Finding Meaning in the Chaos

Greg King was in his 30s, building a new chapter of life, when a testicular cancer diagnosis changed everything.
In this episode, Greg speaks candidly about fear, isolation, brain fog, and the disorienting question of how to tell the people you love that your life has just changed. He also opens up about the often unspoken reality of facing fertility decisions during treatment, and what it means to carry both hope and uncertainty at the same time.
Bu this isn’t just a story of disruption. It’s one of rising. Of finding purpose in chaos.
Today, Greg is not only a survivor but an advocate. His story is raw, reflective, and ultimately filled with hope. Because sometimes the most powerful clarity comes when life pauses, and you decide what really matters next.
Mentioned Resources:
CanCare- www.cancare.org
About the Guest:
Greg King is a testicular cancer survivor, entrepreneur, and advocate. Diagnosed in his 30s, he now supports newly diagnosed men through the Testicular Cancer Foundation and creates strength-centered experiences for young cancer patients.
Love the podcast? You’ll be moved by the book. The Hope in the Face of Cancer book shares inspiring, real stories from survivors, caregivers, and healthcare heroes. Raw, uplifting, and full of heart—for anyone seeking hope and connection. Get your copy: cancare.org/hopebook.
About Our Host:
Darcie Champagne Wells is the President and CEO of CanCare, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to providing support to the cancer community by pairing cancer patients with survivors. Since joining in November 2020 as the third President & CEO, Darcie has driven significant growth, increasing one-to-one support matches by 45% and healthcare referrals by 66%. In 2022, she initiated the Impact Acceleration Initiative to further expand support for cancer patients and caregivers. Her leadership has earned her recognition as a “Most Admired CEO” and “Woman Who Means Business” by the Houston Business Journal, and national “Fundraiser of the Year” by RAISE. Darcie holds a BS in Business Administration from Louisiana State University and an MBA from the University of Houston.
https://www.facebook.com/CanCareInc
https://www.instagram.com/cancare_inc
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Welcome to Hope in the Face of Cancer, where we
Darcie Wells:share real stories of courageous people in their cancer journey.
Darcie Wells:Today's guest brings a thoughtful perspective to
Darcie Wells:conversations that often go unspoken, especially when it
Darcie Wells:comes to men's health and cancer in young people. Greg King is a
Darcie Wells:testicular cancer survivor who was diagnosed in his 30s. He's
Darcie Wells:also an entrepreneur and advocate who channels his
Darcie Wells:journey through diagnosis, treatment and recovery into
Darcie Wells:meaningful support for others facing similar challenges. Since
Darcie Wells:completing treatment, he has become a vocal advocate for
Darcie Wells:early detection and the emotional toll cancer can take.
Darcie Wells:He's been an active participant with the testicular cancer
Darcie Wells:foundation offering support to newly diagnosed men. His
Darcie Wells:advocacy extends well beyond his diagnosis, and he's currently
Darcie Wells:exploring innovative ways to support children with cancer by
Darcie Wells:helping young patients embody strength and resilience during
Darcie Wells:treatment. Greg, thank you so much for joining the show today.
Darcie Wells:All right, thanks for having me Awesome. Well, I'd love for our
Darcie Wells:audience to get to know you a little bit before we dive into
Darcie Wells:your cancer journey. So sure. How would your friends describe?
Darcie Wells:Greg?
Greg King:Oh, unpredictable. That's the knee jerk reaction I
Greg King:you know, I'd say probably, like, optimistic, sincere, fun
Greg King:loving. That's a you know, whether that's a good thing or a
Greg King:bad thing. It seems to hold true to my personality over time.
Darcie Wells:Yes, you're definitely an adventurous one. I
Darcie Wells:know you love adventure and spontaneity and experiences.
Darcie Wells:Even booking you on this show was troublesome because you
Darcie Wells:travel so much so you have a very active, active life, and I
Darcie Wells:know that that got abruptly stalled during a period of your
Darcie Wells:life as well when you were diagnosed with cancer. So tell
Darcie Wells:us a little bit about you know what kind of prompted you to
Darcie Wells:learn about your cancer diagnosis, just, you know, what
Darcie Wells:was going on in your life, and just kind of, how did all of
Darcie Wells:that come to be,
Greg King:yeah, depending on, you know, the day that you asked
Greg King:me, in the mood that I'm in, I think the story kind of is
Greg King:shaped by that, As I recall the, you know, the history, but you
Greg King:know, more or less the 2020, pandemic brought on, you know,
Greg King:tons of stress for for everybody, um, and everyone's
Greg King:individual walks of life. For me, individually, I was going
Greg King:through probably my hardest moment. I had a relationship
Greg King:that profoundly failed the that I was considering marriage. I
Greg King:had a business failure, a fallout with a mentor and a very
Greg King:close friend, and my professional pursuits in the oil
Greg King:business I had moved out of the town I was living in in the
Greg King:Permian Basin of Midland, Texas, and then the pandemic hit, and I
Greg King:thought, This couldn't get any worse. And then, you know, as
Greg King:time moved on, I ended up getting robbed in the middle of
Greg King:the night, and had a very disruptive, invasive environment
Greg King:in my home, and I chose to leave America. Kind of hang everything
Greg King:up on a shelf. I put everything for sale. I turned my entire
Greg King:life, my Airbnbs, everything into cash, and decided to take a
Greg King:break from life. And I moved to Croatia and jumped on a
Greg King:sailboat. Was living on a boat for about six months, and
Greg King:decided to come back to the States briefly after the after
Greg King:the weather had turned south and it was getting quite cold and
Greg King:choppy out there and the Adriatic. And had met a girl in
Greg King:Miami and was explaining to her how I thought that the stress of
Greg King:COVID and everything my life had been going through was bringing
Greg King:on a sense of fatigue that I just could not kick, and I was
Greg King:sleeping 10 to 12 hours a day, like I would go to bed at 930
Greg King:and I would wake up at 11 in the morning, and my my beard had
Greg King:suddenly started turning gray, and as I complained about it To
Greg King:my father, who's a retired orthopedist and hospital Chief
Greg King:of Staff in my hometown. He was jokingly saying, like Greg, you
Greg King:know you're going to have to get over your vanity and realize
Greg King:you're just getting into your late 30s, and this is what
Greg King:happens to all men. I just insisted that that wasn't the
Greg King:case, and in a dialog with that that person, she had joked,
Greg King:well, you know, what does your doctor have to say about things?
