Dave Bolton 00:00 
10 years now, which means I'm now one percent of the world's population to be surviving with such an incurable cancer such as glioblastoma.

Andy Smith 00:09 
Dave Bolton is a true inspiration from beating the odds multiple times, changing countless lives through his ahead of the game foundation and to the creation of the Northwest Wellbeing Hub to offer advanced alternative therapies to help people suffering with cancer. Dave doesn't let his diagnosis or anything stop him.

A quick disclaimer before we begin, the PEMF podcast does not contain any medical advice and the content provided is for informational purposes only. If you have any health concerns, please visit a healthcare professional. Welcome back to another episode of the PEMF podcast. Today we are joined by Dave Bolton and it's such an inspiring story that we'll go through for everything you've been through, to be honest. So, you know, you've, you've cheated the odds, we'd say not once, but multiple times and we'll, and we'll come to that. So Dave, for anybody that hasn't heard of you or anybody that doesn't know you, can you just give like a brief synopsis of your life and then we'll kind of drill into each section from there.

Dave Bolton 01:08 
Oh, thanks for having me. And I will try and make this quick. As you know, with my life stories, we're going to get into it isn't quick. But my name is Dave Bolton. I'm 43. I have to zone 23. And in my head, I still am. And so I'm ex military. I joined the forces at the age of 18 straight from school, served did a tour over in Air Ops Iraq. I left three years later and joined Merseyside police at the young age of 20. I'm a 21st birthday, whilst in training. I had a very good career with Merseyside police. I love every minute of it. I did stuff that 99% of the officers will never do. I worked with the National Crime Agency. It was Soka back then. So serious organized crime organization and they're like our version the FBI. In 2004, while serving, I had a very serious, near fatal accident involving a motorbike me on my motorbike, and me being crushed by 23 ton articulated lorry. Long time recovery. We'll get into that in a bit. Got my life back on track became in 2008 became English, British and Welsh kickboxing champion. And then 2009, I flocked to Italy in November and became world kickboxing champion with Team GB. In 2014, life's absolutely flying for me. I'm a Detective Sergeant in charge of a covert unit in Merseyside police where we were focusing on organized crime, serious organized crime and gun crime. So it was a very, very busy job, high pressure, a lot of stress, but my philosophy is, you know, stress and pressure cracks pipes, that same pressure, that same stress forms diamonds. Why aren't we being a diamond? And then unfortunately, on May the 1st, never made the second because it was my daughter's sixth birthday. I returned home from work and suffered a 15 minute grand mal seizure. Very short, because we will go into it a bit later. It was data diagnosed in astrocytoma. I had surgery six weeks later, recovered, became a stroke and conditioning coach because I already had my qualifications. Anyone was working with the likes of England will be within the community. Mixed martial arts stars because I was combat sport and rugby specialized. Really loving playing my trade. And then a year later, at a random scan, because I was having a three month scan, it was shown that I had a glioblastoma multiforme, which is the world's deadliest tumor. We'll go into that in a bit. Life kind of fell apart around it, which we'll go into. I integrated lots of different techniques, changed my diet, my nutrition, research. I research everything. I listen to podcasts. I study nature, which is one of the top publishing things for new and novel treatments coming out. I really kind of put this protocol together, which has allowed me now to be sat here now, just past going into 10 years now, which means I'm now 1% of the world's population to be surviving with such an incurable cancer, such as glioblastoma.

Andy Smith 04:03 
And that wasn't the last time you got diagnosed with cancer, was it?

Dave Bolton 04:06 
No, so that was a second, and then in 2018, just after my mum passed away with ovarian cancer, I got diagnosed with skin cancer in my chest.

Andy Smith 04:17 
Yeah, so as I say, you know, cheated this multiple, multiple times. So let's try and break this down. Let's try and go back a little bit. So you're in the RAF, you leave the RAF and you join the place. Why did you leave the RAF and what was the decision to start the place?

Dave Bolton 04:35 
Well, my whole family, I was born in Germany, in R.F.F. My dad was in the forces, my mum was in the forces, my granddad was in the forces, my great granddad. Was that like a natural line? And because I was brought up as a scaly brat, because that's what they call it in any of your... That's all I kind of ever knew. So I always had it in my head that I wanted to go into the military. I didn't know how. I ended up joining the RAF on the 18th birthday. And I was born in this country. I'm the sort of person, I'll try anything, I'm very on the go. I think if I look back now, I've probably got ADHD that's never been diagnosed. I just don't stop. But I was very bored, so I applied to go on a detachment, which is... I went out to the Iraq in the Gulf Coast. So I was part of Operation Southern Watch, based out of Ali al-Salam Air Base in Kuwait. And I absolutely loved it out there. I loved it. That's what I wanted to do. That's why you join the forces, come back. And I was just bored. I was bored. I just felt like I was a security guard with a gun. So I was looking out and I thought, you know what, police is a good step. I put in my PVR, which is a Premature Voluntary Release Form, to leave and then basically was ostracized by my section. They blackmailed me when I left. It was quite honestly, yeah. And when I got into the police, I got to the final stage and all it was was references. And basically, I didn't get in. And I couldn't understand why, because I was like, and so I phoned up and they weren't supposed to, they said, listen, your references of what failed you. So I was like, well, it's only the RAF. But I had my references. And what happened is the flight sergeant had given, and the sergeant had given me a really poor reference because I was being blackmailed by the lads who were on my section to give them all my kit that I'd got from when I was in the Gulf. Because I was working alongside the Americans and you were swapping rank slides. So rank slides are basically a corporal thing for night vision goggles. And for, honestly, they just swap you anything. So I had all this amazing kit and they were saying, give it to us. And I was like, no, no. Long story short, I kept all the text messages. My mom, when she was here, she wrote a massive letter to the RAF, to basically the top boss. We sent them all the pictures. Honestly, it wasn't a smartphone. It was a block phone that had a snake on it and that was it. But I had all the messages. And then I gave my two references. Now my one from Iraq was so glowing because I get bored easily. I'd set up out there a rec room, which had PlayStations, which had somewhere for everyone to go and just relax. But I also was setting up football matches between, which hadn't been done before, between the Navy who were coming into base and us. So I was very active. I loved it out there. So I had that glowing one and my one on my retire said, excellent. So basically what happened was apparently it got served the Provost Marshal, which is the police, the highest rank. And it, without me swearing, it, crap rolls downhill. And before I know it, apparently he was on a 24-hour post and I got in. So it took a while just to get into it.

Andy Smith 07:42 
It's good to once you're in the place you quite highly decorated yeah.

Dave Bolton 07:45 
Yeah, yeah, so like, obviously you have two years of your probation, in my first 10 weeks, my probation, so you have an officer who's your probation constable, what's the way I'm looking for? You choose a con. So you have your tutor con, and he said to me at the end, he said to me on his retirement due, out of all the years I have never worked with someone like Hugh, he said the amount of jobs we went to, because he would be sat in the car and he'd go, this is a couple of hours, I'd go, yeah, we'll go, we'll go, and I was with the stuff we did in those 10 weeks, and he was like, yeah, yeah, I didn't use to have gray air, but I did after working with you. I was the first, one of the first officers to get their driving course before the two years, so on 18 months, and I was put straight onto response, so that's kind of like your 999 calls. But within that 18 months, I'd already been given a commendation, because I did a lot of work when I didn't have to, around a gang within the north end of Birkenhead, and basically, it's a thing called door contacts on off-light sensors, and they get damaged, and should people think they're criminal damage? Well, I looked into it, and what was happening is they were damaging the contacts, and then overnight, the place would be burgled, so I put this whole package together, got all the statements, and basically gave it to the CID, and they went and did it, and they took me on it, and I got a comment from that, so even in my early stage, that's what I was like, I'm like, what can I do, all right, let's do this. And then on response, it was going really well, I was getting the most arrests, I was so proactive, I'd had quite a few different letters of commendation from the area commander, certain arrests, and then in 2004, in September, everything's going well for me, I just made the great Britain kickboxing team, because I was that kid in school, he was good at every sport that I knew him on, county rugby, county football, I ran from the ages of nine to 14 for Will, but I also ran England schools, no one beat me on 100 meters, I could run a bend like nothing ever.

Andy Smith 09:41 
I'll read that on your bio.

