Glenn Sturm shares his experience of being diagnosed with aggressive T-cell lymphoma in 2009, initially dismissing the news as a prank. He describes his approach to handling the diagnosis by conducting research and assembling a team of medical professionals, eventually connecting with Dr. Foss at Yale, a leading expert in his type of cancer. Glenn emphasizes his background in building teams and his natural inclination to collaborate, which he applied to his cancer treatment strategy.
Glenn shares his personal journey with cancer, highlighting how defining himself through helping others has improved his well-being. He discusses his ongoing chemotherapy and his work on multiple books, including a novel and a book about a multifaceted approach to cancer treatment. Glenn also mentions his commitment to donating proceeds from his astrophotography and photography to Children’s Health, emphasizing the importance of teamwork and communication in his cancer treatment.
Key takeaways
- Glenn Sturm has been living with T-cell lymphoma for 18 years, receiving continuous chemotherapy treatment
- Multidisciplinary cancer care approaches can reduce mortality rates by 18-90% compared to siloed approaches
- Glenn advocates for building a comprehensive healthcare team that includes specialists beyond oncologists
- Glenn’s upcoming book “More Than Hope” focuses on integrated cancer care approaches
- Glenn emphasizes the importance of celebrating life and helping others despite health challenges
- NIH studies show that multidisciplinary approaches to cancer treatment significantly improve survival rates
To find out more about Glenn’s work visit www.glennsturm.com
Transcript
Jerry Snyder (00:03)
Welcome to the Confidence Through Health Podcast. My name is Jerry Snyder. As a health, wellness, and sports performance coach, my goal each week is to bring you experts to help you take control of your health and build your self-confidence. Thanks for including me today on your journey to better health. I want to say thank you to Social Media Cowboys for sponsoring this week’s episode of the Confidence Through Health Podcast. If you need help with a website, if you need social media needs for your business, if you need help with AdWords, SEO, all those things that you know you should be doing but you are too busy to do or you’re too confused about, they are the experts you need in your corner. If you’re interested in launching a podcast such as mine, they help me edit my podcast and do a fantastic job making sure that all of the technical side of it is handled. and we launch a nice, neat, edited podcast episode each week. So I wanna thank Social Media Cowboys for their continued sponsorship of the Confidence Through Health podcast. You can find them at socialmediacowboys.com, or you can find them as well with other sponsors at confidencethroughhealth.com. Glenn, I wanna thank you for being a guest on the Confidence Through Health podcast.
Glenn Sturm (01:19)
Well, thanks for having me. Looking forward to our discussion today. Yep.
Jerry Snyder (01:23)
And, and, you know, one of the things that, that when I was looking over, you know, who you are and, and digging into, to what, what would make you a good guest for the show and all of those things, um, the fact that you not just overcame cancer, um, but have been able to live, you know, several years since then, decades since that happened, that first diagnosis, and, and have changed your outlook on how you’re helping people through all that process. So walk us back to like, how, how did that first diagnosis hit? Like, what did it, what did it feel like? How did you have, how did you handle that at first?
Glenn Sturm (02:08)
Well, it was pretty interesting. I was, they’d been doing biopsies on me for about 8 or 10 years and never really talked why they were doing it. And so they did some for Christmas one year, and it was January 21st, 2009, and I’m on my way to University of North Carolina to give a presentation, and the phone rings. And back then you would occasionally answer a phone if you didn’t recognize the number, right? And so I answered it, and my doc who I had, who was a triathlete, better than I was, but I was still a triathlete and had run a bunch of marathons. Says, Glenn, we got the results for your biopsy back. And I’m sitting here, so what biopsy? It was like 6 weeks ago or something like that. And she said, well, it came positive back for lymphoma. I said, what? And then I said, okay, I worked out with a lot of docs, I ran marathons with them. Yeah. I said, okay, who put you up to this? This is not a good joke. And I thought it was just a joke. I thought it was a Yeah, come on, personal friends of mine is just harassing me.
Jerry Snyder (03:10)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (03:10)
And she said, Glenn, I need you back here tomorrow. This is not a joke. You’ve got lymphoma, T-cell, and it’s an aggressive, incurable form. And I just said, oh my gosh, you know, huh? And so the rest of that day was like kind of a fog. Yeah. And I think I gave a pretty good presentation, I think, but I really don’t know. And but my nature is to do a lot of research and to build teams. I was a— I was made partner very early in my legal career and was the corporate chairman very early. But when I was doing deals, I always had a group. I didn’t do anything solo. I had a tax lawyer and a, you know, intellectual property lawyer, all these people. And so we always did things in groups. And so I was almost immediately inclined to put a group together. Well, it took 3 weeks before I get an appointment with somebody, and, and I finally used a friend to get me to the right doctor, Dr. Foss at Yale, and, uh, who’s known for my cancer, is probably one of the leading doctors in the world. And, uh, during that window period, I got to do a lot of research, and I came across somebody, and, and when I read his first article, the article I read about him, it just didn’t make sense to me initially, but then it made all the sense in the world.
Glenn Sturm (04:35)
This is a gentleman who had died from my cancer and he had 6 months to live and he said he was lucky. And, you know, when you’re dealing with this to start with, you don’t realize that. Yeah, but he was because he said that what it did was he was unlike his friends who had died in Vietnam. Died in a car wreck or died in a heart attack, he had 6 months to make peace with everything.
Jerry Snyder (05:03)
Oh, right.
