ChatGPT has given me 30 days to live – this is what happened next

It is estimated that AI is answering around 2.5 million prompts per day – but what happens when you ask about the devastating news you have just received from your doctor? Here, Daniel Fine explains what it feels like to be told your time is limited – and how to use that time well

ChatGPT has given me between 30-90 days to live. That was 20 days ago. Pretty bold of it, considering AI will probably live forever. I, on the other hand, have been living on borrowed time for a year and a half since my diagnosis: stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

On my 65th birthday, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had started going to the gym five days a week and cut out wine (bar one cheat glass a week). I had lost 20 pounds and people were noticing, especially my wife.

When I started getting pains in my back and abdomen, I thought it was from all the exercise, especially those squats and lunges. Now that my body was looking better, I also started glancing at the mirror more often and noticed some bumps growing on my left shoulder. The weight and body aches I could blame on the gym, but these bumps? I was curious.

I set up an appointment with the doctor, and when he asked about my weight, I proudly told him of my recent dedication to fitness. Had I had any back or leg pain? Yep, those lunges, sit-ups and squats were working. He sent me to the lab that afternoon for a blood test, an ultrasound and then a CT scan the following day. The radiologist called me into his office, where I was told I had pancreatic cancer.

I’ve always known that I had a pancreas. I had no idea what it did. I kept ChatGPT busier than a beaver in a hurricane looking at my blood report, scan and finding out if pancreatic cancer was a serious type. One thing ChatGPT told me was that Eric Idle from Monty Python once joked with his doctor that he needed to kill off a character quickly. The doctor quipped, “Pancreatic cancer.” Years later, Idle himself was diagnosed with it – and laughed at the morbid irony.

As Rodney Dangerfield said, “Everything is going along to plan. Just not my plan.” I suddenly realised how true it was. Cancer rewrote my plan in one evening. I decided not to tell my wife everything Chat GPT was telling me. She certainly knew a lot more about cancer than me. She lost both parents to it. I wanted to talk to the doctor before worrying her too much. After all, you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet, right? As any GP will tell you.

I went to see my doctor. I wasn’t able to start treatment until the cancer was 100 per cent confirmed. I needed a biopsy of the tumour in my pancreas and some more tests. The diagnosis was confirmed and with my wife this time, I faced my reality head-on.

Chemotherapy started about a month later. Twenty months later, I have now been through 2,000-plus hours in 32 rounds. But now, the standard chemo stopped working around 17 months after I began treatment. I was told about a clinical trial that gave us hope, but two months later, we found out it hadn’t worked. The cancer was on the move and had grown in my liver, lungs, lymph nodes and into my spine. I also developed blood clots.

Dan Fine is making sure he spends precious time with his loved ones (Dan Fine)

Remarkably, a year on, I am dealing with this whole experience pretty well. And no, this isn’t just my game face. I’ve had an extraordinary life. I’m 66 years old and while my early life was a bit bumpy, it ended up being pretty amazing. I met and married the dream woman and we had two great daughters; I’ve had a successful business life, and some really terrific experiences.

My feeling is, why be greedy? Sixty-six years isn’t a bad run. I’m dealing with the pain well with the assistance of some opioids. I’ve been living like this for the past three months. Yesterday, I started a different chemo treatment. It’s got about a 35 per cent chance of working and could add a couple more months to my life. I’ve heard that pancreatic cancer can be pretty messy at the end, so I have signed up for MAID – Medical Assistance in Dying. This way, I can control where I pass away and when. I wonder what I will wear that day. Business casual, sweats, maybe my tux?

Along my journey, I’ve learned how pancreatic cancer is underfunded and overlooked compared to other cancers. Difficult to detect at an early stage, due to a lack of symptoms, and resistant to treatment once advanced, it has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers. Life expectancy for 75 per cent of patients is only one year past diagnosis. Public awareness is low, despite it being the 12th most common cancer worldwide.

My grandfather and aunt passed away from it, but I only found this out by participating in some genetic testing through my clinic. It turns out that people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent are at higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer. All four of my grandparents are Ashkenazi.