Dave Bolton 09:43 
Honestly, no one could beat me on that, you know, there's times when we'd be virtually last, I'd get it and I'd put us into second, you know, and we had a really good anchorman who took us home. That was me, sport, been my whole life. So I was, you know, well, I think I was English champion or won the ISK North or something. And just, I've been, so it'll sound like sometimes I'm cheating, because I get mixed up, but I'm not, I've been with my girlfriend since I was 15. So, you know, that childhood sweetheart does happen. So we just moved into a flat, our first property together, 22, 23, I'm 23, she's 22. We just found out we were pregnant, she was pregnant with our first. Obviously a mistake at that age, but a good mistake. So it's Wednesday, I ride motorbikes, as I say, I'm a gentleman junkie, I do it with all sorts. And it's a Wednesday and I get a message off my mate Russ, who I was working with, he was my partner in the police at that time. And he goes, do you want to go for a ride into Wales today? And we've done it loads, Wales is amazing. I said, you know what, it's Wednesday, the weather conditions are great, it's not going to be busy, let's do it. So we go into Wales, it's a very long story short, we stop at the pond, Ross, and then we're heading down towards Balor. And there's, for those who don't know, there's a notorious road called the Horseshoe Pass. So Russ is about 100 feet in front of me. And as he goes around the corner, it's a sharp left hand corner. So you come down off the power, so you're virtually just gliding. As you lean into the corner, you come back on the power to hug the road. Unfortunately for me, when I've come on the power, there's been diesel and gravel on the road. Now that kicked the back wheel out. One thing you should never do on a corner is brake. But my natural reaction, that autonomous reaction was to jab that brake and it sat the bike upright and took me onto the side of the road. Usually, that would have been all right. But unfortunately for me about, I'd say about 20 foot away was a 23 ton articulated lorry. When they say time stands still, trust me it does. I had a conversation with myself that felt like 10 minutes to decide on what to do. Should I go on the power? No, because I'll go straight over the barrier. Have I got time to shift left and go on? No, I'll fall off. Okay, just jump from the bike then. That happened in a split second. Shifted all my weight onto the left hand side and threw myself off the bike onto my back. I started to slide across onto, I remember the whole thing. I started to slide across onto the left hand side of the road. Unfortunately, or unfortunately, it all depends on how you view life. I went under the back wheel of the cab and the back two wheels of the Arctic as well. I knew it was bad because I watched my left leg. I didn't know how bad it was, but I watched my left leg completely snap upwards and when it stopped, it lied at the right angle the wrong way. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know how bad. I could see bits of blood. My first thought was, don't panic. You're bleeding. If you panic, you're going to bleed out. I said there, took a couple of hours. I started to wave because I thought no one would expect anyone to survive. I started waving. I'm a massive believer in fate. Throughout my story with everything, you'll see how it comes in. A woman behind me, I didn't know at the time was an off-duty paramedic. Now, if she hadn't been there, I didn't realize that I completely severed my femoral artery. I dislocated my knee, which had been torn off the lower part of my leg and it was just being held on by a couple of veins. The whole entire of my lower leg has been de-gloved, so there's no skin at all. I'd lost three quarters of my calf. My right leg was completely shattered. I broke my kneecap into six places. Basically, I was likely to prove at the scene.

Andy Smith 13:16 
So, I've read the article about that and I was going to read out the gruesome details but luckily you've gone on this.

