Learn what caused this lymphoma survivor to embark on a diet and exercise program. For more on the importance of exercise after cancer treatment: http://www.dana-farber.org/For-Adult-Cancer-Survivors/Experts-Speak-on-Survivorship-Topics/The-Benefits-of-Exercise-for-Cancer-Survivors.aspx

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I was diagnosed Thanksgiving break of my senior year of college. I went home for Thanksgiving, and that Monday we went and saw the surgeon. He asked me a bunch of questions. The answer was no to everything he asked, and he just kind of shrugged it off and said, “Well, it’s probably just a cyst or a fatty deposit. We’ll take it out.”

I woke up from surgery, and my mom asked me if the doctors had talked to me yet. I said no. She left, and that’s when I was like, “What’s going on?” They came back and told me I had Hodgkin’s. I was pretty scared. I was 21. I didn’t really know what my outcome could be or would be, but 10 years later, here I am, and things are great.

My wife and I have always tried to watch what we eat an exercise a little bit. In the spring of ’08, our daughter was born. I didn’t go to the gym, because if I wasn’t home or at work, I was spending time with my wife and daughter. I decided I should have a physical, because I hadn’t had in two years or three years. My cholesterol was extremely high. My primary care physician asked me if I had any history of heart disease in the family. My mom’s father had passed away from a heart attack, so he suggested that I do a stress test. Two days later he calls me and says, “They saw something. They’re not sure what it is. It could be anything.” It came back that everything was fine. There were no problems.

But I kind of sat down with myself and just said, “I went through cancer. Now I’m going to let my diet take me down? And now I’ve got a daughter that I want to see grow up, so I completely changed my diet. I started running three times a week. Now, I’m training for the Boiler Maker, which is a 15K race. I’ve lost 40 pounds. I feel pretty good.

There’s only so many things in life that you actually have direct control over, and even then, I guess maybe it’s not direct so much as a glancing control over, but I can control my diet. I can control the amount of exercise I do. I can control how I spend my time. Since I was already doing the Boiler Maker, I thought, ‘Well, this would be a good opportunity to try and raise some money for Dana-Farber and the Jimmy Fund as well.’ I’m in a pretty good spot in my life. I’m healthy, my wife is healthy, and we have a beautiful, healthy little baby girl, so now is the time for us to try and give back a little bit.

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