.png)
The Walk Family Podcast
The Walk Family Podcast is a show focused on biblical parenting (what the Bible says about parenting) and reaches all stages of life. Whether you are a new or experienced parent, we all make mistakes and wrestle through what being a godly mom or dad looks like in daily life. This podcast provides hope and encouragement through the Bible's teaching about being the parent God desires you to be.
The Walk Family Podcast
Laughter and Love in Life's Toughest Times
What happens when life's storms feel unrelenting, but hope and humor shine through? Our episode today features Terry, whose journey from the ICU to battling cancer is a testament to resilience powered by faith. Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Terry's upbringing instilled a strong spiritual foundation, allowing him to find laughter even amidst adversity, like imagining popcorn popping on his fevered chest. His story not only touches on his health challenges but also highlights the emotional pulse of his family, especially his military-serving daughter.
Listeners will hear personal accounts of strength in the face of a melanoma diagnosis that came at 51, stories of daunting treatments, and the crucial role of loved ones during such times. The journey of enduring severe side effects and making heart-wrenching decisions, like dealing with the consequences of aggressive cancer treatments, is shared candidly. The narrative also touches on the emotional weight of navigating personal health alongside family responsibilities, demonstrating the power of support and faith.
As we wrap up, we reflect on how personal trials often lead to profound self-discovery and a deeper connection with one's faith. The conversation explores how facing life's challenges head-on can illuminate purpose and meaning, with insights like the Navy SEALs' 40% rule offering motivational guidance. We also introduce our new serial format, promising a deeper dive into these heartfelt stories with each episode, and encourage listeners to stay connected for more insights, inspiration, and updates on upcoming projects.
https://www.motivationalcheck.com/
You can connect with Tony and Laura at
thewalkpodcastministries@gmail.com
Twitter (X) @TonySmith4520
https://www.thewalkfm.com/
Newsletter and Prayer and Promises Access
You can support Tony and Laura https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tonysmith
Thanks for listening and supporting our show!
And so she takes the temperature and it's 104. So she runs out to get the doctor and she and the doctor and a couple other people come back in. They take it again it's 106. And so immediately all the warm blankets come off, they pack me in ice and I mean, again I'm freezing. But I'll give you a funny story. This really happened.
Speaker 1:I remember kind of lifting my head up and looking at my torso and it looked like the hood of a car that had been left out in the sun. You know, like in August, there were just heat waves coming off of this. And, tony, this is what I thought If I had a pan of Jiffy Pop popcorn, I could probably pop it on my chest. That's honestly what I thought. That's how delirious I was, yeah. And the next thing I remember was waking up in the icu I don't remember anything after that and I was told that the temperature got up to 108 and the charge nurse pulled my, my wife, out of the room as they were working on me and said to her and I thought this was incredibly insensitive you better prepare yourself, because I've only seen two people with a fever this high and neither one of them survived.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, it's Tony and welcome back to the Walk Family Podcast. I am bringing you a series titled Seasons of Despair, which focuses on different experiences of life, such as marriage, raising kids and loss of loved ones, and how people navigate those hardships. Laura and I bring to the table conversations from our own home, as well as introduce some guests sharing their stories. Everybody goes through trials and tribulations in life. Sometimes it feels we can't ever escape the pain that that brings.
Speaker 2:James 1, 2, and 3 says consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Faith produces perseverance. This is easier said than done. Despair, by definition, is the loss or absence of hope. As a believer in Jesus, there is always that eternal hope we have, but sometimes we don't always feel like it exists. It's an incredibly challenging thing when we feel despair in this life, when we think there is no hope and all we experience is hurt and pain. My hope and my prayer is that this series will show that you are not alone in your moments of despair. All right, terry, I want to hear a little bit about you, where you live in, in your family, all of it.
Speaker 1:Sure, I'll start growing up. I born and raised on the South side of Chicago. I'm the oldest of three boys. You can't tell this from looking at me, but I'm six foot eight inches tall and all my brothers and I played college sports college athletics, two basketball, one baseball, and I had one brother who was drafted by the Cavaliers and the National Basketball Association. So you know it was kind of like I'm 6'8", I got a brother 6'7", a brother 6'6" and my dad was 6'5". So we used to joke that if you sat behind our family in church growing up, not a prayer's chance you're going to see anything that was going on, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Now was your mom tall as well 5'8". Oh, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:So I mean not bad, but it didn't matter how big, tall, strong we were. Whatever mom said, that's the way it was Mom was feeding us.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, I think, taught us the value of family, of loving each other, of caring for each other, of supporting each other, and I know my brothers and I have passed that on to our kids as well. My wife and I have one child, a daughter, who's in the military here in the US. We live in Denver now. We met in Columbus, ohio, we moved to Santa Barbara, california, cincinnati, ohio, Houston, texas and now here in Denver, and I think.