Greg King:And in the moment of joking, I had responded that, you know, I
Greg King:don't go see a doctor. I'm perfectly healthy. And she had
Greg King:some fun. Rank words to me that were, you know, one of these
Greg King:brief moments of maturation. I think, you know, we go through
Greg King:these swift moments of growth in our lives, whether you're facing
Greg King:the death of a parent or something, something deep
Greg King:happens personally. And that was one of those moments for me. And
Greg King:she, she said, if you're old enough to date a woman like me,
Greg King:then you're old enough to be responsible for yourself and
Greg King:take care of yourself. And I I put it off with a joke, which is
Greg King:my behavior response, and I woke up to the middle of the night in
Greg King:a cold sweat, couldn't get her words out of my head. Mm,
Greg King:decided that next day I would get that was a Sunday morning,
Greg King:about four in the morning, and I decided I get blood work done on
Greg King:Monday, I chose to fly home to Texas, where my dad could get me
Greg King:into some, you know, quick response appointments and got
Greg King:blood work done, and I found out about eight hours later that I
Greg King:had testicular cancer. So it went from me flying home to get
Greg King:a blood work we had about a week before Christmas, where the
Greg King:family was getting together, and I said, You know what? Let's
Greg King:just start there. Let's see a urologist. Let's see a general
Greg King:practitioner. Let's go to your primary care physician. Let's
Greg King:just do the whole work of 37 I've never had any, you know,
Greg King:anything done in my life. And by one in the afternoon, one in the
Greg King:afternoon, I was getting called into the urologist office I
Greg King:wasn't supposed to meet with the next day, and and he asked me,
Greg King:Are you experiencing any pain? And I said, No. And he said, I
Greg King:gotta sit you down. This is an open and close book case of
Greg King:testicular cancer. And I said, No. I said, I'm not experiencing
Greg King:any pain. And he said, Yes, that is the dead giveaway. Cancer is
Greg King:most often painless. You may have experienced some lower back
Greg King:pain, but outside of that, this is just a clinic like clinical
Greg King:by the book case, and I'm going to diagnose you stage three of
Greg King:three until we know more. And I'd like to get you under the
Greg King:knife at 630 tonight. And if I can talk or 930 in the morning,
Greg King:and if I can talk my wife into moving around dinner, maybe 630
Greg King:tonight. And it was, it was a gut punch. Of all gut punches.
Darcie Wells:What were you thinking at that moment? I mean,
Darcie Wells:how did you react when he shares this with you? And it's shocking
Darcie Wells:news,
Greg King:complete and utter disbelief. Yeah, you know, it's,
Greg King:it is shock. And funny thing, you know, I'm like, in my
Greg King:hometown, so I'm staying at my parents home, and, like, my dad
Greg King:called me to like crap that I forgot to close the garage
Greg King:because I was late to get the blood work. And I was like,
Greg King:Stop, you know, like Doctor Johnson, who grew up with our
Greg King:family, like, you know, he went to junior high school with my
Greg King:sister, so I knew him as Brian, you know, and, and Doctor
Greg King:Johnson is telling me, like, you have cancer and, and he went
Greg King:immediately into just the matter of fact, where, like, I'm
Greg King:wondering what's going on, and he immediately turns a
Greg King:conversation to talk clinically with another doctor, yeah, and
Greg King:he's he's giving his prognosis, and it's just by the book, this
Greg King:is what we're gonna do. I freaked out. I walked out of the
Greg King:appointment. I called my brother in law, who had just left his
Greg King:annual appointment with his urologist, and he said, Well,
Greg King:hey, let's get a second opinion. So that guy called me at five in
Greg King:the afternoon and said, Put off the surgery for at least 24
Greg King:hours. You need to breathe. You need to consider sperm banking,
Greg King:if nobody has mentioned that, because, more often than not,
Greg King:men with testicular cancer hyper react to the decision to get the
Greg King:cancer out of the body, they don't address reproductive
Greg King:health issues that will come down the road. Yeah, you should
Greg King:address that first and and so I inch this state of shock, went
Greg King:into a fight or flight mode, I guess, and and started making
Greg King:life decisions I had never, ever considered before, and was
Greg King:having to jump the gun on figuring out, you know, where
Greg King:do, where do you sperm bank? What is involved in that? How do
Greg King:you do that? All the while addressing the very scared
Greg King:feeling that I may die of cancer, and then having to
Greg King:figure out, how am I going to tell my family I'm missing
Greg King:Christmas because I have an emergency surgery coming out, it
Greg King:was just it was layers upon layers of just emotion hitting
Greg King:me from all all angles and wild, how life comes at you fast.