Dave Bolton 13:24 
No, it was, yeah, pretty graphic, but I think it's good that I had leathers on as well. I think it's good that I couldn't see that because I might have probably panicked more, but I had no pain. The body's an amazing thing, whether I was in shock or whether it's the body's natural defense kicking out in door and all this thing to counteract. Luckily I had no pain because I think if I did, I wouldn't be as calm. I was laughing and joking with the paramedics when they turned up. Honestly, he turns up, it felt like a lifetime and Russ had come back and he was with me and he was in a bit of shock. The woman was helping me. I was talking to her. And then the ambulance turned up and they came down. They had a little discussion. I could see it was serious, the way he changed. So he goes, I'm just going to move your legs, give me gas and air, and you get in a crunch, and they put it into place. And then he goes, I'm going to cut your boot off. And I said, are you joking? So they cost me 450 quid. And he went, well, they're like $225 quid now. And I went, I'll bill you. It was like, I still had that because I didn't have that pain. And then the next thing it was like, right. They had to get an air ambulance in for me because I wouldn't have made hospital if I had gone on the other conventional route. But I don't think I've said this many times, but as I was about to leave, I said to Russ, can you get her number for me? And he goes, Dave, you've got a girlfriend. And I looked at him and went, yeah, to say thank you. And I come up, I said, yeah, I'm lying here. Legs over here, nearly dying. I'm going to try and pick her up. We had an awful lot a long time after. But the air ambulance came. I got loaded in. And I just remember the onboard doctor saying, are you all right? I said, I have a better day. And he says, have you ever been in a helicopter for? I said, no, which is weird because I used to. Yeah. R.F. Shaw, but he's a tri-service based helicopter trainer. And I worked there and I lived there for like 18 months. He says, pretty extreme ways to get him. I said, how many more now are they? He's just going to give you some for the pain. I said, I'm not on any pain. And he goes, I think you're in shock. And then this veil fell over and I was placed in an induced coma for seven days. I was airlifted to a Grand Clued Hospital, a 12 hour life saving operation. I was later told that I was 30 seconds away from dying. They were putting blood in and it was coming out. Now, as I say, when I do talks and when I do stuff like that, I always believe, imagine if that helicopter was on a different call. Imagine if the pilot had gone to use the phone, you sort of, I wouldn't be here today. So everything kind of with the, the off-duty pad about everything kind of was there for me on that day to allow me to be here. So I had that 12 hour life operation, which involved my leg being put into a forecast with my right patella had been broken into six places. So it had to be X-wide. And then in my left leg, because it wasn't being held on by anything, I had to have six external pins into my femur and into my tibula as well. The big point. And I was in a coma, as I say, for about a week and they tried to bring me around on day six or seven, but apparently I was in too much pain. I don't remember this part at all, but on day seven, they brought me around and the first, and it's not like in the movies where they sit up and have a conversation. The first thing I know, I'm being held down because I've been intubated. So I've got a tube in my mouth and sometimes the first natural reaction is to remove an obstruction, which in the mouth, and I didn't even know where it was. So they took a while and eventually they took it out and they were like, breathe. And all I remember is going, not being able to see because we breathe naturally, but this machine had been breathing for me for nearly a week. Eventually I took this big breath and I don't really remember much else about, I remember being sick. My mum says I was being sick constantly. And I had to wait for, I had to wait to be transferred to Wiston to get skin grafting. Now it was delayed. So I was going by, by ambulance and I was on, I was on morphine, but I was on a self-controlled pump. So it's a PCA patient controlled analgesia, which locks out after three. So you can't overdose. Unfortunately I did. What had happened is whilst I was asleep, I'd wake up and I saw that I was in surgery and my leg was so I've hit it. It's kept happening. No one had gone into it. And when I got to Wiston, I unfortunately had morphine psychosis. So morphine psychosis is horrific. It's paranoia, extreme paranoia, but it's hallucinations as real as me and you sat here talking. That's what you see. That's what you believe. And the first experience of it was two nurses at the end of the bed. I was being booked in and I saw one and say, can't believe he's in here wasting a bed on a motorbike. It was his fault. What a waste of it. A lot of swearing as well. I'm trying not to swear on this podcast. But it was, you know, what do we do? We said, we'll just do what we want. So I withdrew completely. I didn't know I was in hospital. I didn't know where I was. I didn't know what was going on. My brain was just mush. So I withdrew completely. Stopped eating. I had one where I was watching the TV and my mum had just left and it was something to do with a terrorist attack somewhere. The next thing all the alarms go off in the hospital and gunmen come bursting through. And this is as real as we are sat here. He put her head on the bed and executed. I'm sprayed with blood. So I start screaming and they all come in and don't think they understood what was going on. Cause he was just like shaking their heads. There was a funny one, but people have this one before, but there was a guy opposite me and you get to know everyone, you know, how long I was in there, but I didn't still didn't know where I was. And his wife comes in with his pizza, like Domino's pizza, obviously other pizzas are available. And he goes, cause I hadn't been eating. I went, oh, that smells amazing mate. He goes, do you want some? And I said, what is it? And he goes, it's a ham and pineapple. And I said, oh, Hawaiian. Some people don't like pineapple, but I love it. He goes, you want some? I said, no. There was no wife. There was no pizza. He was just there looking at me going, what? It all came to a head though. When, uh, I was rocking him in my bed and watching my wife, then she wasn't the girlfriend comes in with me, uh, with my mum. And I said, can you stop visit me? And they said, why? So it must be costing your fortune. She goes, what's the mean of fortune? It's just through the tunnel. I'll see where Liverpool is. I'm from the world. There's a tunnel, the Mersey tunnel. And I'm like, there isn't one to Canada. I thought I was in a mental institute in Canada and I've been sectioned. It's obviously concerns. My mental health were massively raised and the doctor comes and I just had a moment of clarity. I said, take me off everything. I said, take me off everything. And he goes, I can't you've been too much pain. I said, don't care. Let me deal with the pain. I don't know where I am. I don't know what's going on. Obviously he has to let you. And then two days later, I just woke up and that fog, that darkness had cleared and I suddenly realized I was in a hospital, but I still didn't know why. And then I looked down, bearing in mind, I've got pins in my leg. I had this white sheets over me. So it's now like a tent with all the, my legs still got no skin. So although it's all fully bandaged up, it's leaking. So there's blood all over my sheets. I've got pins there. I look over my right legs in a full cast. And then I look at my, this is now three, four weeks since me being in the hospital. And I look at my body and I've lost like literally three stone. And then I was like, what? And then just broke down. I didn't realize. And then the nurses came who actually lovely. And I did say to them, I had to say to them, I said, what are you trying to say? Why would we do that? But I needed to speak to my girlfriend. My brain was mush. I couldn't remember on the block phones that we had. I couldn't remember passcode. I couldn't remember anything. The only number I could remember was the house phone for my mum's and dad's. So I phoned up and I break them down. I said, I need to speak to Sam. And then I ended up speaking to Sam and she came up. Yeah. And then, and it was her, it was a, it was a very, very hard time in hospital. Very hard. I was stuck in a bed and not facing the window, not being able to move for about two months. I had to have skin grafting. And that's basically where they take for me, they took a layer of skin off the top part of my left arm thigh, you put it through a stretch out and they just staple it to the open wound. But first of all, I was put on the list to go down for the surgery. So I was nil by my mouth from midnight. It got to about 10 o'clock at night and they canceled me because something else had made her come in. That's fine. This happened for four days running. My weight was getting lower and lower. And one of the nurses, one of the sisters at the thing was present when the dots come around. And she basically just said, he is going for surgery today, whether you like it or not, he can't keep going on that. And then he said, yeah. And as he went to him, I went, the doctor's thing, he'd run this place, but it's yours. I went down for surgery. So I had four skin grafts. Skin grafts don't take all the time. Very lucky. Mine took every single time after. So I was having, um, cause it was so unwell and cause we're still, you know, I was still having blood transfusions at the bed. And when you have a blood transfusion, you just feel so much better. Yeah. I kind of say at one point, cause they were putting blood in and it was going out that depending on how the rugby is going, if Wales were winning, not anymore. I say I'm Wales cause I got, I must have Welsh blood in me. It's just a little bit. Yeah. But, um, but yeah, um, I got told, obviously I got told you were 30 seconds, but they were also going to amputate my leg below, below the knee. Uh, my mum had begged them not to and they were still a question. So they were waiting to see whether I had feeling and I did have feeling in it. Um, the next part was trying to get my leg to move and it just didn't, just wouldn't happen. Yeah. I just, just nothing. That connection, that neural pathway, whatever it was, just didn't work. I couldn't even lift my leg and me being me, it was just constant and it was over and over. And then one night I managed to lift my leg up and I cheered like anything. I was like, well, Kevin up became in. He weren't very happy, but they didn't realize that was the first step. Literally. I mean that point for me, trying to get my life back. I had a kid on the way. I didn't want to be that dad wrongly or rightly, but it was a girl boy. You can't play sport. Who's turning up to, to, to school in a wheelchair. I didn't want to put that on them. I know it sounds stupid saying that, but that was my mentality back then. And it probably still would be now. Um, eventually, uh, once I was able to do that, uh, the physiotherapists were called and he said, right, we're going to, we're going to try and get you up and walking. And then I just remember waking up, feeling really embarrassed. I passed out as soon as I sat up, I passed out. My blood pressure was that poor that I couldn't even sit up without passing out. It took me about a week just to be able to sit up and then get my legs down. Um, got my legs down. I still had the pins in it, but they'd taken the cast off by now. Um, and then eventually me being well, so determined I was walking with the stroller, not well. And it was like, I think his name is George and then there he's like, go on, David said, I'm doing it. George, I'm doing it. And then I had to go and try and do the stairs. My leg was completely locked out. It was difficult, but my goal was to get out of there. And I thought that what would happen was that I would make the stairs, I'd be transported or transferred to Arrow Park Hospital where the pins would be removed, have my ligaments reattached in my legs. I didn't have any medials, ACLs, anything. Yeah, I couldn't have been further from the truth. So I was discharged about three, four months. But one thing I do want to say is there was a nurse there, I can't remember her name, and she just took pity on me. Really did, because I was just sat there at visitors I never saw outside. So she uncoupled my bed, which was huge. I was in this specialist's bed. And she just wheeled me to a fire exit and she said, I'm going to leave you here for half an hour. And she just opened up with your sunny, my literally tears were coming down. I was feeling that fresh air and seeing the sunlight, which I hadn't seen. I just wanted to say that. I wish I could remember her name. But that meant everything. That gave me another boost for still being in there. Got to our park hospital where they took the pins out at my bedside. I thought I would go to surgery, but now the doctors came over. But because no one had seen this before, everyone was in the room. Nurses, doctors, junior doctors, it was just that I was sat here and you're doing it now. But where in my fight, I could see it was infected. There was green pus coming out. So I was like, okay. I was thinking, why am I having any painkillers? Okay, trust them. And his number two started to, got like, I can't, not spanner, but like, and he turned it and there was a crunch. I screamed and I nearly passed out. I was biting his thing. And he went, have you had any payments yet? I said, no, and he went mental. So then the guy went, he was on it. Again, I wasn't allowed morphine because of the psychosis. So I think I had something else. And I was just out of it. It was great. And he went to do it again. And he went, I think he's been through a knot. He was tightening it. And I remember saying, do you not get taught lefty loosey or righty tighty at doctor school? So he does that, that gets taken out. I thought, right, here we go. But unfortunately for me, my leg had been straight for so long that scar tissue had grown into the joints. And scar tissue is like stretching leather. It hardly happens. I had two manipulations whilst on the run ascetics. That's where they take you down to surgery. They put nerve blockers in and they basically just crank as much pressure as it can to break through that. On the second one, I woke up and I knew I hadn't worked. I only had like 15 degree flexion in my knee. And he just went, doc, so I went, I'm so sorry. If we'd have put an ounce more pressure on it, we'd have snapped your feelings about four places. We can't do it. So I paid to go and see a private specialist in Wigan, one of the top orthopedic surgeons. And he said, I feel for you. But you're always gonna, there's no way you're not gonna walk without a stroller, which I've been told, or that's it. At one point they were saying I was never gonna walk again. So that was a big hurdle. And I was like, I can't, he says, the only way you're gonna get that sort of lifestyle and walk without that is if we amputate your leg below the knee to give you the best track to pathetic. But me being me, refused, came out, obviously cried. And just, I worked with the NHS physios for four months and got an extra four degrees. So I did it myself. I, brutal, brutal as well. I would be on the floor and on a chair with my girlfriend. I'll just call him a wife from now on for everyone. So it was my wife, she wasn't there. Putting weights on it. But we had to remember that an ounce would have snapped it. So I'll be sat there for two and a half hours, three hours in absolute agony, tears rolling down. Well, I just knew this is what I need to do to try and get some sort of that quality of life back to have that freedom to play with my kids, to do sports with them. Sports been my whole life. I wanted to get back into it. I slowly started to get better. When I stand up, I collapse because the pain was that much. I do stuff with belts and all sorts. It was proper barbaric, what I did to myself. But as you can see, I got to 95%. I was back in work within eight months, but I'm very, very, because I was told that I'll never go on to half pay. But after six months, I was dropped straight onto half pay. So I went back, but I had an amazing boss who worked with me, who followed me, shall we say, all through my career. He was getting a guy called Cliff Barr. He said, listen, you're going to come and work with me. So he'd pick me up. He'd take me in. We'd log on to the computer. We'd have a cup of tea. We'd do a little bit. And then he dropped me back off. So it was a phase return, even to the point where. I was told that they were going to pension me off. And I was like, no. And he went to bat for me, shall we say. Even to the point where, when you're in the police, you've got to do certain things. So one's PSP training. That's kind of like your self-defense, your handcuffing. Usually what happens when you go there, you do get idiots, you write together. He didn't have to, he came with me, he was my partner. And then when he did write training, he came and did that with me. And I was successfully passed it all. And then I think 14 months later, I was back on patrol. We were in the roadside police with my leg. And what was good was the new chief come back then. Ugan Howell, I think his name was at the time. He came onto our section, so I was back on patrol in Birkenhead. And that night there was a foot chase. And he was chasing him. I overtook him, rugby tackled him. And he actually put it out into orders across things. So it was amazing to be on patrol on that night. And I sent him just a big shout out to Constable Bolton, who has just defied life changing injuries to come back and make arrests. What's your excuse? And then I was given the Tom Rice award as well, the services to the police for coming back from a critical injury. And then I just kept characterizing. My reputation kept getting better, but I really wanted to get back into, yeah, I say I was good at all sports, but combat sport is what I loved. It's what channeled my energy when I was younger. I've always remembered my mom saying to me that when I was younger, the teachers took her to one side and said, your son's got a gift, he really has. But you're gonna have to be careful. He's gotta go one or two ways with that. So I got pushed into sport. So that's what I love. It's what keeps my mental health in check. I've done it my whole life. So I went back to the kickboxing gym. I've done it all Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you know, moves high, but what I was really good at was the kickboxing. And I started, he said, yeah, why don't you train the kids? So I was training the kids. And then there was a guy who was having a fight. I ended up jumping in with him for like six rounds. And I just, by the way, changing the way I thought, and I thought I was still actually really good. And then he came to us and he said, I think you should start fighting again. So I had to face that fear, that fear of getting knocked out, getting humiliated, you know, stepping back into the ring, which I'd never done. You know, in a ring, I never lost a fight. So I was like, okay, but you know, if we don't take that risk and we don't face that fear, then you achieve nothing in life. So I did, and I won quite a few first fights. And then my first kind of main one was in Leeds. I think it was for the ISKA North, where on the way to the ring, I had death threats, that if you get a win, if you win, and I would on a split decision and I celebrated, I still hadn't lost that cocky bit.

