When my rebuilt 1957 Chevy finally ran well, I celebrated by driving it as though the purpose of an engine rebuild was to find out how quickly a teenager could undo it. I pressed the throttle, popped the clutch, and enjoyed the smoke and noise. Excellent entertainment. Miserable maintenance policy.
That scene became an uncomfortable comparison in My Cancer Journey. After a period when I felt better and my medical results looked encouraging, I decided I could reward myself too. The car and I had apparently learned very little from each other.
My wife was happy. I was elated. The gauges looked better. It was easy to start treating improvement as permission to loosen the discipline that had become part of my routine.
What I actually let slide
I did not abandon everything. That distinction matters because the easy version of the story would be that I stopped my whole regimen and then became ill. It would be dramatic, simple, and inaccurate.
I continued medical monitoring and several other practices. What slipped was discipline, particularly around food and alcohol. Feeling well persuaded me I could get away with putting poorer fuel back into the tank.
Later, my PSA rose. A PET scan showed disease outside the prostate capsule, with a spot on a rib and another on a lymph node. I was mortified. I tightened my habits again and tried to become consistent with the rest of what I was doing.
The timing frightened me. It did not prove that my eating or drinking had caused the progression. Cancer is not a moral report card, and another man's worsening illness is not evidence that he failed a discipline test. I am describing the attitude I recognized in myself, not assigning blame for disease.
Correcting the habits did not solve every problem
There is a second part to this story, and it prevents an overly convenient lesson. I returned to disciplined habits, yet later became seriously ill. If the article ended with “I got back on track and everything was fine,” it would leave out some of the most important pages of the book.
At a routine visit, my primary care doctor noticed a pattern of weight loss. He asked whether I was eating and whether my appetite had changed. I had always been thin and had not recognized the seriousness of what was happening.
An examination led to an ultrasound, and then my oncologist ordered a PET scan. The February 27, 2026 PET/CT described widespread disease, including extensive skeletal involvement. By then, the problem was not a philosophical discussion about maintenance. I was in serious trouble.
The missing-part theory remained a theory
I wondered whether another lapse mattered: I had used activated charcoal occasionally as a binder and stopped it in late 2025. Later, I replaced it with bentonite as the binder of choice and added it to my routine. I believed that step was important, and the memoir explains why I thought so.
But I cannot establish that the missing binder caused the progression. Nor can I use my improvement to prove that restoring a binder treated the cancer. Hormone therapy began in March 2026 and was an important part of what happened next. My questions about the other parts do not cancel that fact.
An engine analogy is useful until it makes the human body seem easier to diagnose than it is. There were no neat labels under my hood identifying one omitted part as the explanation for everything.
What maintenance means to me now
It includes keeping appointments, watching changes, and asking what the medical findings mean. It includes telling the team about appetite, weight, pain, medicines, and supplements. It includes admitting that feeling well is valuable but cannot answer every question about disease.
I would want an agreed follow-up plan: when to test, whom to contact, and which changes need prompt attention. My own history explains why those ordinary details deserve a place beside all the interesting theories.
The lesson I carry is that improvement does not retire responsibility. It also does not grant me the ability to explain every later setback. Both are easy things to forget when the engine sounds good.
My Cancer Journey tells the frightening part and the hopeful recovery that followed. I have energy and projects to look forward to again. I would like other men to borrow the questions and the warning about complacency without assuming they need to borrow every choice I made. My Chevy already demonstrated the cost of confusing a good day with a lifetime warranty.