Finding Oneself after a Cancer Diagnosis | Tory Campbell

[Matt Gilhooly]
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the live Shift Podcast. I am here with soon to be a new friend, Tory. I think we're going to be friends after this.

[Tory Campbell]
Absolutely.

[Matt Gilhooly]
And Tory and I are recently connected, I would say last week. So at this point, when you're listening to this, we're here in season two. She's early on in the season, and so by now, we'll be long friends.

[Tory Campbell]
Absolutely.

[Matt Gilhooly]
All right, so where are you joining us from today?

[Tory Campbell]
So I reside in San Diego. I live in a beach community called Ocean Beach. So to my right, if I were to switch or to turn my laptop, I can see the ocean. So I'm on a hill overlooking the ocean. It's not right there, but it's just three blocks down.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Do you get, like, a beautiful ocean breeze?

[Tory Campbell]
Yes. It's been really hot of late, but recently it just cooled off in the last day. But I'm from the east, so what I have the last few days was that's what you get out east all the time in the summer, or at least a good part of it.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I'm sitting in Orlando now and curtains drawn. It's a nice, cool 95 out with 100% humidity. It's beautiful.

[Tory Campbell]
With air conditioning.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Air conditioning. But, you know, I was trying to keep up. The air conditioner runs about 16 hours a day these days, which is just a blast. I love it. Anyway, so let's get into your story. So I appreciate that you reached out to me and you were like, hey, I'd love to share my story. And you have a story that I think a lot of people can relate to in some ways. Right. But what you've done with that Life Shift that I'm not going to tell yet is probably going to be the most inspiring piece, because my original mission, or actually my current mission for the Live Shift podcast is that each episode finds the ears that need to hear it the most at that moment in time. And I did it because as a kid, my mum died when I was eight and I felt like the only thing that I needed at that time was to know that I wasn't the only eight year old or the only kid that had ever lost a parent. Right. And so to have something, I wanted to create something where people could hear stories of people that are in a similar related experience and what they've done with it. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing this story with me.

[Tory Campbell]
Oh, no. Honor to be here. Thank you so much.

[Matt Gilhooly]
So before we get to that, that pivotal moment that really changed everything for you, and it really did just on that little bit that you told me, can you paint the picture of what your life was like leading up to that particular moment? Like, what were you doing day in and day out?

[Tory Campbell]
So it may be pertinent to backtrack even further. So not only was I born out of the country, I was born in Korea. And then at birth, I was abandoned, so I don't know my birth parents. And then flew to the States when I was still a baby and then raised in Connecticut by two Caucasian couple. And that's where I lived the majority of my life. So from eight months old through current day, except for a stint in Europe when I studied abroad, I was raised in Connecticut. And then where I was around this time where my life shift happened. So typical liberal arts college, and I didn't know what I wanted to do.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Do any of us?

[Tory Campbell]
Some people do. Some people like, I'm going to be a doctor, I'm going to be a lawyer. I can be an engineer. I'm good at that. Around that time, I had obviously didn't live at home. I think I moved out when I was 24. And I lived close to where my family was, maybe about 1112 miles. I had a decent job. It actually gave me very good experience to this day. I had great friends. I got into CrossFit when I was about 36, and I totally drank the Kool Aid. You either love CrossFit or you hate it. And I loved it. And I made some amazing friends, some of whom are still close to me to this day. So I had my close knit group of friends, and they weren't from high school or college. They were well into my adult life. And around that time, I was getting into weightlifting, which is the snatch and the cleaning jerk. You will see that in the Olympics. And a month prior to my shift, I had already had an accident. I was competing in a meet, and I missed my last lift called the Cleaning jerk. So you get three attempts in one lift and three attempts in another. My third attempt of my heaviest cleaning jerk on the jerk, which is the overhead, I missed it. And I basically had a freak accident where I broke too. I had open fracture on two of my fingers on my right hand. So I was just getting used to going to occupational therapy for my hand and rehabbing that, and then so the shift came. I believe it was like mid September of 2016, like five weeks after the weightlifting accident. I go to the unfun appointment that women have to go to every year. She's doing the exam. This is a woman I've known since I was a teenager. She said, you have a lump. I'm like shit. I do. And it was on my left side, and it was not there a year prior. And had I done a selfexam, I would have found it. And it wasn't huge, but it was about 2. Remember what it felt like? It felt like a marble. So I was in shock. Not because I felt entitled, like, I'm never going to get you just don't think about it, okay? I wasn't and I was approaching 40, and I thought, I'll have to get a mammogram after I turn 40. Well, this really instigated that. So I left with I think they ordered a mammogram, so I had to get one. And then the mammogram obviously confirmed the mass. It confirmed its size. But the doctor said, Look, I don't like how big it is. It's 2 CM. I'd like to refer you to a surgeon. Then I had to meet my surgeon who did a biopsy, and then she came back with well, it's called atypia. The cells are not cancerous, but they're not normal. She said, I'd really recommend that we do a partial lumpectomy. So this is after September. This is going into October. So in October, I turned 40 of that year. So I just turned 40. So the lumpectomy happened on November 4. And on November, maybe officially, I thought my life shift would be September. That day in September, I had the appointment. But if the official Deactor diagnosis came on November 10 and a month to the day, a month after I turned 40, she called me, and I knew immediately it was shitty news and she was very matteroffact, but I knew in her voice it wasn't good news.

