“Healed on the Inside” is here!
After a year-and-a-half of literal blood, sweat, and tears, Healed on the Inside is live on Amazon.com! You can go ahead and order it here. The hardcover and paperback versions became available this afternoon, and I’m already getting messages from people who have ordered the book. One of the coolest notes came from a fellow cancer fighter who said the text on the back cover made her cry because she could relate. I think many people — and not just those battling cancer — will relate to and take encouragement from this book.
You know how when a friend or family member is going through something really tough and you wish there were something beyond listening to them you could do? Well, giving people a copy of this book can be that something.
My story shows that God has always got us and that things will be OK, even if they’re not OK. Healed on the Inside will encourage people to live while they’re alive and to find joy each day, even on the hard days.
So, I hope you’ll grab a copy of Healed on the Inside for yourself (we can all use encouragement, right?) and maybe for someone else, too.
I should also have personalized copies for sale on my website by the end of this weekend. That way, if you want a personalized book, you won’t have to mail me a copy. You can purchase it at www.JeffFoleyBooks.com, and I will ship it directly to you.
Now, I’d like to share the introduction and first chapter of Healed on the Inside:
Introduction
Thank you, cancer. Thank you for everything.
Those words are sometimes on the tip of my tongue. I haven’t quite been able to speak them out loud, but I’ve thought them.
Let’s get something straight: Cancer destroys lives. It ruins bodies and decimates families.
Cancer has certainly wreaked havoc on me. I’ve been cut open and had pieces of flesh removed multiple times. Injected medicines — meant to heal me — have made me so sick that I’ve ended up at the hospital with doctors trying to determine if I’ve had a stroke. I’ve had tests to assess if I will live or die. I’ve had to look at my wife and kids and wonder how much time I have left with them.
Still, there’s been a silver lining. It’s not truly a “thank you, cancer,” but I have found things to appreciate.
God is good — no, great — even when life is hard. Even in the darkest times, you can find joy.
As long as you’re not dead, you can live.
Friday, December 23, 2022: "This is Cancer?"
Looking back, I should have been sitting down. That’s how hard the news hit me.
“It’s nodular melanoma,” Dr. W said. “It’s 2.2 millimeters deep, so I’m sending you to Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. We need to ensure that it hasn’t spread to your lymph nodes or organs.”
“Oh, wow!” I said.
I’d had a bothersome mole on my back checked out by a dermatologist two weeks earlier. Dr. W biopsied it and said he’d let me know if we needed to do anything. As someone who’d had precancerous moles removed as a kid, being told I now had melanoma was the worst thing I had envisioned happening. I didn’t think a mole would require visiting a dedicated cancer center.
The mole had been itching, and it bled when I scratched my back against a wall. I figured that wasn’t a good sign, so I made an appointment to get checked out. My wife, Jeanette, whom I often call Jay, had noticed how it looked (dark and risen above the skin’s surface) several months earlier. But we were transitioning from New York to Florida and didn’t have Florida health insurance. So I waited until I was finally working in Florida, as a Public and Media Relations Officer for a government agency, to make a doctor’s appointment.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” Dr. W said. “What questions do you have? Take your time.”
“Um,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “So this is cancer?”
“It is.”
“Does it kill people?”
“It does … but we’re going to do our best to get you through this.”
It was about 1 p.m. on a Friday. I was standing outside my office on the sidewalk, holding my cell phone up to my ear. I had walked outside when I realized it was the dermatologist calling.
Two days before Christmas. Two days! That’s when the news that I had cancer came to me. Even worse, Jeanette and my daughter Jaylynn (often called JJ) had left by plane that morning for two weeks in New York. They were going to spend time with our two teens, Darien and Baileigh. They had opted to stay in New York when we moved to Florida.
I had just found out I had cancer, and I was going to be at home without my family. My brother Andy lives with us, but it’s not the same as having my wife and kid with me.
I hung up with Dr. W and walked to my car. As soon as I sat down and closed the door, I Facetimed Jeanette. She had landed in New York about an hour earlier. I could picture her smiling and thinking, “Really, he’s already calling me?”
“Hey, hon,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Jay?” I said, fear hitting me full force. I started to cry. I saw the anxiety on her face. “I just got a call from the dermatologist. I have to go to Moffitt in Tampa. I have nodular melanoma. Cancer. It kills people.”
“What? I’m coming home today!”
Of course, I wanted my wife and four-year-old to come home. How could I be without them for two weeks? How could I face this without them? But another part of me knew what would happen. Jay and I would hug and cry for a half-hour. Then we’d say, “OK, we have to live for today. We can’t live in fear. We don’t even really know anything yet.” And I also knew I would drive Jay crazy because I’d have a tough time putting cancer out of my mind.
“No,” I said, still sobbing. “Stay and see the kids. There’s no need to rush home. There’s nothing you can do here that you can’t do from there.”
I sat in the car for a few minutes after we hung up. Then I made the mistake of getting on the Internet and reading about nodular melanoma. Seeing survival rate statistics was not helpful. I made a mental note to avoid online cancer research if I could help it. I knew it wouldn’t do anything but scare me.
Back in the office, I sat at my boss’s desk and shed a few tears as I shared what was happening. I was scared of the cancer diagnosis but feared losing my job too. I hadn’t even been there three months yet. I figured this would be a massive inconvenience for my employer.
“Whatever you need,” said the director of my division. “We are here for you and will help you however we can.”
“We’ve been through cancer with an employee before,” said my direct boss. “When we hired him, we knew he’d had cancer in the past, and it came back while he was working here. But we were here for him, just like we will be for you. We are a family here.”
Those words were powerful to hear. I had one less thing to worry about.
That night at home, somehow, I did not cry. I took a Xanax to quiet my mind and sleep, and I wrote something quickly, printed it, and put it on my refrigerator. It read:
I am not going anywhere.
I have too much love around me.
My family needs me.
And I need them.
So I will find joy in each day.
And I will fight if I need to.
But I am not going anywhere.
I read those words out loud several times and kissed a picture of JJ (on the fridge) each time. The Xanax kicked in, and I slept.
