How I’m Using ChatGPT to Help My Mom Fight Cancer (5 Steps)

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Dear subscribers,

Since I shared that I’m helping my mom through cancer, hundreds of you have replied with stories about your parents, partners, and friends. The sad reality is that:

Two in five people in the US will face cancer in their lifetime. When you include caregivers, almost no family is left untouched by this disease.

Watch my personal video about how I’ve been PMing the shit out of my mom’s care with AI’s help.

Timestamps:

(00:00) My mom's story and how I've been helping
(02:04) Step 1: Create a brief with my free AI skill
(05:13) Step 2: Organize medical records
(07:41) Step 3: Research treatment options
(14:19) Step 4: Find experts to have in your corner
(15:41) Step 5: Protect quality time with family

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1. Create a one-page brief

When my mom’s cancer came back, I thought I’d mostly use AI to research her disease. Instead, it’s been far more useful for staying on top of paperwork and follow-ups across different doctors and hospital departments.

That’s why I built a /fuck-cancer skill that anyone can use to create a concise, fact-based brief with 5 sections:

Patient information: Essential details and medical contacts for quick reference.
What to do next: The top 3 actions to take or questions to ask your doctor.
What we know: Confirmed facts about the diagnosis and treatment.
Medical terms: Plain-English explanations of medical terms.
Care log: A compact, dated history of updates.

To install it, just paste this into ChatGPT or Claude:

Install this skill at https://github.com/petergyang/fuck-cancer

The first time you run the skill, it’ll ask who the brief is for and what’s happening before creating the brief as a Google Doc. Here’s a quick 40-second clip walking through how the skill works:

Having AI update my mom’s brief before every appointment has been critical in helping us ask her doctors the right questions.

As one reader wrote to me:

“You have to be a huge patient advocate. Push for answers. Push for biopsies. Push for proper testing. Ask questions.”

If you find value from my /fuck-cancer skill, please ⭐ the GitHub repo so more people can find it.

2. Organize medical records

Your brief is only as good as the data behind it, so start requesting medical records early to give AI a complete picture.

My mom has unfortunately had cancer three times before, so her history was scattered across different hospitals and portals. I wish we’d requested all these records right away instead of waiting:

Written records like scan reports, pathology reports, and treatment history.
Imaging files like CT, PET, and other scans, usually delivered in a format called DICOM. These are separate from the written records, and hospitals can take 2 or 3 weeks to hand them over on a usb drive or even a CD-ROM.
Pathology blocks or slides of the actual tumor. These are the most precious material for sequencing the tumor and second opinions (more on those later), and they take the longest to get. If the patient had cancer before, request them as early as possible. My mom is still waiting on a pathology block from her prior cancer.

Pointing ChatGPT at my mom’s brief and records has been critical in grounding its answers on her actual history instead of generic medical advice.

3. Research treatment options

My mom’s diagnosis followed a typical path:

Her doctors saw a suspicious tumor in a CT scan and did more follow-up scans.
A biopsy then confirmed it was cancerous.
Her doctors discussed her case and treatment in a tumor board review (a Zoom call with the oncologist, radiologist, surgeon, and other specialists).
Treatment usually starts with standard care based on NCCN guidelines in the US, which is typically some combination of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, or immunotherapy.

Unfortunately, it’s also typical for a cancer diagnosis to take months.

It’s been 3 months since my mom’s first CT scan revealed a tumor, and she’s still waiting to find out whether this is a breast cancer recurrence or something else.

I have a lot of respect for doctors and have many friends who are physicians and nurses. But as an active caregiver, working with the medical team has sometimes felt like working with a coworker who doesn’t respond to emails or calls and only communicates through voicemails and faxes:

It’s easy for patients and caregivers to feel helpless during this whole process, but there are steps you can take during the long wait:

a) Understand standard care and get a second opinion

In the US, doctors typically follow NCCN guidelines for first-line cancer treatment, and you can read them with a free account. Alternatively, once you use my skill to create a brief, you can just ask it in ChatGPT or Claude:

/fuck-cancer what is the standard care for the patient’s diagnosis?

For complex cases like my mom’s, it’s also worth asking for a second opinion at a major cancer center like MD Anderson (Texas), MSK (New York), Dana-Farber (Boston), or Stanford and UCSF (Bay Area).

We’re currently asking UCSF to provide a second opinion (my mom’s being treated in Canada), and having her records and scans organized from step 2 has made this process much easier.

Without ChatGPT, it would’ve taken me forever to build the 90-page records packet for a 2nd opinion request.

It still takes a month or so to get a second opinion, so start early.

b) Sequence the tumor

Cancer is actually more than 100 different diseases, and each person’s tumor can behave differently.

That’s why we’re working with BostonGene to sequence my mom’s tumor and look for DNA, RNA, and other markers that could point to better treatments. If there’s one thing I learned in this whole process, it’s that:

The more data you have on the tumor, the better.

Sequencing requires the pathology block or slides, takes at least a few weeks, and will cost us around $4,000, so ask about it before the biopsy if you can.

c) Research clinical trials

Clinical trials can open up new treatment options, sometimes even before standard care stops working. To find relevant trials, you can just ask my skill:

/fuck-cancer Find relevant clinical trials from ClinicalTrials.gov for this diagnosis, ideally those close to where we live.

If you’re using ChatGPT or Claude, you can also ask it to rerun this search every week or month to keep you updated.

This doesn’t mean that you should blindly try to enroll in every trial. Some early phase I or II trials are unproven and could actually make things worse.

But it’s good to understand the options and eligibility early so you can discuss them with the care team at the right moment.

4. Find experts to have in your corner

One of the best things to come from sharing my mom’s story is the people who’ve offered to help. I’m especially grateful to:

Ari from OpenCancer, who made introductions to people who could help us navigate testing and pathology review.
Bayli from the Sijbrandij Foundation, who helped us prepare questions about the diagnosis, tissue testing, and treatment options.
Dr. Odabashian, Dr. Bernstein, and other oncologists who generously offered to provide their perspectives on my mom’s case.

To keep them in the loop, I work with ChatGPT to draft short updates to email my board of experts after every major appointment or finding.

Here’s an example update:

Many families facing cancer keep it to themselves. I’ve found that sharing the journey online or even just with friends empowers other people to help.

5. Protect quality time with family

When I found out my mom’s cancer was back, I took a week to stay with her. We had many walks, meals, and chats that I’ll cherish. I also call my parents every day so they can talk to my girls.

If you’re in your early 40s like me, you probably have young kids and aging parents too. This is also when it’s easiest to get caught up chasing more money and titles for your career. I’ve found that:

Time with your loved ones is easy to postpone because there’s rarely a deadline attached to it.

You know when your next performance review is, and you can measure your salary and follower count. It’s harder to see what you lose when work takes another night from your kids, or when you keep putting off a trip with your parents.

If you already earn enough to support your family, ask how much more you really need and what you’re trading for it. This comic from Dan Dougherty is my constant reminder that time with our loved ones is precious:

My girls are somewhere in those early panels, and it’s only a matter of time before they grow up. As for my mom, her care is still my #1 priority, and I won’t stop until she gets the right treatment to beat this evil disease.

You can get my free /fuck-cancer skill here. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

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