[Matt Gilhooly]
And this is after they took out to examine they removed the entire mask.

[Tory Campbell]
And they did a full biopsy on it, and it was cancerous. So I had to see her the next day. This is kind of a funny story. So I'm sitting in the office waiting. I'm sitting in the waiting room, and the nurse comes in. They take all your vitals. My blood pressure was like 159 over like 100 and something. It was out the roof, but I didn't feel like I just you're nervous?

[Matt Gilhooly]
Yeah, for sure.

[Tory Campbell]
So she gave me she just overviewed what happens next and what she wanted and what tests were coming next, because they did a lot of tests, and she was head of cancer studies at that hospital. So excellent care, very swift. Even though my stage was a lower stage, it turned out to be a one A. So I had two additional surgeries after that. This came in like this was through the holidays. And then in 2017, I began treatment, and I chopped it not to get chemo based on a variety of factors. And then I just had radiation. So I think I cleared radiation in May. And by that next once, I got my life back, because radiation entailed on my lunch break, driving 20 minutes, walking into a building, stripping, getting that stupid gown on, laying under a machine for like 20 minutes, running back into the room, changing back, driving back down to my office, and then somehow finding food. And I had to do that five days a week for seven weeks. But I did get a break in the middle. I had a pre planned trip to Cancun, they weren't really happy I was going down there and they're like, no, you're going to be in the sun. And I looked at the nurse and I said, Lady, I'm not going to Cancun to sit in the shade. And she just was like, all right, then. So I probably was that patient. So once I cleared treatment, I really started. I can't explain how I processed it because to me, it was just all blur.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Yeah, let's go back to I mean, maybe we can go back to a little bit of it, because I think it's interesting you said a couple of things and I'll jump on them. So there was one part where you said, I'm going to turn 40, I'm going to have to start doing X, Y and Z, like the responsible things as a 40 year old or something. And you said you didn't feel, like, entitled, how could this happen to me?

[Tory Campbell]
Yeah, I didn't ever think, like, you just don't think. I just didn't. I was healthy, I was working out, I ate right. I'm human, I drank, but I still drink to this day. It's just something that wasn't on my radar.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Because you felt like you were doing all the right things.

[Tory Campbell]
Exactly. But cancer does not discriminate. And that's really impacted me since I had a friend here in San Diego who died last year at 27 from stage four lung cancer, and she was obviously very young and in very good health, so it does not discriminate. But no, you think you're taught or on social media or in the news, you should have X screenings. At X, age differs from men and women, but for women, the marker is 40. We had talked offline, I had done a prior podcast and that whole barbell reboots, not for Profit, that was started because the 26 year old had a lump and she went to the doctor and they turned her away because they said she was too young. So the whole reason that was started is because her best friend was like, this is unacceptable. How can you go get care? And they refuse you because of your age? Which makes no sense. Right.

[Matt Gilhooly]
And I wonder too, if there's a piece of that, and pardon me if this is too much, but you don't have family history because you don't know your family too. Right. And so it's kind of like out of sight, out of mind, in a way, possibly, absolutely.

[Tory Campbell]
And that's what the doctor so one of her tests was I had to undergo genetic testing and I think they used the samples they already took. So basically, they ran pathology on the sample and I came back and the woman, based in person, she said, look, we checked for any predispositions in your DNA. For example, Bracha is a gene that's very common, but if your family has cancer, if you have the Braca gene, it really more or less means you have a higher percentage of higher likelihood of obtaining organic cancer. That was negative. Rare ones were negative. Middle of the road ones were negative. I had some genetic abnormalities, but I shouldn't have had cancer due to my family, who I don't know if they're both I'm assuming one of them has to be Korean. I don't know if they're both Korean. So nothing in my family history would have shown up. So that made the process really easy because they'd asked me, like, tell me about your family history. And I said, this could be the easiest part of your job. Write down N A because it's not applicable. I don't know them. So they had nowhere to go with that.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Yeah, I was just thinking, like, mentally I feel like if I didn't because my family, we have history of X, Y, and Z, right? So it's always like when my dad was diagnosed with something in his forty s, I was in my twenties and I was like, okay, well, that's on my radar now. Like, it's always going to be something that I'm forever going to check for. And so I think without knowing that, I think if I didn't have any of that knowledge, I probably would be like, oh, I'll do the test when they're required of me.

