“Two days after surgery, I decided my life goal.” On the Marie Curie Couch with Iain Ward🎙️

I did a medical trial simply because I’d lost a job. I did an MRI scan, directly on my head, which is just an outrageous amount of luck. If it were something to do with the wrist or chest, it wouldn't have been detected. They discovered what they believed to have been a benign tumour – at the time.

At the second scan, they were like, 'Ok, so we were wrong. This was not benign, this has grown. This is most likely to be aggressive brain cancer. Looks like it's probably stage three.’

I wouldn't have discovered it until it was at a point where I was getting headaches, or I was getting this, that, and the other. At that point, it probably would have been stage four, and I don't even know if they could have done any surgery or any chemotherapy. I don't think I'd be alive now if it wasn't for that medical trial.

I had awake brain surgery where you're fully conscious for the whole thing. You're not getting knocked out because your brain doesn't have a nervous system. You don't feel anything of the actual tinkering of the brain, however they do require you to be actively speaking or engaging in different regards depending on what part of the brain they're doing.

Within two days of that I looked up the world record for most money raised for a marathon, and then I was like: ok, that's my life now. That is my life goal from this point on. And within a month, I had my first video up, making my dedication that this is what I'm going to be doing until the day I die, no matter what.

Some people might think that it's very awkward to have an elephant in the room that's not being addressed. I, myself – and I'm certain that there's other people who are in the same category as me – I want to talk about it, let people know, let people be aware, and then shut up about it. Because to talk about the same subject over and over again is exhausting, particularly when it's on a subject matter for something that you have no control over.

I wanted life to go on as much as possible without having to make everything about my existence be about this one singular thing, which sounds ironic now, seeing how my social media account pretty much has me in a video introducing that I have cancer in nearly every video that I do. But oddly enough, I almost do that to get rid of it so I don't have to do it in person.

In a lot of ways, my career hasn't really changed a huge amount. I used to teach fitness classes. I've continued doing similar stuff with my job now, which is to break a charity world record by using social media rather than asking people for donations.

I ask people to follow my account and then I donate the sponsorship. I get the sponsors to donate directly to charity rather than it going into my pocket. I think that's just incredibly cool, and no one has ever done that before.

There’s something that I find really amazing that if a world record is hit or broken, it can be broken again and again and again. However, if you are the first person to do something, then that's you forever. I like the idea that I could put that into the world where other people would then think, ‘I can achieve this too. I can do what Iain did.’

I've released a book which is telling my life story and some of the gritty details. I'm donating all of the money from the book, aside from paying rent. All of the profits from the book that come through me are going to charity. It's called Terminally Optimistic. If more people buy the book, then more money will go to charity. And it'll still fall under my concept of not asking for donations, but breaking a charity world record through sponsors and then through donating,

This blog is adapted from Iain's conversation on the On the Marie Curie Couch podcast. To listen to the full episode, tap the Acast player below, watch the subtitled version in the YouTube player above or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.