Speaker 1:Denver's it for us. I think this is where we'll make our sort of final last stand. Our daughter is married and lives in Florida with her husband, who's also in the military, and so it's, you know, faith has always been an incredibly important part of our lives. You know, when I met my wife, I was Catholic. She was not, but you know, every Sunday it's would you come to church with me. And she did. And eventually she was like, well, this, maybe I ought to look into this. And has been a Catholic for a number of years and we've raised our daughter Catholic. She kind of got away from it for a while and even actually went to started, put one year in to theology school, and that was like no, I'm a Catholic, I, I this, this works for me and that, so I, I love that faith journey. It's like we're not going to tell you what to believe, we're going to model what we think you should believe, but you, you've got to decide this for yourself. And so she kind of did the circle and came around.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's cool, that's awesome. So, 2012, you were diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Is that correct? And then, so how did like, how did that kind of change your world? The shock, I mean it was shocking, I'm sure kind of change your world. The shock, I mean it was shocking, I'm sure. Um, but like, tell me the whole thing. Like you get the diagnosis that nobody ever wants to get, how did your family react? How did you react?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely so. I was a at the time. I had a school security consulting business, but I was also the girls high school basketball coach for my daughter and her team. And I had a callus break open on the bottom of my left foot, right below my third toe, and initially didn't think much of it because you know as a coach you're on your feet a lot.
Speaker 1:But after a few weeks of it not healing I made an appointment and went to see a podiatrist, a foot doctor friend of mine, and he takes an x-ray and he says Terry, I think you have a little cyst in there and I can cut it out.
Speaker 1:And he does, and he shows it to me just a little gelatin sack with some white fat in it, no dark spots, no blood, nothing that gave either one of us concern. But fortunately, or unfortunately, he sends it off to pathology to have it looked at. And then, two weeks later, as you mentioned, I get this call from him and, as I said, he was a friend of mine. So the more difficulty he's having explaining to me what's going on, the more frightened I am becoming, until finally he just laid it out. He said, terry, I've been a doctor for 25 years and I have never seen the form of cancer that you have. You have an incredibly rare form of melanoma and most people think of melanoma. Too much exposure to the sun affects the melon, the pigment in our skin, and it has nothing to do with sun exposure. It's just a rare form that appears on the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands and he recommended I go to.
Speaker 1:MD Anderson Cancer Center probably one of the better cancer centers in the United States, maybe in the world and be treated. And so I did. And they took off the bottom of my foot where the tumor was, they took out all the lymph nodes in my groin and then they said get your affairs in order because more than likely you'll be dead in two years.
Speaker 2:So it had already spread. By the time they found it it had metastasized, so this is technically a stage four cancer. They gave me a it's a stage three B, so you know but I mean to the point where they they're ripping out lymph nodes, you know, halfway up your body. And so how did uh like, how did your family respond to that? How did you respond to that?
Speaker 1:I mean, I was in shock. I mean, when I graduated from college, my father and my grandmother were both dying of cancer and I helped my mom and my brothers take care of them for three and a half years while they died, and they died within 18 months of each other. I redoubled that effort.
Speaker 1:It was like hey, you know what? I'm going to make sure I eat right, I'm going to continue to exercise, I'm going to do not abuse alcohol and drugs, not smoke all the things we know. And and so I did so. When I got cancer it was. I absolutely went through all the stages that we would associate with grief, you know, first it was denial I can't possibly have cancer, I've done everything right in my life. Then it was anger you know, I can't possibly have cancer, I've done everything right in my life. And then there was kind of a bargaining with God.
Speaker 1:Our daughter was in high school when I was diagnosed and it was hey, you know, could you please let me live long enough to see her graduate from high school. And then I absolutely got down, got depressed, felt sorry for myself. High school, and then I absolutely got down, got depressed, felt sorry for myself. And then I just came out the other end, tony, and it was like this sucks, but I'm going to have to embrace the suck. You know I do not like the cards that I've been dealt, but I'm going to have to play these cards to the best of my ability and that's what I've been trying to do now for the last 12, it'll be 13 years in April now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how? Just pure curiosity. How old were you when you were diagnosed 51. 51. So kind of a side note. So my uncle died at 51 from colon cancer, Not rare by any means, but it had already spread.
Speaker 2:I mean it was stage four, just all over the place it was in his liver, it was in his spine, it was in his lymph nodes from you know, scald down, it was just there was no chance. So from the diagnosis it was about 11 months and he passed away. But when you think about like age, right, early 50s is not that old and to get a diagnosis like that kind of freaks you out because it's like you have another you know, 40, 50 years that you want to live, you know, and you said that your daughter was in high school. So there's a huge element to it. How did your wife take it?
Speaker 1:I mean, I can assume, but I'm just curious on like her take yeah, my wife is a stoic Norwegian, so you know, I mean she is, and she is tough as nails. And I mean I always say I. There've been several episodes along this journey where she, if she hadn't noticed something, I would have been dead. And so I mean I remember, I remember where I was when I got the call. I mean I was in a FedEx parking lot dropping off. I'd just done a report for a school. I had a school security consulting business that I had just sent to the school, and the phone rings and it's my doctor. So you know it's Houston, texas. I get in the car, you know it's hot, I turn on the air conditioning and he starts to tell me and I I start sweating profusely, to the point where I can't see out the windows anymore.
