Cancer, Cash, and Comedy: Finding Moments of Joy in the Midst of Financial Challenges w/ David Chudyk

It's my pleasure and joy to introduce to you David Chudyk from parallelfinancial.com, who brings us some incredible stories of his own family life but also some applicable information in your life about something that happens to everybody who faces cancer or other severe diseases: the financial burden.

You know, I love talking about money because money has such an important impact on all of our lives. Also, cancer has impacted my life and my family. So you can't separate the two—cancer and money. There's a money component to everything, and, of course, illnesses always have a money component and a financial component. So hopefully, I can share a little bit of my story and what I've been through and maybe give some practical financial tips as well.

Sure, whether or not we integrate, everything is integrated together in your life, you know. We can, you know, hear our cancer covered. We talked about seeing things from a lighter perspective. And that's because there's a lot of grim stuff out there. In order to survive, we had to get through some of the darkness to some lighter places. And we need some people to help us navigate this, particularly in one of those areas is the financial area. But particularly when something dramatic happens to us like cancer. You know, years ago, I had a cancer diagnosis that certainly turned my world upside down. And including some arrangements that my wife and I had to make financially to address that. But tell me about how cancer kind of came home to you and your family.

I got a phone call from my sister who lived about five hours from me. She was 50, and she said, "I passed out; they had to call an ambulance, and I'm in the hospital." So, you know, she sounded fine. I got phone calls on changeovers from her saying that they were thinking that she had had a stroke. So I'm getting kind of incomplete information. One thing that I saw through this whole process is people hear; they don't always hear what doctors say. They hear what they might be afraid that the doctors might say, or they might hear what they hope that the doctors might say. Anyway, it turns out that she had a tumor, and they were going to do brain surgery. The doctor described the brain surgery as incredibly minor, and they said, "You haven't; she has meningioma. And if God wanted you to have a tumor, a meningioma would be the one. We're going to cut open her skull, which sounds a lot worse than it is, and she should be back to normal in a couple of weeks." After the surgery, the doctor told my brother, her brother as well, and her son held the tumor. "It's a meningioma; it's, you know, it's just what it is. Of course, we have to biopsy everything, but it's not a big deal." The next day, it turns out, or, you know, a couple of days later, after the biopsy, this was lung cancer that metastasized to her brain. So, you know, it goes from kind of almost a joke of, "You have the good kind of brain cancer that you can have a bit of a scar, you know, but no big deal" to "This is a big deal." She was never the same. You know, when she came out of surgery, she had lost some vision. It got better, but then it got much, much, much worse at times. So, yeah, this was pretty much a surprise as far as some.

So she was doing relatively well?

Yeah, and boom, this happened. She never was a smoker. For the most part, like anybody else, probably could have lost 20 pounds, but wasn't grossly overweight, didn't have any of the major lifestyle issues that we tend to think cause cancer, and we kind of teased her a little bit. She was kind of in and out of consciousness, and she was able to answer questions and not answer questions, but a neurologist would come in, and he would ask her questions, and she would immediately say Barack Obama, like without hesitating. Then, you know, he would come in later on, and we would, as soon as he came in, we would say, I would call her dude, dude was always kind of our pet term for each other. It's like, okay, don't tell him. Don't tell him. Obama said President Obama is not the president. So he would ask her who's the president? And she would say, Barack Obama. And so then, you know, we would kind of laugh and say, well, we told her not to say that.

And was she doing this on purpose?

No, she believed 100% Barack Obama was the president. All right. Yeah, she had a little bit of a sense of humor at the time. He would hold up or just ask what color his shirt was, and it was blue is my shirt, and she would confidently say 100% yellow or orange, like not even close. Yeah. And he would say, "Are you sure?" She would say, "Absolutely." Then, he later explained that her eyes were fine; it was just the brain interpreting colors that was not working. But, you know, we would kind of tease her when the doctor left, like, "Do you realize that you kind of screwed up the color test?" and while they were testing everybody.

It's one of those little sayings. It kind of puts a wry smile on your face, but it's sad in the same moment. It's bittersweet.

I would say two months later, she was at home in hospice. So, she ended up passing away in December, just a few months from April. And one of the things, her son who was 19 at the time, he's 20 now, she was in hospice, in a hospital bed in her living room. Like my wife is a nurse, and she always says, there are things a lot worse than dying. So, we certainly don't want my sister to try to hold on.

