You Have Cancer - What Do I Do to Win the Battle?

When Ray Hartjen was diagnosed with multiple myeloma - cancer, it was the first thing he thought about when he woke up, and pretty much the last thing he thought about before he nodded off to sleep. It occupied his thoughts most of the day.

“I’ve got cancer!”

After his diagnosis in 2019, Ray became a cancer fighter every day of the week that ends in a 'y'. Along with the soundtrack of life continuously playing in his head, Ray also performs and records with his two-piece acoustic band, the Chronic Padres.

To snap out of the trauma, he asked himself what type of role model he wanted to be for his family, friends, and community. What would be his legacy?

Ray Hartjen is a writer and musician whose professional career has spanned parts of five decades. Ray has pivoted on many occasions, from investment banking to pharmaceuticals, from consumer electronics to software. One constant throughout his career path has been storytelling with topics as far-ranging as sports to business.

Me, Myself & My Multiple Myeloma is a cancer-patient memoir written by Ray Hartjen, a multiple myeloma patient diagnosed in March 2019.

In this intimate and inspiring account, Ray reflects on every step of his relentless battle with cancer, from working toward a final diagnosis, through an initial induction treatment and an autologous stem cell transplant, and on to maintenance and continuing active treatment. Through it all, Ray shares personal insights into his fight, tending to his systemic physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Fighting cancer or any serious health issue, particularly a chronic condition, can be a daunting quest. Me, Myself & My Multiple Myeloma shows the importance of being mission-forward. Mission, of course, is unique to each individual and based on values, roles, and the accountabilities associated with each that matter most.

Written for cancer patients, their caregivers, and their friends and family, Me, Myself & My Multiple Myeloma is a personal story of proactive accountability, stubborn perseverance, evolving perceptions, growing maturity, and, ultimately, hope

                      CLICK HERE TO BUY RAY'S BOOK

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Every Day Holds a Gift—Find it, Embrace it, and Let it Inspire Your Purpose

On August 26, 2020,  Christopher Cochran’s son, Christian, received a terminal diagnosis, and on September 1, 2021, he died. 

Christopher's interview will touch your heart but more importantly will motivate you to see life from a different perspective - full of hope - no matter what you may be going through.

At the core of who Christopher is are the roles of a father, husband, and a friend. These purposes have profoundly shaped his journey and are the heart of his book, "What's GOOD about TODAY?"  This deeply personal work is inspired by his son Christian, who courageously battled terminal cancer. His extraordinary perspective on life is exemplified by this daily question. 

Christian teaches us to embrace each day with positivity and his legacy of hope and resilience is a precious gift he committed to sharing with the world.

Do life's challenges weigh you down?

Are your days filled with a sense of emptiness and a tendency to focus on the negative?

Have overthinking, anxiety, or anger consumed your mind and heart?

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Envision a future where you lead with positivity and feel uplifted and inspired each day. How

might life look different if you could easily answer the question: "What's good about today?"

Christopher Cochran is an experienced business professional who has helped many

companies grow and improve. His years of experience with sales and marketing motivate people to realize their full potential. 

However, even more illuminating than anything in the corporate sphere are the lessons his amazing son, Christian, taught him about embracing joy and living each day to the fullest.

In his brief, but notably well-lived 23 years of life, Christian's uplifting spirit, powerful words, and brilliant example not only is inspiring but will draw a map to lead you down the path to a purpose-driven life.

This story shares the journey and challenges this family faced and the valuable lessons they learned to help show you how to find the good within each day.

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How Can Cancer Have Humorous Moments?

During Ann Bancroft's first cancer treatment, which consisted of two surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation, she reached the point of being too weak to lift a light wastebasket or to walk further than a few yards. She was bald, her skin looked gray, smelled like chemicals and her mouth tasted like metal. It felt as if her life was draining away, and she could not imagine a time when she’d look and feel healthy again.

Ann Bancroft is a 71-year-old, two-time breast cancer survivor with a degree in journalism. Her debut novel, Almost Family, was recently published. Ann began writing fiction after a career in journalism and communications. Cancer prompted her to retire from a demanding full-time job to become a writer. 

Ann has been a volunteer mentor to dozens of cancer patients. Many will relate to her story, and everyone will be encouraged. She shares how a second cancer diagnosis, thirteen years later, did not bring the fear that dominated her life the first time. 

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Liz Millanova has stage four cancer, a grown daughter who doesn’t speak to her, 

and obsessive memories of a relationship that tore apart her marriage. She thinks

of herself as someone who’d rather die than sit through a support group, 

but now that she is going to die, she figures she might as well give it 

a go.

