John's Story

Cancer lessons learned

      1.    Your body tells you things, pay attention.

      2.    If you have money in the bank, use it for your health before anything else. Get a good primary care provider or concierge Doc. In the long run, it is short money because you cannot buy your health. My Florida concierge doc did in fact save my life.

      3.    It pays to stay on top of the condition. You will face the major health crisis, and your protocol is often dictated by your physical condition.

      4.    Use your network of friends. Your professional health can be a private issue, but your friends can help you immensely. My good friend from YPO probably also saved my life.

      5.    Do not be afraid to ask for help. Prayers do help. The cortisol/stress on your life is decreased if you are at peace. PANCAN / BTS are very helpful. Steve Merlin.

      6.    Spousal support is so important, but the nagging is the trade off. It was hard for her to hear me repeat the story countless times to all the friends and family who called regularly. It was therapeutic for me to talk about it and let the right people know.

      7.    It is quite humbling. It takes me about 30 seconds to button one button on a shirt because of neuropathy. Nausea during chemo is pretty intense and unrelenting.

      8.    A lot of things, you cannot do. A lot of things you can do, but it hurts.

      9.    Not drinking alcohol sucks at parties, but it’s really not that bad.

      10.   Sleep is your friend!

      11.   Doing things for others and nonprofits is therapeutic.

      12.   Reading and work/tasks requiring concentration can be quite difficult. Again, quite humbling.

      13.   Overall, I am lucky to have caught this early, seen the best docs / surgeons and hopefully put this behind me. You make your own luck!

      14.   It did make me look at my own mortality and make pragmatic plans for death, again humbling and frightening. I am a better person for it and made a deal with my maker to be more generous and philanthropic. I am much nicer to people and notice / recognize them more. Newfound love for Loren (wife) and she for me.

      15.   People seem genuinely happy to see me and make me feel like a celebrity.

      16.   Listen to your body. Insist on a scan. Scans cost $ and they are all to often not prescribed.

      17.   I am an Engineer. Discipline of the diet. Whacky at first. With this disease, I needed to eat. Gaining weight was hard.

      18.   I educated so many people who knew nothing about this disease. Scary thing that few people knew about. Many people clam up. It was helpful for me to talk about this disease in detail

      19.   Live my life as I did before. Just because I have cancer doesn’t mean I go into isolation. My mental outlook never wavered - I kept the positive attitude going.

      20.   Loren reminded me that we don’t get invited to as many events or parties because of me and my illness. I couldn’t argue with her.