Rich's Story

I would like to take a little bit of time to tell you my story. On Labor Day 2005, I felt a sharp pain right below my belly button. It went away but for the next two weeks, I constantly felt like I had to urinate, but when I would get to the bathroom I didn’t have to go. On September 15, I went to a doctor and she told me that it was probably stress. A month of uncomfortableness went by and I was buying a house and thinking about mortgages and money and figured it was just stress. On October 20, my 29^th birthday I woke up in so much pain I couldn’t get out of bed. I was hunched over in pain, made my way to the bathroom and prayed for the pain to stop. I called my doctor and the receptionist said there were no appointments but that the doctor would call back. I got in my car a few blocks from where we are tonight and headed for the doctor’s office in New Brunswick. I made it to exit 8a before I pulled over, cramped in pain, I waited 20 minutes, started the car and reached my job at 11 am. For the next hour I called the doctor’s office. Finally the doctor called back told me I was constipated and recommended I take a few laxatives and that she would phone in a prescription for Nexium, a drug for acid reflux. A week later feeling a slightly better, I saw a gastroenterologist who thought I had ulcerative colitis. Two weeks of medicine and still I didn’t feel well. We would schedule a colonoscopy in January. 

During the week of Thanksgiving, my wife and I bought our house and moved. The following week, she noticed I had lost a lot of weight and my color looked off. I weighed myself and I had lost about 20lbs in 10-14 days. She insisted I call the doctor and ask them to schedule a colonoscopy the following week. They found an opening the next week. Over a quick five day span, I would have a colonoscopy, a CT scan, be informed I had cancer, have a surgical console, and have surgery. I would have dozens of conversations with friends, family members and coworkers and watch their faces turn white and some just break down in tears.

In late December right after Christmas I met my oncologist, Dr. Michael Nissenblatt. I can not say enough about Dr, Nissenblatt, other than to say there are people who we are all lucky to know exist in this world and he is one of them. He is a doctor, a friend, an advocate and a source of confidence that together we would beat cancer.

In January 2006, I began biweekly chemotherapy that would last about 4 – 41/2 hours. Tonight I stand before you cancer free. I continue to fight to stay cancer free.

The story I have just shared with you is really not unique. In talking with others who have fought cancer, are fighting cancer or who have lost loved ones to cancer–it is a story told over and over again. 

This is why education about cancer is so important. It is why it is so important to provide education to patients and to doctors.

I was very lucky–I have amazing friends, a loving family some of whom are here tonight, and the most supportive, loving, understanding wife, I had a great doctor, surgeon, great nurses and aids. Everyone has been supportive. 

In October 2006, I received a call from Dr. Nissenblatt who said he had someone he wanted me to talk to. It was the Lizzi family. This is how I came to learn of the TJL Foundation and the important work that they had set out to do.

The TJL Foundation, the board and its supporters, gave me a very generous gift. At the time my wife was seven months pregnant and needless to say it provided a great comfort and an opportunity to think about the future for my daughters. You see at 29 I was in the process of getting life insurance, now it I unclear whether I will be able to get it in the future.

For people who are fighting cancer, it can seem like a very lonely experience. Even though as I said I was surrounded by countless numbers of loving people, you still feel it. Of course there are the days where it feels terrible unfair. 

And I hate knowing how much pain and worry my family, especially my wife go through. I have to say that I always say this but it is my opinion that it is harder to be the spouse or parent of rather than the one with the disease. 

Meeting the Lizzi family and Tamara’s friends and learning of her fight with cancer, continues to this day to be one of many reasons that I remain positive about everything in my life. Cancer is a disease that takes its toll physically and mentally on the individual and their support network. The work of the TJL Foundation helps people through its gifts and its message.

I want to thank the Lizzi family and the Board of the TJL Foundation for the hard work that the do and the work that they will be doing in the future. 

I want to thank all of you here tonight, and those not here who have supported this Foundation and its mission. It all makes a difference. I believe that.