So I would have to unbandage uh Jill's chest. And by by by the way, at this point, she was five nine. By this point, she was about 80 pounds. So then look, I was unbandaging her, and it was literally her rib cage, her muscle tissue, and I could see her rib and the muscle tissue, but five tumors. And like I said, it was just so aggressive, it you could see it growing in real time every day.

unknown: 44:50

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00: 44:51

The level of disease, like I said, I mean, uh, just statistically, we know this based on the clinical data. She had as lethal a profile as you can have in this disease cell, and it and and I could fucking see it. I mean, it was unreal. So I had to like clean these bloody tumors where her breast used to be on the muscle tissue of her rib cage every day, squeezing saline on it. Meanwhile, I've got an autistic toddler kicking off in the corner, I've got a baby in the crib, and then I've got a little girl running around not knowing what the fuck's going on, and also I'm still trying to cure cancer in between doing this, by the way, and come very close to doing it at this point. And Jill was just like, she was like, I don't want you to try to save me. And she we actually had this conversation. She was like, Yeah, I don't want you to try to save me anymore. I just want you to be here for me. And I was like, I can't do that though, because I'm the only one who's even made a fucking dent in this disease. Yeah, you know, so I was like, I can't do that because fair enough, if I'd failed and everyone else has succeeded, but the opposite was true.

Matt: 46:03

Correct.

SPEAKER_00: 46:03

Yeah, so I can't do that. The other thing is I can't do that to our children because it's not just I'm not just doing this for you. Correct. Yeah, doing this for them. And so I can live with myself, and I'm the one who's gonna have to live with it. Yeah. So I was like, I can't do that. Can't anyway. So I went back to the drawing board and I was just like, um, and I found uh I found and in the most unlikely of places, I was uh looking at the biochemical makeup of how do you stop the source of cancer, which is cancer stem cells, right? And uh they come from three molecular pathways. They're called WNT notch and hedgehog. Now, what's interesting is all cancer use disease. Doesn't matter if it's pancreatic, colorectal, breast, every type of cancer use disease. They're uh cancer stem cell master master pathways. Uh so these are the molecular pathways that drive all cancer into being. Gotcha. And it's all cancer. This is actually the only thing that all cancer shares that we we know of, apart from the fact that they all use glycolysis and glucose. But this is a much more causal thing. Anyway, so I found like a couple of bio excuse me, a couple of biochemical properties that could shut these down. But then I was like, uh, how do I find how can I even fucking find a safe version of this? Anyway, it turned out the only thing I could find that had these biochemical properties in was a was an old tapeworm drug called neclosamide, which they used to use for gastrointestinal tapeworms. It went out of the market in 1996, not for any reason other than just commercially, didn't sell much.

Matt: 47:42

Yeah, FDA approved, not a huge need for tapeworm medicine.

SPEAKER_00: 47:46

Yes, it was uh FDA approved though. Yeah, it was perfectly safe. But because it's been off the market for 30 years, I had to get um her oncologist to trust me. It was like one of those, trust me, bro, this is gonna work moments.

Matt: 47:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:00

And and he was like, Well, you got nothing to lose, you know, she's gonna die any week. So this took her from weeks to a couple of extra months, in addition to my first turning couple of months into from the first starting point, right? Right. So, anyway, um, he we managed to get a pharmacy to make it for us, actually make the compound, make the drug, ship it out to us, and that's what they did. All of her other treatments had failed, hospice phase, breast gone, all the situation I was just talking about, like and she just took this pill a couple of times uh a day, and then we sampled her blood, and boom, every single cancer marker across the board had dropped by half in two weeks, and the cause of the cancer, the molecular pathways were completely wiped out. Not only is this miraculous because everything else had failed, and this came at a worst stage of disease, which was right at the end of her life, but there's never been a recorded instance of cancer stem cell wipeout in a human being. So not only did we have that gene reprogramming thing earlier, surpassing CRISPR, but now we also have the first proof towards a functional cancer cure ever recorded in a human. It was just too late for Jill because tumors would destroy the entire body at this point. Yeah. Lungs, bones, everywhere.

