All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way

to reignite the fire within.

But how do we spark that flame?

Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit.

We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm.

And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience, I am your co-host Natalie Davis

and I'm so excited to be back with all of you today.

And joining me of course is your co-host Pam Cass, hello Pam, how are you?

I am fabulous and you've got some news that I feel like we need to share with the listeners.

That I'm just like randomly this morning getting ready and I'm like, wait, what?

She started a new program.

Yes.

So there's that.

Well, I will announce it for our listeners, so for those of you that haven't picked up

on some of the recent episodes that we've had lately, I have a little bit of a window

that I've not been traveling and so I've taken this opportunity to do all of the little

things.

All of the little housekeeping things going to get my emissions test while I'm sweaty

and at post workout.

But also I have launched under the leadership that Shines Brand, a leadership podcast and

the very first episode launched on International Women's Day.

So this past Sunday as of the time of this recording and so that will be a weekly podcast

where we talk about topics that pertain to leadership, leadership skills and attributes

and qualities and from time to time, leader stories that they're going to share with us.

So we can continue to grow on our leadership journey.

So I'm really excited about it.

It's been something that's been on the back burner for a little bit of time and I couldn't

stop ignoring it.

It was one of those things that just kept rolling over on my to-do list and I said, we're

getting it done.

And so it's done.

So yeah, so that's the leadership of the Shines podcast that's streaming on all streaming

platforms.

So if you want to hear more of my voice, go find it.

Yeah.

It's so funny.

You know, our audience needs to know this.

They probably know this about us by now.

It's been long enough that if you leave us without anything to do, we'll do stuff like

write books, create new podcasts.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Oh, I've got three weeks.

Okay.

Great.

I went up in a two-seater airplane this Sunday and which is like, I'm afraid of heights.

Like, I don't even like the above elevators.

I walk stairs and here I am in this plane, you know, thousands of feet above.

We're calling us Colorado flying around thinking like, I can't really do that because

yeah, you also like had this fear of coming back down.

I don't know why you didn't have the fear going up it, but coming back down the rock

and your alter as well.

So now you're like, I'll just get in a plane.

I'm just going to play.

I'm just going to play.

Nothing bad ever happens there.

Was it an error or was there an engine?

Was there an engine propeller?

It just had the propeller.

Okay.

Okay.

It was just two seats and just.

You know, they have those air gliders too that don't have any.

I don't do that.

I want to have an engine.

The plane was a new plane and it did.

The plane itself did have a parachute if something were to go awry, so I felt a little

tiny, itty bitty, little tiny bit better, but not fully when you're looking at the

screen saying, well, what's that?

Oh, that's another airplane coming towards it.

Oh, it's fine.

It's totally fine.

Oh, my gosh.

I love it.

The things that we get ourselves into, listen, y'all, this is just the life of your

life.

So here we are.

This is a video.

I love it.

I love it.

You have a guest that's joining us today and I am honored to have him on and having the

opportunity to hear his stories.

So why don't you let our listeners know who's joining us today?

Absolutely.

So we are honored to have Dale Atkinson.

He is a health advocate entrepreneur, father and stage four cancer patient.

Over the past 18 months, he has navigated life with a terminal diagnosis while continuing

to build, invest and create.

His work combines personal experience with evidence-based thinking and he refuses to

accept that's just how it's done as an answer when better questions and safer options

exist.

Dale, we are so honored for you to take time today and you are seven hours ahead of us.

So it's late in the evening for you to join us today to share your story and give our

listeners a little inspiration and things that you've used to kind of get through this

time.

Well, first of all, hello both and thank you for having me.

And yes, it is rather late here.

I've already done bedtime for my two little boys.

So yeah, it's cracking on late into the evening.

So I apologize for the slightly darker lights, but I guard my sleep like crazy so I can't

have too brighter lights at this time and night for me.

Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

As you should.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Tell us a little bit about your story.

So I know you've recently been diagnosed, but tell us maybe pre, pre that diagnosis.

Yeah.

So I spent nearly 20 years in the finance industry.

I ended up sitting on the board of companies like HSBC, Wellington Management, Robby

Gas at Management firm, etc.

I had a Germany, what was considered a very successful, very good career back in about

2024, just before my diagnosis.

I'd actually just launched my own company as well, my own consultancy.

And we were at the stage of, we were just in, in final talks and signing off a contract

with a retail high street bank in the UK for multiple tens of millions of pounds.

I was in the process of hiring staff, etc, etc.

I was going brilliantly and then roll on the summer of 2024.

