Thank You, Cancer

If you haven’t seen Subway Takes with Kareem Rahma yet, here is the sixty-second brief: He interviews folks on the NYC subway using a MetroCard as a microphone and simply asks, "What's your take?"

Ten times out of ten, he gets a controversial opinion—on cancelling birthdays, abolishing elections, or questionable advice on modern dating. Then his guest explains why it's not as crazy as you’re first led to believe. Classic setup → punchline. It's a great watch, and a quick refreshment between consuming three-hour, deep-dive podcasts.

If I were in the hot seat today and got asked, "What's your take?" I’d have to answer with this:

"Thank you, cancer."

I get it. Cancer is an absolutely horrific disease. One in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed with it in their lifetimes. It is a disease that does not discriminate along social or ethnic boundaries. It brutally debilitates and shortens lives, and the treatment is often thought of as worse than the disease.

What possible good can come out of any of this?

On October 15, 2024, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 colorectal cancer. I had turned 45 two days earlier. At my physical a few months prior, my PCP told me to schedule a colonoscopy. "They recommend these starting at 45 now," he said. "No rush, but schedule it this Fall after your birthday, so insurance will pick it up."

I woke up in the recovery room with my GI sitting in the chair next to me.

"Jarod, I have some terrible news for you."

The next few weeks were a whirlwind. I went through my first round of staging. I had to tell my children (then 6 and 9) what was about to happen. I had to learn a whole new lexicon of cancer-related words. I got a port placed. I started chemo. I started to lose my hair.

None of it felt real. I went from living a fairly normal life to completing my first round of chemo within a month. Life comes at you fast.

But on that first afternoon, while I was staring at the report—"Large (~5 cm), ulcerated, hemicircumferential mass... Appearance suspicious for adenocarcinoma"—something shifted inside of me. I felt like my entire life simultaneously collapsed and became laser-focused.

The things that did matter:

• My wife and kids.

• My friends and family.

• My health and well-being.

• Trust, integrity, love, and connection.

• Learning, wonder, meaning, and progress.

The things that didn't matter: Almost everything else.

I had just started an engineering consultancy the year before and was gaining traction with my first clients. I was finally gaining the luxury of choice in a new business. I had to set all of that down to focus on my own healing. At the time, work fell into the "doesn't matter" column. As someone genetically wired with ambition, that was devastating.

I spent the next year as a patient. I was lucky to have good friends join me at the infusion center—I’m still incredibly proud of the crew that got kicked out of the chemo ward for being too loud. Many people flew in to visit. I reconnected with friends I had neglected as the seasons of life had changed. People picked up the kids to give Bridget a break. I took many walks, had great conversations, and truly connected with those most important to me.

Just as I started to get into the groove as a patient, people started reaching out about work. A group I had worked with previously wanted to see if I had time available, offering to work around my treatment schedule. New companies reached out. I spent most of Cycle 8 working with a good friend on a pitch deck for his new startup. (They fully subscribed the round a couple of months later.)

I was decidedly not out looking for work, but I was staying busy. I can't be more grateful to the folks who have worked with me over the past year, even though I've had limitations around scheduling and travel.

I completed treatment in May. In July, I was declared to have had a complete clinical response and am currently NED—no evidence of disease. I'm still on a strict regimen of surveillance, getting poked and prodded every three months to make certain that nothing recurs—and if it does, we catch it early.

All that said, I wouldn't trade away this past year.

Sure, having cancer sucks. The existential ambiguity is hard. Pressing pause on life is really tough. It's been a brutal teacher—but it's been a teacher. You learn to live without a net. When people tell you to live every day like it's your last, that means something to me now. It's not just a platitude.

There have been a few projects I have had on the back burner for years. I'm headlong into one of them in a pretty serious way. You'll hear about it soon enough. I've taken Warren Miller's advice to heart: "If you don't do it this year, you'll be one year older when you do."

I have extreme gratitude for everyone who helped me through this stretch, and I'm very excited for what the next few years have in store.