Matt: 49:18

I think the people that aren't familiar with cancer, first off, holy crap, we'll have to you'll have to send me the names of all this stuff for my show notes, but yeah, because there's no way I'm I'm just gonna be like, he gave his wife tapeworm medicine. Like it's not that simple. I mean, it is, but like we need to do a better job. Go down to Pet Mart. No, do not go down to Pet Mart. Don't do that, don't do that. Yeah, no. Um, anyway, what I was gonna say was I think, and this was my wife was the only cancer, like intimately, even within two, you know, uh iterations of family, like we just didn't have cancer in our family. Right, right. And so personally, and one of the things that I I you know, we everyone sees the movie version, right? You've got the IV drip, you lose your hair, you get all skinny, and then you know, and then miraculously the cancer's gone. And I think what a lot of people fail to realize, and and and so moved by your experience, because mine was not this um challenging, but internally, right? Like when an oncologist goes, like it I still remember when they came in, they're like, it's everywhere. Like it's it's for colon cancer, at least, which really likes to unfortunately go to the liver and then the lungs. Like that's just occasionally the brain, but that's kind of rare. And so there's some number where they stop counting. And I I can't, I should go look it up, but they're like the tumors in the liver, they're like, we just stopped. There's just that many. And so what I think people fail to realize is like, oh, you hear the ones where they do a surgery, they cut off the tumor, and then life goes on. You're like, yeah, but then there's people that get the popcorn type of cancer where it's just everywhere, right? And I don't know if you know this, but like if it's everywhere in your liver and your lung, there unless you completely reverse it, the damage is too far gone that they're going to exasperate and die anyway.

SPEAKER_00: 51:05

And that's the problem, right? That you can even functionally cure the cancer, like I did. Which and so what I mean, what when I say functional cure cure, that's a scientific term. What functional cure means is that we caught we we killed the cause of cancer. And if it'd been done at say stage one to three, it would be a manageable illness. That's functional cure. Right.

Matt: 51:26

I've read your I've read your quote many times that way.

SPEAKER_00: 51:29

It's a manageable illness, which is a very cool thing to say. Type two diabetes, for example, right? It's a manageable illness. Once it might have been terminal, now it's manageable, very manageable. So this functional cure would turn stage one to three cancers into a manageable illness. An absolute cure is is the the holy grail, and that's like, you know, even stage four hospice, and it's all gone, right? So we're not talking about that, but we're talking the closest to a cure that's ever been scientifically validated. Um, not like woo-woo machines or like some weird shit that like you know, like actual like molecular evidence. I just want to be clear. Like, I know everyone's heard of a secret cancer cure somewhere, but I'm not talking about that. Um, because the amount of people I have saying that stuff to me, man, it's wild.

Matt: 52:15

Well, yeah, and it's like, and I think that comes from a place of you know, people don't like to do nothing, and you know, you know, I I listen, we you you especially with everything you have going around in your head. I mean, I remember when I was deep in cancer knowledge and learning about cancer, and my wife specifically just calling cancer, right? And the things you read and the things you and unfortunately, until you've been to the point in universe blessed, God bless, whatever you want to say to the oncologists that look at you and go, Yeah, try anything. Because their vast knowledge, which is still limited, but of whether they've been an oncologist for five years or 50 years, and they just look at you and go like we got the whatever you think you want to do, um, is really unsettling because then all those what ifs of like, you know, uh, we actually we did um why do we we did a fast. We did a couple of fasts um based on both what you just mentioned and also the oncologist saying, like if you do this, I think it was before the chemo, it like kind of opened up the cancer to be like, well, I'm starving, I'll take anything. Because my dumb brain was the the thing I came away with my cancer education was like, I was so stupid. I was I was like, we have chemo. It I didn't know there's different types of chemo, like that's how dumb I was practicing colon gas. I was like, everyone just takes chemo, it's like gas. Like you just chemo.

SPEAKER_00: 53:42

Uh anywho. Yeah, they come from different compounds. Yeah, correct.

