HELLO PEEPS.
My name is Jesse Pardee, and I am a 21 year-old survivor of Ewing’s Sarcoma (a rare bone cancer). I am four years in remission, it’s been 3 years since I finished chemotherapy, and it’s been two years that I’ve had the privilege of knowing Mike Mort.
I met him at the 2010 Make-A-Wish ball for the CNY chapter, where they did a special feature about my wish, and where I sang. I remember feeling very apprehensive at the Make-A-Wish ball—I had had this hard-headed, stubborn attitude throughout the course of my treatment that made me so paranoid that people were somehow feeling sorry for me all the time. Don’t get me wrong—there were so many people who did. There are always people who think that they’re being supportive and helpful toward you in a time of need, and what they’re really doing is being condescending. But I had this strange delusion that everyone felt bad for me, so I put up a sort of front throughout the course of my treatment that lasted for a while after I finished with it. And the Make-A-Wish ball was still very much in the thick of my “stubborn-don’t-feel-sorry-for-me” phase. I didn’t want any special introductions, I didn’t want to watch the presentation about my wish (I stood behind the projector plugging my ears) and I didn’t want to be grouped in with the other wish kids at the ball. I was a total jerk.And then everyone at the event was introduced to Mike and Andy Mort—and I was simply amazed by them both. The sense of confidence that surrounded them commanded that no one feel sorry for them, and that everyone regard and treat them with the same attitude and equality with which you show others. They are two guys who are not defined by their health problems. And I realized that perhaps one of the biggest reasons why it is impossible to feel sorry for Mike and Andy is because Mike and Andy don’t feel sorry for themselves.
And I did. I felt so sorry for myself, and that aura of self-sympathy just radiated from me, and made it okay for everyone else to feel sorry for me. Seeing Mike and Andy at the Make-A-Wish ball was a changing moment in my life. I realized that it was time for me to adapt to the new life that cancer had presented me with, and live to the fullest not in spite of my limitations, but despite of my limitations.
Mike and I chatted and hit it off right away. We started meeting up and hanging out when I was in town, and found that we could literally talk for hours about life and about the similar “themes” that seem to re-occur in both of our lives. It’s hard to believe that two people with such vastly different health problems could find so much common ground--but there it is. We did. And we always do. It just goes to show you that you can find comfort in the most unexpected places and people.
It seems to me that Mike and I have learned a lot from each other. In my blog, I talk a lot about how I was a loud, pushy, border-line obnoxious patient throughout the course of my treatment. I’m not very proud of the way I treated people while I battled my illness, and I learned from Mike to take it all in stride. To brush aside the ignorance of people who don’t know what it’s like to battle a serious illness, and thrive on the unique qualities that my hardships have given me. In return, I gave Mike the push to get his thoughts out onto a blog. Something we both find cathartic.
The one thing that Mike always seem to come back to in our discussions is the ability to “adapt”. We both have people that tell us how inspiring we are—people who think that we’re some sort of pillars of wisdom. But what Mike and I both want people to know is that we are just two regular people. We’re two regular people who were dealt some difficult hands in life, and it was our challenge to adapt to those difficult hands. We did what we had to do. When things happen to you—scary, life-changing things—you really only have one choice: Deal with it. Deal. We all just have to deal with our lives. It’s a realization I’ve had that would never have been made so crystal clear to me if I hadn’t met Mike. To me, he’s an inspiration because he knows that all you can do in life is deal.
Jesse
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