Andy Smith 30:51 
And then I'm from the opposing team. What's that the opposing team?

Dave Bolton 30:54 
Yeah it wasn't it's like it's that world though there's firms in boxing and stuff and all that so but you know it's just one of them and then I became Welsh Open Series title so that's where it's a bit like you imagine karate kid and they have mats everywhere it's like that because you can't physically fit that many yeah I did that became yeah I think I had six fights and then what became Welsh champion but I won the British title and then I got the phone call and that was from the Great Britain team and for me this was like putting the universe back right again I had opportunity in 2004 to fly to Germany it was taken away from me so no fault me I just want to say I crashed at 23 miles an hour there was no speed involved whatsoever because I was just saying adrenaline junkie but no it wasn't my mum that I got told at the time you need to be prepared for the backlash from this yeah a police officer if it's high speed they went back said no it's like there's no skid marks it's it's what it is yeah and that's where I lose my chain of thought

Andy Smith 31:49 
So coming back to, you know, you got the call, but just talk about your police career quickly. You know, this was your first real shave of death. Yeah, I'm assuming that was your first, you know, you probably

Dave Bolton 32:05 
It's got all the times I've died and everything.

Andy Smith 32:09 
So you have this accident, you come back from this, you know, in an absolutely incredible way, you know, you end up being kickboxing world champion, which in itself is an amazing feat. I don't know where this comes in the timeline, but there was a guy during your career that came at you and your colleague with the knife as well. You know, and that situation could. Which time? So they're serious. Okay. The one I read was that you chase the guy down and ended up getting the knife across your hand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was. Maybe there's multiple.

Dave Bolton 32:40 
That was after the bike accident on A-block with my partner who was brilliant back then. Yeah, Mark Jameson. Basically, it was just a job that was going on and one of the guys, Joe Sweeney, had been doing a lot of research and we sat there because loads were off license, we're getting broken into, but we're not talking about talking 10,000 to 15,000 of cigarettes, of alcohol. Just by chance, we were going across and we got a tip off of where they were. We went round, we front and back, which means police at the front. We had the front and the back, just in case they weren't. As we were climbing over, my partner, J.M. Elkhorn, who's Mark Jameson, jumped over the fence. I jumped over. As we did, he comes out the side and he lunges at Mark with a knife, so I pull Mark back and then he makes off. We're shouting on the radio, he's got a knife, helicopters are up, saying he can't see him, we could see him coming across the thing. The next thing he's in a train, he jumps down. As he jumps down, I've gone to grab it and I've been slashed across. I've still got the scar there, straight across behind him there. Adrenaline goes. We end up struggling with him. We end up restraining him. As you're saying, if those split second decisions that you make, and I seem to be, I'm very good at critical thinking. I'm very quick with my decisions. I've said that with the bike accident, I had that moment, I had a full-blown conversation. I'm very good at working out, so if I hadn't pulled Mark away, he may have been stabbed but if I hadn't, I'd been able to see as soon as I got that and swept into the floor. It could have gone a lot worse without that. In all the stories, that's probably one of the least.

Andy Smith 34:14 
So, this is well before the North West Wellbeing Hub, which we'll come to and we'll talk to We'll talk about that. So, but to get through your accident and everything, I'm assuming you weren't looking at alternative health and that, then it was more, what was that, sheer, sheer grit, determination.

Dave Bolton 34:31 
You know, what, you know, because the internet wasn't, it was, but it wasn't like what it is now. You didn't have that access. The mobile phones weren't smartphones. So you didn't have that instant, like, yo, what, let me research what this is. It wasn't, it was either books or, and for me, it was just like, I'm going to get through it. It's my sheer determination and grit and my relentless belief that I will succeed. And that's what's carried me through my whole life.

Andy Smith 34:54 
So it's going good in the police, everything seems to be absolutely life is cruising and then obviously you get the call.