Matt: 53:46

There's different kinds, there's right, like some of the drugs that they use in in breast cancer. Actually, they now use in colon cancer because of the way it interacts with the with colon cancer. But anyway, one of the things I was gonna say was like, uh, and I love I think it was out of Sloan, no, uh, MD Anderson. He was like, you just really hope your cancer is really stupid and it loves chemo. That's what you're hoping for, right? Because he goes with your with March's genetic testing that was like, listen, it's it's it's not bad, but it's not good, right? It's not it's not super super bad. But like you just hope because you could have someone that has like basically almost the exact same cancer and their cancer is just dumb and they eat the chemo and they they go on for three or four years, which actually we knew like personally that that was our cancer journey. Unfortunately, Marcy's cancer was smart and it didn't fall for the chemo very long. It was like, no, I'm not doing this anymore. So the fact that with what you're talking about about e eradicating and making it completely go away is something that I'm like that is uh that is on a whole different level of because if you haven't been intimately involved with our whatever is the most current both medical and non-medical cancer treatments, you don't really understand that you can't just it's right, chemo is not just chemo, it's there's different flavors for different types. There's a lot going on. And so the fact that you could go to the root of cancer, right? The two things all cancers have in common. Yes. Um, and treat it, where again, chemo is not just chemo, there's not just like a flavored chemo for all cancers. The fact that you could get down to that level out of your basement with three kids under the age of three and give you and your wife more time, even though because I follow you, you and I follow each other on TikTok, and that I see some comments sometimes. I'm like, yeah, people just don't understand that. Well, but his wife still died. You're like, you do understand there's a point that you can sew someone back up, but the damage has been done. Like there's just the body just we just cannot recover from it, right?

SPEAKER_00: 55:45

Well, you know, that's uh yeah, people will say these kind of things, and and and the look, the reality is like a tripled survival rate for a cancer that's never had that is an unprecedented clinical success, even if she still died. But the truth is, had I not done it, she would have missed Iona's second birthday. Yeah, she would have missed Sky's first birthday. She would have made Aaron's birthday, but she would have been terminal like at Aaron's third birthday. Yeah. So the point is, is that those were baby birthdays, even my birthday towards the end of the year she made. Yeah. So she would have not made all those birthdays.

Matt: 56:24

Well, and I think one of the things when I see those comments too is like you do understand that Mark was not in his basement researching cancer prior to this. It wasn't like you had a runway during disease. No, but like it wasn't like right, like it wasn't like, oh, he delayed, like somehow had he just and like, well, he had no, like you and I, like, I didn't know anything about colon cancer prior to uh I could find the day, but it's like oh, November 7th. Uh yeah. My wife was diagnosed. I didn't and I mean I heard it was a thing, right? Um, and so that I think that's the other part that I think people miss on is that like listen, he did all this while it wasn't like he was in a lab somewhere doing this sans diagnosis. This was during the diagnosis, the journey in all of it.

SPEAKER_00: 57:04

So I think that's uh so fast too. Right. Like I explained at the beginning, we're talking peak lethality in like the worst form of disease. So it's not even like we had a typical breast cancer, which I'm not trying to downplay, but all cancers you I think you and I both can agree. No matter the diagnosis, all cancers can go and kind that you know had a few months to live, no matter what she did for treatment. So it's not like I had a five-year runway. We we only ever had months at best. So I had fast, but still the truth is is that no one in Joel's profile has ever lived that long. And certainly the the the most amazing part about this is not this functional cure part came at the end, so that didn't really contribute much to her life. The the beginning part did the switching those genes back on is what really gave her the life, but that functional cure part that's gonna save millions of people. I mean, look, I've we've sent the paper, I can't tell you how many dozens of pharmacologists, biochemists, oncologists. Yeah, you've sent me the message, yeah. Gene therapists, I mean, have reviewed it and are already circulating it within these networks. We have like it, uh, I already have biotechnology and bioscience companies talking to me about how to make this work and and how to make this scalable. So within a few years' time, millions more people are gonna actually get the cause of cancer removed because of Jill's experience, because of Jill's suffering. And so her death is going to result in a lot less widowed fathers like us in years to come. So rather than people coming onto my comments and saying, but she still died, they should say, thank you for having a lot less Mark Malone's or Matt Bradley's in the future. Because that's what she's done.

unknown: 58:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:51

You know?

Matt: 58:52

Well, and also your tenacity, I mean, right? I mean, whatever, you know, you know the fact that you, you know, she was like, Hey, I just want you to kind of you know be present. You're like, Yeah. I think also the other answer that I thought you were gonna say, but you didn't be like, that's just not the guy you marry, though. So that's her that's she I I appreciate your wishes and your desires, but if I do that, it's against who you signed up to do this this albeit very short life together.

