Season 2 Ep. 2: Moment

Welcome to the Treat Us Right Podcast, Season 2, Episode 2: Moment.

Welcome to Season 2 of Treat Us Right.

This season we are focusing on the lifestyle that emerges when faced with a life-changing health event—whether for yourself or a loved one. How do we adjust to this new normal? What should we do to get the best care (this is a MAJOR theme)? How can we protect our mental health in addition to our physical needs?

Episode 2: Moment
This episode is personal. It's about the moment when your life changes. The moment when you learn about a life-changing health condition for yourself or a loved one. It’s the moment when healthcare, and interacting with the healthcare system, becomes a lifestyle. What do you do now?

Excerpt:

This episode is called Moment. And in this episode, we will explore the moment we get news about a health condition, whether it's ourselves or for a loved one. And you know, that moment, it's the moment where a doctor says you have this condition.

It can be a life-changing moment. It's also a moment where you can learn more about yourself than you ever had before. It's that moment we're going to explore. For me, I've had many of these moments, but the first moment that I experienced being exposed to a situation that was life-changing was when my mother told myself and my siblings that she had cancer—and had six months to live.

If you or your family has now entered a life-changing healthcare situation, contact us at life@care3.co.

We can help. We’ve been there. We are there. It’s what we do.

Transcript (auto-generated)

Speaker: David S. Williams III

Hey everyone, David Williams here, founder and CEO of care three. And your host for the treatise right podcast. Thanks for joining us. This episode is called moment. And in this episode, we will explore the moment we get news about a health condition, whether it's ourselves or for a loved one. And you know, that moment, it's the moment where a doctor says you have this condition.

It's a defining moment.

It can be a life-changing moment. It's also a moment where you can learn more about yourself than you ever had before. It's that moment we're going to explore For me, I've had many of these moments, but the first moment that I experienced being exposed to a situation that was life changing was when my mother told myself and my siblings that she had cancer and had six months to live.

I was 11 years old and the defining moment that that was had so many feelings in it to see my mother in that moment, the regret in her eyes, the sadness, but also the resolve. We're going to talk about that moment. And when you have that moment, your response is the thing that defines you. It defines that moment and it defines the people who are impacted by that moment. And there are so many different emotions that you can have. So let me set it up. What happened with my mother?

My parents were divorced by this time. And so I used to spend my summers or portion of my summers with my father in New Jersey. And those had typically been over the years weeks where each of my siblings individually would spend time with my father. We wouldn't do it. So collectively, we're all three of us there. Uh, but this particular summer, um, we, we, we were all there together and we were there for a number of weeks. It's usually two weeks at a time. We were there for six weeks. And when we came home, that was when we had the conversation. And I lived in the Detroit Metro area. And when my mother told us about the fact that she had liver cancer, and then it was considered terminal, and that they had told her that she had six months to live, it was in my memory, not shocking, but just what, like a surprise, like in a way I don't understand. And so I looked to my older sister, Cathy for what her response was. And my younger brother was, was, was very young at this time. And so processing that for him, wasn't the same, um, as my sister and I, who are 11 and 13 or so around that time.

And we had to figure it out for ourselves in a way my sister had been the rock frankly, of our family after my parents divorced, because she was my mom's backup for taking care of my brother and me. That was part of her role and I to this day, I appreciate her for it more than I can say. Um, excuse me for a moment. I've so in that moment, I remember thinking it's not true. That's not going to happen. She's not going to die. And what's interesting was that was a moment where I look back and it wasn't denial. It was resolve. And that was the first thing I learned about myself in that moment in my preteen years, was that I had to resolve and that I felt like I could impact any situation. And perhaps this was naive at the time, right? It's cancer, it's terminal cancer. The medical establishment had spoken, but I didn't believe it. My sister didn't believe it either. And in that moment, the resolve to help my mother get through it was there. What could we do as children? Because we would do it. I would do it.

