“My friend had a tumour. He went to France after radiation and died.”

The worst part of treatment is the journey there and back each day. You find yourself trying to avoid conversation just in case someone wants to share a death story with you. Or tell you that they have found a cure.

It’s funny, in London, while most people don’t speak, I love to chat. But I’ve noticed as the effects of radiology kick in, more and more people are asking me what’s happened to me and I just want to look out the window and enjoy my journey to hospital.

I’ve been reading a book about the ten things not to say to someone with cancer this week and it made me smile. People say things like "be positive", "it will be okay" or "you look great". Hearing most of them a couple of times was okay, but once you hear the words "you will be okay" for the 100th time it drives you nuts. I understand it – people don’t know what to say, so they sort of panic and come out with that. You’ve got to try to blot all that stuff out and concentrate on your plan.

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So, along with the story of this guy’s friend dying this week, was the driver who told me it was my fault because I wasn’t taken enough Vitamin C. I explained that it is genetic only to be met with the reply "that’s what they all say". So in the nicest way possible . . . I asked if she was a geneticist or had any formal medical training. No. But she had read something online about it.

The truth is I wish I knew the cure. And I do believe we can give ourselves the best chance in life to live as healthy as possible. Good nutrition, exercise, sleep, mindfulness, reducing stress and having a good group of friends. These all help in performance sport too and have helped me over the last nine years to recover and deal with this stuff.

The internet can be a great source of learning, but it’s important to be mindful that anyone can write anything and cancer is a million dollar business.

Lots of people prey on people who are searching for hope, and the tumour market is big business. There are supplements which claim to be sold out because they’re so effective at curing cancer so make sure you are on our special order list. There are sites which say meditation will shrink your tumour and cure you, so sign up to courses costing thousands of pounds.

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I have tried everything, from vegan diets, meditations, healers, supplements, breathing, hypoxia chambers and alternative therapies. Don’t get me wrong: these all can have a place in healing and staying healthy but I am pretty sure none are going to rid my body of this tumour.

We search for hope and will try anything to get better. I tried it all and yet my tumour kept growing. I was then led to believe by some of these communities it was my fault.

Let’s get scientific for a moment. If I paid £2000 to go on a healing awakening course, my tumour would shrink and leave my body I was told. But my tumour is linked to a specific gene called NAB2 stat 6 fusion gene – I wasn’t aware that we could actually change DNA.

Even the greatest minds in the world know that changing DNA is impossible. Yet you will still find someone online who says they can cure it. This week it was my Uber driver.

To get further into it, yes epigenetics of gene expression is possible – so the thoughts and feelings we have can become our reality. Much like planting a seed and watching it grow, our minds play a massive role in how we deal with illness and can help us heal and recover.

But I am pretty sure I never once thought I want this tumour to grow. Quite the opposite. And here we are, it kept growing.

People only mean well and are usually nervous and just don’t know what to say. I mean, what do you say to someone?

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Everyone is different and responds differently but, after nine years of this, the advice I would give is just to connect with them the same way as if you would if they didn’t have a tumour.

I had a lovely chat with a 19-year-old girl and her dad this week. Dealing with a tumour at any age is horrid but at 19 I can only imagine how horrible it is.

But we had a great conversation about opportunities around adversity. If you’re an optimist then you can have what’s known by psychologists as PTG (post-traumatic growth) – it’s the opposite to PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

Hand on heart, I can say that’s true, as the paradox of my tumour is that the best things in my life came from having a tumour. Or was it because I was optimistic and made things happen myself?

So if you don’t know what to say, do what my next Uber guy did today. He just said "ah man sorry to hear that" and we then just chatted about life and sport. Certainly don’t say "ah yeah, I know someone who had that and they died’.”