Video: Mike Vasallo’s Bladder Cancer Story

From the shock of reading a bladder cancer diagnosis in his patient portal just before Christmas to becoming a trusted voice for thousands of patients online, Mike shares an honest, inspiring journey of resilience, advocacy and hope. In this candid conversation, he opens up about the fear of diagnosis, the realities of BCG treatment, the power of a devoted caregiver and how turning his experience into raw, educational videos has helped bladder cancer patients around the world feel less alone. Whether you’re newly diagnosed, supporting a loved one or simply looking for hope, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Click the video below to watch Mike talk about his bladder cancer journey.

Links to some of Mike’s videos

• Video about his BCG experiences
• Video about BCG side effects
• BCG treatment day
• Know the early warning signs of bladder cancer
• The distance bladder cancer patients travel for treatment
• Mike’s journey through bladder cancer

Transcript

Mark Story   0:05
Okay, thank you. So, Mike, do you mind telling me what initial symptoms you had that led you to doctor’s visits that eventually led to your bladder cancer diagnosis?

Mike   0:21
Yeah, I deliberately, I remember the weekend specifically that the symptoms, the onset. I actually had visitors at my house and I had to keep running away from visiting with people because I was having this crazy urgency. And then when I would urinate, I was having
a lot of pain. And that was just that was really unusual. I know that blood in the urine is usually the first sign for a bladder cancer patient, but that wasn’t the signal for me. I was very lucky to have already had a scheduled a primary care visit that following week with my primary care physician. So when I mentioned it to her,
She said, we probably should have you go see a urologist about that. And so that started me on the road to diagnosis.

Listen to Mike’s podcast with BCAN

Mark Story   1:08
Sure.
You’re right that your symptoms, they’re not unusual, but they certainly weren’t the typical blood in the urine. And what was the month and year that this happened, that you first?

Mike   1:24
So that.
Yeah, that was October of 2023 that I had that initial onset of symptoms.

Mark Story   1:31
Okay, so I assume you ended up at a urologist eventually. And how did the whole diagnosis happen? Did they do a TURBT and get a biopsy or how did that go down?

Mike   1:36
Yes.
Well, yeah, they walked through like a few things. One of the first things they wanted to do was check the prostate, which was also my fear based on what I was reading. I thought that this was a prostate issue. And so they cleared me of that and I thought, you know, that’s good. All right, it’s not that. But then, you know, we continue to move through. Then they started to suspect possibly
kidney stones. So they sent me for a CT urogram. I had that. And then that’s where they saw a suspicious spot. And so in office after that CT, the doctor wanted to do a cystoscopy, which was an eye-opening experience, the first time you ever have one of those. And he went in and looked. He said, yeah, that’s suspicious. I would really like to go in, put you under anesthesia.
and scrape that spot to see what it is. But the whole time, my urologist was really, he was in a bit of denial and he had me in it because he said, you’re not the typical patient. You’re in your 40s. You don’t smoke. You didn’t serve in the military. You don’t have these exposures that we usually see that I see in my practice. So I just don’t
I think this could be bladder cancer, but that’s what this is pointing to. And so we’re now into December of 2023, and that’s when I have the first TURBT where he goes in and scrapes. And so the, you know, the crazy thing with modern technology now is that you get the results in the portal, right?
And so my results come in in the portal on the Friday before Christmas. And so at that point, the doctor’s office is closed. Everybody’s closed for the holidays. No one’s going to be open until January 2nd. And so I was left, my wife and I, who were the only ones that knew what I was going through at that point, were left to sit with that for two weeks through the holidays.

Mark Story   3:26
Yeah.
So did you discover you had bladder cancer through the portal?

Mike   3:38
Yes, there were a lot of words on that report and I didn’t know any of them, but I knew what carcinoma meant. And so when I saw that, then that, that pretty much confirmed it for me, but I still wouldn’t have the opportunity. I wanted to have a doctor. My thing was up to that point was always that I didn’t want to look at my blood results, anything, I wanted the doctor to tell me because I didn’t want to start worrying about something that I shouldn’t have to worry about. I’d rather have the doctor say, oh, yeah, that’s nothing. We’ll take care of that. So, but at that point, we were, we knew we were chasing a diagnosis. So we read the report and then, you know, now you don’t have a doctor to say, oh, well, it could be.
And it wasn’t. When we got there to January 2nd and we sat down with the doctor face to face, said, you have cancer. I don’t understand how you have cancer, but you have cancer. So that was hard. It was hard to go through the holidays and smile for pictures and give gifts to the kids and not really know what the future held for us.

Mark Story   4:35
Yes.
So when you, I guess, so it was, let me see, if you got it the Friday before Christmas, so you probably had to go a solid 10 days without saying anything to anyone, well, besides your wife and the family, right?