And unfortunately, before my diagnosis, my partner actually had a funny turn.

So one day she started having these shooting pains in her chest, going all the way up her

neck and all these sorts of things, heart palpitations.

So we rang a part doctor.

And as they always do, panic stations started, they thought it was a heart attack and they

sent random ambulance and, you know, full blues and twos, flashing lights, sirens,

car to the off to hospital, found it wasn't a heart attack, but somebody very thankfully

decided to do an X-ray.

And by pure happenstance and luck on that X-ray, they actually identified a small cell lung

cancer.

It was only about one and a half centimeters at that point in time, but they identified

a nodule that was cancerous and really not good.

So fast forward a little while longer and in October of 2024, on the 3rd of October

to be exact, she then went in and actually had a low beck to me, which is the entire

sort of, she had a resection as it's called, the entire upper right lobe of her lung.

So that was the 3rd of October and I'm sorry if I'm jumping the gun and running ahead

here, but then a couple of days later, so she came out of hospital, it's major surgery.

So she was in a major hospital in London and St Thomas's, which is a sort of foremost

cancer hospital in the UK, a couple of days later, after she came back, which was actually

on our youngest little boy's first birthday, I then went in and had an endoscopy and it's

part of that endoscopy.

Unfortunately, they identified a rather large, a softy old tumour.

So an endoscopy for anyone who doesn't know is essentially where they put a camera down

your throat, sadly for me, because my partner was recovering from her own cancer journey.

I wasn't able to go into the local anaesthetic either.

So I had a completely awake, completely cognizant watching it on the screen as it happened.

First person of view of the camera going down, my own throat and choking on it, which is,

I would strongly suggest to anybody who has an endoscopy, take the local anaesthetic.

It is not fun.

Get the sedation.

Don't do it.

Exactly.

Just take the drugs.

Say yes to the drugs.

Yes.

I guess not.

It's not a phrase you hear often.

Yes.

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

And was this routine like were you, the endoscopy that you had conducted?

Was that just under doctor's orders?

Is this something that you did as part of your precautionary annual?

What prompted you to go in?

No, so we don't tend to have precautionary annuals over here.

It's not a done thing in the UK because we have a very different set up with our medical

system over here because it's a state-run system as opposed to being a private system.

So they're very reactive rather than proactive with these sorts of things.

So this one, I'd actually been suffering with heartburn for probably about six or seven

years.

Got that pointed time.

I'd been going to my general practitioner, my doctor, my family doctor.

We call them a GP over here.

I've been going to my GP for several years.

I must have visited a good 10, 20, 30 times.

And they kept putting it down to the same sort of thing.

You have a really high-powered job.

You're obviously under lots of stress.

We were living in central London at that point in time, so right in the centre of London,

my other half actually ran a private members club.

So a big fancy so-how house type of set up.

And I was a high fire in finance.

So we were going out quite a lot.

We were socialising.

We were doing the networking dues once or twice a week, that sort of thing.

And they just put it down to that.

And we went, OK, yeah, we eat lots of rich food.

We drink wine occasionally.

Probably is that.

Fast forward a bit longer.

And I went back and back and back.

And the symptoms started to escalate.

So it went from a bit of heartburn to then I was getting acid at my throat during my sleep.

Then it became a little bit of dysphagia, which is essentially struggling to eat.

So I was struggling to get food down and it would get stuck occasionally.

It was always things like heavy pastas and breads and stodgy food.

And they just kept explaining it away and explaining it away.

And it's nothing.

You're too young.

And I was only in my early 30s at this point.

So I just went, yeah, of course, I'm too young.

It can't be cancer.

My life isn't that crazy.

It couldn't possibly be.

And then we got to February time in 2024.

And I started having these really bad shooting pains up through my shoulder and my neck.

Went to the doctor.

They said it's muscular.

Go see a chiropractor.

So I did.

And the chiropractor said, we don't think it's muscular.

Go back to the doctor.

So I did.

And the doctor eventually went, okay, maybe there's not something right here.

You know, maybe some makes a bit wrong.

Let's put you forward for this endoscopy.

But it's really unlikely to be anything interesting.

We're not going to make it an urgent pathway.

We're not going to make it anything too stressful.

Because we just don't think that this is anything worth noting.

So February, they started to book it.

It then took up until the September time, just before my partner's surgery,

when a young consultant picked up my case and went,

so you've lost 30 or 40 kilos of weight.

So for context, I'm a former semi-professional rugby player.

I'm six foot three.

I'm used to being a big, big guy.

I was 120 odd kilos at that point in time.

