Latest / HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN® / Miracles of Faith: Mary's Unbeatable Journey

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Miracles of Faith: Mary's Unbeatable Journey · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

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  Music.
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  Here is your host, Dr. E. Howdy, Croc Nation.
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  Dr. Tommy and Ellie here with you on Christmas Eve, Eve, Eve.
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  Alongside me is my little drummer boy, the boy in the manger,
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  the man with the gold frankincense and myrrh, Angel Santana.
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  Have faith, let it begin. Angel, I'm so excited.
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  It's holy Christmas week, and I couldn't be any more joyful.
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  Let me tell you, I have been singing Christmas carols all week.
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  I am on a staycation rearranging the home, but I can't think of any other time
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  I'd want to spend than with the Croc Nation, Citizens Reunited to Overcome Cancer,
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  because it is Christmas time. How are you, my friend?
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  Oh, everything is great on my end, Angel, really into the spirit,
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  as we talked about last week.
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  It's just been amazing. And I'm so excited about tonight's podcast because for
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  a number of reasons, number one is, you know, it is Christmas week starting
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  tomorrow with our Sunday podcast, starting off the Christmas week.
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  Number two is that I get to spend some time with my kids later on in the week,
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  which is going to be amazing.
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  Number three, this is the last podcast of the year.
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  So I thought, and we had done a beautiful podcast a couple of weeks ago, and now this is part two.
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  And, you know, I think if I think of Christmas, when I think of the spirit of
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  Christmas, when I think about the holiday of Christmas, you know, I think about miracles.
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  The fact that Jesus was even born was a miracle.
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  The fact that his mother and father, Joseph and Mary were on a donkey trying to find a place to rest.
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  And there were no rooms at the end, as they say, and they were forced to give
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  birth in a manger along with all of the other animals and to have,
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  you know, what many people believe to be God, you know,
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  again, the Kruk podcast is non-denominational, but since it is Christmas week,
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  we'll talk a little bit about that.
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  And, you know, that's a miracle. And I wanted to make this podcast about miracles.
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  Angel, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think anytime we talk about the holiday
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  season, you can't help but bring the birth, you know, Jesus Christ.
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  Of course, there are people that are going to believe and not believe in that.
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  But I think that ultimately they love the story.
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  You know, even those that are my good friends that are non-believers, they enjoy the story.
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  And I respect that. And I think we respect that. But yes, it's a time of giving.
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  It's a time of coming together. It's a time of amazing decorations.
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  It's time for all of us to come together, smile, and close the chapter of another
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  year so that we can begin a new chapter of a new year.
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  Exactly. And tonight's episode is a perfect end, as I said, for our year. It is a Christmas story.
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  It's a Rudy, Hoosiers, Hallmark, holiday special all wrapped into one story.
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  It's a story about a regular, real person. It's a story about extreme adversity.
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  It's a story about courage. It's a story about hope. It's a story about faith.
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  It's a story about strength. And it's a story about inspiration.
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  And the best part of it, it's a true story.
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  And the name of the patient, the name of the survivor thriver that we're going to honor.
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  Is going to be the story of Mary Schofield. So who is Mary Schofield?
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  So Mary was born the eldest child in a very large and loving Italian-American family.
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  She grew up in a time when honor, qualities such as honor and hard work and
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  pride, selflessness and self-sufficiency were all the ideal.
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  She grew up also helping everyone around her because she was the oldest.
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  She never asked for anything in return or exchange for all the acts of goodwill,
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  kindness, and hard work that she did in the spirit of her family.
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  She got married. She had her own family and raised them with the same qualities
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  that she exemplified from her parents.
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  I first met Mary in 1997 when she survived breast cancer. She became a breast cancer survivor.
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  She never complained. She never felt sorry for herself. She did what had to
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  be done, and she got cured.
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  But in 2015, Angel, the world she knew, the world of stability,
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  the world of normalcy came tumbling down.
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  She presented with a neck mass.
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  She presented with a hoarse voice. She had some scans. She had a biopsy,
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  and it revealed the unthinkable.
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  She was diagnosed with the worst cancer you could imagine. She was diagnosed
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  with what's called anaplastic thyroid cancer.