Dave Bolton 35:04 
So yeah, basically, so, um, as I said before, um, I've been handle hunted, I've been promoted. Uh, I'd only spent three months as a sergeant on, in Prescott when, um, I was selected, I went through an interview post here, I said I was selected to be the detective sergeant. So I became a detective at the courses for that and, um, headed up the within their side, the case socks, the nosy, serious, organized crime agents. It was just unbelievable. Uh, it took a lot for me to want to do it. To go from being, I was very much putting the doors in what I did. You know, I loved that. So for me to be able to move, take myself away from that and sit in an office, I could still get out and about, but be invisible. I didn't know if it was me, but no, it was, you know, getting the call from, I used, I used a team called the NST, which is the neighborhood support team. Cause I came from a very tactical team, uh, where we were, we had access to everything and if there's a problem in the area, we were sent in, as I said, the NCA loved us because we got the job done. Some of the jobs we did with them were incredible. Um, taken out a lorry on the M56 that had 40 kilo, 40 kilograms of heroin in. I've had a fight on the live lane of the M53 with a guy who had a kilogram of heroin, no, sorry, cocaine down his pants. I've sat in, uh, vans for nearly six hours in a removal van waiting for the car, I can't go into the ins and outs of this, but there was, um, 12 kilograms of heroin where we're shipped via a fireplace. So we had to wait and then we got called to go in there. Um, we were in a car park where a million pound drop off happened and we were involved in that. We did this as a stuff was just incredible. So I was in that. So I used the NST cause they weren't being used. I mean, loved it, but getting a phone call, say, Sarge, we've just hit this house, we've recovered four firearms. Uh, you know, a load of crack cocaine and a ton of money was exactly the same for me as being there because I put the work in, I was in charge of all COVID operations in that area, all the intelligence, you know, all the warrants were getting done, went through me. I just loved it. It's that high pressure situation. But with that and how I am, I was never at home. I would leave had to be on eight. It was, it turned me into a day job, uh, supposed to be, uh, you know, an eight four Monday to Friday, but me being me, I would be in at say half six. So I'd leave home at six. So I didn't even see my kids properly. I kissed them on the head. Like my daughter was, was five, my lad was eight. Um, and then I'd be in the work and I'd get over 10, I'd get home 11. I was never off on time. And a lot of the time I didn't pay myself over time. I was just loved it. I wanted to get my head around everything before my staff come in. And then I'd brief them. And it's me, it's me the first time I'm praying in the morning. I just said, listen, it's my daughter's birthday tomorrow. I have to get off on time today, really, because I am going to be an early tomorrow, but I am, I am going to finish early tomorrow. So we need to get everything box today. But also what I was, was I was a single point of contact for our neighboring forces to basically for GMP, for head Lou, for Cheshire, for the lanks. If any of our nominals, and I'm saying stuff the plight way now, any of our nominal was active in their area. I'd be notified and unfortunately you wear a lot on that day, true to form. That's what happens. So mid afternoon, we get a call and there's been a, a burglary where a firearm has been discharged. Look, it didn't hit anyone, but it's still a critical incident. And it was, it was a critical incident. So I was trying to get on the phone to the assistant chief constable to, to get the authority for our firearms unit to be able to pull over the, the, pull over the vehicle and use lethal force. It's not like an America where you can just shoot and hopefully get away. You've got to have these in process. Um, the vehicle was lost, but we knew with cameras and everything, it hadn't come back on to our area. And, uh, one of the girls, Joe says, Sarge, I've dealt with this before. Get yourself off. And she had, she said, I'll cheers, Joe. Right. I'll see you in the morning. And leave a hand over. No, if there's anything I need to do, let me know. So I get home. It's about 10 o'clock. All right. I've not really in that day. And I wolfs from cereal down and I go to bed and then wake up at half past 11 with paramedics in my bedroom. That's unfortunately suffered a 15 minute grand mal nocturnal seizure, but I think they call it a chronic tonic seizure. Now, if I'm going to be correct. Um, and my first reaction was to try and kick the paramedics out at my room. I woke up and I was groggy. I didn't really know what was going on. And my wife, who's a nurse who's usually sat next to me, he's on my right hand side and she's going, Dave, I wouldn't phone the ambulance. You weren't breathing. You've had a seizure. Like now I'm fine. Do you know what? And I said, excuse lads. Can you just, can you get out of my house, please? Dave will go in in a minute. They were brilliant. They knew they've obviously dealt with this before. She said, so what's your name? I said, Dave, he goes, okay, where'd you work? Cause I'm in the police. He says, where? Oh my God, I don't know, what's your surname? Don't know, where'd you live? Don't know, what's your date, but I suddenly realized there's something not right. And then I noticed blood on my pillow and I bit in the back corner of my tongue off. And then I noticed searing pain and I completely desiccated my shoulder as well. I was rushed to Aropark Hospital into resource where they thought I had meningitis because I was littered, spots covered in spots. My wife being a nurse just sat there and went, if you were at that stage, you'd be in a coma now. So we were convinced it wasn't me being me. I was trying to discharge myself out of hospital. I wanted to because it was my daughter's birthday. I still hadn't grasped. I'd had a 15 minute seizure. Now I believe I'm quite lucky. Cause a 15 minute seizure, a five minute seizure starves the brain from oxygen. To go for 15 minutes and stop breathing and have no side effects, I think I'm quite lucky. But after being there all day and then I kind of knew something wasn't right. I'd been like, I had blood, I'd had the urine taken, everything. I went for a CT scan and then I got sent down for a CT scan again with the dye. Okay. And then I'm sat there, I'm supposed to be in quarantine but my whole family's come round and we've, you know, the daughter's there and we're singing happy birthday. I can't remember this is what I got told. We're singing happy birthday and then consultant came in and she's a bit shocked. And she goes, oh, and we've got some news. I knew it was bad. And I cleared the room with just me and Sam. She sat there and she goes, not a specialist hospital, but unfortunately there is a large mass in the front hemisphere, but even the glioma region. We've liaised with Walton. We believe it's a glioma brain tumor. I'm sorry. And then there's just nothing in my head. It's like, is this real? Cause it doesn't happen to me. It doesn't happen to us. It happens on movies, on TV shows, other people, it doesn't happen to me. And I just remember sat there going, no, this isn't real. And it was just this numbness. And then I looked at my wife, he starts crying and then the reality kicked in and the waterworks came on and the fear came on. I was kept in overnight and then I was discharged. He said, we don't need to discharge you. And so we don't need to keep you in. So I was put on dexamethadone steroids and then tablets to counteract the steroids, tablets to counteract rose to steroids. And I was put on an anti-seizure called Keppra. And I went home, but it was a bank holiday weekend, worst, worst weekend ever. I had to kind of sit there with no plan. What made it worse was there was a guy in the police and we were working the Everton, I'm a red by the way. I'm not going to go on the set Everton at the moment. But no, but we were working the Everton top in the game. And obviously me being a red, then I was in charge of the serial. So a serial is basically a right unit, which we say for people who don't know, it's a PSU public corner unit. So you'd have one and six or one and eight. So I had eight, but they can be from anyone, from anywhere. It's just people who want overtime. And I knew one of the guys, Rich and he was like, he's a blue, I'm a red, bit of banter. A couple of weeks later, he suffered a stroke. He had a brain tumor. He passed away three months later. So that's what I thought was going to happen to me. That's all my own knowledge of it. So I spent waiting to go to, it was horrific, trying to live life normal with that hanging over here. And I always said it was like being on death row. I'm sat there, I'm walking the green mile and I'm waiting to go to the governor, which was Walton Hospital, to sit down in front of the governor, who was going to be, luckily I had Professor Eldridge. And that was it. So it was a horrific, quite, yeah. It's hard to put into words how that time took so slowly. So we're trying to take a mind off, acting as though everything was normal, not really telling the kids what was going on because we didn't really know. And then we went on the Tuesday and I explained this to him. And I said, I'm looking for that lifeline, that reprieve. And he goes, know that there is. So I was told it looked like it was a low grade tumor. It was over the size of a tennis pool. It was massive, but it was a white mass. And they said, well, yeah, we'll sort it. And then I was sent away with no plan. And to have something growing in your head and no plan. how hard it is, it's brutal. I hadn't got a clue what was going on. And it was just, I wasn't sleeping. My wife was on the phone every day, every single day chasing them. And eventually her persistence paid off and we got a date six weeks, but it was the worst six weeks of my life. Wasn't sleeping. When I go to bed, all I thought was, and it is, it's when you're busy and in the day you find, it's when you're alone at night in your bed, and you're alone with your own thoughts. And I called it my prison. Cause I started blogging. I wanted to just put it out there to people to show them what the reality is. And I'd be lying there and I'd be like, you're going to die. I'm not even asked about that, to be honest. Or you're going to leave your wife a widow. It's going to be dead. You're not going to walk your daughter down the aisle. You're not going to see your son get married. You're not going to be part of their lives. And it was just that swirl. So instead of sitting there and letting that metastasize and just keep me awake, I'd get up and do want to see things. I'd go downstairs and I'd do DIY. At that time I wasn't great at DIY, but I could shoot, Sam would come down, I'd have a door off him painting it. I even managed to get, I did wallpaper, I featured wallpaper, but I put the wallpaper vertically across, looked really good. Or I'd go for a run. Now I wasn't allowed to do sport. I wasn't allowed to be out on my own. Bear in mind, I had a 15 minute seizure, but I just, I needed a place to just let everything go. Wrong little rightly. I didn't want my kids to see me being weak. I didn't want to put that on my wife neither because my wife was a carer. She was a researcher. She had to look after the kids. There was so much that was on her plate that I didn't want to put that on. I know it sounds stupid now looking back because that's what you should be doing. So I went on a run and for the first mile, I just be crying my eyes out. Literally just let it all go. And I know I've said this a few times, but honestly, it's the truth. I used to run past, I was a lot bigger than as well, like I used to run past dog walkers and with no context whatsoever, they've got this 12 and a half stone black bloke running crying their eyes off saying, why me? I'm sure they must've thought, I said, mate, don't like running. Why are you doing it? Because that's without the context. And then the second mile, it'd be like, right, get yourself sort of third mile. Yeah, I'm back in the zone now. And that's what I did. And then my wife never knew. And then one morning she goes, why are you having a shower? I said, she's been dead hot and sweaty. She goes, well, next time pick your running stuff up off the floor. I was like, I think, but she wasn't happy, but I explained why I was doing it. And then went in for surgery, got booked into Walton. And I like being put to sleep. Honestly, I've had that many operations with obviously with my legs, but also through my fight career. Now I've got pins in my thumbs. I've had like surgery on my hands. You know, I like being put to sleep. It's weird, not this time. The night before, Professor Eldridge, who is, who was sorry, he's still alive, but he's retired, was the best neurosurgeon in the country at the time. He wrote the guidelines for NICE, so the guidelines, the post calls, everything. So I was very lucky to have him. But with that, he was very much like, if you've seen the big bang theory, Sheldon on the spectrum, but he's amazing guy. I wouldn't want to, but he had no personal skills. So I always have Anna Crofton. So he comes to me the night before with his ethnicity. He goes, yeah, there's a high chance that you may not make this due to where it is, but you potentially bleed on the brains, infections, aneurysms, strokes, but also where yours is where your higher level of thinking is. I said, but also where your personal heart is. So you may, if you make this, if you make this, you may come back as someone different and you won't even know, right? I'll see you in the morning. Okay, so I didn't sleep that night. Obviously it was terrified. I wrote letters to my wife and my kids, a couple of the kids and to my wife. And one to my sister and mum. And yeah, I'll never tell her what was it then. Didn't sleep, got wheeled down surgery, tears down my eyes. was in the actual main hospital where they take you in and prep you for surgery. And there was, there was, I've never, obviously I've had surgery. I've never seen anything like it of his brain surgery. It's, there's going to be more, it was three of everyone. And this, and he just leans over me and locks me up and down. He says, you think he needs, I don't know what he is. You're the one locks me up and down goes, I think he'll make it. And then one of the other one goes, you all right, you've gone gray. I said, why don't you put me to sleep instead of having this conversation over me? Then they put me to sleep. And I wasn't worried. I was up speaking after three hours. I was discharged in the three days. Um, I got my life back on track. Um, as I said earlier, uh, I, I don't, I take him retirement from the, from the police and I was a strength and conditioning coach, uh, loving life and we're in the strength and conditioning world. It's not what you're note to, you know, when it really is, um, through my, through my rugby, through my, my kickboxing, I, I, I, I, I, I massed a really good network, so, you know, I was very fortunate and ended up working with like England will be within the community.  Obviously I did all my badges to be a coach. I was working with up and coming boxers, bought a couple of UFC fighters who I was looking after, and I was just loving life, loving life. And I was on three monthly scans at that time. So I was told I had five years to live at the last show, Saitoma. It's literally, and a cruel, cruel faith, cruel, I lost my driving license for a year. If you have a seizure, it's a year. I got a letter saying that it was gonna be reissued. The day I went for a scan, and when I walked in, my heart sank, because Professor Eldridge was there. And usually it's Anna Crofton. Anna Crofton's my neuro nurse. She's now the Associate Director of Whole Oncology. She's one of my very good friends. And she's also an ambassador, Head of the Game Foundation, in which we'll talk about later. So I'm a heart sank, and she turned the screen round, and there's a black walnut-sized mass on the midline of her brain. So it's straddling both hemisphere. And I just start shouting at them. I'm not doing chemo, I'm not doing radio. And I was proper at aggressive, but I don't think it was at them. I was told I had five years to live, and literally just after 12 months, I know, I researched it. I know what that's like, and I might not do it. And then Professor Eldridge was like, listen, let's just get through surgery. I waited six weeks to go for surgery. I was in within four days. This time, go down to surgery, same porter a year on takes me down. And I went, yeah, I've got this. It all went wrong in surgery because that walnut size mass in two weeks had doubled in size nearly treble. That's how aggressive it was. So I think the surgery, I think was double off it, I'd be guessing, I think it was like eight, nine, 10 hours where the first one was four. Um, with that came a lot of complications. So I spent a couple of nights in a high dependency unit and then a further 14 days in hospital. Whilst I was in hospital, Anna Crofton came to see us and she goes, we've got the results. So when you have a cancer, PC tumor gets taken, I get sent for analysis, histology pathology. So we will go into this room and I've got a really good relationship with Anna. You know, I've been seeing her through all the time and she had tears and eyes. So I put my hand on it. I can go to glioblastoma, multiforma, what 12 hours to live, whatever you say is a bonus, isn't it? She says, yeah, yeah, yeah. She goes, do you want to know what the timeline is? And I went, yeah, because I want to know everything. I said it at the usual. So the usual, what they say is, um, without treatment, three months with 12 to 18, but cause of my, my, how aggressive mine was and it was an ADHD one wild type. It was six months with treatment, six to eight. So I went away. Um, I had, I kind of thought I've got a decision to make, do I want to spend the next six to eight months going through brutal treatment style? Do I want to spend the next three months living the best life I can making memories with my kids? And I went away and I slipped into depression. Yeah, I've never done it before, but it is. It was a very dark place at the time. And I was sat on the couch and I was just waiting to die. I'd given up on life. I didn't care. I don't, I don't have fear. I don't fear death. You know, it's natural, but I just didn't care. And, um, and I was eating and I was eating and I was getting fatter. It's the only time I've been medical steroids. You just eat and you eat and you eat. And my wife, we talked about it not so long ago and she says, I just wanted to kick some sort of life back and see about that fight that I knew you had. Um, and she goes, we're going for a run. And I just laughed at her face. I'm not going for a run. Not a chance, but sports been your whole life. Yeah, it was my life. I'm going to die. So why would I go on this run? But as we know, women are always right. Sometimes you need to pick your battles and this wasn't what I was going to win. So we go on this run and I say it's 5k. It probably wasn't even that. Um, it was horrific. Like for someone who was so fit, been an elite athlete, trained the whole life, I was horrific. I thought it was going to be a heart attack. I'd stopped off five times. Thought it was going to be sick. I had such a stitch and Sam beat me, which never happened. So I knew there was something seriously wrong way. But that night I slept just a little bit better and I felt just a tiny little better. Now it's three o'clock and I call this my watershed moment. If Sam hadn't of got me on this run, this wouldn't have happened. And I wouldn't be here today. I was sat at three o'clock in the morning crying my eyes out, literally head in the hands, absolutely in floods. And I just suddenly went, what are you doing? You said you were going to come away and live the best three months you can. You've sat here for two weeks and had a pity party about the cards. Life, life doubt you. I thought, I didn't think I was going to survive. I said, so six to eight months is the average. I've never been average at anything. So there must be people that go before, but there must be people who get to 18 months is what they say, which is the maximum they won't come. So I thought, right. So called it Terry, Terry, the terminator because a glioblastoma in the medical world is known as the term terminator. Like Ari, I'll be back. Dreadful won't do that again, but he always, it always comes back. It's relentless. No one survives it. And I put myself on a camp. And what I did was I got my diet, right? Nutrition, supplementation, alternative therapies, mindfulness, exercise, the full works and accepted the conventional treatments. And that's, that's what I did.