Glenn Sturm (05:04)
To get to his life to a level of contentment. Yeah. And so, okay, so I made a decision that I was not going to let cancer define me. I didn’t know how long I was going to have. Um, I wasn’t going to ask how long I was going to have, but I was going to live every day, uh, to celebrate life. Right, and do as much as I could. So the first year I had— I was on oral chemo. The day I met Dr. Foss, she put me on oral chemo, and I was on that for about 11 months. And I was told that I’d have to go on IV chemo, and my IV started out as 3 days in a row every 3 weeks. Oh wow. Um, and, and I had to travel initially from Atlanta there, and then after a while I was traveling from Jackson, Wyoming there. And that was a, that was, I call it a tax. So when you live in Texas or Florida or Wyoming, there’s no state income tax. And so I said, well, you know, I’m giving up about 7 or 8% of my year for this.
Glenn Sturm (06:09)
So I’m just kind of, it’s a tax, I can’t do about it and I’ll do what I can about it, but I’m not gonna let it define my life. And so then I started figuring out things that would help me along that path. And one of them was a great phrase: we must all give up hope for a better yesterday. You can’t change it, you can change the future.
Jerry Snyder (06:32)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (06:33)
Then a great line from my daughter: Daddy, the land violence is gone. So, you know, just quit, you know, just move on. Right. And then another one that went back to high school, and it’s only you can stop you. And that has two meanings. There’s a positive and a meaning that you don’t let people impair your ability to do things. The other meaning is sometimes you have to stop yourself from doing something, right? So I started doing these things, and I started writing down a lot of these things, and I started writing a CaringBridge blog. And then You know, I had always, you know, loved photography. My mom gave me a camera when I was 5, and she did that because I had 2 sisters and a German Shepherd, and we were gonna be in a Volkswagen Bug in Germany for a month with my dad— mom, dad, 2 sisters, a little boy, and a German Shepherd in the back seat. My mom had to give me something to keep me from destroying my sisters.
Jerry Snyder (07:36)
Sure.
Glenn Sturm (07:38)
And so I’ve been taking pictures of my life, and all of a sudden it came up that there was going to be a full solar eclipse going right over my house in Jackson, Wyoming. And that opened the door of something that I hadn’t done in a long time and I could do in the future.
Jerry Snyder (07:55)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (07:55)
And that door opened about the same time my law firm said I couldn’t continue to practice when I was on IV chemo because everybody was worried about something called CRCI or or chemo brain. And since I was doing multi-billion dollar deals, the insurance companies didn’t like the concept of me doing those big deals. So my professional career ended, but another door opened. And my first book is called Cancer Set Me Free, and it did. Being in a high-pressure legal environment is not the healthiest environment for you. And getting rid of it made life a whole lot better. Yeah. It let me celebrate things and let me do things. And so then I started doing the other, the positive stuff. So I created an objective of putting a smile on somebody’s face every day. And then I made it more difficult. I said, when you’re talking to somebody in a call center who’s had a bad day, make them smile. Okay. Just challenge yourself to make it a bet, make everybody’s day a better day. And then, then what can you do to make the world a better place?
Jerry Snyder (09:08)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (09:10)
And my, my daughter, I didn’t find out about this until about the 15th year mark. My daughter was told I probably had 2 to 2.5 years to live when I was diagnosed. Oh, wow. And, and I’m starting my 18th year of continuous chemo right now.
Jerry Snyder (09:26)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (09:26)
And, and so I’ve got 4 books published. I’ve got 2 more coming out in the next few months. Um, one of those is a novel. My— it’s a 6-book series. Oh, nice. And first book’s finished. It’s in with the editors now, getting ready to be released.
Jerry Snyder (09:41)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (09:42)
Um, then there’s another cancer book about, uh, multifaceted approach to cancer treatment versus siloed approach.
Jerry Snyder (09:53)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (09:54)
And most people aren’t talking about that. And so I decided I had to write another book on that. Right. And it’s close. It’s coming out. And, you know, what happens is, is the more you define yourself by helping others, the more your problems go away. Yeah. Does that make sense?
Jerry Snyder (10:17)
That totally makes sense.
Glenn Sturm (10:18)
Yeah. And so one of the people who I did a podcast for a few weeks ago, um, it was— has a brain cancer institute foundation she started. And so 100% of the revenue from my astrophotography and most of my photography goes to children’s health. And so she qualified as a child when she got it, but she was 19. Yeah, that kind of qualifies as a child, doesn’t it? Yeah, that’s kind of supposed to be a joke, but so I’m going to go up there. I’m going to my 40 by 60, one of one picture that they picked that they’re going to auction off and create some more money for other people. Cool. I don’t put any money from my photography I sell in my pocket. I pay for all expenses.
Jerry Snyder (11:08)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (11:09)
And so it’s just, it’s a way of giving back. And yeah. That changes everything. Now that I’m doing all the research on multifactorial integrated cancer care, I’ve learned so much. What I really learned was one of the reasons I may be alive today is I put a team together to start with, and that team worked together. That team knew the critical nature of communications. Across team members. And, um, you know, it just worked. And so how long do I have? I don’t know. I don’t— you know, um, we’ve all had rough periods. I’ve had a whole bunch of surgeries. I’ve had a bunch of, uh, side effects from chemo that aren’t always pleasant. But, um, but it’s been a good time. The, the best story about that is I was going for a 7-hour surgery Um, and we didn’t know if I was gonna make it or not. And so one of the things I’ve noticed is anesthesiologists are always late for everything.
Jerry Snyder (12:18)
Okay.
