How I Finally Found Peace After Cancer
An essay looking back on six years of young adult cancer survivorship. If cancer were to take me now, if today were my last day, and if this were my last sunrise, how would I feel right now?
My six year cancerversary is February 14th, 2017. This is an essay looking back on these six years of young adult cancer survivorship. If cancer were to take me now, if today were my last day, and if this were my last sunrise, how would I feel right now?
If Cancer Were To Take Me Now... I've Enjoyed the Love of a Beautiful Woman for Over 20 Years Now.
My wife is everything to me. She's my best friend, my lover, my soulmate, mother to my two beautiful children, and so much more. She's the one that's always made all that's been so wrong so right. We've supported each other through our very worst times together, but also shared in so many of our very best. After all that we've been through together, there's still only one person I'd want to be stranded on a deserted island with. Her. I'm so lucky. Not everyone is blessed with a love like this. I'm turning 40 this year. To have had such an amazing and beautiful woman along on this ride for over half of that journey has been the greatest gift a man could know. If cancer were to take me now, to my wife, thank you. Thank you for being so perfect, for providing me with such unconditional love, and for finding your way into my life so early. I pray we'll have so much more time to enjoy this love that we share in this lifetime, but if cancer were to take me now, I'm so grateful to have enjoyed our love for as long as we have. I love you. Thank you.
If Cancer Were To Take Me Now... My Children Know Their Father.
When I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 33, my children were just turning 2 and 4 years old. Ask me what my biggest fear was. It wasn't dying of cancer or of a life not lived, but of leaving this world early with these two amazing young souls never having a chance to truly know their father. We've filled these years after cancer with so much quality time, and fun trips and adventures everywhere. A lifetime of happy memories has been created in just a few short years. They're still so young and have so much growing up to do, but at nearly 8 and 10 now, I've had the chance to see them grow so much. I've had a chance to know them and to have had an impact in their lives, to let them know how much I love them and believe in them, and to help them find their way in our crazy world. I pray we'll have many years of love and adventures in the future together, but if cancer were to take me now, I've been so grateful for these years, and the opportunity for my children and I to have known and loved each other. It's meant so much to me.
Just a small and by no means complete collection of truly beautiful souls in this world that we have come to know and really appreciate in large ways and small.
If Cancer Were To Take Me Now... I've Enjoyed Some Truly Wonderful Friendships.
Through my cancer fight and so many challenging years as a cancer survivor, my friends have meant the world to me. Whatever I've needed in a friend, the world has seemingly provided at the moment I was in greatest need. The love that I feel for my friends, and those that have truly been there for me through such dark times, knows no boundaries. It's such a deep love and appreciation that transcends the limits of our language to describe, and my ability to express. Let's just say that if I were to depart this world a bit early, if cancer were to take me now, that these friends of mine will have an angel watching over them up in the heavens. And when it's their time to make this transition, they'll soon see a familiar face welcoming them, and guiding them on their way up.
My friends have restored my faith and renewed my hope when I had completely lost it, and have represented the very best that humanity has to offer. I couldn't have made it through all that I have without these beautiful souls. If cancer were to take me now, I'm so thankful for our friendships, and for the differences we've been able to make in each others lives. Passage of time and the varying trajectories of our lives might take us to different places in our physical world, but the bonds of these friendships are for a lifetime, and will never be forgotten. I will love you all until the very end, and until we meet again. Namaste!
If Cancer Were To Take Me Now... I Know That I've Evolved.
I'm not the same person that I was before cancer or after. I'm a far more spiritual, connected, and compassionate individual than I used to be, or ever could have been. I've evolved more in these past six years of cancer survivorship than many might evolve in an entire lifetime. Such a huge transformation at a relatively young age has been incredibly painful at times, but now I have the privilege of living the considerable numbers of years I could have left in my life as a far better and far more evolved version of myself, and for that I'm very thankful. I'm neither afraid nor haunted anymore thanks to this evolution, and I'm free to live my life fearlessly. I'm finally at peace with all that I've been through, and have learned to be grateful for this journey. I pray that I'll have many more years, but if cancer were to take me now, I know that I'll be leaving this world as a far better soul than when I arrived, and for that I'm very thankful.
If Cancer Were To Take Me Now... I Know That I've Made a Difference in the World.
It's funny how having cancer as a young adult can warp and accelerate such linear concepts as time, and stages of life. We can feel this rush to truly live our lives, to accomplish things, and to make a difference for others and leave a legacy, all at the same time! I was lost for awhile, and didn't know what I was supposed to do, or how I was supposed to live my life after cancer. How do you accomplish things in every stage of life all at the same time? I was so frustrated, and took to writing just trying to sort everything out. At first, my writing was just a private coping mechanism for me, but it transformed into a powerful tool to help uplift and empower hundreds of thousands of others across the world, helping them find their way through their own life journeys and struggles as well.
It's through my writing that I found a purpose and the direction that I needed. I was meant to write, and so I've written, over a hundred thousands words so far. Being named a top cancer blog out of hundreds of entries by a huge cancer website helped me feel as though a life purpose had been fulfilled, and I've been so grateful for that. I have so much more I've yet to write, but if cancer were to take me now, I'll feel complete knowing that I put my inner talents and life experiences to good use in this world, that I've made a difference for so many people, and that I'll have left this world a better place than when I found it. Nothing is more honorable.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A special thanks to those that have believed in me, and that have given me the opportunity to share my writing on platforms with such a broad reach. Namaste!
If Cancer Were To Take Me Now... I Know That I've LIVED.
It took me a few years to really understand what Mark Twain meant in this quote, but I get it now.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life.
A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."
-Mark Twain
I was too afraid to ever really start living my life before cancer, and was afraid of not having one to live at all after. My second biggest fear after not being around for my children, was of a life not lived. My cancer diagnosis rocked our world. We started living our lives fully and completely after cancer, and have never looked back. You don't need permission from anyone to get out there and live your lives. The only person holding you back is you. We've gone to some amazing places, and have done some amazing things. We've had the time of our lives so many times over, and have created so many wonderful memories as a family, and with friends.
As I look back on six years of cancer survivorship, I'm so glad that no matter how lost, depressed, or afraid I'd felt at times, that I never stopped pushing forward, and never stopped living my life. I've lived more each year since cancer than I had in all 33 years of my life before cancer combined. That's a whole lot of LIVING in a few short years. I've not wasted a day, and I know that I've lived each and every one of them since cancer. I pray I'll have many more years on this grand adventure, but if this is it for me, if I get bad news tomorrow and learn that cancer is going to take me now, I won't be afraid, and will have no regrets. I know in my heart and soul that I've lived my life fully and completely and the best I know how, that I haven't missed a thing, and that I'll be thankful for every joyous day that I've been blessed with. I'm not afraid anymore, because I've known that the best way to survive cancer is to LIVE, and lived I have.
This is not a collection of our adventures over these past six years. All of these photos are from just ONE year, 2016, and we've made every single year since cancer just like this one. This is how life is meant to be LIVED! What are you waiting for? You don't need anyone's permission!
How Did I Finally Get Here After Six Years?
How did I finally get to where I am? How do I sleep so peacefully at night, and how do I live my life without fear or worry after cancer? Make no mistake, there were plenty of days where I was so distraught that I could never even get out of bed that day, nor leave that proverbial corner. But dammit I pressed on!
I never gave up, and I never stopped believing in myself, even when nobody else did. When I had fears, I confronted them. When my own attitudes and beliefs were just getting in the way and no longer serving me, I was smart enough to realize that and let them go. I always kept an open heart and mind, and adopted new ones so that I could move forward again. Our attitudes and beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies, including towards ourselves. You'll find exactly what you look for, so look for something wonderful. Some people had really hurt and disappointed me in this journey. I let them go too, so that I could find better souls in this world to have along on my journey with me. I found so much fulfillment with these new friends, and learned that you never need to fear closing doors, because better ones will always open for you. I learned to forgive those that had hurt me, not because I felt all were deserving, but for me, so that I could again feel love and peace in my soul, rather than continuing to have it dragged down with so much hatred. I loved my wife, and I enjoyed my family and my friends endlessly. I stayed true to myself and went with what my heart told me. When people had made such a difference for me, I told them so, and let them know how much I loved and appreciated them. I lived my life fully and completely, and found a purpose through which I've been able to make a difference for so many others. I always strived to become a better person, and refused to ever allow myself to turn ugly. Sometimes it took everything I had to not become destructive to myself or others. You don't have to be the same person that you were yesterday. You can evolve. You can become a better version of yourself, but you have to want it to happen, and you have to work hard for it. It was so hard to have felt so wounded in life, and it was twice as hard to evolve, but twice as rewarding when I finally succeeded.
