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Three Mallards and How The Duck I Beat Cancer: Cancer. A memoir. Belief. Love. Science. With an ending only he thought possible.
Paperback
Biographies GeneralHealth General
ISBN13: 9781036978846
Publisher: Insane Alchemist Publishing
Published: Sep 9 2026
Pages: 404
Weight: 1.03
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Shortly after completing this work, 16 months after the story seemed to be over, the cancer returned. In a slightly different place.
I didn't feel I could publish the book. I questioned its value to the reader.
The phone call from the hospital devastated me... for about half an hour. I took some deep breaths and then repeated everything I felt I had learned through writing this book.
The NHS offered only an operation. I declined.
Nine months later, my cancer is invisible.
I am proud to say that I now feel this book has even greater value.
BACK TO THE BOOK: At 49 he had a 50mm tumour and an 85% chance of life-changing surgery. He refused to become a quiet patient. In August 2023, Tim Messom was told he had advanced rectal cancer. The official path pointed toward chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and a high likelihood of losing bowel, bladder and more - bags for life. What followed was not a miracle protocol and not a rejection of the NHS. It was a determined, often messy fight: scans and second opinions, gym sessions through chemo, fasting and a metabolic approach, off-label thinking, meditation and love.
All born from a stubborn belief that first took hold years earlier on a riverbank, in what others would might consider a miracle involving three mallard ducks.
Three Mallards is the book he wished someone had handed him at diagnosis. Not a sermon. Not a protocol to copy. A raw, funny, unflinching account of what advanced cancer actually feels like - the fear, the toilets, the waiting rooms, the arguments, the hope - and what it takes to stay a person inside the system.Inside you will find:
- The patient experience clinicians rarely hear in this much detail
- How he used conventional treatment and integrative tools without slipping into magical thinking
- The questions he should have asked sooner
- The mindset, movement and love that kept him in the fight
- A closing section on belief, placebo, nature, training and finding your own mallardsWritten for people newly diagnosed, the people who love them, and anyone who wants the middle ground between do exactly as you're told and throw medicine away. Results are individual. This is one man's story - honest enough to be useful. If you are still in the headlights, start here.
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