Glenn Sturm (12:19)
So they, uh, show up to get me to sign the consent form. Well, I’m already on a sedative, so the consent’s not valid. But anyway, so the doc was a really nice guy, and so we’re going into the OR and they’re all— it’s fully staffed, all people are there, and he says, oh, Glen, I forgot to ask, do you want to listen to music while we’re getting you set up and before we put you under? I said, absolutely. He said, what do you want to listen to? I said, Jimi Hendrix. Well, this guy was too young to have ever heard Hendrix, probably.
Jerry Snyder (12:48)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (12:48)
He said, well, what song? I said, Are You Experienced? Well, every nurse in the room and all the techs just burst out laughing because they saw the humor in it. Yeah. He didn’t, he didn’t catch it because he was so focused on getting the song. And he ran, I ran into him a few weeks later and he said, Glenn, how could you have done that not knowing you were gonna come out? And I said, you never know you’re gonna come out when you go under.
Jerry Snyder (13:13)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (13:14)
Uh, you hope you will, but you don’t know. Sure. And I said, if the last thing I do in my life is make a bunch of peop— bunch of people laugh and smile, I’m happy with that. Yeah. So, well, and that’s kind, that’s kind of how cancer has set me. Free.
Jerry Snyder (13:30)
And that’s, that’s valid for every part of life, right? It’s like it, it, it helps us.
Glenn Sturm (13:36)
Absolutely.
Jerry Snyder (13:37)
You know, helping other people, um, making people smile, making people laugh, like that, that, that brings so much joy to them, but it also brings joy to you because you realize you impacted their day in a positive way.
Glenn Sturm (13:52)
That’s right. Yeah, it, it, it puts a smile on their face and it puts a smile on yours.
Jerry Snyder (13:57)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (13:58)
And, um, and it’s— I mean, if you think about it, I mean, if every one of us tried to put a smile on somebody’s face every day, can you imagine how much nicer the world would be? Right. If you actually thought about it and tried to do it. And, uh, you know, it would— it’s just a wonderful thing to try to do. And, um, you know, and this little young lady who’s got her foundation Um, you know, I’m gonna go up there and we hope to get, you know, well north of $50,000 for the picture she’s got. And, you know, I, I made a promise that I wasn’t gonna put any money, money for my photography in my own pocket, right, when I started doing it professionally. And so every day I’m out shooting pictures, no matter how rough the day could be or how easy it is. I smile because I know I’m gonna be helping people.
Jerry Snyder (14:52)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (14:54)
And it is, it’s just a different way of approaching it.
Jerry Snyder (14:57)
And like your concept, which, which I, I fully agree with the concept of putting a team together, right? Like anytime you’re faced with a challenge, but also with even when you’re not faced with a challenge, if you just, if you just have goals, it’s a heck of a lot easier to get there if you’ve got a team around you. To help you move yourself forward.
Glenn Sturm (15:18)
Correct.
Jerry Snyder (15:19)
Um, and but a piece of that is then you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta be willing to be a part of somebody else’s team, right?
Glenn Sturm (15:28)
Absolutely. Yeah, you can’t be the, you can’t be the only leader. You got to be, be willing to be a good leader. You have to be a good follower too.
Jerry Snyder (15:35)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (15:35)
Um, but on this integrated approach and the multidiscipline approach, um Let me give you a statistic that’s pretty amazing. And it can, this is comparing it to silo-based approaches. Okay. Um, there’s 56,187 patients studied in 179 comparative, comparative studies.
Jerry Snyder (15:57)
Okay.
Glenn Sturm (15:58)
And in all those studies, there’s not a single incidence where a silo-based practice improved the longevity of people where there’s 100%. Correlation where multidisciplinary improved. So to give that a personal response, with my cancer, multidisciplinary has reduced the mortality rate in my cancer by 70%. Wow. Okay. Just think the numbers are staggering.
Jerry Snyder (16:32)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (16:33)
And I mean, how many people have heard about this? And so, right, that’s the reason it’s— I mean, I’m writing this book and, and, you know, and putting the whole thing together and, you know, talking to lots of people, you know, other professional, professional medical professionals, not, you know, like the kind of professional I was.
Jerry Snyder (16:51)
Sure.
Glenn Sturm (16:52)
To try to poke holes in it. But I mean, the NIH is— it’s, it’s very clear about it. The other thing is I live in a small town, and so there’s one oncologist here.
Jerry Snyder (17:03)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (17:03)
So how do you have a multidisciplinary team here? Yeah, well, one of the things that I’ve learned is that I believe is the reason I’m so lucky is that, uh, the number 2 most important— second most important, I think, a person is a psychiatrist. People are saying, huh, what? That doesn’t make any sense. Well, so Almost everybody who has cancer is on IV chemo, gets cancer fatigue syndrome. Yeah. So for years, all the medical centers said what you do to, to address cancer fatigue syndrome is exercise a little bit more and get more rest. Okay. NIH has published study after study that says that doesn’t work.
Jerry Snyder (17:48)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (17:49)
So, you know, I saw when I, I was my, my general practitioner in Atlanta, Sent me to a psychiatrist right afterwards because my dog died, I got served with divorce papers, and my mentor died within 2 months after getting diagnosed. Oh wow. And he just thought I needed some help. Okay. So that was a few things to carry. And so I went there and this is a great psychiatrist. And so I was saying at one point when I went on IV chemo, I had a harder and harder time staying awake during the day. And sometimes I just fall asleep. She said, Glenn, that’s narcolepsy. And so I researched it and said, yep, it is narcolepsy. Yeah. So they put me on a medicine to take care of that. Well, guess what? It eliminated the fatigue syndrome. They eliminated that 17 years ago. Oh, wow. And then, and then, um, I was having some, you know, concentration issues. Um, and they tested me on all this stuff. They said it’s ADD, so put me on ADD meds. Well, then the CRCI went away and my focus was back. Well, she’s the second member of my team.
