On Surviving: Why I’m Still Here

Dec 4

Programming Note: While I write literally all day at work - emails, slack messages, whiteboards and more, I haven’t actually sat down and truly written anything in many years. Encouraged by my wife, Mary, to start sharing some of the stories of my life, especially with our daughter, Emma, I’m going to take on the challenge of writing down as much as I can remember about the moments which have been important to me along the way.

Emma, I hope one day you’ll read and enjoy these as much as I’ve enjoyed remembering them.

I can’t remember when I first started to feel sick, but it must have been in the Summer of 2012 that things began to change for me for the worse. Ever so slowly, I started to feel out of breath, light headed, and lethargic throughout the day. And then it was every day. And then it was all the time. My diet was poor, work was going through a pretty intense burn with the launch rollout of our new website, I was commuting in and out of the city on the train for 3 hours a day, and I was usually going to sleep late at night. Overall, I was burning out, and my body was trying to tell me to slow down. My mind wanted nothing to do with it though.

It was hard. I’d been enjoying an incredible degree of professional success with what we’d built at Corcoran, I was a relatively new dad, and life was supposed to be great. Except it wasn’t. I remember going for lunch with a friend from work, where our noontime routine was to walk over the few blocks to Subway, grab a sandwich (my order has always been the footlong sweet onion Chicken teriyaki), and then head back to the office and eat it in the 6-seater kitchen that doubled as Corcoran’s break room.

One of these times, on a sunny day, I stumbled when crossing the road. I’d ever so briefly blacked out. And while I was able to keep upright, I had completely freaked myself out, and spent the rest of the day thinking what the hell was that all about? I’ve never been one for going to the doctor, preferring to either self-diagnose, or just sleep away whatever it was. Except this time the more I slept, the more I wanted to sleep. I had trouble waking up, and when I did, I was groggy, grumpy, and just really out of it. Coffee has never been my friend, and was useless in this instance too. Another time, when walking up a flight of steps in the subway on the way home, I just got completely winded and out of breath going up about ten steps. Man, I’m out of shape I thought, look at me, I’m half dead just from that.

My diet was about as bad as it’s ever been at the time. Mainly junk food like Subway, or helpings of General Tso’s chicken from the hot bar at the nearby deli. Very often we’d be taken out to lunch by vendors and I’d go wild on the menu, especially at Tao. A chocolate muffin consistently for breakfast, grabbed on the way to work, and eaten at my desk. Always eating at my desk. Dinners were usually heavily sauced home-made pastas, or Chinese delivery. Eating out it was usually a burger, fries and a beer or two. I was even playing into this professionally. Foodspotting was a popular app at the time, and I delighted in finding (and consuming) the craziest, unhealthiest things I could find in Manhattan, especially the burgers. And if it wasn’t nearby, it was whatever I could find on the frequent trips around the country I was taking to speak at events. All the professional success was masking a myriad of highly unhealthy, unsustainable behaviors.

In early 2013, things went from bad to worse. I’d get out of breath and light headed when simply going upstairs at our home, or even getting out of bed. I found it hard to play in the yard with my daughter. I was getting more and more disinterested in doing things at the weekend. All I wanted to do was rest. My body was screaming out for help, but I still had my foot, especially my professional foot, firmly on the gas. I’m still incredibly proud of the work we built at Corcoran, but as it matured and grew, and with it came national attention and coverage, it just became exhausting. Exciting, but exhausting. I went to the Inman conference in New York, something in previous years I’d unofficially hosted as one of the locals. Organizing parties, and generally being the life and soul of the industry’s conference. This time it was different. Very different. There’s a picture of me, which I won’t post here, that a professional headshot vendor took. Looking back on it, you can just see that I’m not well. I’m bloated, my skin is grey, and I just look so damn tired. I looked, and felt, awful.

No-one knew it, but I was really struggling here, and constantly out of breath. Rob would later help me during my recovery by sending me World of Warcraft games.

