Building a Powerful Cancer Care Community: Stories of Resilience and Shared Hope

Hey, and hello, good people. And welcome to Cancer and Comedy. I'm Dr. Brad Miller. And today I'm going to tell you a little story about cancer in the light of healing, and hope, and inspiration, and humor, all wrapped up into the context and the beautiful package of community. This is episode number 29 of Cancer and Comedy. And I hope that you'll connect up with me and be a follower of the Cancer and Comedy podcast, and be a part of our community here, as we will seek to be helpful to you and you just go to cancerandcomedy.com/follow. And we can get you connected to our community here, which we're all about that I wanted to talk to you today about, about community in terms of what it means to me and why he was incredibly important to me in terms of launching the cancer comedy podcast and sustaining it. And having a purpose moving forward. I had the privilege of as I record this to have just returned from a, a conference called pod fest, which is a conference for people involved with the podcasting world, of which I've been a part of for about 12 years now, many of you know a part of my story. I was a pastor for 43 years, but also a part of that story is I was involved with radio, much of that time. In fact, I was involved with radio all the way back to my high school days back in the late 1970s. And I've always had my hand in that and had been in podcasting since 2012, several podcasts involved with it. That led me I've gone to a few podcasts conferences in my life. It led me about a year ago, January of 2023, the opportunity to go to a podcasting conference called pod Fest in Orlando, Florida. And the unusual circumstances of that particular one is though I had planned to go into that conference, I was just a bit of a little more than a month out from being diagnosed with prostate cancer, which had rocked my world. I got that diagnosis on December 27, of 2022. And the podcast conference was held fourth week of January 2023. So, it was on my mind a lot of course, and I was going through all kinds of tests and rigamarole and preparing for the real possibility of a major surgery to deal with my cancer.

And I had a lot on my mind. When I chose to go to pod fest 2022 in relation to supporting some of the other podcasting projects I was working on. I couldn't help think till what was on my mind, my cancer diagnosis and this, this thing in my guts, man, you got to do something about this. And maybe podcast is a way to do that. And I ran to a group of people at pod fest a year ago and 2023 who are involved with the health care world and got connected with those folks. And we had a conversation. And in that group, there was a redheaded woman there who was laughing and cackling out loud and telling her story and exuberant way about how she had dealt with stage four breast cancer not once or twice, but four times 1415 surgeries and she still had this wonderful, vibrant laugh, and an incredible story to tell. And interesting, very interesting person. I knew I wanted to get to know her better. And so, I had a conversation with a woman named Deb Krier. And Deb and I struck up a conversation and got together and part of that conversation led me eventually to asking her to join me be my cohost on what eventually became the cancer and comedy podcast. And you know, she's a great contributor to what we do here. She's a breast cancer warrior and I deal with prostate cancer. And together we also have a zest for life, that we are not going to let cancer beat us. And we are not going to let cancer define us. But we are going to let it the experience redefine us to make us better and to live our life to the fullest. But you know, it's hard to do that on your own. It just is. And we get support from family and friends and that's fantastic. But another cool thing is when you start to get support and when you start to reach out and be a part of a community of people with a similar experience. I found that a number of people at pod fest they're other likeminded health related podcast that has people are reaching out to try to be helpful, inspirational, healing, informational and various contexts. Some folks were dealing with cancer some folks dealing with, with hospitals and with kidney disease, leukemia, all kinds of other things people were dealing with and podcast to try to get the word out. And I found myself really enamored with this group of folks. And it shifted my thinking that from where I was at in the podcasting realm, I was thinking about to really focusing in on podcasting be helpful to you, my friend, people who are impacted by cancer, because what we're about here, a cancer in comedy is about helping him, cancer impacted people to heal with hope and humor. But I realized that there's a little more truth in that, and it's what I would call community. So, I had some experiences that pod fest I just went to here in January, recording this the end of January of 2024. So just last week, I was at pod fest 2024.

So, a year after the one, when the germ of the idea for cancer and comedy kick came about. And I was able to connect up with a number of other people who had other podcasts related to cancer, or related services related to cancer and develop a community. They're like-minded people going through somewhat similar experiences. And that type of thing, I found that to be very helpful. And just wanted to share with you a little bit about that experience about some of the people that I met because they are indicative of how you and I can work together and community and to be delighted in the whole process. I mentioned to your dev career, and she was at this podcast event called pod fest. And she was there as a part of things I was able to give a little talk about how we launched cancer in comedy, and I'll let you know about that and how you can access that talk. And that was a great thing. I was also able to do a comedy set, we had a standup comedy night, I had a lot of fun. I first time ever I've tried standup comedy. And it was great. It was great. It was great. Had a lot, a lot of fun. I hope you know as we go through this cancer, comedy, podcast, cancer is kind of the tragedy, you know, kind of the tragic thing we deal with. And the comedy is not only kind of belly laughs hahaha funny experiences, but it's also uplifting experiences, experiences, kind of put a smile on your face and has to do with energy, and not giving up. So, one of the days of this conference, a few of us got together and sat around a table. And we started to connect up about what it was like to deal with cancer in our lives. And what we were doing about it in our podcast, sit situations. And I just hear as was delighted me to be around a group a few folks. There was a woman there, named Rebecca. And she has a podcast that deals with the loss. She's a younger woman. And she had she was a widow; her husband had died and she'd had a brother who had died. And she herself was dealing in a very serious case of life-threatening case of cancer in her own and her own right. And she has a podcast called Love is not dead, just my husband. It's raised about grief and about loss of her husband, but she deals with other things as well. And I'm going to put connections and, and websites in our show notes here, here at episode 29. But our website is widow, your way.com. And Rebecca was amazing because she had all this incredibly serious stuff happened to her at an early age. But you know, she entered this group we were sitting around the table with she had the biggest smile on her face. She had great energy; she was talking vibrantly invite Vitaliy.