Glenn Sturm (19:03)
Yeah. And she talks with my oncologist all the time. And then I’ve got— I’m so blessed about my insurance company. They approved 4 or 5 days a week in physical therapy. By a sports physiologist.
Jerry Snyder (19:20)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (19:21)
And I did that for 10 years. Yeah. Well, that’s team number 3. Um, and then acupuncturist, team number 4. And then the person that I should have gotten, and it might have prevented a problem that happened later in life, was a, uh, a navigator or a guide. And I acted as that for myself. Um, for 17+ years. Yeah. But it was a team. Yeah. And very few people had that kind of a group. Right. Much less, I mean, my, my physical therapist, my cancer presents itself on the skin a lot of times. And so she would take a picture of my back every week and send it to my oncologist. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. And she thought I was getting tired. She would send it to the oncologist and the psychiatrist. I mean, You know, it was just a team.
Jerry Snyder (20:12)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (20:12)
And, and, you know, so I was well way ahead of anybody focusing on this. Now, there is a doctor who started focusing on this issue 40 years ago, um, and I’ve had the pleasure of talking to him. And, you know, he said, Glenn, you know, how did you learn about all this stuff? And I said, well, you know, the internet’s an amazing thing if you, yeah, learn how to ask questions.
Jerry Snyder (20:36)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (20:37)
You can find out stuff, and before long you’ll know as much as the doctors have. Now, the troubling aspect of it though is this: some doctors have the feeling that they’re losing power when you have a team, right? And that they’re, they’re responsible for everything. Well, no, it’s a whole person approach. You’ve got to address the whole person. So yeah, I was on the phone with a major medical center about one of my issues. And I had to have spine surgery. And on the follow-up phone call, they started saying some things. I said, when did you guys start looking at multidisciplinary practices? And the surgeon said, Glenn, we’re— who told you about that? I said, you just did. This is what you were saying. Yeah. And he said, well, we’re having a promise. Who should be in the team? And I just smiled to myself and I said, well, look in your inbox and there are 30 members of the team that I’ve created. And now, is mine the best? I don’t know, but it’s a start and I want people to poke holes in it. Right. But it ranges from the oncologist. The last person on there is a music therapist.
Glenn Sturm (21:55)
All these different professions. One thing people really don’t understand is their, their couple is a neurologist. Well, I had a, I had a, I had liver failure diagnosed at one point in my process, and I couldn’t— they couldn’t figure out what it was at Yale, and they brought Oxford in, and they put me on a liver transplant list because my AST and ALT levels were doubling every 3 weeks. So I didn’t have much time. So I finally said, okay, I got to figure this out because they can’t. And I know all the variables in my life where I can identify more of them than they will. Right. And so I did, you know, identified every variable and then I started trying to look for the variables that caused it. And so I ran correlation coefficients and I came up with one of the correlation coefficients on a medicine that they had added. It took a leave away from me and they gave me this other medicine. For pain issues, and the correlation coefficient was 0.96. That means 96%. Yep. So I go to Yale and say, look, I found it. And immediately the doctors who are smarter than I am or more educated, um, said, Glenn, correlation does not equal causation.
Glenn Sturm (23:10)
And I said, okay, I have not heard that concept before, but guess what? I’m not going to take that medicine again. right? Is it a 0.96? I, I just can’t fathom it’s not that. Well, 3 weeks later where it had been doubling every 3 weeks had not changed. Oh, 3 weeks after that it had gone down. 3 more weeks it was back to normal. Yeah. So the reason the neurologist is there is most docs understand math, but all the neurologists I’ve met can do correlation coefficients quickly. You can identify drug interaction problems that have not been in the literature. So that’s what that person’s role is. Yeah. So the dentist, you wouldn’t think of it, but there’s a gland issue with chemo. Oncologist. Well, I’ve had 5 detached retinas in my left eye and a torn retina in my right. And these were like every 90 days for a while. And that was because of, again, correlation coefficient addressed a new change in chemo. And so I was my kind of— I’m not a neurologist. My gosh, they’re so much smarter than I am. But I could do the correlation coefficients and identify issues. So you can be part of your team.
Glenn Sturm (24:28)
Your caregiver can be part of your team, but you need a team. And the NIH is all over this issue. Yeah, about pushing it. Okay, so one more thing. I’m talking too much, I think, but no, it’s a friend of mine’s— in front of mine’s daughter was diagnosed 25 with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. He said, Glenn, help me find the right hospital, the right doctor, right? And so what I thought would be an easy project turned into like a 5-day, 12-hour-a-day project. And again, this is my opinion. I’m not a doctor, but I feel pretty strongly about this one, that University of San Francisco Medical Center has a fully integrated, multidiscipline, comprehensive treatment program for their patients, and their results show it. And when you read their— everybody talks about it now, or a lot of people talk about it, but they really don’t do it. But when I read their stuff, they were doing it. And you looked at their results and the results started to mirror the best case situations that the NIH was reporting. Now, breast cancer doesn’t have the best reduction in mortality. It’s only about 14%, 15%. But that’s where there was 14% or 15% better than average.
Glenn Sturm (25:50)
Right. Well, this is a great question somebody asked. He said, Glenn, what do you— because I taught corporate finance at the graduate level. He said, Glenn, what do you think a company would be worth if their pill that they created could reduce mortality rates by 14 or 15% across the board?
Jerry Snyder (26:10)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (26:11)
I said several hundred billions of dollars.
