THE ORIGIN OF OUR STORY
STARTS WITH A VIRUS THAT HAS SPREAD
TERROR FOR ALMOST HALF A CENTURY ...
THE
HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS ( HIV )
0.016%
In February 2021, I contracted HIV through the most unlikely way. Sorrow and darkness enveloped my waking hours. For days, I cried without any comfort from the thought that this horrible illness would accompany me until my last day. The physician who diagnosed me, in an attempt to cheer me up, said, "It was 0.016% chance, like getting hit by a train ... but at least you didn't get hit by a train, and you are going to be fine".
I knew very well that living with HIV, even on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), was going to be different; I didn't know how much. I read of scenarios where the average life span is likely to be years, if not decades shorter, with many developing comorbidities from weight gain to cancers, by-products of the daily intake and constant circulation of HAART metabolites.
I was one of the unlucky ones. For me, HAART quickly shifted from a life-saving medication to a daily torture. The side effects from HAART were unbearable. Severe insomnia, rashes, dizziness, nausea, severe constipation, and constant brain fog made life a daily struggle. "It's like death wrapped up in a pill, .. my body can't handle it" I pleaded with my treating physician. Multiple drug combinations were tried, and different physicians all with the same message, "this is your life now, better get used to it".
When I would complain about how the severe side effects were wrecking his life, at worst, they were completely ignored, at best, they came with suggestions for new medications to add, "If you can't concentrate well, I can prescribe you Ritalin". I quickly realized that none of the physicians could do much for me. I had to be my own saviour; there was no one coming to help me.
Hope
Long before HIV hit me, I knew the power of nature in healing. I understood and experienced many times that with the right knowledge and application of different natural compounds, nutrients, lifestyle changes, and the correct delivery methods, one could treat many ailments, from influenza to hair loss. Without intention, a methodology was born, the Medicina Sooke Method.
One by one, I tackled my HAART's side effects. Through research, trial and error. Within a few months, life finally started resembling a normal life. This was no perfect solution, and despite the improvements, HAART was a heavyweight that for me, proved very difficult to manage; one slip, one supplement not taken at the right time, would trigger a comeback of side effects.
"Tackling the side effects felt like trying to hold water in your hands, if I pressed on one side to avoid the water from escaping, it would find a new way to get out ... when I would solve one side effect, a new one would creep its head up".
Inspired by the results of my methodology and the inspiring stories of the 'Berlin' and 'London' patients, I decided to take it further. These Berlin and London patients had proven something monumental, something that was always omitted in the conversation: HIV could be cured.
My dining table during 2021 as I attempted to find the right combinations to relieve the crippling side effects of HAART.
A Life's mission
One morning, after a tough sleepless night triggered by HAART, I decided no more; this was not going to be my new forever. And with that in mind, I embarked on a mission: I will get cured, whether it is the last thing I do.
Armed with an unfinished background in medicine and life sciences, I began dedicating every spare moment of mental clarity to research. For months, my days mostly consisted of investigation and research. I read dozens of publications, clinical trials, cross-referenced data, turned every stone I stumbled upon from in-vitro and ex-vivo results of latent reservoir awakening to the mechanics of the virion fusion to CD4-exhibiting cells and the role of co-receptors and glycoproteins in this process. This was before AI. The year was 2021.
"It's like a Cancer"
One of my conclusions was that HIV, in practical terms, acted more like a Cancer than a Virus, and therefore needed to be treated like one. Here was a virus that could avoid immune detection and completely outmaneuver the immune system with total impunity. This wasn't any virus; this was HIV, and there was a very good reason why it escaped cure for over 4 decades of global research, mostly because it was tackled from the wrong approach. This needed a new and fresh perspective. These perspectives often come from the least expected people, often because they don't adhere to conventional wisdom or formation. This required thinking 'outside the box' and for better or worse, unconventional was my specialty.
By late 2021, I had a thesis of what needed to be done and how it needed to be done. There were a few 'issues' though, I wasn't a physician or a researcher, I didn't have a lab, nor a team, nor an institution to come to. I approached two oncologists, but both refused to participate. With one concluding our meeting, saying, "Even though I believe you, Gabriel, and I see the logic behind this, I could have my license revoked." This was the exception. In the eyes of most of my treating physicians, I was just another patient. There was no brainstorming, no discussion. I was the patient, they, the Doctors, end of story.
Ping!
I had been an SEO and Algorithm Specialist for a decade and understood algorithms very well, as well as how to use the web. I then created an 'alert' that would notify me the moment anything with the words 'Cancer' and 'HIV' would show up.
On a bright, cold afternoon in March, sitting at an office in Gatineau, Quebec, I saw the notification - a clinical trial in the USA had opened its intake for a Cancer Treatment that was going to be adapted for HIV. I can't remember ever being so happy. A jolt of joy and excitement hit me like a lightning. The treatment fit most of my conclusions, and I signed up right away. I was among the first ( or the first ) to sign up.
However, soon after reading all the literature sent to me by the Clinical Trial Team, I realized the treatment could fail to work on its own, a sentiment echoed right from the beginning by the team and repeated throughout our exchanges and during intake. In fact, a 12-month post-treatment follow-up questionnaire didn't even have the option of success ( see image ).
I adapted my methodology and thesis to this treatment for months, and then again kept tweaking it through the waiting period. I felt that without this, in my specific case, a highly virulent subtype/strain of HIV was going to overcome the treatment and result in a failure, and I couldn't afford that. At that point, I had already contemplated stopping HAART and letting it all end.
12 month follow up questionaire did not even have an option of complete success ( cure ) from the treatment.
The Ultimate Risk
I was alone, and given the stakes, if it went wrong, I could have paid the ultimate price. I had no one to turn to, let alone believe me. But I knew what I had to do, I had one chance, and I wasn't going to back away. Going back to a living nightmare was not a choice. It was pain that I could not stand to relive again.
On June 15, 2024, after two years of waiting, my turn came. The participants before me had all relapsed and were back on HAART and the team's hopes were dim. The chief oncologist in charge of the protocol, with a tired face, told me, in the face of my excitement, "to keep reality in check". But, he didn't know what I was doing behind the scenes. I had already started covertly applying changes, modifying portions of the protocol and adding this adjuvant treatment I developed, knowing the risks, knowing that all of this was just a series of theories, but I felt there was no turning back, this was the only way forward.
To the surprise of the physicians, I didn't relapse. A month passed, then 3 months, then 6, and then a year, a year and 6 months ...
TO CONTINUE SOON
My hotel room at the Health Campus, while on treatment, became a little lab with the entire adjuvant therapy mapped out in paper, pill dispensers, graphics, and printed blood test results measuring key markers.