TL;DR - Just Grab Life By The Balls! ;-)
As I approach 40, I realize now more than ever that we're only here for a very short time. It's okay to be afraid, and it's okay to have a meltdown. Just don't stay there for very long. There's no time for that. Our lives are made up of two dates and a dash, and no amount of stressing or worrying can ever tell you when that second date will be. Just make the most of the dash. No matter how afraid I was, I never stopped living my life. The best way to survive cancer is to LIVE! Get out there and live your lives fully no matter what's hanging in the background. I've been blessed with all of these years since cancer, but I wouldn't be where I am today had I not been truly living my life. Read Twain's famous quote again. Read it over and over, and repeat it to yourself every day to let it sink in.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life.
A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."
I pray I'll have many more days, but if today is my last day, and if cancer were to take me now, I know that I've lived my life fully and without regret, and that I'll be at peace and ready. This is the ultimate peace that one can feel after cancer, and it again transcends the limits of our language and my ability to express to even begin to describe how wonderful this feels, after so many years of inner struggle.
Mission Completion. Hallelujah, I'm finally there! The next chapter begins now.
God bless,
StevePake.com
If you're lost and looking for some inspiration, you can never go wrong with TobyMac's #SpeakLife. I'm spiritual but not very religious, but you don't have to be Christian to appreciate and enjoy either his message or his music. I write about many of these and more in the Daily Inspiration section of my website!
Nickelback's "If Today Was Your Last Day" is a song that's really spoken to me as a young adult cancer survivor, and has been a favorite of mine for many years now. This is exactly how my life has felt like to live, and I can relate to almost every line of the song. Lyrics here.
Cancer Is Not Just Rogue Cells - And Not Just Inside the Patient
As I approach six years of cancer survivorship, never has it been more clear to me that cancer is not just a disease of our physical bodies, but a disease of our minds and souls as well. Thus, the argument that many make, is that cancer is not just a matter of eradicating the rogue cells from one's body, but of curing the entire patient.
A few words for World Cancer Day 2017.
As I approach six years of cancer survivorship, never has it been more clear to me that cancer is not just a disease of our physical bodies, but a disease of our minds and souls as well. Thus, the argument that many make, is that cancer is not just a matter of eradicating the rogue cells from one's body, but of curing the entire patient. To rid a patient of the physical disease, but to ignore the residual emotional and spiritual disease, does not a cure make.
In these six years after cancer, there's much more that I've had to overcome than a bit of testicular carcinoma. The chemotherapy did a number on my body, and I've had to overcome chronic fatigue because of chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy, but those were the easy parts. My anxiety was overwhelming at times, and I constantly feared that my cancer would come back. Some friends of mine didn't make it, and on several occasions, I thought for sure that my cancer had returned, and that I was next. I fell into depressions several times, and suffered from posttraumatic stress. I struggled emotionally for years, and even four years out from cancer, I couldn't stop being afraid.
Irregular hormonal levels for several years didn't help, either. Doctors of testicular cancer patients all seem to believe that because men have two testicles, that the other will "pick up the slack" and that we'll be able to keep flying along as normal, like a twin-engine aircraft. We survivors know otherwise, that it's not necessarily true, not nearly that simple, and that there's actually no evidence out there to support such assumptions, as no studies have ever been done! Because our testosterone levels might still test in an impossibly wide "normal" range, we're sent packing. Meanwhile, our moods, energy levels, and mojo can be flailing around all over the skies from 30,000 feet down to treetop level and back again, barely able to stay in the air at times. While having to contend with so many post-cancer fears, we're also having to contend with non-compliant bodies, and doctors that don't understand our problems. Life after cancer can be so cruel and unfair.
Loved ones and caregivers suffer right along with us, and should not be overlooked anymore, either. Where there is love, there's transference of emotion, transference of anxiety, and transference of cancer as a disease of our minds. Yes, caregivers suffer from the disease called cancer as well, and for them, it tends to be a more silent battle. They need to be strong and the pillar of support for the ones doing the physical fighting, but feel the same fears and anxieties as the actual patient does. Caregivers are fighting cancer as a disease of their minds, too, and deserve equal consideration for care. Don't just ask how the cancer patient is doing - ask how their caregivers are doing as well. It's entirely possible that no one has ever asked, while they're crumbling inside in the same way as the patient.
Survivorship care has come a long way in six years, but there's still much to this fight that's not well understood in medical professional circles, and so the drive to share in our journeys and our many struggles after cancer continues.
StevePake.com
Originally written for World Cancer Day at the Cancer Knowledge Network
If You Plant Flowers, You'll Get Flowers
I’ve been saying for a while now that our attitudes and beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies. If you believe in yourself with all of your heart and soul, and try to be the best person that you can be every day to overcome your challenges, that eventually you’ll find the paths forward that you need. An open mind and an open heart will find what a closed one will not.
I love this cartoon. I’ve been saying for a while now that our attitudes and beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies. If you believe in yourself with all of your heart and soul, and try to be the best person that you can be every day to overcome your challenges, that eventually you’ll find the paths forward that you need. An open mind and an open heart will find what a closed one will not. If you don’t believe in yourself, you won’t try, you won’t find what you need, and you'll continue to suffer. What we feel and believe inside can be either our most valuable asset, or our own worst enemy. I’ve lived and breathed this for years, and have never stopped believing in myself.
If you plant flowers, you’ll get flowers.
All of my writing over the years has been for me, trying to heal myself from the very deep wounds inflicted when I was diagnosed with cancer nearly six years ago now. I’ve woken up every day for the past few years just trying to be the best person that I could be that day. Plenty of times I’ve failed at that, and that’s okay. We’re all human. I picked myself back up again, never stopped believing in myself, kept getting up and trying my best every day, and eventually have found the paths forward that I’ve needed to heal.
What if I hadn’t believed in myself? What if I hadn’t kept an open mind? What if I had given up? What if I had stopped trying?
You see, the self-fulfilling prophecy…
If you plant flowers, you'll get flowers.
There aren’t too many people out there that have overcome what I have without therapists and drugs and other such things, but I’m one who has. This hasn’t been an easy path to take, but I never stopped believing in myself and did it. Attitude is everything. Own it and control it, and there isn’t much you can’t do or overcome.
Who knew that all of my writing would blossom as it has, and become such a huge source of inspiration and empowerment for so many others who have faced cancer around the world? I sure didn't. If you plant flowers, you'll get flowers.
What do you believe in for 2017? If you’re not believing in good things, why not? If good things don’t happen, perhaps look in the mirror to find where the problem might be?
I’m only believing in good things for 2017.
If you plant flowers, you’ll get flowers.
StevePake.com
Negotiating Surveillance and Long-Term Follow-up for Testicular Cancer
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines for are the bible by which Testicular Cancer patients are treated and managed. The follow-up care recommendations within these guidelines only goes out to 5 years, and even within those 5 years, there's been some significant adjustments to the recommendations over time. It's entirely possible that if you were diagnosed with testicular cancer within the past few years, that you might be able to make some adjustments to your follow-up schedules in favor of fewer scans or appointments, but what do you do after that? It's up to you and can go on a case-by-case basis. Here are some answers.
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines are the bible by which Testicular Cancer patients are treated and managed. The follow-up care recommendations within these guidelines only goes out to 5 years, and even within those 5 years, there's been some significant adjustments to the recommendations over time. It's entirely possible that if you were diagnosed with testicular cancer within the past few years, that you might be able to make some adjustments to your follow-up schedules in favor of fewer scans or appointments, but what do you do after that? It's up to you and can go on a case-by-case basis. Here are some answers.
Changes to NCCN Follow-Up Recommendations Within Years 1-5
The NCCN Guidelines are literally the most important guide for any cancer fighter or survivor to have, and the bible by which doctors should be treating their patients.
First off, there have been many, many changes to the NCCN follow-up recommendations since I was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2011, and the latest testicular cancer guidelines (2-2017 as of this writing) states that "further study is required to define optimal follow-up durations." In other words, they just don't have the evidence to know what the best answer is here. What is too much and what's too little? Scan frequency has gone down quite a bit to minimize the risk of secondary malignancies from radiation exposure, especially from CT scans, but they don't have the evidence to know where the sweet spot is, thus making these follow-up schedules very much open to debate and negotiation. Yes, your follow-up schedules for testicular cancer are negotiable.
In my case, for Stage II non-seminoma good risk disease treated with both primary chemotherapy and the RPLND surgery, the changes to the follow-up recommendations have been significant. At the time of my diagnosis in 2011, the NCCN guidelines called for as many as 20 scans (chest x-rays) and follow-up appointments over 5 years. I was seen at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York who went above and beyond the guidelines, and I had a total of 27 chest x-rays over the years, with 18 of those coming in the first two years alone. Given I had the RPLND surgery, only one CT scan was needed 4 months post-op, and otherwise just chest x-rays for me.
As of 2017, how many scans are recommended by the NCCN guidelines for someone like me now?
SEVEN.