Mercy’s Thriving Survivors is a hospital-sponsored group held in a presumably 

less depressing location: Nordstrom’s employee training lounge. There, Liz hits 

it off with two other patients, and the three unlikely friends decide to ditch the 

group and meet on their own. 

They call themselves the Oakland Mets, and their goal is to enjoy life while 

they can. 

Together, Dave, a gay Vietnam vet, and Rhonda, a devout, nice woman who’s hiding

a family secret and finds peace in a gospel choir, and snarky Liz plans outings to 

hear jazz, enjoy nature, and tour Alcatraz. In the odd intimacy they form, 

Liz learns to open up and get close, acknowledge and let go of the dysfunction

in her marriage, and repair her relationship with her daughter. 

They joined forces to have an enjoyable  time—but what they wound up doing is helping 

one another come to grips with terminal cancer and resolve the unfinished 

business in their lives.

 

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Decide That You Want To Be More Than What You Are Now and Watch What Happens!

David Richman was overweight, a smoker, married to an abusive alcoholic, and stressed out unbelievably. At his lowest point, he heard the words from a friend that he needed to hear. These words allowed him to start a journey of discovery, transformation, and self-belief.

Today he helps empower people to start hard conversations around the emotional aspects of trauma, and to help them transform into their best selves.

David is an author, public speaker, and endurance athlete whose mission is to form more meaningful human connections through storytelling. 

By the time he was in his late thirties, David was a sedentary, overweight smoker who was stuck in an abusive and unhealthy marriage. It was clear that if he was going to enjoy any kind of life satisfaction, he had to stop focusing on what others wanted out of him, and zero in on what he wanted for himself.

He began to set measurable, attainable, and meaningful goals—to become healthy, to raise his young twins in a safe home environment, to become a top performer at work, and to seek out his own physical, mental, and emotional limits.

Through lessons learned in business, sports, and life, David introduces the concept of “winning in the middle of the pack” and discusses how we all can get more out of ourselves than we ever imagined.

His most recent adventure was a 5,000-mile solo bike ride across the country in which he visited most of the participants for his upcoming book chronicling fifteen remarkable and unique emotional journeys of people with cancer.

David is a businessman, corporate and motivational speaker, personal consultant,
and author of CYCLE OF LIVES and WINNING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACK.

Amazon bestseller in "Brain Cancer" 

Have you ever been forced to consider the fact of your mortality? If confronted with cancer, how would you feel? What would you say to the people you love? What would they say to you? No two people have the same answers to these questions, a lesson I learned well during a solo six-week, 5,000-mile cross-country bike ride I called Cycle of Lives. 

The trip started as a fundraiser in honor of my sister, June, who died of brain cancer. But long before I even set out on my endurance ride from LA to Florida to NY, I exhaustively interviewed fifteen people across the country whose lives had also been irrevocably changed by cancer - either as patients, survivors, loved ones, or caregivers. 

Hearing their moving stories, which were influenced by many different forms of past and present trauma, transformed my cycling odyssey into a journey of emotional self-discovery as I relived the chaos and emotional upheaval of cancer through them: from the man who found true love after losing his soulmate to cancer, to the elite athlete who had to reckon with his all-star body finally letting him down, to the medical oncologist who cares as much about her patients as she cares for them. 

Whether you or someone you care about is going through cancer or some other major trauma, I hope this thought-provoking collection of astonishing stories can help you, too.

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How to Respond to a Cancer Diagnosis of your Child and Survive

How does any parent cope when the doctors tell you that your daughter has an eight percent chance of surviving more than five years?

HOPE is a Way to Escape Your Fear

Michael Schnabel heard that devastating news that left him weak and defenseless – until he formed a support group to move forward to save her life.

In each person's life, some events forever change their course. Twenty-seven-year-old Stephanie experienced two of these events in fourteen days; the birth of her only child and the discovery that she only had an eight percent chance of living.

She is haunted by the thought that this baby will only know her through pictures and she makes that mental image her motivation to survive.

Michael Schnabel is the author of Daddy’s Girl: A Father, His Daughter, and the Deadly Battle She Won. Michael is a graduate of Northern State University who developed his passion for writing and storytelling during his thirty-year career at Bristol-Meyers Squibb. 

Michael chronicles the powerful story of his daughter's fight to survive her cancer diagnosis to live life with her newborn son and the author's grandson. She became a warrior and provided hope for others. 

