It was Easter morning, 2023. Sitting around a table eating brunch with my wife and her family, which of course is now my family as well. My sister-in-law Holly looked at me and in a soft voice said, “it’s really good to have you back, Alex.”
I had been out of the hospital for over three months so her statement seemed misplaced. I asked her to elaborate.
“We didn’t know if we would ever see this version of you again.” That simple statement has been tattooed on my brain ever since. This version. Fun. Silly. Energetic. Illuminated.
When I look back at the last 12 months, almost every day should be forgotten. In my mind, I have skipped directly from 36 to 38. You could call it a series of unfortunate events but that doesn’t do it justice. That’s like referring to the Oklahoma City Bombing as a bad day at work at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
Since the moment I turned 37, my life had flip-flopped. The cancer was already inside of me yet we didn’t know exactly what type. All we knew is that it was CANCER. Four months ago, Lauren and I had gotten married on a picturesque beach in Punta Mita, Mexico. We had been together in some form or another for 18 years by then. When we finally made our love official, boom! C-word. For someone who prides themselves on their timing, I rushed the punchline without giving the audience a beat to process the setup.
The next three months were excruciating. Constant visits to specialists. The testing included blood work, MRIs, CAT and PET scans, bone marrow aspirations, etc. Something is seriously wrong and nobody can tell me what. I became lethargic and unmotivated. The unknown is far more scary than reality.
Finally, we had our answer. Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. How loud can a person mentally scream “FUUUCCKKKK?” While it was disheartening, it gave me comfort when the doctors told me they knew how to treat it. My prognosis was good.
I could bore you with more details of chemotherapy but honestly, you can look at previous blogs if you need that story. The onslaught of misery and pain had begun. Everything was going swimmingly, until one day, it wasn’t. Something was horribly wrong with me and I was too confused to realize it. Luckily my wife saw right through my incoherent stare. She took me to the emergency room.
When I entered that hospital on November 17th, completely delirious, I had no idea that I wouldn’t emerge for 33 days. Cancer was still in me. But now I had a much bigger foe: Sepsis. The surgery to install my chemo port in my chest had caused an internal infection. An invisible murderous bacteria that was hellbent on putting me into my forever dirt nap.
Turned on yet? How about a heart vegetation, multiple embolisms, a spleen abscess, and edema. My body swelled up 25 pounds because water wouldn’t drain from my tissues. For the first two weeks, I was bedridden. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even roll myself over.
Doctors told my wife and family to brace themselves for the worst. My body had declared war on itself. I was a civilian, caught in the crossfire. Eventually I was well enough to do physical and occupational therapy. One step at a time. Literally. My therapists treated me with the fragility of a 90-year-old cripple. I was a long way from the slacklining, tennis playing, ambulatory person I had worked so hard to be.
To make matters worse,I had to have my knee operated on because it wasn’t draining properly. Another surgery. Was I worried? I’m in here because of the last one so I wasn’t exactly walking on sunshine at the thought. Fuck, I was barely walking on anything. Four more days while I watched colored liquids drain through a series of tubes sticking out of my leg.
If all of that wasn’t enough, while I was infirmed, my dad died unexpectedly. Not completely, he was 79 so at that age, anything can happen. I could barely mourn the death because I had to primarily focus on my own survival. I still haven’t fully processed the fact that he is gone. He was my biggest fan. He loved hearing stories of my adventures. No one understood better than him how dedicated I am to not only my craft, but having an amazing life. He doesn’t believe in the afterlife and neither do I so I can’t even say he’s in a better place. He’s simply gone.
There’s more tragedy. But some of it is too painful and personal for me to reveal here. In time, I’ll talk about these instances. If all of this isn’t enough already, you have a level of sadism that should be studied.
I’ve thought a lot about this past year. It lasted forever and somehow it felt like seconds. 37 was not the magical year I had envisioned. So many times I thought I had hit bottom only to learn I was still in the shallow seas being dragged toward the Marianas Trench. Hit after hit. I was strapped to a wall being bludgeoned by a never-ending train of trauma. I’m a good person who leads with love. I strive to make others feel good about themselves. What did I do to deserve this?
Nothing. That’s the answer. No one deserves this. Well, maybe Andrew Tate and Donald Trump and…nevermind. I don’t have enough time to keep listing monsters. The point is this: it’s not about what happens to you.
It’s how you react.
Looking back, I am a very proud boy. Dammit. Remember when we could say that and it didn’t mean you were a nazi?
I handled my cancer with courage. I was transparent and allowed others in on the journey. I constantly cracked jokes and turned the darkest moments into hilarious material. Making strangers laugh while I had a noticeable PICC line in my arm was the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced as a comedian. These people paid for babysitters, came to laugh, and now they are staring at someone with cancer. I’m sure many thought, “we should have gone to the movies.”
I did it for myself. I needed to take ownership of the situation. I have been told many times that my approach helped others who were going through similar struggles. I alleviated my own fears by sharing them with the world. I could have switched from a beacon of positivity into a dismal sack of hopelessness. Yet, I didn’t. I found myself bitter at times and checked myself. I can’t change what happened. There’s a reason why the front windshield is bigger than the back. Move forward.
Those 33 days in the hospital were the most painful of my entire life. Even when I got out, I could barely move. Everything hurt. I was on intravenous antibiotics for almost a month, attached to a fanny pack that kept reminding me: YOU ARE SICK. YOU ARE WEAK. But every day when I woke up, I did more than the recommended physical therapy. I made it my job to rehabilitate my body and mind. I listened to “Unstoppable” by Sia hundreds of times. Goddamn, that woman can infiltrate my psyche with empowerment. I got my meditation schedule back on track. With every painful step, I kept telling myself, “This is temporary. This is not your life. This will all be a fever dream if I keep doing the work.”
I always knew I could bounce back. I kept journaling almost every single day. Most of it was goal-setting, positive affirmations, visualizations, manifestations. I kept track of how I felt and if I look back at the first entries of the year, I recognize how far I’ve come. I was hours away from death, unable to move, completely detached; and now I am literally climbing mountains. My wife and I spent two weeks traveling around Japan where I headlined a show and judged a Japanese Roast Battle. To answer your question, it was in English. I taped a set with Comedy Central where I made fun of my cancer. I’m not hiding from it. I’m using it. I will use every ounce of struggle for personal gain. I will not allow any of my misery to control who I am supposed to be.
I thought 37 was a year to forget. Now I realize, it may have been the most pivotal year of my entire life. I was forced into lessons that I may not have ever taken the time to learn. I was the hare, running as fast as I could hoping to get to a finish line. Now I’m the tortoise. Methodical. Paced. Able to look around and shove my face in the fragrant, vibrant flowers while still knowing, I have plenty of time to win. Allergies to pollen be damned. I will smell those fucking lilies.
While trying to burn me to a pile of ashes, all of this ignited a fire inside of me that cannot be extinguished. I am inflamed and it’s not just from my eczema. I did everything I could to not only get back this version of myself, but to shed my outer shell and have a complete metamorphosis. I was already a butterfly. But this winged-insect has turned into a fucking eagle. I have proven to myself that through the absolute worst pain, both physical and emotional, you cannot take away my spirit. I am meant to spread love, give joy, and make people laugh until they can’t breathe. None of it was easy, but it was necessary.
With all of that behind me, I am here to say: Come at me, 38. Show me what you got. I’m ready for every single moment.