Speaker 1:You know I mean there's so much humidity inside the car. And he tells me like, okay, you know, you got to digest that for a while. And then I called my wife at work and I'm like here's the deal. And all she said was I love you, don't worry about it, we'll get through this. And and it was like, okay, yeah, you're right, we will. Well, I mean, whatever this? And at the time I didn't know, you know what's the prognosis? How long? You know, are they going to give me what? What's the treatment? Can they just cut it out on the on the foot and be done with it? Unfortunately, I had a microscopic amount of cancer in one of the lymph nodes in my groin, so it was like we got to take all your lymph nodes out, sure, okay, so she was. I mean, she has been been with me I mean, and that's the, hard thing.
Speaker 1:You know, we've been married for 31 years and 13 of those years have been dealing with cancer. I've never been in remission, I've never been. You know, there's never been a period where nothing's going on. I'm either having my leg amputated, my foot amputated, drug trials, drug therapies, whatever it ends up being. So you know, you think about that. It's like I know it's, you know, for better or for worse, it's sickness and it helps, but that that that probably hurts more than anything is to know that this, this isn't much of a life. You know, this is just you taking care of me.
Speaker 2:There's a there's an immense amount of like emotional taxation that comes with it. It's like when and again, like the stuff that I talk about, like with my uncle I I'm, I edit all the episodes, so like I'm not even going to throw that in because this, this story, is about you, but just because it's conversational. Um, like Michael wasn't married. My uncle was single. Um, he ended up getting married before he passed away, so he he had a girlfriend, longtime girlfriend, and it was like to see what he went through and like taking care of somebody who is going through treatment.
Speaker 2:It's it is extensive and it is very, very draining. And I saw it from the outside and you know, talking to people that have gone through it, talking to people who you know are in remission now, it's like that experience is not pleasant, but it's not just pleasant for the patient, it's unpleasant for everybody else. And so, like I can imagine you know you guys are navigating this still, you know, 13 years later, it's draining physically, I'm sure, for you, emotionally for you, but it's also for your wife as well. What happens next.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So my doctor says look, I'm going to put you on this drug called interferon, and interferon is used for a lot of things. Hepatitis in the liver is one of the things that it's used for, and it just so happened that one of my player's grandmothers was on interferon for hepatitis, and so I went to her and I'm like tell me about it. And she's like it's not a great drug, but you know what. You're strong, you're young, you can handle it. For you know, she's like I'm on it for about six months. So I, you know, go marching into my oncologist's office, you know, and be like all right, I can do this. I figure six months I'll be in good shape.
Speaker 1:And she looks at me and starts shaking her head. She's like I want you to do it for five years. I said, hang on. I said the side effects of this are I'm going to have severe flu like symptoms for two to three days every week after each injection. And you're telling me you want me to go through that for five years with the understanding that this isn't a cure, this is just kicking the can down the road with the hope that something else gets developed, that's specifically for melanoma in terms of treatment. She's like yes, I said you're nuts. I said I can't. I can't even fathom that in my own mind. I mean, we've all had the flu. And she's like well, do the best you can.
Speaker 2:Wow. So like was there? You know alternative meds like radiation, different type of chemo, like there was nothing.
Speaker 1:There was nothing. It's like it's this or it's nothing, and you know it was okay. You had a microscopic amount of cancer in your lymph node. We took out your lymph nodes. So there's the. What are you betting on? You know, did it. And it's funny because my my oncologist years later told me when you were diagnosed, wherever your cancer was in your body, it was already there. I mean, you didn't do anything to move it or make it go anywhere. Our problem with technology is that your tumor, or whatever it ends up being, has to be the size of a garden pea in order for us to see it on a scan, a PET scan, a CAT scan, an MRI, whatever. He said. That's about a billion cells, something that's the size of a pea, he said. So the tumors that I currently have in my lungs, they're already there.
Speaker 1:They were just too small for us to see them back in 2012. So you know, so I start on interferon and all kinds of horrible side effects, rashes and stuff like that. But I I, I did that for four years and seven months. I took a weekly injection. I missed one week to take our daughter on a college visit. And it was Tony, it was the worst. I begged to die. I pleaded with God. I'm like I am so sick of being sick. Please just take me out of this, be done with this.
Speaker 1:I kind of felt there was the camp of living and the camp of not dying, and I was in the not dying camp. I wasn't contributing, I wasn't working. I mean, a good day for me sometimes was can I get out of bed and make it to the sofa? And you know my wife would be like just sit with us at dinner I know you don't feel like eating, but just sit with us and I would sit there, tony, and I would get a whiff of you know, chicken or broccoli, and it was like nope, got to go and I'd have to go throw up. You know, I mean that's what life was like.
Speaker 1:And you know I took a shot. I took a shot on Saturday night. So Sunday, monday and Tuesday were that felt that way. Wednesday things start to feel better, thursday things to start feel better, and you would think that Friday would be the best day. But it got to a point where it was almost like my body knew it's like it's coming. I know it's coming, so we're going to start prepping ourselves. We're going to start, you know, and so I would start feeling really lousy on friday and saturday and then I'd take it saturday night, and so there really weren't very many good days for almost five years that's, and you know you think about talking to.
Speaker 2:Was it your the former player's grandma? Is that what? Yes, yeah, so you know six months to. Was it your the former player's grandma? Is that what? Yeah, so you know six months. You go into it and then they say five years unfathomable. Do you think that they? Do you think that they anticipated that your cancer had spread to other parts of the body? That's why they suggested five years, or are you unsure?