Mike   4:48
Yeah. Well, and we didn’t even tell our children. At that point, I know that like my supervisor at work knew because I was at that point, I was like, I was having all these doctor’s appointments. I’m like, look, I just got to tell you that I’m chasing a diagnosis. I don’t know what this is. And we also, I think we, I’m pretty sure we let my parents know. But beyond that, we really didn’t let anybody outside of the circle know.
And that’s kind of something that a cancer patient goes through is you don’t want to necessarily tell all of your business. I especially didn’t want to tell my business because A, I didn’t want like all this like, oh, are you okay? Are you okay? I didn’t want all this sympathy. And B, like, I really didn’t know what was happening to me. And I didn’t really want to have to explain myself until I knew what I was explaining.
So we held on to that. In hindsight, I would have rather told more people earlier on, because once I started telling my story, it really opened up a lot of support for my wife, for my kids, for my family, for all of us, from our family, our friends, our communities that we live in and work in. It really opened up a lot of support. And we thought, wow, we should have said something earlier.

Mark Story   5:36
Sure.

Mike   5:58
You know. But in the moment, you just, you don’t know what you don’t know. And your first instinct is to kind of hold tight and protect. So that’s what we did.

Mark Story   6:02
Sure.
So when you got to your urologist’s office and he looked at you and said you have cancer, were you kind of ready for it at that point since you had stewed on the portal, I guess, for 10 days or like,

Mike   6:08
Yeah.

Mark Story   6:28
What’s going through your head?

Mike   6:30
Well, I mean, you want to hear that there’s something else. We had talked going in that, you know, we probably wanted to seek a second opinion from this. And so we were prepared to tell him that.
And, but in that moment when someone first tells you, you, you, I’m a doctor, you have cancer, it is like, it is a weird out of body experience that I had. Like, I just felt like I was kind of like floating up into the air and looking down on me, having a conversation with the doctor, like you just kind of get like tunnel vision. And, you know, you’ve been having a lot of thoughts and they’re all confirmed now.
And your thoughts are racing. It’s not just about the cancer, but it’s about, you know…
Are we prepared for a change in our life? What is this treatment going to cost us? Are we going to be able to afford that? Is this, does this mean that my time is limited? Do I need to like start making arrangements? I mean, like all those crazy thoughts start rolling through your head and it’s really hard to quiet that.

Mark Story   7:30
Yeah.

Mike   7:31
And thankfully, I had really strong support in my wife and caregiver, Heidi, who just jumped in and took over really the planning of my care. She, you know, she was like, I want you to just focus on staying healthy, battling, dealing with pain management, all the things that you’re doing. Like she started taking over the paperwork. Every time we went to a new, when we transferred to the cancer center, there was all this paperwork to fill out. She’s like, I’m filling out all the paperwork. Don’t worry about it. She took care of a lot of that stuff and the scheduling and things like that.
So we then moved our treatment to the cancer center. But when we called the cancer center, the cancer center is very busy. And they gave me an appointment. This is January 2nd, like that same day we called them and said, hey, we need an appointment. We want to get in. And they said, we’ll see you. And it was like in mid-February was the appointment. And you know, here I know I have a cancer growing inside me. I’ve been told that it’s high grade, so it’s aggressive. And like, now I know the clock is ticking and I don’t want to wait. So we, my wife started, you know, we sat with that, we kept the appointment. And as I was going through work, I’m working as a high school assistant principal, I’m having symptoms and the symptoms are getting worse. I’m having frequency and urgency and burning urination. And I’m starting to like, I’m having accidents at work.
And you’re around 2,000 high school students. You don’t want to be having an accident around 2000 high school students. I started wearing untucked shirts to cover up my waist area so that if I had an accident, no one would see it bringing extra clothes to work. And then there was one day I called her on the way home from work and I said, hun, like, I don’t know how much longer I can keep up with this pace because I went to the bathroom 10 times today.

Mark Story   9:00
Yeah.

Mike   9:17
And I know that it’s 50 steps from my desk to the faculty restroom, and…
Like, I can’t keep doing this. There’s 7 class periods in a day. The bell rings less frequently than I have to go to the bathroom. So, you know, I was upset at that point. She was upset. And so she called the cancer center and said, my husband’s really having symptoms. Is there any way we could possibly move up the appointment? Is there a, is there a, are there any cancellations? They said there aren’t.
But we’re going to tell you, you know, we can tell that your husband is in distress and your job as the advocate is to advocate for him. So we’re going to tell you that we want you to call every day. And she said, what? And they said, call every day because we have cancellations all the time. It won’t bother us. You’re not going to be pestering us. Call every day.
And eventually that happened. And actually we moved the appointment up a whole month. So by mid-January, the new cancer center the doctor is doing a TURBT on me because he wanted to get his own first look at my bladder. So that things accelerated quickly. And it was really thanks to having a strong caregiver that was ready to advocate for me.

Mark Story   10:09
Wow.
Sure.
And he confirmed a high-grade non-muscle invasive diagnosis.