Darcie Wells:So did you decide? Did you delay the surgery and or
Darcie Wells:did you did?
Greg King:Yeah, I delayed it as far as I could. Coincidentally,
Greg King:my i. Health insurance as an entrepreneur, in our current
Greg King:environment, it's very hard to get health insurance as an
Greg King:individual unless you own more than a business with more than
Greg King:two employees. So I was on a rotational catastrophic plan
Greg King:through United Health. My deductible was $10,000 the plan
Greg King:was expiring on the 23rd so that was my drop dead date to have
Greg King:the surgery. Coincidentally, my urologist was taking his family
Greg King:Christmas break and going skiing, so he was going to be
Greg King:out of state starting on the 23rd and when you deal with
Greg King:sperm banking, there are rules around how to optimize for that
Greg King:deposit. So I had this precious window to try to get one to two
Greg King:deposits in before I had, I was forced by all hands in the deck
Greg King:to have the surgery. And so we just made decisions. And it was
Greg King:like the 18th I was going to do my first donation. The 20th I
Greg King:was going to figure out how to tell my siblings I had cancer.
Greg King:The 22nd I was going to have a second sperm banking, and then
Greg King:the 23rd I'd have this emergency surgery, and everybody would,
Greg King:you know, break camp and move on.
Darcie Wells:Yeah, my goodness, it sounds like you were in such
Darcie Wells:a flurry. You had so much to do, you know, all these decisions
Darcie Wells:and things to act before you could even get to the surgery.
Darcie Wells:At what point did this all like sink in for you? I mean,
Darcie Wells:February, months later. Yeah,
Greg King:well, I was fortuitous that I had a doctor
Greg King:that for a father, and, you know, he kicked into high gear
Greg King:about just taking over the practical application, like the
Greg King:decision making apparatus, so that we could think through, you
Greg King:know, do we do option A? Do we do option B? And then, if, then,
Greg King:then what? You know, and even though I grew up in a that sort
Greg King:of a family I had, I didn't have an appreciation for how the
Greg King:medical field thinks through things, and it's based on 1000s
Greg King:and 1000s and 1000s of examples they get put into clinical
Greg King:trials and added into national protocols, and then it becomes
Greg King:like this NCAA bracket. That's my analogy, because I'm just a
Greg King:dopey dude of how decisions are made in January. I think the
Greg King:depression of the circumstance really set in. You know when you
Greg King:so the first order of operations in testicular cancer, regardless
Greg King:of kind, is a radical archaeectomy. I had a unilateral
Greg King:radical. Me most that that can be bilateral. And when a man's
Greg King:identity, his manhood, his status among other men in a
Greg King:competitive landscape, in the workforce, in the dating pool,
Greg King:you know, am I going to be attractive to the female sex? Am
Greg King:I going to look like used goods? Are they? Are women going to
Greg King:want me? Is a man in the workplace going to respect me?
Greg King:All of that stuff really sits heavy on the mind and and that
Greg King:saying can after my orchiectomy, and I was more or less bedridden
Greg King:for about 30 to 45 days, and also recovering from the damage
Greg King:of the surgery, because the cancer had spread up through my
Greg King:spermatic or epididymis into my abdomen, so the doctors had to
Greg King:do some origami on my stomach. That was a big setback, and
Greg King:that's when you know the reality of life. Circumstances started
Greg King:to hit in February. I was still living, I mean, I just left all
Greg King:my things in in Austin, where I live, and was staying at my
Greg King:parents home, and also to be closer to my own now. Now your
Greg King:care gets moved to an oncologist from the urologist, so I had to
Greg King:be close to that doctor anyway. And one point my my dad said,
Greg King:You got to get out of this house like you don't live here. You
Greg King:need to put it all together, figure it out and and my knee
Greg King:jerk response is escapism. So I I'm an avid skier. I grew up in
Greg King:the Ski World. My I lived in Colorado for seven years, and so
Greg King:I just, you know, it's just good Chase snow storms, be by myself
Greg King:and ski and try to, you know, I think, work through this. And so
Greg King:that's, that's when the reality really hit. Was when I was
Greg King:traveling out of the back of my car, working on enough energy.
Greg King:Be to like during the waking hours as the scar was healing,
Greg King:to like Chase snow, and that's what I did.
Darcie Wells:So your your instinct was to kind of go out
Darcie Wells:on your own, but you're at a place where the reality of it is
Darcie Wells:hitting hard. And and often times we hear people who, who,
Darcie Wells:you know, face cancer to say the hardest part was after treatment
Darcie Wells:concluded, after the busy after, you know, the the appointments
Darcie Wells:and then the checklist. That's when the emotions happen. So you
Darcie Wells:were alone when the emotional part of this really hit you. I
Darcie Wells:mean, how did you cope with that, and how did you kind of
Darcie Wells:come out of that emotion? I don't know why
Greg King:I chose that, that path that I guess I'm a bit of a
Greg King:loner to begin with. I'm assuming everybody copes with it
Greg King:differently, but I had to go back on a lease. I was expected
Greg King:to move into another house in January, and because I didn't
Greg King:know, being diagnosed stage three, I didn't know if that
Greg King:meant I was going to spend three to six months in Rochester, at
Greg King:the Mayo Clinic at MD Anderson in Houston. I didn't know what
Greg King:my future entailed beyond one month time, because that's what
Greg King:I was dealing with in these meetings with my oncologist. So
Greg King:I had to back out of a lease that my, one of my best friends
Greg King:mothers had, and I I had to tell him and his wife that, hey, I'm
Greg King:sorry I can't sign this lease. I know you're you know, your mom
Greg King:uses this as supplemental income, and their coping
Greg King:mechanism was to make levity of the situation, and the joke came
Greg King:across the bow that like, Hey, I never figured you for much of a
Greg King:father figure anyway, as I'm dealing with, could I? Could I
Greg King:ever have children? And that's not an that's not a a cut
Greg King:against that individual. It was, it was an acknowledgement that
Greg King:this is how this person is coping with the situation.