SPEAKER_00: 59:16

Six years together, yeah. Five years married. Yeah, she died two weeks before our fifth year anniversary.

SPEAKER_01: 59:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 59:23

Um, but yeah, it's six years in total. Yeah. Um she she knew, she knew who she was marrying, she knew who I was. But like the thing is, it was more I at towards the end of her life, I was thinking much more about our children. Sure. And I was thinking much more like what I'm gonna say to them. And at the at the beginning it was all about her, but towards the end, I was like, no, I gotta now I'm throwing it for them so I can look at them and say right.

Matt: 59:48

In in in a very vulnerable, truthful way. I it's the same thing with with when I talked to Blair and and you know, use the words like, you know, you won't say she got sick, we say she had cancer, and it's like Blair, very similar to to your kids. Like where it was very young, and like there's times when it's like you know, not as often as used to, but sometimes the inquiring mind she'd be like, Well, so what? And it's like it just got all over her body, there was nothing left. We and we did everything that we could possibly do within our scope. I mean, I wasn't in the basement doing what you're doing, but at the same time, I don't have that skill set, it's cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:19

Um no one is I wouldn't, yeah, I wouldn't and actually I've had friends who said that to me, you know, like not in our group, but like I have a friend Michael whose parents he lost both parents to cancer, and he was like, Man, I should have done what you did. And I'm like, No, you shouldn't. Do you know how insane it is to do what I did? I mean, I happen to be born with a brain that is built for complex problem solving. But the reality is like it was way more probable that I was gonna kill her more, not save her. Like, oh the reality is. That's a really big statement, too. No, you're right. The probability that I ended up being the one person in the history of the world who'd switched genes back on and cured functional cancer. What's the fucking likelihood of that? Well, I think the AI told me one in a decillion or something like that.

Matt: 1:01:04

So which by the way, that's a that's a one with a lot of numbers behind it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:08

33 zeros. Yeah. The guy, the guy, the widowed, the the the probability based on scholar AI of coming from where I come from with no formal background in this, disabled children, uh, dying wife, learned myself at the time to be the first multi-chromosomal gene reactivator and functional cancer cure at the same time is one in a decillion, rarer than the birth of Da Vinci, Einstein, and Newton combined. Bine, right? Yeah, I remember so it's wild. So the point is, is like, do you really want to throw like if that was a lottery, would you be like, would you take those numbers?

Matt: 1:01:43

And I think the other thing, right? The the other a slightly more boiled down version is like necessity is the mother of but I love the it's necessity is the mother of invention, but I also think necessity is also the mother of intention. Right. Right? Like you wouldn't have like you wouldn't have done this on a random Saturday night for shits and giggles. Like you wouldn't have been like, hey babe, I'm gonna go downstairs to the basement. Gonna go kill cancer. With tapeworm medicine, I'll be back, I'll be back in 45 minutes. Like I wouldn't have had the no, you know you wouldn't have why would you? Right? It's that kind of thing of like you can't do certain things outside of the the moment that we're in. Yes. Um, so walk real quick, walk me through a little bit of like where you see this going next. What you've done, obviously, replication's a big deal. The people you mentioned kind of who you're talking to, but like I let's let's go three to five years. Like, I know you said, you know, what's but but like where do you see this? What are the next phases for you and the people that are gonna listen to this? Like, they're like, oh, I might be able to email Mark and tell him, hey, I know a guy to put him in touch with, or etc. Like what what are kind of the because I don't know, like I you know well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:57

So I had a couple of so I have obviously the most important thing here, and dude, this is the this is actually rather than the she died comments. The thing that pisses me off the most on social media is when people will comment. I mean, I have to laugh. I can't sometimes people be like, Oh, you're just in it for money. I'm like, Yeah, my fucking dead wife and my dying son. Yeah, it's all about the they don't understand, yeah, they don't understand.

Matt: 1:03:21

They just they just don't.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:23

But the thing is, is that nobody's gonna take that seriously after what I've been through, after what we've been through. No one is gonna look at me and be like, Yeah, that's the motivation.