She had a good friend with her, who was a part of what we were talking about her friend Paula came to this event as well. And they traveled from North Carolina to Florida to be a part of this, this event. And she they talked about, about the grief and the pain and the loneliness and the journey that's marked by strength and courage and independence. And there's some bittersweet stuff at the top it's some joy in the joy in the midst of the sorrow and I just love getting to know people like Rebecca because she had energy and cancer was not going to beat her down I met another woman who current Kristin and she is involved with a group that deals with cancer patients helps them in dealing with the overwhelm of this situation and she is was had incredible spirit about her as well interpret her OB website and her podcast is called believe the big.com and she is involved with helping people find answers to their questions to cancer treatment and prevention, things like that. And she's deals with a healing and wholeness. And she just had a delightful to a great story to tell about what she does and how she is delighted working with people with cancer man. I just found her to be have a great story as well.

They met a guy named Tim. Tim was great a great guy. He has several that he uses to symbolize his podcast when he's all about it's the screaming goat. Maybe you've seen this thing this you know just kind of this meme or you know a YouTube show an urge tick tock thing about a goat in a scream like crazy, you know, crazy screaming goat. And he had that logo was a screaming goat on his head and his T shirt and things. And he is a deal with colon cancer, very severe case situation with colon cancer he is his podcast is called showing up perspectives on cancer. He's based out of Pennsylvania and what a great guy great laugh about him or great organizer. And he's involved with a lot of things. And he's a great supporter of other people, I noticed that now he was reaching out to others. And grant a great what a great laugh and a smile that Tim had. And he a great guy in for us to connect up with. And he had the cohost of his show was there as well. A vibrant young woman deals with colon cancer as well named Shannon. And Shannon gave me a big hug. And she really wants to you know, she's she, she wants to be a part of other people's lives. She wants to be involved and engaged. And she's one of the people who immediately connects to you eye to eye, and heart to heart really, cuz she's a big-time hugger. And that's what she is all about. And it was great. Another woman named Melissa, who was involved with a podcast called blood lines, which is support of leukemia, people who suffer from leukemia and lymphoma. And that she talks to people dealing with that area. She's involved with fundraising and administration of that organization, advocacy, and health care. What an energized a young woman she is, as well and just so impressive and how she's involved with things in this world. So that's just, you know, a few of the folks there that was involved there. But I want to tell you about a couple, a couple of people, three people who were particularly impressive to me, I got to meet a guy who was an inspiration to me as well, a guy named Lee Silverstein. And Lee Silverstein has had a podcast called we have cancer for and he started that about 2015 or so. And he himself was diagnosed with colon cancer back in 2011. And he was only given a short time to live at that time, just a matter of a year or two. And here, he is still with us. And he was with us at this conference. Although the fact of the matter is, he is in the last stages of his cancer journey, confined to a wheelchair pretty much and, and in the later stages there. You know, he's in hospice care. A lot of us know exactly what that means. It means that he's not going to be recovering. He's in the last stages of his life. And here's the great thing. He was there at this conference. And people were gathered around him. He was smiling and laughing, visiting with people. And you've been an inspiration for so many people to deal with the hard things in their life. And even now, he's talking about living with hope, and inspiration, to teach to teach others he's been, you know, been through a lot been through a lot in his life. But he's hanging there. And he brought his message forward of hope and inspiration, even there in here in the late stages of his life. And many people I was privileged and medium. Because his podcast was one of the inspirations for me to have a podcast, about cancer doing something with what I like to call hope and inspiration and humor. And that's what we had. And we also were having some conversations around the various tables about a person that we lost recently to cancer. A guy named Dan Miller; he wrote a book called 48 days to the job you love. But he was so much more than a writing a book about career type things. I had the opportunity to talk to, to have Dan on one of my prior podcasts a few years ago about overcoming adversity. And he would talk a lot about hope and faith and defined your God given thing in your life. And then make that your career by your God given purpose.

