 this video or topic I guess you could say I've been avoiding or thinking about overthinking for the past couple of months where I currently am. We'll get to that later or maybe you can figure it out and definitely for a few years just because I guess I had this idea that I would make some sort of compelling video about you know cancer and make it this huge thing but you know I put all this pressure on myself and instead of making some kind of blockbuster monumental documentary it's been this huge mental block and it's been stopping me from it's been stopping me from doing what I want to do which is make videos in another country because really when I started this whole YouTube experience I was inspired by Anthony Bourdain his travels the food he ate things like this so get more into that a little bit later now back in the early months of 2020 I was you know going through obviously the same thing everyone else was at the time pandemic a bunch of unknowns a bunch of you know what the f confusion uh and then actually it was on uh Claire's birthday sweet wonderful Claire I had this swelling right here on my neck and so Claire notices that comes over to me and says hey stand up straight well it turns out I was standing up straight but it was this massive uh swelling on my neck so of course I did what any rational human being would do with access to the internet I diagnosed myself with everything under the sun right and I specifically remember saying to my aunt who'll say that's uh my uncle Dan's uh widow said well a lot you know I lost him to to cancer and I remember saying I'll definitely myself if it's cancer so anyways I was in Arizona at the time my license is out of Washington and I had no insurance and you know how the U.S. health care system worked so I needed to get back up there and get insured so anyways I got up there down with a respirator and uh first went into a walking clinic because I was afraid of our wonderful pre-existing condition stuff they said oh that looks pretty serious this should go to the ER so a month after noticing the swelling I made it into the ER I could tell by the look on the ER doctors face it something was wrong something serious was wrong and uh she kind of just referred me to the uh oncology department and within a couple of days I got the results uh of a large swelling on my neck then of course I started the whole process of um you know the oncology visits the tests the biopsy you know during this time everything's racing through your mind things like you know how long do I have to live am I going to die just terrible right it's horrible to think you're dying and it just really sucks it especially sucks when you realize that this for-profit health care system that we have um really values profits over people there's a lot of people that can't get treated for things or they go broke they lose their house it's just it's just you know we have the best doctors in the world best medicine everything but it's just um it's just sad when people can't get treatment anyways so I'll go through all the stuff you know visit the doctors by the way I'm going to the ATM right now I just figured I would just make this video and get done with it and um so turned out to be something called follicular lymphoma which is non curable and was given some options and uh close to this time I happened to text a friend of mine that hey me and the guys were talking about you and you know we all appreciate what you've done you're a wonderful human being etc and he followed up and said hey thank you how are you and I said well Kevin I'm actually fine except for this little cancer situation so within a few seconds he calls me and asks what's going on I thought it was a bit strange uh because he's a big deal in Hollywood and uh I didn't know he knew so much about this and he says well I don't know if you know this but I helped raise you know a bunch of money for cancer with this organization and if you need anything if you need help first of all you know he said are you okay do you need anything um if you need to but he said if you need to find a doctor you know that's what we specialize in that's what we help people do and um so I took him up on that offer ended up switching doctors to this absolute genius who is like a walking encyclopedia of knowledge um I just fascinating guy and um so anyways went through the whole process and I was trying to avoid chemo the whole time because I know how destructive and damaging it could be the first place I went to wanted to do radiation and chemotherapy and all sorts of stuff which I wasn't really interested in once you start to learn what this stuff does you know some of it permanently damages you and is pretty uh pretty rough hello and um so went to this second doctor Dr. Okada and uh ended up taking something called R squared which is rotuximab and Revlimid very expensive medicine and uh trying to make my way to an ATM without visual directions and long story short did that for several months and had some success and then the vaccine came out and of course I was pretty paranoid because the medicine I was taking was very damaging my immune system so I chose to stop taking it then of course it kind of grew back that created a whole different sort of problem and somewhere along the way I had a conversation with Dr. Okada that there are drug trials there are new drugs coming out to market people are testing them they need guinea pigs that was like I will totally be a guinea pig for this so we ended up finding I found something on the internet called CAR T cell therapy after him telling me about it I found a trial and of all places in the world this medicine could be it was about a two hour drive away which I thought was fantastic I thought it was like this serendipitous moment and uh yeah I was pretty excited so I was quite thrilled and I don't know which way I'm going I think going the right way so anyways I go up there to Seattle go through the whole process all the tests everything like this and at the very last moment very