Just 7, with 8th and 9th scans in Years 3 and 4 being optional, and no scans at all in Year 5. Granted, I'd still need a total of about 16 office visits, but that's still a whole lot less stressful than twenty-freaking-seven. When I first saw how significantly the NCCN follow-up recommendations had changed and how many fewer scans they were recommending these days, I about fell out of my chair, and then needed to go sulk in a corner for awhile. This is really great news, as it shows that, yes, treatments for testicular cancer really are highly effective and completely curative most of the time, and that there really isn't a whole lot to be afraid of, despite the unavoidable and unimaginable amounts of worrying that it brings patients. Most people are just fine after treatments. Thanks to our collective piles of chest x-rays and CT scans that have never shown anything for most over the years, testicular cancer survivors will have far fewer scans to worry about after treatments today, and that's a very good thing.
Making Mid-Course Surveillance Schedule adjustments
A part of me regrets not questioning so many scans, especially now that not even a third of those scans are required today, but that's water under the bridge at this point. It wasn't easy, to put it mildly, but I got through them all. If you were diagnosed with testicular cancer a few years ago, there's a chance that you might still be on a more scan-heavy schedule. If so, you might be able to modernize your follow-up schedule after review with your doctors. Here's what you can do:
- Download the latest NCCN guidelines by registering for free at the NCCN website. Navigate to the Guidelines section, then to Cancer by Site, and then Testicular Cancer to get to them. Find the follow-up table that's relevant for your cancer about midway through the document based on type (seminoma or non-seminoma), and then stage, treatment path, and level of treatment received, and pay close attention to the super-scripted notes. Review what the current follow-up recommendations are now, against what you're actually doing. It might be quite different.
- Review With Your Doctor. With how many scans they've pulled from the follow-up schedules in recent years, chances are you might not need nearly as many now, or perhaps you could just do chest x-rays for scans and skip any further CT scans at this point, followed by the usual history and physical, and blood tumor marker checks? No more CT scans, wouldn't that be nice? If you look very closely in the guidelines you'll also see that scrotal ultrasounds are now mentioned as well. Sound like something worth doing? It was for me, and I'll get to that below.
- Do What's Best For You, with Your Doctor's Blessing. Whether you're at the point of cutting yourself free from oncology care if you so choose, or are making mid-course corrections between 1-5 years out, do what's right for you, so long as your doctors are on-board with your plan. There's both "scanxiety" from the follow-up appointments, but also anxiety from not having them. I don't know of a single person that actually enjoys getting CT scans done, but some might have more anxiety without them. Be true to yourself and your needs. If you're struggling, it can be worth it to make adjustments, and still meet the standards for care.
Of course, now that I've made it through 5 years and twenty-seven freaking scans, I have the moment of revelation that maybe I should have asked more questions than I did, but most of these scans were in the first two years, and before the NCCN started pulling back on the number of scans required. What's done is done, and I'm happy to have exited my 5 years of active surveillance.
How To Make Your Post 5 Year Follow-Up Plan
So, what to do after 5 years? Here's what I did.
You're the patient, you're the boss. You can do whatever you want to do after 5 years. If you feel like you're ready, you can opt to be formally discharged from oncology care, or if not, you can continue to be seen at whatever interval you're comfortable with. Your doctor will be more than happy to keep seeing you. It's up to you, and there's no right or wrong answer. The correct answer is whatever you're comfortable doing, with considerations for any specifics of your case, and that your doctors are on-board with.
For me, with good risk disease, primary chemotherapy and the RPLND which most people in my risk classification tend to skip, I just needed to be cut free. If I'd only had 7 to 9 scans and a dozen and change office visits over the years as opposed to 27 of them, maybe I'd still want annual follow-ups with my oncologist. Maybe I'd still want annual follow-ups had I skipped the RPLND, and I'm quite certain I'd still want them were I in a higher risk group. Instead, I've found myself totally and completely burned out emotionally from so many oncology office visits, and I just didn't want to have to keep going if there was no compelling reason to do so. I love my oncologist and he's a great guy, and my favorite oncology nurse (hello Trish!) has become a friend for life type with me, but I just needed to walk out of that office for once without another appointment scheduled. I really needed that like nothing else, otherwise everything would just keep perpetuating in my mind. I needed the closure of not having to go back, and so we developed a plan that supported that.
The first condition for my formal discharge from oncology care, both from my wife and from my oncologist, was the insistence that I have an annual physical exam done by my primary care every year. No problem there, and cancer survivors especially should have these done annually as it is. Next up, scans or no scans? For my stage of disease and level of treatments, one is more likely to see a false positive from a chest x-ray at this point than disease recurrence, and so I opted out of any more chest x-rays. I think 27 has been more than enough. Although my tumor markers (bHCG and AFP) had always been negative and resulting blood work not that useful, I elected to continue doing these. You're having blood work done at an annual physical anyways, so why not throw it in? Continuing with these tests are useful for catching a potential second primary testicular carcinoma that might have a slightly different signature, and that could be positive for these markers.
Testicular Ultrasounds. This is something that I'd highly recommend doing for every testicular cancer survivor out there at least annually. Testicular ultrasounds weren't in the NCCN guidelines when I was diagnosed with testicular cancer back in 2011 other than for initial workup, but they're included now for follow-up care as well, for obvious reasons. As with the above, testicular cancer survivors are at elevated risk for developing testicular cancer again on the other side versus the general population. If anything was ever going to catch this early, and give a heads-up that something is going on before there were symptoms or other signs, a testicular ultrasound is what could do it, and so this was a no-brainer thing to do.
Do a full hormone panel. It's not mentioned anywhere in NCCN, and not something that oncologists ever really pay much attention to, but get a full hormone panel done. Despite what doctors say about the other testicle "picking up the slack", there is literally no information out there to support that, and we survivors know very well that this isn't necessarily true. It's a given that we're far more likely to face hormonal issues as we age due to only having a single testicle. Almost nothing is known about male hormones, and we're pretty much on our own here. The more data points we have on ourselves, the easier it will be in the future to know what's going on, if and when hormonal issues do develop.
Why a full hormone panel and not just a testosterone level check? Some long-term testicular cancer survivors who are symptomatic of hypogonadism are finding not that their testosterone levels are too low, but rather that their estrogen levels are too high, and have had some success in being treated with estrogen inhibitors, rather than testosterone replacement therapies. Please note that this is all highly experimental reports from individuals within the testicular cancer community, and not from official studies, of which there are none to go on. The point is, just start collecting as much hormonal data about yourselves as you can now, as it will potentially be very useful later.
STICK WITH YOUR PLAN
Honor yourself, the doctors and nurses that helped you through your cancer treatments, and your family and friends that have been there for you as well, by sticking with whatever your agreed upon plan is. After the hell that so many of our bodies have been through fighting cancer, and the significant emotional investments made by so many supporting us, we owe it to ourselves to do everything we possibly can to maintain the best possible health for ourselves going forward. A big part of that is having an annual physical done, and should be a part of every cancer surveillance exit plan.
I'm happy to say that I just had my annual physical, and that it went very well. My cholesterol, HDL/LDL levels and ratio were all good, as was my blood pressure and fasting glucose levels. A few things that have been messed up since fighting cancer are still messed up, but stable. My creatinine levels have been 1.4-1.6 since cancer (normal was around 1.0 before), due to some damage to my left kidney sustained from chemotherapy, and then a complication from the RPLND surgery didn't help it out at all. My platelet levels also run low at around 100, which is due to some permanent bone marrow damage also due to chemotherapy. None of that has changed in years, and it's good to know that.
One thing in my CBC report has tracked a bit high, but that's always correlated with my weight, and I've vowed this year to finally lose every last "cancer pound" I'd ever gained. Before cancer, I was around 240-250 pounds, which was considered to be a good weight for me considering my significant height of 6'3", and my large frame. Because of how chemotherapy, steroids, and surgeries had all affected me while fighting cancer, I ballooned all the way up to 300 pounds as I exited MSKCC in New York after my RPLND surgery. Due to chronic post-cancer fatigue from chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy, I could never exercise hard enough in my first few years after cancer to burn that off. My weight has floated around 270 pounds for the past few years, but running helped me to get beyond my fatigue issues, and there's no excuse anymore.
I refuse to turn 40 later this year in anything other than the best shape of my life. When we Scorpios commit to something, we're either all-in 110% or don't bother, and so I'm all in with a gym membership and regular exercise, a strict diet and paleo foods, and all that. This will happen. Turning 40 will be the start of a new era and decade for me, and this baggage from cancer, including the residual flab on my sides, is not going to be a part of that.
At the time I walked out of my oncologist's office for hopefully the last time ever back in June of 2016 (knocking on wood), I wasn't able to really feel or appreciate that moment at the time due to so many other things going on in our lives. As I'm typing this now, over a half year later, I'm finally feeling that emotional release and tears of joy from this for the first time, and the relief of such an enormous burden in my life having been lifted.