[Tory Campbell]
It's ignorance is bliss, I guess. I don't know. So I'm not going to go looking for stress that I don't need. So I don't want to sound ignorant, but this happened to me and I had to address it, but otherwise I wouldn't have addressed it because I wasn't sick, I had no reason to think I was going to ever be getting cancer. But since then I've read that if there are eight women in a room, one in eight women will get breast cancer in their lifetime, which is a staggering statistic.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Wow.

[Tory Campbell]
So if you lined up myself and seven others, I was the one that got it. But everything was very swift and I had total of three surgeries and then entered treatment in 2017, having cleared that in by mid May. And then basically I was cleared, I was done. And they do some more not test, but they say, I think the last surgery I had, they look at your margin, so they look at your tissue around where the mass was taken from, and those have to be clear, you're not going to proceed with their treatment. So they had done that and then obviously radiation, I skipped chemo. I didn't need it, I turned it down. And then radiation just was there to basically eradicate or kill anything that might have been residual. And we're talking microscopic, it's just everything they could take out was taken out in terms of masses. So I actually had bilateral cancer that was discovered during treatment.

[Matt Gilhooly]
From the moment you were laying on the table in September, you were essentially clear by May. The following year?

[Tory Campbell]
Yes. Cleared. Cleared of it. So going through additional tests were needed. She ordered an MRI, and the MRI caught the fact that I had a mass on my other side, that it would have been undetectable through a self exam. So it became bilateral, and then I had two more surgeries than the margins I was talking about. Those were clear tests. So then I was able to enter treatment, and they did another test where my oncologist recommended chemotherapy because that would give me a lesser chance of a recurrence. And I said no, based on my unique factors, and then went to radiation, and then I was done. So after that, when I got my life back, that's when I really was thinking I've often on not been happy with. I wanted to live somewhere else. I always loved the West Coast, but I'd always bought at it because it was such a big move, and I really had no reason to move. I was happy with my friends and with my life. But this put any question or doubt I had the shame. So after that point, I never questioned it. It was just a completely different, like, okay, you're not married, you don't have children. You have every motivation and means to do this, so why not do it, especially after what you went through? So by that fall, I moved. I tried to get a job, something lined up before I left, but it didn't work out. So I think I just visited once. Wow, I haven't been to San Diego before. Then the second time was to scout it, and the third time was moving there.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Your life was completely different a year after that first moment of and it's interesting to me, my brain goes to these places in which, like, what if you had just prolonged another year of that required age related testing. Right. Or the other side, what if you had done a self exam six months or so?

[Tory Campbell]
Could have done it prior. I probably would have caught it. I had a physical symptom that now I know what it was, but it would have clued me into something. Basically a physical change on your breast or on it on the surface. And I had that, but I didn't know what it was. There could have been a lot of what ifs, but the bottom line was that it did happen for no reason that anyone could ever tell me. My doctor didn't know. There's no family history with me being adopted. No one can tell me why I got cancer at 40 from being seemingly healthy. But what it gave me was a completely different mindset, and it was a huge catalyst for something that I always kind of wanted, but really had no incentive to do it other than, oh, just changing. But that's a huge change to leave everything you know and move where you don't know anyone.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Did it give you a sense of mortality?

[Tory Campbell]
Oh, absolutely. You think about dying. Even though I was a stage one, I was a very low stage. And no, you do think about that. And so to the point of you only get one, so take your best shot, or else you have this window to do it, especially if you have a different if you've just gone through something that could have killed you had it not been caught. So you get a second wind, if you want to call it that. And I wasn't depressed before, any at all. I just thought, Jeez, what's your excuse? It's yours. It's your own, right? So that got me to once I finally committed to going, and I was waiting to hear about a job, and they never got back, then I said, what are you waiting for? So I sold all my I made it a goal to sell I sold all my things in about two weeks.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I've done that.

[Tory Campbell]
Yeah. Raise money. I had to ship my car. And the nice thing is you can put you can pack your car as long as you know crap's not hanging out the window. So that was my move. I knew I would never bring any furniture I had. That was stupid. So my total cost of my move was probably about $1400 across country. Cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap. So and I lived out of a suitcase for my duffel bag for a week because my car was getting shipped, and I had a room for a week from the only person I knew, and she was an acquaintance. So I got to go to the beach every day and not wear a lot of clothes because it's shorts and tank tops. And I got out of New England before the snow started flying.

[Matt Gilhooly]
So you moved across country. $1400. I've done that before. I don't know how much I spent, because I was just ready to go. I sold everything the same way. Whatever fits in my car is coming with me, and I'll ship, like, five boxes. All right, so I want to actually go back to you when you were talking about getting that first, like, oh, and you were laying on the table, and she found a lump that you hadn't found yet. You said that was like, your life shift, because that was really kind of the trigger point in which kind of everything came after. Right. And then you changed what was going through your head at that very moment.