There is no handbook on how to break the news that you are dying to your friends and family

There is no handbook on how to break the news that you are dying to your friends and family. At first, we met with our closest set of friends. As we sat down around the dinner table, one of them asked me why I was yellow. Perfect segue. Next stop my daughters and son-in-law. That discussion was a lot tougher.

My wife took the lead and walked them through the plan while they shock-absorbed the news. You get so many different reactions. Some friends are ready to do anything to help – drive you to appointments, bring food over and keep you company. With others, the conversation immediately turns to their pains and their own doctor travails. One told me that I was too intense (I agree). Others offer wacky, unproven cures, like eating tree bark or doing horse dewormer.

By far, the overall response has been wonderful, heartfelt and makes me feel like the most loved person on the planet. We say “I love you” a lot more often, laugh harder over the stupidest things, and waste less time. Life has sharpened into focus; every ordinary moment has the potential to be extraordinary.

This past year, my younger brother was diagnosed with stage 3 oesophageal cancer, and my older brother was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Growing up, the three of us have always been competitive. Everyone who knows us will tell you that I am more competitive than my brothers. According to ChatGPT, the odds of all three brothers having cancer in the same year are one in 60,000. Unfortunately, we all must face this disease, but the upside is that we can support each other.

Having less than three months to live, your perspective of time warps. You start living in dog years, where a normal seven days gets compressed into one. Being stuck on hold listening to a message telling you that they value your call feels peculiar when your time is short. Days feel shorter, hours more fragile. Every sunrise is a deadline and a gift. Small matters become larger and even emotional, like my wife showing me her avocado toast and the smell of her French roast coffee; the latest practical joke my daughter plays on me, or a neighbour’s dog coming up to sniff my hand. We are all living on borrowed time, but I’ve just got a shorter leash than some others. I now talk to strangers in the elevator who probably think I’m a bit strange.

I had ChatGPT make a checklist of things I need to take care of. There is a huge list of things you need to do to get your affairs in order. It’s almost painful because you want to live your best life and standing in the Department of Motor Vehicles to switch the name on your car’s title or updating all your passwords can seem like torture. I’ve just pre-arranged my cremation and was reading the fine print. Did you know that if you die in a fire, you get 50 per cent off? I’ve really gone there with dark humour, making my wife cringe. But sometimes she even joins me and lobs in one of her own dark jokes.

Dan Fine with those who matter most to him (Dan Fine)

I do talk about this with my wife more than ChatGPT. I’m terminal, but not crazy. My wife has stood tall through this all, but she’s the one I worry most about because I want to be there for her, but I know I won’t be. A strong, independent woman, she’s kept herself steady by learning Tai Chi, volunteering and planning small adventures – walks to the beach, breakfast at a café, always dinner together, movies at night — as if time were endless.

Maybe that’s her quiet rebellion against the clock. Our daughters call often, too. One from her nursing shifts at the hospital, her voice sharing the roles of nurse and daughter, steady, informative and loving; the other daughter FaceTiming with me and our 16-month-old grandson. I got to see him taking his first steps, throwing his noodles on the ground for the dog, and mastering fake burping. And we crack up about it – just like any other grandad. These little things – his laugh, the way my wife squeezes my hand in the middle of the night when the steroids are keeping me up — have become the big things.

Then the call came in. The founder of Craig’s Cause, a support group for pancreatic cancer patients, asked if I would be the race director for the Kicking PancreAS 5k in Vancouver, British Columbia. The 5k is held all across Canada, and this race will take place on 8 November. The money raised goes to support research and help those who need assistance with transportation and accommodation for their treatments. Sounds like a great cause and challenge, but I have less than three months to live. Is this how I want to spend my time?

I’ve always believed that you either make dust or eat dust. I can wait out my days until I become dust, or do something that can really help others. At a time when we have some world leaders who think kindness is a weakness, there is no better time to do what we can to help others. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” For me, every day I wake up on the green side of the grass is a good day. I decided to accept the challenge and keep my mind focused instead of letting cancer live rent-free in my head.

Oh, and Chat GPT thinks it’s a great idea.

https://raceroster.com/events/2025/109226/kicking-pancreas-5k-british-columbia