Matt: 1:03:31

Like, it's just fucking well, it's the whole not to not to open Pandora's box, but like when people say that like Big Farmer has a cure for cancer, and I and I've I've I this just recently happened, and the person didn't they didn't mean it, it was an off a cut basically what I told is actually my older daughter. She didn't say this, but I said, when people say things like this, I said, here's the thing. They usually haven't walked it, and here's the other thing. I will back this up. Do you think for a minute that if there was a cure for cancer, that me and Marcy wouldn't be in dirt indentured servants to Big Pharma right now? We would have given our house, our cars, all for true future earnings. I would have done anything. So if you think for a minute that they're holding back, because they could have whatever they wanted. Like I give my soul to you don't think you don't think Steve Jobs would have given all patents to Apple to cure his own.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:20

Right, like close.

Matt: 1:04:22

Close, whatever's right below. But yes, it it bought because they they their perspective isn't in it. They don't, they've never they they're like, they're looking at it from an outside, and they're like, listen, if you've actually had to deal with this first hand and watch the single most per important person in your life that you were you've loved the most, that loved you the most, unconditionally die from this. And you don't think that I would have anything, any, any, and name it beyond giving you my own child, children, anything.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:52

Take me, do whatever. It's a very good point because that's a nice flip of the paradigm. Because normally what people would say is they don't want to cure it because they don't want to lose the money. But your perspective is interesting because you're saying, no, no, they could have charged me a million dollars and I would have gotten to debt to give it to them. They would date it too. This is an interesting flip, right?

Matt: 1:05:09

Because if it if it really is about money, I'm like, listen, they could go to everyone who has bajillions of dollars and go, like, if you don't want cancer, we'll take it all.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:17

Well, the the reason that And you would give it, you would give it. I know obviously there are definitely controlling interests that don't want good, cheap cancer treatment. I agree. That part I agree with, yes. But my whole thing is to your point that you just mentioned, there are a lot of very rich and powerful people in the world who lose people to cancer every day. Correct. Why aren't they getting you know, like even you know, I do think like, come on, like I mean, Steve Jobs of all people, surely he could have got the cure, right? Because I mean Steve Jobs, plenty like so, and that's it.

Matt: 1:05:47

That's usually the people that aren't that and I really I mean, I can't do I'm not gonna do a survey and ask.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:51

But anyway, it fucking downplays my cure that I actually can. So out of there, you fuckers, like you're ruining my chip. Yeah, that's right.

Matt: 1:05:59

It's all about well, and I think so. Okay, so not to sorry to do it. So what are the next steps? I'm being facetious, but no, I know you are, but what are the next steps for this process for you? And how like how does something like this? I don't want to, I'm gonna say it, but I hate to say, get to mainstream. Yeah, it's like how how did how does this all work out?

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:21

That part I don't know, because I'm just a random genius in a basement that happened to crack the code of life without knowing that anything about the pharmaceutical industry or academia or anything. Yeah. So the truth is, is I'm still figuring that out. I have um interested parties. The the the it's key that whoever I work with has to be obviously ethically grounded because we've all watched the people we love most die. Yeah. The whole point of this is to make it accessible and equitable. Yeah. Obviously, not free, nothing's free, no, but affordable and accessible to everybody who needs it. So I can only work with obviously people that are going to do that. And that might take some time to filter through, but the goal is we need to hitch our I need to essentially hitch my bandwagon to someone who can build the infrastructure, yep. Scientific team to run through more testing, yep, improve variations of it. Basically, take what I did in Joe's case, perfect it some more, run it through clinical trials, and then send it out to the world. That's that's the two. That's the short version.

Matt: 1:07:25

Okay, so so okay, that's all yeah, clinical. I would just it that's that's all I could say.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:30

There's a building year, then trials year, and then uh we'll send it out. Right. But really, my priority is to leverage all of this infrastructure and to to help my son. Right.