[Tory Campbell]
Not, how is this possible, but just like, well, obviously some exodus, like, oh, shit. And then you're just like, another more doctors. I was already knee deep in therapy for my hand, and now I've got to squeeze it in. More doctors. I did have a choice, so I just had to do it. So I was working at this time full time, so I was just making extra time for appointments and still trying to go to my workouts. Those were classes. And then, oops, now I've got to squeeze in another set of appointments. So you just have to work within.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Isn't that funny of us?

[Tory Campbell]
Yeah, it's weird.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Isn't that funny? Of Americans. Because I will consider you I mean, you've lived in the States nearly your entire life that we go to that like, we're almost conditioned to, like, okay, now it's part of the schedule. Now it's, you know, versus, like, this is serious, and this is something that I didn't expect. Did you find it was easier for you to kind of compartmentalize and go through the motions of getting everything done, or did you find moments in which you really, like, lost it? Because I feel like no, actually was.

[Tory Campbell]
Pretty calm during the whole I mean, my temperament. I didn't go haywire, or I didn't I was certainly stressed about it, but I just tried to process it kind of rationally and just say, well, this is factual. I have to do this, and I have to start doing some homework now, and I have to go to work, and I have to still try to live my life the best I can because I felt fine. I wasn't ever ill. You felt great. Obviously, it was surgery because you were.

[Matt Gilhooly]
CrossFitting, but besides the injury but you were cross fitting.

[Tory Campbell]
I was still training, obviously, with my right hand being on a commission. Weightlifting was out of the question for a little bit, but I could still train and do other things, so I was just trying to make do with what you have. So a lot of it's adaptability, which I think I'm good at being. You get something a huge rent thrown in your life. I get it. Some people don't react as well, because it really some people just can't process things as fast, and other people are more seamless about it. So I was able to be a little seamless about it and just say, okay, this is what I have to make time for. This is now my focus. I don't want it to be, but I just have to deal with it.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Yeah. Do you think that any of your upbringing prepared you for that? I mean. We don't have to talk about things. But I always think that or part of me thinks that that wasn't the first big thing that you had to face. And so therefore. You are able to kind of line things up. And we can go we can jump on my story and the fact that because my mom died when I was a kid and because of all the things that I had to do because she had died. I was well equipped when anyone else I was close to died.

[Tory Campbell]
That's relative. So that gave you in the worst way. It gave you experience and for future.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Skills, I feel like, and I told people this when I was in my mid 30s, my grandmother, who kind of took over the role of mother and being super close to her when she was dying of lung cancer and I was watching her, I was like a grief expert. I felt like I knew exactly what because I learned what not to do, because I did it wrong when my quote unquote wrong in my head, when my robust right, well, it took 20 years, and that's how I was like, I don't want to do it that way again. Here's all the things I learned. And when my grandmother died, everyone thought I was just going to fall apart because we were so close, but because I had those tools, I was able to process it like a champ. Like it was like, okay, this is what's next, and this is what's next. And that's where my question kind of stems from is like, had you and you don't have to give me details, but had you had something in the past that you had to kind of approach in a similar sense?

[Tory Campbell]
Well, A, good on you for obviously being able to navigate in much later life another close relative struggling with health. In my situation, and I don't mind talking about it because I'm really transparent about it. I came to have a very difficult relationship with my adoptive parents. They were great parents to me, but unfortunately the couple had a lot of problems. And so by the time but by the time I had my accident, I had probably within eight months to a year really decided to be a strange. So when I got cancer, I didn't tell them. So if your question is did my parents prime me to handle it this way? I don't really think so because my mother was very, very emotional, very sensitive, and she had a horrible temper and she was very volatile. So no, you can't be volatile or I say volatile is more of a implicate violence. And she was violent. But anyone can react any way they want about getting cancer. It's entirely someone's unique, you know? But I'm just saying for me, my temperament is more like straight and narrow. And I just I didn't like it, but I didn't like the choice but to try to just handle it and process it calmly. And I wasn't hysterical. I wasn't really upset. I just was kind of shellshocked. So that kind of I didn't really process a lot until probably well after it happened. Like, Jesus, like I went through I can't believe I did all that and here I am. But as I spoke about it was a huge silver lining to my life. But when I started it, I had no idea that that would be the result of getting cancer is to finally be able to do something I wanted to do. I did not think about that. But a year later, that was the change. So it was within a year, which is pretty crazy.

[Matt Gilhooly]
And forgive me for thinking back there. But I think sometimes I look to moments in my childhood, or in my past, really, where someone was doing something the opposite of what I wanted to do. And so that's kind of like how I directed myself. So that's kind of probably just gave myself some therapy on that, of figuring out why things went the way they did. But it's interesting to me because you're right. I tell people this. I think getting a diagnosis of cancer, I've never had it, thankfully. I think getting that, you could probably equate it to someone, losing someone or like some major thing, and no one can tell you how to respond to that.