And as time went on and it was the next days and weeks when people kept trying to, you know, tell us what was going to happen, you know, as children and I still held that resolve, but another emotion popped up and that was guilt. Was this my fault? Was her getting cancer, a result of bad things that I had done. It's a legitimate question at that time. Right. It was a kid. And so I resolved myself to be better, to be a better kid, to be helpful, not talk back, to reduce all of the negative kinds of behaviors that I had now, I've been told I was a good boy. Um, relatively speaking. But you know, at that moment, you always think about the bad things. At least I did. I thought about all the bad things I did all the times I got in trouble throwing rocks at cars, right? Yes. I did that while they were moving and got in trouble for it. You know, I didn't run away from home, but my mom thought I ran away one day because, you know, and, and black kids know this, like, you'd be outside with your friends and your mom's like, Hey, I even need to be able to see you, or you need to check in with me every 30 minutes. Right. And I was gone for four hours. She ain't know where I was. I was out in the woods behind our house. And it wasn't really behind our house was like, kind of a little ways away, but,

And she didn't know where I was. And so, yeah, so she, she took that out on me. Uh, when I finally did come home and, uh, you know, I was, I was with friends or whatever, and that's the kind of thing that I was going to correct. I wasn't going to do those things. I was a little boy. That's what boys do. I made it my, my goal, not to do those things because I thought it might be my fault. That was my guilt. That's what I carried. And I did. I was better. My sister was better too, but she was always good. Anyway, she had her own things and other ways that she lashed out at, you know, the, having to have the responsibility that she carried even before then, but then certainly after.

And so that moment was defining, was defining for me to this day, I carry guilt and I have resolve all stemmed back from them. So you might also ask, well, what would have happened? And for those of you who know me, you know what happened, but for those of you who are new, uh, to treat us right, or, uh, have not been introduced to care three through our story, six months past. And when my mom went to the doctors to check on the tumor at that time, they couldn't find it. They could not find the tumor that was supposed to kill her at the six month mark.

And that is a story in itself because when you think about the moment that my mother was told that she had terminal liver cancer, what had to happen in that moment for her, I can only give you my first person account, but what had to happen for her to get from that point to six months later, and the tumor be undetectable. Now I can tell you from my side and what in subsequent conversations with my mother did happen. We saw her change everything. She changed what she ate. She changed what she did every day, how she approached life. She took on meditation and visualization techniques to an extreme. She had a wheat, grass juice are in the house. I'll never forget it had wheat grass juice or in the house and was drinking that nasty wheat, grass juice multiple times a day. She had alternative therapies cause there was no chemo for her. They couldn't do it.

That was part of the contribution of the thought that she only had six months. The other thing she did though, was every single health event that she had. She documented it. Any symptom, any vital that she had checked, what she was eating, what she was drinking. She quit smoking. She exercise more. She changed everything. Six months later, no detectable tumor. She had resolve. And I got that from my mother, her moment. She decided what she was going to do, unbeknownst to us as children in her moment, she decided that cancer was not going to win.

That she would change her life. She was 41 years old. I'm older than that. Now she changed her life and she lived. And that behavior change that documentation of everything that happened. This was in the eighties, there was no electronic medical record. There were no smartphones. There was still rotary phones, all wired. Did everything on paper. You know, you've seen those three ring binders that, that people carry around when they're capturing all of their health information. She, yeah, she was doing that. Then it worked because she was sharing that information with all of her doctors. Cause there was more than one in that moment, she made a decision, changed her life. And at the same time changed the life of her children and those around her and all the people with whom she interacted for the rest of her life. And she lived 27 more years, 27 more years. These moments can define us and what we do from these moments, how we feel in that moment. And then right beyond teaches us about ourselves, taught me, taught my sister, taught my brother. As he grew up. My mom had health challenges throughout all of these times had multiple forms of cancer later on in her life, breast cancer, twice lung cancer, twice, but ultimately she didn't pass from a cancer. Remember the cancer would not win

It. Didn't.

She developed heart failure later in life. And that's what it was an incident related to that that actually led to her passing. But she made a decision in that moment that changed her life. That changed all of our lives

Right

Now. She may have already known that she had that resolved before that moment. I don't know. We didn't have that conversation prior to her passing, but I know what she did. And I know what I've learned about myself in that moment is that I had that same resolve. What do you have? What have those moments taught you about yourself? Because if you're listening to the treat us right podcast, you are in one of these situations, whether you've been in it for years or you're in it as of yesterday, think about those moments, internalize them and understand you'll respond. Because from this day forward, you can impact so many people, including yourself, your loved ones, those who are caring for those who they know because of what defines you in that moment. How do you respond in that moment? What feelings do you have in that moment? Because those are the ones that are probably most defining of who you are for me, guilt and resolve, just being transparent, clear, and authentic.

