From Diagnosis To Purpose: Glenn Sturm On Integrated Cancer Care

A single phone call at Gate B13 changed everything for Glenn Sturm—and then he changed the playbook for how to live with cancer. Glenn’s rare T cell lymphoma set off a 17-year run of oral and IV chemo, 55 surgeries, and a minefield of side effects. Yet what emerges is not a story about disease; it’s a masterclass in agency, teamwork, and purpose. Glenn breaks down the mindset that kept him moving—“leave cancer in Connecticut,” pay the “chemo tax,” and put a smile on someone’s face every day—while donating all astrophotography revenue to children’s health and cancer causes.

We dive deep into why multidisciplinary, integrated cancer care teams outperform siloed treatment. Glenn maps the real roster: oncologists and surgeons for the core plan; psychiatrists to tackle fatigue and narcolepsy; pharmacists to prevent deadly interactions; neurologists to decode complex symptoms; physical therapists, genetic counselors, and social workers to protect function, tailor therapies, and sustain life outside the clinic. He shares hard-won lessons from retinal detachments and liver enzyme spikes to an ER steroid misstep that led to ketoacidosis—then shows how coordinated reviews and vigilant advocacy can prevent the next near-miss.

The numbers are stunning: large cohort studies and meta-analyses link team-based oncology to lower mortality and longer survival across lung, renal, liver, breast, and head and neck cancers. Glenn pairs those stats with a practical blueprint—document every med, reconcile before any new prescription, train consistently, and build a care team before you need the full bench. Along the way, we talk purpose as medicine: writing books, planning eclipse shoots, mentoring patients, and reclaiming identity from a diagnosis that once signaled finality.

Subscribe to stay close to conversations that change outcomes. Share this with someone who needs a path forward, and leave a review with the one idea you’ll act on this week.

Intro for podcast

information about subscriptions

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and we got a very special guest today. His name is Glenn Sturm. And this guy's got quite a story. He's an active survivor, a four-time bestselling author, and a compelling storyteller, knows just how to reach people in a crisis. His story's more than a survival story. He's got over 30 years of military service and honors from University of Florida law. He brings an unflinching honesty to his story that aligns with us so much. He's been a year, I mean, sorry, over a decade undergoing continuous chemotherapy. Um, but it looks like we've got a winner in our circle. Glenn, I don't want to get too much more into this. Let's bring you to the show. Welcome. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Um, never been better. It's a it's a beautiful day here in Jackson, Wyoming I hear it's a little chilly out there. Just a little, but but it's a great day for a fire in the fireplace.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

I love it. I love it. Well, we were talking a little bit ahead of time, and um, you've got quite a compelling story. I'd like to just jump right on into it.

Confirming A Rare T‑Cell Lymphoma

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Well, uh it's high, it all started on January 21st, 2009, and I've been on continuous chemo since then. But what happened was I was on the way to the University of North Carolina to give a presentation, and I was very much looking forward to it. I love college basketball, and that night there was gonna be a University of North Carolina versus Clemson basketball game, and I had never been to an all-ACC game, so I was looking forward to that. And my uh cell phone started ringing, and I was just getting ready to get on the uh playing at gate B13. And I should have thought before I answered the phone when I was at gate B13, um, but I didn't. So I answered the phone, and in those days, if you didn't see it recognize the number, you didn't assume it was spam. Um, and this wasn't. So it was a doctor who I had run a little bit with and done triathlons with anything else. And she said, Glenn, we got the biopsy results back, and uh they're positive for lymphoma. And I said, What and what biopsies? Well, they had done the biopsies about six weeks in advance, and um, you know, I I started thinking about this, you know, people have been doing biopsies on me for like eight or nine years, and nothing ever came out of it. And so I said, Okay, I I ran you know on my marathon train with a bunch of uh MDs, and I just thought it was somebody put her up to a bad joke. And I said, Okay, who put you up to this? And she said, Glenn, nobody did. It's legit, you've got cancer. Whoa, I need you back here tomorrow for additional tests. And with the cancer you've got, it's very rare, and we're gonna have to refer you someplace if it can it's it's confirmed. Well, this time it didn't take six weeks to get the results back, and um because I had a a very uh a wonderful gentleman who I knew, uh, who was the chief medical officer of American cancer. Uh, after three weeks of not being able to get an appointment with anybody in Atlanta, uh, he got me an appointment with the world's leader in my uh cancer at spinal cancer center, Yale University.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