To greater celebration is to let human life go and to move on to what's next, and there's some joy in that as well. A couple of moments, like when you were able to go to your hometown and have some really good moments, have brought some peace and joy to you.

Siblings always probably have legitimate beefs with each other, reasons, you know. And one of the, you know, if you want to call it a blessing of getting sick, as opposed to just getting, like, splattered with a car, is you have time to make things right. We had some relationship stresses between us as well. So yeah, she lived in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and that's where we spent our teenage years. One of the things you do in Myrtle Beach is cruise the boulevard when you're a teenager, so you kind of go out, and there are some people that have all souped-up sports cars or whatever. So that was kind of the thing that we did back in our teenage years. One of the nights that her son actually went to work, you know, when I was down there, that would be kind of his key, like, "Look, you can go to work, you know, go get out, just, you know, have a quote normal life for a night or two." But then one night, we went, we cruised the boulevard. So we took my car, and there'd be no way to explain how bad my sister looked at this point, just, you know, a big scar on her face and just, you know, if you had seen her without knowing her, you would have almost been horrified. So, you know, I was like, "Hey, let's go cruise the boulevard." And so we drove down the boulevard, and there's a huge ferris wheel. And there are cars and music. Her vision was very impaired from the strokes and everything, but she knew we were there. And that was the time that I knew that I made peace. As human beings, I think maybe our family legitimately did us wrong, but of course, there are ways that I legitimately did her wrong, or she would have a legitimate beef with me and vice versa. But that was kind of the moment where it's like, you know what, we're just brother and sister, we, we, you know, for lack of a better term, we both suck as human beings in some ways. You know, when we both, you're having a good moment, right? You ever had that moment, and that was kind of the forgiveness moment. And I don't want to say forgive because there was nothing really to forgive other than just some, you know, just some sibling stuff. But that was a moment where I was like, you know what, everything is okay, it's all better. It's all okay. I knew whether it was going to be a week or months; she was not going to be around much longer. But you know, the miracle is that she's not dealing with all the earthly problems that you and I are dealing with now.

A little joy in your relationship, you know, maybe some of these tragic moments, but also some ways to put it in proper perspective. And I think when we talk about having some joy in this difficult journey of cancer, you know, it not only affects the person with cancer, your sister, but you and your family as well. Not everybody comes to good terms with it. If you can come to good terms with it with your sister, yay for you, and yay for her too. I mean, you had your emotional moments with your sister. In the oldest deal, yet I'm sure she had some realities to deal with regarding major surgeries, hospitalizations, and financial challenges there.

I have some of the knowledge to be able to help, but a lot of these things, when you take the CFP exam, you know, may talk about some estate planning-type issues, but until you've done it for your own family and dealt with it, it's all just textbook stuff. Absolutely. So she had done a few things right, you know, prior to getting sick, but like everybody else, you know, there were a couple of things that hadn't been dealt with. One of the things that was the bright side of the entire year was she had four friends that literally stopped everything and helped her. It brought back my faith or increased my faith in humanity, how much these people just literally helped her. They raised money. I mean, there were thousands of dollars raised, and as you know, as people progress with illnesses, some of the things that they need help with are not that pleasant to do. I mean, people still need bathing and everything else. So yeah, that was really, really encouraging.

Well, you mentioned she was in hospice care. I know what that means, and you know what that means. I have a son who is a hospice worker, and it is gritty work. You know, it is a gritty situation to be in hospice care.

My nephew, her son, you know, being a 19-year-old, you just think that the electric bill just gets paid magically, you know, you always have a switch, and the electricity comes on, and there's always food in the refrigerator. So, you know, she went from being, quote, normal, and then the next day, you know, sick and in the hospital and never recovering. So things like, you know, just buying groceries, you know, is, you know, number one, that's the money to do it. Number two, you know, kids just don't know, like, what to buy or how much to buy, so we had to do everything from dig up online passwords and make sure the electric bill was paid, and the phone bill and everything else. And, you know, we had to get him on some systems on going grocery shopping. And these four of her friends, you know, honestly, they paid for food for the whole year, and just food showed up. So that was literally a miracle. And also, many, many, many checks just showed up. So they had set up a meal train, which is kind of like a GoFundMe. So thousands of dollars were raised there. And then there were many checks that just showed up, and I'm talking anywhere from 25 to, you know, $500, and I don't care who you are $500 check, you notice, you know. So people are just perfect strangers that just, you know, write a $500 check. That's so, you know, the bills always got paid, everything always got paid, there was always a little something. And, you know, there was literally just about nothing left over when she passed. But everything was taken care of, and the number of people that helped. I mean, my nephew's old middle school raised money, and they, you know, raised it was $1,000 or something like that. So a lot of different people just stepped up and raised money and helped. People volunteered to cut her grass, there was a housekeeping service that came in and cleaned her house. So it was really a time where the positive, you know, the negative obviously is the illness and just how horrible it can be at the end. But the positive was how many people because you go through life thinking, you know what I mean, the world's kind of, you know, not that great of a place. I mean, everybody's kind of out for themselves. But then you see in this situation, the money that showed up, the people that showed up, you know, her friends that literally helped her go to the bathroom and cleaned her and just things that amaze you. So that was that was a totally amazing part of the part of the situation was there.

