I Need You to Know That I Had Cancer and Survived

Some disclaimers before we start:

One. I haven’t decided whether the comments are on for this one. You’ll know by the time you get to the bottom. If they’re on, please keep it positive. I’m especially interested in hearing from you if you survived cancer too, or if you know someone who did.

Two. I’m not going to be especially forthcoming about staging, risk, prognosis, or the play-by-play. That’s not what this article is for.

Three. I’m writing this because I promised myself I would.

I did not want to write this article. Not one bit. I’m writing it now because I know that if I don’t, I’ll never write it.

I found out I had cancer in March of 2020.

Here’s the thing about coming back to writing after a long time away: whatever you write about first creates inertia. If I came back and started writing about marketing and business, that inertia would carry me, and I would never write about this. And the disappearing act I mentioned in my first post back, the monk mode, was largely because of the cancer.

So this story goes first.

The Best Cover in the World

It was COVID time, and honestly, COVID was good cover. People were social distancing. Nobody was meeting in public. I could wear a mask everywhere, which I should have been doing anyway, because chemotherapy had wrecked my immune system. And if there was anyone I didn’t want to see because I obviously looked like I had cancer . . . I could get out of anything. Everyone could. That’s just what life was then.

And it wasn’t just COVID. I was living in Minneapolis, and the George Floyd riots were happening at the same time. The world had much bigger things to look at than me.

So mostly, people didn’t know. I stayed home and played with my children.

Why I Didn’t Tell (Hardly) Anyone

At first, I told a few people close to me. And I was surprised by how many of them, upon hearing that I had cancer, would immediately tell me about their mom who died of cancer. Or someone else they knew who died of cancer.

That feels fucking terrible.

I wanted, more than anything in the world, to live. To see my children grow up. To not abandon them. They were four. The last thing I wanted was a collection of death stories.

So I stopped telling people.

That was one reason. There were others.

I hate giving updates. I didn’t want a whole bunch of people constantly wanting to know how I was doing. Sometimes you have to go to war alone. Some battles need to be fought without an audience, because the act of being watched is draining.

I didn’t like the confused look people get when they’re unexpectedly presented with the reality that they might be talking to someone who’s dying.

And I didn’t like what the news does to insecure people. Some people, when they feel insecure about not having achieved what you’ve achieved, comfort themselves by finding a kind of equilibrium in the fact that something terrible happened to you. Here’s an example. I own a beautiful house in Hawaii (on six acres overlooking the ocean). It’s my favorite place on earth. I was telling a friend about it once, a friend who knew I’d survived cancer, and the moment I mentioned the house, they asked about the status of my remission. Like the house had to be offset. He’s got this beautiful place in Hawaii, sure, but he also had cancer. It evens out.

And then there’s plain gossip. At one point, word was going around that I had stage four cancer and two weeks to live, or something like that. Which wasn’t true.

So for a long time, I just didn’t tell people. My parents knew. A few close friends knew. My co-founder knew, and a handful of employees. Eventually I stopped running the company, and eventually we exited it, which I think was the right call. I wasn’t operating at my A game.

If you’re reading this and you’re my family: I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to worry about me. And if my mom or dad didn’t tell you, it’s because I made them promise not to.

There were so many ups and downs, and I didn’t want to bring people along for the ride. Every three-month PET scan was stressful. Once, I caught a cold, my immune system flared, and the imaging made it look like the cancer had spread to my lungs, my kidney, and my liver. And that I was going to die.

I Was Scared to Death

The reality is that I was scared to death.

But my life then was also a walking prayer. I took a walk along Minnehaha Parkway in Minneapolis every single day, and I was constantly in prayer. It was easily the most spiritual time of my life.

All I wanted was to not abandon my kids. That was the whole prayer.

I remember thinking how selfish it was that people die by suicide, when all I wanted was to live.

I used to stay in my kids’ bedrooms after they fell asleep, just listening to them breathe, crying, and praying to God that I’d be around to watch them grow old.