So I went up that to see her right away. And um she looked at me for about 10 minutes and she'd seen the images and stuff. She said, Glenn, you you you've got uh T cell lymphoma, and uh we're gonna put you on oral chemo today. And so that was the start of my over 6,300 days of oral chemo now and over 530 days of IV chemo. So it's been a uh a little process to go through and had a whole bunch of surgeries, uh, had a whole bunch of side effects that people didn't know about, and uh you know, learned a whole lot and things that I'm teaching people. My first book was called Cancer Set Me Free. And uh my newest book will be which will be out in about six weeks, is called The New Hope because of the new uh results from a lot of the tests that have been going on in the past three years that have shown a basically a materially more effective way of treating cancer. So uh that's kind of the long and short of it. I I've had 55 surgeries, which is kind of crazy. I had five detached retinas in my left eye, I had a torn retina in my right side effects, and I had liver failure, which um I had to figure out because it didn't make medical sense what was going on, but it was a side effect of a drug.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

And was what chemo drugs are you taking?

Surgeries, Side Effects, And Persistence

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Well, now I'm taking robodepsin and zolenza. Okay, and they're not as bad as the uh tigretin and the uh ontac was in this with the side effects. Uh yeah, it is the the longer there's in there's knowledge about about the medical community and the interrelationships of the drugs, it's amazing how people are figuring things out quicker. So uh for instance, I had a detached retina one day, and yeah, um they did surgery on me that night to fix it. And you know, three months later I had another detached retina in the same eye.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

And then um I said, okay, we got to find a better doctor than the one who made the mistake the first time, which it wasn't his fault, by the way. And so um I went to the Cincinnati Eye Institute, and the the wonderful doctor uh said, Yeah, you do have a detached retina in your left eye, but you've also got a torn retina in your right eye, and we're gonna fix that one right now. And they lasered it while I was sitting there. Then I had to come back about four days later for the surgery of my left eye, and then about 120 days after that second detached retina, I had a third and then a fourth, and I said, Okay, something's going on here.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah, yeah. This isn't just happening, there's something causing it.

Detecting Drug Harm With Data

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Right, there's something causing it, and so um, and so I'm gonna come back to that in a second, but uh about a year before that happened, my AST and ALT levels were starting to double. Uh I uh had a IV chemo that I was having for three days every three weeks with no end in sight, and so we knew every three weeks my AST and ALT level, the liver enzymes were doubling, and they couldn't figure out what was causing it. And so, you know, they affiliated with uh Oxford University to try to diagnose it, and the the parties couldn't do it, they did liver biopsies, they couldn't figure out what was going on, and so I finally said, okay, I'm gonna have to figure this out. So I went back and for two-year period I tried to identify every variable in my life and what could have changed, and so then I started running correlation coefficients and then doing correlation coefficients with 30, 60, and 90 day uh lag times in them. And I found the answer I thought, and there was a uh a 0.96, which means basically a 96% correlation, uh, between a certain medicine they put me on. They took me off a leaf and put me on that, and uh the liver enzyme issue. So I was all happy and think I was smart, right? Right. Went back to Yale, and they then explained to me the difference between correlation and causation.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

And so I looked at him and I said, Well, you know, that you may be right, but I'm not gonna take that drug anymore.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

So we're gonna find out if it's a causation. Yeah, well, three weeks later, the liver enzymes had stabilized. Nice three three weeks after that, they'd started to go down, and three more weeks they were back to normal.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

So we yeah, yeah, so we had you know causation and correlation. So we ended up doing a uh you know, a you know, report on it, and uh black box warning label was added to the drug. And uh the company was amazing that who's who had developed the drug, they were just spectacular and helped working with. So I had that experience before I had the retina problems. And uh I went back to the same thing, and it turned out that 120 days before I um started having the detached retina problems, they put me on a new chemo agent. And uh, I mean, people don't realize it, but there's always something that's gonna happen. Yeah, and uh, and you know, you don't always can predict it. You can't predict what everybody else is doing, how they live their lives, how much they've worked out, how much they haven't worked out, or you know, everything. And so you have to start looking for what could be the causes. And we identified that it was probably that chemoagent, and I went off of it and I have a knock on wood right here. Um, I haven't had a detached retina since I stopped taking that chemoagent.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Wow.

