Introduction

Nick: First and foremost, I want to thank you guys because I wouldn’t be here today. You have supported me through so much.

I feel like because of the way that you raised me, the experiences, the patience, the forgiveness, all of those things [have] helped mold me into who I am today so I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being open to doing this because this is not something that we do typically as a family so it’s pulling us all out of our comfort zone.

Ultimately, it’s not about us. It’s about creating awareness and showing other people of color and just other people in general what this can look like and how important it is to have positive role models in your life. I don’t take that for granted so I just wanted to say thank you for that.

What motivated you to prioritize your health?

Nick: What drove you to prioritize your health all of those years, [going] to the doctor and [getting] prostate exams in the middle of the workday?

Harry: That’s how I was raised. My parents didn’t have a lot of money so we used to go to the children’s hospital [in] my early years.

I was raised to go to the doctor and get a physical. Then being in the fire department, you always had to be physically sound.

When I went to Great America, [the] first thing they said was, “Hospitalization. We can get you.” I said, “Well, I got this.” And they said, “No, we’re going to give you ours as well.”

It’s been easy for me because I’ve always worked and always had insurance. Going to the doctor was an inconvenience, but it wasn’t costly and it was for my own benefit. And that’s why we raised you that way.

Just go to the doctor [and] get it checked out. [If] you start coughing, we’ll give you a little cough medicine. If that didn’t work, we’re going to the doctor.

It’s important that everybody gets a checkup. Don’t be afraid of the prognosis. Be afraid of not knowing and not doing anything about it. Medicine in today’s world can do a lot of things.

Dealing with “scanxiety”

Nick: One of the things that cancer survivors often continue to combat is test anxiety or scan anxiety.

Nick: You got to go quarterly and for some people, that’s a lot. It has them relive all of these things that were pretty traumatic.

I have developed different things in my own routine to handle that. Do you ever have any scan or test anxiety? Do you ever worry?

Harry: No, no. They say you need to come [to] get checked, I go get checked. That’s all I can do.

I’m not a doctor. I don’t know medicine so I can’t judge. If he says I need to be checked, I do it. It’s that simple.

[For] a lot of people, it’s denial. They don’t want to be sick so they try to deny it, put it off, or push it back. I’m not that guy.

I don’t go to [the] doctor every time I get a cough or a sneeze, but I do get regular checkups. If they find something, we do what we can about it.

Nick: This is what I do as well in between appointments and before I go in. We talk about managing our expectations, objective thinking, neutral thinking, [and] just telling yourself the facts.

The facts are I feel good. I have everything I need to win the day. I’m loved, I’m provided for, I’m safe, and, right now, to my knowledge, I don’t have cancer. No one’s told me that so I’m going to move and operate as if I don’t have cancer. If that comes up again, then we’ll deal with it when that happens.

Nick: That’s great. I love that because that is the same thing that you taught me about advocating for myself as well. If you don’t feel comfortable with a certain doctor or you don’t like the way the visit went, that doesn’t mean that you have to stay with that doctor.

[It’s] the same thing with therapists. Just because I didn’t have the best experience with this therapist in this city [at] this time on this date doesn’t mean all therapists are bad. It doesn’t mean all therapists don’t get me. It doesn’t mean that therapy doesn’t work.

It just means that I need to continue to advocate for myself and continue to look. Then when you do find somebody, you stick with them because then you develop that rapport, that trust.

That was a learning experience in itself. Having the procedures done [at the Mayo Clinic], the full body plasma transfusion, another bone marrow biopsy, and then them sitting us down like, “Hey, we’re going to do surgery on your heart,” and then talking to us about the statistics and risks and having to sign papers.

Nobody had given me anything to make me believe that they were going to be able to cure me or help me figure this out. I remember almost bargaining with God and just like, “If you get me out of this, if I can at least make it through this heart surgery, I will change how I’m living. I will try to get better.”

I was fatigued. I was drained. I didn’t have the mental capacity. I didn’t have the physical energy to be able to ask good questions. I didn’t even know what to ask. I didn’t know what this looked like, what you’re supposed to do, or how you’re supposed to go about this.

You don’t get a handbook that says, “Here’s how you should go about this. These are the question you should ask,” so having someone like you who is anal about that kind of stuff was a game changer. I’m sitting there, embarrassed, I’m like, “Ask one more question, please. Can we just go?” But that is what you do need. [Having] you doing that is huge.

Gail: They treated you with chemo.

Nick: But I wasn’t a cancer patient, so I didn’t fit into a support group. I had you guys, but I didn’t have the resources of being in a cancer support group, even though I was being treated and talked to as a cancer patient, and being told I had lymphoma, which was difficult.

Then now [I] have a type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that only represents up to 2% of non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas. I’ve been [an] interesting case before. I’m already a case study at the Mayo Clinic. I already understood that I was like hitting the lottery. Now I happen to be his only patient that had the IgG4 mutate into a full-blown lymphoma, also [a] rare type of lymphoma.

But I trusted him and I trusted Dr. Islas. Even though I got the understanding of stage 3-4, I never thought was going to die. I knew because I had done so much work investing in myself: getting sober, going to therapy, and working on myself emotionally, mentally, spiritually, [and] physically. It was almost like I personally believe my higher power got me ready to go to war to be able to face this.

They coded it as an injection because that’s the standard of care that most people were getting. I was only approved to get it intravenously so when they billed me for an injection, which was not what I received, I got stuck with a $20,000 bill. The insurance people are like, “Well, you got to pay this,” and I’m like, “I’m not paying this.”

I had done that for years before because it had happened multiple times. At that point, in the middle of COVID and all, I was being naive, too. I’m like, “I’m good. I don’t want to deal with this.” But once again, my doctor stayed [with] me.

That is why I have been able to accomplish what I’ve been able to accomplish. That’s why I’m where I am today. I know that you guys are definitely proud.

I hope that you guys are here and I hope I’m here long enough to continue to see the fruits of your labor and all of the stuff that you have continued to just invest in me and see other people benefit. It’s extremely profound when you think about it. I’m just extremely grateful for it.

Harry: You’re a good man. I love you. You really are. I’m very proud. You’ve been through a lot and you kept your head up. Never heard you complain. I’m thrilled to be sitting here with you today. I don’t want to get emotional so I’m going to stop.

Gail: We love you and [are] very proud of you. We just want to see Mundy Mindset continue on with the next generation.

Nick: We got three great ambassadors in the making.