Empowered Hope

Dear Lance,

I’m reaching out to you to share a story about cancer and how it changed my life for the better. How my experience ended up helping others. You played a pivotal role in this.

Back in 2003, I was diagnosed with advanced stage 3 head and neck cancer.

As a fit person and lifetime non-smoker it was shocking news. My cancer path was not an easy one and is best described as hell – a disruptive 10 year battle of many radical surgeries, radiation treatments and rehab. But the one thing I did NOT do was let cancer define who I was.

In 2003, three months after my first 14 hour surgery (a radical neck dissection) I required hospitalization for my radiation treatments. Things were not going well. At that point in my cancer journey most of my friends and family could not bare to visit me at the Cross Cancer Institute here in Edmonton. My face and throat was badly burned from radiation treatments. Drinking water felt like swallowing knives. Eating was impossible. I lost over 50lbs and was wasting away.

When my 3 boys (ages 7, 10 and 12) visited me, my youngest son Cooper passed out from pure fear of what his dad was going through. I looked like a monster to him.

They all just wanted my suffering to end and I felt truly alone in my battle.

I was watching the Tour de France Stage 15 (Luz-Ardiden) on a small TV in a palliative care family room. Your battle on that mountain became symbolic of my fight.

Having lost my single parent mom to cancer when I was 16 years old - I had to fight for a reason that would be bigger than cancer. I discovered that reason when you went down on that tough climb (when your handle bar snagged on a spectators bag). I remember that moment like it was yesterday. It changed the trajectory of my cancer battle and life.

Under a difficult battle and brutal mountain climb you seemed to take energy from something bad that happened. At that moment I discovered the true definition of resilience.

“Turn adversity into something good”

In order to do this you have to “get strong at the core” (elevate your spiritual, social and physical health) and “keep moving forward” with the understanding that life is not a straight line. Moving forward means discovering and then drawing upon the few unique gifts we all have to find a way to be creative to use these gifts when we meet the curves and obstacles in our path.

In the end you will find something beautiful and unique about life and yourself. Something worth living for. A story you can pass down to your children or to others that will inspire them to this idea of resilience.

I’ve committed my whole life to this philosophy.

To this end I’ve lucky to have raised some money for cancer research plus other charity causes via donations of my art and time. Several years ago I donated a painting to the Parkinson Foundation that was auctioned off for $260K. I helped lead a team to build a home for traumatized street youth as chair of a $10M campaign. I currently serve as a wellness role model to many others. I’m 56 years old and not unlike yourself I love to push hard and challenge the limits of what the mind body connection can do.

Thank you for being a continued source of inspiration to make this happen.

I made a Nice pAinting of you

Years ago I made a painting of you to help raise some money for a cancer event you supported here in Edmonton. I donated prints to participants who each had a goal of raising $25K so they could ride with you in the mountains. I’ve never sold the original and would like to find a home for it.

Artwork. “Empowered Hope”

Acrylic on gessoed board 42” x 75”

Retail $18,000 CDN

The painting symbolizes resilient and empowered hope.

The “action” of your speed gives “action” to hope. Hope alone is just that. You can’t just wait for bad things to happen in life and hope to get through them to become stronger. That’s completely ridiculous. Building resilience and well-being should be a pro-active thing. It requires focus to stay strong at your core (as symbolized by your strong focus forward) and at the same time creativity (as symbolized by the expressionistic handling of the background colours and texture) to recognize that everyones journey in life will be unique.

Life is not a straight line and that path we take to embrace struggle will reveal the unique gift we all have. The painting serves to remind us of this gift.

With much gratitude,

Steven