Retinas, Liver Enzymes, And Causation

Purpose, Giving Back, And Smiles

SPEAKER_00 9:49

So, I mean, I've had uh very bad intestinal surgeries because of perforations of the intestine that was related to another medicine. And uh, I mean, I'm on 31 medications a day. You wouldn't know it by being around me. Um, but you know, you you have to work through the process. And the one thing I that that happened to me early in the process that I have to credit with another human being, another regular Joe. Um, he wrote this wonderful article. I wish I could find it. Um, and he had my same cancer, and he died after six months. And um he wrote wrote before he died this wonderful article that said he was so happy for the time he had. And I'm sitting here saying the guy died. I mean, how can you be happy about that happening? And what he said in the article was he had a bunch of friends who had died in Vietnam, friends who had died of heart attacks, and friends who had died you know in in a car wreck. And he said, uh, he was blessed because he had six months to make things right. And I wrote at the time, I said, I don't know how long I'm gonna get, but I'm not gonna let cancer define me. And I'm gonna try to make the world a better place every day I live. And uh so today I'm a best-selling author, I'm an astrophotographer of some note, and a hundred percent of the revenue from all of my uh photography goes to children's health or cancer-related causes. I don't no nothing's reimbursed. I mean, a hundred percent every 100 cents on every dollar that comes in goes to support those causes. And now, why did I choose that? Well, when I go to my smilo infusion number seven, I'm on the seventh floor of infusion, I have to walk by the children's cancer infusion center every time. And when you see the moms and dads and the pain they're in, and you see those little innocent children, and they don't know what's going on, but they know it's not right, but they know their mom and dad are there, you you've got to find a way to help, and you've got to find a way to give back. And so one of the rules I have um is to put a smile on somebody's face every day, and uh, and I've got a test to make it more difficult at times, but if you put a smile on somebody else's face, it's gonna end up putting a smile on your face, yeah. It just is, and people say, Well, why do you why are you saying that? And I said, It's really simple, it's going to. And uh I I've tried it out for a long time, and it happens every day. When somebody gets a big smile on their face, uh, they're thankful. Now, the challenging part of it is uh when have you ever had a phone call with somebody at a call center and you can tell they've had a hard day? Well, you're not gonna see them smile, but you can hear them smile. So what can you do to help them smile? And every time you do that, you've made somebody's life better. And if you make it a conscious effort every day, just one small bite at that apple to uh make somebody's life better by giving them a smile, it does wonderful things, not just for them, but also for yourself. Um, and it it makes you smile. You you know, how can you not smile when you when you see that somebody used to have a day like that and they're now smiling? So that's the um one of the rules. And then there's one other one I'll tell you a little phrase, and that was my daughter taught me, and she said, Daddy, the wambulance is gone.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

I love it. I I I know the wambulance, uh that was something that we we were throwing around probably 25 years ago. I'm gonna send out the wambulence for you.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Exactly. Well, my my daughter had been in a uh car wreck, that wasn't her fault, but she had totaled basically a brand new car, and um and I just kept on asking questions about it, and she finally looked at me and said, Dad, the wambulance is gone. Come on, give it a rest. And so I that happened about uh 25 years ago, and so I still remember that. But there's one more thing, and this is very pertinent to what we're talking about, is we must all give up hope for a better yesterday. When you get that phone call, it says you've got cancer. So many people fall into the trap of letting cancer define them and not realizing that they can't control yesterday, but they can control the future.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

