I'm stealing my friend, WTE contributor, and brother from another mother, Phil Buckley's Genius Lunch idea, because I have cancer. That sentence may sound like potatoes can fly, but please let me explain how I need your help and share my hard-won tips on how you or a loved one can survive cancer.
Eric and I unknowingly had our first Genius Lunch when we discussed the need for better marketing automation with Jake Finkelstein. That lunch was fun. It reminded me how valuable sitting down and breaking bread with smart people is and how those connections help cure my cancer just about as much as the magic pills Dr. Byrd's team at the University of Cincinnati (UC) gives me, drugs you can read about in Nathan Vardi's great book For Blood and Money (Nathan is on my genius lunch list).
Find the list of Genius Lunch interviews I'd like to have in my Interviews to Cure Cancer Google sheet. Please add your smart, entrepreneurial, iconoclastic friends or add yourself to the list. If adding to the list doesn't work, please contact me, and I'll add your Genius Lunch suggestions to the list with my thanks and recognition you are helping cure cancer too.
Oh, and lunch is always on me. If you are like some of my friends and insist on paying resist that temptation, but send your lunch money to Dolores Dodson and the development team at UC to support their work on creating an amazing new blood cancer center.
martin (at) wte.net Martin Wescott Smith (on LinkedIn) 919.360.1224
I have Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), a blood cancer that seems to know when to remind me it's there - when things are going well. When life is good, I'm in trouble. The regularity of life is good moments, followed by getting sick again, is enough to make anyone paranoid.
I'm not paranoid, but after six rounds of chemotherapy, riding a bicycle across America (Martin's Ride) and seventeen years of treatment at UNC, Duke, Ohio State, and now the University of Cincinnati I've thought about what it takes to survive the Big C. Here's what I've learned:
Be Kind Saving my or your life is complex and requires Zen-like patience, forgiveness, and treating those treating you like long-lost family members. I'd rate my implementation of this rule at a C- since I'm rarely patient and working on being kind in the face of adversity is a work in progress. For example, I melted down after waiting four hours and with no hope for that wait to end during my last trip to Cincinnati. To the nurses' credit, they worked with me to create a new, better plan and sent me to my hotel, where I all but passed out. Surviving cancer is stressful and frustrating; remember they, your treating doctors, nurses, and administrators, are on your side as you fight a large nasty monster no one can defeat on their own.
Crowdsource Your Cancer Healthcare works like regional dairies with an expectation you'll drink milk from a hospital near you. That's a trap, a trap that can kill you. Find where your cancer is being researched and go there. That's why I'm getting treated in Cincinnati despite having outstanding healthcare in Chapel Hill (UNC) and Durham (Duke). Dr. John Byrd is the magic man for CLL, now saving my life for the second time.
Donate Donating to your treating institution doesn't change your care since most hospitals' left hand doesn't know what their right hand is doing, but it does introduce you to the hospital's development team. Development teams get charged with endowment fundraising, so they know their institution's C-level executives. Donating helps you get to know them better, but don't think you can buy better care - buying better care only works if you have a lot more money than me. Anything you can do to know and understand how your treating hospital works helps save your life, so break out the checkbook.
Toxins Anything from television shows to people can be toxic to your life, and anything harmful must go over the balloon's side. You are in the fight of your life, so prioritize things that build you up and eliminate stuff that tears you down. That tip goes double for that little voice inside your head. Focus on the good stuff and let everything else go, including beating yourself up - you can get back to beating yourself up with the Big C is in retreat.
Friends and Family I've survived cancer thanks to excellent doctors and with the help of friends and Family. Friends like Karen Cochran, John Kean, Phil Buckley, Eric Garrison, John Gaston, Chris Duke, Jake Finkelstein, Dan Miller, Chris Heivly, Dave Neal, Drew, and Nichole Baird, and many more are the reason I'm still here. Friends give you something doctors only scratch the surface - hope, love, and understanding.
How do you thank those who've helped save your life? Impossible. The best I can do is to pay the mountains of support I've received forward. If you want to share your or a loved one's cancer journey, please do. Together, we cure cancer one story at a time.
martin (at) wte.net Martin Wescott Smith (on LinkedIn) c: 919.360.1224