A few weeks later, I spoke at an event in Millburn, New Jersey, and I struggled to get through the day. I went to ask a question at the mic from the audience, and by the time I had walked up to it, I was so out of breath, and sweating, that I asked someone to go ahead of me so that I could calm down. It perpetually felt like I was having a panic attack. I participated in a panel discussion in the afternoon, and could barely follow what was being talked about. I wasn’t just slowing down physically, I was getting foggier mentally as well.

Packing for Disney

Then, on top of that, we went to Disneyworld.

We love Disneyworld, and ever since my daughter has been able to go, we’ve gone. To this day we go every year. We are unashamedly that family. We stayed at the Art of Animation hotel, and I thought this will be great. A little downtime, some good food, a break from work, and all will right itself. But of course, Disney is the opposite of that. The days are long and exhausting, much of it on your feet. The food is generally salty, fatty, sugary and unhealthy. And as if that wasn’t enough, I was having incredibly strong pain in my ears, causing me to stay back in the hotel one night, doubled up in agony. Upon returning home after what had been a miserable trip, I decided to finally go and see the doctor. Much to my wife Mary’s celebration, I made the appointment, and resolved to go.

When the doctor asked me what seemed to be the matter, all I remember saying is “I feel terrible”, channeling my best Han Solo after being tortured by Darth Vader in Cloud City. I described my symptoms, and he asked a few broad lifestyle-oriented questions. He poked and prodded in a few places, and then decided we needed to take some blood. I don’t remember if it happened in this order, but the way I tell the story is that he took blood, but asked me to wait. It was at that point I knew something serious was happening. The doctor never does this I thought, being such an expert on what doctors do of course. It was probably the longest 30 minutes of my life, and there’s only so much soothing that the waiting room’s local News 12 traffic updates can provide in those moments.

He called me back in, and told me that I had incredibly low levels of oxygen in my blood. So much so that he was surprised as to why I wasn’t passing out all the time. In addition, there were very low levels of iron in my system, and that I should go to the emergency room right now. Call your wife to come pick you up, don’t drive yourself, and go to the emergency room as soon as you can. I don’t recall being scared or unnerved by what he said, but I clearly didn’t really understand what was going on. I called Mary, told her what our mandate was, and we figured out how we’d get to Morristown’s emergency room. I didn’t bring anything with me, expecting to be in and out of there in a couple of hours. How wrong that would turn out to be.

Testing, testing, testing

We arrived, checked-in, and the tests began. I explained what the referral was, and I was immediately hooked up to an IV which attempted to hydrate me, and I guess re-oxygenate my blood. I instantly started to feel better, and was convinced I’d be home in time for America’s Got Talent. As the hours went by, and Ellen turned into the Nightly News, the doctors came and went, the specialists came and went, and what passes for dinner there came and went. More and more tests, more and more discomfort, and then the verdict that I was highly deficient in both iron and oxygen in my blood, and that despite the last few hours of treatment, the drugs had not taken any meaningful, lasting effect. I was losing blood internally from somewhere, and they were going to admit me.

Facebook: Mar 29, 2013, 12:21 PM, Morristown Medical Center
Hour 6 at the Emergency Room. X-Rays, Ultrasounds, Bloodwork, and lots & lots of medicine. About to start a 12 hour blood transfusion. Tomorrow, I become Wolverine. Here we go!