Greg King:They're resorting to humor. But I don't have the bandwidth, the
Greg King:emotional bandwidth, to because I'm trying to keep myself out of
Greg King:a spiraling depression from dealing with everyone else's
Greg King:coping mechanisms. So I shut down, chose not to tell anybody,
Greg King:and I made my the only people that knew were my brother and
Greg King:sister and their spouses and my parents and my doctors. And I
Greg King:made everybody Swear to me, whether they did or not, that
Greg King:they wouldn't tell anybody. I made them not tell my nieces and
Greg King:nephews. I didn't want any extended family to know, or any
Greg King:family friends. And then I chose to leave, wow, you know, that's
Greg King:how I chose to leave the pandemic stress and go live on a
Greg King:boat. So maybe that's just but. But then I made it a year and a
Greg King:half, I started dating somebody in that I had met on a surfboard
Greg King:in western France and beer eats a year and a half later, and I
Greg King:was sneaking back to the US to have these oncological updates
Greg King:every
Darcie Wells:night you didn't tell her, even Though y'all were
Darcie Wells:dating, absolutely not so
Greg King:I came home and the cancer had spread. That was the
Greg King:summer of 2022 my doctor, even though he was a great
Greg King:oncologist, he had done 12 of my kind, and my kind, I mean the
Greg King:larger umbrella, not my specific germ cell, seminoma, but all
Greg King:testicular cancers over the course of his career. And so I
Greg King:chose to go to someone who a large institution that does a
Greg King:lot of reps on goal. And so I found an oncologist at MD
Greg King:Anderson that sees 12 months. Yeah, moved my care to Houston,
Greg King:and once again, we were in the same decision making matrix of
Greg King:like we need to rush. But he said, Look, this is spread. Now.
Greg King:You have tumors on your vena cava. It's in the
Greg King:retroperitoneal lymph nodes, and we're going to hospitalize you
Greg King:within the next week, and you'll be at MD Anderson, where we can
Greg King:do an intensive chemo care protocol, and I knew that my
Greg King:hair was going to fall out. I knew that, like life would then
Greg King:profoundly change. And that was the moment I chose to tell
Greg King:people, yeah, so I kind of made a public announcement, and I
Greg King:didn't want to some friends knew other friends I was hiding it
Greg King:from, and I knew it was going to be in Houston, where a lot of my
Greg King:college friends were living, and I just didn't want to keep the
Greg King:secret anymore. It was weighing too heavily on me, and I had to
Greg King:tell this person across the globe that I had left, you know,
Greg King:in a travel excursion, that I wasn't coming back and I was
Greg King:going into hospital. No, by the way, I had cancer, and. Then I
Greg King:announced to the world, like, oh, by the way, I have cancer.
Greg King:And I think it started to solidify, like, maybe what a lot
Greg King:of my friends were seeing on my Instagram is like, Greg living
Greg King:out his midlife crisis, which really I was, I was taking 90
Greg King:day breaks between blood work to to wrap up bucket list items,
Greg King:because I was living a very private life, wrapping up my
Greg King:life and preparing my estate and writing my will, and then doing
Greg King:all the things that I wanted to do before I died. Over that year
Greg King:and a half, luckily, I was under some really amazing care. Got
Greg King:out, and it took about a year for my body to start recovering.
Greg King:I don't think people outside of the cancer world appreciate just
Greg King:how much nerve and neurological damage takes place. But you
Greg King:know, you go from you get out of the hospital, it's not like you
Greg King:can just get a job again, right? Life the way it was. Yeah, your
Greg King:doctors are like, get, you know, two liters of water in your
Greg King:stomach a day and like that. Okay, that's my goal for the
Greg King:next month. You know, there's nothing beyond that and and
Greg King:luckily, because I had sold everything before this whole
Greg King:cancer experience, I had the ability to to live without a job
Greg King:and focus on healing my body for a time period, and my heart
Greg King:really goes out to families that don't have those circumstances.
