Terry Healey, Author of At Face Value: My Triumph Over a Disfiguring Cancer

May 31, 2009

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors! It’s Friday again and we’re all psyched to be going home for the weekend. This is Dr. Kent, and my next guest on the show has an extraordinary tale. The book is called At Face Value. It’s written by Terry Healey. At Face Value: My Triumph Over a Disfiguring Cancer. Welcome to the show.

Terry Healey: Hey, thanks for having me.

Dr. Kent: Give me a nutshell about this book.

Terry Healey: Well, I’d like to say it’s an inspirational memoir that’s really about my experience overcoming a facially disfiguring cancer, but also probably more importantly, how I was able to eventually, over the course of several years, come to terms with that, accept myself, and ultimately in the end be grateful for the experience. It was something that really other people encouraged me to do. There was a lot of people from the support group that I was attending that just thought that it was a message that could help a lot of other people and so that’s why I ultimately wrote the book.

Dr. Kent: And what a story it is that you have to tell. How did you, there’s so many people that have gone through awful events in their life, and they kind of give up. Talk to us about how you kept going through all of this and have come out the other side.

Terry Healey: I would say that I was very lucky, actually, that I had a great support system, I had great family and friends who provided not just good solid support, but were full of positive energy. I had a medical team that I believed in from day one, who I felt could do what they had to do, that believed in me, in getting through this. So I trusted a lot of people around me and I think that helped a lot. When I spend a lot of time with cancer patients who are newly diagnosed I often hear that they’re not very keen on their doctor, or they don’t feel very good about the treatment plan that’s ahead of them. I was really lucky to have that, so it just kind of fell into place for me. But I definitely would pass that on to anybody that that support system that you have that’s around every day, if it is a medical team that you need, you owe it to yourself to go out and find the people that you connect with and that you trust.

Dr Kent: This happened to you as a young man. It’s a time in life when we don’t anticipate anything happening to us. The world is on a string, and it’s always so difficult for young people to deal with difficulties like this. Talk about the beginning of this struggle for you.

Terry Healey: I think it’s a great question. I was not unlike a lot of 20 year olds that think they’re invincible, you know, nothing serious is going to happen. I think when I was initially diagnosed with the cancer and was told I had a rare form of cancer, I still felt that way, I felt that I’ll be able to lick this thing, this is no big deal. And fortunately I was able to beat it initially and really wasn’t left with any form of disfigurement, but it was 6 months later when I had this recurrence that it really hit me, hit me hard, and made me realize that I was in for a long road to hell. This was something that was going to be life threatening, potentially and most likely was going to be very disfiguring, and so at 20 years old when you think about your life, appearances matte a lot. We’re all kind of in that mode, especially here in the United States where that’s a very important fact. So kind of grappling with those issues. Believe it or not, I think the disfigurement part became a greater challenge for me, especially given that it lasted quite a long time in terms of having to deal with that, have surgical treatments for years and years to recover from the disfigurement.

Dr Kent: I can’t even imagine what this was like, going through, as can most, I would say, a good portion of your audience is amazed that you were able to get through it at all, but then there’s another portion of your audience whom you give courage to. Talk about that part of your audience.

Terry Healey: First off, I think a lot of people on the surface will make comments like, “God, I don’t know how you got through that, I could never get through something like that.” Well, I think oftentimes we underestimate what we can get through, and you hear these stories on TV all the time about different types of adverse situations, adversities that people have to confront and deal with, and all different types of things that happen to us in life. And so, I think people underestimate, I think we all have some human instincts that help us get through that stuff, but you know, I guess I do have messages for people in that I think it’s important for people to think about what if I was faced with something? What kind of survival kit would I need to get through it. I won’t go through all those points, but when I public speak, I talk a lot about my survival kit, and some of those elements that can help other people, and I mentioned some of it before, but I think the first thing is you’ve got to make sure you’ve got a good support structure around you. You’ve got to make sure you surround yourself with positive people. But you also have to make sure that you have a purpose in life beyond whatever it is that’s hit you, and that’s probably the hardest thing, but I think making sure that there are other things that you’re always striving for, trying to look beyond the illness, beyond the condition, beyond the situation. As hard as that is, I think that’s what helped me to try to look forward and believe that there was going to be something. I didn’t know when it was going to happen, but down the road my life was going to be better. And you know, I think it’s also important, especially for males to hear this, is to talk to a counselor, to go to a support group. A lot of men resist that more so than women, obviously, and so those are things I resisted as well, but when I actually opened my eyes and opened the door to it, I found that it was incredibly beneficial and really instrumental.

Dr Kent: What a neat, on the back side of things, what a neat way to take disfiguring events in your life, not just you, but this throws everything on its head, and you’ve been able to turn it into sort of a lifetime of devoting it to people. How is that a blessing for you?

Terry Healey: It’s a blessing in so many ways. I mean, to your point, I think it is kind of my little ministry, if you will, to make sure that I’m able to get out there and talk to other people and help them, but it’s a constant reminder for me of the fact that I appreciate every day now. But it’s also taught me a lot about relationships, and I think we can take things for granted. When you’re faced with something like this, it forces you to get that fresh perspective. I’m the more forgiving person and I’m certainly more accepting of other people, and I think more tolerance. All those kinds of things are really important, but primarily the blessing for me is what you just said, that I’m able to actually get out there and have that reward of being able to help other people in different ways, and my story isn’t just about cancer and disfigurement. It’s the things that I learned and the things that I can share with other people. That’s really the greatest blessing through this whole thing.