Listen to this fantastic story of one family facing the most daunting circumstances and how three generations of a family respond to the crisis. This story illuminates a range of emotions and delivers them with humor, love -- and some miracles!

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For only 99 cents pick up your survival guide for anyone struggling through a crisis with a family member 

eBook Survival Guide 

How does a young mother overcome an eight percent chance of living to raise her newborn son? She becomes a warrior and provides hope for others. Daddy's Girl is the story of a father, his daughter, and the deadly battle she won.

In each person's life, some events forever change their course. Twenty-seven-year-old Stephanie experienced two of these events in fourteen days; the birth of her only child and the discovery that she has an eight percent chance of living. She is haunted by the thought that this baby will only know her through pictures until she makes that thought her motivation to survive.

This is a story of one family facing the most daunting of circumstances, at once celebration and devastation. Michael Schnabel, Stephanie's father tells the story of survival and how three generations of a family respond to crisis. Stephanie's courage is fueled by her son's deep brown eyes and unconditional love. Her faith comes from the belief that something greater than us provides what we need - when we need it. Daddy's Girl illuminates a range of emotions and delivers them with humor, love--and some miracles.

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How Do You Move Past the Pain of Life's Curve Balls?

​When your life is thrown a curve ball and you lose your husband at 47 years old -- what then? What about your future? How do you cope?

Kim met tall, dark, and handsome Steve Sorrelle who proposed ten days later.  It was a love story written in the heavens. They raised five children -- life was good. 

Kim Sorrelle began journaling after a breast cancer diagnosis in 2009. Four months later, her husband Steve was told he had pancreatic cancer. Six weeks later, Kim held him as he took his last breath.

Kim is a writer, speaker, entrepreneur, director of a humanitarian organization, activist, mother, grandmother, lover of all people, and.....black licorice.

Kim's story will make you laugh....and cry. She is a master at sharing life's tragedies mixed with laughter. 

Kim's entrepreneurial journey included commercial real estate, a golf course, catering, a grocery store, and more. Besides building businesses into multi-million-dollar companies, Kim is proud to have weathered the pandemic storm in the food industry, keeping staff employed, and seeing the company's sales grow beyond pre-pandemic numbers. 

Kim is the director of Rays of Hope International, a partnering organization that works with people in their country who have a passion, a vision, and a mission to help people through business plans, fundraising, sustainability, planning, supplies, and building. Working in countries like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Burkina Faso, Rays of Hope has enjoyed relationships with hundreds of organizations that are working to help the underserved and vulnerable population. 

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"Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs"

There are so many things that we do not have control over, things that we would not ever choose: cancer, losing a spouse, tragic accidents. But we can choose how we will handle these things. Joy is a choice that anyone can make but not everyone knows how. Facing cancer, becoming a widow, and losing the future, as the author saw it, made her recognize that she had to choose a way to deal with the present.

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Engage with a love that transcends social experiments and leads to a radically transformed life

"Love is patient, love is kind, love is . . ." The words are so familiar they almost lack meaning, a Christianese version of "live, laugh, love." Even non-Christians are familiar with the Love chapter of 1 Corinthians, read at weddings, painted on decorative signs, and preached regularly from the pulpit. But what happens when these verses are taken seriously? What would it take for someone to live out the Love chapter as literally as possible?

That was the question Kim Sorrelle set out to answer during her yearlong experiment. Using 1 Corinthians 13 as a road map, she focused on one phrase at a time, seeking to understand its true meaning and how it could motivate every daily action. She also looked at the ones we do not think too deeply about: love does not boast, does not dishonor others, doesn't keep a record of wrongs, and more.

In her attempts to live the Love chapter to the letter, Kim journeyed all the way to Haiti, where she met people who both tested and displayed love to its limits. From irritating employees to sexist short-term missionaries to curse-wielding women to the profoundly kind nuns, her encounters are filled with rueful self-reflection and comical commentary, as well as a new understanding of the nuances and power of true love in action.

Kim's transformation into someone who truly loves like Jesus will challenge readers to think more deeply about how they can manifest love in their own lives and will reveal the power of Christlike devotion that is unwearied and humble, contented and forgiving. Her exploration is an incredible encounter with the filling, strengthening love of God -- a love that truly never fails.

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Negative Emotions Help to Drive Cancer and Positive Emotions Promote Healing

Ginny Brant’s cancer diagnosis sent her on a quest to discover what caused a health nut to contract a deadly and aggressive form of breast cancer. What she found may surprise and inspire you.

