A 43-year-old with colon cancer used AI in 3 ways to help make treatment a little easier

Russ Read-Barrow was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Russ Read-Barrow Russ Read-Barrow was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer after seeing blood in his poop.

Using Claude, he built a chemotherapy symptom tracker to help him recall what made him feel better.

Read-Barrow asks AI to create a summary of his health history for new medical providers.

Russ Read-Barrow has been living with incurable stage four colon cancer for five years.

The 43-year-old former PR director and father of two from the UK was diagnosed with the disease in 2021.

After seeing blood in his poop around six times over the course of a few weeks, he got a colonoscopy.

With multiple rounds of chemotherapy and surgeries to remove cancerous cells from his colon, liver, and later his lungs, Read-Barrow's doctors have stopped the cancer from spreading further since 2022.

He still needs regular chemotherapy, roughly every three months, to slow cell division and prevent further growth in his lungs and liver.

"The chemo I'm having now is doing a good job of keeping it under control, but at some point that'll change and I'll have to have something else," Read-Barrow told Business Insider.

Over the years, Read-Barrow has experimented with using AI to help manage the symptoms , medications, and emotional challenges that have become part of his life.

In 2025, he launched a side project called FcancerwithAI, a blog where he shares his story and the AI cancer tools he's built.

"I'm not saying AI is going to cure cancer.

I'm saying it's going to help me remember what my consultant said, spot patterns in my side effects, and maybe give me back some control in a situation where control is basically an illusion," he wrote in a blog post .