Greg King:I mean, I'm I was surrounded with and just in the genital
Greg King:urinary department at Indy Anderson, you had dads that had,
Greg King:you know, young children and wives and spouses at home. And
Greg King:you know, there are multiple dependence on other people that
Greg King:didn't have the liberties I
Darcie Wells:had, yeah, when you decided to make it public
Darcie Wells:that second round, how did what was that like? I mean, how did
Darcie Wells:people respond? How was that for you? You know, having kept
Darcie Wells:things so private for so long,
Greg King:I was blown away at who chose to show up. Yeah, you
Greg King:don't have an appreciation for who loves you in your life until
Greg King:these sorts of moments, and people I had considered loose
Greg King:friends were making daily calls. Wow. Some people that I the
Greg King:antithesis also happened. Some people I thought would show up,
Greg King:a lot more didn't. There were family members that pretended
Greg King:it, it wasn't happening. There were, you know, everybody deals
Greg King:with it in their own way. And I, I went from through these like
Greg King:states, I don't know if there's like a grieving process, but
Greg King:like anger at some people that that I thought like this person
Greg King:would be in my corner, that, you know, in my fox old didn't even
Greg King:bother to call through the whole experience to like
Greg King:understanding, having a deeper understanding that people are
Greg King:dealing with it in their own way. I had friends. I had one
Greg King:friend's wife that showed up on my porch with an iced tea one
Greg King:day, which is behaviorally very odd. I was not very close with
Greg King:her, yeah, and she, she just sat there on my port. And at one
Greg King:point, you know, it's in the awkwardness of fitting there
Greg King:with her. I'm like, why are you here? You know, and, and she
Greg King:says, she says my parents were sneaking off to MD Anderson when
Greg King:I was in high school, and they did not tell the children that I
Greg King:had cancer, that dad had cancer. I just knew my parents were
Greg King:leaving town, and I was throwing parties when mom and dad were
Greg King:out of town. Wow, to try to be the cool kid in my grade. In my
Greg King:junior year of high school, I was getting drunk in my home
Greg King:with my friends while my parents were dealing with this cancer
Greg King:diagnosis. My dad was stage four of four, and he died my senior
Greg King:year, wow. And she broke down crying and said, I've never
Greg King:wrecked like I've never reconciled that. And this is a
Greg King:34 year old wife and mother. I had another friend who had never
Greg King:told anybody that she had breast cancer, didn't even and she
Greg King:said, my sister is diagnosed with breast cancer, and I have
Greg King:never told her. Maybe I should tell her, wow. And she said,
Greg King:your strength and telling everybody that you have cancer
Greg King:is giving me the courage to tell my mother and my sister that
Greg King:I've had this, that I've been through this. It wasn't
Greg King:strength. I mean, get out of here. I could not. Believe that
Greg King:other people were harboring this secret. Yes, and why is it a
Greg King:secret? Why is it taboo to discuss? It's I learned through
Greg King:all of and this is like two of like dozens. I had a friend call
Greg King:me that I was close with in college, come out of the closet
Greg King:on the phone, and there's, there's a concept called cancer
Greg King:counselor where, like, people think it's kind of sad that I'm
Greg King:laughing about this, but, and it's something people with
Greg King:cancer, like, have talked about, that they either think you're
Greg King:not going to make it, or like, they think, like, I need to
Greg King:relate to this person's trauma, and so they come out with their
Greg King:own secrets. And you know, I had to tell this individual like I
Greg King:have viewed you no differently in my life since we knew each
Greg King:other, and it's been 20 years. You know, I will, I still love
Greg King:you for the man that you are in the friend that you are in my
Greg King:life, regardless of your life experience and your secrets. And
Greg King:then so maybe you're giving me the courage to, you know, tell
Greg King:my my Catholic parents, you know. And I say, Well, I don't
Greg King:take this as like me giving you advice on how to walk through
Greg King:your journey. I just I realized, like you don't have to scratch
Greg King:hardly any below the surface before you realize there is
Greg King:trauma and pain in everyone around you, your your concentric
Greg King:circle, your extended circle. It. It was a shape shifter for
Greg King:me, because
Darcie Wells:you see people through different eyes, and what
Darcie Wells:am I? Yes,
Greg King:and it's like and and then like, and then the second
Greg King:wave of depression hits you, where you're realizing like, the
Greg King:value system with which you chose to subscribe to is failing
Greg King:or has failed, and it's time to choose new values if you're
Greg King:going to care, if you're going to survive this cancer
Greg King:experience and carry forward with the time that's remaining.
Greg King:You know, what is it that you are going to choose to live by
Greg King:and to and who are the people you're going to surround
Greg King:yourself with, and how are you going to engage in the world?
Greg King:Because, because there is pain and suffering and trauma
Greg King:literally everywhere. And I just I became much more empathetic,
Greg King:empathetic, sympathetic. I don't know what the right word is to
Greg King:human life, than I had ever I mean, I've always been, like,
Greg King:everybody deals with their own stuff and their own time, and
Greg King:like, change changed my life profoundly.
Darcie Wells:Yeah, it's a pivotal moment. It's like, you
Darcie Wells:know, BC and AC, you know BC, before cancer and after cancer.
Darcie Wells:I mean, it's hard for anyone to not let it fundamentally change
Darcie Wells:the way you see the world, the way you see people around you.
Darcie Wells:And I think we hear a lot similar to your story, that it
Darcie Wells:changes you in some ways for the better, and that you see the
Darcie Wells:world differently. You appreciate things more you are
Darcie Wells:you know, you're more empathetic. I mean, that's a
Darcie Wells:common theme we hear a lot. You've really channeled that
Darcie Wells:empathy and heart that was uncovered in this journey into
Darcie Wells:advocacy. So tell us a little bit about that. Like, what made
Darcie Wells:you decide, you know, I'm going to do something with this. You
Darcie Wells:know, I'm going to make this purpose.
Greg King:I don't, I mean, the it's still a work in progress.
Greg King:It's it's this value system you're choosing to live by.
Greg King:Another mentor of mine was diagnosed with stage four
Greg King:prostate cancer when I was diagnosed with my germ cell
Greg King:seminoma. He was a professor of mine and an avid entrepreneur
Greg King:and very financially successful, he found a way to get his cancer
Greg King:into remission, and he chose to live his life going around the
Greg King:larger Austin community and helping the impoverished. He
Greg King:said, There's a profound underbelly of impoverished
Greg King:individuals that live out in these little, teeny farm houses.