[Tory Campbell]
No, it's entirely unique to the person and also something to do with leading what led to the cancer. Some people just go for, like my friend here who died when she was the lung cancer young woman. She was also a crossbar, and she thought she tore her calf muscle. So she finally went in to get a test. And after doing scans, it became clear very quickly that she had an extension of the lung cancer. She had blood clots in her legs, and that's what was causing her pain. So it became, no, you don't have a tear in your calf, you have something much more serious. But around the time of my shift, I had already made a big decision not to cut off ties with my parents, and I had no siblings. And then my second largest decision, or most important, was right after that, turning down chemo. And the third one was going to move to California. And that all happened within probably two years.

[Matt Gilhooly]
It all came from facing your mortality, in a sense that now it's time to actually live and do the things that Tory wants to do.

[Tory Campbell]
Yes. So obviously two and three were more related to that. The parental decision was years in the making that kind of showed itself to me, and I had no other choice but to slowly start stepping away because I can't change what my parents go through. And it was having a negative impact on me. So that decision was already made. But turning down chemo, moving to California were definitely sequential, one after the other.

[Matt Gilhooly]
And how do you find now that you're this newer version of you, what's the most interesting thing that the before version of you would find about current version? Like, what changed the most?

[Tory Campbell]
I think the reason I wanted to do this podcast and I think your reasons for sharing your story and in creating this whole podcast theme of your life shift is that your point is someone could benefit from it. Someone could hear this, and it resonates with them. And after I went through it, I really wanted to give back more and have impact and have an impact on others lives. So, obviously, cancer is a huge topic, and I don't have a. Very arduous example. I was a low stage. It didn't kill me, but it brought me something very unique. Now I want to pay it forward and try to give back. And that was maybe not obviously not on my radar before this happened. The newer version of me, the better version, the happier version, the version that I live here and pulling off what I did is trying to pay it back more.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Were you fairly open before? Did you want to share stuff that was happening?

[Tory Campbell]
Yeah. I don't have friends who I don't want anyone walking eggshells around me. I'm pretty straightforward and pretty blunt. You know how I feel, so I'm pretty candid.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Were you always like that growing up?

[Tory Campbell]
Yes, I was feisty and independent and determined. So if anything, just gave me more hoods. But just continue to be me. But even be in a wiser, be a little bit smarter about it, but not rest in my laurels. Be that type of worker, work even harder, push even harder. Because when I moved here, it was honeymoon period venue. I was looking for work and I found some decent jobs that I actually had to move to Texas quickly for two months. And I came back with even less money than I had the first time. And I really had to make that work. So yeah, you have to have a lot of drive and your ass is on the line, basically. I can't ask my parents for money. They didn't have any. But there was no safety net, so everything was on my shoulders.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Do you feel almost more of an obligation now to live your best life than you felt before?

[Tory Campbell]
Yes, I do. Absolutely.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I hear people talk about like living on borrowed time or things that kind of create bigger and better versions. It's like a marker in the sand, if you will. Do you feel that?

[Tory Campbell]
Yes. Because I remember, I think I definitely do something unpleasant became a better version of the person I already was. I already was outgoing, I already was honest, I already was enhanced version version 2.0. Just a more thoughtful, diligent, tenacious, energized version of the prior person that lives in Connecticut. And I think back to my life now and it almost seems surreal that I lived in Connecticut. Like my life there versus here.

[Matt Gilhooly]
What's so different? I mean, California, I'm from Boston, so I get that New England feel.

[Tory Campbell]
I love the sunshine. I always like laying out and it's like you only get a window of three months to do it in east, so out here it's not going to rain for another month or two. And if it does, it's very quick. But there's sunshine and just the culture of California. I'm not a big pop smoker, but it's a thing out here. I think it's more laid back. There's more culture here. I mean, when you move from a very small town of like 5000 to the 8th largest city in the country. It's a bit of a change.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I agree. I left Boston in the late 80s after my mom died and moved to Georgia, which was like, oh, wow, culture shock for sure, because, you know, I'm like an eight year old with a Boston accent moving into this place with diversity and different Southern accent, so I get that completely. Like, I can't imagine living in Boston now, compared I mean, I don't want to be in Florida, but California sounds like a great place to be and that you're kind of living your best life out there now. Do you talk to other people? Are you in kind of cancer group?

