About the Blog

On the stereo: Brother by Need To Breathe

In my bloodstream: The remnants of Yervoy an immunotherapy drug for cancer and a new Bristol Myers creation called Opdivo.

I have had malignant melanoma for over 25 years, and as a result, have endured innumerable operations and every chemical combination available to continue my life. Three times I have been told that I would not live another year. During that 25 year period, I have enjoyed the love of a wonderful family, worked in terrific jobs, moved from Toronto to Tuscaloosa and then to retirement in Florida. We have moved, economically, from not much money to having a great deal of money to having just enough money to get by. I have been blessed with meeting and keeping some of the finest friends in the world. Most of my story is about the impact of those friendships: the greatest wealth of all!

I would be remiss if I did not thank Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa and Bristol Myers Corporation for allowing me into their clinical trial. I am alive today because of what they do. For the rest of my days I will be grateful. I cannot thank them enough.

Most importantly has been the absolute love and devotion of my bride, Kathleen Mary Mullen. To this day, it is my love for her that keeps me living. She has been by my side, through the most difficult of times and has supported me when there was not much gas in my will to live. Each time she has been there, hand in mine, to help me reach the other side. She has shared this tumultuous journey and has never given up on me.

After college at Ryerson, I continued my education, some 30 years later, attending continuing MBA classes at The Owen School. There, I met a number of great professors, one of whom I consider to this day, an extraordinary communicator, a wonderful musician and entertainer, a published author and more importantly, a most loyal friend. I was, at the time we met in 2003, deep in chemotherapy and still working as President and CEO at AFFLINK, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Dr. Fred Talbott and I had many sidebar conversations about life, cancer, challenges, victories, failures, families and communication, the discipline of his expertise. It was Fred who showed me by example just how engaging it can be when the storyteller has an insight and perspective which is refreshing to an audience. I greatly admired his skill, humor and enthusiasm. And so, as one of his students, I hope he might find some of himself in my cancer story.

I have spent most of my years in marketing, discussing and persuading audiences of one to a thousand about a vision of a better future, in business and in health.

My business background in Canada includes vice presidential roles in CIL, an international chemical company and an executive vice presidential position with Price Daxion,which eventually became Unisource, a paper and packaging distribution company with facilities in most major cities across Canada. A major component of those jobs involved mergers and integration of people and facilities. The most rewarding parts for me were the opportunity to learn from some extremely clever people and to develop and maintain their friendship to this day. Our shareholders, however, might have been more impressed with the turn-arounds of their businesses and the establishment of a strategic pattern of growth and profitability.

More recently, after we moved to the South, I have had the opportunity to address the incoming MBA class at The University of Alabama. It was a great honor for me. Kathy was a little shocked when I was introduced. “I didn’t know you were the keynote speaker” she said afterward. It was one of my proudest moments. A little boy from Orillia, Ontario, Canada, had come a long way.

Our company raised funds for Hospice of Alabama, and I had the pleasure of addressing a full theatre, encouraging those in attendance to commit funds to build a much needed extension to the Hospice facility. We accomplished just that at one well-structured event. Eventually, I began to speak to similar audiences about my cancer, and our journey from place to place and country to country, stressing the miracles that do happen when you have the involvement of friends, family and faith.

I am not the first person to have cancer. I most unfortunately, will not be the last. My story is no more or no less important than that of any other victim or survivor. But the seemingly incredible number of serendipitous moments attaching heartbreak to hope in my life, deserve some consideration. To Kath and myself, they border on miraculous. We reflect often on how good fortune has so often followed bad in our lives. When we have been in our most difficult and darkest times, we have been blessed with a new day and another chance at life and hope and love.

I have, for about 25 years, been on a regimen of chemicals, radiation, immunotherapy and prayers. Not my prayer, but prayers from others. I have long felt that prayer should not be a selfish act, but a gift you give others in need.

My introduction to the people of the south brought me a remarkable, benevolent gift. My cancer generated a community action that placed me on every church prayer list in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Strangers would stop Kathy in the grocery store and ask her if she was my wife. I might have been more well known for my illness than for being in charge of one of the more established businesses in town. They would tell her they were praying for us. They would shake her hand and give her hugs.

During my first chemotherapy session at UAB Birmingham, the head nurse at the infusion clinic told me that in their experience, in that hospital, patients with faith seemed to do better. Her son was in Iraq, and she told me that she worried for his life each and every day. Praying for him was all she could do. His life was not in her hands. I hope he made it home. His momma needed him.

A last thought - If today we can inspire one person to make a difference in someone else’s life, or if we can encourage a patient to hang tough and fight for his or her life one more day, then tomorrow just might prove to be a better day. Maybe, just maybe, serendipity and prayer are closer than we think.

Hopefully, we will talk next week.