Jerry Snyder (26:13)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (26:14)
Okay. Well, this, I mean, this does it just by getting the right group of people to work with you, right? And having your principal oncologist endorse it and Follow NIH’s recommended guidelines. Um, you know, it’s, uh, you know, if you can tell, I’m a little bit passionate about this.
Jerry Snyder (26:32)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (26:33)
Um, I am. And, and all of my— I’ve got like 30 memos that are backing up what I’m writing because, um, I almost died in 2025 because some doctors who— I had a spine tumor that was not communicated. To my principal doctors off an MRI, and the pain got really bad, and then they wrote a prescription for something that caused a multifactorial drug interaction problem that put me— I was comatose, and then I went into ketoacidosis. And if my daughter hadn’t focused on getting me, I wouldn’t be here today. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I’ve got personal experience about it, so I’m using my examples of, right, of where I thought I was smart. I wasn’t because, you know, I just trusted other people too much. And, um, in small towns, the medical centers, no matter how good the individual doctor is, you know, how do they put a team together with all these capabilities, right? It’s hard. But you’ve got to do it. Yeah.
Jerry Snyder (27:45)
Well, and one of the things you mentioned in there a couple of times is that you, you knew because you knew who you were, right? You knew it was a certain thing because like, this is— I’m the one experiencing this stuff. Like, I’m getting everybody’s opinion, but in the end, like, if I don’t feel comfortable or I don’t feel like it’s working, you know, I’m the one that’s having those feelings and and can make the decision on, okay, I’m not going to take that medicine anymore because I think this is driving it, even though you may say it’s not. You know, it, you know, it, it, it can be a bit of a—
Glenn Sturm (28:20)
you’re spot on, Seth.
Jerry Snyder (28:22)
Yeah, go ahead.
Glenn Sturm (28:25)
Well, you’re spot on. Um, if your hospital doesn’t have a team, and I would say probably less than 5% of the hospitals today have the real teams, the, the really good ones, It’s your responsibility to build your own team, right? Okay. I mean, you know, it’s a, it’s a cruel world in a lot of ways. Yeah. Um, and to those of us who were blessed with, you know, a curious mind, um, we might be better off than others, but you’ve got people in your family and friends who are going to be curious. If you need help, ask for it. but build your own team. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the 2025 Williams and Thompson study of the 179 studies involving the 56,187 patients is 100% says it changes. Yeah. And I mean, some of the people are at 90% reduction in mortality rates, right? I mean, I mean, think about that. I mean, it, I, I, I just don’t understand. What I really don’t understand is why there isn’t publicity on this. Okay, enough publicity. Because people, when they get— when, when you get the call, you’re lost. Yeah. And you’re looking for anything to grab a hold of, right?
Glenn Sturm (29:46)
So the reason for the book, which is called More Than Hope: The Compelling Promise of Multi- Factorial Diversified Integrated Cancer Care. That’s enough long words. Yeah. But it’s got a— this is the draft cover of it.
Jerry Snyder (30:05)
Oh, cool.
Glenn Sturm (30:06)
If you can see it. Yeah. It’s one of my pictures. But I’m going to be preaching it for as long as people will listen to me.
Jerry Snyder (30:17)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (30:17)
Because this has saved my life. And when I had that mistake that was screwed up with the thing, I was diagnosed with amnesia, aphasia, and possible dementia until I met the neurologist who, with my son-in-law and daughter in the room, said zero chance of amnesia, zero chance of aphasia, zero chance he’ll ever have dementia. Yeah. He said his mind’s faster than mine is mathematically now.
Jerry Snyder (30:50)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (30:50)
And if when you’re 72 years old, if you’re in that case, you’re not gonna get it. Right. And especially if you keep using it. Sure. So, and so, and you’ve got that wonderful t-shirt in the back. Yeah. Right over your right shoulder.
Jerry Snyder (31:05)
Yep.
Glenn Sturm (31:06)
And that’s the, it’s the 12th man. Yep. We all can use the 12th man in this this thing. Find your 12th man.
Jerry Snyder (31:15)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (31:16)
Okay. It might be your oncologist who buys into this and who will help you put it together. Right. It might be a nurse navigator or a guide. It might be a friend of yours who was extremely smart but didn’t make a whole lot of money.
Jerry Snyder (31:31)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (31:32)
But is extremely smart. And once he hears about this and you give him a few of these articles, you’ll have it. Now, one of the things I’m doing with the articles on these reports In my book, I’m doing QR codes and the originals of all of these things are going to be QR’d in the, in the book when I talk about it. Awesome. So you can pull the source documents up and read them. And my memos have all of the footnotes that cover— basically, there’s a footnote for almost every paragraph that, that addresses the source of the thoughts for that paragraph. Right. So, um, and then I, then I do, then I’m doing site checking on it to make sure the footnotes are compatible with appropriate medical terminology.
Jerry Snyder (32:18)
Right, right.
Glenn Sturm (32:19)
So it’s, uh, not— I’m not passionate about this at all, am I?
Jerry Snyder (32:22)
No, but that’s, that’s what we need, right? Like, we need passionate people to, to be able to make changes that are going to help people. And if, if there’s something that that can, you know, move the needle that much in mortality rate, then, then it, you know, it needs to be something that’s, it’s brought to light because, well, okay.
Glenn Sturm (32:45)
You just said one of my favorite topics. So lung cancer, 40% reduction in mortality rate.
Jerry Snyder (32:53)
Yep.