Speaker 1:Well, five years was kind of the the standard protocol, Like if you can, if you can, five years is probably the most you can do, and it was the most I could do. I ended up in the intensive care unit because the medicine got so toxic to my body that I had a fever of 108 degrees, which is usually not compatible with being alive, and it was yeah, this is just too toxic, Now you can't take it anymore. And so that was we've got to stop this and now we need to look at something else. And something else was we're going to amputate your foot.
Speaker 2:So tell me, tell me about the ICU with your fever, and that was direct cause from the interferon. Do you even remember any? I mean, with a, with a fever, with a temp that high, like you are not. Yeah, you shouldn't survive. But like conscious wise, like your mind, like, do you? Do you have any recollection of what went on?
Speaker 1:I do. I mean, for probably the last eight months or so that I was on interferon, I was probably in the ER at least once a month. You know, I would wake up feeling a certain way and it's like, okay, let's go to the ER. And if I had a fever they usually kept me overnight to run blood tests to make sure I wasn't getting septic or something like that. But this was, this was the very last time, and I remember going into the ER and I was naked from the waist up. I had a pair of sweatpants on and so I was naked from the waist up and, tony, I was freezing. I don't think I'd ever been so cold in my life.
Speaker 1:So they were wrapping me up in warm blankets and stuff like that and my wife was. You know, I was laying on the gurney, my wife was like right by my head and we'd been talking and all of a sudden she, the nurse, comes in and she, she looks at the nurse and she's like you need to take his temperature. And nurse was like we just took his temperature, it's fine. She said no, you need to take his temperature. Now he's slurring his words. And so she takes the temperature and it's 104. So she runs out to get the doctor and she and the doctor and a couple other people come back in. They take it again it's 106. And so immediately all the warm blankets come off, they pack me in ice and I mean again I'm freezing.
Speaker 1:But I'll give you a funny story. This really happened. I remember kind of lifting my head up and looking at my torso and it looked like the hood of a car that had been left out in the sun. You know, like in August there were just heat waves coming off of this. And, tony, this is what I thought. If I had a pan of Jiffy Pop popcorn, I could probably pop it on my chest right now.
Speaker 2:That's honestly what I thought.
Speaker 1:That's how delirious I was. And the next thing I remember was waking up in the ICU. I don't remember anything after that and I was told that the temperature got up to 108 and the charge nurse pulled my wife out of the room as they were working on me and said to her and I thought this was incredibly insensitive you better prepare yourself, because I've only seen two people with a fever this high and neither one of them survived. It's like I understand you need to prep the family, but you know what that was like. You're watching them work on me. You're basically saying it's probably going to die.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah that's. And so I've never I've never heard of a case where it was 108. And I don't do like a whole bunch of research myself, but usually like fevers come from like infection, and so you're getting a massive fever from a drug that you've been taking for five, almost five years. Did you know, or did the doctors know, it was a result from the interferon, when you were in the ICU?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they had a pretty good idea. I mean there was interferons dosed based on weight, sure, and I mean I lost 50 pounds during my therapy and you know I used to say I had to run around in the shower to get wet, I mean I was so skinny and that, and so it was OK, we got to, we got to decrease your dose, got to decrease your dose and as I was going to the ER, you know, my doctor was kind of like I don't know if we should keep doing this. And I was the one who was like no, we're going to keep doing it. It's kept the cancer at bay. Cancer hasn't come back yet.
Speaker 1:So no, we're going to keep doing this. And I was like we'll keep doing this till it kills me. Really. I mean it was kind of my thinking and, like I said, when it got to that point where it was so toxic that you know it was a hundred and eight fever, my doctor was like I'm just not prescribing it anymore. I don't care how much you want it, you're not getting it. We're done with that form of treatment.
Speaker 2:Did your doctors like do consistent scans, like every couple of months, and so there was no cancer that was found in your body as you were taking the drug, so it was at bay, but they didn't put you in remission. Is that correct? Correct, okay, was there a reason? Why Was there a fear that it was there? They just couldn't see it. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean melanoma is incredibly aggressive and it was, like I said, you know, the size of a garden pea. I mean, I remember and I'm getting a little ahead of myself but I was on a, had been on a clinical trial drug and I was on it with another woman and for months she was telling our oncologist we had the same oncologist there's a spot on my back. It really hurts. I can't. I can't sleep at night and you know, and we were getting scanned, we were, you know he was being the doctor was palpating it, you know I, you know feeling it and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:He's like there's nothing there, there was something there there was a tumor there and that tumor wrapped around her aorta and her spine and eventually killed her. Wow, so it was. I know it's, I'm feeling it, but the doctor's like I don't, I can't treat something I can't see, you know. I mean, we're doing scans, there's nothing there. I'm feeling it, I don't feel anything. I don't know what to treat. Yeah, you know so.
Speaker 2:What led to the foot amputation.
Speaker 1:So they put me on some there. There's new things out there. They're biologic type medicine. You may have seen happening at Keytruda and and Novomalab, novomalab I, they all got good names that normal humans can pronounce, not medical people.