Andy Smith 53:06 
So in terms of the, you know, the cancer and everything like that, the, what this was doing to your mental health. And, and I think that's what you're helping people with now is getting through that because I imagine, you know, even, even interviewing you today, you can see the emotion or emotion coming back from you when you get, you know, I can only imagine you're taking yourself back to that moment. So.

Dave Bolton 53:27 
But I like to talk about mental health, especially with men, because there seems to be a taboo, a stigma. And I only had this conversation the other day with someone I was online with, I do a lot of, I help people all over the country, all over the world, and he was supporting his wife, and I was asking who he had to speak to, and he's like, I don't like to. But I was like, why is there a stigma for men to open up about the feeling of taboo? It's not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. And when I found out, I started talking about it quite publicly. I found I was in part of a big, quite a big club. And as I said, it's a sign of strength, not weakness. It's important that you talk, but if you don't talk, you bottle it up, that's a negative emotion you store in which pursues his cortisol, which is stress. And that's got no way to come out, and it will come out at the worst possible time. So it's important that you unload that problem. And again, it's a sign of strength. I don't think we've gone to mental health, but it is important.

Andy Smith 54:12 
And one of the people I think you wanted to talk about during this is, is, is Tom wanted.

Dave Bolton 54:18 
So obviously I went through treatments. It was brutal. Everyone's different. So, and I just want to say the stats with mine was 17% of people, no, 25% of people will get to a year. 17% will get to two years. To get to five years is 5% of the world population. I've just crossed nine going into 10. So that's 2%. In next year, I'll be 1% of the world's population. I've been in this world for 10 years. It's nine and a half years with a glioblastoma. So I'm two years going into 1% of the world's population, which people say, oh, it's amazing. It is, but I would rather be in a group of 98% of people. And when I met Tom, he'd just been diagnosed. And one of the things that we said together is we were going to change the way that brain tumors are thought of, researched, and also treated, and we became like brothers. We called each other every night. We were in the houses of commons together, debating for the lobbying for the underfunding of brain tumors. And also, I won't go into it too much, but we were promised brain tumors were promised 60 million in 2015, and only 4 million had been delivered in 2020. So we were there for that. He'd phoned me at two o'clock in the morning of falling off a ledge, and I'd talk him off it. And we became so close. I got to know his family, Kelsey and his kids. And I was helping him with rehab. We were like so close with each other. And then he passed away. And I'd started a head of game foundation, and only just started it. And I decided I'm not doing it anymore. I can't do this. It crushed me. His death absolutely floored me. It broke me completely. And we went down for the funeral down in Bromley. And at the wake, I went to speak to his brother because I'd not met his brother. And I said, my name's Dave. He goes, I know exactly who you are. The day he met you is the day his life changed. And us as a family, whether you believe it or not, but I think you gave him another 12 to 14 months. I was like, on the way home, my wife, Sam goes, that's why you do it. You can't save everyone. But what you can do, you can improve their quality of life. And you can also extend it. And that's how I operate. And that's how I can compartmentalize stuff when I'm doing what I do. So I left being a strength and conditioning coach. I fell out all over the, you know, you're looking for that 1%, which don't get me wrong. I loved it at the time, got paid well. You're looking for that 1% and that's not making the team. That's not getting the knockout. The grand schemes of life, that means nothing whatsoever. So I retrained as a cancer rehabilitation specialist, put me through through qualifications so I can work alongside. Doctors, oncologists, and physios to work with the, you'll never catch me say patient, but people. We have feelings. I've spoke about this on global symposiums in the House of Commons, that we are people, we have feelings, we should be treated brightly. And yeah, where was I going? I'll go back to it.

Andy Smith 56:59 
No, we actually interviewed another cancer specialist on the PEMF podcast and he talks about, he calls his, the people that he works with his guests. So he has a, and that's Dr. Henning Salper, which is one of our other PEMF podcast. So it's a nice little thing that you just dropped in there.

Yeah. But I don't, I,

Dave Bolton 57:19 
we're not patients with people, but also when people work with me, they're not clients, they're not members, they're family. And you're always told, certainly you shouldn't become friends with them. But if I don't know everything that's going on in their life, what's going on with their family, what's the external stresses, what have you done, I can't make the best judgments for them. So you do become friends, you do become family. But with that, it's the most rewarding thing you can ever do. But it's also one of the hardest at times. I've said with Tom, but

Andy Smith 57:46 
Yeah. So you are part of this 1% at the moment. What makes you, how did you get there? And can you, you know, is there something you can do, get other people in that, in it, give them a better chance.

Dave Bolton 57:58 
I truly believe that there is not one thing that will reverse someone's cancer. Because mine's incurable. So I have to live every single day knowing that it could be growing now. But I know I'll be here in 20, 30 years time, but I am realistic. I know my next scammers or in my next scan in December, I could be about to square one. But I have that relentless belief in myself and that positivity. And I think that is key. One of the key things is to be positive and have that positive belief. Because a single negative thought can be so destructive, both the conscious but the subconscious, that scientific play with them, that your cells listen to you. It's just about that positivity. And that's one of the big things. But I don't think there is one, one going to ever be one magic cure. I think it's a multitude of approaches. So for me, it's positivity. And I hate saying that to people when they've just been diagnosed. But the quicker you can go through that process of, first of all, cancers one and two. Yeah. And it's like what I went through. You go, you suddenly go, oh, my God, cry, cry, cry. Why me when it's one and two? Then you get to the anger stage. Why not the rapists? Why not the pedophiles? Why not the murders? Why not the scum of the reserve? Why me? I've not done anything bad. And then you've got to get to that acceptance and it is that it's one and two. You know, and then you've got to get hit. The quicker you can get positive and want to fight, the better it is because it's true. If you give up, you will go within your time, within a guarantee. You see it in hospitals. My wife's a nurse and I've seen it myself. She says, like, people come to visit their nan or whatever. They tell them to go, they go and they pass away there. It happened to me. My nan was really ill. And the first time I got to hospital and the second time she lived next to her dad and we were in there and she went, can you just leave? I said, now I'll stay with her. She goes, no, just pop the TV on. I want you to leave and come back in 20 minutes. So I went and came out and just passed away. So there is that relentless belief. If you believe you're going to go, you will go within that time. So positivity is a massive bit of key. And then for me, it's about addressing the system. It's a cancer disease of the immune system, but the mitochondria. For me, it's a warning sign that something within your system and your environment is wrong, so you need to change that. And the way I kind of say it is, you've only got a lot at home. If you were just to tip pesticides and not feed it and knock a lock off the weapons, weeds grow. But if you look after it, you put the right water into it, the right nutrients, the right fuel, it thrives. And that's what you need to do with your body. So one of the main first things, I changed my water straight away. I haven't drank tap water for 10 years. Yeah. So that's the first thing I did. I filtered it, but the amount of chlorine, especially in the Northworth is outrageous. And then it's looking at everything else, then it looks at nutrition. And then, yeah, it's been all over the place.