The only things I had with me were the clothes I stood up in, my iPhone, and an old Star Wars graphic novel I’d brought with me to keep myself occupied. I was taken to my own room, and told to settle in for the night. I made myself comfortable, Mary went home, and I told her I’d let her know what they said in the morning. Tests and more prodding and poking continued throughout the night, and by morning I was wiped out, again. The doctors came and went, and eventually it was determined that they were going to need to take a look inside. So I was scheduled for a endoscopy and a colonoscopy. Both ends would be investigated in solving for the mystery of the missing blood. The worst bit of it was that I had to drink a vile, chalk-like drink to help flush out my system. They told me to drink the first half now, and then in an hour drink the other half. It tasted disgusting, but I held my nose and down it pretty quickly. I’ve got this, I thought. And then about 5 minutes later, without getting too colorful about it all, what felt like my entire digestive tract emptied out into the toilet. Oh no, I still have the other half of the cocktail to go. When this was happening, I constantly thought that it was over, but it was never over. I must have been passing food from several Thanksgivings ago, because there’s no way my body is retaining this much waste. After a while, the fireworks calmed down, and I progressed to level two, which promised more of the same, and hopefully the final boss. I have never felt so unable to walk even just a few paces away from the toilet before.

Facebook: Mar 30, 2013, 10:47 AM, Morristown Medical Center
Thanks so much everyone for all the well wishes, I can't tell you how much it means to me. I'm in the middle of a 36 hour blood transfusion because I have severe problems with the part of my blood that transports oxygen around the body. I've been under anesthetic most of the day, and pretty out of it, but I'm doing OK. I need to go for operation number 2 tomorrow, but in good hands, so stay tuned.

When all was done, I was ready for the first set of procedures, which for obvious reasons, I don’t really remember too much about. I was wheeled down to the theater, put under, and then when I came to, I was back in the room, as if nothing had happened. It’s literally time travel. You are put to sleep, something happens, and then next thing you know, hours have passed and you’ve moved locations, without ever knowing or understanding how you did it. Time and space I guess. The first one was the endoscopy, which ultimately again proved inconclusive. A few bits of damage to my digestive tract here and there, but nothing unusual. We waited, watched a lot of baseball, ‘ate’ some broth, and tried to stick it out as best we could. Mary kept me in good spirits, brought me things to do, and her Mom and Dad looked after things at home with Emma for us. We were in good spirits, but the unknown was starting to concern us - what was going on, and why couldn’t they find anything?

The second procedure was the colonoscopy, the more invasive, longer set of work. Again I had to ‘empty’ and again I was put under and traveled through time and space just like Doctor Who. Again I came around, and again the revolving door of specialists came and went.

And then it happened.

The head doctor came in, and told me what was going on. I had an eleven inch tumor in my stomach. Stage 2 cancer. Large, but at least at the moment, non-invasive and hadn’t spread. It was causing me not just to lose blood, but also resulting in severe oxygen and iron loss. All I heard was the word tumor, and then the Charlie Brown phone voice as the room started to lose focus and spin. I just thought I was working a bit too hard on our Facebook growth and had gone to the Emergency Room thinking I had a cold. Was I about to die?

They needed to operate, and the good news according to the doctor was that I was young, whatever it was we’d caught it early, and I’d come in just thinking I was a bit run down. They walked me through what was going to happen, the operation was scheduled, and then we waited. And waited. Several of the doctors involved were unavailable, and it also happened to be Easter Sunday, which pushed everything out by another day. Family came to visit, including Emma, which was very hard and I remember crying and hugging her, telling her everything would be OK. My brother-in-law bought me several Batman graphic novels to keep my spirits up. My Mom and Dad were incredible throughout the whole journey, never forcing anything, always having time, and always saying the right thing at the right time.

When it was time to finally operate, I kissed Mary goodbye, and they wheeled me off to the theater once again. As before, I don’t remember too much about what happened next, but I distinctly remember waking up in terrible, terrible pain, like a horse had kicked me in the stomach. In an effort to summon the nurse, I yelled out, and was pressing the call button on my bed. I pressed it and pressed it, wondering why no-one was coming to help me. But a few seconds later, the pain had gone. The recovery room nurse came over and asked if I needed anything. I didn’t need anything, I’d been pressing the Valium button.