One thing that I took—sorry, go ahead, finish your thought.

I was going to say one thing I told my nephew was, this needs to be part of your life, that you remember what people did for you and your mom because number one, nobody has to. But number two, they did. And if you remember two things, if you're ever in a position in life to help someone, you need to do it because how many people stepped up. And if you're ever, ever in a position to think that the world was a horrible place and there's not a God that loves you, you need to remember everything that literally miraculously showed up.

And some of what you are sharing there, you know, you receive, and then you can give back, and that's part of what we love to talk about here—cancer and comedy—as you receive something joyful and good and give back to others. But it's also given him some basic life skills. Wasn't it? You know, grocery shopping and dealing with money, this kind of thing, and not everybody is well-prepared when a crisis comes. Basically, a crisis comes to most of us at one time or another—might be an illness, it might be a divorce, it might be losing your job, COVID. Any number of things can happen. So, was your sister adequately prepared, and were there some lessons learned that some of our listeners might be thinking about how to be prepared for something like this?

Yeah, she did have a will, so that made things a little bit easier. However, a will starts when you pass, so when we're just talking about a financial tool while you're alive, a won’t really do much. Thankfully, a friend of mine who's an attorney was able to draw up a power of attorney for her, naming me as power of attorney. That gave me the legal ability to make decisions on her behalf, to call an insurance company, to call a doctor's office and say, "Hey, if there's not somebody trusted in your life that has power of attorney for you, you should really think about who that should be." Obviously, spouses, but if you're not married, we all should have somebody who can make decisions on our behalf. Power of Attorney is a relatively inexpensive document that an attorney can prepare for you. COVID happened overnight, right? I mean, people were on a ventilator the day after appearing normal. Someone still has to make decisions. So, power of attorney is something that we all should consider having.

There are several shocking levels of cancer and other debilitating diseases. In many cases, people lose their jobs because they just can't work anymore. If that's the case, or they end up having medical bills they've not quite prepared for the sticker shock. The bills come in, or they're inadequately insured. A number of things, I guess you mentioned one of those, which is applying for benefits, and so on. Tips as a financial planner and as a loving brother of someone who went through this that you might offer to our audience, some practical things they might do too.

Let's go before the crisis, and everyone listening, do the best you can to move towards having several months of living expenses in the bank. Cancer is not the only crisis that could happen. Certainly, there are many different types. Even when COVID came, some people had a little bit of cash and were able to float until things got going. Others didn't. So if you have no cash, work towards having $50, then $100, and eventually 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 months' worth of cash in the bank. It may seem impossible, but it's not. God will honor our efforts. A cash reserve provides incredible peace of mind for anybody. Another important thing, though it's hard to think about, especially for the young like she was at 50, is the Medical Directive. Most people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s do not want to be put on a machine to keep them alive. And if they do, that's fine as well; that's their decision. But those things need to be on paper.

Sometimes family members have varying thoughts on this, influenced by different religious traditions and other factors. If you put it down on paper and somehow legalize it—I'm still working on this—it helps in my right here.

Depending on your starting point, if you're frail and 85 years old, my wife, who is a nurse, says CPR is literally torture at that point. Most people wouldn't want that because you literally have to crack ribs and everything. To take that burden off your family, perhaps putting it in writing would be a good thing.

I'm sure your sister did not want to be a burden on the family, and there is a burden felt when people go through this process. Planning and then reacting can help alleviate some of that burden.

She had a $43 per month life insurance policy and named my nephew, her son, as the beneficiary. When she passed away, he was over 18, so that was okay. The short of it is that the money is his start in life, and there's some money in an account. He hasn't blown through that much of it yet, and I'm helping him manage it. That money is a tremendous start for him. She absolutely knew its importance because she asked about whether we paid the life insurance, understanding that it needed to be kept in force for future use. These are things that we all need to think about once or twice every few years.