[Tory Campbell]
No, I've worked with that nonprofit I mentioned, but I haven't been able to talk with I think I know the way you meant it like a group in that sense. No, I could have if I wanted to, but I just wanted to keep it among my friends or I think I had a decent handle on it. Not that I'm perfect, I'm just saying that I was able to mentally process it my way. I didn't necessarily want to. I'm fine opening up about it, but I didn't need to open up about it in the sense of, like, I needed help also.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I mean, in helping other people. So you're on this podcast, so hopefully someone, hopefully nobody else ever gets cancer. But that's not realistic, right? Someone that faces it might not even be cancer. It could be any medical diagnosis. It shouldn't take these moments to help us live. Right? I mean, I felt the same when my grandmother died. That's when my life changed, when my mum died. I mean, obviously that changed me, but I felt like I pulled a Tory when my grandmother died because she was like, I wish I had worried so much because all that matters is love in the end. And I was like, you know what, you're right. So luckily I was mid 30s, so I was able to kind of turn things around. So I understand that kind of living for yourself, doing the things that you want to do. Whenever you made the decision related to your parents, do you feel like that was your kick off point? Like that's where you kind of were like, you know what, this is for me now.

[Tory Campbell]
I think that's a big start because.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I still there was because that's a big step.

[Tory Campbell]
Yeah. And it was a very slow decision because I just started slowly stepping away and then it got bad. It got bad before that. It was shitty before and that's when I started to think, well, I really hate going over there, it's so awkward. My mother will get in my dad's case and, you know, there's depression there, so my father has depression and that was a large part of it. Their marriage was terrible and it burned their marriage, and that's not his fault. I'm just being bachelor. It did, but my mother didn't cope with it well. And I didn't ask them to stay together as a couple. They should have divorced, but they got to an age where they became codependent. So being an only child, they were starting to affect my life negatively. So I'm in charge of my life. I have to hold myself accountable. So that's why I started distancing myself and ultimately saying I have to cut the cord entirely. He had suffered from that. It started in his 40s, but he managed. I think he always had anxiety because he didn't have a great childhood and it reared his head when he was an adult, then he was an attorney, and he started to struggle. They started to struggle financially. They were putting me through school. I went to a private high school, then I went to a private college. So I think they were glad when I got out. When I did, at least I finished school just in time when it was getting really bad. But the problem was exacerbated because my mother, the house that I grew up in, she also did as a child. And she bought that house from her father, and she would not leave it. So when it became above their financial level to stay in the house, she refused to leave it. And then they always had no money, or at least they were raising me, putting me through school. And then he struggled because of his depression and his practice. So it just never got better. And she, for whatever reason, was very entitled. And that really burdened their marriage, their age. Now they're well into their late 70s. If I'm there heir, which I should be, I don't want any part of that estate. I've already made decisions where if I'm contacted, I'm going to decline the estate. I don't want to be the executor of it. I'm not going to be handling the probate because the last thing I want to do is go back to that house and clean it out because it has a lot of terrible memories. So to this day, I probably have trauma with loud noises. Let's say I go to a bar after I've had a long day of work. If there's someone playing that's like too loud, I get stressed out. If people like if I watch movies where all they do is shout or like TV shows, like Seinfeld to me is an example. A don't find it funny. B all they do is when they make jokes as they shout at each other, I don't find it funny. And it's also kind of stressful because I have some trauma from yelling. And I'll be clear that all the yelling happened when I was older. It wasn't like I was a child. When I was a child, it was fine. It was ironically more in my adult life.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I think there's something to be said about making a seemingly hard decision. Right. Because these people have been your parents or growing up and then having to make that choice that your well being is more important than any other pieces. And I, again, can relate to something similar, not parent related, but family related, in which there are portions of my family that I intentionally do not connect with because it's not healthy. And when you tell someone I don't know if you've experienced this, but when you tell someone, they get like, why would you do that? And it's like, I don't have to explain that to you. No, but it is it's a big thing, and it takes a lot. And I'm thinking that that part of your story kind of leads you into this. Like, it was almost like the precursor to allowing yourself to just do whatever the hell you want to do.

[Tory Campbell]
Right. Because I was obviously as an adult, you can do whatever you want anyway. But if I had been closer to them, would that have affected my decision? I don't think so. I don't think at all. I still would have gone, you don't need to be an adult and seek permission from your parents to do certain things when you're past a certain age. I mean, to me, that's 21. 21 over. Yeah.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I think there are people listening that would disagree, because I think there's something about getting that permission from a parent that's always given you the permission. I think it's interesting, but I applaud you for it, and I think it probably allowed you, by not telling them about your diagnosis, you can make all your own decision without the burden of someone else worrying or that would have.

[Tory Campbell]
Added dysfunctional stress to it, because I think my mother would have fallen off the handle. And also I've received pushback, I think just and it's not unfair comments, but what I haven't mentioned yet is that when I decided to be estranged, I didn't go up to them and go, I'm never going to talk to you again. I didn't really tell them because I think my father kind of knew. But I was trained where if I said if they were having an argument and I said to my mom, just stop yelling, she would take that and turn right to my father and say, look what you're doing to my daughter, and I, look what you're doing. So she took an emotion that I had just stopped arguing, and she used it again to get to my other parent. So I couldn't ever level with her and say, if you just stop being so violent or whatever, fill in the blank. Right. So that's why I couldn't go to them and go to them as a couple or even individually and say, this is what I'm doing, because there's already strife, and I don't know if I wanted to cause additional turmoil. There was already enough turmoil. So that's been mentioned to me that's kind of a cop out, but they're not the ones in my position, correct? Right.

[Matt Gilhooly]
And it sounds like you've always been in this position where you own your decisions, like even just the decision of not choosing the chemotherapy route or moving across the country with no amazing job lined up or whatever it may be. You chose these things because you were led to them and that you felt that this was the next step for your life.

[Tory Campbell]
Indeed. You have to commit to it. It's a hard thing to commit to a decision mentally, but once you do, you really have to try to be all in because then you don't want to set yourself up to fail within your power. Those are some of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. But I was convinced for me, they were the right ones. I knew the chemo one, obviously, the guy, the doctor, the oncologist, was smarter. He probably had medical prowess to show me the results and say, I know for a fact you'd have less chance. I'm sure he was right, but that wasn't enough for me to justify basically putting toxins in my body so that I could still, perhaps down the road, get cancer.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Right.

[Tory Campbell]
No one can assure you, like, 100%. I get that. That's not what I was asking. But he was very respectful. He didn't agree with me, but he was respectful of my decision. And this was on a phone call. He called me to find out what I would do, and I said, well, after looking at my respective tests and my options and me as a person, and I have a really good immune system, I'm going to choose to decline it.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Hey, and that's your decision, too. I think sometimes society bullies us into it, whether it's actually doing it or not. And I commend you for having the ability to make your strong decisions based on your own value that you put in yourself. Because I think I've made decisions, and I know a lot of people that have made decisions because that was what society was like. That's next for you.

[Tory Campbell]
Yes. It's a more it's a social moray. No one should be pigeonholed and do a decision that just because they're expected to follow a certain path, each person's path is their own.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Do you do this more now post diagnosis and recovery or it's always been like my way or the highway.

[Tory Campbell]
No, I mean, at least things for me, yeah, my way or the highway, but with people I care about. It's not that I'm like, well, you don't listen to me. I'm rice. I never approach if my friends ask advice, you should do that. Yeah, you should do I just say you should take what I'm saying is not right or wrong, but just if you're asking, all I ask is that you listen and you can extrapolate from it what you will. That's relevant to your life. That's all I can offer you as a friend, my perspective and my two cent, for what that's worth. And you can use it how you wish, but I would never just throw that on someone and say, oh, this is what you have to do.

[Matt Gilhooly]
No chemo for anyone.

[Tory Campbell]
Right?

[Matt Gilhooly]
That's a personal decision. You've said that you're a happier version of yourself. What's the biggest difference between California you and Connecticut, you ask?

[Tory Campbell]
Good question. Just a different awareness of how I'm happy versus back in Connecticut, I was happy, like in quotation marks, but I would always come back to this feeling of being unsettled. So I don't necessarily come back to that now. At least that's how you feel home. Yeah, it's starting to it's tough. I have a friend base, and I love when I come back here on a plane that I feel like I'm coming home, but obviously there are things like housing and jobs and relationships that take a while to foster, so I mean, I would love to live in the studio forever, but I'm probably going to be at some point not living in it forever. I've started to date someone pretty seriously here, so hoping that that becomes like someone I spend I spend a lot of time with this person, but just more of a committed I was living with him, so that's a big step. But I didn't even find that in Connecticut. I didn't meet that person back where I in Connecticut. I met him here.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Did you find a CrossFit there?

[Tory Campbell]
Here? No. I go to a gym that's similar, but they're not a CrossFit affiliate, so yeah, I have a great gym.

[Matt Gilhooly]
There's something to be said about a gym family.

[Tory Campbell]
Absolutely. People have like minded. You're all human. Like you want to try to work out to be fit, but all these people party, have their professionals or whatever walks of life they come from. We just try to be fit together and suffer. And then we have drinks sometimes.

[Matt Gilhooly]
No. I know you said the environment around you is carefree. Do you feel like you're more carefree?

[Tory Campbell]
No. I mean, I'm always me, I probably you see all types sometimes, the way people dress. Nothing blows my hair back anymore, living out here. So you see some interesting characters, especially living in a beach community, too. And Oban Beach is known as really laid back. You see this very special hippie beach community and now it's kind of turning into like a lot of tourists are here, which is fine, but the homeless problem has gotten pretty crazy. And it's sad because it wasn't like this when I moved here almost five years ago. It's changed in that time because housing is out the roof.