Matt: 1:07:42

Perfect segue, because I this was my next question.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:43

So Aaron's got um the highest mutational burden of any genome ever recorded in history. I mean, I so we ran it through 300 million scientific records, right? And there's not a single human case that is as mutated as my son. So he has 300. So for context, Jill's most lethal cancer came from about 10 genes. Okay. Aaron has 300. Now, they're not all cancer, but about 200 of them are. The other hundred are neurodevelopmental, neurodegenerative, um, autoimmune. Every disease in the book, pretty much. But it is the most mutated. Now, functional mutation means these are in critical places. These aren't just like random genes, these are very critical genes. So that's what it means. So we're talking synaptic function, brain function, spine function, organ function, everything. Um, so Aaron uh should not have even made it past gestation with this amount of mutational loads. Like the boy shouldn't have even been born. You know, that there are children that have 10% of this that are crippled from birth who die in infancy. Aaron should not be as even as healthy as he is, if you will. Right. Yeah, yeah. Wow. But the but the I mean, by any anything we can even find close to him, no child makes it past 12. So, and that's not even at his level. So we have to assume we've got about five years, which is conservative. Yeah. Um, so I've got to do the biggest genomic rescue mission in the history of the world in five years. But given that I did the cancer stuff in six months, maybe I can anything's possible. Yeah, so it seemed like the man for the job, at least I hope so. Yeah. So uh the we kind of ride the Jill treatment train to help everybody else to back funnel that research into helping my son. Okay, that's the goal. So it's kind of everyone wins, yeah. Um, except me, because I lost my wife, I can save my son, but I still lost her even if I save him. Yeah. And if she didn't get the cancer, he definitely would have died because I wouldn't have known all this stuff to save him. So I was always destined to either lose a wife or a son.

Matt: 1:10:04

Yeah. Yeah. That's I mean, yeah, I think you said earlier this was the the Faustian, it's not that you made the deal, but it's it's that that paradox, right? Where it's like, it's like, how do you I mean it's uh I mean we only know one reality. I mean, there is no matrix, take blue pill, take red pill, right? And and it's like it comes up every so often, even in our solo dad group, where this weird sense all of a sudden hits where you're like, wow. So in theory, none of this would exist. We wouldn't have this conversation if my wife hadn't gotten colon cancer. We wouldn't be having this conversation if your wife, right? It's fucked up. It's not it's not something I dwell on often, but every now and then you just kind of look around and you go, like, so all this is happening all this, good or bad, is is only here in my timeline or whatever, because Marcy died. Right. That fucking sucks. And it's and I think for if people are listening to this early on in grief, that's not a re that's not a reason why Marcy died. It's what I have created a purpose of around, and you've created a huge purpose around not a reason, right? Because that's different. Your purpose is to make this thing as great as you can, both for cancer people and for your son, right? And you yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:22

I want to I do want to say this, Matt, because this is you saying this to you. I've said this on our calls in private, but I feel like everyone on the call, every every widowed father who listens to this should know that look, I have created two two of the biggest biology and medical breakthroughs in history, and it's very early, but I can promise you it's gonna scale. And Joe will be responsible for saving many millions, and Aaron, even more so if I'm successful in his case. I'd trade it all to have Jill back. I wouldn't, it doesn't even come close. Um, I did bigger like I've invented something that's bigger than antibiotics, bigger than vaccines. I'd trade it all to have Jill back. There's no it's not even close. I I I'd burn every Nobel Prize in the world to have her back. There's nothing, nothing, nothing that's worth that. Even saving a billion people. Um I hate to say it. But what I will say is we can't go back. So we we have the time ahead we have. What's the alternative other than to just make good use of the time ahead? Because we can't go back. I would trade it all if I could. Now, in my case, it's a little easier, worse, because I've got the only thing that's as bad as losing Jill ahead of me, which is losing my boy if I don't help him.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:45

But on the flip side, I also get, unlike everyone else probably listening to this, I get to save my son because of Jill's death, which is also the only redeeming thing that could possibly happen from Jill's death. So while I have a much higher stakes mission ahead of me, I can at least say I save my son because she died, whereas most of the people listening to this can't and won't be understood. Your app, right? You know, yeah. So um now if I don't, then I'm really fucked. Then it's just like all awful. Oh, it's all awful all the time. Well, yeah. But I will say I wouldn't trade any. I I now my son, would I it's equal, right? It's like I'm fucked if I do, fucked if I don't. If I lose him and keep her, lose her, keep him. So there's no that's an equivalent loss. It's but yeah, the whole world stuff, I would, yeah, and it's not even close to worth what she was worth to me. Yeah. Um, you know, so I do want to for the earlier people in their grief who can't relate to all the stuff we're talking about, but just know that that part never goes away. You know, you always gotta feel that part.