Glenn Sturm (32:54)
Okay. NIH study, 5-year survival extension. Raised rates by 33%. Okay. Kidney changed the survival rate from an average of 33.2 months to 73.7 months. And the mortality rate is— has been reduced by 55.3%. Wow. So then we get to mine, which I’ve already told you about. Cancer. Breast cancer, just 14%. Head, neck. It’s 16%. Liver cancer. Again, I’ve already done that one. No, it was lung. Liver cancer is an 18% reduction in mortality risk. Yeah. I mean, the general trend is that for the first time, the 5-year survival rate for all cancers combined has hit 70% in the United States. Wow. Okay. That’s for the integrated multidisciplinary approach.
Jerry Snyder (34:01)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (34:02)
And the same article says zero change in mortality rates for silo-based practices.
Jerry Snyder (34:09)
Wow.
Glenn Sturm (34:12)
So, yeah, I mean, these numbers are, I mean, how, you know, I mean, it’s staggering. I mean, yeah. Why aren’t people talking about, why in the, I mean, why isn’t the newspaper being, well, here’s one of the reasons. Whose ox am I goring? Well, in my case, I’m getting the insurance companies don’t like it because my treatment costs $1 million a year. If I’d only last 2.5 years, it’d been $2.5 million. And next year will be 19 years. So we’re getting some big numbers. Okay, then the doc who’s worried about controls, ox is being gored. So they’re trying to publish articles. Right now that say that this doesn’t work. But I mean, NIH doesn’t have a dog in the fight. I mean, they’re just trying to save people’s lives. Yeah. And every one of those articles that I’m aware of has been, has been just done away with. I mean, just, you know, poo-pooed. And so, you know, they’re going to do it. So one of the things I’ve done is I’m a lawyer, so, you know, I’ve retained a plaintiff’s firm to represent me. Yeah. And the first person who defames me on this stuff is gonna get sued big time.
Jerry Snyder (35:30)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (35:31)
And I’m gonna be very aggressive offensively because if I’m wrong, I’m wrong.
Jerry Snyder (35:37)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (35:37)
Okay. But when you’ve got these statistics that I’m quoting you that are all backed up with NIH and other, like the Thompson studies, Okay, they have not been, you know, disagreed with. People are going to try to, you know, make their thing win.
Jerry Snyder (35:57)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (35:57)
And they’ll do anything they can to keep their money. Yeah. So I know how to fight that.
Jerry Snyder (36:03)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (36:03)
So I’m going to answer. I mean, I don’t want to be wrong, but if I am wrong and somebody proves it, I will be the first one to scream that I’m— that I made a mistake.
Jerry Snyder (36:13)
Right, right.
Glenn Sturm (36:15)
But I’m being very careful. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s— I mean, and if you want some of these memos, I’ll send them to you. And if you want to post them, post them. I’m okay with that. These are all going to be on the QR codes. So there’s a research consensus integrated versus siloed cancer care approaches. So it just goes on and on. About all the studies that have studied these issues.
Jerry Snyder (36:44)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (36:45)
And this really came to a peak about 3 years ago. And why is it— have you heard anything on major media about this type? Not at all. Not at all. No, me either. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, for years I paid a PR agency to keep my name out of the press. Right. Because when I was a big successful lawyer and I had a family office making investments, I didn’t want my kids to think we were special because we’d made more money.
Jerry Snyder (37:20)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (37:21)
And now I’ve got a PR— I’ve got a PR firm and, you know, I’ve had to change everything the way I wanted to live my life. But I think it’s that important. Yeah, it’s just that important.
Jerry Snyder (37:35)
Well, in those statistics, I mean, the if, if, if you’re saving 7 outta 10 people simply by changing the way that you, you operate the treatment plan by who’s involved.
Glenn Sturm (37:50)
Yeah. Well, I mean, well, I mean, okay. So I mean, think about me with my physical therapy, right? Well, I mean, she’s a sports physiologist, my, and I’ve got a different one now in Jackson, Wyoming, but Stacy, who, who was my original one. You know, it’s unbelievable. They’re both unbelievable. They can’t think about the value of having somebody you see every week who is communicating with your doc, right, by a note, what’s going on. Yeah. Okay. Takes pictures if it’s a— if your cancer is visible. Okay, then, then, I mean, Okay, a speech pathologist. Let’s say you’re, you’re, you know, you’re slurring your words or something’s going on there. Well, if your doc finds out about it today versus, you know, 90 days from today, right, it’s a big— it could be huge differences. And you start thinking about the logic of all this, it’s, it’s crazy. And hopefully you won’t need the hospice care team, but, um, I’ll tell you, enjoy the music here, enjoy the acupuncture, right? Enjoy oncology massage and enjoy yoga and meditation. Those are all wonderful things. Yeah. And, and think about how inexpensive that is compared to a new chemo agent that costs a million bucks a year.
Jerry Snyder (39:14)
Right. Well, and you, you know, you said that, you know, you saw your physical therapist, you know, you know, every week they take a picture and And it’s important, I think, to have that person that you’re seeing with that kind of regularity, because I think we’ve all seen this, like, with, like, like, when you’ve got kids, you see your kids growing up and you realize that they’re changing and they’re getting bigger and they’re trying. But when they see the grandparents every couple of months and the grandparents are always like, oh my gosh, you’ve grown so much, and you as a parent go, oh, I guess they have. Yeah, I see them every day. I don’t really notice it as much, you know. And so having that person that sees you once a week going, uh, you look really different from last week for some, whatever reason it is, you know, and then they’re going to dig into why.
