Latest / The Diva Details / Twice Tested, Twice Triumphant: Sir Kirk’s Hodgkin’s Survival Story

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Twice Tested, Twice Triumphant: Sir Kirk’s Hodgkin’s Survival Story · The Diva Details

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Diva Details. Welcome to the Diva Details.
• 0:05
  Where bold, confident women embrace life unapologetically.
• 0:10
  From love and sex to wellness and reinvention. We keep it raw, real, and powerful.
• 0:17
  Music.
• 0:17
  No filters, no limits. Just fearless conversations to help you thrive.
• 0:23
  Let's dive in with Diva Mia and Diva Cat.
• 0:31
  Well, hello, everybody. This is Diva Mia.
• 0:35
  Today, I have a super special guest. He's near and dear to my heart.
• 0:39
  He's a friend that I met in college a while ago.
• 0:43
  We reconnected recently and I got to hear his story.
• 0:46
  I thought that his story will touch other people's heart as well because it's
• 0:51
  so amazing what he's gone through and how he's come out of it the other side.
• 0:56
  He's become such an amazing person, and I think you'll agree that his story
• 1:00
  will touch your heart and touch your soul.
• 1:02
  He is a twice cancer survivor from Hodgkin's disease.
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  He first got Hodgkin's disease when he was 23.
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  He survived it, and then he survived it again. Everyone has a little bit of
• 1:12
  a different journey, but I thought his would be an inspiring story nonetheless.
• 1:16
  So without further ado, hello, Sir Kirk. How are you?
• 1:20
  Hello. Thanks for having me on your show. It's great to be here today. I'm so glad to have you.
• 1:25
  I know that you've gone through a lot and your story really touched my heart.
• 1:30
  And I wanted to just let you tell your story in your own way.
• 1:33
  Let's go back to the very beginning. When you first started feeling bad,
• 1:37
  when you first had an idea that something wasn't right, what happened? Give us the background.
• 1:43
  So I was a college swimmer. I swam for the University of Indianapolis.
• 1:48
  And my last year of swimming, I was really struggling in practice and I was
• 1:55
  having a ton of joint pain.
• 1:57
  I pretty much became addicted to Advil that last season.
• 2:00
  I had to take at least four Advil a day just to, and it was already, that was the cancer.
• 2:06
  It was already been in my body for over a year, two, three years.
• 2:10
  So it really was manifesting hard though.
• 2:13
  And so I just was training like crap.
• 2:15
  And so the first time I had it, Hodgkin's disease is cancer of the lymph nodes
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  and you have lymph nodes all over your body.
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  And the first time I had it, it was all in my neck. And then I had a big cluster
• 2:28
  right here above my heart.
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  But one day, my neck swelled up right here. I had a big bump appear right there.
• 2:34
  And so then we're like, okay, what is this?
• 2:36
  So when I started doing tests and I had checked out, and then the very next
• 2:41
  day, yes, you have cancer.
• 2:43
  Wow. So you had some signs, but it had been there for quite some time.
• 2:47
  You don't even know when it started.
• 2:49
  Correct. And it was kind of dragging on you. You weren't feeling well.
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  And then once you got your diagnosis how did you feel how what was your approach.
• 2:57
  Well it's i mean when you're 23 and you're
• 3:00
  told you have cancer it's a shocking thing for the first month
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  as everybody finds out you feel like
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  you have a big red x on you like everybody looks
• 3:10
  at you and they just see this big red x i don't know that was
• 3:13
  just the visual that i had in my head and then of
• 3:15
  course it's the it's the last thing you think of when
• 3:18
  you fall asleep and it's the first thing you think
• 3:21
  of when you wake up like you wake up in the morning and it hits
• 3:24
  you it's like you have cancer and it's
• 3:27
  just like but that's probably that for the first 30 days it
• 3:30
  was like that's the first and that shock each morning of waking up and like
• 3:34
  to realize that that was difficult yeah you went through your first diagnosis
• 3:39
  you treated it you beat it you saw it and what age were you when it came back
• 3:43
  yeah so the first time they gave me multiple options of what I wanted to do,
• 3:48
  but I decided to do radiation treatments.
• 3:51
  And so, and also we caught it somewhat early.
• 3:55
  Um, and they gave me a 90% chance of beating it the first time.
• 3:59
  So I did radiation treatments and that lasted an entire summer.
• 4:03
  And that was like a round of golf compared to what was going to come four years later.
• 4:09
  So, but yeah, radiation treatments just, yeah, we just, we did that and that
• 4:13
  was the first attack and it seemed to work.
• 4:16
  So I was with this particular type of cancer, you have to make it five years
• 4:21
  of remission before you're cleared for life.
• 4:24
  So I'd only, and it ended up being, I only made it four years and then it came back.
• 4:30
  So they're testing you every so often. How often did you have to go through testing?
• 4:34
  We would do maybe two or three times a year, I would go in for blood work and
• 4:40
  MRIs just to make sure it wasn't coming back and it didn't for years.
• 4:46
  When you got diagnosed and you're 23 and.
• 4:50
  I know it was probably quite a shock. And you woke up every morning and you
• 4:54
  went to bed every night thinking about it.
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  What were you thinking about for the future as far as career goes?
• 4:59
  Yeah, I still had one semester left of college.
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  So I knew I was going back to Indy in the fall.
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  I didn't have my degree yet. I was done swimming. My years of swimming were done with.
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  So I just wanted to get healthy and get back and get my degree.
• 5:17
  It wasn't like looking past that. It was just looking like you got,
• 5:21
  you know, four more months of school.
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  That was as far down the road as I was looking, really.
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  So you went through and you did the radiation treatments and you got into what's
• 5:33
  called remission or someone that's no longer showing signs of cancer.
• 5:37
  And once you're in remission, did you feel like you were home free or were you
• 5:42
  still a little concerned?
