Samuel Casternovia:  

Recently I was asked by a nurse to write about how I have gotten through my health situations. She thought it may help others. Seeing it sums up some of the important moments of my life I thought it might fit my profile. I hope you enjoy it. The teacher within us This is a short excerpt of some of my life¿s notes. It is difficult for anyone to share the experience of cancer with others. We all approach things from different vantage points and of course, no two cancers run the same. However, I am now on my second cancer and I feel I have some insight. I remember the day I held my daughter in my arms and I said to myself, ¿Oh my, so this is how much my father loved me.¿ Being there makes a difference. Having said that, here is a view from my life. Not my emotions, but the facts which guide me. In 1984 I had my first cancer, colon cancer to be exact. When it first hit, I went from 170lbs to 130lbs in weeks and I was slammed into total disarray. To say I was devastated would be an understatement. At the time it first hit, I was a young man with everything a young man could want. I had a successful business, great house, every year the Cadillac dealer would bring over the most expensive Cadillac they made and I would take it no questions asked. I was blessed with female companions and lots of friends. Life was as good as it gets, or was it? It was the life everyone said you had to have to be happy. I was surely going through the motions of having a great life. I can tell you everyone always told me how lucky I was. Luck, I was working day and night and very goal oriented, but that is another story. Overnight my perfect life was crushed. I was devastated. Lucky for me I had the support of a great family and a wonderful woman, (who I married). To this day I think she was nuts, but it has been great for me and she still feels she did ok. For the first year of my disease I wasted a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. To tell the truth, maybe it was 2 years. I continued to work a little, but I was just going through the motions. Then I became very involved in my health. I researched my situation and started to feel better. I found a great doctor in the Lahey Clinic (Dr. Crosier). He directed me to Dr. Coller (a great surgeon and friend) also at the clinic. He gave me a second chance at life through surgery. However, when I went home to recoup and recover, I was still lost. I was no longer who I was. I wasn¿t capable of making anything positive happen and I was no longer ready to go at the drop of a hat. I was a fraction of the man I was. I sulked for a while and then I started to reflect on my life. I remembered when I was a very young man just 19, I was selling real-estate. In the morning I would go from door to door and try and get listings. I said the same thing at every house,¿ Hi, sorry to bother you. I was wondering if you could help me. I have client who is looking to move into this lovely neighborhood. He told me to go see the house that was for sale by owner on this block. However, I cannot find a sign on any of the houses. Do you know by chance which house had a for sale sign on it last week?¿ The hope was they would say you know we are thinking of selling. Every morning I tried to knock on 100 doors. Anyway, one morning I walked up to this house that was hanging off a cliff looking at the New York skyline. A beautiful woman answered the door and I gave my pitch. While I was talking, I looked over her shoulder and the house was filled with lovely young women. Just then a man in a wheel chair virtually zoomed up to the door and said, ¿What do you want?¿ I told him and he said, ¿Come in and sit down.¿ I sat on the couch and he directed this one to do this and that one to do that. I stayed as long as I could and from time to time he zoomed over and talked to me. His business (a modeling agency) was run from his house. I should mention the back of the house was all glass with breathtaking views, and that beautiful woman that answered the door was his wife. Finally I left. Really they had to pry me off the couch. I just loved being in the middle of all those lovely women. When I walked outside there was a white handicapped van and it had a painted drawing of a man in a wheel chair with speed lines coming off the chair. And it said something like Billy the wheels Shu---. Later I learned he had MS . Now faced with my own situation I thought, what can I do that he did? Here was a man who could not walk and was destined to suffer and die before his time and yet he had and was enjoying everything life had to offer to the fullest. Actually, he was doing better than anyone I knew at the time. It was time to get up and deserve what could be mine. If Billy could have all he had, I could at least improve my situation 10 fold. I started by applying what I had learned about business and success. You see earlier in my life I spent months and years looking for the answers to success. I read everything I could at the library about wealthy people and put a plan together to be one of them. It did help make me successful, the question now, could it save my life? After years of searching for the answer to success I reduced it to two rules. I do not want to get lost here because this is my favorite subject. So, short and sweet. Rule #1. As long as you are doing what you feel like doing, you can never have what you want to have. Certainly, Billy sitting in that wheelchair had to force himself to do all he was doing. I am sure his body felt like lying down. So for me, clearly it was time to stand up and start eating better and exercising and stop counting my misfortunes, but focus on my good fortune. I started doing what I did not feel like doing. First I set up an exercise plan and an eating plan. I even hired a macrobiotic chief to come teach me how to cook (that is another story). Rule #2. You become what you think about all day long. It was time to start seeing myself in my mind¿s eye as the person I wanted to be. That picture was a man standing upright and in perfect health. On my new path it was up and down. I did not rocket into a positive life style, but every day I moved forward and every day I got a little bit better. While I was trying to go forward I worried about the baggage of cancer and what was to happen in the future to me. Then one day I was reading and I came across writings by Mark Twain. He said, ¿I am an old man, I have had many tragedies in my life, most of which have never happened to me.¿ (I probably murdered it, but that is how I remember it). There it was. From that moment on I was not sick. I sat for days and thought. The cancer did not happen to me, for I am the subtotal of all I have learned, the people I love and care for, the people who love me. I am what I have made myself, etc. I am not my body. My body is a vessel I occupy. I started taking better care of this vessel and strengthening me at the same time. Life got better fast. I started looking at my friends¿ lives and the life I had before my illness. I looked at my coworkers, acquaintances and every person I have had the privilege to get to know. I watched people go through life from day to day in mediocrity. They had no real tragedies and yet they rode the roller coaster of unsubstantiated highs and lows. They let daily influences blow their emotions from one hill to the next valley. During this tumultuous trip they missed life and all it has to offer. Then there are the gifted, those who have everything including great health. However, when I looked a little closer I could see the shadows of the roller coaster going by. So who if anyone has the perfect life? Well I have come to realize there is no such thing. However, maybe there is a close second. To be healthy is truly the greatest gift one can possess at any given time, I guess. Certainly we cannot enjoy life withou...Expand for more