I was referring to Ian.
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Were seems to be the operative word. Heâs certainly not doing anything about it now.
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Yeah - it was corny and cringe-worthy⊠but still kinda cool! I was at SM the day he came off over a big jump HARD - hit his head and went into stiff-armed convulsions⊠terrifying.
A few interesting facts from a lifelong cancer researcher and drug developer (me):
- while historically many drugs did not cross the blood brain barrier, many now do and we specifically select for compounds in early discovery that can when planning to use to treat central nervous system disease (like brain tumors or metastases). So, many new drugs (and some old ones) do cross the BBB.
- ports are only for specific drugs, so absence/presence isnât definitive; many oral drugs and those that donât require a port are used
- I spend all day, every day speaking about cancer to a wide range of audiences and I will often say âbrain cancerâ or âliver cancerâ instead of âglioblastomaâ or hepatocellular carcinomaâ because itâs the most accessible place to start and then if someone understands the terminology I will be more specific. So, donât judge phrasing too harshly. I canât even begin to count the number of news articles that discuss Jimmy Carterâs âbrain cancerâ when he actually has Stage IV Melanoma that has metastasized to the brain. Either way, sad stuff.
Glioblastoma is a cruel disease that is very difficult to treat; I am so sorry for everyone that has lost family to this disease. I have a friend battling it right now.
Sad he felt compelled to lie in this especially awful way.
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I still have questions why even today the Wexners are not cooperating with federal investigations into what happened. Circa 2023 litigation from government prosecutors.
I just find it really weird no one in the horse world has any interest in this. I find it fascinating. A million times better than your average celeb stuff.
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Super interesting comment and thank you for adding your expertise and perspective.
Itâs good to hear about research and newer chemo drugs that are more effective about crossing the blood brain barrier. My knowledge is definitely dated⊠because I have been blessed to be disease free for a number of years now.
With all this said⊠I still think ELâs claims are total BS. Too many things just donât add up, in addition to his documented deliberate attempted fraud on the court.
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At Tom Baker cancer Center in Calgary you donât always get a port or PIc lineâŠ.in fact rarely! The way we do it is, they use a very fine baby fine needle to insert into your vein, then insert the bigger one over the top to run the chemo through! Theyâve found by doing this they can avoid an extra surgical procedure, and avoid collapsing the veins!
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Right? It just keeps going.
And then he bought a $1.8 m yacht and defaulted on that too?
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My best friend of nearly 50 years survived her GBM after surgery to remove it. Unfortunately, 2 years later it was discovered that it had metastasized and she had cancer in her bones, blood, and lungs. They tried radiation, but by then it was much too late. She died a week after diagnosis. I never got to see her again. I flew down to St. Louis for her funeral. 
Itâs a horrible disease.
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He has to be going into these ventures knowing full well he canât-- or wonâtâpay for them. Yet despite this trail of defaults, apparent frauds and rip-offs, people who seem to be fully functioning adults continue to seek his âprofessionalâ advice and go into business dealings with him. Thatâs what boggles my mind.
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Ok. I have gone back to listen to this interview and he does indeed go into detail talking to Ali about his alleged diagnosis. Here is a link to the video of the 2020 interview.
EL begins speaking about his health issues right around the 1 hour 21 minute mark and continues until about the 1 hour 40 minute mark.
He claims that he broke ribs prior to going to Doha (I guess in 2016 or 2017) , had to take morphine for awhile then to cope with the broken rib pain and still ride (hmmmm ⊠
), was experiencing some dizziness and loss of balance or something for about a year simultaneously with this, but after Doha was working out with a âdoctor friendâ who noticed these neurological issues and recommended he go get checked out, but EL brushed it off as related to the morphine he was apparently on at the time (again⊠I think this is a no no for an FEI rider⊠) , but he went and got checked out and got diagnosed with âbrain lesionsâ that were âgoing to turn into a tumorâ ⊠the size of the tumor they âdidnât knowâ but operating on it âwasnât possibleâ ⊠he then claims he was âlucky to work with one of the greatest guys (the exact name was unintelligible to me in the interview) in Belgiumâ, and really put his âtrust into himâ but told him that Lamaze would not be his usual patient because he was âa little bit stubbornâ and he loves riding and wanted to keep doing what he was doing. He goes on to claim that âanyway when the tumor started it grew quite quicklyâ and âwe started on a palliative chemo which is pills so that i can be anywhere and take themâ because they are âanywhere from 25 mg to 125 mg so you can control that partâ ⊠he goes on to say âmy CAT scan would go to a guy in Germany who is an expert, and from there it would go to my doctor in Belgium to a doctor in Germany to a doctor in France who would put the medication together.â He follows up on this by telling Ali that this âwas all private practice.â Ali then says, âThis kind of stuff is not standard practice, you canât go to your normal doctor in Canada and get this, right?â Eric then replies, âNo. I would be dead. I wouldnât have survived this. These guys went way beyond. Their knowledge is way beyond other doctors. I believe that I wouldnât be alive today (if) I (was in) a normal hospital.â
He then claims he did Spruce Meadows âwith my chemoâ and he had his ups and downs, but âthe only time I ever felt normal was riding a horse. It was sort of like I forgot all about it. It was incredible. I donât know how and my doctor asked me âI donât recognize you out there. Iâm used to seeing the Eric coming into the office and you donât have that look. I watch you compete out there and you donât even look like the same guy to me.ââ Lamaze then goes on to state that horses were the best drug he received, and heâs glad he kept riding, but unfortunately couldnât attend to all his clients every day⊠but (Iâll paraphrase here) some days his legs wouldnât work, he had pain everywhere and was nauseous and tried to kick himself out of bed but some days he just couldnât. And that was life.