I just couldn't accept having to keep seeing an oncologist every year for the rest of my life. I've finally made it. I know how quickly things can change, and am going to keep living my life exactly how I've learned to LIVE it after cancer, but this is done now.
I'm finally free, and I can't wait to see so many friends and connections I've made in the testicular cancer community finally reach this huge milestone, too.
StevePake.com
On The Power of Writing to Help You Heal
Writing about cancer and all of this inner pain that it had brought into my life has never been easy, but the rewards for doing so have always far outweighed the hardship. It's one of the hardest, but also simultaneously one of the best things I've ever done.
Writing became an important coping mechanism for me many years ago, when I was really struggling after cancer. My post-cancer demons had me in such a dark place that I had contemplated suicide as a means to an end, and it was at that point that I realized I needed help. My wife did her best to support me, and to make me feel loved and valued at a time when I felt completely worthless. I called my oncologist's office for a therapist, I called my cancer mentor for help and guidance, I started running every day over lunch to bleed off the extreme anxiety that I felt on a day to day basis, and, I started writing. The writing in particular really stuck, and as this website is proof of, has never really stopped.
Writing About Cancer Isn't Easy
Writing about cancer and all of this inner pain that it had brought into my life has never been easy, but the rewards for doing so have always far outweighed the hardship. It's one of the hardest, but also simultaneously one of the best things I've ever done.
My wife, Debbie, came up to me one day a year or two ago with a very befuddled and frustrated look on her face. I was in tears at my computer once again, doing some writing with a glass of wine next to me. She asked, "why do you write if it hurts you so much?," obviously not wanting to see her husband in pain. The answer wasn't that I was hurting because I was writing, I'm writing because I'm hurting, trying to release more pain, and trying to find ways to heal and keep moving forward in life. I was four years out from cancer at that point I think, and couldn't stop being afraid. I was fearful of developing a second cancer, or experiencing an extremely dangerous recurrence of my first, and frustrated to no end. We don't have conscious control over very deeply rooted feelings like these. I couldn't stop being afraid, but refused to live in fear any more, and vowed to do whatever it took to overcome this perpetual post-cancer fear once and for all.
The blog that I ultimately published in late-2016 about overcoming fear after cancer, was probably my biggest blog of the year, getting many thousands of hits, comments, and shares on social media and at the IHadCancer.com website. Cancer isn't just a disease of our bodies, it becomes a disease of our minds also, that can persist and continue to haunt us for years, long after cancer has left our bodies. Thus, the argument that we make in cancer advocacy circles, is that healing someone from cancer means healing the whole patient, and not just eradicating their bodies of the cancerous cells. I saw this all over the comments in response to my blog about overcoming fear. There were no shortages of comments from those that were many years or even decades out from their cancer fights, and still living in a state of fear from it all. Many of these people had been cured or in full remission, yet cancer still continued to affect them as a disease of their minds, in the form of the fear it leaves inside of us.
Writing Is One of The Most Rewarding Things I've Ever Done
Cancer as a disease of the mind had persisted inside of me for years, too, and that's why I've continued to fight it, in the form of writing. The process of writing, and of putting raw emotion down on paper, has always helped me to channel what I've been feeling into something more coherent. Writing is a cathartic experience, and the writing process helps me to understand what I'm feeling and why, and ultimately, what I could do about things. Once I've written about something, I feel as though I've overcome it. Then, the only thing you have to be willing to do, is finding the courage to make the changes that you need to make in your life in order to keep moving forward. Or maybe you don't need to do anything at all, and just needed to get it out?
Writing has always been a bit of a damned if you do, but more damned if you don't affair for me. It's easier to not write at all, yet if I don't process pain that I've felt inside it's impossible to ever move beyond it, like posttraumatic stress, and perpetual fear after cancer. When I write, it does bring a lot of painful memories from the back burner to a full boil. Why not just leave them on the back burner? Because I grow weary of having them there, resent the needless mental clutter with these worries in the background, and occasionally they sneak up to a full boil on their own and make a mess, when I'd rather just be free of it all. If I bring it front and center and just crank it up to eleven and burn it all off through writing, then it's gone for good and will never bother me again. Isn't that better? It is, but it can take time to finally get there.
Writing About Cancer Takes Time
Contrary to what many think, when I publish something about cancer, it's not something that I'm experiencing right now. In almost all cases it's been at least a year ago, and even moreso now, many. Some of the things I'd been through with respect to cancer had been so painful and traumatic that it took me a few years just to open up and start writing about them at all. My physical fight against cancer was in 2011, but it wasn't until 2013 that I really started "writing" about cancer, and not until 2014 that I started doing so publicly. Posttraumatic stress after cancer had hit me hard at the tail end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, and I suffered from it throughout 2013. It wasn't until the tail end of 2015, nearly three years after its onset, that I was finally able to publish my first of three major essays about PTSD.
It takes that long to find your way through it, for the pain to lessen, and for thoughts to mature to the point that you can write in a way that doesn't cause yourself harm, and is uplifting and beneficial to others. When it came to writing about PTSD, which is something I really needed to do, as soon as I would go there mentally it would trigger all of those terrible protective instincts again, and I just couldn't. When I write about a very hurtful topic, it's often because I'm finally fed up enough with those repeating back burner flare ups that I'm ready to finally take something head on, and rid myself of it for good. I've not had any issues with PTSD in years now, and it was only after I took this elephant in the room issue head on, and worked my way through it via my writing, that I was finally able to heal from it and move on.
On Writing Publicly About Cancer
You don't have to have a blog or a website, nor do you have to write publicly about something to benefit from writing. You can write just for yourself, in a private journal of some sort, just as I did early on. The decision to write fully publicly about my cancer experience was a big one, but I'd had a ton of encouragement from a few close friends who had seen early drafts of my first cancer survivorship essay. They knew that writing like this could make a big difference for so many people, and that it had the potential to not just help young adults such as myself facing a cancer crisis, but anyone facing a crisis or difficult period of their lives.
I blog using my real name. Anybody can Google me and find out all sorts of things about me, that I've had cancer, experienced PTSD and suicidal thoughts, and either you're comfortable with that or you're not. Ultimately, I decided that I had nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of, and actually quite a bit to be pretty darned proud of. My story is a positive story, one of having been through some extremely dark places after cancer, but finding your way through it, empowering yourself to make the changes that you need to in your life, finally coming back into the light, and using that experience to help uplift others. I'm very proud of my cancer journey, complete with all of its dark and twisted moments. It's made me who and what I am, and not only am I proud of the person that I've become after cancer, but it feels so good to be recognized for that in a significant way as well.
YOUR STORY COULD BE THE KEY THAT UNLOCKS SOMEONE ELSE'S PRISON
There's a lot of things I enjoy about fully public cancer writing, but what I enjoy the most is helping people to know that they're never alone. Especially as young adult survivors, we have so few peers that have been through anything like what we have given that young adult cancers are so rare. Feelings of isolation are common. We all think we're alone in our struggles, but we're never alone. I love reading through the comments on my blogs and seeing "My God, this is me!" and "I thought I was the only one!", and then "I know I'm not alone now!" I love seeing people light up like this. We think we're all so different, and that we're so alone, but our humanity binds us. We're all human beings, we have the same thought processes, and when faced with a life crisis such as cancer, we all think and feel so many of the same things. Seeing such common responses to my writing has been a very unifying and comforting thing for me to witness as a writer. We're not so different after all, and we're never truly alone. I love all of the comments that I get, I love all of the interaction, I love the people that I get to know, and I love knowing that all of my efforts are not just helping me to heal and recover, but helping others as well.
What I love more than anything though, are the occasional messages that I get that leave me speechless, and stopped in my tracks. Numerous people have told me that my first essay about surviving young adult cancer has changed their lives, and is the best thing they've ever read. A childhood cancer survivor who is now an adult, told me that they had felt every word of my essay and had wanted to write something just like it for years, but hadn't even known where to start. They finally felt the release that they had needed to feel for years, through reading the words of another. A testicular cancer survivor had been suffering from PTSD for years, but had never realized that was what it was, nor that it was even a possibility, until they read my PTSD After Cancer essay series. Another life changed, and another person unlocked from their own mental prison such that the true healing could finally begin. I've had a professional therapist send me a note, telling me that they were using my PTSD story to help patients that had been suffering from posttraumatic stress as well. I have much respect for professional therapists, but sometimes it's best to hear it from another real live human being that's really been there, too.