Speaker 1:Um, so I, they put me on those and those, the side effects for those. I woke up in the middle of the night swearing I was having a heart attack. I couldn't breathe. You know pressure on my chest. Go to the ER. I got a blood clot in my lung. I've got fluid around the sack of my heart side effects from that.
Speaker 1:So we got to stop that and they're like we don't have anything else. We got to take your foot off and it was originally going to be. We're going to take your lower leg. It's going to be a blow, the knee amputation, and there was fortunately a foot specialist that kind of looked at it and said I can do this. I think there's enough good skin and all that you know to form a flap and stuff like that. So I'll take everything basically from your ankle forward, so all your tarsals and metal tarsals, but I'll leave you your heel and your ankle and I was like, great, I mean, at least you can. I mean I still had to go to physical therapy to learn how to balance, you know, and walk in that. But that was a whole lot easier than having a below the knee amputation. So that was the next course of action.
Speaker 2:When they first said you're going to have to have an amputation, like what was your gut reaction like? Was it positive, was it negative? I mean, it was.
Speaker 1:You know I have a very warped sense of humor. It was like great, you're piecemealing me to hell, one body part at a time. You know it's like here's a foot, here's, you know, I mean it was. It was certainly scary, but it was like OK, you know. It's almost like okay, there's this horrible thing, you're going to have a blow, the knee amputation but then there's like no, we won't do that. We'll just take everything in front of your ankle. So it was almost like oh okay, I can deal with that, you know, I still.
Speaker 1:I mean, we've all walked on our heels, you know, before it's like's like, all right, I'll figure this out. You know, I'll work with physical therapy, I'll figure it out. And so that's what they did. I mean, I wasn't happy about it, but it was like at least it's not the most severe thing, which was to blow the knee amputation. So it was something better in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:So it's like logically, it was well. This is better than what I was originally suggested. Yeah, logically, it was well, this is better than what was originally suggested.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so now you're not on interferon anymore, you've gone through an amputation. What happens next?
Speaker 1:So that was 2018. So 2019, now it starts to work its way up my leg and I feel these two bumps on my shin, and so I look at the doctor. I'm like you want to look at these. What do you think he's like? I don't think it's melanoma, he said, but we'll biopsy him. It was melanoma, so two more surgeries in 2019, and there ended up being another lesion and things like that. So I had two surgeries in 2019 on my shin to try to remove the cancer in that part of my leg.
Speaker 2:Was it the same cancer that was on your foot? Yes, yeah, more surgeries. We're now six years into this. Can you lead me through the next six years to where you're at today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so 2020,. Welcome to COVID. I have a my my surgical oncologist recommends. He said let's try this. He said we don't do this anymore. He said but it might make sense for you, because right now the cancer had been confined to my left leg. It wasn't anywhere else Groin down cancer, but nowhere else had it popped up. So what he recommended was they cut into my right groin and exposed my femoral artery and vein and then ran a tube tubes up through them over into my leg. And I was out for this, which is considered a surgical procedure.
Speaker 1:They put a tourniquet on my thigh, heated up my leg and then, for about an hour and a half, ran chemotherapy through my left leg. It was sort of a loop, it was a circle. It went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and he thought, since it's only isolated to the leg as far as we know right now, let's run chemo through your leg in the hope that if it's there it'll kill it. And we all thought great, great idea. And so I did that. And you know I was in the hospital for seven days. Every two hours they had to make sure I had a pulse in that leg. It was, it was kind of it was just annoying more than it was anything, and so, like you're good, and so I was getting scans. Scans were good, and then my lower leg kind of started to swell and so they sent me to an occupational therapist to work on what they thought was lymphedema, which is lymph fluid that's not being properly gotten out of your, your limb.
Speaker 1:What I ended up having was a tumor kind of in the ankle area that grew large enough that it broke my leg. It fractured my tibia, so COVID's going on, it's time to scan. It was actually the occupational therapist who finally called the doctors and was like no, something's wrong here. What I'm doing should be producing results. It's not. He's getting worse. You need to scan him.
Speaker 1:So they did an ultrasound and the ultrasound woman was like I'm not getting anything back and that was because my entire lower leg was full of cancer. She couldn't see through. She couldn't see what she needed to see. So they scanned me and I find out my entire lower leg is full of cancer. I have a tumor that has broken my leg, which is why I'm having so much pain walking, and I have these two large tumors in one of each lung and I'm like okay. So they're like the immediate need was we need to take your leg off, we need to do an above the knee amputation.
Speaker 1:But it was COVID and so surgeries had shut down, I mean, unless it was an absolute emergency. And my doctor was like it is an emergency, you know. They're like well, put their leg in a cast. It's like the tumor broke the leg. It's not like he fell out of the tree or something like that, you know. And so they end up agreeing and honestly, tony, that was probably the worst. My doctor was really smart. I'm treated at the University of Colorado hospitals and they have multiple locations. So he's like we're going to go to the Broomfield location because they don't accept COVID patients. I'm like great, that sounds good. He said you'll be in the hospital 10 days to 14 weeks or 14 days to learn how to function without a leg. He said great, but the other side of that was my. I was not allowed to have anyone with me.