October 14th, 2024. That was my day.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yep. And that I mean, we all have the day, one January 21st, 2009. Yeah, and if you and if you'd have told me then I'd still be on chemo today. Um, and I've got another IV session in two weeks. Um, you know, I'd have said you're nuts.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Uh but you have a port, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Okay, I was gonna say, I don't know how you could go through all those IV sessions without a port.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Well, that's right, yeah, it's right here. I haven't had a they haven't had to change it yet either, which is a stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

No, you got a good one. I do, I I do too.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

And so you you know, you you flush it regularly, and yeah, they used to they used to put heparin in you, they don't do that anymore, they just you know flush it out, right? But but you know, it's just um one of the things I always tell people is they say, How can you have such a positive attitude every day? And how can you write so much and you know plan your photography trips and all those things? So I I said, you know, I leave cancer in Connecticut. Um I I when I leave Yale after getting my treatments and the tests and all that stuff, I just leave it there. I don't think about it at home. I do think about having to take the meds that I have to take every day.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Sure.

Ports, Chemo Tax, And Daily Mindset

SPEAKER_00 16:11

But that's just uh that's a mechanical process. So it's kind of you know, I live in this great state of Wyoming that doesn't have a state income tax.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Nice. I wish I did.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Well, so I I went back and started thinking about it. I said, well, you know, how much am I losing from my chemo treatments? Well, it's like you know, just under or just at 10% of the year.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

And so, okay, well, that's kind of like an income tax.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

So since I don't have one, that's my tax.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

It's my chemo tax instead of an income tax.

SPEAKER_03 16:45

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

And so you just you you celebrate life, you go on hikes, you hug your family. Um, and and that's what it's all about. I mean, again, forget the history, okay. You can't dwell if you dwell on it, you're gonna hurt yourself. Put smiles on people's faces, celebrate life, and hug folks. And that's the way you treat can that's the way you treat cancer.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

You know, it's funny. That's that's one of the reasons I do this podcast is to reach people and and you know, bring awareness. I actually have um a segment that I'm doing from um a prison in California, and we call it Healthy Living Through Adversity. And just yesterday I interviewed a guy who's got stage four cancer, and um, you know, they wrote him off, and the guy's got the spirit, he's got the faith, he's got all the pieces to keep going. We had a fantastic conversation, and uh I believe he's gonna be around for many years to come.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Well, here's the other thing that most people don't realize the the staging of cancer has changed. It used to be when you were told you had stage four, it basically meant get your affairs in order.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Yeah, you were done, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah. Well, I mean, I've got uh you know growth on my on my lungs and on my spine. And uh last year, my most recent surgery, they had to remove a tumor on L3, which is impacting the root nerve. Um, but that's the only thing that's ever grown that's caused real problems. But but you know, it used to be that my by definition, this is stage four.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

But if it's not growing, how could it be stage four?

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

So one of the things they need to do is restage people, restage the definitions of the cancer.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

I agree.

Diet, Fitness, And Weight Management

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Like if you've got a breast cancer or brain cancer, it's different. I mean, because the mortality rates of those haven't changed much. They're they're reduced by a new technique by about 15, 16 percent. Whereas my has gone down by 70 percent the mortality rate.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Now I'm curious. Um, I I mean, I have so many things we could talk about. I'd love to maybe have you back on to go deeper into this because um I learned so much as well. Um, you know, my my journey was uh I had a squamous cell carcinoma, a giant grapefruit sticking out of my neck, and a tumor in the back of my tongue, and it was ready ready to start spreading all over. And um I I came upon uh some people and some information um that were that were critical in in me reversing this thing. And um I'm curious what's your diet like?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Well, it's uh it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Well, we just lost your vocal or your audio.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Is that better?

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Yeah, yeah, there you go. You're back.