Matt: 1:13:55

It's it's such a bizarre. I mean, I I live in a city that my wife and I never visited that we are never, we never, right? I moved for all the reasons for my own self-preservation. It's my own choice. I live by it, it's fine. But to like it doesn't happen every day, but there's time I'll just be driving and I go, shit. Huh. Marshall's alive, this is I wouldn't be in this grocery store, right? It's just and it's not even a it's not that I'm thinking like a tit for tat, like a flip-flop, but I go, like, I'm only here because she died. Like I would never have moved to Denver. I well, I don't think I would have, right? Like, I don't know, maybe maybe she would have been like, get the hell out of the house, like leave me alone. But it's just this weird realization that all that is is only because we lost our person. Right. And we are we would easily trade all that is to have them back, which is usually that's not how it works. Most cases in life, you're like, Well, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm fine with what I've got. And it's you know, you know, all the bad that led me to here is like for me who for who I am today. But when our little jaunt in the timeline with that pinpoint, we go, no, I wouldn't, I would trade not living in Denver to have my wife back. You know what I mean? Like I wouldn't, like it's fine. I'd absolutely not live here. That's that I'm fine with that. You know what I mean? And it's a very weird because a lot of times when we have those jaunts in our timeline, if you will, like you we wouldn't. We're like, yeah, it's it all worked like whatever relationship you had, pride and meeting your wife led you to meet your wife, right? And you're like, Well, I wouldn't, yeah, of course I'm glad I had that relationship because I met my wife. I wouldn't change it. And it's most of those times we were like, yeah, but this one we're like, oh hell yeah, I would give this reality up to just have continued the reality prior to November 7th.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:38

Yeah, and I think that I don't think that part goes away. No, you you what you do learn is to you have to live in on two levels. Um, in the same way that you can you can live on the level that your family's always fractured because your wife and the mother of your children is gone. Correct. But you can also live on the level that it can be whole again with somebody else who comes in and loves you and you love them and they love the children. Um and I've been blessed to experience that side too. So like you live on two levels, and yeah, they're both true, and it's which is really it if you have to just get comfortable.

Matt: 1:16:16

Yeah, I like the you're absolutely right because it's a very weird because in most of our life that isn't there's just one true. There's just one, but you're right. You're we're living in this duality of and both are true, and it's it's okay, which is very well uh for me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:33

It's it's intuitive because like the Aaron and Jill situation, yeah. It's always gonna be true that I'd rather Jill be here, but it's always gonna be true that I would want Aaron to be here, but I can't have both because he would have died if she didn't. Right. Because I never would have figured it out otherwise, so I wouldn't have even known to figure it out. So but I can still live in that space of being grateful, I can save my son, while also always being horrified that she had to die. You know, and and so you do have to just get good at living in, and it's kind of like a Zen place. It's like a it's a place of I neither accept nor reject. Yeah, right?

Matt: 1:17:10

I don't like the oversimplification of it, it just is because I think it's way too boiled down, but it is. It's like this is this is it. This is this is where we are. Um, before I wrap up, is there anything else that you want to say about the work you're doing? Besides people will get your TikTok handle and stuff, but any is there anything else you want to say about what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:30

Not really about the work. What you know, what I would say is that I think if for me, it's it it's my family's journey. This is like sickness has been so embedded into so many of our family's journeys. And in mine, it's still a constant day-to-day, as it was in Jill's case. It's not as urgent, but it's actually more complex. Aaron's case is harder to crack, though we have more time. So, and it's like sickness has just been like the sucking, like a black hole just sucking me in for years, and I've still got some years ahead. Um, but you know, one thing that I can say is that I'm all about transmutation and this idea of alchemy and this idea of like transforming it into something. And it's it's not just doing it for its own sake, it's because we transform in the process when we transform it. Um you see, for me, I sort of became like I began as this like wounded healer because I was getting wounded by Jill's sickness and her death, and then disabled children, and then Aaron's sickness, and I'm like this wounded healer that grab grab broken people come to. But in that, you know, I've transformed into something else where I'm like, you know what? Um now I'm gonna be a systems builder to so there aren't as many wounded people anymore. That's the goal. But for me, it's it's more about my own transformation in this process. Because look, at the end of the day, I love Jill more than anything in the world, not just any person, anything. Um but at the end of the day, I came into this place alone and I leave it alone just as she did. And one thing that I've had to do in her death, which took some time and it wasn't easy, was come back to my own individual journey in this place. And what is it that I want to leave behind? You know, what's the what's my legacy gonna be? What what are people gonna think of me when I'm gone? And what am I leaving my children with? You know, um, and I think that has become my primary motivation now, which is like I what is my transformation gonna be, and what am I gonna leave here from that, from everything that's happened to me? Um, and whatever that is for you, you've got to find it. Cause at the end of the day, you are only in yourself. And no matter how deeply attached we are to everything else, we are still only in ourselves. Yeah. So It has to uh come out from us first.

