Dan Fine was on a vacation in France with his wife of 38 years when he received a devastating diagnosis.
He has stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
“I fed my results into ChatGPT,” the West Vancouver resident said.
“So I uploaded my blood test and my CT scans, et cetera. And it gave me somewhere between 30 and 90 days, and that was about 20 days ago. So you know, I know time is coming.”
Fine, a husband, dad and grandfather, has always given back to his community at home and around the world.
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Just a few years ago, he volunteered in war-torn Ukraine to save abandoned cats and dogs.
“It is like World War Two over there,” he said.
When you go to those villages, they are completely flattened and destroyed and mined. How that affects animals, you never really see that.”
Fine is now stepping up to be the race director for a five-kilometre run in Stanley Park next month, fundraising for pancreatic cancer research and awareness.
But he knows time is precious now and he wants to live his final days on his own terms.
He has chosen MAID so that he gets to control when and how he leaves this life.
“One of the big things that changed is my perspective of time,” Fine said.
“It’s important now every day… I used to waste time. Right? Now I choose to be very deliberate about what I’m doing every day.
“Just feeling this air in my lungs, seeing the woods and the trees and the plants and it just feels good. It feels like I don’t feel sick when I’m standing here. I feel healthy and happy.”
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