Ali then mentions a story Eric supposedly told him about being in Aachen in a lot of pain in the back of a car, and Eric responds, âThe thing I was struggling with the most once the tumor shrunk and once the tumor eventually disappeared, was my organs were in terrible shape. My heart was inflamed, was bigger, my kidney was completely destroyed, I was in terrible shape, I was in pain, but I did Aachen, but coming back from Aachen I had so much pain in my back I was crying the whole way home. I was like âWhy are you doing this Eric? This is not fun.â â Ali then brings up how Eric supposedly told him about his âtime in Torontoâ and how Eric told him about how many hours he was sleeping, and Eric replies, âRest is your best friend in that circumstance. I never was a good sleeper, but Iâve learned that sometimes you have no choice. You have to treat your body, you have to give respect to your body if you are going to use it the way I was using it competing. Which I really wanted to do. My worst time was 2 years ago watching Paris and Geneva on TV, I think I was 93 lbs in my house here in Belgium, and had tears in my eyes watching it, and I could have closed my eyes at any moment and that would be it. But if you donât have the strength and the will to fight this itâs going to kick you in the ass real fast. And me not being able to go those shows was, uh, I couldnât do it. So I wasnât doing well at all. They just could not restart my body. They tried so many things. I was not responsive to any of it. They didnât know why. Itâs just, itâs like my body knew it just didnât want anymore, it had enough, and it was not absorbing anything, and I was fighting it the best I can, but your life changed, youâre in bed by 4:30 or 5:00, thatâs about as much as you can do so you withdraw yourself from people. Youâre lonely, but in a way youâre happy to be lonely, because I didnât want to share this with everybody I didnât want people to have pain because of this. I sure didnât want to be treated any other way because of this. For me, I was very uncomfortable being in a social type situation. Iâd lost my way of communicating. I was uncomfortable. Till this day I still am. Iâm not completely comfortable in that situation just because Iâve been so alone for so long by choice. Just because, you know, what am I going to do? I go to bed early, Iâm trying to leave what is left of me for riding or teaching. Whatever, you know. But I was a fairly social butterfly that loved going out but Iâve lost all that, sure I can get it back someday, but for the moment I am very happy being alone and just you know, going through this.â
Ali responds, âYour strength is truly remarkable.â He then follows up by mentioning that Eric told him something about his kidney. And asks Eric to take a moment to explain his âkidney situationâ if heâs comfortable, because itâs âunbelievableâ to Ali, and Ali thinks people would love to know from him about itâŠ
Eric responds, âBasically my kidney was really the main problem of everything. It was infected, or releasing some toxins in my body and infecting my heart and whatnot so I was really in the red zone for a heart attack or a stroke or anything to do with that. And it all came from my kidney. And then they talked about removing my kidney and tried to get a donor to do that. They have different websites that they have access to, not like a hospital, which they can get a kidney fairly quick to match yours, but they didnât think I would survive that, I wasnât in good shape to survive that, and if it felt that was it, so my doctor sent hundreds of letters to retired doctors, to everybody, to the best in that field, and they wanted to know their opinion, would you do this would you do that, blah blah blah, and my doctor heâs always heard that an artificial kidney could be inserted, but they werenât approved, but they had spent a lot of money on trying to create this. And it basically works that you have the kidney and he controls it from a device from his computer and he can see everything that is happening through your body. And that surgery was not that dangerous because basically you stay with the kidney you have now while they play around with this and make sure there are no hiccups with the computer, the chip, the this, the that. So the operation is 8 hours but itâs not dangerous. So it was inserted with success and I kind of immediately started to feel better and my body started to clean itself. I still couldnât stay up very late but I felt better, to be honest. And I felt like with any luck I can beat this.â
Ali then says that it is remarkable Eric had this opportunity, and from what he remembers (from what Eric apparently previously told him) there is only a handful of people who have this mechanical kidney, âIs that right?â And Eric responds, âAbsolutely. For now. But I think itâs going to be a very common procedure eventually. I was ummm⊠what can I say⊠I had nothing left to lose so they tried it. I mean basically my doctor felt good about it, and they tried it, and it worked. So I imagine that this will be used very much in the future, Iâm not sure with a normal hospital, but youâll be able to have an artificial kidney and they are talking about artificial hearts as well. So a lot of things are moving in medicine in Brussels and I am sure in the States as well or whatever.â
Ali then mentions that thing that keeps coming back in his mind is that if insurance doesnât pay for this (yeah⊠ya think?!?!), and you have 4 different doctors handling this at âthat level you wereâ and he assumes this took a huge financial toll on Eric.
