Today I want to share with you a little bit on what we are trying to do here.

First, my cancer story, what happened to me. Second, a little bit on my background. And then what came out of combining those two things and in a bit of trying to help people who have cancer now or will have cancer in the future.

So first a little bit of my cancer story. I had a tumor that was growing essentially right above my hamstring on the back of one of my legs. My general practitioner did not know what it was so he sent me down to The James Cancer Hospital here in Colombus, and his explanation was that if it is cancer they’ll be the right people to take care of it. Long story short, it was. I’m now a T-Cell Lymphoma survivor. I had two surgeries, three rounds of inpatient chemo, four days at a time, and on the IV continuously for four days at each session. I had another three days of complications that caused another three days of hospital time. Then after all that I got to go and have 15 rounds of radiation…so I’ve seen a lot and experienced a lot. 

Given my background and how I look at things, it really gave me the opportunity not only to deconstruct what was happening and what is happening while you’re a cancer patient, but my whole hope was what I can do to give back and what can I do to make it easier for the next person behind me. So that’s where this program and the book started to come together. 

A little bit on my background. I was trained with business degrees, both undergraduate degree and an MBA in operations. I spent most of my career in leadership and operations roles and that really has shaped how I look at the world and how I view things. Everything to me is an exercise in two ways – what is the process that makes something happen and what are the details that I need to be aware of. So you can imagine after twenty years or more of doing this and living in this world every single day, that I got to be pretty good at not only recognizing processes, but really paying attention to details. I think that has informed how I look at the process of being a cancer patient, not only from the perspective of the patient, but also and as equally important, the perspective of the care provider. I am able to see things from both sides of the fence and then use that perspective to develop some plans, procedures, some processes that will help every single cancer patient no matter what their type of cancer and what they’re experiencing.

We talked a little bit about what we’re trying to do here. And it’s very simple: How can I help cancer patients with some information? It’s really an opt in basis – here’s  a book, here’s a website, here’s some tips I learned along the way that will make your experience hopefully a little bit easier as a cancer patient. It really boils down to two things: 1.) There’s a process and you need to employ a process to really gain control of your own thoughts. They can be as most of us know the absolute worst enemy for you especially when you learn you have cancer but then later as you’re having rough days. 2.) You need a plan. You need a plan for how you are going to manage your interactions with your care team and how you are going to manage yourself. If you have a process to get yourself under control mentally you’ll be in a position to go and execute on a plan that will help you be as effective as possible as a cancer patient. 

So what’s the end result? You’ll be able to do your best job as a patient and you’ll also reduce the stress level you experience as much as possible for what you’re going through.

We have 7 core principles that we work through in the book and through some of the videos that you’ll see, so I encourage you to subscribe. The core one is how do you get control over your own mental processes in your own head so you have that to a level at least where you can execute on the rest of the plan to help you manage yourself and manage your interactions with the rest of your care team as you move forward. It’s actually pretty simple and pretty straight forward. As I mentioned, the only reason and the real key driver for this is really two fold: how do you minimize your stress and how do you work to a plan that will not only help you work through any complications or anything that comes forward, but how do you turn yourself into a better patient as you progress through your cancer treatment. 

My hope is that I can help every single person who is a cancer patient by helping themselves and managing themselves through the process.