Speaker 1:So the morning I'm losing my leg. My wife pulls us up to the ER and you know there's a nurse waiting there in a wheelchair and she's like what do I do? I said just sit in the parking lot and pray, that's. I don't know what to tell you. You know, wait for the doctor to call you. The nurse wheels me back into a pre-op area and anybody who's had surgery knows you know. It's just a big room kind of divided up into like 20 or 30 different little smaller rooms, all designed to prep people for surgery. And Tony, I was the only person in that room. It was me, the nurse and an anesthesiology resident and you know they prep me. I have surgery, I go to, I go to a room afterwards for 48 hours and then they're like we're sending you home. I'm like it's been 48 hours.
Speaker 2:They said two weeks right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they said 10 days to two weeks. It's 48 hours. Like nope, we got to get you out of here. It's COVID.
Speaker 1:You know, it was still we don't know, covid, we don't you know like we got to get you out of here, and that was like we're not prepared, our house is not prepared for me to come home in a wheelchair, using a walker and all that kind of stuff. Fortunately, the occupational therapist that had worked with me was kind enough to stop by after work and help my wife. You know, okay, we got to that rug's a trip hazard. We got to and really kind of set the house up and that's that was where I was.
Speaker 1:And then the doctor was like I want to put you on chemotherapy. And I said to him is it going to save my life? And he said probably not, but it might buy you some more time. And I said well, if the outcome is going to be the same, if I'm going to die whether I take chemo or not, I would rather not be sick, go through all that I said, but I'll go home and talk to my family and I'll end with this. This is true story, exactly the way it happened. So I go home and start telling my wife and daughter what's going on. My daughter's in college now. She's home on a break, and so I started talking about it, my wife's like, or my daughter's like all right, we need a family meeting.
Speaker 2:I'm like family meeting there's three of us.
Speaker 1:It's not like we've got a board here or something like that, you know. So we individually sit around the kitchen table and talk about how we all feel about me having chemo. We're done with that, our daughter's like. All right show of hands. How many people want dad to have chemotherapy?
Speaker 1:And my wife and daughter raise her hand like wait a minute, am I getting outvoted for something I don't want to do? But I remembered when I was back in the police academy, our defensive tactics instructor used to have us bring a photograph of the people we love the most to class, loved the most to class, and as we were learning different techniques to defend ourselves, we were to look at that photograph because he reasoned, you will fight harder for the people you love than you will fight for yourself. So I ended up taking chemotherapy, not because I wanted to, but because I love my wife and daughter more than I love myself, and in hindsight it was the right thing to do. It was the drug that got me to the clinical trial drug I've been on for the last four years now.
Speaker 2:Okay, this was ultimately like your daughter was the one to kind of call the shots. Yeah, and she's in college at this point. So she's what? Maybe what? 19, 20 years old, yeah, exactly. So she's calling the shots, obviously like you're going to have some mixed emotions about it, because it's like, hey, this is my life, this is my body Ultimately. So you go through this chemo. How long did that take? How long did that treatment take?
Speaker 1:Roughly a year I was on it.
Speaker 2:It was called the Dartmouth Method.
Speaker 1:It was like three different types of chemo. So it was a long day and it was it was like every other week or something like that. So, you know and they're like, you're going to lose your hair. I never lost my hair.
Speaker 1:You know and I kept telling my oncologist when am I going to lose my hair? Because I was like, ready to shave my head, wear an earring, put on a white T-shirt and say, hey, I'm Mr Clean, you know, I mean, this is looking good. He's like some people, don't? He said there's this clinical trial drug I want to put you on it and it's a clinical trial, so we don't you know, you don't know how it's going to affect you.
Speaker 1:And so I I'm like okay. I said, do you really want to stop the chemo? He's like yeah. I said I think I think the chemo's served its purpose. He said I don't think you're going to get any better results. I don't think it's going to shrink the tumors anymore. He said so let's, let's flip and try this.
Speaker 1:And so it's a clinical trial drug that does nothing to the cancer and the way cancer proliferates in the body is it secretes an enzyme or a protein that basically hides it from your immune system. And all this drug does I say all what this drug does is it goes in and wipes out that protein, wipes out that enzyme, so that your own immune system, just like if you had a cold virus or a flu virus in your system, it would say wait a minute, that doesn't belong here, we need to attack it. So it was my own immune system looking at the cancer and saying, oh, that doesn't belong here, we need to attack it. And I've been on that drug for four years. It was four years in November and the trial is over.
Speaker 1:It's you know, it did. It's not going to move forward because it's every single day at the hospital, probably for six or seven hours every three weeks. And for me, I have a terrible reaction to it. About two hours after they give it to me, I shake very violently, I throw up or I have dry heaves, I have a fever, I sweat All kinds of things, and so I've been doing that every week for every three weeks for the last four years now.
Speaker 2:So is it like three weeks on, three weeks off.
Speaker 1:No, it's, it's a week on, two weeks off.
Speaker 2:Oh, I see Two weeks off, yeah. Okay, so seven hours a day, a full week, you get two weeks to recover and then you do it again, and you do this for four years.
Speaker 1:I've done it for four years so far.
Speaker 2:Would you compare this trial drug to interferon as far as like the side effects, which one was more extreme?