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  I really felt home free, especially when you go two, three years in,
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  you're like, yeah, I'm done. these MRIs are now, they're just a waste of time
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  and whatnot. I just thought it was, man, what a little blip on the radar that was.
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  That was sucked, but it's all gone.
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  Let's go now. So you started, did you get symptoms again for the second time you got it? Yes.
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  So the second time, one of the major clusters was in my lower back near my kidneys.
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  And when I would drink alcohol, it would actually inflame the tumors that were
• 6:21
  in my lower back on my kidneys.
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  And so I was like, I'd have two drinks and my lower back would start hurting.
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  I'm like, oh my gosh, do I have kidney stones?
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  Do I have kidney problems? So I went in to see a urologist and they had me, of course, in a cup.
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  And then they're like, you have blood in your urine. I'm like,
• 6:41
  okay. And then the urologist started asking me, he started probing into my, my health history.
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  And I'm like, well, I had Hodgkin's disease four years ago.
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  And he was like, oh, he's like, well, you probably ought to go back to your
• 6:55
  oncologist and you might, it may have come back.
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  So I went from thinking I had some type of kidney problem to yes,
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  your Hodgkin's disease is back.
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  And it's, and it's, you know, in your lower it's, it was in my organs,
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  basically all around my organs. I always think like, what if I wasn't drinking alcohol?
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  It could have taken six more months to figure out that it was back.
• 7:17
  The alcohol was triggering, inflaming the tumors that were near my kidneys.
• 7:22
  Yeah. So it was actually a good thing to be going out and partying in your 20s. Yeah.
• 7:27
  So gin and tonics may have saved my life. It alerted me much earlier than that was the thing.
• 7:34
  Like, why am I having lower back pain when I have a drink? Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:38
  But it was It was the cancer Had come back So what did you decide To do the
• 7:43
  second time around When you got.
• 7:46
  Second time, it was much more serious. My odds of beating it went from 90% down to 66%.
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  So now it's getting interesting. Now we're really rolling the dice here.
• 7:59
  You've got a one in three chance of not making it.
• 8:01
  So it just had to go. There was no question. I've got to go chemo.
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  And you were seven the second time? I was, yes.
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  20. Yeah, I had my 28th birthday during the six months of chemo.
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  So, but yeah, we, when I started chemo, I was 27.
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  They gave me the option of putting, um, a port in, which is,
• 8:23
  um, this plastic thing they put in here and it's underneath your skin and you
• 8:28
  have this wire dangling out.
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  And then it would, when you go in to get your chemo, they just hook you up to
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  that. And I mentally, I couldn't handle that thinking for six months.
• 8:37
  Every time I got out of shower, look at the mirror, see this,
• 8:40
  like wire hanging out of my chest.
• 8:43
  Eventually I couldn't do that. So I did it the hardcore way where they just
• 8:47
  drain it into your, in your arms each time.
• 8:50
  And so my, the way my particular chemo worked was I would go in every other
• 8:54
  Monday and then they would, it was like a three or four hour process where they
• 8:59
  would drain a chemo cocktail into my body through three different IVs.
• 9:04
  And it would, each IV would take like an hour to bag the bag to drain into me.
• 9:09
  And so, and so got into this cycle where I would be sick for a week and then
• 9:15
  I'd be okay for a week and then I'd be sick for a week and then I'd be okay for a week.
• 9:19
  And so we did that for six months. Wow.
• 9:22
  So you're 28 years old where other people out there having fun,
• 9:26
  meeting people, partying a little bit, and you're going through chemotherapy.
• 9:31
  And I'm sure you had to throw up often. How did it feel when it went into your veins? Did it burn?
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  Or what was the feeling that the chemo does when you actually have it go into
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  your body? It definitely burned.
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  It also felt cold.
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  After time, it made my veins and my forearms became as hard as coat hangers
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  because it just scars. The drugs are so harsh.
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  It just scars your veins. Now, eventually, months, maybe a year later,
• 10:00
  my veins are soft and normal again.
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  But at the time, yeah, those drugs are really harsh.
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  As we got farther in, I would start throwing up during the process.
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  I was in a room where everybody's sitting in these lounge chairs and you have your chemo bag drip.
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  But eventually, I was getting so sick that they had to put me in my own private room.
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  I would start vomiting during the process and they would like, don't pull your IV.
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  And I'm leaning over off the table and the nurse is holding the bucket and I'm
• 10:32
  puking in the bucket and she's like, don't roll out of your IV.
• 10:35
  Don't pull your IV out. It got really harsh.
• 10:38
  Yeah. So the treatments are terrible. You're not feeling well.
• 10:42
  Did you have support from friends and family? I didn't have too much support.
• 10:47
  Some of that is on me. I just shut down and I didn't want people around me.
• 10:53
  I don't know why I reacted that way. My best friends all lived away.
• 10:57
  Some of them had just finished college and moved. Some of them were still in college.
• 11:01
  I didn't really have that too many good friends in town. My sister was a freshman
• 11:06
  at San Diego State. She was a swimmer there.
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  And my two brothers, I mean, maybe all three of my siblings were in California
• 11:12
  at this point. So yeah, it was a lonely journey.
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  But part of that was on me. I did have one friend who came to visit occasionally,
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  so that was just awesome.
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  But see, I also had to work. We were lower middle class, our family.
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  I had three siblings, and my mom was working three jobs, and my dad worked hard.
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  I was living at home when all this happened, which was a fortuitous thing.
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  I had already lived in Tampa, Florida, and moved back to Illinois.
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  So I was back in living with my parents when the second diagnosis came about.
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  So that was a lucky thing. And then also I was a manager at a bagel coffee shop
• 11:54
  and the owners were super supportive and worked with me.
• 11:58
  So they would let me work for a week and then I would be sick for a week.
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  And there wasn't really an option to just not work. I had a car payment. I had credit card bills.
• 12:08
  I had student loan payments and my parents couldn't afford those.
• 12:12
  They couldn't, I couldn't just dump all these bills in their laps.
• 12:15
  Our family was, we were just tough. I don't know. I didn't really get much sympathy.
• 12:19
  It's just like deal with it, work.
• 12:21
  Like I would, I would be sick for a week. I'd be on the couch with a puke bucket
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  next to me day four or five.
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  I start feeling better. And then I would work for a week. And then,
• 12:31
  you know, then, then the Monday would roll around where I'd go back in for another,
• 12:34
  another chemo treatment.
• 12:35
  So back when this happened, the internet was out, but there wasn't a lot of
• 12:39
  information on alternative treatments.
• 12:41
  Did you try any alternative treatments or did you just go the traditional route
• 12:46
  as far as chemo and radiation? Yeah.
• 12:49
  Additional ideas or treatments were really about this back then.
• 12:53
  I was just full trust in the medical opinions and ideas and game plan.
• 12:59
  So you went for chemo for six months. Did you get a clean bill of health at the end of the chemo? No.
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  Month five, that's when my mom died suddenly. Wow.
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  Died during back surgery at the same
• 13:12
  hospital that I was having my chemo treatments at. She had gone in for.
• 13:19
  Back surgery. And so she died suddenly while I'm at my weakest point of my life.
• 13:27
  And I later found out from my grandma that my mom was, and for your listeners
• 13:34
  who aren't religious, that's fine, but we were religious in our family.
• 13:38
  And so my mom was praying to God for him to take her life instead of mine.
• 13:43
  So I didn't know that at the time.
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  Now, I don't know if that's what, If God took her up on that deal,
• 13:50
  I found that out maybe a couple of years later when my grandma told me that
• 13:53
  my mom was praying that, you know, that she go instead of me.
• 13:57
  So, yeah. So you were struggling a lot. You had a lot of stress happening. You were working.
• 14:02
  You lose your mother and you're still in the middle of chemo and you still have
• 14:06
  your indicators are still showing that you have cancer.
• 14:09
  How did it make you feel as far as like motivation and drive and to just to
• 14:15
  realize you were going through so much? How was your emotional level? My plate was full.
• 14:20
  In a weird way, my mom's passing, I couldn't even really allocate that much
• 14:25
  grief and self-pity towards that major life event because my plate was so full
• 14:32
  with just trying to survive.
• 14:35
  I lost all my hair. I lost my eyebrows. I lost my armpit hair.
• 14:39
  I lost like 15 pounds. I was super pale. I just looked like a very unhealthy
• 14:45
  person, just scrawny, someone who came out of some type of concentration camp or something.
• 14:52
  Yeah, it was. I mean, talk about having your plate full.
• 14:56
  So I just didn't, I was just trying to survive like myself.
• 14:59
  I would not eat, you know, I'd eat on Sunday night and then I'd go in for chemo
• 15:05
  on Monday morning and then I would be so sick.
• 15:08
  Sometimes I wouldn't eat till, you know, Wednesday or Thursday,
• 15:11
  three or four days later, everything would just come right back up.
• 15:14
  So you still have a decent mindset, though, it sounds like through the whole
• 15:19
  thing, because you just kept chugging along with all the challenges that were going on.
• 15:23
  I think you just take it. It's cliche, but you just take it day by day.
• 15:27
  You just you're like, OK, what what do I have to do today?
• 15:30
  And like if it was, you know, if it was a Monday and going in to get chemo,
• 15:34
  like you just you break and you and then you break that down. Okay, I got to do this.
• 15:39
  This hour is mostly just laying around being sick.
• 15:42
  And so you just trust that things are going to work out.
• 15:46
  It was good then to go into work and feel like normal.
• 15:50
  That was like going and work and be around my staff and my coworkers and stuff.
• 15:56
  That was a really good work environment to have. And I think I was meant to
• 16:00
  have that job during this time.
• 16:02
  Did the job provide insurance for you? No, unfortunately.
• 16:07
  Fortunately, I was not on any health insurance, but the hospital wiped out all
• 16:12
  of my medical debt as a good faith gesture for my mom dying.
• 16:17
  I'd racked up like $80,000 in medical debt, and they're like,
• 16:20
  well, we're going to just wipe that under the rug since your mom died.
• 16:24
  Without them really admitting anything. They did anything wrong.
• 16:28
  It was just a good faith gesture. You don't owe us anything because your mom died here.
• 16:33
  Separate medical procedures. Yeah, no health insurance at the time, but that worked out.
• 16:39
  Do you think that there was a medical fault that caused the death,
• 16:42
  or is that what your thought process is? Yeah.
• 16:47
  There was, she was complaining of knee pain, and that was, she had a blood clot in her knee,
• 16:53
  And they should have checked that out better before they put her under because
• 16:58
  when they put her under for the back surgery, that's what triggered the movement of that blood clot.
• 17:03
  It went into her lungs and she just went into cardiac arrest right there on
• 17:07
  the operating table. Gotcha. Gotcha.
• 17:10
  Yeah. So how long have you been cancer free? So you went through six months
• 17:14
  of chemo and you came out of it.
• 17:16
  How long have you been cancer free? So now it's been 25 years. Yeah.
• 17:22
  Yeah so 25 years do you have to get regular tests still no i think may of 2005 was the last time,
• 17:31
  um we did a eri or cat scan to just check everything but by that time i knew.
• 17:40
  I knew that what my grandma had told me about the deal my mom had made.
• 17:45
  And so once I knew that, I'm like, oh, well, he's not going to go back on meaning
• 17:48
  God. He's not going to go back on his terms.
• 17:50
  Like he took her. It's not coming back, you know, a third time for me.
• 17:54
  So at the end of six months, they didn't know if it had worked.
• 17:57
  I had a couple of tumors, but they had the larger one that they were.
• 18:00
  That was like the main one showing up in the MRIs. And that was that one.
• 18:03
  It didn't shrink the entire six months.
• 18:07
  Wow. Still there, the same size. Yeah, same size.
• 18:11
  So they, they're like, okay, so they had this at this hospital where I was at,
• 18:15
  they have what they call cancer board.
• 18:17
  And that was where once a month, all of the radiologists, all of the oncologists,
• 18:22
  they would all get together in one meeting and they would review the two maybe
• 18:28
  biggest or trickiest cases that was going on at their hospital.
• 18:32
  And my case went before this, this cancer board and the grand consensus of that
• 18:39
  whole, all those people and all that knowledge, all those degrees was,
• 18:43
  we don't know if it worked.
• 18:44
  So I remember I was, I was actually at work. I was at the, you know,
• 18:48
  the coffee, the coffee bagel shop and I got the call.
• 18:51
  They called me at work. I didn't even remember giving them that phone number.
• 18:54
  They called me there and they told me this.
• 18:56
  And I'm just thinking to myself, what do I do? Do I even finish my shift?
• 19:00
  And I was like, it was very bizarre. basically saying, we don't know if this worked or not.
• 19:05
  So I already knew because we'd already talked about if the next step would have,
• 19:09
  I would have had to gone up to Northwestern's hospital in Chicago and do a bone
• 19:15
  marrow transplant and basically live in a bubble.
• 19:17
  I'd be a bubble boy. And my chances are survival would have dropped down to 10%.
• 19:23
  Wow. So yeah, so they're like, we don't know if this worked or not.
• 19:27
  And so I'm like, okay, So here's what we're going to do.
• 19:31
  We're not going to do anything for two months. So you just hang out for two
• 19:34
  months and two months from now, come back in and we'll do some more testing
• 19:38
  and we'll just take it from there.
• 19:39
  So that was, they just left me in limbo after going through all that,
• 19:43
  that horrible process and stuff. So. So what did you do for two months?
• 19:48
  So I, it was time to live life to the fullest.
• 19:53
  So having been a collegiate swimmer, I was still in pretty good shape in my late twenties.
• 19:59
  So I, I re I recovered pretty quickly, actually by, I finished chemo on February
• 20:05
  28th. And by like a month later,
• 20:08
  I mean, I was feeling pretty good. I wasn't running quite yet,
• 20:12
  but I was walking and gaining my weight back.
• 20:15
  My hair was growing back. I went out to visit one of my best friends in Washington,
• 20:19
  D.C., and we really had a blast. And I went down to the Florida Keys with two
• 20:24
  of my friends, and we went jet skiing and partying it up.
• 20:28
  And I just really lived life to the fullest for two months, just in case Bubble Boy was coming.
• 20:35
  I just tried to have as much fun as I could. But also at the same time,
• 20:39
  I have more to while I was going through chemo.
• 20:42
  So my plate was still full.
• 20:44
  Like I'm still dealing with the loss of my mom.
• 20:47
  Still don't know if I'm going to live or die. You went into life.
• 20:51
  So you suddenly surrendered to the process and just went and had fun.
• 20:55
  Yeah. I mean, just in case it was my last go around.
• 20:58
  Yeah, I just tried to have as much fun as I could. I didn't really,
• 21:02
  I wasn't really planning for the future.
• 21:04
  Just, you're just living day by day.
• 21:07
  You talked a little bit about religion and the spiritual thought process behind your survival.
• 21:12
  Are there any other emotional or philosophical insights that you can share? Yeah.
• 21:17
  When I was going through chemo, all my friends and relatives were,
• 21:21
  they're saying, you've got to beat this.
• 21:23
  You've got to beat cancer, beat cancer, fight it.
• 21:27
  The term like fighting cancer is a misnomer. You don't fight it, you just survive it.
• 21:33
  You don't get in the ring and put on gloves. You just get down the fetal position
• 21:37
  and you just take your beating and then hope that you at the end of it,
• 21:40
  you can stand up. There's no fighting.
• 21:42
  It's just you're just taking it. Basically, the pressure really mounted like,
• 21:47
  oh, you got to you got to beat cancer.
• 21:50
  And so I started feeling a lot of like pressure. It seemed unnecessary.
• 21:54
  So I kind of got angry at the pressure of this. Like, you got to win. There was a song lyric.
• 22:00
  It was a rap group, Naughty by Nature. Anybody from the remembers hip hop in
• 22:05
  the early nineties, the other group that sang OPP, but they had another song
• 22:10
  called everything's going to be all right.
• 22:13
  And I really liked that song. There was a lyric in that song that really enlightened me.
• 22:19
  And the lyric goes, how will I do it? How will I make it? I won't.
• 22:24
  That's how. And that lyric really struck me. How will I do it?
• 22:27
  How will I make it? I won't. That's how.
• 22:30
  And in the song, he's referring, how are you going to get out of the ghetto?
• 22:32
  How are you going to make a life for yourself?
• 22:34
  But for me, that song was like, I started, I was like, I need to,
• 22:38
  I wanted to think outside the box. Well, how am I going to be cancer?
• 22:40
  I won't. That's how. I'm like, wait, there's another option over here. I'm not in this box.
• 22:47
  There's an option outside the box. You can die.
• 22:49
  So I got comfortable with death. And when I did that, when I said,
• 22:54
  it's okay, when I told myself, it's okay if you don't make it. It's okay.
• 22:59
  That's an option. And when I really got to that point, like spiritually,
• 23:04
  I felt this weight come off my shoulders.
• 23:07
  And that is when I beat cancer. Really? When I no longer had the pressure.
• 23:11
  I removed the pressure of winning.
• 23:13
  And it's like, okay, there's another option. Your story can end here.
• 23:17
  And that's okay. You'll go on to the next part of your soul's journey.
• 23:23
  And so once I relieved the pressure of winning, it's like, how will I make it?
• 23:29
  I won't. That's how. I'll just die.
• 23:31
  And then I felt better. Then I was like, now I'm in like things like my energy
• 23:36
  started flowing because there was no pressure to win. That was a real psychological
• 23:42
  breakthrough, and it's a weird one. You've got to get comfortable with death.
• 23:46
  You've got to really look at and say, okay, I can do this, meaning I can cross over. I can do that.
• 23:55
  But when I got to that spot, that's when I won. That's when I beat it.
• 24:02
  It's a weird mental journey to go on. You never looked at cancer as a competitor
• 24:08
  to beat, and just something to surrender to, that's when you won.
• 24:12
  Yeah, yeah. It was part of you that you let go, that competitive nature.
• 24:16
  Well, I just let go of the pressure of my dad and my mom.
• 24:21
  They had sisters, so I had a lot of aunts. You've got to win.
• 24:24
  Your grandparents, you've got to win. You've got to beat cancer. And they're just...
• 24:29
  Being encouraging, but for me, it took it, I don't know, maybe this was just
• 24:34
  as being an athlete, like it was like a competition.
• 24:37
  It's like, well, I don't have to win.
• 24:39
  It's stop asking me to win. I don't know if I can win.
• 24:42
  Well, that's a complete mindset shift too. I mean, that's a different way of
• 24:47
  thinking about life. We all die at one point.
• 24:51
  Being able to surrender that at 27, 28 years old is I'm sure tough because I'm
• 24:57
  sure you had hopes and dreams for the future.
• 24:59
  When you let it go, it just released something in you, maybe some anxiety,
• 25:03
  some stress, and that was keeping the cancer in you.
• 25:07
  Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It just, um, I did just energetically feel better though.
• 25:11
  So when you were in Florida, when you had this mindset shift,
• 25:15
  was it when you were traveling to Florida and having your party days and living it up?
• 25:18
  Yeah. It happened during that two month limbo period. Okay. Yes.
• 25:22
  Yeah. During that two month limbo period when they said, We're just going to chill out.
• 25:26
  And that's when, yeah, that's during that time, I made this kind of mental shift
• 25:30
  and accepted everything and just the acceptance of possibly making it. I felt at peace.
• 25:38
  I felt at peace. Peace is a wonderful thing. Yeah. You came back after your
• 25:42
  two months and then what did you do? You went straight to the hospital.
• 25:45
  How did you, what did you handle?
• 25:47
  Well, I wasn't, I wasn't in Florida the whole time. That was just like a,
• 25:50
  maybe like a week long trip.
• 25:51
  My trip to DC was maybe a week long. So I was still working.
• 25:55
  I had done some little mini trips and other fun things.
• 25:58
  But yeah, then we went back. I mean, we did another CAT scan.
• 26:03
  I remember I'm on my drive to the hospital. We did the tests and then,
• 26:08
  but like you would get the results.
• 26:09
  So like you meet with the oncologist like a day or two later.
• 26:12
  But I remember going, it was May 15th.
• 26:17
  Of 20, I'm sorry, May 15th of 1998.
• 26:21
  And I remember driving to the hospital to get the news.
• 26:26
  Either you're good or you're, you know, you're going to Northwestern to,
• 26:31
  you know, live in a bubble while they do a bone marrow transplant.
• 26:35
  I remember like this, the sunlight was coming through the trees and I just knew,
• 26:40
  I knew I was going to be okay.
• 26:42
  It was just like, I said, you're going to be okay or something,
• 26:47
  but it was just very virtually emotional.
• 26:49
  I'm just like, you won. It's fine. You're going to be fine. I remember that
• 26:53
  moment. I just had this confidence like, yeah, it's going to be okay.
• 26:57
  Remember, not very many people knew about this day.
• 26:59
  They knew I was in this two-month limbo period. I think only my dad knew because
• 27:05
  he and I was living with him.
• 27:06
  I think he might've been the only one. I just know it was a big relief And it
• 27:10
  was like, okay, now what?
• 27:12
  Because I hadn't really made any plans. It was all-encompassing to survive this.
• 27:18
  So once you survived and you beat Hopkins disease, did your priorities change? Did you change jobs?
• 27:25
  How was your life different once you survived? This is going to be weird,
• 27:29
  but my life didn't really change that much.
• 27:32
  I didn't, I was like waiting for like this, I don't know, new look on life and
• 27:39
  spiritual awakening and appreciation. I didn't get that.
• 27:43
  But I think I'm kind of weird that way. I think that is not the normal thing that happens to people.
• 27:48
  But it was just, that was, I'm just being honest. That was just.
• 27:51
  Me, it was just completely awful. Like, okay, what's next?
• 27:57
  Yeah, that's okay. Honesty is wonderful. So now that you've survived Hatchkin's
• 28:02
  disease, you're in remission for 25 years or so.
• 28:05
  Is there anything that you do on a daily basis as far as nutrition,
• 28:10
  supplementation, exercise, just to
• 28:13
  keep yourself overall healthy so that hopefully it will never come back?
• 28:16
  Yeah, I mean, I definitely got into just all types of vitamins and even the more unusual ones.
• 28:24
  Recently, I'm really a big fan of shilajit, if that's the way you say it,
• 28:28
  and turmeric, turmeric.
• 28:31
  As far as just like one thing that, see, the first time I had it when I went
• 28:35
  through radiation, I had a large cluster literally right over my heart.
• 28:39
  And so they would put these lead like pads to protect my lungs,
• 28:44
  but they couldn't protect my heart.
• 28:46
  Because the radiation is point specific for those of you not familiar.
• 28:50
  So they're radiating my neck and my chest, but there was no way to block my
• 28:55
  heart because all the tumors were right above it.
• 28:58
  And so my radiation or my heart took a lot of radiation.
• 29:02
  And so ever since for the past 25 years, I like I try and run once a week.
• 29:09
  And there's that's just like it's non-negotiable. I don't care if it's hot outside,
• 29:14
  cold outside, if you're tired, whatever.
• 29:16
  Like, I don't miss my weekly run. And that's because I want to keep my heart
• 29:21
  strong because I'm always worried that somewhere down the road,
• 29:25
  that radiation that it took will come back. I don't think it will.
• 29:29
  But, I mean, that's just one thing I do is just keep my heart strong by running
• 29:34
  because it took a lot of radiation, you know, the first time I had Hodgkin's.
• 29:39
  Do you do any other types of activities as far as health goes?
• 29:43
  I mean, I walk every day. I do push-ups.
• 29:47
  I tour around on my mountain bike occasionally, so...
• 29:52
  Um, I do those types of things to stay healthy being, um, a former collegiate swimmer.
• 29:58
  I've, you just hold yourself to a higher standard. I think you just,
• 30:01
  you're so, cause you're so used to being around.
• 30:04
  I mean, I trained year round from the age of eight to the age of 23.
• 30:08
  And so just, um, what you, when you do that for 15 years, that's the case with
• 30:14
  you, you just aren't going to let yourself get out of shape.
• 30:17
  Really. It's just kind of drained in your, in who you are. So at least that was for me.
• 30:22
  Are there any foods you restrict in your diet?
• 30:26
  Sodas or things like that? There are some. I've struggled.
• 30:29
  The chemo really tore up my stomach lining. And I've struggled with stomach
• 30:35
  acid problems ever since.
• 30:36
  So I have trigger foods that I need to be careful of, like a pizza, pasta.
• 30:43
  Those are two of the big ones. And so I can eat those, but I just need to be
• 30:49
  careful because I not eat too much and also eat them earlier in the evening.
• 30:54
  I don't want to be eating pizza or pasta like after eight because it just,
• 30:57
  if I lay down, then it's really going to mess with my stomach.
• 31:00
  Yeah, I still suffer with stomach issues, basically.
• 31:03
  Also, another weird thing, here's a little bit of trivia, not very many people know.
• 31:07
  My esophagus in my throat is 25% smaller than it used to be because the radiation shrunk it.
• 31:16
  Because the cancer here we did, my esophagus is 25% smaller than it used to be.
• 31:23
  So I have to chew my food well and usually drink a lot of liquid because stuff
• 31:30
  just doesn't go down as well.
• 31:32
  Just little things like that. You're altered by these. Your body a little bit.
• 31:37
  Yeah. Do you do anything spiritually to just keep your stress levels down and keep your mindset up?
• 31:42
  Just walking in nature is a big, big stress reliever for me.
• 31:46
  So, yeah, I would say that that's like the main one.
• 31:52
  Looking back now that you know what, I mean, we are 25 years later,
• 31:56
  traditional medicine, same.
• 31:58
  But are there any alternative paths that you think you might have tried had
• 32:01
  you known about them at the time?
• 32:03
  Probably not because, I mean, if I had a new type of cancer now,
• 32:10
  like I have a whole different mindset where I would look for other alternatives.
• 32:15
  There's a lot of stuff out there that can help defeat stuff that doesn't come from the pharma.
• 32:23
  But I mean, also, I'm a little much bolder now. In my 20s, I was just programmed
• 32:28
  like, well, just listen to the doctors.
• 32:31
  I think now I question the entire medical industry.
• 32:37
  Much more. And I'm bold enough to do that and more educated to do that now.
• 32:44
  Whereas in my 20s, I know I'd have been just been like, all right, tell me what to do.
• 32:48
  Now there's so much things you know now with just life experience and wisdom.
• 32:54
  It's like learn to learn to question things. So you become your own personal
• 32:58
  advocate now in your medical areas.
• 33:01
  Yeah. So for your health, through your own personal advocate. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:04
  So how do you continue to find purpose in life as time goes on?
• 33:09
  You've gone through a lot of struggles. You've overcome so much.
• 33:13
  The death of your mother, cancer, Hodgkin's disease, and other things that have
• 33:17
  happened in your life that I know of.
• 33:19
  How do you continue to find purpose? Because I know sometimes it's a challenge
• 33:23
  for people, especially when they've gone through so much trauma.
• 33:26
  Yeah, it's okay. The other things you're referring to is my younger sister died.
• 33:32
  And then also my dad died just less than two years ago. So it's been rough.
• 33:38
  It's been really rough. You just take it day by day. Do your best each day and they add up.
• 33:46
  You string together, you just do your best every day and it just adds up.
• 33:51
  So anybody that has extreme fear, just keep doing it day by day and walk through it as you can. Yeah.
• 33:59
  And do you encourage anybody to follow you on Instagram? Yeah, I do.
• 34:04
  Yeah. I'm not a frequent poster, but when I put something on there,
• 34:09
  I do it for hopefully it's high entertainment value.
• 34:11
  It's not going to be bored. So yeah, check me out on Instagram.
• 34:15
  That would be awesome. So your Instagram handle is at KirkWright44?
• 34:20
  Yes. Okay. So if somebody has a challenge in life, what would be your inspirational
• 34:26
  thought as far as telling them, day by day is one of them, but just to keep
• 34:30
  their heads up, especially because there's young children that get Hodgkin's disease.
• 34:34
  Diagnoses. There's people at all age. This is terrible diagnosis.
• 34:38
  In fact, the breast cancer survivor I had on, she also had cancer in her lymph nodes as well.
• 34:44
  So what do you recommend people do? Are there resources out there or what would
• 34:48
  you recommend people do in order to just stay, keep the mindset?
• 34:52
  Because I think mindset and even your mindset was when you surrendered,
• 34:56
  that was a shift in your mindset. But mindset is so very important.