Building An Integrated Cancer Care Team

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Okay. Um the uh the uh maybe that was a prophetic uh mistake because uh you asked about my diet. Um yeah, it's it's an it's a a better than average diet, but the other thing is I weigh 148 pounds. And uh when I had the spine surgery, the folks at Mayo Clinic up in Rochester, um, because of all my medical conditions, they were worried about you know surgical surgical issues. And the uh head of anesthesia for the hospital did my interview, and he said, Your weight is perfect. And I said, Yep. And he said, and you work out six days a week, and I said, Yes, I do. And so we we talked about things for a bit, but you know, maintaining a proper weight and digestive processes are critical, but there's something else I'm gonna bring up, and that's called uh the multidisciplinary integrated cancer care teams. And um, there has been a substantial change in the prognosis for people with cancer who are being treated by people in a multidisciplinary integrated cancer care team. Now, what is a team? Well, it in my definition of it, it includes about 30 different professionals. Now, you may only need four or five of them, but you're gonna probably need all of them at times. And um it starts with the oncologist and it may end up with a music therapist at the extremes. But you also, I think the thing that's so important is a psychiatrist. Well, I was sent to a psychiatrist um when I was right after I was diagnosed because my mentor had died, my dog had died, my dad died, and I got started with divorce papers.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

So my they all thought I needed a to have a um a psychiatrist. Well, when you look at it and you look at the average responses for, you know, what do you do for cancer fatigue syndrome? That's so that's what happens to you when you get tired during chemo.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Sure.

Pharmacists, Genetics, And Support Roles

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Oh well, the the the whole historically that what they did was they told you to exercise a bit more and get more rest. Well, the NIH has published their studies that. Exercising a little bit more and getting more rest doesn't do anything. So they they started studying what does do something. Well, this fully integrated team does something. Well, so when I had it, my first member of my team, besides my oncologist, uh, was my psychiatrist, and I started having you know really bad problems with falling asleep in the middle of the day. And so I started talking to her about it, and and she after a while diagnosed me with narcolepsy as a side effect of the um chemo. And so they wrote me a prescription that kept me from falling asleep. Well, that also gave me energy, and then they figured out that I was ADD. Well, maybe they should have known that when everybody called me Taz. And they gave me these, you know, all these great Christmas presents with the Taz. And uh, well, she was number two. Number three was a physical therapist who my oncologist got the insurance companies to pay for for four to five days a week, uh, 52 weeks a year for 10 years, and that kept me in shape. And it just started taking on there an acupuncturist. And I had I developed my own team before there were teams. Well, today the overall survival benefit has ranged from a 4% reduction in mortality rates to a 90% reduction in mortality rates. Nice, and the average is 70%. So, you know, if that's the case of the multidisciplinary, what's happened to the average silo-based practitioners? There's been no change in their mortality rates.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

So what it tells you is, and you know, we we could talk about this for hours.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Sure. Um, I built a team myself as well, and it wasn't, you know, the the the medical center that I was with, they you know, they had a team of a few different oncologists, a surgeon, a radio radiologist, and a medical oncologist, and even uh an integrative oncologist. But I built a team of dozens of people besides that, and ultimately found my way.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Well, I mean, since we're on the topic, I'm gonna pull up who my team is. Nice. And uh, and if you wanted to, I'll send you a copy of this. Yes, absolutely. But um, I mean post on your website. But yeah, um okay, let me just hit open. And so this is uh we're gonna get here. Okay, so who's the complete team? Well, you've got your medical oncologist, the psychiatrist, the surgical oncologist. Now, the next one is important. I mean, I did correlation coefficients. Well, most people in America can't do a correlation coefficient, um, but there's a doctor who can, and that's uh called a neurologist. And they're exceptionally good at identifying drug interaction problems and multi-delirium uh that's caused by drug interaction problems. So I think you need that person, you need a pathologist. And then as we go further, okay, you need an oncology nurse, nurse practitioner. And then I was sounds like you were too, but I was my own guide or navigator.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

And you have to have one because that's the person who who who may be the most important person in the process because they're the one who solves the problems on scheduling to uh getting you the right care that you need. Yep. So then you need a physical therapist, you may need an OT, an occupational therapist, a speech pathologist, a dietitian, a pharmacist. Well, my pharmacist has saved my life three times.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

My my resting pulse rate's 50, 50-ish. And they were gonna do some cardiac tests on me, and so they had to have my pulse rate below 70. And so they gave me medicines to get my pulse rate below 70. Well, my resting's 50 or 48 recently. Well, it would have shut my heart down.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

I was gonna say, you don't have much left to go after that.