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  It's a cancer that causes even the most experienced and composed practitioner
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  and oncologist to unravel.
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  Anaplastic thyroid cancer, Angel, is among the most aggressive of all human malignancies.
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  Its mean survival time is only six months.
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  It's typically considered incurable. The way it kills Angel is not by spread
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  or metastasis or by injury to other organs.
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  It slowly and deliberately strangles its patient and its victim in the most
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  horrific and demonic way.
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  And when a patient does survive anaplastic thyroid cancer, the doctors doubt the diagnosis.
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  That's how aggressive this cancer is. So Mary's journey begins with extensive surgery.
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  Then she had toxic chemotherapy, which caused nausea and vomiting, fatigue, pain.
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  Imagine having the flu with all those muscle and bone aches all the time.
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  And then I got my hands on her.
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  We caused skin burns and swallowing difficulties, dryness.
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  Thick secretions where she would gag and feel like she was choking,
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  difficulty swallowing, difficulty talking.
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  And even though I'm sure there were days she didn't feel like getting out of
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  bed, I'm sure there were days where she probably just wanted to give up,
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  days where she had doubts about her faith, doubts about everything she ever believed in,
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  days where she probably needed help from all of those she had helped and served her entire life.
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  But to do any of those angel, to do any of those things would not have been who Mary as a person was.
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  A person of faith who believed she would be cured. A person whose faith in her creator never wavered.
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  A patient person who never let anyone know how much suffering she had to endure.
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  But as we always say, there is hope for those who ask for it.
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  Mary did the unthinkable. She was cured of anaplastic thyroid cancer.
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  It took her an entire year to heal.
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  Her voice started coming back.
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  The swallowing became easier and her skin began to heal and become what it used to be.
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  It took a year to start believing that she would be that one person angel who
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  just might be able to beat this unbeatable disease.
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  And it took one year before her next challenge would present itself.
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  There's an expression we use, angel.
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  Life sometimes is stranger than fiction. It means that sometimes things happen
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  in our lives that are so unexplainable that you literally could not make it up.
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  And of all the people to have more adversity thrown at them.
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  Mary absolutely did not deserve any more tests of faith.
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  She did not deserve any more pain or tribulation, but she got it.
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  She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It may not be the worst cancer,
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  but it's certainly a top five killer and another cancer that would absolutely scare anyone to death.
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  I love a man by the name of Yogi Berra. He had a lot of very,
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  very funny and accurate philosophical statements. And he said once deja vu all over again.
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  And that's what Mary went through. She went from anaplastic thyroid cancer,
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  where everyone said she would die, to pancreatic cancer, where everyone told her she was going to die.
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  It takes a lot, Angel, to make me speechless.
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  But when I found out that Mary was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after beating
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  anaplastic thyroid cancer, there were no words that I could think of that could
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  possibly be supportive or encouraging or optimistic. Okay.
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  My first thought was to ask God why he or she was causing and crushing this
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  worthy and holy woman's soul, causing her so much pain.
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  There are so many other people out there that are deserving of this narrative,
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  but Mary was certainly not one of them.
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  My second thought was how Mary was going to handle this new challenge.
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  She metaphorically just survived the 12-round brawl with Mike Tyson,
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  and now she had to get back in the ring without any rest and fight the ghosts of Rocky Marciano,
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  Muhammad Ali, and Joe Frazier all at the same time.
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  Mary became the stuff of legends. There is a part in every uplifting story,
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  every movie, song, when the audience is convinced that the hero or heroine has
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  finally been vanquished.
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  Tears are shed, spirits are dampened, hope evaporates.
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  And then the said hero, heroine, opens their eyes, wipes away the dirt and the
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  blood, and slowly rises from probable death to improbable life.
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  And this is exactly what Mary did.
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  Why am I telling you this story, especially on the eve of one of the most joyous days in Christianity.
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  There's two reasons, Angel.
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  Number one, it gives hope to healers.
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  During a 40 or 50 year career in cancer, cases like Mary's come along only once
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  or twice, and they are unforgettable.
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  Once we see a case of David slaying Goliath, it gives us a perspective that
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  we can share with our patients that are looking down the barrel of the Grim Reaper's scythe.