It's these moments that have led me to do the things that I've done to build the companies that I've built to help the people that I've helped to use technology, to do what my mom was doing on paper through care three it's what care three is. It's a digital binder. Oh, it's a place where you can put all of your health information, all of your documents, everything in one place and capture all of those health experiences that you're having over time, document them and then share them with all of the different doctors and nurses and care team members who will help you. That's what my mom did. And it's that learning that's led to this company and we've already helped thousands of people.

So in those moments, I was going back to that because my entrepreneurship in digital health came from that moment. It came from the resolve and it came from the guilt from making mistakes and doing the things that I felt like even as a child led to some of those negative situations, my mom getting cancer, but it's also what led me and has led me to the success and the definition of success that I personally follow, which is not just being financially free or having monetary access. It's helping people in situations when they don't know what to do next, when they need a path, when they need a roadmap, when they need a guide, the companies that I've built have done that. And carefree does that too. You're literally setting up a timeline for all of the health experiences that somebody has. And it doesn't matter what diagnosis they have. It doesn't matter what experiences they have. We can handle it and we can share it. Why I do what I do, because I want to help you in your time of need for yourself, for your family, for both. So you can have an easier time than we did, but you can also express yourself from that defining moment through the use of technology. On that note, we're going to take a quick break, get a word from our sponsor. Okay.

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Speaker: David S. Williams III

That's care three. That's why. And it all stemmed back from that moment. It was my mother telling us that she had six months to live because of terminal liver cancer.

What's your moment.

And where has it taken you? The last thing I wanted to discuss in the podcast, or actually share with you is that I actually wrote a spoken word piece about this entire experience. And I'm going to share that with you here. It's called Squarin’ My Roots.

Squarin’ My Roots

The whole summer in Jersey. I didn't know what it meant. I love daddy and all, but I was straight up against spend in birthday. Number 11 in Trenton. No doubt. I deserved an explanation. What this trip was about. No choice packing my bags, reasons unclear, kissed mommy's cheek and tasted salt in her. Tears spoke to moms three times in six weeks. I don't know about you, but I took that to mean something's wrong. Unprepared for the site that I'd see. And the terror inside of me, all I saw when I walked in the door were bones in her arms, her hair on the floor. The shade of death in her eyes brought her tears to my eyes. All I wanted to know was why the answer was cancer. Robin, her force, of course, I thought the fault was mine. And in time I could correct my mistakes and make mommy all fine, but I needed a sign in a hurry because with her tumor, no surgery, no chemo, either because the doctors deceived her.

But mom's a believer. See mom, wasn't risking no treatments to continue the sickness. She could handle her business, this terrible path of internal destruction that multiplication of cells with no function had caused to reduce her life to six months. I wanted her to think of herself for once. Life was worth living, not leaving her kids. No matter all the bad things that I did. Mother, father, sister, and brother ripped apart, but sharing blood with each other square in my roots, keep it true. Family's number one, priority. Number one and two didn't know what to do. So confused about to lose the only one who could tell me what to do. Why did God curse? Our fam mom said God had a plan, but I couldn't see, but I wanted moms to see me grow from boy to a man. So following freedom, my knees, I raised my eyes to the sky, pledged myself to keep in mommy alive. She can't, I'm going to be good and behave. Be brave. Be her slave to ensure she endures the birthdays and snow days and job raises elation so she can vacation. But on occasion, never retire on an Island. Keep her smiling death-defying cause the rebirth can't win God. It's a sin to take a mom from her kid.

Save her. You saved me. Share my life from my youth. I understand squaring my roots. Then God called to me be patient and calm. Your mother will sing many songs. See many birthdays become strong and fine because now is not her time. I assume she'd live forever, but just like never, you should never say forever. I was afraid for our tribe because I'd be alone without mom's vibe. But then I watched her survive. Revive, resurrect. I don't care what it was. Just pick. Which word is correct. Six weeks, six months, six years had all passed and mommy's soul and life continue to last. We kept the faith in the savior to save her so life she could save her. God, thanks for the favor. I owe you. One Mother, father, sister, and brother, our family survived, sharing blood with each other square in my roots. Keep it true. Family's number one, priority. Number one. And to save her, you saved me, shared my life from my youth. I understand square in my roots.

Thank you. And that does it for us. For this episode of the treatise ride podcast, to learn more about care three in our services, please visit us at [inaudible] dot co slash families. We're offering a 50% discount on our annual subscription and we'd love to help you help those you love and you're

Take care. See you next time.