Andy Smith 01:00:31 
So then you set up the Northwest Wellbeing Hub.

Dave Bolton 01:00:34 
So what happened was the reason why I kind of set up ahead of the game was after about four or five years, and I also worked a lot, I kind of, if anyone gets diagnosed in the celebrity world, the brain tumor, I get tagged in everything. Um, and when, I think the reason for this is when I got told you've got a glioblastoma, it's don't look, don't look, don't look on, don't, especially with yours, don't look on Google, but you did. And it was death, death, and it was just death. And I just, there was just nothing. And I had no light that was, took myself off all the brain tumor support groups because it was just so and so die. It just, I just had to stay positive, as I was saying before. And then I came across a woman in America called Cheryl Proyels. She'd been living for nine years. That was my hope. That was my chink of light. So I contacted her, we went backwards and forwards. And then unfortunately, she passed away in November last year, but I think she'd lived with it for 23 years. Well, that was incredible. I think that's now, I hate saying it, I think I've become that now because I get messages from all over the world. But what I wanted to do a certain as five years was to say to people and show that there is another way. There's another option. But most of all, there's hope that you've got to stand back up and take control of your own situation to accept your diagnosis, but never accept your prognosis. They go off the average. And I'm saying it doesn't, they don't go off exercise, alternative therapies, or sorry, complementary therapies, supplementation, fitness, mindfulness, none of that. It's the average person.

Andy Smith 01:01:55 
Yeah, yeah. So you've got a number of different modalities at the at the north of wellbeing hub, but talk to us about PEMF. So when did you first hear about PEMF and how did that?

Dave Bolton 01:02:05 
Um, yeah, I think the natural, uh, I'm sorry to take it off that. I don't know. I'm running over, but how it came, how the Northwest well-being hub came is that when I had, I had a small gym and it was small and, uh, and that was it. No real room. I had one room. Now I was looking at stuff for myself and stuff that the NHS don't provide. Um, and I tried, uh, hyperbaric oxygen therapy in a center in North Wales with a girl called Sarah Shada with henshaws. Now she spoke to her insurance. They love my story and actually donating one for free. And I was trained, uh, in America by Dr. Zayed, like literally everything. It was amazing. And, uh, we started, I put myself in it and we opened it up. It went massive. I saw there was a need for it. We had, and then we had a infrared sauna, which we got through henshaws in the same room. And then we brought in a photo bio modulation, read like all in the same room. But when one person was using that, it didn't work. So I took a gamble and I moved to this three story facility. It is massive. And I started the Northwest wellbeing hub and it's a place for people to come in. Um, it has been a lot about people recovering from cancer, but I think prevention is better than a cure. So we're now promoting it to the general public for health. Um, and then I start, I like to research new novel ways, uh, new novel treatments. I want to be ahead of everything. I want to get ahead of myself, ahead of the game. Um, for myself, because what's happened with me is now I'm nearly 10 years past it, yay me, I'm actually suffering a very damaging effects of radiotherapy, my brain. So what I have is what called, uh, small isemic changes throughout the whole hemisphere of my brain. That means blood vessels, the diet accelerator. I'm a now I'm massively, massively high risk of the onset of early, uh, Alzheimer's and dementia, but I'm not going to sit around and wait for that to happen. So I've put everything in place. So I'm always researching and then I came across pulse, uh, electric and magnetic field therapy and I'm, I will not talk about anything and I will not have any, unless I have researched it to death and I know, and I've looked at medical back studies, that's what I'm like, I was looking for, um, really good pimp and people were like, well, you can get them on, uh, Amazon like 60 quid or you can get ground amounts, but I know ground amounts just go off of the energy of the earth. They don't have any healing effect whatsoever. Yeah, they ground you. So I was looking at, and I came across the salaries and I saw that it won a awards and I just loved the fact that it had two modalities for it. You did, as I said to you before, I use the mat as my being in the military as a general service, uh, weapons. So it targets the whole body. You know, it, it, it puts that Taurus, uh, magnetic field around you. But then I also say, but the controller, which I love is then your sniper rifle. So if you've got any conditions for me at the moment, it's my, it's my right shoulder and waiting for surgery. I put it on there. I'm out does that. And so I introduced that and it's, it's thriving. It really is. So what I did was I double stacked it with infrared lights. We call it energy and light. Um, and so basically with the red light, which is kind of, that helps you on a cellular level, so it kind of boosts the power pack of the cell, which is the much conjure it releases, um, uh, nitric oxide, uh, uh, mitochondria, which allows you to take up more ATP. But it's amazing for all sorts of wounds, healing, skin, acne. Now you double stack that with the PEMF. You're suddenly getting the recharge of your body. As I say, what I like to say is when people go out without going into the science and stuff, talk about deep field and coin rolls, where your platelets are like stacked to the coin rolls. I kind of like to say, just imagine your phone, it's virtually on empty and it needs charging. You put yourself on an induction charger and charge up. That's exactly what it does with your body. It charges the cells that are stuck together. It puts the electrons back into them, which allows you to do the upregulation of nutrients. It gets rid of that swamp because that's what technically your blood's like. You're in constant information with all these like coin moles. It's a swamp, it fires them out, it puts the electrons back in and you get a better upregulation of minerals, vitamins, super critical antioxidants we can release and the inflammation goes. I just love it. And what I love about it is you can use it over and over again. I just said before we go on, Hypodal State started taking it into the hyperic oxygen chamber and just hitting 20 minutes every time.

Andy Smith 01:06:13 
Yeah. No, exactly. So that's good. And it's good to know that you're using it in conjunction. So you're using it with the red light therapy and I use it.

Dave Bolton 01:06:23 
I've not put it out there to be used, but maybe I might put it as part of another package. Yeah. So you're using it personally? Yeah. I use it all the time. Yeah. I'd say there's no side effects whatsoever. I know the benefits. Part of me wants to take... Part of me wants to get a deep field microscope to be able to do it, but I can't. But why I've done is I have done the nitric test in your mouth. So I've done that probably before going on. Then I've done it afterwards and the amount of... And my lips also taste chemically. And that's the release of that, that much conjugate oxide. So I can prove it and stuff. I always, I love to be able to prove it. I won't talk about anything that I don't know anything about.

Andy Smith 01:07:04 
And actually, no, I've got a dark wood microscope now, so it's yeah, yeah, you can get him actually quite cost effective now. So yeah, and I do the same. I'm, I'm only really doing it myself a lot of the time, showing people what it does to the blood, but it is actually quite amazing.

Dave Bolton 01:07:20 
going to back this product, which is amazing. I know I'm on the pimp podcast, but it's the reason why I got it. I didn't get a cheap one. It's the reason why I paid. And everyone was going, oh, it's too expensive. I said, well, tough. It's my business. And that's what we're going to have. I'm not putting subs par standard stuff. It has to be to the top quality. And the CELLER8 is.

Andy Smith 01:07:40 
So let's talk a little bit more about head game. Yeah, ahead of the game. Sorry. So You got some exciting things coming up. Yeah

Dave Bolton 01:07:47 
So a Heather game, basically, for those who don't know, and why don't you know, is we provide free, fully funded rehabilitation, both physically, mental, and emotionally, to anyone with any cancer. But we also provide vital, free support for their family, friends, and loved ones, because my cancer wasn't just my cancer. My cancer was my family's. And who did my wife have to speak to? And as I was saying before, that the partners assume that there's a loss of earnings, they become researchers, fundraisers, doctors, carers. It's a lot for them to take. So what we do is, not only do we provide everything free for those diagnosed with cancer, we pay for everything for the loved ones in the family, such as grief counseling, family support counseling, but we hold workshops. We have a current run-in at the moment, and online carers, we would deal with that. Unfortunately, we do provide counseling to a thing called Sandham Play, who we bring in brighter days ahead, who we help launch. And we've got three girls at the moment who are working with them, who have sadly lost their parents. But it's something I want to do. And my ethos is anyone with cancer shouldn't have to pay for their own rehabilitation, because the financial burden it places on you is huge. You don't realize that until you're in that world. And then if you want to be proactive like I was, changing your water, going organic, it's a lot of money. Then you've got to get supplementation. And then if you want to then try and do alternative therapy, it goes through the comprehensive therapy, sorry. So then to have to pay for your own rehabilitation, so that's why everything, it's free. So it's a big cost effect. People think we're loaded because we are global. We have a rate list of over 340 now. I deliver sessions in Australia, Texas. The weight list is massive, because we are doing stuff that no one else is doing in the UK, if not the world with what we do, especially the feedback from Australia and America. It's something I'm very proud of. So everyone thinks we've got all this money. Really don't. We are constant fundraisers. The real ones behind it is me and my number two, Debbie Kruger. So I'm the face of it. I'm out there and she's the power horse behind me. We are constantly fundraising. I have to keep looking at the bank balances and we rely heavily on donations. We're not government funded. We rely heavily on donations from the public and events that we're doing. I think we've got quite a good reputation now because we don't waste any money. Every penny goes to those within our communities and nationwide who are suffering and struggling with cancer. When people raise money for us, what we kind of do is we say, where would you like to go? And this girl, I said, I'd make her famous. I don't even know her. A girl called Libby Wood did a skydive for us. Raised 1,400 quid. So what we did is we put that and we paid to have videos made from mindfulness course for those which sit on our private website for when you join the course and you're on the waiting list and the feedback from having that. So she knew it was out there. It was on all the posts that she'd funded this and the feedback for that has been amazing. And when we don't send out books that cost 90 quid, you download everything for free off our website. Everything goes to it. So yeah, it's a full-time job and it's a lot. But I love it. I love giving people the quality of life back. Yeah, yeah. I imagine it's an amazing feeling. Some of the stuff, yeah, I can tell you quite a few. Some of the successes we've had are incredible. Yeah.

Andy Smith 01:11:04 
No, we're both in the health game and it's an amazing situation when someone comes to write to you and says, you know, products that we do is changing lives and what you're doing and just helping people mentally is amazing. If you could just give us maybe a couple of success stories that you've accumulated on your time during this journey.

Dave Bolton 01:11:23 
Wow, where to even begin. Um, there are a lot, I think there's a couple that stand out. Um, the first one was my first real success. There was a girl called Dawn, Dawn Perkin, and she was actually, I won the national lottery award last year. I'll just drop that one in, um, the top, their top award for, um, uh, you know, services, uh, special recognition. And she was one of the reasons why. So, um, there's a video of it and she, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was a really good golfer and a keen golfer. And she went through the NHS and went through their rehabilitation. And was left with virtually limited movement in her arm because of that'll go into the deep so that you get caught in, but she also had a full dissection of lymph nodes with left to scar tissue and the NHS, uh, the physio said she only had to basically up to level her arm. People can't see me. I got my arm up to 90 degrees, nothing above that. Uh, I worked as really keen golfer. I worked with the first, um, 12 months. Uh, I also set up a cancer rehabilitation, um, golf for society, uh, where we got, we basically once a week, we had a PGA pro, uh, golfer teachers for an hour. We got free tea and coffee and now golf was just the driver excusable. And it was a place, a safe place for people to come and open up. Um, and she graduated from our courses. You do round the belt and Christmas, not this year, last year, I got a picture. She'd been told she never played golf again. And she won the Hoy Lake Whittle at women's open. So for me, that's amazing. And what she said and I forgot was how bad her mental health was. She didn't even want to come and see me. I went and saw her when I found out. So it was quite nice. Um, one of my biggest success stories, I think the biggest transformation ever. And it's not just me. I give them the tools and they run with it. They've got to be willing to do their own stuff. He's a guy called, uh, James Connelly. Uh, I'll love him. He came to me and he, I think he was 22, 23 stone. James, if you weren't that big, sorry, but I think you were, he was a chef. He'd been diagnosed with an astrocytoma three, um, and been given a terminal diagnosis, uh, like myself. Um, he came in the first day and just, I know we won't mind. We say he just looked a mess. He had no pride in his appearance and he couldn't even stand off a box properly. Um, so we worked on with, within that, he started doing the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. He's been doing red light. He's been using pimp. Uh, he, we're now two and a half years in, he's about 16 and a half stone. He now runs marathons and half marathons for us. And that's after being told that there's nothing, not a lot for you. Go away and get your affairs in order. So to help him through that, but he's, he's ran with it. Should we say, and that's not a pun. He's truly took on what I've said. And he always says it all started with standing off a box because for me, when people come in and whether you're an Olympic athlete, whether you're, you're Joe blogs or you've got some of the counts, you have to earn the right to live. Wait, you've got to get this foundation right. And he didn't have it. So to see him now, the shape is, and he is potentially going to be volunteering for us now because he's a chef. We're about to open our health food cafe within the facility. So I think he's going to be a chef. And then another one, and this is a girl called Bianca Pereira. I met her two and a half, maybe three years ago, mental health on the floor. This is what I kind of do. I'm kind of the person that people come to and I take on their problems and I get them going again, using my story, saying, listen, I don't have a magic mutation of G and I'm just relentless in my belief. And this is what I do. She had bowel cancer, but she, she'd successfully recovered from bowel cancer and she had a stoma or pooey. But she was told that she'll never be able to have that removed because it metastasized into her liver. So she worked with us. We got it. We got a diet, right? Exercise, nutrition, cause exercise inhibits cancer growth by up to 60%. Whereas chemo and radio, in certain cancers can be two to three. So it makes sense that you should be exercising along treatments. We had her in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. We had her using red light. Unfortunately, she's only just started using pimp for now. But her oncologist says, what are you doing? And she says, why? She goes, your liver is clear and not faster than everything. And that's what it does. It does the hyperbaric oxygen chamber by its nature. I won't go into it cause I'll be here all day. And it helps, uh, regenerate the liver. I know it does anyway. They say, keep doing it. So she did. And then she got a call and, um, she had it reversed, which was amazing for her cause she thought she never would do. And then the next thing they were like, they said, what are you doing? Your scars healed unreal. And then it's also that wound healing with pimp with, with hyperbaric oxygen. She had the will to heal and it's incredible. And then she gets a call from Lee's at Jimmy's and she goes, I've got to go and see this consultant. I'm really terrified. I said, consultant isn't going to look at your scans and bring you up there and give you bad news. You're, you're, you're already there. So I called up there and he went. Isn't, for your type of cancer in your liver, that you can't have a liver transplant, but there are stuff going on in this world that you don't know about, so potentially will. And then she was put on the list for a transplant, but she had to get herself fit enough. She had to lose weight, she had to get her mind, and we used everything at our disposal. And she got the call and she was the first person in the UK to have that type of liver transplant. And she's that relentless that she's now started back training with again and using all the therapies as well. They're just three ones out of a million. I could go into depth in each of them, especially James, but yeah, they're just three things that what we're doing is what I love to do is see people who've been written off like myself, who are against all odds, overcome it and succeed and thrive from their situation. Because when you are with us, you don't survive with cancer, you thrive from it.

Andy Smith 01:16:47 
And you're on the Kilimanjaro. Yeah.

Dave Bolton 01:16:51 
Yeah. So, yeah. So on the 30th of September, I'm leading the team of eight. I'm a flying out to Kilimanjaro, where I've named it somewhat against all odds, because 20 years ago I was told I wouldn't walk again. It's the 20th anniversary. We just passed it, to be honest. Oh no, we're coming up to it. Wow. Thought we were. Yeah, we're just coming up to it. So I shouldn't even be attempted, but then it's 10 years since I shouldn't be here. So one, I shouldn't be stood up the force of it and two, I shouldn't even be able to walk it. So it is going to be a challenge, but it's something I can't wait. And yeah, again, this is raising money for life-changing equipment that's going to really help change the quality of lives for those who are going through cancer at the moment. So yeah, if you want to donate, please do. We'll leave the links. Yeah, we'll give you the links as well, because we are looking, I'm sponsored by North Face personally, which is great, but we are looking for other corporate sponsors as well, to kind of pay for the trip at the moment. We're going to take a bit of a loss, unfortunately, but it is what it is. Cause we're going to, what I also want to do is raise the awareness of brain tumors at a new height. And that new height is the fourth highest of some multiple mountain in the world. One of the seven sisters is kind of my job at 5,895 meters to raise awareness of that. But I also wanted to use it to show other people what can truly be achieved. It's not just a personal hike. It's a hike to show people that whether you're written off, whether you're told you can't do something. If you, if you believe in yourself and you have that relentless belief and you're dedicated and you're willing to sacrifice everything, you can achieve everything. And this is the culmination of what I've been through to get to there. So it's for ahead of the game. It's to raise awareness, but it's also for everyone else who's out there, who's been written off, who's been told they can't do something, question it, challenge it, be relentless in what you do, and you'll achieve it.

Andy Smith 01:18:33 
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming. My pleasure. I know your trip down was a bit of a nightmare from Liverpool down to London. So thank you so much.

Dave Bolton 01:18:41 
Pleasure being here, a pleasure meeting you as well.

Andy Smith 01:18:43 
So, thanks again for listening to another episode of the PEMF podcast. If you can like, follow whatever you're listening on and we'll leave some links below this episode so that hopefully donate, but also any questions you want to leave, just leave them and even myself or Dave will get back to you. So thanks again.

Dave Bolton 01:19:01 
No, thank you and thanks for watching.