And Dan was given, wrote a blog post and it had a podcast in early December a few weeks ago, where he said that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic as just a really bad situation with pancreatic cancer. And that's a bad one, as many of us, many of us know. And that meant that he probably wouldn't be long. And indeed, he passed away just a week before this conference occurred. And many people were talking about that, about the inspiration he had on so many people, including myself to get the word out to get the message out. And part of what all these people did was they start to build community around their message. And that's an important thing. They build community around a message of hope, and healing and inspiration. And guess what none of these people are talking about given up. They all were living vibrant, vital lives to the very end. And I'm going to share with you the most important person I met with this week. I got a call while I was at this conference that I have an uncle Rick who is very ill with a number of problems. He had a stroke and was not able to talk anymore and was hospitalized, and trouble swallowing and so on and looks like this could be the end for him he's and the thing, but I was able to see my uncle Rick shortly after I got back from my trip to Florida. And I'm a pastor and he, mostly the thing is his family asked me to when the time comes to conduct his funeral service and what a privilege that is to be asked to do that. But at the thing I know about my uncle Rick, is that he has been involved with a situation where there was a medical accident that happened back in 2005 18 years ago, that Nick, Nick to nerve in his spine and left him paraplegic for all these years. And he was an active man tennis coach played golf all the time. He has a Hall of Fame tennis coach in the state of Indiana where we live, but more often than that, always a smile, always energized, always encouraging, always to this own, he never let his health situation dominate him. He never let it get the best of him, he would be the encourager Do other people, even at the very end, the folks at the facility where he lives, the staff, the nurses and the caretakers, even the cleaning lady all love him because he would ask about their lives. And he'd be engaged with them.

So, it is with me as his nephew and his as his family, he's engaged their family now. That's what I want to kind of bring this around to you here. You need to develop around you, my friend. And I want to encourage you to develop around you community, a community of like flight of likeminded people who can be helpful to you. Some of those are going to be family, actual family, your spouse's, your kids, your grandkids, you know, your parents, other people in your life, your friends, your neighbors, but also want to that's going to be a part of it, let it be, encourage those conversations, have good conversations, deep conversations, about life and about family and about faith and about hope and resilience, and about leaving a wonderful legacy of all those things. But also, I would encourage you to develop a community of likeminded people, other people deal with cancer or some other health matters, some other matters that you deal with, that can be really helpful. I found it so helpful to be around a table with these folks this week at pod fest, and how they helped me and I was able to be helpful to them. And there's going to be there's a certain synergy that's going to that is happening and will continue to be happening as we work together to provide good news to people like you, cancer impacted people who are not done living yet. And who want to have energy, guess what, around that circle of people around when my uncle, there was not a lot of depressive talk. There was not it not a lot of tears, there was a couple of tears, but not a lot of tears. And so, the tears were of laughter, because we're telling great stories. And I've just told you several stories about people I've encountered I met. And I'm here to continue to tell you my story of my situation of how my uncle has helped me how my wife and my kids and my grandkids have helped me and how the circle of people are developing in the podcast community and moreover, and the podcasting community of people who are involved with cancer related a podcast and from around the country around the world, really, who are connected to this and we want to I want to be connected to you, I really do I want to reach out to you. Because here's what I do know, without community, you can dissolve into loneliness, to defeat ism, to depression, to denial, all those things can take a hold of you. And you have to take action in order to defeat them. You are not going to be defeated. If you take action and get connected in community, to other people, family and likeminded people who then can be supportive and caring and loving. They'll be all the way. Hey, we all know that eventually, this, this body of ours will give way to another realm and whatever your faith base situation is or not, we will be in another realm and our bodies will die and we will be in a different state. But until then, until that happens, live life to the full Do not be corrupted or denied by the depressive evil state that cancer has in your life.

I want to ask you specifically to get involved with my community here at cancer in comedy. Because we are all about lifting you up. We call it we'd like to call our followers lift or uppers because we want to all be involved with lifting one another up. I want to hear your stories of lifting people up you can go to the voice message tab on our website and leave me a voice message. You can do all kinds of things that can help us know that you're about Please follow our podcast at cancer and comedy.com/follow so you can get all the episodes here and reach out. We're building a community here of likeminded people, and I want to be helpful to you We're developing courses and coaching and other things like that that can be helpful to you as well. But I just want to ask you, you know, podcasts are a wonderful medium. But in many ways, it is hard to be interactive at times, I'm speaking to you and through these earbuds and or through this screen that you see me or hear me, and I love you, and I care for you. I want to hear back from you. So please reach out. And we'll talk and we'll get on the phone call. And we'll talk and I'll see how we can be helpful to what you're about. In the meantime, in your local community, wherever you're at, make some connections with likeminded people, check with your hospital, your doctor, your other people, their support groups, and other ways that you can get, get connected with people, do it, take action, take action, get connect to your higher power, develop your process to live your life to the fullest. Be active and engaged and then serve others with love. You can do this. I just want you to know that I'm encouraged. It'll be year ago, this time when I first was diagnosed with cancer and I went to a podcast conference 2023 I was I was in a depressed state. I didn't know what to do. I was very confused and upset, start to make some connections. And this year, I was made some deeper connections at pod pod fest. But I'm doing the same thing in my local community as well. And it helps it really does help to make these connections of community. So, we're all about here at cancer, comedy. We're all about hope and humor and inspiration, and to be a service to you in the context of community. We love you. And we're here for you get connected a cancer in comedy.com/follow. We'll talk to you next time here good people. Until next time, this is Dr. Brad Miller encourage you with the words that a cheerful heart is good medicine.