Finding myself

February 13, 2023 0 Comments

Life if funny post-cancer. (I hope I can call it “post-cancer”, I’m only a few months into being in remission so I use that term loosely.) I struggle daily to figure out who I am. The things I used value in myself are different now. I could work like a madman. There would be days …

#1 Don’t be afraid of death

January 24, 2022 0 Comments

1: Don’t be afraid of death Cancer.  I was diagnosed with leukemia on December 11th, 2020.  Without knowing too many details, right off the top I was thinking I was going to die.  We’ve all heard the survival rates of cancer.  We all know someone close to us that has died from it.  It is …

#2 Have Patience

January 24, 2022 0 Comments

2: Have patience The luxuries we have today lend our current society to have the idea that we all wanted everything yesterday.  The internet has given us instant access to information.  With our smart phones we have the world at our fingertips.  At the tap of a button we can ask Siri or Alexa any …

#4 Pain is inevitable

January 24, 2022 0 Comments

4. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional  One of my favorite sayings from when I did personal training, “pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”  The simple idea was that pain was something that was going to happen.  It didn’t have to be tremendous amounts of pain, but instead just enough to let you know …

#5 Exercise

January 24, 2022 0 Comments

Exercise I’ve been fortunate that I have been doing some type of physical activity for over 20 years.  It’s second nature to me at this point.  This put me in a better position going into the cancer treatment.  Having already developed the base for exercise, the positive benefits definitely helped get me through some of …

#7 Learn about your disease

January 24, 2022 0 Comments

# 7 Learn about your disease I was laying on my back in an older somewhat rickety hospital bed.  I had just had my first bone marrow biopsy and felt pretty overwhelmed.  I do have to admit I did have some feelings of pride and accomplishment when the nurse practitioner that had done the biopsy …

#8 Ask Every Question

January 13, 2022 0 Comments

We’ve all been told that there is no such thing as a stupid question.  Despite hearing it mutliple times over the course of our life, there’s always still questions we are hesitant to ask for fear of someone thinking we’re stupid.  As a personal trainer I always tried to get clients to ask every question.  …

#9 Get Help (and accept offers of help)

January 13, 2022 0 Comments

This is a big one and for multiple reasons.  This could actually be number 1 if I were giving these any sort of numerical value.  This encompasses both a range of pre-cancer all the way through to post-cancer and beyond.  It’s easy to let our ego get in our way and it will keep us  …

#10 Practice Gratitude

January 13, 2022 0 Comments

What are you thankful for?  Take a second and look around you.  Wherever you might be reading this, it’s likely that there are at least three things that you can find to be thankful for.  It could be something as grand as a loving spouse all the way down to something relatively and seemingly insignificant …

#11 Be Flexible

January 13, 2022 0 Comments

My original admission date for my bone marrow transplant date had been set for May the 4th (the force was obviously not with me).  I had set my last day of work and was going to take a few days to pack and spend with family before I embarked on a thirty day stay in …