I'd been in the gym lots.

I had lots of muscle on me, et cetera.

And I was a picture of fitness and health,

as far as most of you were concerned.

And this young consultant picked up my file and went,

so you've lost 20 or 30 kilos of weight.

You're in pain.

You have dysphagia.

You have harbour and the history of it.

I think there might actually be something wrong here.

We need to get you in relatively quickly.

So he was the one who then got my endoscopy booked in.

We also had to push it a little bit further

than they wanted because my partner's surgery.

And he also then decided to put me in a scan

around that time as well.

So in the space of a couple of days,

I had a CT scan, and I had an endoscopy done.

On the camera, obviously, during my endoscopy

because I was actually awake and cognizant for it.

And also being able to hear what was happening in the room,

they spotted very quickly, a very large, calcified,

tumour on the screen.

And it was one of those where they couldn't hide it from me

because I could plainly see it.

I could plainly hear them talking about it.

The fact that when these sorts of things are said,

the whole room goes silent, even though it's kept as they used to it.

It gives you a feeling for where things are.

So I went home on my little boy's birthday

to have an evening of birthday cake and candles

with knowing that I had cancer.

Unfortunately, things then took an even worse turn,

a few days later, and on the 27th.

So 12 days after I was diagnosed, and a couple of days before that,

I'd been up to see my mum to tell her in person that I had cancer

and we'd let her know what was happening.

And then, unfortunately, on the 27th, she then died.

And the next morning, we got a phone call on the 28th

from her friend to tell us.

Very sadly, and seems to be the case

of a lot of things in my life, that was also my eldest little boy's third birthday.

So we spent his third birthday with my mother's death hanging over us.

The really sad and ironic thing is, and we've already mentioned

that I had a stage 4 diagnosis.

So a lot of people already know that that is a palliative diagnosis.

That is an end of life diagnosis, a terminal diagnosis.

The ironic and sad thing is that my mother had actually spent her entire career

as a palliative canus.

She was an end of life health care specialist and a palliative care specialist.

So the one person that I really sort of needed at that point in time,

who could understand the journey that I had ahead of me

and could help me with my options,

unfortunately, passed away just as I needed their most.

Yeah.

And then a few days after that.

So that was the Monday morning we unfortunately found out about her death.

And then on the third day, I went into finally meet my oncologist and a surgeon,

sat in the waiting room.

You know, as these things always happen, they were running late.

And I'm there biting my fingernails off in anxiety,

walking to what was no more than a three-minute meeting.

And they told me, unfortunately,

my cancer was incurable, inoperable, palliative care only.

And they felt that my prognosis was sub-12 months.

So they gave me less than a year to live.

They later documented it and sent me a clinical letter outlining it.

And they gave me an 11 and a half month prognosis.

Yeah, it was a heavy month.

It's not wrong.

But I want to really live often.

Absolutely.

Well, I mean, even going back to when you're on the table

and you're having the endoscopy,

like you're going through that process

and you're there laying in your fully aware, cognizant,

and listening to the conversation with the scope that's down your throat.

And where are you in your mind in terms of staying calm?

Because that's definitely not the time that you can freak out.

There's no space for you to freak out.

You've got to just kind of pee there and be with it.

Talk to us a little bit about that, like those moments.

Did it feel like forever as you were on that table?

It always does in the moment.

Yeah.

Very thankfully, for me, I had a couple of things

that I sort of held onto at that point.

So during COVID,

and I must take that back one step.

So before COVID, I'd actually started as a board member

for a very large mental health charity.

There were an overarching suicide prevention

and mental health charity.

And they sit behind people like the Samaritans, et cetera.

There were a network behind them.

And I joined their board

and I was one of the only non-psychologists on the board.

So during COVID, I actually went and decided to do diplomas

in psychology and cognitive behavioral therapy.

And as part of that, they teach you mechanisms

to help calm the nervous system,

to help keep yourself sort of calm

in stressful situations, et cetera.

And then atop that, if you look back at things like

I was a semi-fessional rugby player when I was younger,

I was used to being under stress in different situations.

I was also then used to standing in front of boards

at the age of like 30,

presenting in front of hundreds of people,

things that they didn't necessarily want to hear.

I'd generally been hated for it.

Half the time I called lots of names

and therefore feeling lots of stress for it.

So I had a lot of preparation for this.

In that moment, yeah, absolutely.

It lasted a lifetime.

That probably one minute long, two minute long endoscopy

felt like it was hours.

And sitting in the make with the waiting room afterwards

because they obviously sat me down

and said, look, take some time, think about this.