One of the best comments I've ever received though, was from another testicular cancer survivor a few years ago who was a 10 year survivor, but had never opened up to anyone about his cancer history. He had felt so trapped and alone for years, but felt all of the same fear and anxiety that so many of us do. Without any true outlets or people to open up to, he had found himself in such a depressive downward spiral that he had become suicidal. He read my essay titled, "The Best Way to Survive Cancer is to LIVE!", and found himself in my writing so strongly that it helped to finally pull him out of the depressive and suicidal downward spiral that he had been trapped in for years. In moments like these when I know that I've made such a profound difference in the lives of others, every bit of pain and frustration I've ever felt while writing, and all of the tears and sleepless nights becomes worth it. My writing mission doesn't just helping myself and others to heal, it's potentially helped to save lives as well.
My young adult cancer survivorship writing mission hasn't just changed my life and that of others for the better, it's potentially helped to save lives as well. It can be terrifying to put such dark things out there about yourself, but the profound good that can be done by sharing such experiences is immense, and shouldn't be underestimated.
How Do You Write?
I have a huge confession to make. I don't really know how to write, nor how to describe any particular writing process! I'm a guy and and actually an engineer, so obviously I can't write, but I just write, and am now an award-winning writer about a very challenging subject no less. I asked my good friend and writer pal, Hanssie, for help, hoping that maybe she'd know of some sort of formal process to help people get started, especially knowing that she was a teacher. Hanssie writes about the painful divorce she's been through at her website in the same manner that I write about cancer on mine, but she wasn't of much help either! Hanssie did provide us with the only thing that one really needs to know about writing as a means of coping or healing, in the form of this Ernest Hemmingway quote.
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." - Ernest Hemingway
Perfect! That's really all there is to it, and pretty much where my writing has come from. As Hanssie described to me, "I realized I could write when I was teaching my 4th grade class on creative writing. I wrote a bit when I blogged about photography and then I 'bled' after the divorce when I just didn't know what else to do to keep moving forward."
It was the same exact experience for me in the aftermath of cancer. I had always known that I had some inherent writing ability that I could utilize, and many people had told me over the years that I had great writing skills. I figured nearly ten years ago, long before cancer entered my life, that I ought to use that ability someday and write a book, but I didn't know what to write about. Alas, this decade of my 30's has given me plenty of material. I finally started tapping into this ability when I'd reached rock bottom from my cancer experience, and just starting "bleeding" into a private journal. The journal writing evolved after a year into my first major essay about cancer survivorship, then onto fully public writing about cancer at the Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation, IHadCancer.com, and now my very own award-winning website. Not bad. :)
If you want to give writing as a coping and healing mechanism a try, just sit down and write, and see what comes out? You have nothing to lose, and it could change your life.
StevePake.com
Fall In Love With Souls, Not Faces
This, right here, is beautiful. This is Rachel Farnsworth of The Stay at Home Chef, responding to some mean-spirited comments about her gray hair and "looking old". Give it a watch.
This, right here, is beautiful. This is Rachel Farnsworth of The Stay at Home Chef, responding to some mean-spirited comments about her gray hair and "looking old". Give it a watch.
Like Rachel, I have a very different perspective on aging as well. At 39, I have a lot of grey hair now, too. I know I'm a guy and that nobody really cares, but I don't particularly "like" them either, and my joke is that I admire every single one of them and then go and get a fresh "Mr. Clean" buzz cut. Yes, grey hair means I'm still here. That means a lot to someone who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 33 and thought they were going to die, nearly did die during a surgery fighting it, and once again feared death when they thought their cancer had returned on a few occasions in the years after. I don't have the younger face that I did a few years ago, I have a whole lot less hair now, and many more of them are grey, and I love every bit of it. It means I'm still alive, and still here to enjoy my family and my friends, and people that have been meaningful to me in my life.
I'm blessed to be married to an incredibly beautiful woman, and to have a few more as friends. They go to great lengths to keep themselves looking younger and are terrified of aging. I think they're crazy. I fall in love with souls, not with faces, or hair color. A beautiful person to me is one who's beautiful on the inside, and that beauty will shine through to the outside. In a world full of fakes, it's so easy to tell.
Rachel Farnsworth is doing exactly what we all need to be doing, focusing on making the best possible lives for ourselves right now. Just as there's no guarantee for someone like Rachel later in life with an auto-immune disease, there's no guarantee for those of us that have had cancer as young adults, either. We need to live the best possible lives that we can for ourselves right now, and each and every day. But guess what? There's no guarantees for anybody period. Life and health are not givens, never were, and never will be either. We all need to live for each day, not just those of us with cancer histories or diseases lurking in the background.
Rachel has a fair number of grey hairs, and whatever else you want to pick out. All I see is a beautiful woman, because I see the beautiful soul within. Bodies and looks will come and go. A beautiful soul is forever. That's what's worth falling in love with, and that can never be taken from you. Fall in love with souls, not with faces, and put the judgement away.
As I'm typing this now, I've just learned that breast cancer survivor and author, Nalie Agustin has experienced a recurrence of her cancer, and that it's metastasized to her lungs. She has to start chemotherapy again today, she's going to lose her hair again, and her whole life and world and all of the big plans she had for 2017 and beyond just came crashing down. Here's another beautiful soul. Forget about hair or losing it. Perhaps this puts things in perspective for a few, of just how much of a privilege it is to even have hair, as people fighting for their lives against cancer commonly don't. Nalie and so many other cancer fighters like her will always be beautiful no matter what, because the soul within is beautiful. Only a fake friend or one who's ugly on the inside would make such disparaging comments about grey hair or no hair, and the last thing cancer fighters and survivors need are people like those in their lives. Good riddance. Stay strong Nalie! We're all with you!
StevePake.com
Inaugural 2017 Winter Portraits
The first real snow of the year, I always love to get photos of our kids, Katie and William, running through the snow as it comes down. Katie didn't want to play, so leave it to William to get all of the glory. Photos taken with my Canon 5D Mark II and 135mm f/2L prime lens, shot at full aperture. Enjoy! :)
The first real snow of the year, I always love to get photos of our kids, Katie and William, running through the snow as it comes down. Katie didn't want to play, so leave it to William to get all of the glory. Photos taken with my Canon 5D Mark II and 135mm f/2L prime lens, shot at full aperture. The trick for photos like these is to use a larger format camera and and a large aperture prime lens, which gives you the ability to leave only a thin area in focus, with everything else falling out of focus. Only the face of the subject, and the thin layer of snowflakes in that same plane will be in focus, with everything else blurred to oblivion. Ability to do this with larger format cameras is why I still stick with them, and continue to use big old clunky DSLR cameras today. I love my iPhone 6s Plus, and the iPhone 7 is a bit better, but they're still not close to being able to do things like this.
Best viewed on a desktop computer at full screen.
Enjoy! :)
To get snowflake photos, you have to manually focus at mid-field, and then use a fast shutter speed like 1/2000s.
StevePake.com
StevePake.com Awarded as a Top Cancer Blog of 2016 by IHadCancer.com
"Steve has a way of taking ordinary experiences and turning them over to reveal a side we had never seen before. Time and time again he has united the IHadCancer community with his work as he writes about the subtle ways cancer affects us years after we're given our NED card.
Best for: finding the strength to push through the physical and emotional challenges of a post-cancer new normal."
My website was just recognized as one of the Top Cancer Blogs of 2016 by the I Had Cancer Community.
"Steve has a way of taking ordinary experiences and turning them over to reveal a side we had never seen before. Time and time again he has united the IHadCancer community with his work as he writes about the subtle ways cancer affects us years after we're given our NED card.
Best for: finding the strength to push through the physical and emotional challenges of a post-cancer new normal."
Nailed it! That's exactly what my website and all of my writing is about.
This is a huge honor to be chosen as a top cancer blog out of hundreds of submissions. Honestly, I had nearly forgotten about this and just assumed I hadn't won. I'm speechless. A whole lot of time and effort, or more accurately, bottles of wine, boxes of tissue, and lately, scotch and bourbon, goes into my website and all of my writing. ;-)
I started writing a few years ago in 2013 after a friend of mine had died of testicular cancer, I'd had a terrible recurrence scare and thought for sure that my cancer had returned (and that I was going to die), at which point the emotional floodgates just opened on me. I was nearly two years out from my cancer diagnosis and still all clear, but completely lost. I was suffering from full blown "afraid to leave the corner" PTSD, and didn't know what I was supposed to do with myself. I called my oncologist's office to get connected with a therapist, but the best the two people they referred to could do for a first appointment was 6-8 weeks. My mind was on fire. I needed help now, not six weeks from now. I just started writing, and keeping a journal of my daily thoughts trying to sort everything out, among other things. Writing stuck as a coping mechanism, proved to be an invaluable tool in my mental and spiritual healing and recovery from cancer, and that's how all of this started.