Greg King:You speed by going 80 miles an hour down the highway, you don't
Greg King:realize there's somebody in there with with debilitating
Greg King:circumstances, in a spiral they can't get out of and not only
Greg King:are they broke, they are dealing with mental instability or drug
Greg King:addiction, or they're just, it's so poor, they they and they're
Greg King:in a they're in a food, I don't know what he called like, a food
Greg King:Island, or food, yeah, food desert. They can't do desert.
Greg King:They can't even they go to the, you know, Dollar General. And.
Greg King:They can't even find adequate calories to put their cell
Greg King:biology on a positive trajectory. And very, very close
Greg King:with him and he started to shape my perspective a bit, but I
Greg King:think it was the reconciliation of the way I had chosen to live
Greg King:my life, I pursued finance. I started my career in Wall Street
Greg King:and was an investment banking analyst, and then tried to
Greg King:dabble in private equity, but I got flushed out with the oh
Greg King:eight financial crash, and then I went into the oil and gas
Greg King:business and on the finance side, and and I'd always chased
Greg King:money, and I had always surrounded myself a professional
Greg King:colleagues, my friends, with people who shared that core
Greg King:value. And it was the abandonment that that of that
Greg King:value. It was the it was that peripheral expansion that you
Greg King:don't know what you don't know until you look and it's right
Greg King:there, right off in the distance, but you don't see it
Greg King:until something widens your visual horizon, that then you
Greg King:start to see other values and other ways people live. And so
Greg King:you know, after chemo, when I couldn't stay awake more than
Greg King:four hours at a time. You know, I went from watching a YouTube
Greg King:video, like putting on boiling water to like, at eight in the
Greg King:morning, to coming to at noon and realizing that, like, I've
Greg King:seen 50 YouTube videos, and the water is boiled, you know, like,
Greg King:there's no water left, like, wondering what's happening to
Greg King:the day to like, okay, now I need to get some physical
Greg King:exercise and some vitamin D. So like, I chose to learn how to
Greg King:surf I'd never served my life. And then, like, now I'm
Greg King:surrounded with a group of people who dietarily, live
Greg King:differently. They're like, their dietary intake the way they
Greg King:value their day is in sunrises and tides and not in how much
Greg King:money they're making. Like that started to shift me, yeah, and
Greg King:and concurrent to that, which I hadn't really shared, my mother,
Greg King:my father and my dog were all diagnosed with cancer post
Greg King:chemo, oh, my God, that like, I just became very numb, yeah to
Greg King:the old life, yeah. And started trying to figure out, like,
Greg King:either you're going to find a way to not live and that sucks,
Greg King:or the alternative is to get through it and find a way to
Greg King:live. And that's like, a deep irony that I don't know that the
Greg King:Western value set, or, like, maybe it's the millennial
Greg King:generation, or maybe it's the lack of church I don't know.
Greg King:Like, I'm not deep enough to truly understand it's something
Greg King:I'm searching through. But like, for some reason, we've
Greg King:determined that stress and depression should be sedated
Greg King:somehow, and we have so many outlets to sedate that we either
Greg King:turn to Instagram, like, look how awesome my life is. Or, you
Greg King:know, alcohol or drugs, like recreational I'll just go to a
Greg King:music festival. I'll go, I'll go to Burning Man and find myself
Greg King:there. Or, you know, like, maybe some, maybe an Ayahuasca journey
Greg King:on a yoga retreat, you know, in Costa Rica is going to solve
Greg King:this pain I'm experiencing. And I chose, this is really dark and
Greg King:bizarre, but I chose to kill that sense of self. And I wasn't
Greg King:having suicidal thoughts specifically, but I did have
Greg King:this unreconcilable feeling that I just want to die, and in these
Greg King:moments of sitting with this sadness as I'm crying on a
Greg King:surfboard, like, as everybody's like enjoying their day, or
Greg King:crying in a bowl of lemon Fettuccine, like in the Amalfi
Greg King:Coast, while everybody, like honeymooners around me enjoying
Greg King:their self that like, I think this is my little AHA that may
Greg King:be applicable for other people, but I've maybe not, but I think
Greg King:that sitting with pain, sitting with profound sadness was Mother
Greg King:Nature or God or the universe, or however you choose to
Greg King:describe it in your journey where you are right now to tell
Greg King:me change your behavior. Yeah. And then that Aha led me to,
Greg King:like, Ooh, what if I could share this with the next guy that
Greg King:thinks he just wants to die going through his cancer? Or
Greg King:what if, like, I can talk about this with my mom that's going
Greg King:through her cancer that she can't. Seemed to kick like,
Greg King:maybe she's had these dark thoughts when she was in her 40s
Greg King:and had teenage kids and and just went inward. And I never
Greg King:knew about that as her child. And like, that's where I decided
Greg King:to start, like, getting out of my shell. So, like, in terms of
Greg King:the advocacy, like, where I am right now is, I've chosen to be
Greg King:a more active participant in an organization called the
Greg King:testicular cancer foundation, and it's to try to, like, put
Greg King:tentacles out in the universe, whether it's Reddit or Google or
Greg King:Instagram or discord channel or your oncologist of like, hey,
Greg King:you've gotten hit with a brick in the face. You probably think
Greg King:you can't talk about this because you don't want your
Greg King:friends to make fun of you, or you know you're going to resort
Greg King:to humor, but you may not like actually start thinking about,
Greg King:how do I take care of the self? Or you're not thinking about
Greg King:progeny, or you're not thinking about a list of other issues.