Ginny Dent Brant is a speaker and writer who grew up in the halls of power of Washington D.C. She has served as a counselor, educator, wellness advocate, and adjunct professor. 

She served as a trustee of the Baptist International Mission Board for eight years, and she and her husband participated in mission work in Yemen, Gaza, the Czech Republic, Russia, China, and Romania.

In her interview, Ginny shares her cancer story and what you can do to prevent it and also how to heal after a diagnosis

Brant’s award-winning book, “Finding True Freedom: From the White House to the World,” was endorsed by the late Chuck Colson.

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Whether you’re determined to prevent this deadly disease, survive it, or prevent its recurrence, this book pulls back the curtain on cancer and answers the question “What can I do to help my doctor beat this disease?” She challenges you to change what your doctor has no control over—your lifestyle and health habits. 

Brant connects the dots between nutrition, lifestyle, integrative and conventional medicine, and biblical wisdom to reveal how your body was created with self-healing mechanisms that work optimally when you do your part.

By implementing a few lifestyle changes, you can begin building your immune system while lowering your toxic load.  Learn how to unleash your own God-given healing.

Click here for her cancer prevention blog

Endorsements

“Ginny reveals the true nature and importance of the interaction between the spiritual, psychological, and material aspects of dealing with a health crisis. I highly recommend

her book - Dr. Wallace Henley, author and Senior Associate Pastor, Second Baptist Church, Houston, TX “I was blessed to be part of Ginny’s care team. I affectionately referred to her as my Rock Star Patient because Ginny educated and empowered herself. The pearls in this book could benefit others greatly in their search for healing and vitality.” — Dr. Kenna Brooke, ND, founder of SoulSage.com "In 2010, my oncologist at MD Anderson and these eight steps turned around my stage 4 diagnosis. My oncologist believed my lifestyle changes complemented her efforts. This book

has inspired me to fine-tune my habits so I can make it another ten years and beyond with 'No Evidence of Disease'!" —Anne Buck, Stage 4 aggressive breast cancer survivor “Ginny helped lift my haze of confusion. With a biblical, integrative approach and well-documented research, her book provides a solid game plan for battling cancer and preventing recurrence.” — Jann Barclift, Cancer survivor

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How to Survive the Loss of a Child to Cancer or a Tragic Accident

Shelley Buck was born into a creative family in the Midwest and moved to California after college to follow her dream of working for Disney. It was there she met and fell in love with her husband, Chris, who worked in animation and would one day direct the Oscar-winning movie, FROZEN. After they married and had their first child, Ryder, she stayed home to be a full-time mom to him and the two brothers who followed.

When her 23-year-old son, Ryder was diagnosed with cancer her journey went to unimaginable places.

Rock musician and songwriter Ryder Buck was 23 years old, with an unstoppable

dream to life people up through his music. But a life-threatening cancer diagnosis 

showed that life had other plans. While th disease should have beaten him,

Ryder rose above it all to live from a place of passion and purpose.

THEN....fate stepped in.

Though it wasn't cancer that took Ryder, it was the experience that helped him

grow into the shining light he became. His story of love, hope, and truth will 

show you that there is no hardship big enough to keep you from putting your

special touch on the world...if you simply leave your light on!

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Leave Your Light On is the first song Ryder wrote, which became his mantra in life.

In this uplifting and powerful memoir, you meet and fall in love with Ryder - an unforgettable character who lived life by his highest ideals and accepted his most human flaws with a sense of humor. You get an inside view of a tight-knit family whose relationships were tested by this unrelenting disease. And you walk away with the desire to do whatever it takes to shine your own light, no matter what life or death throws your way. 

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Winners Think About What They Want to Happen

Terry Tucker is an author, a motivational speaker, and an encourager. His blog, Motivational Check, gives daily posts of inspiration. Especially at a time we need it the most.

Terry is a perfect example of someone who will meet a challenge head-on and maintain a positive and inspiring attitude.  In his words:

"Suffering can be one of life's greatest teachers."

Can You Overcome the Fear of Death?

Louise Evans beat cancer but she also overcame her fear of death. Louise is a Registered Clinical Counselor and author of The Cancer Conundrum.

Life takes many twists and turns which can be a veritable roller coaster. When we are able to survive, the highs that follow can be greater than our lowest lows.

Our mindset is crucial to the healing process. As difficult as it can be, we need to find positivity in the direst situation.

In Louise's interview, she takes you through the process of overcoming the negativity that often surrounds desperate circumstances and realizing the UPSIDE of cancer: