Not Your "Routine" Colonoscopy
An uplifting story about how the worst news brought a family closer
Paul Apodoca thought he was being a model patient. Fifty-something, diligent about health screenings, he went in for what should have been a straightforward colonoscopy. His wife waited in the car, probably scrolling through her phone, expecting to pick him up in an hour. It was the era of COVID-19.
Watch Paul’s powerful episode on YouTube.
Then the call came. "You need to come into the hospital."
Paul's procedure had taken much longer than expected. The doctor had found a tumor in his colon, and the initial scans showed what looked like metastases to his lymph nodes, liver, lungs, and potentially his lower back. Stage four colorectal cancer. At that moment, it felt like a death sentence.
Paul's wife immediately shifted into what he calls "mama bear mode." She didn't just accept the first treatment plan. She researched. She networked. She found Facebook groups where people posted about doctors taking more aggressive surgical approaches. Within a week of contacting Dr. Fong, they had an appointment scheduled at City of Hope.
"We didn't leapfrog the chemo," Paul explains, "but what we wanted to do is not be in a place where we were doing chemo for life. We were gonna do surgery and try to get this out of my body."
The doctors wanted to meet them in person before agreeing to surgery. They needed to know Paul and his wife had "an attitude of recovery" - that they were truly committed to beating this disease. Because these surgeries aren't trivial. Paul's surgery went from sternum to below his belly button. Recovery wasn't easy.
But Paul had two immediate advantages: he was a lifelong athlete, and he treated recovery like training. "Take your meds, do your stretching, do your exercises," he says. "All of this stuff that feels like mindfulness stuff, even meditation, it's all gonna be directionally appropriate towards being able to battle this disease."
Most surprisingly, Paul continued working throughout his treatment. His boss created "Project Lift and Shift" - training someone to shadow Paul so he could step back when needed. It became a growth opportunity for his team and allowed Paul to focus on more strategic work.
"For me, I did not want to be sitting at home without a set of goals or without purpose," Paul says. "The more that you can find purpose and set goals that are outside of your cancer, that distraction allows you to reset your mindset."
But there's one piece of Paul's journey that challenges everything we think we know about "staying positive" during cancer treatment. It involves what he learned about the difference between surrounding yourself with positivity versus being told to be positive.
Catch to the full episode to discover Paul's framework for building your cancer-fighting team and why he says you have to "change everything" to kick cancer's ass.
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