JWT - Volume X
Joe’s Wolfpack Trailblazers
January 2021
In the fall of 2018, as I was going through chemotherapy treatments, I thought my goal for 2019 was just going to be to survive cancer. I had a few more treatments to go through into early 2019. I was living in a fog of depression and the worries of a recurrence of my cancer. When I was at my last oncology appointment of that year, my oncologist asked if I had any goals for the upcoming year. I said to him 'Just to survive cancer.’ He paused and then said to me, "Let me worry about the cancer. I want you to focus on life. If I have anything to do with it you will live a long one." He was so confident in his words that I started to believe him.
A week or so later I was fumbling around the house, feeling a bit lost into myself. My wife said to me “I think you need to find what you are passionate about again.” I think she felt cancer had taken that from me. I decided she was right and I needed to find that passion for life. I had found my goal for the new year. I knew there were three components to this passion that was being fueled in me: My wife who believed in me; my children who loved me; and, oddly enough, the cancer I was battling at the time.
Early in the months of 2019 I would find out I was NED (No Evidence of Disease). I decided at that point that 'Cancer might be done with me, but I wasn't done with cancer.’ Every goal needs a mission statement. I had found mine and the passion to go with it. I just had to figure out what I was going to do about it. I would learn in the coming months that a goal cannot be reached alone and you need support of others to make it happen.
A couple of months into the year 2020 and with the creation of The Howling Place group my wife would tell me 'I think you found your passion again with that 'wolfpack' group.’ I think she was right and I could not have done it without her. I had found my passion for being an advocate.
In 2021, my goals are to continue building my role as a patient advocate to support other cancer survivors in the fight, and to become more physically active for my own health. In this month’s Trailblazer I posed this question to the men of the wolfpack. What is one goal you would like to achieve during 2021? These are a few of their responses.
— Joe Bullock, lead administrator, Man Up to Cancer - The Howling Place (Also known as The Wolfpack)
Christopher Berberabe and family
CHRISTOPHER BERBERABE
FRESH MEADOWS, NEW YORK
STAGE 3 COLORECTAL CANCER
One goal I have for 2021 is a combination of inward and outward improvement. With inward improvement, I want to focus on getting these three pillars stronger: emotional, spiritual, physical. I want to be intentional with carving out time for meditation, prayer, and exercise.
Meditation to help have better peace of mind and reduce stress. Prayer to strengthen my relationship with God. Exercise to improve my overall health. I want to fortify myself holistically so when one pillar falters, the other pillars will be strong enough to hold me up.
With outward improvement, I want to be intentional in looking for ways to help the cancer community. With my cancer journey, I’ve been through many times when I was not strong enough. My pillars crumbled from the weight and burden of cancer. It was in these times I discovered that when I am not strong enough, I am able to lean on others. From people offering encouraging words, to helping with tasks, or just simply listening to me and being able to sympathize, they became another pillar of support. My goal is meant to give me the opportunity to be that pillar when someone needs it, and be strong enough to support them when they can’t, the same as many have done for me.
Rob and Marcy Burridge
ROB BURRIDGE
NANAIMO, BRITISH COLUMBIA
STAGE IV COLORECTAL CANCER
This coming year is significant for me, as this will be my fifth year living with metastatic cancer. I am so grateful to welcome 2021, because the odds of living past 5 years with Stage 4 colorectal cancer is less than 15%.
I'm oddly grateful for this diagnosis. I know... but hear me out. Rock bottom will teach you more than mountain tops ever will. This rollercoaster is full of lows: depression, anxiety, really low moments that you don't see a way out of, lots of tears, and questioning "why?".
But this experience has made the highs so much more profound. I experience joy over the simplest of things. Things that I took for granted before I was a cancer patient. The highs are what helps to keep me going. Am I saying I'm going to live each day to the fullest? No, that's not achievable and downright exhausting.
What I am saying is that my intention for 2021 is to do my best to live life as a Tigger, and not an Eeyore. Although, I won't shame Eeyore, if he shows up from time to time, because that's part of this ride. I intend on trying to do my best each day.
My mantra for 2021 is 'I'm alive today, and today is all I have. No one is promised tomorrow.'
DeMetrius Kee
DeMETRIUS KEE
LAKE ELSINORE, CALIFORNIA
PROSTATE CANCER ADVOCATE
One thing I would like to accomplish in 2021 is to garner a partnership with ZERO – The End of Prostate Cancer and the NFL Alumni Association. In 2017, they ran some ads with three former coaches and called it a Prostate Pep Talk. It was a campaign for free PSA (prostate-specific antigen) testing at various LabCorp locations across the country.
The NFL has put a focus on Breast Cancer awareness every year for quite some time, but they don’t do anything for Prostate Cancer. Even though the season starts in the middle of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, that is no excuse considering the league is 100% men and 70% black men (a risk group). I reached out to the NFL and the Alumni Association last year just as a volunteer for ZERO. I got nothing at all from the league, even after multiple attempts. I finally connected with the Alumni Association after reaching out to them on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
I played football from grade school all the way to age 30 (semi-pro), and the tenacity I had on the field is the same tenacity I use as it pertains to my passions and causes I care about. The Alumni Association showed some definite interest in the partnership and applauded my effort as a volunteer. Now as a staff member of ZERO, my plan is to move to solidify the partnership.
https://zerocancer.org/why-zero/meet-team-zero/demetrius-kee/
DeMetrius Kee | Chapters | ZERO - The End of Prostate Cancer
Steven Crocker
STEVEN CROCKER
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA
TESTICULAR CANCER SURVIVOR
My goals for 2021 include being a better advocate for testicular cancer awareness, growing in both my full-time job as a TV newscast director and as a small business owner, and to consistently follow through and put out content regularly on my podcast I’m launching this month.
I’d also like to get in better shape. My oncologist warned me that long-term effects of the Cisplatin I had can cause early onset heart disease so it is important for me to start eating healthier and exercising more frequently. I’d also like to be a better boyfriend to my sweet girlfriend Ashley. I feel as if chemo rewired me and I’m not as much of a romantic as I used to be, so that is something I can work on in 2021. I’d like for my video production company to rebound and continue what was a steady upward trend in revenue over the span of time we’d been in business prior to 2020.
Podcast Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dumbest-in-the-room/id1543555952
Business Link: www.lightshipproductions.com
Producer (757) 510-5577 stevenmcrocker46@gmail.com
IMDB
Tracy Morgan
TRACY MORGAN
STAGE IV PROSTATE CANCER
GRAND RIDGE, ILLINOIS
I’m Tracy Morgan, a stage four prostate cancer patient. In the first few days of 2021 MohawkMission.com went online to go with its Facebook and Instagram counterparts. Mohawk Mission is my new prostate cancer awareness platform. Its mission is to get men checked for prostate cancer so they do not end up with my diagnosis of incurable stage four prostate cancer.
One of my 2021 goals is to refine the mission’s posts to reach the target audience we want. I would guess most of you would think that target is men in their 40’s and 50’s. There’s a problem with that target, a lot of those men are the same as I was. They don’t like going to doctors, there’s never anything wrong with them and they’re always fine. Sound familiar? How do you get through to these men?
The answer is women. Women care far more about health than most men and in general are the ones in charge of the family’s health. We plan on reaching the women that are partnered with these men and explain the risk of prostate cancer to them. Then we let them do their thing.