My writing was private and just for me at first, but a number of friends encouraged me to go fully public with my writing and to put myself out there, knowing it could really help others. The closest thing I had to a website at the time was my old CaringBridge blog (which is still up and public), and posting Notes on Facebook, where I published one of my first essays on young adult cancer survivorship, didn't seem like the proper place for it either. I'm eternally grateful to Kim Jones at the Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation, who graciously granted me the helm of the TCAF blog in 2014, and completely free reign to write whatever I wanted. This was the more formal start to my cancer writing, and I finally launched my own website on October 27th, 2015. Today, my blogs appear at TCAF, the IHadCancer.com website, and select blogs also appear at CURE magazine, and the Cancer Knowledge Network. My website is a one-stop shop for everything that I've ever written, including some exclusive content that has never been published outside of my website, such as my essays about PTSD After Cancer, with some additional sections for Daily Inspiration, life updates, and a bit of photography.
It's impossible fully track traffic when cross-publishing, but annual readership of my blogs across platforms is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-100k unique readers, and 100-500k+ total page hits annually. From bottles of wine and entire boxes of tissue paper all over the floor night after night at 2am because I was such a wreck a few years ago, to an award-winning website. Well worth the effort, and not a bad way to start 2017. :-) Didn't I just say that 2017 was going to be a great year? Our attitudes and beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies. As much as I've already written, there's still so much more to write and do, and I'm looking forward to it.
THANK YOU, to all who read and comment on my blogs, and follow me on social media. This is all for you. One of the biggest things I've learned from blogging at IHadCancer in particular, from reading through hundreds or even thousands of comments in response to my blogs, is that our humanity binds us. Despite such different backgrounds, different ages, gender, and cancer types, fighting and recovering from cancer is very much a shared journey. We think and feel so many of the same things, have so many of the same struggles inside, and we're never alone in this. It's a great honor to be a recognized voice not just for young adult cancer survivors on which I focus, but for all cancer fighters and survivors, and to have been named a Top Cancer Blog of 2016 by IHadCancer.com. Thank you!!!
God Bless and Happy 2017!
Steve Pake
Finish 2016 And Be Done With It
I had to borrow one of my favorite Emerson quotes and adapt it to move on from last year. "Finish 2016 and be done with it. you have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. 2017 is a New Year. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense from 2016."
I had to borrow one of my favorite Emerson quotes and adapt it to move on from last year.
"Finish 2016 and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. 2017 is a New Year. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense from 2016."
I'm leaving the tragedies and emotional wreckage of 2016 in the rearview mirror. I have to. I have big plans for 2017, and there's no way I'm going to achieve any of them if I'm stuck in the past, and looking in the rearview mirror. What's done is done. How much control did I really have over all that happened in 2016? Virtually none. And what could I have done to possibly change anything that happened? Not a damned thing. We've been through it all a thousand times over. Thus, there's zero point in being hung up emotionally on things I had no real control over in the first place, and no real ability to change. I was just along for the ride in 2016, and I did the best I could. We all did.
It's 2017 now. It's a New Year, and I shall indeed begin it serenely, and with too high a spirit to be encumbered from all of the nonsense from 2016. I have big plans for 2017, and goals I fully intend to achieve. When I say I'm going to do something, I do it, and I'm either all-in 110% or don't even bother. No looking back on the past. It's time to make this year happen.
StevePake.com
Year in Photo 2016
Our Year in Photos for 2016
Every year I like to go through all of our favorite photos from the year and try to trim them down to a hundred or so. If they're of us, they become the Christmas Card collage candidate photos, and the others are just to remember fun times with friends and family. So here we are for 2016, back-posted at long last.
Our Year in Photos, 2016.
Enjoy! :)
Love Your Fucking Life
The fear of many cancer fighters and survivors isn't necessarily that of death, but of life not lived. For those of us that are lucky enough to get an all clear, and are freed from the chains of the medical system, what in the hell are you waiting for? Get out there!
The fear of many cancer fighters and survivors isn't necessarily that of death, but of life not lived. For those of us that are lucky enough to get an all clear, and are freed from the chains of the medical system, what in the hell are you waiting for? Get out there! LIVE your lives, go places, do things, take chances, and live your dreams. Tell the people that have meant something to you how much you love and appreciate them. Be genuine. Be real. Be YOU for the first time, and not what other people, societies, or cultures expect you to be. BE YOU, and fucking love it! The world needs you to be you, and to get out there and make a difference for everyone else.
It's okay to be a afraid. It's okay to curl up on your couch in a ball of tears from time to time. Lord knows I've been there plenty of times, but don't stay there for too long. You can't change the past, and have no control over the future. Go do something amazing right now instead. Go someplace you've always wanted to go, or do something you've always wanted to do. Cross an item off of your list, no matter how big or how small. If not now, when? You don't need anyone's permission, nor do you owe anyone an apology just for being YOU. Love your fucking life. Don't waste that shit! Take a million pictures, and show everybody else how it's done. :)
StevePake.com
Dedicated to the most amazing oncology nurse ever, mine, Trish Traylor, who posted this photo. Thanks Trish! I needed this! :)
It's Okay If Other People Don't Understand Your Life
I don't expect other people to be able to understand my life, my values, nor what I believe in. They've not had these experiences for themselves, and even I struggle to wrap my head around all that life has put my family and I through. It's okay. I no longer worry about being the only one, or that other people don't understand. What's important is love and not judgement, and dialog and not assumption.
I'm 39 years old, and have finally reached the last year of my 30's. My life experience over these past ten years of life has been that of constantly having the carpet ripped out from underneath you, and not just learning to get back up again, but learning to do so with a smile. It's not just being diagnosed with cancer at the age of 33 that I speak of, but numerous other life experiences of the same caliber that have really knocked my family and I down. We just keep getting back up again, learn to smile through it all, and always come back better and stronger than ever.
I don't expect other people to be able to understand my life, my values, nor what I believe in. They've not had these experiences for themselves, and even I struggle to wrap my head around all that life has put my family and I through. It's okay. I no longer worry about being the only one, or that other people don't understand. What's important is love and not judgement, and dialog and not assumption. I'm the only one that walks in my shoes, and how many people would end up thinking and believing the same as me, had they experienced all that I had for themselves?
It's okay to just be you, and to do what's right for you. Nobody else has to understand.
StevePake.com
Unplug Yourself
Disconnect and let yourself to recharge, but let this also be a time of reckoning. Remember that we all want so many of the same things, but merely disagree on how to get there. We all have a story that brings us to where we are in life. If people can't respect that story, your story, then perhaps they're not worthy of your time and energy.
I remember the time a few short years ago when I had melted down like I never had before in life. It was nearly two years after cancer had entered my life, and I was mourning the loss of a brother cancer warrior who had died, had been fearing that my own cancer had returned, and had so many worries about life and the future, and if I would even have one. The turmoil that cancer had brought into my life, along with all of the doom and gloom in the external world all formed the perfect storm, and finally got the better of me. I broke down so badly that I wasn't even functional as a human being anymore. I felt threatened from all corners, and to this day I still wonder how I even made it into work everyday.
Unplug yourself
For awhile I went cold, and disconnected from everything and everybody. Television, the news, the Internet and social media, and all but my closest friends just had to go for awhile. It's tough to fight the fires raging in your own mind when some are not helping at best, and when others are actually adding fuel to the fire!
Nobody is forcing you to stay connected to people or things that have become hurtful or toxic to your mental well-being. Make yourself your first priority. Take care of yourself first, and unplug whenever you need to, for as long as you need to. You can't be a good parent, a good spouse, or a good friend or source of support to anyone else, if the world has drained you down to 0%.
Disconnect and let yourself recharge, but let this also be a time of reckoning. Remember that we all want so many of the same things, but merely disagree on how to get there. We all have a story that brings us to where we are in life. If people can't respect that story, your story, then perhaps they're not worthy of your time and energy. However, this is a two-way street, as they too have a story that must be respected, even if you disagree. We all need to respect one another. If you can't, agree to disagree and move on.
"If you meet someone whose soul is not aligned with yours,
send them love and move along." - Dr. Wayne Dyer
We need more of that, and a whole lot less derision and hate, on all sides. Plug back in whenever you're ready. The world needs you, but don't let it take more than you can give, and don't waste your valuable time and energy on those that have not been deserving.
StevePake.com
Scorpio Cancer Survivor Problems - Betrayal
Of all the signs, Scorpios are said to handle betrayal the worst, and it's true. So true. Most people come to know feelings of betrayal from failed friendships and relationships. As awful as any of these things are, you can distance yourself from people who have hurt you or cut ties entirely, but what about when it's your own body that's betrayed you? A cancer diagnosis is the worst possible betrayal one can face, as it's our own bodies cheating on us with death. What do you do then? How do you get away? You can't.
Of all the signs, Scorpios are said to handle betrayal the worst, and it's true. So true.