Matt: 1:20:03

That's a really good point. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions and then uh we will we'll wrap it up. So the first question I'm gonna ask you is if Jill could say anything to you right now, what do you think she would say?

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:21

I think she would say, I'm proud of you for everything you've done, but particularly I think she'd be most proud of me for just doing what we all do, which is just being a good trying to be a good father to our children. That's the part she'd be most proud of me for, of hanging in there for the children in the most difficult times, not giving up on them. Um, and she would definitely say not to wallow in the misery. Yeah, yeah. She would definitely say that. She'd be like, don't wallow. She wasn't, she didn't like that. Yeah. Even when she was here, it wasn't who she was. She was like a very bright spirit. She she didn't believe in that as a as a way of existing. Yeah. So she'd say, You've already wallowed for a couple of years, it's too much, you know. Um, I died, we fought so hard. I know she'd probably say something like, We you fought so hard to save me. Fight as hard to save yourself. She'd probably say something like that.

Matt: 1:21:16

That's awesome. Yeah. If the kiddos ever happened to stumble upon this podcast, what would you want to tell them?

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:26

You guys are my greatest achievement. Aaron, Iona, and Skye, you guys are my greatest achievement. You guys are my greatest thing. You're the reason I did it all. Aaron, just so you don't leave your sisters, you're the reason that the world is different now. Uh it wasn't because of me, it was because of your mother and because of you. If it was down to me, I'd be playing guitar and probably drinking and touring or something. So your mother and you are the reason the world is a much better place. I just happen to be a tool to get us down.

Matt: 1:22:00

That's beautiful. And if you could say anything to jail, what would you say?

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:10

Gosh, where would I begin? Can't wait to see you again.

Matt: 1:22:21

That's beautiful. That part, I don't think that's why bar of heart's already hotter on me. Um, Mark man, I can't wait till we can cross paths again, whether it's in Sioux Falls or if you wind up someplace else. Uh, I appreciate you, brother. Uh I know it watching from one of the first calls, just so you guys know, uh, we do host a well, Jeff, our admin does. I show up as a guest.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:49

Jeff does, yeah.

Matt: 1:22:50

Yeah. I'm not giving myself credit. Jeff, Jeff, one of our admins of our group, uh, has been hosting and holding our Tuesday father's call uh for almost like four straight years. And I still remember one of Mark's being on there with his camera off, kids coming and going, and you can hear him in the background, him sitting on his now that I know what his back patio looks like, sitting on his back patio and having whether it was 30-minute chunks, respites of his craziness with the three kids at the time, um it to now is amazing because uh you continue to to do good work, uh not only for the world, but for yourself and your kids. And that is something I am super proud of you for, but I so appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:30

Thank you, bro. I'm proud of you too for everything you've done setting this whole thing up, bringing in Jeff, who then took over your role because you stopped. And uh and just being a good look, man, like I felt so alone until I found this group. Uh, because you know, I was surrounded by a bunch of people that like, oh you know, I uh yeah, I was with my grandma in hospice, and I'm like, You gotta be taking the piss, like you better not be. I was just like, so it was so isolating, and I cut so many people off because they were always just saying stupid shit. Yeah, and it was too raw and painful at that point. Now I don't mind, right? But two months in, I'm just like, so and I found this group about four months in, five months in. So I'm always grateful to to you and to Jeff and to everyone in the group, man, because there's uh there's no more isolating experience I can think of than this one. So to know that we are not alone is a wonderful thing, man. So you guys are doing God's work. No, whatever God is to you. Appreciate it, Mark.