You just may accomplish something significant or save someone’s life.

Let me explain……

January 3^rd 2012 around 3pm

I walked into Dr. Ali’s office. He is my oncologist (the cancer doctor) and the doctor who originally explained pancreatic cancer to me back on September 19^th. He also gave me my official diagnosis 10 days later.

NEUROENDOCRINE PANCREATIC CANCER.

As I’m sitting and waiting for Dr. Ali to come in the exam room on January 3^rd 2012, I’m remembering the first time I was in his office back on September 19^th and all we’ve been through since then.

I remembered a few months back on September 19^th, I was sitting in the waiting room at Dr Ali’s office. My general practice physician, Dr. Smolak, had just showed me my CT scan and told me I had pancreatic cancer. He graciously walked me up to Dr. Ali’s office on the 4^th floor that day.

I was sitting in Dr. Ali’s waiting room and I heard these 3 elderly ladies talking about “their cancer” and their treatments. 10 minutes prior I had been given the worst news of my life. These women were twice my age. I thought to myself. “This is bulls**t.” I was pissed off. “I don’t belong here, this doesn’t make any sense. I’m 35 years old, not 75.” I had to get up and walk away to collect myself. I couldn’t listen to them talk about “their cancer”.

I respect Dr. Ali a lot. You know how some doctors act like they are to too good or too busy to spend time with you? Dr. Ali was NEVER that way. He is a true professional; to the point, caring and patient all at the same time.

So on January 3^rd Dr Ali walks into the exam room. He asks a few questions about my surgery and recovery but immediately goes to the computer. He asks me to bear with him for a few minutes as he reads my post-surgery summary report that Dr. Walsh had put together.

I watched his mouth drop open as he read the report. This was the first time he was getting up to speed on what happened.

After finishing the report, in near disbelief, he made a comment I WILL NEVER FORGET.

After taking a second to collect his thoughts he said, “Josh, Dr. Walsh is a “DARING SURGEON.”

I sat back in my chair. I was completely caught off guard.

“What do you mean he’s a daring surgeon” I responded.

“Well, let me explain,” said Dr. Ali. “Most other surgeons would have opened you up, saw the cancer, how big it was, how it was wrapped up in all your other organs, how complicated the surgery would be and they would have sewn you back up and told you there’s nothing I could do.”

“So you are telling me I could be sitting here with terminal inoperable cancer if Dr. Walsh wasn’t willing to operate on me, take a chance (be daring)?” I asked in disbelief.

“Exactly! That’s why I referred you to him. I wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost in the shuffle or go to some other hospital. Walsh does stuff no other surgeon will do. He’s one of the very best in the country. Now you see why! I knew Dr. Walsh would be aggressive and do things others wouldn’t.” Dr Ali replied.

I sat back and thought to myself; “Wow. I could be planning a funeral right now.”

As I think about these three doctors (Dr Smolak, Dr Ali and Dr Walsh) and the experience of having successful surgery and recovery I can’t help but think about what I’ve learned and how I can apply it to the 2^nd half of my life.

What can I change? What can I personally do better? What have I learned?

So here’s just the first lesson of all the different ones I’ve learned in the past 9 months.

First, I am alive and cancer free for several reasons. None are more important than the fact that Dr. Walsh was DARING.

Sometime over the past 30 years, I’m not sure when, I’ll bet Dr. Walsh made a personal decision that he would be THE BEST at his craft. Not good at his craft BUT THE BEST. He would study harder. Work harder. Work longer. Mentally prepare harder than anyone else. Then because he knew he was prepared, he would DARE to try things no one else would try. He would DARE to perform surgeries that would save lives that no one else would DARE to try.

And in the process, he would save hundreds of lives because he was more physically and mentally prepared and he is willing to be daring!

I am one of those lives.

So in 2012, I will be even more daring than before. I will prepare harder both physically and mentally. I will out work and out hustle all my competition. I will venture out into the unknown, try new things and I will be daring.

IT’S THE ONLY WAY I CAN THINK OF TO HONOR THE MAN WHO SAVED MY LIFE.

There’s most likely some venture, some trip, some business, some relationship, SOMETHING that you’d like to do this year that maybe you’ve been putting off. I ask you to DARE yourself to do it this year. No more waiting. No more obstacles. Get prepared. DARE to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Be GREAT!