Glenn Sturm (40:02)
So yeah, well, here in my case, they, they initially, they approved it 5 days a week and I would see them 4 or 5 days a week. Yeah. Because 3 days every 3 weeks I was gone. For chemo. Yeah. Well, I mean, the nuances are highly evident to them. So it was one-on-one. So now, how did I get that approved? Well, my physical therapist talked to my oncologist. My oncologist is world-renowned, and she wrote an order. Yeah. And what will be to the doctor who doesn’t approve order for a big-time oncologist, right? Insurance companies can get in trouble really quickly. They’re very reluctant to turn those down, right? Especially when it’s not for a million-dollar chemo agent, right? So, I mean, it works. And so, but that communication’s key because when, in my case, what happened was there’s a, there’s a steroid that if you’re over the age of 60, um, can cause really bad things to happen. Um, and the funniest part about it was when I probably got to the hospital, I had a blood alcohol level of 2.5. Not 0.25, 2.5. Okay, well, I haven’t had a drink in decades. Yeah. And, uh, they thought I was a closet drunk.
Glenn Sturm (41:34)
Well, right, no. If you read the side effects of the steroid that they gave me, it causes, you know, cognitive issues and screaming high blood alcohol levels.
Jerry Snyder (41:49)
Huh.
Glenn Sturm (41:51)
Well, the docs there missed it. Yeah, completely missed it. And they were the ones who wrote the prescription and should have known the side effects of the drug they were writing. Right. And steroids for people who are over the age of 60 can be a problem. It just depends.
Jerry Snyder (42:08)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (42:08)
But you gotta be highly sensitive to those issues. Right. That’s going back to which is the point you made a minute ago. Well, when you’re seeing somebody every week, they know something’s wrong.
Jerry Snyder (42:18)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (42:19)
Because you’re, you’re different. Yeah. Yeah.
Jerry Snyder (42:22)
They pick on it pretty, pick up on it pretty quickly.
Glenn Sturm (42:24)
Yeah. It’s a, Yep, it is. I mean, and your spouse will see the same thing. Yeah. I don’t have one of those. So it’s been, been a long time. But I have a lot of friends. Yeah. Who always give me a hard time, which is what they’re supposed to do.
Jerry Snyder (42:44)
Yep. So for the person out there that, that, that is going through this, or maybe they’re hearing this, but in, you know, in 6 months, they’re going to get a diagnosis or whatever that case is. But, and, and they’re like, okay, where, where do I start to build this team? I would assume like you would ask your oncologist if they’re the one, or your family practice doctor, they’re the ones talking to you about the diagnosis and going through treatment. And then we say, okay, who else should I be seeing? Who else should I be talking to?
Glenn Sturm (43:13)
Okay, so, so I’m gonna do, I’m gonna do this for you. I’m gonna send you, um, my team. Yeah. Okay. Who I think should be on it. Now, again, I think the psychiatrist is like the second most important person, right? Because if they can take care of your energy levels and your cognitive function, that’ll help address a lot of other issues. Other people are going to disagree with that, but I’ll send it to you and it’s footnoted. All these are footnoted. Cool. And you’re free to post it.
Jerry Snyder (43:43)
Awesome.
Glenn Sturm (43:43)
If you, I mean, perhaps, perhaps somebody check it out. and if you disagree with him, please let me know. Right. But the quicker we get this stuff out, the better for everybody.
Jerry Snyder (43:53)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (43:54)
I mean, in the second, third paragraph, it says the benefit is even greater with certain mortality, 18% reduction in mortality risk across studies and cancer types. The overall survival benefit ranged from 4% to a 90% reduction in the risk of death. Wow.
Jerry Snyder (44:15)
This is amazing.
Glenn Sturm (44:18)
Noted. Bingo right there. This is a study that says it. Yeah. And then, then I’ve got, I’ve written an algorithm that lets it check the accuracy of my statements to the studies and then checks the studies to see if the, my algorithm, heck, everybody writes algorithms these days. Yeah. To see if my algorithm says it’s it still thinks it’s accurate. So, right. Um, but, but it— but I mean, what, what’ll really happen is there’s some people who are very good at this who are writing about it. But if I can raise more notoriety to it, maybe some people who are a lot better trained in some of these areas than I am will start writing about it and make things even better. And that’s the whole point. You bring attention to it.
Jerry Snyder (45:05)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (45:06)
The more attention that’s there, the better everybody’s life’s going to end up being.
Jerry Snyder (45:10)
Right, right. And then we can all make everybody smile.
Glenn Sturm (45:16)
Absolutely. Well, just think about it. Okay, when somebody thinks, well, I mean, if anybody had told me that I had 2 and a half years and I was diagnosed, I would have said, why did you tell me that? Yeah, I don’t need it. That’s information some people need to know. I mean, I put my affairs in order and all that stuff, right? I can get hit by a bus today.
Jerry Snyder (45:40)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (45:40)
But, but, you know, just celebrate life, try to make things better for others. And we all have different ways of doing that.
Jerry Snyder (45:49)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (45:49)
And I mean, and think about people who have really unique skills in today’s world, which is like a great mechanic or a great plumber. Yeah. How hard is it to get those people? We, right. Everybody’s important in today’s society. We’re so interdependent. Yeah.
Jerry Snyder (46:09)
So, well, and like you said, we, you, you, most of us that own a house, we start to build that team of people, right? That we can call when something goes wrong, right? We need a plumber, we need electrician, we need, you know, and, and don’t, but we don’t do that when we have our own health diagnosis. We just stick to one doctor.
Glenn Sturm (46:26)
Well, let me tell you the fun part about that is, is I live in a, a in a neighborhood that’s way too healthy. I bought my house here when it was the third house.