Greg King:Here's a group of 100 to 200 guys that are all at different
Greg King:walks in the journey, that have had the entire gamut of
Greg King:testicular cancer, that are all over the globe, all over Europe,
Greg King:Asia America, that have had every kind under the umbrella of
Greg King:cancer and like let's just bring you into the into the fold,
Greg King:wherever you are, whether you just were diagnosed, or you're
Greg King:going through chemo, or you're on the back end, or you're
Greg King:trying to deal with, like, how do I come up with, like, my
Greg King:will, or how do I sperm bank? Or how do I talk about that? Like,
Greg King:What does my spouse do and on her end, as she's taking on a
Greg King:heavier workload of, like, the children, or, you know,
Greg King:whatever. And so I've become an active participant in that.
Greg King:That's a growing organ. It's been around, but now it's like
Greg King:experiencing a lot more growth. I trying to figure out ways to
Greg King:like, help that help the funding, help spread the word in
Greg King:that organization. I've also been I had this experience my
Greg King:first week when I was in the hospital where a so I wasn't on
Greg King:the genital urinary floor, I was on a different floor, and like,
Greg King:I'm like, still dealing with the shock of, like, my first round
Greg King:of chemo, but there was a infant that had a leukemia that was On
Greg King:a clinical trial to the room next to me with her, that baby's
Greg King:parents, and I think the child clearly was going to die. And on
Greg King:the right side of my room there was another room, and it was a
Greg King:2022, year old girl that was also on a clinical trial that
Greg King:was dealing with stage four situation and and so I've also
Greg King:been trying to gin up ideas of like, How can I take this
Greg King:journey of me recognizing that I have to be my own hero, my own
Greg King:champion, and translate that into
Greg King:the world view of a child or a teenager. So some ideas that
Greg King:I've come up with have gained some ground. I've gotten some
Greg King:tentative hospital approvals, but I'm still working on that.
Greg King:One of those is like, I'm trying to take this concept of a
Greg King:hospital gown that's in the shape of superheroes or Disney
Greg King:princesses, and turn it into turn it into a costume that can
Greg King:withstand the laundry and the protocols of the hospital, so
Greg King:that you can take both the state of, You know, feeling like
Greg King:you're dying in a hospital room to a little bit more of a state
Greg King:of play. But it's really more profound than that. It's like at
Greg King:some point that child is words of encouragement from other
Greg King:people, like you got this like the individual has to mentally
Greg King:gain the fortitude to help all the systems that we don't
Greg King:understand as humans, and in the medical world, to mentally, help
Greg King:champion the cell biology, to overtake this cancer. And so
Greg King:they have to become their own hero. And so if they can pretend
Greg King:that they're Batman, or pretend that they're, you know, the
Greg King:princess that they want to be, you know, I want that to be
Greg King:something that becomes very real and palpable to them. So I've
Greg King:been working on prototypes, and I've been working on hospitals
Greg King:to try to take on an experimental volume of these to
Greg King:test them out. So I'm still trying to find a manufacturer
Greg King:for that, but that's another project that I'm kind of working
Greg King:on as I get back in my own, you know, entrepreneurial journey of
Greg King:like, putting my own food on the table. So
Darcie Wells:that's sorry. That was a very, very No. That's
Darcie Wells:incredible. I love that. I love that
Greg King:cut me off if you
Darcie Wells:had to do it all again, would you do anything
Darcie Wells:different? Would. You respond in a different way.
Greg King:Oh, I mean, I'm only, I just hit my two year mark, so,
Greg King:I mean, I'm still like, in the process, it's not like I'm
Greg King:coming at it from a place of of authority. You know, there are,
Greg King:I still have about one out of eight days that I have, like,
Greg King:just brain fog, and I'm just cooked for the day, and you can
Greg King:feel it coming. Like, if you really listen to your body, you
Greg King:can just it used to be one. It used to be every day right after
Greg King:chemo is every day, and then it was like, every other day a
Greg King:couple months later, and it was every third day. And like, I
Greg King:chose that most variables I can't control. I can't control
Greg King:whether or not I will be able to have children again. I can't
Greg King:control because the damage of the platinum of the
Greg King:chemotherapy. I can't control how other people react. I can't
Greg King:control if I'll have peripheral neuropathy for the rest of my
Greg King:life and other debilitating side, chronic side effects. But
Greg King:I can control some variables. I can control the sleep I try to
Greg King:get, the food, I try to eat, the knowledge that I try to gain on
Greg King:how to optimize my body, doing tons and tons of live
Greg King:experiments that we could have another hour discussion. Maybe
Greg King:we will try that. Yeah, I'm implementing AI and gathering
Greg King:data that's Well, well, well, and this is cash out of pocket,
Greg King:because insurance doesn't pay for it. It's another advocacy
Greg King:thing, like insurance should really cover cover men's
Greg King:reproductive health, which it doesn't. But I'm trying. I'm
Greg King:trying to control the variables that I can to optimize my body
Greg King:for the time that remains, and the cold, hard truth is that
Greg King:we're all going to die. I have just faced that mortality and
Greg King:chosen that I will live my life with a certain gratitude is not
Greg King:the right word, with a certain application to make it a life
Greg King:worth living. And I heard a quote a couple of weeks ago that
Greg King:hit me as just a gut punch, because this is some truth that