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  Number two, it takes the dark harbinger of nihilism where we all give up on
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  our patients and turns it into defiant confidence.
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  Number three, it gives us a point of reference to know that all disease,
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  no matter how aggressive, can
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  be beaten with otherworldly medical care and otherworldly faith, belief.
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  Strength, and courage.
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  It has specifically shaped in me a practice philosophy that I use every day,
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  and that's the practice of guarded optimism.
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  We never lie to our patients. We never give them false hope,
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  but we remain optimistic until proven otherwise.
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  And this becomes infectious to our patients, and it inspires our patients,
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  and it gives them hope, and I believe it improves their outcomes.
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  And this is the gift that Mary gave to me.
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  And most importantly, it gives hope for our survivor thrivers,
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  to all of our patients that have been told that they were going to die,
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  to all of those patients that have been told that they are not curable,
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  to all of those patients that have been given up on by not just their care team,
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  but even their families and their friends.
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  Mary Schofield shines as brilliant a light, a beacon of hope for the hopeless,
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  an example of strength for the weak, a life vest for those drowning in fear and doubt.
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  And Angel, in closing, I find it no coincidence that this week.
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  The world honors the Blessed Mother, the mother of Jesus, whose name was Mary.
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  And the crock podcast not coincidentally
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  honors another blessed woman named
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  mary mary schofield i dedicate
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  this podcast to you mary and to your family
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  angel santana have faith let it begin
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  what do you have to say you know before i give you
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  my closing remarks i do have a question that i think that would probably
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  be on the minds
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  of our listeners is that a common thing
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  for someone you know
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  to go from i mean one true extreme to
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  the next i mean does that happen like that no it
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  only happens once or twice in a career it just because it's just you know obviously
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  we just heard the story she went from one she overcame one of the biggest obstacles
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  right And then to wait a year thinking that you've beaten the odds and only to come with another,
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  like you said, your word, another challenge.
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  I'm sitting here saying, is that normal? You know?
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  I guess the best way that I can look at it and from my own version of faith
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  is that most people would look at it and wonder, okay, is she being tested?
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  One. Two, is she being punished?
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  All right, here's my answer.
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  No. To the fact that she is not being punished.
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  No, I don't think she was tested. I think he was preparing her for what was next.
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  She had to overcome that big first Achilles heel in order for her to have even
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  more strength, more confidence to try to overcome the second.
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  Yes, some people would say she was defeated. I like to say she overcame the odds.
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  But I'd like to say more importantly is heaven created another opening for another angel, another Mary.
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  And to know that one day we're going to be sitting at the table.
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  I cannot wait to meet Mary Schofield.
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  Angel, you will meet her one day and you should have her on your podcast if
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  you could talk her into it, because I certainly couldn't talk her into coming
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  on today, but God bless her. She is a humble woman. She's unbelievable.
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  Amazing woman. She's an inspiration and I can't thank her enough for all the gifts she's given to me.
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  And we will end the podcast with this.
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  So you are out there on the week of Christmas and you have been told you have
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  a cancer that's incurable.
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  You have been told you have metastatic stage four disease that's gone to your
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  bone or gone to your liver or gone to your lungs or even gone to your brain.
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  You've been told that you have six months to live.
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  And I want to let you know that tomorrow is not promised to anyone.
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  It may truly be a fact that you will not defeat your cancer,
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  but that does not mean that you will be defeated in your spirit.
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  It also may mean that like Mary, you will defeat your cancer. There is always hope.
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  God is there for you. And I want to let you all know that stories like Mary
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  infuse us all from the doctors, to the nurses, to the care team,
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  to the patient, to the families, to the friends,
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  to the neighbors, to even people who have never met Mary.
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  These words will be inspiring to them and it will help them in their own cancer
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  survivor thriver journey.
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  And I'll end this podcast again in honor of Mary and her family with a blessing.
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  And that's to bless all of our survivor thrivers and wish them,
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  especially this week, the week of Christmas,
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  the last podcast of the year to wish them all a very long, healthy,
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  happy and cancer-free life. God be with you.
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  Music.
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  Hey, Croc Nation. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share the podcast to
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  your friends. Visit our website, crocvip.com.
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  Music.