My mom and dad lost a daughter before I was born. I wanted to live for a lot of reasons, but one of them was that I didn’t want my mom to lose a second child. I didn’t want God to do that to her. I used to sit in the sauna with a ten-page prayer that I would read, bargaining with God, pleading not to die before my kids and break the generational order. I pleaded with God like I’ve never pleaded before.

So much of that time is sacred to me now.

I wrote a song for each of my daughters. A different song for each one, carrying the message I most wanted her to have about my love for her, and what’s possible in this life, and what mattered to me. The things I’d want to instill in them and leave with them if I wasn’t around to guide them. I sang those songs to them every night. I still do.

I also said a prayer with them every night. A scripted one, with the values most dear to me, and my wishes for them, and my love for them.

And I lit a candle every day and said a mantra that went exactly like this: “I’m here. I choose to stay. I choose to live in absolutely perfect health, until and past October 22nd, 2056.”

But I Need You to Know That I Had Cancer and Survived

Here’s something I noticed: it sometimes feels like cancer is the most common cause of tragic death in movies. I swear half the deaths in Lifetime movies are cancer. And every day there’s a headline about someone dying of it. There is far, far more news about cancer and death than there is about cancer and life.

The reality is that more people survive cancer than die from it.

So I promised myself that if I stayed cured for five years, I’d tell my story.

It’s been more than five years. So I’m telling you. Not because I want to, but because when I was in my darkest of dark places, I wanted to hear more stories about people who lived. I wanted to know I wasn’t alone. So many people who beat cancer never talk about it again. It becomes a dark chapter they’d rather not reopen. I understand that. I still think they should talk.

We hear from people with cancer while they have it. After they beat it, they mostly go quiet.

It Was Never “My Cancer”

Some language I need to flag.

Well-meaning people, my therapist included, would ask, “How is your cancer?” Sometimes they’d ask after it was already gone.

It was not my fucking cancer.

It was in my body temporarily. It wasn’t welcome there, and then it left. It didn’t belong to me. I never possessed it. It was in no way mine.

The best response I got, out of everyone I told, came from my executive assistant, Erin. When I told her the kind of cancer I had, which was lymphoma, she said: “I know a lot of old men who had that once.”

That was the perfect response.

The Honest Truth: I’m Glad It Happened

Provided that it didn’t kill me, and that it never comes back, the honest truth is that I’m glad it happened.

It fixed my priorities.

Now, when my kids ask if I want to play, the answer is yes. You want to go to the park? Yes. You want to go on a walk? Yes. You want me to do a craft with you? Yes. And every once in a while, I think: this is why I lived. This is why I’m here.

(I’ll be honest. As time goes on, I’m not saying yes as often as I want to, especially as work fills back in. And every once in a while I don’t say yes, and I catch exactly what I’m missing.)

I started doing school drop-offs and pickups more often. I was there when the kids got up in the morning, and I put them to bed every night. I was home more than ever, because all I wanted was to be with them.

One of my daughters used to come into my room every morning and pull my socks off. Looking back, sometimes it felt like she was checking on me each morning. Making sure I was still alive.

I don’t think any of this makes me heroic or brave or special. Lots of people want to live. Lots of people want to watch their kids grow old, and they aren’t as fortunate. And I don’t know why.

What I Want You to Do

I want more stories about people who survived.

If you’ve had cancer and beat it: please talk about it. Tell people. Put “cancer survivor” in your bio.

If you know someone who beat cancer, maybe send them this article and encourage them to tell their story.

And if you know someone who has cancer right now, the best thing you can do is expect them to live. Relate to them as someone who is going to live. See them as whole. Be optimistic for them, even when they can’t be . . . unless that’s truly not how they want you to relate to them. Then take their lead.

I fucking hate cancer.

But I need you to know: I had it, and I survived.

(I decided to leave the comments on. If you survived cancer, or you know someone who did, I’d love to hear your story.)