Out hustle, out work and out produce all your competition. Honor the man who saved my life in your own way by DARING to change the lives of the people around you. Dare to be different. Dare to make a significant impact on something or someone you love.

January 10^th 2012

I had a check up at Dr. Walsh’s office about 2 weeks ago. He told me that my follow up with him was complete. I’d need CT scans every 6 months for the next 5 years to make sure the cancer doesn’t come back but Dr Ali would do that.

This was the last time he’d need to see me. “It is over!” Walsh said. I was shocked.

But just before Dr Walsh walked out, I told him what Dr. Ali said about him.

“Hey, I wanted to tell you that Dr. Ali told me you are a daring surgeon.” I told Dr. Walsh. “He said that after seeing the complexity of the surgery most other surgeons would have sewn me back up and said there’s nothing we could do.”

Dr. Walsh shrugged it off saying, “Hey, someone’s got to do it, right?” and walked out with a smile. That’s the kind of person I want to be around and the kind of surgeon I wanted but didn’t know I was getting until that moment.

He was as confident as confident could be. He was over prepared. He had outworked everyone else. His confidence allowed him to be DARING and that saved my life.

I LOVE THIS NEXT SAYING. Have you ever heard this before?

“The guy knows what he’s doing AND he knows that he knows what he’s doing?”

Have you ever heard that saying? When you are that prepared and that confident you can be DARING. That was Dr. Walsh. That’s why I’m alive.

I challenge you this year to get prepared, get confident, be the best, out hustle and out work your competition……. AND BE DARING.

You may accomplish something significant, something you never dreamed of or even save someone’s life.

God Bless.

Josh

P.S. I have a few more significant lessons I’ve learned over the past 9 months that I want to share with you. I’ll send them to you as I gather my thoughts and get them down on paper.

My wife, Lisa Marie, was sitting in a quiet room on a conference call with my surgeon who had just stepped out of surgery. My dad was next to her taking notes. “Lisa, the cancer was as big as a basketball. This was one of the most complicated surgeries I have ever done. However, I want you to know we got it all out,” Dr. Walsh explained to my wife.

“I had to take out Josh’s entire stomach, his gall bladder, his spleen, 75% of his pancreas, and 25% of his liver. Lisa, he lost a lot of blood.  We had to take an artery out of his leg and put it into his liver. Josh is going to be in a lot of pain. But, I want you to know we got it all out; that’s what’s most important. Right now he’s in ICU on a breathing tube. He probably won’t wake up until tomorrow.”

The surgery was 9 hours long and my surgeon was exhausted. Dr. Walsh would later show us the bruises on his hands from removing my basketball-sized mass of cancer.

This all took place exactly 9 weeks and 2 days ago – three days before Thanksgiving.

Before I tell you the story of how I’ve battled pancreatic cancer over the past 9 months, I want you to know why I’m finally telling you what happened.

As I sit and write this, I keep thinking just how blessed I am. I’m not upset that I got cancer. I’m not mad that I was chosen for this. I’m not looking for sympathy.

I ALWAYS look for the positive lesson in everything. I have a lot of great things going on in my life for which I am very grateful. This fight has taught me a number of new lessons and reminded me of some lessons I’ve forgotten. Over the next few days I’ll tell you about the lessons I’ve learned as I put my life in the hands of strangers who save people’s lives for a living.

Today, I’m cancer free. I’m recovering and doing better every day. I’m more humble now than I’ve been in my entire life. I’ve been brought to my knees. Without the help of so many people, many of them strangers, I may not have made it.

Over the next couple of days, as I tell you about the doctors and the surgery that saved my life, I hope you realize how fortunate and blessed you are even when things don’t go your way. Sometimes it’s hard to see just how much so until we are put to the test.

I’ve been put to the test. Maybe you’ve been put to the test.

I believe it’s the lessons we learn along the way that make the experience worth going through. Getting cancer, having major surgery, battling an infection, sleeping in pools of sweat, getting the chills nearly hourly, having dozens of sleepless nights, and losing 40 lbs was all worth the experience because of the lessons I’ve learned over the past 9 months.

I’m a completely different man. I’m more patient and more humble. I move slower and I do less. But the things I do, I do very well. My relationship with my wife has never been better. I appreciate her more than ever. I realized how much I need my family and friends and how important they are to me.

