Nobody prepares you for the second time. The first climb out of something hard gets support and attention. The second one is quieter, because you already used up the big reaction and you already told everybody you were okay.
Tim McDonald is living inside that right now. A few weeks before this conversation, he learned his cancer is back after almost six years. He is a patient advocate, a speaker, and the author of From Patient to Advocate, and he is a stage four colorectal cancer survivor and a liver transplant recipient speaking entirely from lived experience. He is not a clinician, and nothing in this episode is medical advice.
He explains, in his own words, what a blood test told him and why there is nothing to treat yet. He talks honestly about the first week, the one he calls mentally hellacious, when he was not eating much and doing the bare minimum and playing the what-if game he says he hates. Then he walks through the question that got him moving again: what has actually changed? His answer was that one piece of information changed, and everything else about his life was exactly the same.
From there the conversation turns to self-advocacy, and this is where it stops being about cancer. Tim did not wait for a referral. He researched, made his own calls, and drove eight hours round trip for a one hour appointment to reach the right expert. His first oncologist told him to get a second, third, tenth opinion and keep going until he believed what he was hearing. That applies just as directly in a psychiatrist's office, at an assessment, or with a GP who is not listening.
If something you thought you had put down has come back on you, whatever your version of that is, this one is for you.
Tim's book, From Patient to Advocate:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GL3BQMH6
Tim's website:
https://www.timmcdonaldadvocate.com/
Mental Health Resources Hub:
https://thevibewithky.com/mental-health-resources-hub/
Ky is a mental health advocate speaking from lived experience. He is not a clinician, and his content is not medical advice.
Much love. Good vibes. - Ky