Most people come to know feelings of betrayal from failed friendships and relationships. As awful as any of these things are, you can distance yourself from people who have hurt you or cut ties entirely, but what about when it's your own body that's betrayed you? A cancer diagnosis is the worst possible betrayal one can face, as it's our own bodies cheating on us with death. What do you do then? How do you get away? You can't. A Scorpio will want nothing more than to rid themselves of anything or anybody that has betrayed them, but when it's our own bodies that have betrayed us, we're simply trapped. Even worse, we have to learn to live with the fact that our bodies could betray us and try to start killing us again, if our cancers were to come back. This is a tough reality for any cancer survivor to live with, but it's especially hard for a Scorpio who values trust and loyalty above all else.
It took me a very long time - measured in years - to even start to feel any sort of security in my life again. Imagine waking up everyday feeling terrified to varying degrees because your own body had betrayed you in such a terrible way, and you have no means to escape or isolate yourself. This broke me, and even five years later, I still don't feel safe in my own body. Once trust is broken with a Scorpio, it's difficult to ever regain it.
I came to realize that I was never meant to trust my body again, and that I was wrong to have ever trusted my body in the first place. There are so many diseases and cancers out there that can strike anyone, at any age, even without any risk factors. Life is a precious gift that isn't meant to be wasted, and I had to learn how to play the game a different way.
It's not the years in your life that matter, but rather the life in your years.
I hadn't really been living my life, and needed to start. I live the life that I do with my family, a life rich with travel, adventure, love, fun, and friends, not because I'm still afraid of cancer, but because I've been so betrayed, and can never trust my own body again. I finally had to teach myself how to forgive, just so that I could let go of things and start to move on, but I can never forget. Yesterday it was testicular cancer; tomorrow it could be something else. There's no real guarantees for our health, there never were in the first place, and never will be.
I had to grow beyond my body. What I have full faith in today are my spiritual beliefs, that we're more than our bodies, and that we have some place to go after we leave this physical realm. These spiritual beliefs are what I have full faith in today, and no matter what might happen to my body, those beliefs can never be taken from me. I can't trust my body again, and so today I have full trust in my beliefs.
StevePake.com
You Will Survive
It's October 27th, 2016. I'm 39 years old today, and I've never seen anything that's described what my life has been like as a cancer survivor over the past few years in such few words, and with such a simple illustration as this. When I was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 33, I thought my life was over, and that I wasn't going to survive. But I survived.
It's October 27th, 2016. I'm 39 years old today, and I've never seen anything that's described what my life has been like as a cancer survivor over the past few years in such few words, and with such a simple illustration as this. When I was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 33, I thought my life was over, and that I wasn't going to survive.
I fought like hell. The treatments knocked me down so hard that I thought I wasn't going to survive, but I survived. A brutal and highly invasive surgery resulted in a torn vena cava. I nearly bled out right in the operating room and never would have woken up again, but I survived. I had so many scares in my years after cancer - every strange ache and pain wasn't just an ache or pain anymore, it was my cancer that was coming back. I thought I wasn't going to survive, but I survived. Post-cancer depression and posttraumatic stress hit me hard. If cancer wasn't going to kill me, then all of the demons that it had clouded my mind with might very well have. I thought I wasn't going to survive, but I survived.
Cancer has challenged me in every possible way, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In many ways, I did die, but only the weaker parts of me, the parts that weren't strong enough to handle life after cancer. In their place, other parts of me were allowed to grow, and have made me into a much stronger person today. Forget 40. Even turning 39 used to be a pipe dream for me. It's our last year of life as young adults and a huge milestone for any young adult cancer survivor, but here I am at this finish line, 5 years cancer free, and discharged from oncology care!
I didn't think I'd survive all this, but I survived.
StevePake.com
You Can Go Through a Great Deal of Darkness, Yet Become Something Beautiful
A follower made a post, and asked an intriguing question. She asked, if you could go back and change just one thing in your life, would you? If you did, would that change make your life better? Or, was the one thing that was tearing you apart so intensely, the catalyst for the most intense breakthrough, change, and growth in your life that you could ever have imagined?"
A follower made a post, and asked an intriguing question. She asked, if you could go back and change just one thing in your life, would you? If you did, would that change make your life better? Or, was the one thing that was tearing you apart so intensely, the catalyst for the most intense breakthrough, change, and growth in your life that you could ever have imagined?"
I responded, the things that have torn me apart are what have made me into what I am today. I'm very proud of how I've grown through all of my challenges and through what life has thrown my way. I'm very proud of what I've become, and I think sometimes we were meant to hurt and suffer in our lives, so that we would have the opportunity to grow and evolve in such ways. I would not be even a fraction of the person that I am today without all of the challenges that I've faced in my life. Cancer, bizarre life situations, and a few very hurtful people, have all played a part and served a higher purpose in helping me to evolve, and become the person that I am today. I wouldn't change a thing.
StevePake.com
St Lucia 2012
Four years ago this week, my wife and I enjoyed a blissful 5 days and 4 nights in St Lucia at the famous Ladera Resort, which has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. We needed this so badly. We had been through complete hell. We loved and cherished every second of this trip. Something about being in paradise and on island time helping you to get back in touch with the one you love, and getting your love and romance burning at full force again after so much hardship.
Four years ago this week, my wife and I enjoyed a blissful 5 days and 4 nights in St Lucia at the famous Ladera Resort, which has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. We needed this so badly. We had been through complete hell.
It wasn't just my cancer fight the previous year in 2011 that had been stressing us out. The year prior to that, my brother-in-law had been diagnosed with a rare neurological condition. He needed a few corrective surgeries at Stanford and was lucky to have survived, but ended up becoming permanently disabled and in need of full-time care. It was heartbreaking to see such a young man go through something like this and become disabled as a result. The year prior to that, my wife lost her elderly grandfather to cancer in Taiwan. We knew about his cancer, but it had been stable, only for him to pass just two weeks before we were set to make the journey across the world to see him. My wife was devastated. She had been extremely close to her grandfather, and to miss seeing him one last time by just weeks was hurtful beyond belief. And then came all of the challenges afterwards with her brother, job loss and then my cancer fight, and all of the new challenges after cancer. We made it through it all and our love for each other never wavered, but it was hard, life just hadn't been fair, and we needed to escape the world for a bit.
Without even telling me, my wife booked this little getaway for us at Ladera in St Lucia around our anniversary as a surprise, and it was one of the best things that we'd ever done for ourselves. This is the trip where we took care of ourselves for a change, and put our lives and ourselves back together. No work, no emails, no office, no kids, no cancer, no crazy world, no nothing. Just each other, in such a beautiful place, escaping a world gone mad.
We loved and cherished every second of this trip. Something about being in paradise and on island time helping you to get back in touch with the one you love, and getting your love and romance burning at full force again after so much hardship. There were rough times for me ahead. There was so much I'd yet to experience as a cancer survivor, and so much I'd yet to go through. No matter how dark things would feel, we would always have this trip, and we remember it to this day. What an amazing time it was, and it was from this St Lucia trip that we recognized the need for a couples only retreat every year. We needed this every year, for ourselves, for our love, and for each other. And so with St Lucia in 2012, a new tradition was started, and we always look forward to our annual getaway together. Life is really rotten sometimes. You don't need permission from anyone to go and enjoy, and indulge in life a bit.
As this is the photography section of my website, I figured I'd talk a little about that. I brought my Canon 5D Mark II on this trip, along with a 17-40L ultra-wide lens, 24-105mm f/4L IS mid-range zoom, and then a 35mm f/2 prime for lower light work, along with possibly a mini-flash of some sorts. This had been my world-traveling photography setup for a number of years, and there's not much you'll miss with such a setup, along with getting truly incredible landscape photos. For high contrast photos, no I didn't do HDR or multi-exposure photo-blending. I did it old-school, and used a good old-fashioned two or three-stop grad-ND filter! I've been shooting with a far more technically advanced Canon 7D Mark II for the past two years now and I've loved it, but looking back at photos like these has made me realize that there's an added dimension and feel to full-frame cameras that you just don't get with APS-C cameras. Full-frame photos are just sexier, and I'm actually going to be going back to full-frame for much of my photography!
Click the link below for the full gallery, or simply enjoy the slideshow at the bottom! :)
Courage Doesn't Always Roar
Having courage during and after cancer doesn't mean that you run hard-charging through every situation, treatment, and appointment, never showing a lick of fear. Sometimes courage means having a meltdown in the shower for 20 minutes in the morning before you can even get going, but you get going.
Having courage during and after cancer doesn't mean that you run hard-charging through every situation, treatment, and appointment, never showing a lick of fear. Sometimes courage means having a meltdown in the shower for 20 minutes in the morning before you can even get going, but you get going. Sometimes courage means holding yourself together while having yet another round of scans, blood tests, and follow-up appointments done. You walk out to your car afterwards and realize that you haven't breathed in a few days, and proceed to have a meltdown right in your car, and finally let all of that fear that's been inside of you out before heading back to work. Sometimes courage means nothing more than showing up and marking yourself present, being a complete wreck and getting nothing productive done, but vowing to do better tomorrow. Courage means that you keep getting up, showing up, and always trying your best, even when you're far from your best. When you've been hurting so badly inside, courage means making changes in your lives, even major ones, when you realize that your needs have changed after cancer, and that you need to live your life differently than you had before.