[Matt Gilhooly]
The reason I asked about the care free aspect is when you were originally kind of listing kind of the order of events that happened and kind of like what you had to do next and then what was next? It felt very structured and kind of like it was just the next thing you had to do to achieve said goal. And I wonder if now that that said goal has been achieved and you're kind of living even more authentically in the space that you want to finding the things that you want to creating. That's why I asked if you feel like it's kind of just like I can do whatever I want now. It's not like this regimented list of things to do.

[Tory Campbell]
Well, I think the only thing I'm still chasing is what I want to do for a career. Maybe not a Pivot, but not just falling back on what my transferable skills are. Really putting myself in a position to give back more and to make a living out of doing something that I enjoy more. But I think that's not way down the road where it's not even visible. I think there's light at the end of the tunnel now, but that's going to take some time because you have to still remain a functional their bills to pay a human being.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Yeah. Wouldn't it be great if we could just do what we wanted to do all the time and get paid for.

[Tory Campbell]
It, pay all our bills and some people get to do that and that's extremely that's very fortunate.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Yeah. Well, I think with all the things that you have accomplished thus far, I think you'll be able to create that for yourself. I don't know you very well, but I feel like that's what your story is telling me. I like to kind of wrap up these conversations with the question.

[Tory Campbell]
Sure.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Before I do that, I just want to let the listeners know that we had a couple of technical issues and so if you hear a couple of glitches here and there, that's why. But before we wrap up this call, I like to ask if you could step into that room where 2016 Tory was laying on that table about to get the news. Is there anything that you would tell her?

[Tory Campbell]
I think I would have said to her, something great will come of it. It's not the end of the world. Just be diligent about your care, do your homework. And that's kind of what I did. I was diligent about doing research because a lot of what they were telling you now I get it. Like if you ever watch a television show where someone goes through cancer and actually every show I've seen is accurate, like they use terms that I remembered. So yeah, doing your homework and obviously ask for help if you need it and know your support base. Luckily I was able to do all that.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Just kind of stay the course.

[Tory Campbell]
Stay the course. I mean, you don't really have a choice but try to stay the course. But everyone but that can mean something different to someone.

[Matt Gilhooly]
But you do have a choice. Whether you made the choices on purpose or not, you made the choices.

[Tory Campbell]
Yes.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I mean, a lot of people could face that quite differently.

[Tory Campbell]
That's true. It wrecks them. It wrecks them. It wrecks their mentality. They can't function. I get it. You're probably in crisis mode. It might stop you in your tracks. It's totally possible, and I'd hate for that to yeah. I couldn't imagine that you seem paralyzed with just that something's wrong, let alone having to do more tests and go all the way through it. I couldn't imagine.

[Matt Gilhooly]
No, you did amazing things. You made the choices that were right for you. And earlier on, you kind of dismissed the level of cancer that you had or I think it's just like it's something you face, and you overcame adversity, like a large one that a lot of people don't have to face. So give yourself a lot of credit for what you've gone through. One. But where you're going next, I think that's the cool part.

[Tory Campbell]
No, thank you. I think I try to be humble about it, but luckily I had great care, and I was able to come away out of that whole debacle with no debt, because the insurance I had at the time was really awesome, and I didn't know that at the time.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Keep your job and keep your insurance. Not right now, but when you get that information.

[Tory Campbell]
Yes. When I had that job, I honestly didn't know it would come like that, but I was lucky that it did, because that's another thing about getting sick. You faced them out in the bills that seem insurmountable because it's just another discussion, but it's the healthcare here.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Yeah. I think I talk to other people about similar situations or tragic, pivotal moments in their lives, myself included. Is there a part of you that is a tough word to use but grateful for the experience that you went through?

[Tory Campbell]
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I don't want to go through it again within my power, but I think it gave me something very priceless. So for that I am grateful because it doesn't have to be cancer. I'm sure in your life you can definitely name the very unfortunate occurrence that led to a lot of learning. And I think for other people, too, it depends on everyone's experiences, but they're probably, to some degree, is something that's happened to most people that isn't negative at the time or undesirable can put them in a better place. But that does depend on your attitude and how you view it may not turn out like that if you have a certain viewpoint, because your attitude is everything. Right.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I agree. Yeah. I'm grateful for what I've learned from the experiences that I've had, and sometimes I think the hardest experiences in my life, I've learned the most from. So I'm assuming that yeah, absolutely.

[Tory Campbell]
Yes.

[Matt Gilhooly]
I appreciate that you took the time to share your story on the live Shift podcast. It's so important. I hope that the right ears are hearing this episode right now and know that they can make the decisions that feel right for themselves and kind of go on that path and do the things after that. Once you've gone through all the medical decisions, you can do all the things that you want to do after.

[Tory Campbell]
Well, I appreciate being invited on. It's been such a fun experience. Thank you so much.

[Matt Gilhooly]
Thanks again and for all of you listening. We will have a new episode next week and we'll see you then. Thanks.