Greg King:I'm still working through, but it's what of God's punishment
Greg King:didn't turn out to be blessings, and I'm grappling with that
Greg King:right now. And maybe, maybe that's like the antithesis of
Greg King:this darkness of death, because it's the death, it's the it's
Greg King:the shortness of life that makes that makes the experience
Greg King:precious, yeah, and I think that goes beyond cancer, that goes to
Greg King:suicide, it goes to depression, and it goes with people feeling
Greg King:like they're in a prison, living in a situation that they don't
Greg King:know how to climb out of. Yeah? Like, that's a message that I
Greg King:think spreads to other people's lives, and it's, it's certainly
Greg King:applicable to my cancer journey. Yeah,
Darcie Wells:I know that there's a many more chapters for
Darcie Wells:you to write in the story, but if you looked today at what gift
Darcie Wells:cancer has given you, what would you say that that was
Greg King:learning how to live a life of deeper meaning. I grew
Greg King:up, you know, it's, it's a chemical. Jordan Peterson would
Greg King:say, oh, it's your chemical construct of it makes your
Greg King:personality, you know the church would say, Well, it's, you know,
Greg King:God's gifts that he's imparted on here. You know it. There's a
Greg King:lot of people will come will describe this from their own
Greg King:lens of language. But I, I know maybe with my childhood, and,
Greg King:you know, my dad is a planner, yeah, and that translated into
Greg King:my value set. But I've always been focused on the future and
Greg King:I've always dwelled on the past, and I've never lived in the
Greg King:present, adequately at any stage of my life. And then when you
Greg King:think like, when were you happiest? You miserable
Greg King:individual? That's what I was thinking in the darkest of my
Greg King:moments over the last few years. It's like when I was a. 11 in
Greg King:the backyard, and I was in a sense of play, yeah, and I
Greg King:didn't have a care in the world. And then it sounds ridiculous to
Greg King:say, well, act like a go. Act like a child now, but I started
Greg King:to ask myself, like, what can you do that makes your adult
Greg King:walk in life feel with the knowledge of an adult, but the
Greg King:heart of the child feel more at play, have more fun with your
Greg King:day and that like that. It brought home like really,
Greg King:learning how to live in in the present moment, and it's scary.
Greg King:It's scary. It scares a lot of people, but it's also a lot of
Greg King:fun and and now I'm trying to reconcile the two. Yeah, you
Greg King:know, now that I'm getting healthier, now that my blood
Greg King:markers are coming back into normal, how do I optimize my i i
Greg King:may die in three years, but I'm going to make the best damn
Greg King:three years that remains, or if I live another 30 years and make
Greg King:that the best 30 years that remains and and now I need to
Greg King:figure out, like, how do I mold all those worlds? And that's
Greg King:kind of the that's the live journey. It's how do I make my
Greg King:work meaningful that makes me want to jump out of bed, yeah.
Greg King:How do I make my relationships meaningful that makes me want to
Greg King:jump to go be with those people? How do I, you know, and like,
Greg King:it's generative, and that's that's been by far the biggest
Greg King:things.
Darcie Wells:Thank you. I mean, thank you for your vulnerability
Darcie Wells:and sharing your journey with us. I know our listeners can
Darcie Wells:take so much from this and your journey continues. I'd love to
Darcie Wells:come back in a year or so and just to hear you know what's
Darcie Wells:unfolded in your life, what you've been able to accomplish,
Darcie Wells:because I know that your experience will help others in
Darcie Wells:so many ways, and has has really charged you to make a difference
Darcie Wells:in a way that you never imagined before.
Greg King:We have these. We have the you go to somebody for
Greg King:expertise, you go to your doctor, you go to your
Greg King:acupuncturist, you go to and, like, a lot of times we we give
Greg King:authority, where authority is due, where people have a lot of
Greg King:knowledge, but then there's but then, let's say somebody
Greg King:delivers negative news. We take that to heart, unfortunately,
Greg King:and we say like, well, you know, I'm going to have this
Greg King:peripheral neuropathy the rest of my life. And that's not true.
Greg King:I did a sex analysis two weeks ago, and I found out that I can
Greg King:have children, and my progeny is equivalent to that of like, a 22
Greg King:to 25 year old male. And I don't think that's happenstance. I
Greg King:think it's because I focused on what I'm eating, I'm sleeping,
Greg King:and how I'm exercising, and what I'm allowing in my life that's
Greg King:manipulating my cortisol levels, etc, etc, etc, that is having a
Greg King:dramatic and direct effect on the outcome. There are
Greg King:opportunities for hope and like, take a take ownership of your
Greg King:own circumstance and your and it sucks and like, it's not your
Greg King:fault, or maybe some of it is your fault, you know, and but
Greg King:regardless, like, take ownership. This is your life.
Greg King:This is your journey. This is your short moment that I think
Greg King:that like somebody, that maybe, if that's the message, they can
Greg King:take that in, and if it affects one person, then this hour we've
Greg King:had together is worth it.
Darcie Wells:That's right, that's worth it. Thank you,
Darcie Wells:Greg. I so appreciate it, and we'll come back and have you on
Darcie Wells:at another time, hear more of your story, and thank you all
Darcie Wells:for joining us for this episode of hope in the face of cancer.
Darcie Wells:If you or someone you love is facing cancer, CanCare is here
Darcie Wells:to support you. Visit us@kancare.org until next time,
Darcie Wells:remember there is always Hope in the Face of Cancer.