LIVESTRONG BLOG

Make Firm Plans and Stay Flexible

Feb 15, 2011 by Guest

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Among the many lessons my dad taught me, he used to always say, ?Make firm plans and stay flexible?. Everybody needs some direction and goals in your life, because nothing ever seems to go exactly as planned, so be prepared to make adjustments along the way. It always seemed to apply to everything I did. As usual, he was right.

Eleven years ago today, I hung up the phone after my doctor told me I had testicular cancer. People have told me that being told over the phone is a bad way to get the news, but the reality is, there is no good way to hear, ?You have cancer?. I sunk back in the chair at my desk and remembered losing my grandfather to colon cancer when I was young. I thought about what my family had just gone through as my dad died of brain cancer and I looked at the last quote my dad had written in his diary, which hung above my desk. ?There are no days that I do not know I have cancer. But I don?t spend my time thinking about dying, am much more interested in living?. I remembered what one of my dad?s docs had told me about setting goals as we went through his treatment and I looked at my calendar. My dad died 5 months after he was diagnosed. I couldn?t help but look ahead and think about what might be happening in 5 months. Our oldest daughters, twin girls, would be graduating from high school. I don?t know if that was a long term or short term goal, but being at their graduation was the first one I made.

I slid up to my computer and about 2 minutes after hearing I had cancer, I was reading Lance Armstrong?s cancer story and about a foundation he started in Austin. The story was just what I was looking for. It wasn?t about winning a bike race that inspired me, it was about fighting, surviving and reclaiming your life after cancer. For me, it was the perfect support story I needed to help me tell my family we were about to go through this again.

As it turned out, I was lucky, had an early diagnosis, made it through treatment and 5 months later watched the twin?s graduate high school. I might have been able to go back to my life with relatively minor changes, considering the big picture, but instead, we went to Austin. The Lance Armstrong Foundation was in it?s infancy with just a few people on staff. They put on a gala and charity bike ride around Austin, and I felt the need to go. What we took home was totally unexpected. As we met other survivors, we realized how important it was to share our story and listen to others share theirs. That was the most inspiring and motivating part of our trip and, we had a new goal. This would be part of our lives now. We didn?t have to be the world?s greatest fundraisers or a famous motivational speakers. We just had to do our part.

Eleven years later, another cancer diagnosis (I?m cancer free again), my mom?s cancer diagnosis (she?s cancer free now), and I?m proud to say we haven?t let our goal escape us. We share our story, we listen to others, we organize fundraising and awareness events and we struggle with the same problems that everyone else does in everyday life. Business has slowed, gas prices are high, dealing with life, but people are still dying of cancer. We?ve made friends through our involvement and then lost those very friends to cancer. Frustrating and painful, but also motivating to the goal.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation has evolved into the LIVESTRONG Global movement. Pretty amazing and also cool to be part of the effort started by a handful of people that were willing to make some sacrifices to help others. Another thing my dad told me, ?You can accomplish anything you want, if you?re willing to make the sacrifices necessary to get there.?

I now realize another mistake I made in my first goal was not pushing myself far enough and so eleven years later, I?m back in the hospital, but this time for a different reason. I?m standing here, cancer free, looking down at my granddaughter. Maybe I should shoot for her graduation and by then we?ll be closer to the day that people won?t be dealing with cancer like we do today, or maybe, I?ll just ?Make firm plans and stay flexible?.

LIVESTRONG,
Jerry Kelly
Cancer survivor & Granddaddy