With the support of my amazing wife, Lisa Marie, my parents, my family and friends, today I am cancer free. I do not have any chemo, radiation or additional treatments scheduled. I am already nearly 100% recovered. I’m back to work as of this week.

Still, I feel overwhelmed by this entire experience.

Now if you’d like to hear how this unfolded I’m going to back up a little bit so I can try to put this into perspective.

Sometime in late July/ early August, 2011

I was at home playing with my two girls – tackling them, tickling them, playing Superman and airplane. It’s one of my favorite things to do. When we’re done playing and I’m lying on the floor looking up at the ceiling fan, I have my hands crossed over my stomach. I’m in good shape – I’ve lost 20 lbs. over the past 2 years – so my stomach collapses in when I lay down. I feel the right side of my stomach and it’s flat. PROBLEM – the left side isn’t. There is a lump and it feels hard as a rock. It’s about the size of my fist.

I call out to Lisa Marie. “Hey Honey, check this out. I feel a lump or something in my stomach.” Lisa walks over, looks and says, “Oh god, what is that?” I don’t know, but it’s not supposed to be there. I did know that it couldn’t be good.

We knew that I should get this thing checked out as soon as possible. BUT, we immediately agreed that it would have to wait. You see, Lisa Marie was 8 ½ months pregnant with our third child and first son. My son, Dominic, was going to be born in a few weeks. We already knew that he was going to have serious complications on the day of his birth.

Dominic’s doctor had discovered a “black mass” in his neck during Lisa’s 18 week ultrasound back in May, 2011. They didn’t know what it was exactly – maybe a cyst, maybe a tumor. Maybe it would go away. It didn’t. Each time we went for an ultrasound throughout the summer, the mass was bigger. Lisa’s doctor had been a high-risk OB-GYN for 35 years and had never seen this before. Dominic’s due Sept. 10.

The diagnosis for Dominic was our first priority. Lisa and I talk about this “thing” in my stomach over and over – several times a day, every night. There was no way I was putting myself in front of my wife’s pregnancy and my son’s birth. We decided to wait until after he was born to address my health issue.

Dominic was born via an emergency C-section August 17^th, and after several days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit we brought him home.

September 7^th 2011

A couple of weeks later, he was struggling to breath in the middle of the night. The cyst had gotten bigger almost overnight. We could see the cyst bulging out of the side of his neck. We rushed him back to where he was born at the Cleveland Clinic. It was 1am. He had emergency neck surgery to remove the cyst and half of his thyroid. He had a 4-inch incision in his neck, but would be fine.

Monday, Sept. 19th, 2011

I received a call at 8:30am. The woman on the other end of the phone said I had to come to the hospital immediately. She wouldn’t tell me why, other than something showed up on the CT scan that I had on Saturday September 17^th. But what? I got ready to leave the house and told Lisa I had to get to the hospital now. She started crying.

I walked in to my doctor’s office at 9:15, nervous about what I would hear. As I sat down to wait I thought, “What could be wrong?” It was obviously something serious; otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here.

My doctor walked in and immediately said. “I need to show you something. He pulled up my CT scan on his computer screen. “Mr. Cantwell, do you see this large grey area here? This isn’t supposed to be here. This is a mass and it’s really big. I’m sorry to tell you, Mr. Cantwell, but you have PANCREATIC CANCER.”

My heart sank. My head fell between my hands. My thoughts immediately turned to my son who was in the ICU at the Cleveland Clinic, and my wife who was recovering from her emergency C-section and home alone with my two baby girls. Dominic was three weeks old and on a breathing tube. He had just had the mass in his neck removed 6 days prior.

What was I going to tell Lisa?

My son is in the hospital recovering from surgery. My wife is home recovering from surgery. Now I had just been told I have pancreatic cancer.

This would be anyone’s worst nightmare. It was my real life.

Over the next few days I’ll fill in the blanks on how my battle with pancreatic cancer was won and how the doctors saved my life. I’ll also continue to reveal to you the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Maybe some of them will help you along your journey.

I love Thanksgiving and today I want to tell you personally how thankful I am for you.

I realize that you are chasing your dreams and have enlisted me to help you get there. I don’t take that lightly. It means a lot to me to know you are looking to me for “the edge” and every day I try to deliver that to you so you can achieve your goals and dreams.

Today, I just want to say thanks. I am grateful for you

You mean more to me than you realize.

Josh

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