They’d performed keyhole surgery on me, but done the procedure twice over the course of 8 hours, because they weren’t comfortable with the first set of work. To this day I have a deep 6 inch scar in the middle of my belly, and what look like two small bullet holes on the right side of my stomach. the painkillers didn’t last long though, and it was only an hour or two before the excruciating pain returned. I constantly felt like someone had ripped me in half.

Facebook: Mar 31, 2013, 12:37 PM, Morristown Medical Center
Some good news: After my first operation, and a transfusion of 6 pints of blood, my blood levels are now finally stabilizing. Operation number 2 is tomorrow morning, so fingers crossed. Thanks so much again for all the support, I'm truly blown away by all your prayers and good wishes. I really have some amazing friends and family.

Facebook: Apr 2, 2013, 6:28 AM, Morristown Medical Center
Hi everyone, after 2 surgeries, 6 pints of blood, 5 days of having bloodwork every 6 hours (my arms look like pin cushions) and having taken every medication known to man, my (hopefully) final surgery to remove a large section inside my stomach is tomorrow afternoon at 3pm. Whoo-hoo, skinny jeans, finally! I'm doing OK and in good spirits, and thanks so much for all the prayers and messages of love and support - they all really do make a massive difference.

Then it all became about rest and recovery. For a major surgery such as a partial removal of my intestine, estimated recovery is 4-5 months. I’d thought I would be back at work in a week or two. I had a great relationship with my boss at Corcoran at the time, and we’d been through many professional adventures together. She told me the best thing she could have ever told me. Everything at work would be just fine. Don’t worry about anything. Don’t check my email. Don’t open your computer. Reach out if you need us. Take the time you need. It was incredible, and the masterclass in kindness she put on for me is something I was never forget, and be forever grateful for. Not working was hard for me. I liked working. Working had defined me as a person for the past 15 years. Not work? You might as well tell me to not breathe.

I don’t have many photographs from this story, but this is one I used for a Facebook post, to let my friends know that I wasn’t dead just yet.

At the same time, Mary was performing her own heroics, most of it invisible to me. One thing I learned from my illness was how hard the journey is on the caregivers. How patient they need to be. How they have to give up so much of their own lives to share the load with you. How most of what they do goes unnoticed, or unappreciated. I would never have recovered without her, and probably wouldn’t even be here if she hadn’t pushed me to get up and go to the doctor in the first place. I literally owe her everything.

Testing continued, with an incredible amount of needles going into my hands, both of which were severely bruised by this point. The worst was when the nurse would come in at 3am and stick needles in my arms to draw blood, especially the numerous times they couldn’t find a vein. But I couldn’t wait to get out. The only problem was, I was in agonizing pain, and couldn’t walk. Other than that small catch I could go home whenever I wanted. I remember struggling to sit up, and how painful it was to go to the bathroom. When I finally got to an attempt at walking, I slowly lapped the ward with Mary holding me up on one side, and the current season’s ‘IV bag and pole’ fashion statement on the other. Paired with my behind flapping in the breeze with the open gown, it was a spectacular look for me. Truly a life moment.

I slowly recovered, and was given the clear to go home after being in the hospital for eight long days. The nurses wheeled me down to the lobby, where Mary was waiting with our Ford Explorer. I must have felt every single pebble and crack on the way home, each one of which I cursed out. I hadn’t showered in over a week, I’d not slept in my own bed, barely eaten and not had a fun time of it. There was still the enormous uncertainty around what the biopsy was going to find with what they’d taken out of me, and by no means were we in the clear. I remember taking a shower and immediately feeling better, then lying on the couch and breathing a sigh of relief. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but at least I was home.

Facebook: Apr 6, 2013, 9:43 AM, Morristown Medical Center
After 8 days in the hospital, 3 surgeries, over 20 blood tests, not having eaten for 6 days, losing 9" of intestine, and enjoying a healthy diet of Percoset... I am thrilled to share that I am finally going home.