So you assess your level of income and other factors, but what about those who were blindsided by everything, including the financial aspect? For those who need to scramble when they receive that overwhelming bill from the hospital system, are there alternative ways for people to handle such situations? The call from the doctor a month earlier already took their breath away due to the diagnosis and prognosis.

So one thing to do is talk to an attorney, and there are certain ways you can title your assets to prevent them from being attacked by creditors. Now, there are ways to title assets that may prevent creditors from obtaining judgments on them. That's something most people want for their loved ones – to leave a legacy, and obviously, money is a measurable item. So, work with an attorney and explore ways to title assets. Churches often have the ability to help with meeting expenses, and if possible, with respite care, among other things. There are resources available, though they may be limited. Cancer and illness can be very expensive; $25 an hour for a caregiver is a significant cost that adds up. However, between the agency and the caregiver themselves, it's almost not enough, considering they are not able to make an adequate wage for such an important job.

Someone who's essentially middle income or whatever, but they weren't properly prepared. When something like this comes along, they basically end up pretty close to a poverty situation. The advice here is to be prepared and then take whatever means you can to repair things, to do what we've said all along. We've started our conversation about your family relationship, the joy of your family relation with you and your sister. Cheerfulness, you know, we believe a cheerful heart is good medicine; that cheerfulness will restore some relationship there. However, money, disease, and death can tear families apart, particularly if there is a lot of money involved. I've seen people end up in probate court and things like this, which can get kind of ugly and sad. So, what we're talking about here is somebody with a decent inheritance, and people are going to say, "Okay, what do we do now?" and "How do we deal with this?" Any thoughts about how that can be handled in a manner that is constructive?

When my mother passed away, she had a bit of an estate—not a tremendous amount, but some money. In the will, she chose not to leave it equally to my sister, myself, and my brother. In a handwritten note to all three of us, my sister, who lived near my mother, provided a lot of care. In the letter, my mother lovingly stated that my sister would receive a larger percentage, which was totally okay with me. She mentioned that my brother would get the second biggest percentage and expressed the hope that he would start a business. Additionally, she wanted him to have her engagement ring in case he found the right girl. Though there was never a chance that we would fight over the engagement ring, she settled that just in case. Everyone respects her decisions. She also mentioned that I already had kids and would probably be okay, anyway. Everything worked out well because of this handwritten note, kept in a folder we all knew about but never saw until she passed away. Money, whether a lot or a little, can create problems and stress. Normal people can suddenly find themselves hating each other over differing inheritances. Having your children and heirs know your wishes expressed through handwritten letters, providing reasons, is a powerful and valuable thing for our family.

Let me just ask you, in that case, are handwritten letters considered a legal entity as they are worth?

Yeah, I mean, the will basically state whatever the percentages were.

Oh, it was legally done as well. Right. Yeah. So there was a legal will, and that was the emotional component, if you will, in this write-up to explain it so that all three of you could understand, well, at least not her legal will, but her personal will explain to you.

The handwritten letter expressed sentiments like "I love you all equally," which a legal document wouldn't convey. If you only look at the legal document, emotions can come into play. There's no implication of her loving me more than she loved you or anything like that. She was very clear, providing well-thought-out reasons that everyone respected, and everything was fine.

I think what you're sharing here, if I'm understanding correctly, is that it's crucial to have these meaningful conversations, even about money, whether you have it or not. Many people just avoid dealing with it altogether. That's where shock and surprise often come in.

Well, and you just reminded me. My sister came to visit my house, which is five hours away from where she lived, probably five years before she got sick. She wasn't sick during that visit. She brought a copy of her will to me that night, naming me as the executor. Additionally, she provided me with her life insurance policy number and information, which I had no idea existed. Of course, I never dreamed it would be used when she got sick. I knew that ultimately, there would be a couple of hundred thousand dollars in life insurance benefits, which, of course, doesn't bring her back but does address financial problems. I do remember taking her son. We were driving to the hospital, and I explained to him, just financially, what would happen when, not if, it happens. He would eventually inherit her house, which had a bit of equity, and there's life insurance. As an 18-year-old, he didn't have a clue about what happens when somebody dies, both in terms of money and not money.

The unfortunate reality is that many 30, 40, 50, and 60-year-olds don't have a clue either.