Dr Kent: My father has been in a wheelchair for a while, and he’s completely fine, but after a car accident that he and I were in many years ago, he lost his ability to be the same human being that he was beforehand. He can’t be the runner that he always was through his life, and that puts him into the disability crowd. What I find interesting is I spoke to someone else about this very recently, is that this country sort of goes in stages. Right now there’s the Prop 8 and homosexuality, the big issue right now. There was different times when women’s rights was a big thing. Do you think disability rights is ever going to come to the forefront?

Terry Healey: You know, you hope it does. I think for any group that is not the majority, for any minority group, that’s always the greatest challenge, is how do you get the same rights as everybody else. Unfortunately, the smaller that minority group it is, the more difficult it is, the less champions there are for it and so as horrible as any of those things are until somebody becoming disabled in some way during the course of their life, the people that have the ability to reach the masses, people like Christopher Reeves, for example, they can do so much, and bring so much to the forefront and help elevate a lot of those things that are important. And just because you’re a small minority doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t receive the same benefits and be treated the same way as everybody else. So I’m certainly hopeful of that. An aside is, I think about the cancer that I had, and the fact that I try to support it, I try to provide dollars to it, I try to help fundraise for it. The problem is, it’s such a small percentage, that it’s really tough to get any mindshare, any research dollars to go toward it. So it tends to be this ignored type of cancer. And unfortunately, it’s something that affects young people, so not to say that young people are more important than old people, but if you have a disease for example, that’s hitting people that are in their teens, even though it’s a small percentage, that to me is also an important thing to focus on.

Dr Kent: In talking about disabilities, what’s interesting is that you don’t really have a disability. But your sort of experienced the same thing, probably, when you were young, and probably the most difficult thing to deal with is if you’d been in a wheelchair, people stare at you. Right? If you have a disfigurement, people stare at you. Talk about that. You’re the same guy you were, and now all of a sudden people stare at you, and they don’t quite understand.

Terry Healey: Yeah, that’s a great point. It is, if people are different, they get treated differently. If they look different, or if they act different, no matter what they get treated differently. That was the hardest thing for me, because when I was 20 years old my life was smooth sailing, and I never had issues of dealing with struggles with the opposite sex or anything like that, it was easy. And then suddenly I was this monster, if you will, and kids pointed and stared and laughed, and even adults asked a lot of questions, which made me uncomfortable. But what I think is amazing about the whole transformation, and we have to give ourselves time to transform, but over the course of many years I tried to work on the internal, as opposed to the external part of me. At a certain point I cut off and ignored this, trying to reconstruct myself back to the way I was, and instead said I’ve become really insecure, I’ve got to focus on the inside. What I found was, when I’d walk down the street in 1986 people would ask me questions. But why, several years later, in the 90’s and beyond do I never get questioned anymore, do kids never come up to me and ask me questions. It’s a rare thing now for somebody to notice that I’m different, and all I can think of is that, and granted I don’t have something that may be as noticeable as being in a wheelchair, but I think it’s how we carry ourselves, and the confidence that we have, and I think if we don’t make a big deal about being different, nobody else will. Or people are less inclined to. That’s the only thing I can think of. I look the same as I did in 1986, or 1991, let’s say. Why was I getting so many questions back then and so many difficult situations, and now it’s just so rare to have those. To me, that was a real life transforming experience, and I was lucky that it’s worked out that way.

Dr Kent: Well, it’s been such a pleasure chatting with you, I could talk all day about this book, and about your life story. Terry Healey’s website is terryhealey.com. Tell us in just about a minute about your speaking business and what projects are you working on now, and of course, how is this book doing for you.

Terry Healey: I’m doing a fair amount of speaking. I have a full time job as a marketing strategy consultant, so I have to pick these things and pick and choose a little bit, but I speak to a lot of corporations, sales and marketing organizations within those. I speak to a lot of schools, and that’s something that I find probably the most powerful in terms of impact. So, young kids in high school or even middle school, sometimes in college, who are dealing with issues of insecurity, dealing with appearance-related challenges. So those are great ones for me, and right now I’m doing a lot around these Relay for Life’s and stuff with the American Cancer Society, so supporting events with other cancer patients that are dealing with things today. So I’m trying to focus and pick those things that I think I can have an impact on and where my story will resonate. The book just kind of comes secondary, and as much as people can read and not be distracted by all the other things around them, great, if they can pick up the book, it’s an easy read. But it’s a nice complement to the book to have the ability to speak to people in groups.

Dr Kent: Well what a pleasure it’s been. The book is called At Face Value: My Triumph Over a Disfiguring Cancer. We’ve speaking with Terry Healey, and I can’t wait to talk to you the next time.

Terry Healey: Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Dr Kent: Now, my next guest on the show, as always, is a musician, and I’m going to start out playing a track from her album, and Susan Oetgen, and the group is called Likeness to Lily, and I’m going to play a track from their record. It’s called False Hopes, a beautiful track. Listen to this, and after we listen to the track we’re going to talk to her live, so come on back for that.

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