Five years, stage four

Russ Read-Barrow, 43, a former PR director and father of two in the UK, was diagnosed in 2021 after seeing blood in his poop about six times in a few weeks.

Held, not cured

Chemo and surgeries on his colon, liver and lungs have stopped the spread since 2022. He still needs chemo roughly every three months to slow the growth.

“The chemo I'm having now is doing a good job of keeping it under control, but at some point that'll change”

A blog called FcancerwithAI

In 2025 he started sharing his story and the AI tools he built for himself. His pitch is modest on purpose: no cure, just less chaos.

“I'm not saying AI is going to cure cancer. I'm saying it's going to help me remember what my consultant said”

Why it matters now

Colon cancer in under-50s has climbed since the mid-1990s and is the deadliest cancer in that group, but early detection means more people live with it as a chronic illness.

Voice notes plus a WHOOP

He recorded a 30-second symptom note every day for three chemo cycles, added tracker data, and asked Claude to find the pattern. Day four was when he crashed.

“If you see that over time happening again and again, you can sort of deal with it better because you know it's going to come”

Ten things to remember

Before each new round he asks the AI for ten reminders from his own logs. One surfaced an anti-nausea drug that had worked and he had forgotten.

“You don't keep a record, you won't remember. You think you will, but give it three months and life will take over”

One hub for the records

He loaded his medical history into Gemini Notebook, pulls test results in seconds, and keeps a 500-word summary to hand over instead of retelling it all.

“I've got terminal cancer. What's the worst that can bloody happen?”