But it's not like anyone was thinking, "Well, as soon as she dies, there's $200,000. You know, let's hurry up." Instead, it was more like, "Well, this is going to be a tough day when it happens. But it'll be a little less difficult because there'll be some money that can help address some of the problems that money can solve."

Let's talk for a minute about another level that does come into play here. That's the spiritual aspect. You've mentioned being good stewards, for instance, of resources. What role, if any, do you think a connection to a higher power or a spiritual aspect plays in everything we've discussed today, David?

Absolutely. In various ways, right. Clearly, my sister was sick. But a lot of times, to be honest, she was literally sleeping 22 hours a day. You know, obviously, her son had a difficult time. My brother had a difficult time, and I had a difficult time. In some ways, it was easier because I was far away, but it was also harder because I was far away. During a church service, there was a discussion about the Beatitudes, particularly "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." I'm not a biblical scholar, and I know many people have Bible verses memorized, but that verse got me through the year. This was one of the times. If the Holy Spirit has told me to do 100,000 things in my life, I've probably done two of them and not done the other 99,998. However, this year, I actually followed through. There was mercy. After that, this has been a really, really good year for me.

If you're going to start biblically, a good place is the Beatitudes, particularly "Blessed are the merciful," which is all about finding happiness. The term "Beatitudes" itself conveys a sense of being happy or affirmed. It's a good foundation for showing a lot of mercy, especially to your sister, who drove back and forth a lot, which could have also impacted your business.

Last year, while she was sick, my business was slightly up, which felt like a miracle. This year, the business is incredibly up. I believe that sometimes things just work out when you do the right thing.

Let's talk for a minute now about how, David, you serve others through this whole process, what motivates you, and what you offer that can be helpful to people. We'd love to hear about how you take the experiences of cancer, among other things. You can either go down a spiral to oblivion, or you can maintain a bit of a cheerful spirit. How have you been able to take this tragic experience with your sister and use it as motivation to serve others?

I mentioned that my sister had three or four really good friends who literally dedicated their lives to her and were at her house every day. Food just showed up, and probably between tens of thousands of dollars, they spent. Actually, a friend of mine, who is in my Friday morning men's group, has kidney failure. He goes to dialysis and doesn't drive. He's getting into the kidney transplant program, which is tremendous. You don't realize how involved it is.

It's intense.

Once he gets medically approved, it could be years before a kidney shows up. Anyway, I'm his trusted contact, the person listed with the social worker to get him. So, I've sent my sister's four friends a text saying, "I just want you to know that because of how much kindness you showed my sister, who's not related to you, and you had no obligation, I am now in a position to help someone greatly. I can't not help him after people stepped into my family's life and helped my sister. Their kindness and love towards my sister are literally a big reason why this guy is getting help with getting a kidney." That's awesome. All the logistics involved in getting a kidney are a bigger deal than I thought, as it's no small task.

Now, you're a changed person from this experience, and even amidst other tragedies, some good has emerged. That's what we'd like to emphasize here in "Cancer and Comedy" – you don't have to stay in the tragedy; you can move, use these experiences to find joy and cheerfulness in your life, and then take that and build on it to serve other people. One of the ways you serve others is by being a Certified Financial Planner. I know you have substantial business. If people want to know more about your business or learn more about you, and considering you have a podcast and other resources that serve people, tell us how people can get in touch with you and learn more about what you're all about.

Check out www.weeklywealthpodcast.com. My tagline is discussing the mindsets, tactics, and strategies that can help you build and maintain wealth. However, I don't define wealth as a certain dollar amount; I see it as, for example, having the flexibility to drive back and forth to help my sister last year. Money is a crucial tool in our lives. If I asked you to think about everything you've ever been stressed out about and then inquired how many of those items had some money component, it's probably around 90%. So many aspects of our stress have a financial component. Now, if I asked you to be really honest and say, out of those 90% with a money component, how many did you either cause or partially cause, or did you not prevent or not partially prevent? In many cases, there are financial decisions we all probably look back on and realize we could have made differently.

Several, and my wife would also confess to several I've done.

You might indeed be her financial mistake.

Ah, ooh, wow. Okay, now we're getting into it, man. So, I knew we'd get a little dig in here somewhere along the way, but that's awesome. Well, I appreciate you being with us here today. Also, the name of your company is Parallel Financial (parallelfinancial.com). We thank you for being our guest today. His name is David Chudyk, and he's from parallelfinancial.com.