Don't go just jumping in the car and driving home.

So I did.

And I think we worked out by the time I got home.

I'd only been gone from the house about two hours,

but it felt like a lifetime.

So yeah, absolutely time slows down

in these sorts of situations.

Yeah.

And was your partner with you at this appointment

or so you were part of yourself?

No, sadly not.

So my partner was only a couple of days out of her surgery.

And due to her surgery,

she had to avoid any sharp movements.

She couldn't pick up any weight.

She couldn't move anything.

And we had our two little boys at home

who were only at that point were one and three.

Very thankfully, my in-laws had flown in from the US.

They're company based or they were

based in...

I don't know where they're based at the moment.

They move around so long.

They were in Texas at one point, Mexico.

Another point they were in Chicago, Illinois.

Lots of places.

They live in the US.

OK, OK.

Yeah, they've flown into help us.

OK, and celebrate the little one's birthday, probably.

Yeah, exactly.

So they were at home with my partner.

I drove myself there and I was just on my own.

And it wasn't a nice feeling to be suddenly

right and finding out something like that.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

And then taking yourself to a birthday celebration at that.

So did you and your partner have the conversation

prior to the birthday celebration after like,

how did that all transpire?

So I clued her in, of course.

I gave her a phone call from the car and said,

look, just sit yourself out of the way.

I've got something to tell you.

You know, I don't want to come in crying

feeling bad for myself in front of the boys.

I want them to see their dad walking in, enjoying the birthday.

I want them to understand that, you know,

the two things can be separate.

And we did.

And we managed to hold it in.

I do admit though that evening I did have to open a bottle of wine

because, well, what else do you do in these situations?

I'm going to get a nice bottle of wine off the shelf.

I think I've got a nice old Italian off the shelf,

cracked open a bottle of wine and sat there with my thoughts

for a fair while and put the pits to bed early and that kind of stuff.

But yeah, it wasn't a pleasant sort of juxtaposition

sitting there with this feeling of doom hanging over your head

and just feeling like your world has ended as well.

We weren't expecting a cancer diagnosis in any way, shape or form.

We'd had so many reassurances along the sort of journey

that this wouldn't be anything serious.

It was probably just a bacterial infection.

At worst you've got a stomach ulcer

and they kept repeating these things over and over and over

every time we spoke to a doctor, which was many, many times at that point.

So to us, it was such a huge sort of a jolt to the system.

It was a kick in the face sort of thing.

I don't know how else to put it.

It was just a shock that we didn't know how to get through and over

and trying to sit with that shock,

trying to still plaster a big smile across my face,

sing happy birthday, blow out candles,

have cuddles and all these things.

It was a really, really difficult day to deal with,

but we got through it.

Yeah.

Wow. And so your partner's trying to heal.

You've got family in from out of town.

You've got a little one going through first birthday

and you've got the weight of this on you.

Yeah.

And I think to be honest with you,

the worst thing at that point in time

wasn't the fact that I knew it was cancer.

It wasn't that having to deal with all the bits and pieces around it.

The worst thing was having uncertainty around the weight

because every time I spoke to them it was,

well, we're having what's called an MDT meeting at some point.

An MDT meeting is a mixed discipline.

I can't say it.

Mixed disciplinary team meeting

where they have an oncologist, they have a surgeon,

they have a doctor, they have a radiologist, et cetera.

They have people from each different department

in order to give an opinion on the case

before they then sort of make a formal diagnosis

and progress things.

So I had to wait for that to happen

and they couldn't give me a timescale.

At one minute it was, it's going to happen this week.

You're an urgent case, you're young, you're this, you're this.

We will have an answer for you in a few days.

The next it was, oh, well, I don't know why somebody told you,

it was this week, actually, it's going to be next week.

Oh, well, it might be pushed to next month.

It might be this, it might be this.

And an end of treatment plan.

I guess it's like, it's the gathering of like the council.

Exactly.

And the treatment plan then comes off the back of exactly that.

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience Podcast.

We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas

to fuel the flames of passion.

Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform.

Like or download your favorite episodes and, of course,

share with your friends and family.

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience Podcast.

We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas

and family.

We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.

Reignite Resilience family, we are so excited to share with you

that the book, The Quiet Gift, a journey of self-worth and resilience

is now available on audio book at Amazon.

Make sure that you check the link in the show notes so that you can click on that

and download a copy of the audio book.

This is an amazing story written by Pam as a part of the red journal series

and narrated by Kristen Aiken Salada.

So we hope you enjoy.

Until next time, we'll see you soon.