“I am one who believes cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

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Carl knows about cancer survival.  He’s had three separate primary cancers: kidney (1993), colon (1997), and prostate (1998). 

Carl’s father had kidney cancer 40 years before him and went on to a long life without incident following surgery in 1953.  So when Carl got a cancer diagnosis and, like his dad, had his own right kidney removed, he felt his fate could be the same.  It wasn’t until he was diagnosed with a second primary cancer that Carl began to develop what he calls “a cancer consciousness”.  With his first cancer, Carl made no major lifestyle changes – he even continued to smoke occasionally – but now, he quit smoking, radically changed his diet, and found sustained emotional support at The Wellness Community-West Los Angeles where he came to terms with how his attitudes, behavior, and diet, all played a role in his quality of life.  He couldn’t do anything about genetics – his brother had colon cancer two years before him – and he couldn’t leave Los Angeles and its infamous unhealthy air quality, but there were many things he could control.  Carl has an activist background so the idea of being in charge of his own healthcare made total sense.  He Carl feels fortunate to have incorporated into his own healthcare the “Patient Active Concept” of Dr. Harold Benjamin, which states, "People with cancer who participate in their fight for recovery from cancer will improve the quality of their life and may enhance the possibility of their recovery." 

One of the many TWC activities he took part in was art therapy, and in a class on September 12, 2001, Carl drew a cartoon to illustrate how much of the nation, in the wake of terrorist attacks, was experiencing what all cancer patients feel when they first hear the words, “It’s cancer.”  The cartoon showed a nightclub named “Club Vulnerability” with a sign that read, “Welcome 9/11 Survivors.”  Carl feels despite the vulnerabilities we each face, a community of people with common and shared concerns can provide assurance and hope so essential to survival. He feels blessed that all three cancers were discovered in early stages and were treatable.  It’s true that the list of consequences from this treatment is long:  the chemotherapy for the second cancer nearly led to his death from a raging fever; he has suffered “chemobrain” -- when cancer treatment disrupts thinking and memory skills; he has given up a kidney and a foot of his colon; and, he has had four separate prostate biopsies.  There’s more -- but Carl considers it all to have been “life-altering” in a healthy way. “I am one who believes cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me.”  Carl has come away from his treatment and his years at TWC-WLA feeling more centered than at the onset of the disease.

We are all part of “Club Vulnerability”, but it is examples like Carl, who has battled three cancers on many levels -- emotional, physical, and financial -- that help us see that the human spirit can be stronger than any illness or threat from the outside.  Carl thanks both his family and TWC-WLA support groups for being at his side in more than a decade of active cancer treatment.  "I may yet be vulnerable to cancer, but I’ll never be alone should another diagnosis come.”