Books, Astrophotography, And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 27:23

No, you don't, and so he but he knew about that, he knows me, and having a pharmacist that's dialed into you really well can really help a lot. So then the next group is a social worker, just a regular psychologist, a genetics counselor, which is more and more important when you're matching up uh you know different types of you know medications with your genetic background.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

A palliative care specialist, hopefully, not a hospice care specialist.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

Right, yeah, hopefully that's the last one you need.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah, yeah, but you need a chaplain or spiritual advisor, and then acupuncture, which works marvelous things for me. Cause massage, uh, yoga meditation advisor, and maybe a music therapist. And uh that's my list. And I've got I've got 25 footnotes that back up these things.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

And so again, if you think about it, I've had my energy level since the first few months of my my treatment. Uh so I'm finishing my 17th year with having the medications that I needed to have a normal life, but I do, and I'm I've in the past two years, I've written five books. I've got uh my first novel, it'll come out in May.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

And then I've got three eclipse books, and we're going to shoot the next eclipse eclipse. My team is August 12th in Spain.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

So these are these are uh photography books, the eclipse books.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Well, well, the first one was Cancer Set Me Free.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

The second one was Warriors Hate War. Okay, history of the US military since World War II. Then then there's three uh books already been published on eclipses, and then a new hope, the promise um of fully integrated multi-practice integrated care cancer care teams, is the one I'm releasing in April, which goes through my history where I was almost killed by the doctors not talking to each other.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

And uh then I've got uh my novel, my first novel, which is The Green Murphy Succession, which comes out in May. It's book one of a six-book series.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Multifamily, multi-generational book on starts and during World War II. First three books end when President Trump bombs Iran. Wow, and then the last three books are the third world war. Oh boy. Um, and so yeah, and then I've got you know, um, the eclipse, the another eclipse book will which will come out after Spain, and then next year's there's the Moroccan slash Egyptian eclipse, which will be pretty interesting. Um so you know, basically I always have something I'm planning and working on.

Survival Gains From Multidisciplinary Care

SPEAKER_02 30:17

I love it. You know, that's critical as well. When when I don't know that you really got into it, I mean you've been talking about it, but without identifying it so much as the purpose. You know, when you have a purpose in life, every day I wake up, I can't wait to get out of bed and get at it. But I've got purpose, I've got things I got to do, things I want to do. And that's huge, I think. I think um a lot of people that go through cancer, they like you say, they identify um with their disease rather than you know with their purpose in their life. And um you get lost sometimes when you don't feel good. And sometimes people just you know get stuck in a in a whirlpool. And when you can keep a uh a purpose filled life, and and you clearly have that, uh, you don't like you said, you leave it behind, you leave it, you leave it at home when you're when when you're out there, you know, living your life. So that's powerful.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Well, let me let me give you a little bit more on this um multi-diversified multidisciplinary cancer teams. So lung cancer, as a result of this, 38,000 participants in a study, 40% reduction in death rate. Okay, five year survival rate increased uh one-third. Uh, you know, it's just staggering. So then the renal cell kidney, the survival rate was 33.2 months, it's now 73.7 months.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

Wow, doubled.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yeah, doubled. So breast cancer. This is one of the ones that hadn't done as well, but it's gone from 42 ish to 57-ish, 15%. Head neck, which is like you know, that's what I have terrible. Okay, well, it's a 16% improvement in survival rates. So then liver cancer is an 18% reduction in mortality rates, but then you go to the the the overwhelming thing, and that is the Thompson study, and uh it's called Williams and Thompson, and they studied 179 studies involving 56,187 patients, and it found that every study that examined uh reports materially reduced risks of death for people who are being treated by multidisciplinary teams compared to those with silo-based teams.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

And it makes sense, it makes perfect sense, you know. It's not it's not strange that that is the case.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Well well, think about it. How often is it that people are treating a symptom and not a cause?