Speaker 1:Oh, interferon was much more extreme because it was constant. I mean this is, this is sort of a. It starts at two hours, it roughly I feel that way. I shake all that stuff for about two hours but I know it's going to end. You know, I know there's an end point and you know, I mean you can imagine. I mean it would be like doing really physical exercise for two hours and then you're like man, I'm kind of beat, you know I'm kind of wiped out. But then I go home and come the next day by the end of the week I'm absolutely beat. But you know, interferon was much worse.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, those tumors that were in your lungs, so you alluded to that. They shrunk a little bit with the first treatment, um, but there was no talk about removing them surgically.
Speaker 1:No, my, my doctor is, you know, lung surgery. I said you know, could you go down my you know my windpipe and get into the lungs and remove them that way? He said no. He said we would have to cut you open and remove them and he said, honestly, I don't think it's worth it. You know the risk of infection and all the things that could happen. He said I just don't think it's worth it. So we haven't done it.
Speaker 2:So you're at this point where the those tumors still there, but they've shrunk. Yes, okay, and so now here we are, present day.
Speaker 1:What is your routine? What is your treatment routine like? Yeah, so still on the every three weeks? Um it, they backed it off to four days a week instead of five because I would show up on Friday. They would do my blood work and they're like your blood counts are too low, we can't give you the medicine anyway. So they got the trial manufacturer to agree that I just do it Monday through Thursday. Now my doctor is considering talking to the company again saying let's, let's double it, let's do it every six weeks and see if we can get the same efficacy, see if we can keep those tumors still at bay with having that amount. Now we'll see if they agree to that.
Speaker 1:It took them forever to agree to not letting me treat on Friday, but she's like you would think they would want to know if you could push that out and still get the same results. So I'm like, and still get the same results. So I'm like I'd be all for it, I'd love to have you know I'd have much, a much better life in terms of you know, because it usually takes me about a week to recover and then. So basically, I have a week and then I start over again. So it's, it's not. It's not much of a life, but it's a life that I try to live to the fullest as much as I can. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And this is not something where you have, per se, like an end in sight, like you've been doing this for 13 years, moving forward. Has there been any new discovery of different tumors in different parts of your body? No, okay, but you're not quite in remission yet. And do you ever? Do you ever have doubts or even hopes that you will or will never reach remission?
Speaker 1:I've pretty much been told that I won't Okay that. At best I will live with a chronic illness Sure. At worst it'll be a terminal illness.
Speaker 2:At what point in your journey was your lowest point and did you ever feel like a sense of hopelessness or despair?
Speaker 1:and I didn't feel I was contributing. You know, I mean, sometimes I could throw a load of laundry, you know, and I'll help my wife out, but it was just. I mean, we've all had the flu and you know, we know how we feel. You know, it's just like I'm drained and I mean, and I was throwing up, I had diarrhea, I had the shakes, I had the chills, I had everything. I mean it wasn't just, oh, I don't feel good, it was full blown. And so you know that just wears on you, you know that constant sickness kind of thing, and it was like please, god, just take me, just get me out of it, let my family get on with their lives, you know yeah they'll miss me for a while but at least they'll get on with their lives and things like that.
Speaker 1:And that was absolutely the lowest time. It was a time of helplessness and hopelessness for me, and certainly my faith got me through it. But I'm going to tell you what else got me through it. My wife works with a young man who's very kind. He calls me on my off days or off weeks of treatment just to check up on me, and he's a former Navy SEAL. And we talk a lot about what the SEALs call their 40% rule. And these are some of the toughest warriors in the world go through some of the toughest training. And the SEALs talk about how, if you're done, if you're at the end of your rope, if you just don't think you can go on, you're only at 40% of your maximum and you've got another 60% left to give to yourself.
Speaker 1:And whenever I got into those like I'm done, I'm sick of this, I'm not going to do this anymore. I would think about that. And then I would also think about is God using my infirmity, my malignancy, to show other people his love, his grace, his mercy, his power, his healing? And that's where I am right now. It's like all right, god, use me. Use me Because I don't have bad days anymore. Tony, two things I've learned from cancer is number one I don't think you truly know yourself until you've been tested by some form of diversity in your life. And secondly, cancer's made me a much better human being. I've been asked if you could live your life over again without cancer. Would you do it? And, tony, I just don't think I would.
Speaker 2:I mean as bad as all this has been.
Speaker 1:I'm still a better human being for having this disease.
Speaker 2:How has God shaped you through that Like? Can you give me an example or some specifics about how has he worked in your life to get you to essentially like show fruit right? So scripture talks about like the fruits of the spirit you know love, joy, peace and so on. Like, how has God produced that fruit in you in the midst of this adversity that you've gone through?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I always say you need to find meaning in your misery, whatever that misery is for people you need to find meaning in, and the meaning is for me. You know people were like you need to talk about this. You need to get out there and explain to people what you've been through and not necessarily what you've been through, but what you've been through allows you to sort of walk the walk in addition to talking the talk, but what you've learned from this experience. And so I started a speaking business and then COVID hit and it was like nobody's doing anything, not either virtually or in person.
Speaker 1:And somebody reached out to me and said would you like to be a guest on my podcast? And this is the honest truth, tony, I said, sure, what's a podcast? I had absolutely no idea what a podcast was and he explained it to me and I said, okay, I'll do it. And Tony, I was absolutely horrible. I had posted notes all around the camera. He would ask me a question. I'd lean in, I'd read one of the notes.