Eric responds by quietly chuckling, âYeah, I mean, Whatâs your life worth? I mean, every bit of money you have I guess. Thatâs what itâs worth. When you are dealing with private doctors nothing is cheap, but they are the best. And ummm, you know, I wasnât prepared for this. I figured everyone is going to get bad luck at one point or another, but this was definitely a drainage of money but you are fighting for your life and you have no choice. But itâs hard to come back from it.â Eric then switches the subject over to talking about Covid and living in Belgium.
Soooo ⊠people can make what they will of these 2020 statements and claims from him regarding his original diagnosis (he never mentioned glioblastoma in this interview, only in the fraudulent documents he submitted in court this year⊠he just mentions brain lesions that turned into a brain tumor in this interview), specialized chemo (available in pill form) that seems to have eliminated his brain tumor, and the whole experimental artificial kidney that allegedly helped his whole body recover from the whole body challenges that the chemo apparently caused.
Just to refresh everyoneâs memory, ELâs attorney submitted a fraudulent letter to the court this year that claimed that EL was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2017, and was under the care of the Chirec Cancer Institute in Belgium for the entire duration of his treatment. Dr. Ben Taib and Dr. Benoit Pirotte of the Chirec Cancer Institute both informed investigators and the Canadian court that they had not ever treated Lamaze.
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I have not been to medical school.
But I have a feeling that anyone who has been to medical school would hurt themselves from rolling their eyeballs so hard at his story.
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Agreed.
I will give Ali credit for being very polite and asking leading questions that teased these extra details out of EL during a recorded interview. Itâs pretty amazing to watch it in hindsight now that the truth is coming out.
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Quite the confabulation. My guess is EL did have some systemic and organ-based collapse after relapsing into a morphine addiction from the riding accident, and Iâm sure a brain scan would be part of the diagnosis, and he likely has some degree of post concussion syndrome.
The brain tumor and the artificial kidney are pure BS spun out of thin air. Its possible there was something abnormal on his initial brain scan, that was later deemed harmless or chronic. As far as artificial kidneys thatâs so ridiculous that it suggests that EL has lost contact with the prevailing reality. On the other hand, heâs around horse journalists who print this stuff without any research.
Itâs also possible thereâs a charlatan ND in the mix feeding EL homeopathic pills for imaginary tumors.
I read this saga as an aging known drug user relapsing, covering his tracks, but having lost perspective on how much he can lie in the public or legal sphere.
I would assume things are falling apart in other areas of his life too though celebrities often have big buffer zones of enablers.
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Also, even medial reporting for standard news outlets can sometimes be a bit shaky and superficial. Horse publications tend to be even more bare-bones in terms of researching the non-horse-science data behind a claim.
Plus, itâs so awful to have to question someoneâs truthfulness regarding a horrible diagnosis. Who wants to do that?
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Yup. This is what I see going on as well. The admission in the 2020 interview regarding using âmorphine patchesâ to handle broken ribs is quite something. Heâs an FEI rider who has been sanctioned TWICE for cocaine positives. I wonder if he ever got any sort of TUE for these alleged morphine patchesâŠ
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I didnât watch every second of the full interview, but I really do think Ali Nilforushan did a good job getting Eric to talk back in 2020. I wonder if he privately doubted much of ELâs story, and thatâs why he asked a few specific questions and tried getting EL to speak in more detail about it all on the recordâŠ
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Unbelievable that he was able to keep up the charade for so long. I, too, hurt myself rolling my eyes at defaulting on the yacht! EL was seriously out of control.
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Thereâs a whole lot to unpack in that interview.
For instance, is it just me, or does anyone else find it peculiar that EL speaks of his kidney in the singular, as if he only has one? Furthermore, my Google MD degree taught me that artificial kidneys that include a chip are very experimental and probably wonât be available clinically until 2030.
But who knows. Maybe thereâs a secret cabal of private doctors in Belgium, France and Germany manufacturing and selling them to their favored patients.
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Right?!?
The thing that perturbs/disturbs me the most, however, is the claim that some unidentified âpill chemoâ exists, which can be obtained from some unidentified âFrench doctorâ who is âprivateâ ⊠and this particular drug apparently shrinks glioblastoma tumors to such a degree that they completely disappear.
It seems so odd that this miracle medication wasnât provided to:
- Gord Downie
- Beau Biden
- John McCain
They all died following their REAL struggles with glioblastoma. Iâm sure they and their families would have pursued any treatment possible for their cancer. Money wasnât an object for the McCain family.
What a pathological nut case to tell these sorts of lies about treatments for a fatal brain cancer.
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