I was told I was losing weight. I hadn’t eaten anything of substance in over a week, and I had no appetite at all. All my tastebuds were screwed up from the medicine, making everything taste like cardboard. Hot and cold things didn’t feel right. I just wanted to lie on the couch, perhaps watch some TV, and sleep. What surprised me most about the next phase, the recovery, was the genuine kindness of strangers. People who we only indirectly knew, perhaps from Emma’s school, or neighbors we’d just say hi to in passing, would bring food to our house and let us know they were praying for us. It was truly incredible. And then the mail started to come. Food packages, flowers, and some amazing, really motivating cards. It didn’t matter how small the gesture, it all helped so much. I don’t think I’d ever really thought about it before, but to know that when we needed it, people were there for us, came as a huge surprise, and a huge wake-up call for me. There’s one card, and one afternoon delivery I remember in particular. The entire Corcoran Williamsburg office had signed a get well card for me, and I don’t know if it was the card, or just the moment it arrived when it caught me, but I remember bursting into tears upon opening it. On top of that, my boss, Christina, organized for a week’s worth of food to be delivered to the house, as a complete surprise. She also sent Game of Thrones DVDs to keep our spirits up. I will never forget her kindness, and to this day it makes what happened several months later all the worse.

Facebook: Apr 8, 2013, 12:27 PM, Denville, NJ
Day 2 of recovering at home after the worst 8 days imaginable. Still in a tremendous amount of pain and sleeping a lot from all the medication. Apparently I am losing a lot of weight too. Everyone around us has been amazing, from food deliveries to taking care of Emma, we are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. Recovery time is looking like 2-3 weeks right now, and we'll know the long term plan for ongoing treatment sometime later this week. Fingers crossed for a healthy future!

I was on some fairly strong painkillers for my surgical recovery, and was going in to the hospital for ‘chair treatment’ every week, where they sit you down, and pump you full of a cocktail of post colonectomy / cancer-zapping drugs. It was a genuinely humbling experience. I was young, and while I still didn’t know what was going to happen with the results of the biopsy, I was surrounded by people who were sick. Really sick. Sunken, sallow faces, hair loss, and those obviously just being made comfortable in anticipation of the end. It was heartbreaking, and the guilt I felt at my own recovery was very powerful. Whatever had happened, I had always felt as if I was going to be OK, even though I clearly wasn’t. But I wasn’t these people. And that felt awful.

I read. A lot. Recovery came with time. A lot of time. I remember reading the Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs, a lot of which I could empathize with when it came to diet and cancer treatment. I read a tremendous amount of Batman graphic novels, probably most of the eighties and nineties runs - Knightfall, No Mans Land, Hush, The Long Halloween and many, many more. With that reading also came much needed mental recovery. As my body healed, so too did my mind, which had been working overtime for the past few years, and the sense of calm was at first completely disorienting. I walked a lot too - mainly around the lake near our house, where I’d strap on a podcast or two - sometimes it was a comic book one, sometimes a news one, and I’d walk and walk for at least a couple of hours every day. Sickness aside, I wish I was able to still do that. I was eating a lot better too - mainly fruit and vegetables, and in very small portions. Anything too taxing on my digestive system and I’d feel it straight away, especially fried food, anything creamy, or anything with an abundance of oil. I switched to decaf coffee because my stomach simply couldn’t handle regular - I haven’t had a normal coffee since.

The amazing things that arrive in the mail when you’re sick. Mists of Pandaria from Rob Hahn.

People often talk about the power of positive thinking. I’ve never been one for motivational speeches, but I genuinely feel as if staying positive, staying active mentally and physically, and just being patient and kind to yourself was a very large part of why I got better. I always believed I was going to be OK, and it never crossed my mind that things were going to be anything else than successful. Of course I had my down days, but they were very much the exception. In reality, what other choice did I have? Give up? No way.