Jerry Snyder (46:34)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (46:35)
And all my neighbors say, Glenn, how do you get the plumbers to show up the day you have a problem? How do you get the electrician to show up whenever you want them? How do you get— and I said, well, there are two things I do. First off, I respect their skills. I really respect their skills, and they know I respect their skills, right? At the end of Every time I pay them the day they finish their work. Now I’m able to do that. Some people aren’t, right? I pay them and then I always ask a question, what can I do to help you? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So what can I do to help your situation? And the best example of that was there was a plaster— my house has got plaster walls, which are very positive, very negative, because you can’t just use spackling and fix it.
Jerry Snyder (47:24)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (47:25)
Um, there’s a plaster guy who’s very good in town. He had a very bad injury and he didn’t have any disability insurance, so he had to make— find a way to work. So, yeah, um, I had all these nail holes for my photography pictures and paintings they’re hanging. And so I said, okay, we need to fix every hole in that house. Yeah. And so every Friday, I knew from, from listening to him that he liked to take his wife and his 3 kids out to a, you know, pizza kind of place or someplace like that. Not an expensive place. He liked to, you know, she worked too. And it was a, you know, so I paid him every Friday. Yeah. And then I was in the hospital for 21 days with a, with that, you know, when I had sepsis. Um, it was a bad situation, but I came back and I hadn’t paid him for 3 weeks and I got back on a Friday. Yeah. So I called him up and I said, where are you? He said, Glenn, are you back in town? I said, yeah, I’m back. I gotta come pay you.
Glenn Sturm (48:23)
He said, Glenn, don’t you dare. I said, why? He said, he said, well, when I was sick, you took care of me and that’s what I should do for you. And I said, well, I’m back now. And so he wouldn’t tell me where he was. Yeah. So I called his friends until I found where he was and I went by the ATM, got cash. Yeah. And went out and paid him. And then I positively reinforced it. I said, the reason I’m here is I know how important it is to you, right, to take your wife and your kids to dinner on Friday night. Have you taken them to dinner every Friday night since I was gone? And he looked at me, told me the truth. No, I haven’t. I said, well, take them to a nice dinner tonight because here’s 3 weeks’ pay.
Jerry Snyder (49:05)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (49:06)
And that’s the reason why I always have somebody to help me when I have a problem.
Jerry Snyder (49:11)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (49:12)
And I mean, it’s respect. I mean, goodness gracious, if you can’t do it yourself, you better respect the person who can.
Jerry Snyder (49:21)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (49:21)
If you want to get it done.
Jerry Snyder (49:23)
Yeah, exactly.
Glenn Sturm (49:26)
It’s just, but it’s just simple things like that. And so the last point I’ll make is this little thing. You see these things on my hand? Yeah. Well, When I got sick, my son was 7. Okay. My youngest. And they all say, ‘In lymphoma, celebrate life.’ That was the, the green for T-cell lymphoma. Yeah. Um, but on the inside of it, my son used his savings, and he was a real savings rat, and he had, uh, he was 10,000 of them printed.
Jerry Snyder (49:58)
Okay.
Glenn Sturm (49:59)
He sent them to every hospital that specialized in it. And on the inside, which you can’t see but you can feel it if you know it’s there, it says, ‘For my dad, DJS.’ Oh wow, that’s pretty cool. Yeah, that’s— boy, did that make— that, that just meant so much to me. Yeah, so, so much. And, uh, so those people— the— wait, one more thing. The people who I worry about the most in this thing Yeah. A friend of mine’s wife had early Alzheimer’s. It was really bad and she, she wasn’t going to last forever. He quit his job to take care of her. Yeah. He wouldn’t let anybody help him. One of the things they teach in the military, if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anybody else.
Jerry Snyder (50:44)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (50:45)
But the caregivers, who looks out for the caregivers?
Jerry Snyder (50:49)
Right.
Glenn Sturm (50:51)
Okay. Well, on your team, you need somebody who’s looking out for the caregiver. Yeah. Whose job it is to make sure they’re okay. Yes. Because people don’t think about them. They think about the patient, but they don’t think about the caregiver. And boy, are they critical.
Jerry Snyder (51:09)
Yeah. And that’s a, it’s an endless tiring job.
Glenn Sturm (51:16)
Yeah, it is. I’ve got two golden retrievers for my caregivers and so, yeah, they put up with me. That’s awesome. So I just laugh. Yeah, I laugh about them. Yeah.
Jerry Snyder (51:25)
Well, Glenn, so where can people connect with you, get the books and all that?
Glenn Sturm (51:32)
Well, okay. GlennSturm.com is my website. Awesome. And there’s one more rule that I’ll tell you about. So if somebody’s bought one of my cancer books.
Jerry Snyder (51:44)
Yeah.
Glenn Sturm (51:45)
And they have a friend who gets cancer and they give it away. If you send me an email with your name and address, yeah, I’ve got a case of first editions here and I will sign one and send it back to you. Awesome. At no cost. That’s awesome. And the number one person has given away 10 copies and they’ve gotten 10 back.
Jerry Snyder (52:06)
Nice.
Glenn Sturm (52:07)
And so I’m fortunate enough that I can do that and again, celebrate life. The old golden rule is really important. Yep. And if you do that, you’re going to live longer anyway.
Jerry Snyder (52:22)
Right. That’s true.
Glenn Sturm (52:23)
And you’ll be, and you’ll celebrate life every day. Exactly. So, and remember your 12th man.
Jerry Snyder (52:29)
Exactly. Yep. Build that team. So thank you so much, Glenn. It’s been a great conversation.
Glenn Sturm (52:36)
Thank you.
Jerry Snyder (52:38)
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