last test it turned out that the cancer had mutated so by this point this is uh a year and some change into this whole process and I was feeling quite defeated and uh you know part of me just want to be done with this as much as I was trying to avoid that nasty chemotherapy stuff and so uh then I started that whole process and let me tell you that was brutal it really does a number on your body it destroys a lot of things and your hair falls out and you know I was really feeling like I looked pretty awful and this stuff called prednisone balloons up your face and I don't know I just felt like I looked like I was dying or something it's pretty bad um I know I'm skipping over a lot of stuff now so I did uh five rounds of this stuff went back after that so total about six months or so after starting it to the point where they could say okay you're good you're cancer-free well during this whole time of like a year and a half of uh basically pondering my existence and thinking about the purpose of life I thought there's a couple things I want to do one is if I'm allowed to live more I want to go overseas and make videos and two is that I kind of want to put myself back together like Humpty Dumpty and so I decided to sell everything sold my bus cashed out I have the equivalent of one of those Costco totes storage containers to my name I have this van that's a whole other conversation um but basically I have nothing and uh I figured just like when I first started out on YouTube full-time I got some money in the bank and hopefully within the amount of time that I'm here I can break even with my expenses and then at that point I can perpetually travel and that is the goal that is all I wanted from life that is that would be the I don't know most incredible thing if I could do that um my goals include YouTube play button or buttons so we'll see how that works I want to put one on my mom's office wall be really meaningful and basically I just have realized what I want and so I've decided to live my life as if I have five years left hopefully I have many more than five but that's the idea that's my mindset is live as if I have five years left not trying to manifest five years but live as if I have five years left do the things I really wanted to do so next time around when it's actually for real when I'm at the very end of my life I can look back and say you know I did some cool shit so that's the idea hello so that's that's a plan that's why I'm here I uh hopefully can inspire some people to uh live more simply and give up those material things from Ramji and hopefully I can inspire some of you to spend less on the nikes save up your cash if I mean if you're a traveling client uh you know and and and ask yourself what are the things I want out of life at the end of the day if you were to die what would make you happy in your last moments when you think about your own life so so for me being here traveling making videos overseas that was my only regret that I didn't do was being overseas and making videos I thought to myself wow I have I had such an amazing fun life but I I I didn't get overseas I didn't make the videos I didn't try all these foods and I didn't get that play button and also part of what I want wanted I thought you know if I'm still allowed more minutes on the clock we'll say is that besides selling everything coming over here making videos I want to put the hair back that I lost so the place I'm staying is actually part of this incredible uh hair transplant clinic and I'm on two weeks of a hair transplant so we're doing all those things and we're not getting run over on the road yet so I think that's about it I jumped over a lot of details uh maybe one day we'll make some sort of uh uh documentary-esque type thing but you know it was really bothering me because I put a lot of thought into what this video this uh wrap up and I'm skipping over a lot of details like these wonderful people who Jen Mike and Jen who let me stay parked at the place for the duration of my cancer the neighbors such nice people in a small town um you know people who really you know uh were quite helpful and quite uh kind and um so at some point it would be nice to do that but this video has been in my in my way disrupting myself because I'm I'm still behind I have so many videos to edit and uh I think I was building this thing up way bigger uh for myself than I could and now I have no idea but it's fun so anyways that's um that's that I'm currently in Delhi India I'll be here for quite a while the goal is to find a vehicle and drive around India and uh do some kind of van life thing if possible so I'm going to investigate that and in the meantime I'm going to catch up with some other videos and we'll jump back into the India stuff and at some point it will be uh kind of real-time ish so thanks for watching um remember if you uh we're all gonna die every one of us I don't know where I am we're all gonna die try and think what would make you happy at the end of your life if there's something you're missing if there's something you want to complete if there's something on your to-do list you make sure that that thing is number one and uh I'm happy to have met I think about a dead end here I'm happy to have met some very kind people who've helped me out along the way and I've tried to uh pay that back and pay it forward I was helping someone who is new to the country for almost a year a very special person who I helped get situated and provide for herself and find an apartment and all that stuff so it's it's nice to give back and uh remember that we're all connected here and uh you know that kind of stuff will will just warm your heart so uh especially for me when I was so sad when I was going through all this stuff the the thing that helped me most get through some of these rough days was helping others so yeah so anyways maybe we'll get someday we'll do some kind of more in-depth video but until then I'm back the jacks is back I'm in Delhi I'm in India Ram Ram Namaste and we'll see you guys soon