Speaker 1:I provided no value at all to the audience. But then I sort of stepped back and I was like well, the first time I drove a car, I wasn't any good at it. I mean, the first time I cooked a meal, I burned the water, you know. I mean the first time I studied algebra, I wasn't any good at it, but I thought this might be a medium to get my message out, with the understanding that I'm in a wheelchair and it's hard for me to travel. So I started to get good at it, or I started to work at getting good at it. I listened to every podcast. How many times do I say um or uh or get those filler words? Do I have a better story? Can I condense a story. Is there another story I can use? And I remember I was talking to my publisher and I said Scott, I listened to every podcast I've ever been on. He said no, no.
Speaker 2:Terry said it's not about being good.
Speaker 1:He said it's just about not sucking. I said, well, thanks for the title of my next book, Just Don't Suck. You know that's not true, but you know I said no, I want to be a good guest, so the host feels one, it's time well spent and that his audience walks away with something positive. So that started my, you know, and I talk about faith all the time on my podcast.
Speaker 1:You know I say that God's using my infirmity to show his mercy, his goodness, his love and all that kind of stuff. That's how I get the word out. And when I have the opportunity to speak to people in person it's even better because I get that connection. But the number of nurses, the number of patients when I go to the hospital that I've had the opportunity to interact with. One nurse said to me when you are here that week, things around here change. They're just different. And one of the charge nurses told me once half the nurses here wish you were their father, the other wish you were their husband.
Speaker 2:So you know it was.
Speaker 1:It was you're having an impact on people, just being you and going through what you go through. I remember when, when I had my foot or my leg amputated, I had these tumors in my lungs, my oncologist showed me my CAT scan and, tony, I don't have a CAT scan.
Speaker 1:I mean I didn't go to medical school or anything like that, but you could kind of look at it and be like that sure didn't look like it belongs there. You know, I had these big tumors in my lung. I flew it all around the pleural spaces. I was coughing up green bloody phlegm and I I haven't told the story yet, have I did I tell you this story yet? I'm trying to remember, okay.
Speaker 2:So so you know, I remember looking at my oncologist and saying how was I alive?
Speaker 1:You know, I remember looking at my oncologist and saying how was I alive? And he put his head down, he shook his head, no, and he looked up at me and he said I don't know, because you shouldn't have been. Which said to me God's not done with me. You know, when I die, where I die, how I die way above my pay grade. Don't spend a lot of time worrying about the dying. Spend much more time concentrating on the living. But dying, death is something I live with every day and I've made friends with it.
Speaker 1:You know, it's kind of always in my peripheral vision and I love the old Stoic philosophers that used to talk about the Latin phrase momentum mori. Remember death. Remember that you're going to die, not for the sake that you're going to die, but for what it does to get you moving, to find the purpose, the reason God put you on the face of this earth and to live that reason. So I have made peace with death and you know I planned my funeral. I've done all that kind of stuff and when I did it was funny. You know I go on podcasts, talk about motivation and things like that. I go in person talk about motivation.
Speaker 1:When I planned my funeral, people kind of reached out and were like, don't you think that's kind of defeatist, planning your funeral? And I'm like, well, the last time I checked, I think we're all going to die. I don't think anybody's working on a cure for life right now. You know every one of us is going to die, but not every one of us is truly going to live. And I'll end with this I heard a Native American Blackfoot proverb years ago that I absolutely love and it goes like this when you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way so that, when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. That's what I want. That's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That is so powerful. Well, terry, as a kind of a closing question, so I just want to say thank you for being on the show. I just want to say thank you for being willing to share your story and just being vulnerable. If people want to connect with you or reach out and hear more, where's the best way that they can do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a website, a blog slash website, called Motivational Check, so you can reach out to me at motivationalcheckcom. Awesome.
Speaker 2:Thanks, terry. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Walk Family podcast today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Walk Family podcast today. If you haven't realized already, laura and I are switching the format of our show. The primary difference is that we have changed our releases to fit more of a serial format, which means we will be sending out episodes throughout each week for a season. Then, once the next season begins, another series will come out. Each series will contain around 10 to 12 episodes give or take For the winter season of 2025, seasons of Despair is our series.
Speaker 2:We still release an episode on Tuesdays, but you may see another episode pop up later in the same week as well. Also, be sure to hit the little bell to subscribe. It gives you each episode instantly once it's published. You can always connect with us at our website, thewalkfmcom, and, if you are really interested, a link in the show notes below allows you to sign up for our monthly newsletter. Our letter contains updates on the Smith family to stay connected with us, while also providing tips, tricks and challenges we are experiencing. If you sign up, you also get a free sneak peek to the first chapter of Prayer and Promises, which is a book that I'm writing and will hopefully be publishing this year. Thanks again and be blessed.
People on this episode
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
The JJ Campbell Show
JJ Campbell and Christian Parenting
Legacy Dads with Dave and Dante
Legacy Dads
The Monica Swanson Podcast - boy mom, build strong families, Biblical worldview, women's wellness
Monica Swanson and Christian Parenting
Mama Bear Apologetics
Hillary Morgan Ferrer & Amy Davison