The hospital would call to check in with me, and I continued the visits to the gastroenterologist, the oncologist, and all manner of other experts invested in my recovery. The uncertainty around what was going on was stressful, but I remember exactly where I was when the call came in. Standing in the front room of our house, the doctor had called with the news, the greatest ten words in the English language; “The results are benign. Nothing has spread. You're all clear.” I thanked him with trembled voice, and then broke down in Mary’s arms. It was over. I was no longer a cancer sufferer, I was a cancer survivor.

Facebook: Apr 10, 2013, 2:21 PM, Denville, NJ
The ten greatest words in the English language: "The results are benign. Nothing has spread. You're all clear."

To say it was over is, of course, wrong. There was still a long road of recovery to go, and to this day I still have to go for annual screening by way of vigilance because I was so young when I was originally diagnosed. Overall by the time I went back to work, I’d lost 60 pounds in 3 months, but felt healthier, happier, and more alert than I had done in years. I planned my return to work, and began the slow process of getting back to whatever normal was going to be from now on.

I initially went back to work on a low-impact, reduced schedule, still having to handle chair treatment and several other recurring medical checks each week, but I remember taking a deep breath, and thinking, things are going to need to be very, very different from now on. My attitude towards work, especially those small, annoying things that can needle you throughout the day, completely changed. I simply no longer sweated the small stuff. Whatever it was, was it as bad as what I’d just been through? Probably not, right? My colleagues supported me through the return, especially my boss, who had been such a rock throughout the entire journey. I’d almost made it to 40, and had a lot to celebrate when the big day came around in early October.

Facebook: Apr 20, 2013, 5:04 AM, Overlook Medical Center, Summit, NJ
Channeling my inner Wolverine today. Let's beat this thing!

As a family, we always go to Philadelphia for my birthday. Even though I’m ‘technically’ from London, I often consider Philadelphia to be where I’m from. I love it there. The people, the food, the culture, simply everything. We always go there to recharge when things get tough and we all genuinely need a break. Sitting at brunch at Parc on Rittenhouse Square on the morning of my 40th birthday, a Saturday morning, with much to celebrate, I got a LinkedIn message pop on my phone. Would I be interested in speaking to The New York Times about an opportunity to head up their Real Estate section? I smiled to myself, didn’t say anything, and just put the phone away for the rest of the day.

I agonized over the decision to leave Corcoran. Once I was through the eighteen(!) different interviews and had been formally offered the role at The Times, I just didn’t know what to do. Corcoran had been so kind, so genuinely caring, and had taken all the stress off me during my illness, and I knew it. On the other hand, if I didn’t take the opportunity, I’d always regret it, and if the past year had taught me anything, it was that life simply is too short. I remember thinking I couldn’t tell them right before the holidays, so waited until the first week back in the new year to break the news. I tried several times to have the conversation with my boss in person, but it ended up having to be over the phone - something I still regret. It broke my heart to tell her, I just felt so guilty. But as always, she knew just what to say, and was so happy for me that all of the tension and anxiety around telling her melted away very quickly. Corcoran had been my home for eight amazing years, and through professional success, illness and a lot of heartache over our digital efforts, it was time for me to go.

Looking back I don’t have any regrets, as the journey I subsequently went on, the people I met, and the places I went, ended up being beyond my wildest expectations.

It’s easy to say that all of this changed my life, and of course that’s true. It changed my relationship with work, my relationship with others, and most importantly, my relationship with myself. Perhaps it needed to happen to tell me that kindness is really the only way. The only shortcut that’s true, and that works. Perhaps it needed to happen to tell me my diet isn’t as open as I had always thought it was. Perhaps it needed to happen to tell me to stop worrying and just go for it, every day. Perhaps it was a reminder that Mary will save my life if she needs to, and how lucky I am to be with her. Whatever the universe was doing, it worked. Life continues to throw challenges every day of course, but my outlook is perpetually positive, directly informed by my journey to the Emergency Room for what I thought was a cold.