• 34:59
  Yeah. I mean, Hodgkin's is one of the better cancers to get.
• 35:02
  It's one of the more treatable ones.
• 35:04
  And it does tend to show up earlier in life than a lot of cancers.
• 35:09
  So I think it's, if you're going to have cancer, better to get it in your 20s
• 35:14
  than in your 60s or 70s, because your body is just more healthy and better equipped to fight.
• 35:21
  So, I mean, early diagnosis is key.
• 35:24
  And you just listen to your body. For the first time with all of a sudden my neck bulged up.
• 35:30
  I mean, that was like obviously very easy to know something was wrong.
• 35:33
  But the second time, I thought I had some type of kidney problems.
• 35:36
  But you just go in and get them checked because it may lead,
• 35:39
  what you think is going on may lead to something else. Like you may have some other problem.
• 35:43
  Just be in tune with your body. If there's something hurting you that it's been
• 35:48
  going on for a while, just go have it checked.
• 35:50
  Do you think you're more spiritual now because of what you've gone through?
• 35:54
  Because I know you're a very spiritual person. You self-reflect often.
• 35:57
  And do you feel like you're more spiritual now because of what you've gone through? I suppose.
• 36:01
  I think so. I mean, going through so many hard things, like,
• 36:06
  I don't know, it's hard to put into words.
• 36:10
  Do you feel like it would have been better had you gotten more family support
• 36:15
  while you were going through this?
• 36:17
  Do you think people should try to entertain as much fans and family support?
• 36:20
  Or do you feel like it was better to go alone like you did?
• 36:23
  No, it's definitely better to get lots of support.
• 36:26
  Again, that was just my own shutting down and closing people off.
• 36:32
  That's probably not a good way. If I had to do it again, I definitely would
• 36:35
  encourage more phone calls, more visits, just more talking. We were a tough family.
• 36:42
  There wasn't really much pity doled out.
• 36:44
  You just dealt, everybody did their thing. I definitely would have just looked
• 36:47
  for more support from friends and family.
• 36:50
  I think resilience is a word that comes to mind and grit every time I think
• 36:55
  of you. as far as everything that you've gone through.
• 36:58
  And you've done some amazing things in life. Do you think that this has changed
• 37:03
  you going forward forever?
• 37:05
  Do you think your life would have been different had this not happened?
• 37:08
  And was it a good life lesson to actually have had? It changed me because no
• 37:15
  matter what's going on, no matter how bad of a day, you can always be like,
• 37:19
  well, at least it's not chemo.
• 37:22
  When you suffer like that It raises your standard For suffering And being able to deal with things.
• 37:32
  You've had so many like harsh things. If you're at the DMV for two hours, like it doesn't matter.
• 37:38
  It's not chemo. You got a flat tire and you're walking down the road. Like it doesn't matter.
• 37:42
  Like it's not chemo. You just, you raise the bar for what you can take.
• 37:48
  So that bar has just forever been raised.
• 37:51
  I guess it just helps you just brush things off better and don't,
• 37:55
  don't sweat the small things.
• 37:56
  And it's all small things basically after going through major life challenges
• 38:01
  just like this. You know, it's funny.
• 38:04
  It's not chemo. It was your tagline in your mind.
• 38:07
  And I found people that survive difficult situations.
• 38:12
  When I was going through a difficult situation, mine was, I would always say,
• 38:17
  you know what, someone else somewhere else has it harder than me and they're
• 38:20
  still surviving. I can do this is what I would always say to myself.
• 38:23
  But everybody that survives and gets through tough situations and comes out
• 38:28
  better on the other side,
• 38:30
  they always have a tagline and yours is at least it's not chemo
• 38:33
  but everyone mine was somebody else
• 38:36
  has got it harder than me I got to keep going you know if you can
• 38:39
  go through a situation a tough situation like this and come up with something
• 38:44
  in your mind a short one or two sentence tagline just uh when it gets really
• 38:50
  shitty and you're crawling because you're throwing up you're crawling to the
• 38:54
  bathroom because you're throwing
• 38:55
  up from chemo or you're just you're going through tough, tough times.
• 38:59
  I think if everyone can just have something they tell themselves in their head,
• 39:02
  it will make the difference between survival and not surviving.
• 39:06
  It'll keep you going in a mindset way that keeps you maybe not happy,
• 39:10
  but at least going in the right direction.
• 39:12
  At least that's my belief. I don't know what your thoughts are.
• 39:15
  Yeah. No, I would agree with that.
• 39:17
  Yeah, I think it's so very important.
• 39:21
  Mindset is more important than anything, especially with a cancer diagnosis.
• 39:25
  And you had a mindset that kept you going.
• 39:28
  Even though you didn't have the support that was out there and other people
• 39:31
  have had, your mindset kept you going.
• 39:34
  You reminded me of one thing that, I don't know, the readers or the listeners
• 39:39
  will either be grossed out or maybe inspired, but.
• 39:43
  Um, after you're, when you're done with chemo, you're not supposed to drive yourself home.
• 39:47
  You're supposed to have someone come pick you up, but I would drive myself to
• 39:51
  the hospital and I would go in and then I would lie to the release nurse.
• 39:56
  I'm like, oh, my ride is here.
• 39:58
  And then, then I would go out in my car and drive myself home,
• 40:01
  which you weren't supposed to do.
• 40:03
  And so the, and so that they didn't know I was driving myself home,
• 40:06
  but eventually we got into month three and month, it got, it got harder and
• 40:10
  harder where I would get to my car and I would just be, you know,
• 40:14
  this is in the winter and in Illinois.
• 40:16
  So it's 20 degrees out and I'm just like got my head down on my front bumper
• 40:23
  and I'm just puking in the parking lot, like trying to get it together so I
• 40:27
  can get in the car and drive myself home.
