Dave Bolton was 33 when he was rushed to hospital after a 15-minute nightmare and later discovered he had a brain tumor. Thinking that night, Dave remembers going to bed ready for his daughter’s birthday the next day and waking up unaware of what had happened. Dave told ECHO: “I just remember throwing away a bowl of cereal because I had not eaten properly, knowing I had to get up in the morning and go to bed – and then come around a quarter to midnight with paramedics. room. “I had stopped breathing and it seemed to me that I had a 15-minute nightmare, but when I came around I was just shy and tried to drive them out of the house. “The doctors were very good, they said ‘Dave, what are you doing for a living?’ And I said, “I’m in the police.” They said “well where do you work?” And I said “I do not know”. ‘What is your BIRTHDAY DATE?’ “I do not know” – and suddenly I understood. The father of the two underwent surgery to remove a tennis ball-sized tumor at the Walton Center and had to retire from his job as a detective sergeant at Merseyside police. But things went from bad to worse for Dave, when the results of a routine brain scan the following year showed that the tumor had not only returned but had turned into glioblastoma multiforme (GMB). Glioblastoma Multiforme is a rapidly growing and aggressive brain tumor with a catastrophically short survival time of just 12-18 months. READ MORE: The mayor of the city accuses the government of “dropping a bomb on us” and warns “unrest is coming” Dave, from Greasby, Wirral, was informed that his diagnosis was definitive and that he had six to eight months to live with treatment or three months without. Dave, 41, told ECHO: “I left with a difficult decision to make and slipped into one of the darkest places I have ever been. I spent about a week, two weeks, just lying on the couch. “I accepted that I was going to die and I just lay there waiting for it to happen. I just did not care.” Dave, who is a former world kickboxing champion, said it was Samantha’s wife who helped him get out of this dark place in July 2015 and decided to treat his brain tumor like a fight. He said: “I just thought that if the average is 6-8 months, there must be people who will go before then and there must be people who reach 18 months. I thought you were never mediocre in anything, so what I did I mean, I treated it a bit like a fight, I called it Terry my opponent, and when I took on a fight, let’s say it was 3-4 months, I would go to a full lockdown at the camp. “I decided to face it 360 degrees, so with diet, exercise, shaping good sleep habits, alternative therapies, dietary supplements, consciousness, mediation and then accept the treatments, so the gold standard. “It was dual radiotherapy and chemotherapy followed by full chemotherapy.” Dave continued to defy the prospects of a definitive diagnosis seven years later (Image: Dave Bolton) According to brain tumor research, 25% of patients with glioblastoma survive for more than a year and 5% of patients survive for more than five years. But despite the chances, Dave continues to live longer than his final diagnosis seven years later, and in January of this year doctors told him that only small signs of the disease were visible. Dave has become a motivational speaker who helps people, charities and businesses and now runs a charity called the Ahead of the Game Foundation, based in Wallasey, with former Premier League footballer Dominic Matteo. He shared his story to mark Brain Tumor Awareness Month and highlight the need for more brain tumor funding, with historically only one percent of national cancer research spending being allocated to brain tumors. Dave said: “I try to use my own horrible situations to remind people that there is another way, there is another choice and there is hope. “I will never be cured. I have to live every day knowing that it can come back at any time, because even though I did, the last scan showed that there was no real evidence of disease, I think. But what is happening is that there are still cells in my brain because it’s like a tissue going through your brain, so you just need the perfect environment, the perfect storm to trigger it, but I’ve broken it down a bit. “I am very positive, I am a very positive person. I’m grateful to have cancer in my late stages because I see a completely different world now. “I used to work 12, 13 hours a day at work, I never went out on time. I missed my family growing up, I have better relationships with my family members now and I really believe that what I do now was what I always had to do. “I just love my life and I would not change it for anything.” The Ahead of the Game Foundation took a 10-mile coastal walk Saturday, March 19 in the Wirral as part of Brain Tumor Awareness Month. All the money raised will be used by the charity to support more people in the 12-week cancer recovery program for health and well-being. If you want to donate to the Ahead of the Game Foundation click here. 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