New routines, new philosophies, new attitudes, new circles of friends and support, new lifestyles, and ridding your lives of negative, toxic, or hurtful influences, all takes courage. I've done all of this after cancer not because I wasn't afraid and felt super courageous, but because I couldn't stand to keep hurting anymore, and couldn't keep living my life in fear. Love for my wife and family are the only things that have remained constant. Everything else has been ripped up, turned over, and re-evaluated after cancer. I'm a spiritually sound and confident person today, not because I wasn't terrified of making changes, but because I had the courage to. That's what courage is.
StevePake.com
Be Soft
Beneath it all, this has been the true challenge all along. Cancer entering my life at the age of 33 tried very hard to make me want to hate myself, to hate my body, and to hate the world for putting my family through something so traumatic.
Beneath it all, this has been the true challenge all along. Cancer entering my life at the age of 33 tried very hard to make me want to hate myself, to hate my body, and to hate the world for putting my family through something so traumatic. And it's not just cancer that tried so hard to make me a hateful person, but people that had failed me and let me down, too. I've been so hurt, betrayed, and have felt so disappointed and abandoned by some. Cancer teaches you who your friends are and aren't very quickly, and that family isn't just blood. But my cancer journey isn't even half the story anymore. This decade of my 30's has been extraordinary, in some of the worst possible ways.
Life has tried really hard to make me a hardened, hateful, and bitter person. And I've flat out refused. I've refused to let all of this destroy me. It may have burned me to the ground several times, but I've always gotten back up again, determined more than ever to grow and to do whatever I've needed to do to evolve myself past the challenges that life has thrown my way. I've taught myself to love instead of hate, to forgive despite having been so hurt, and to not let these multitude of life challenges ruin me as a person.
Don't let your challenges destroy you. Grow past them. Our lives continue to be extraordinary in ways that are unfathomable to most, but we're not letting that stop us from becoming the people that we aspire to be, nor from living the lives that we want to live. Be Soft.
StevePake.com
How To Overcome Your Fears After Cancer (Or COVID)
Experiencing fear on a regular basis comes with the territory of being a cancer survivor. It's a very normal and even healthy part of cancer survivorship, but something that needs to be managed, so here are six tips on how to help cope with and overcome it.
[April 3, 2020 Update: It’s been surreal to once again be experiencing so many of the same fears and feelings that I did as a cancer survivor in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic, and then having to engage the same exact coping mechanisms that I had developed so long ago. You can replace the word cancer in this blog with “COVID-19”, and it’s really about the same thing. Just stay 6 feet away from your friends. :) ]
Experiencing fear on a regular basis comes with the territory of being a cancer survivor. It's a very normal and even healthy part of cancer survivorship, but something that needs to be managed, so here are six tips on how to help cope with and overcome it.
1. It's Okay To Be Afraid
It doesn't matter what type of cancer you're diagnosed with, what your age or prognosis is, nor even if you have a "good cancer". The fact is, when it's your ass and life that's on the line, and you're the one left wondering if you're going to live or die, a cancer diagnosis is just plain terrifying. It's okay to be afraid, it's okay to not have the answers that we need, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
2. Fear Might Come When You Least Expect It
Fear isn't just something that we face at the time of cancer diagnosis and treatment. It's normal to experience fear in the years after while "S.O.S" (Stranded On Surveillance), and can hit you at the most unexpected times, and in the most bizarre ways. Like when standing in line at Starbucks one day, almost a year after my cancer fight had ended. I had been feeling good for a change, and had finally managed to forget about cancer for awhile, only for two people behind me to start talking about how a friend had been diagnosed with cancer, and how awful that was. My heart sank into my stomach, and it all came back.
I'll never forget the day that I was out for a run, when a paralyzing wave of fear swept over me that was so intense that I collapsed onto the curb in tears. I couldn't even believe what I was afraid of. I was terrified at the prospect of having to get the retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND) surgery done for testicular cancer, except that I'd already had this surgery done 18 months ago! I had always wondered why I hadn't so much as batted an eye going into that brutal and highly invasive surgery. Sometimes our fears are repressed in order to get through challenging situations.
I sat on that curb in tears for about 15-20 minutes, letting it all out about a surgery I'd already had long ago. I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I didn't understand why I was feeling this now, but it felt so good to release whatever this was. I was never afraid of that surgery again, and the recurring nightmares I'd been having about it stopped for good. I quickly realized that I had so many more repressed fears bottled up inside of me like this, and that they just needed to come out. My emotions had simply switched off while fighting cancer, and now they were finally coming out, years later.
3. Find Healthy and Productive Outlets
Running over lunch became my daily ritual. It was an hour just for me, away from the office and away from my family, where I could privately work my way through all of my inner pain, without distraction. There's nothing worse than having fight-or-flight type anxiety freewheeling inside of you with nowhere to go. Running, specifically outdoors, with the wind on your face and scenery passing you by, was just so satisfying in a very primal way, and gave this dark energy the perfect place to go. No matter how badly I'd been feeling before, I always felt so much better physically and mentally after a run. Running didn't just work wonders for my body, it worked wonders for my mind as well.
I also took up writing, per the encouragement of a friend. I didn't always understand what I was feeling or why, and plenty of times my thoughts or fears made absolutely no sense. Writing about them, in the form of a private journal at first, helped me to make sense of my inner hurricane of thoughts. Slowly but surely I managed to unravel what was truly behind a lot of these inner fears and insecurities, who and what I really was inside and what I needed, and began to find ways to heal. Plenty of quality time with family and friends along with an active lifestyle became a necessity for life in general, but running and writing became my two primary outlets for processing all of my inner fears and pain.
4. Be Your Own Best Friend and Advocate
It's important to be your own best friend and advocate. Don't make the mistake that I did, where for years I was closer to my own worst enemy, beating myself up for being afraid of a "good cancer," with a good prognosis. Stop this. It's okay to be afraid. Our fears come from the deepest and most true part of ourselves. Never deny what you feel, and don't deny your true self. Clean up your inner dialog and be your own best friend and advocate.
When you're overcome with fear and find yourself sitting in a corner in tears, would your best friend beat you up for this? No. My own best friends have told me that they couldn't possibly imagine what I've been through, and have been mortified knowing even half of what my cancer experience has entailed. They're not the ones mourning the loss of friends that didn't make it, sweating out scans and dealing with scanxiety, nor are they dealing with so many physical and mental challenges such as bodies that don't work like they once did, and depression or even posttraumatic stress. Cancer survivors need strong support to make it through all that we do, and that has to start from within. Cut yourself some slack, and kill off that negative internal dialog. Love and accept yourself and all that you feel unconditionally, and be your own best friend and advocate for yourself in handling your fears.
5. Find People That Can Support You*
When fears about cancer are already pushing you beyond the limit, you're going to notice more than ever how other people in your lives affect you. Make sure that you have the best people for you in your life, that can help bring a sense of calm, and positive energy into your world. Part of being your own best friend and advocate, is allowing yourself to find those people, and removing others that just aren't working for you. Especially as young adults, cancer can be such a lonely and isolating experience, because so few peers at our age will have experienced anything like what we have. Community support can be vital, and today I enjoy a wonderful mix of both regular and cancer community friends that I couldn't be without. They all add so much to my life, and help me to feel complete.
*But with respect to the COVID19 pandemic, just make sure you keep your friends at least 6 feet away, unless you’ve been co-isolating together. :)
6. A Little Faith Can Go A Long Ways
Slowly but surely, I found my way through my years after cancer. I found the outlets that I needed, I continued to run and write as my outlets, and led a busy and active lifestyle surrounded by family and friends that always managed to put a smile on my face. But I couldn't stop being afraid. My fears about cancer always managed to find ways to come back and haunt me, and with it, periods of depression that could last weeks or even months, and periodic episodes of posttraumatic stress that would put me back in that corner again, huddled up in tears.
Ultimately, it was neither an attitude, a routine, nor lifestyle, that helped me to finally overcome my fears. It was faith. When I talk about faith, I mean that in the broadest possible sense to encompass anything and everything that faith can be. I don't go to church, and I'm still not a part of an organized religion, all things that I had shunned in the past and continue to shun today. What I finally developed was an independent set of spiritual beliefs that worked just for me. I gave myself something to believe in about what we are, and where we go after our physical lives end, all based on things that I've experienced and believe in myself. There's no right or wrong answer when it comes to something like faith. Developing faith is just as individual of a journey as surviving cancer is. For me, after years of struggle, finally allowing myself a system of beliefs took the wind out of the sails of my fears of death and dying of cancer, and today I'm living my life without fear for the first time. I'm free.
A little faith can indeed go a long ways.
StevePake.com