• 40:29
  And sometimes I'd have to pull the car over and puke on the way home.
• 40:33
  Then I get home on the couch and I'd have my little puke bucket.
• 40:36
  And then, but the last couple of times I couldn't do it.
• 40:39
  So like my grandpa or my dad would would
• 40:42
  have to come pick me up but yeah i mean i was just determined to
• 40:45
  just kind of be self-supportive and just
• 40:49
  do it on my own so i would drive myself
• 40:52
  home even though i wasn't supposed to until about the
• 40:54
  last like month or you know the last two or
• 40:57
  three times i couldn't do it anymore someone had to come get me
• 41:00
  so that's that's the very definition of grit
• 41:03
  right there yes yeah when you yeah when you
• 41:06
  said the word grit that's that it reminded me
• 41:09
  of that like yeah that's that's grit like i think you're the reason now they
• 41:14
  actually make the person picking you up show up at the doctor's people out because
• 41:20
  i've had to i've had to have somebody sign me out in order for me to leave so
• 41:25
  i think you're the reason yeah.
• 41:28
  Yeah, I would just, I would, I would, I would sit there and I would sit there and fake it.
• 41:33
  I would go out and sit in the lobby and the release nurse would be,
• 41:35
  and I would sit there for 10 minutes just knowing that I'm, okay,
• 41:39
  when am I going to like, and then I'd be like, okay, my ride's here. Like bye.
• 41:43
  And then I'd walk out and I, I don't know if you can get away with that these
• 41:47
  days, but I don't think you can get away with it anymore.
• 41:49
  And your reason why in the late nineties, uh, you could, I don't know.
• 41:53
  It probably depends on each, each individual facility.
• 41:56
  Yeah. Yeah. I think there's probably reasons they don't want you to drive too.
• 42:00
  They don't want you to cause an accident.
• 42:02
  So I would say towards the end there, maybe it wasn't so safe.
• 42:07
  So yeah, it was a, it was a struggle.
• 42:10
  Yeah. Um, do you do any probiotics for, I'm sure it destroyed your gut biome as well.
• 42:15
  Do you do any of that stuff to, to help your gut repair itself?
• 42:18
  Well, I have done like some, like a, like a probiotic treatment where you order
• 42:23
  like a pack of like 30 pills or whatever, and you take them for two or three weeks. I've done that.
• 42:29
  I do, I drink kombucha occasionally, maybe like twice a month.
• 42:34
  I'll grab a bottle and drink that. That has a lot of probiotics in it.
• 42:39
  Yeah. Well, that'll help too. If you could leave today and just tell listeners
• 42:45
  that are listening to this one thing to think of, if they're going through a struggle like this,
• 42:50
  whether it's cancer or autoimmune diseases or something else that is very traumatic
• 42:55
  for them that they don't know if they can make it, what would it be?
• 42:59
  What would be your overall comment
• 43:00
  to them to just keep going since you're Mr. Grit and Mr. Resilient?
• 43:06
  I think it would just be, don't feel self-pity. Like, don't succumb to self-pity
• 43:12
  and like, woe is me. And like, why me?
• 43:15
  And just get rid of that. Don't feel sorry for yourself. Because like you said,
• 43:19
  I mean, there's somebody in India that has only eaten, you know,
• 43:23
  once in the past three days and living in a roach infested hut or something.
• 43:28
  You know, there's people suffering all over the planet. They got it worse than
• 43:33
  you. So don't give in to self-pity. Yeah.
• 43:36
  Don't have a victim mindset. I think the victimhood mindset destroys more people.
• 43:40
  Yeah, it goes hand in hand with that. Like, don't. Yeah, that's.
• 43:44
  Because that's just going to make you. That's not a good foundation,
• 43:48
  which to build your internal fortitude.
• 43:51
  If you're just like, oh, why this happened to me? Poor me.
• 43:54
  Like you're building a weak foundation to start whatever process you're about
• 43:58
  to and test you're about to go through.
• 44:01
  Just don't feel sorry for yourself. All right. Well, I think everybody just
• 44:05
  keep your head up, come up with your own mantra and keep a positive mindset
• 44:09
  for the whole thing. And you'll be okay.
• 44:11
  Even though there's going to be rough days and everybody knows it, just keep your head up.
• 44:15
  I think we covered it all, Sir Kirk. Is there anything else?
• 44:20
  No just uh thanks for having me on it
• 44:24
  was uh yeah i've i've had an interesting life and
• 44:27
  a lot of it hasn't been easy but i'm here so
• 44:30
  trying to make the best of it i think i still think great
• 44:33
  things are coming my way so well it's been a pleasure
• 44:36
  and i hope everyone has a wonderful week this
• 44:39
  is diva mia signing off kirk sir
• 44:43
  kirk i'm signing off thanks for uh listening to my story today everyone all
• 44:47
  right take care everybody thanks for tuning in like subscribe and drop a comment
• 44:54
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• 45:05
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• 45:08
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• 45:11
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• 45:13
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• 45:15
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• 45:17
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• 45:19
  and should not be considered professional advice. The content provided does
• 45:21
  not constitute legal advice.
• 45:22
  The Diva details and its affiliate, contributor, and guests are not liable for
• 45:24
  any losses or damages arising from the use of our content.
• 45:26
  The opinions expressed in the podcast are solely those of the speakers and do
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  not necessarily reflect the views of any affiliated organization,
• 45:30
  sponsors, or partners. All facts discussed in the podcast are researched and
• 45:32
  accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of recording.
• 45:33
  Information will change over time. No guarantees are made regarding the accuracy,
• 45:35
  completeness, or reliability of any statements or opinions presented.
• 45:37
  It is the responsibility of the listener to verify any and all facts that may
• 45:39
  influence their decision.
• 45:40
  This podcast is for information and entertainment purposes only and should not
• 45:42
  be considered professional advice.