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Oh, most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Right. So I I always said that when I had was diagnosed with cancer, you know, cancer wasn't what was causing the problems because I was causing the problems because I was so focused on my big deals and you know this the business success that I didn't worry about me and my family enough. And when I flipped that around, it changed things. My daughter, who met with my oncologist at the very beginning, was told I had two and a half years to live.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Okay, well, I'm in my 18th.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

That was a lot longer than that ago.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Yeah, I'm in my 18th year of treatment now.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

So, you know, it it's it's just don't let cancer define you. Find something to be purposeful about. Well, you just said that. And um, you know, it it's it just changes everything. And then when you can help somebody else, just little things. It's huge, it's huge because it makes you feel fulfilled.

Misdiagnosis, ER Steroids, And Safety

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Exactly. Well, it's my mission now. I mean, I I have two to three people a week reach out to me that you know might, in fact, I want to share with you. Um, they they published my case study um in a cancer journal, and it's it's featured in uh PubMed now. And the things that I did were were exceptional and they worked exceptionally well. But I'd like to send you that article. Uh I'd love to see it so you can see it. And I would love to talk more to you directly or on the air or both. Um, we have really just barely scratched the surface here.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Well, it it's I'm always available, and uh you know, I I I'm working my tail off on the on the new book. Um it is so important because there's no national news on this issue. I get it. You would think, but I I'm a corporate I taught corporate finance at the graduate school level.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Okay, so if you have a had a drug that reduced the average mortality rate for all cancers by 70 percent, and there was a pharmaceutical company that had developed that drug, how much would its market cap go up? How much would the value of that company go up? It's hundreds of billions of dollars and maybe a trillion.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Okay, well, this isn't a drug, this is just teamwork, right? Okay, and so it's important that we get this information out. It's important that people see how to do it and the ways to do it.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Um, I'm right there with you, man. Everything you're saying, I I I'm walking in lockstep with you, and and I I would love to anything I can do to help get this message out, aside from what I'm doing here, I'm down.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Well, that's wonderful. I mean, when I mean, if you would like me to come back when the book's released, I'll do it in a flash.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

And I'll have PowerPoint presentations then, but we can just do it. I'll you know, you'll be authorized to put them on your website.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

The other thing is this if anybody thinks I'm not an MD. Okay, I'm I've I've got a reasonable brain, um, but I'm not an MD. I know how to research, but I'm not perfect. And if somebody sees something I've missed or I've done wrong, um I, you know, I want you to call me on it and call me on it immediately.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

Well, I want to share some things that might help improve the efficacy of your treatment and maybe reduce some of those uh those medications you're on and get even better results. And I want to share some things with you um through my study and the things that I've done that that you might find really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Well, I'd like to bring my principal oncologist in too, because she she goes to China every year to study alternative medicine.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

And she's she's a super I would love to share this. I I you know now that I've got a published case study, I'm able to share it with MDs and they'll look at it. When I when I was telling them about the things I was doing prior to that, they look at me, shook their head, and I don't know about that. You know, I all I know is my standard of care. And now they they have to read it because it's it's it's in a published medical journal and peer-reviewed and the whole deal. And you can't deny it. I don't, you know, I don't know if you're able to see my camera, but I used to have this giant tumor sticking out of my neck. And when I send you the case study, there's a photo journal of 40 days of this as it was going away. And no surgery, no radiation, and chemo and and a bunch of other things I did. And um, it this is head and neck, squamous cell carcinoma, stage 4A, and it's very unlikely that this happened the way it did. They don't know what to say.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

Well, I mean, let me give you an example about the multidisciplinary thing.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

So I'm gonna give you two. First off, there's a 2016 systemic review by Philly, P I L A Y, and colleagues, and that report's been cited by 762 subsequent articles. Okay, in that between four and 45 percent of patients who, after meeting with their multidisciplinary team, experienced changes in their diagnosis.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

It's not surprising at all.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

No, it's not. So I I had a this problem with my uh my back was just killing me. I'm a golfer. I had a plus two handicap before this started. And um I couldn't just win a golf club. This started on Jan January of last year. Well, they did an MRI at the end of January, and you know, I've had so many tests, you've had them all too. Oh yeah, and when they don't talk to you about anything, that means there's nothing there.

Accountability And Patient Advocacy

SPEAKER_03 39:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Okay, well, in May I'm in such pain that a another doctor sent me the ER immediately.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Uh to get it taken care of. And so they put me on um uh a nice little steroid, and they didn't read my medical history, they didn't read the risk factors of that steroid, they didn't call my principal oncologist who's supposed to be called if anything happens. I wear a road ID bracelet and has all my medical history and the doctor's phone numbers. It's also in the medical records at that hospital, and they didn't read any of it, and so they put me on Predazant, a high dose of it, and I was comatose a day later, and I was went into keto acidosis, almost died.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Okay, well, persons over the age of 70 shouldn't be taking that medicine unless they're very closely monitored. I live by myself with my two golden retrievers, and um the next thing is they're a handful, aren't they? Yeah, and if you're on chemo, uh you're not supposed to be doing it either because there's high high code more bibides. And then when I was taking my daughters couldn't get me on the phone, they finally got somebody to come over and see me. They said I wasn't making any sense. So they you know took me the ER, the same ER that I written the prescription. They couldn't figure out what had caused the problem, and they couldn't figure it out at all. And they flew me to another hospital, and they all said I had dysphagia and dementia, possibly, and amnesia. Uh and guess what? I mean, I ended up with a tier one neurologist, and he said, zero chance of any form of dementia. I went through all these tests, I was just, you know, I drove him crazy because I was doing the math faster than he could do it. And um, and no no asphagia, no amnesia, no nothing. He said it was uh a uh a multi-factor drug interaction problem that caused everything. Wow, and that's because somebody didn't read.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Yeah. And you gotta think how many times uh a year does that happen where people don't survive? Oh, it happens every day, it happens all the time. I know.

Closing Thoughts And Where To Find Glenn

SPEAKER_00 41:23

I mean, and and you know, it's I'm I'm you know, nobody studied it yet. Is what's the number of people who've died from cancer because of a multi-factor drug interaction problem? Yeah, and because I mean we're called parli farm polypharmas because we have to take so many meds, right? Well, how do you know what's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_02 41:45

Exactly. So, I mean, but the point is is each time you add one to it, it makes it more risky, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:52

And so I'm gonna be meeting with the president of the hospital next week because they should at least be responsible for reading what's in the report. Yes, and the cover page on every patient they've got the on the right-hand side, they've got their conditions that could cause a problem. And uh and the and the medicine I was given to take uh the top three medical conditions I have are comor comorbidity issue. So I'm lucky that I was in good enough shape because I recovered extremely well very quickly. But there's got to be accountability for that.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

I I I couldn't agree more. Glenn, we we have gone uh a third longer than I normally do, and I just I didn't want to cut the conversation, but um, we're at a point where I I kind of need to um I I love the work you're doing. Um, you you have the right approach. Um, you're helping people. I I I definitely want to continue this conversation, and I know you kind of did leave people with uh with a central thought, but I'd like you to kind of go back to that and and really kind of put a spotlight on that thought.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

So here's the draft of the cover of the new book, More Than Hope. Uh, the compelling promise of integrated cancer care teams. Um, and it'll be out in the first of April. And uh my existing book is called Cancer Set Me Free. And there's a lot of messages there because when I quit working to help everybody else and looked at that I at myself and said, What they treat and teach in the army is if you don't take care of the art yourself, you can't take your any of your take care of your troops. So uh I've started doing that better, and so I celebrate life every day and try to put a smile on somebody's face.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

I love it, I love it. Well, this is uh such an inspiration, and uh the wisdom you carry is is worth sharing, that's for sure. And how do people find your book?

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Or you got a website, or how do you call these it's glenn jilliannsturmstrm.com. Uh glennsturm.com. And uh you know, it's uh you can drop me notes there and they get to me quickly. Um and you know, if if if somebody really wants to talk about something, uh it's very easy to get my phone number online. Um and so just feel free to call. So I mean, uh the whole thing to me is my whole life today is about helping other people's lives.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

I love it. I love it. Well, you're definitely an inspiration. I I really want to thank you uh for for joining us today. And again, I I would love to revisit this when your new book comes out and and and get back into it.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Looking forward to it. Thank you so much. Have a have a wonderful weekend.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

Beautiful. This is It's been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grombine, and I want to thank all of our listeners who make this show possible. And we will see you next time.