Mike   10:30
Correct. And then on top of that, another thing that complicated my diagnosis was that my cancer was growing in a diverticulum on the bladder. And so the bladder had like a bubble on it, a pocket, and that’s where the cancer was growing. So he said, this is a bit unusual, but we’re going to do BCG treatment.

Mike   10:49
But we also want to remove that bladder diverticulum. And to do that, it’s called a partial cystectomy. So we’re actually going to remove part of your bladder. It’s growing next to the ureter, so I’m going to have to relocate your ureter to another place on your bladder, then we’re going to put the bladder back together and let it heal.
And so, you know, that all sounded pretty wild to me. But he was really confident. Like he, you know, I’ve seen this type of cancer before. I’ve dealt with this. This is a surgery I’ve done before. So we’re going to get through this. And so we soldiered on. He did that first TURBT. He came back, we had a Zoom meeting, and he said that because I hate to tell you this, but I didn’t get a deep enough sample. And so I really want, before we move on, we really need to know if this is muscle invasive or non-muscle invasive. It’s pointing to non-muscle invasive, but if it’s muscle invasive, the whole course changes. So we can go ahead with starting BCG if it’s and not know, but we run the risk of possibly being down the road and going, this is muscle invasive. Now we have to treat it differently. He said, my advice is we should do a second TURBT and know for sure before we move forward. So I had to sit with that for a minute because I, again,

Mark Story   11:54
Mhm.

Mike   12:05
It’s a cancer. It’s growing inside me. It’s high grade. It’s growing fast. And now by doing a BCG, by doing a second TURBT, now we’re pushing back treatment. Like the cancer’s growing. Nothing’s really been done to it except scraping at it. And now we got to push back another like 6 to 8 weeks for my bladder to heal after TURBT.

Mark Story   12:20
Yeah.

Mike   12:25
We ultimately decided to do that because that was truly, you know, that’s what the guidelines say you should do. So it pushed things back again, but we got through that. It was non-muscle invasive, confirmed, and so then we were able to move forward with the treatment and the surgery.

Mark Story   12:38
Sure. And what was your first BCG treatment like?

Mike   12:47
Well, I built up a lot of anxiety around BCG. I was really, really seeking what the patient experience was like with BCG. I was looking around to see if I could find patients that were going through it, talking about it, like in it, not like, you know, months later, but like while they’re going through it, what do they, what do they feel like? How were they, you know, because the..

Mike   13:09
When you read about it, the range of possible symptoms and side effects vary greatly from person to person. So I was really seeking that. I built up a lot of anxiety about would my body be able to, would my body react to it? Would I be able to hold it for two hours? Because at that time I was having a hard time just holding urine. Can I hold this for two hours? And, you know, if I don’t hold it, then is it not doing its job? And, you know, I’ve got to be strong for this.
So we built up to that and then the first BCG treatment ended up being scheduled in April of 2024. So now we’re quite a ways from October. And I get there for that first week, I’m all pumped up, you know, I’m anxious, I, you know, I know I got to be catheterized, all these things that have to happen. And when I get there, my urology office, has you take a urine sample first, because they want to make sure that there’s nothing in the bladder that’s going to interact with the BCG and cause you a bigger problem. So I provide the urine sample and they say, you know, strip down, we’ll get in the gown, we’ll come back in a minute. The nurse comes back and says, I’m sorry, but looks like you have signs of a UTI. And so we’re going to have to postpone the first treatment.

Mark Story   14:13
No.

Mike   14:13
So here you are, like, I mean, we’re like, you know, months into this, six months into this, and I’ve built up to this and they’re like, they send me home that first day. And it was crushing. That was probably the lowest point in the whole journey because, you know, here I am, I’m on the cusp of finally killing the cancer. Like I want to be a warrior. I want to fight this.
And then they’re like, come back next week. So again, like my whole, my whole village rallied around me, like my wife immediately, she called my siblings, my parents, and we all met for lunch and they like, you know, they just tried to distract me and it really helped. But then, so then the next week I went back and I took Azo and I drank cranberry juice. I did all kinds of things to try to get rid of the UTI. And the next week I was able to start. So, but yeah, I mean, it’s…It’s not a fun experience. And I sat there, you know, holding it and I’m looking at the clock and going, okay, I made it in an hour and a half. Can I make it another 30 minutes? And I pushed and pushed and I did. I made it the full 2 hours. And you know, the symptoms were, they were palatable. I mean, I did have, I had, I was tired.
You have the burning urination afterwards. But I felt like I weathered it pretty well. And that first treatment day, that was the day that, like, after I finished everything, after I’d urinated out the BCG, sitting there with my wife on the couch, half asleep, and I said, you know, I feel like I want to like share this experience with others because I built up so much anxiety around this and I don’t want other people to have to feel that level of anxiety around this. If there’s a way that I can show them how I feel, what I look like on the day of a treatment, I would love to do it. So I opened up my phone and I made my first like video blog.
I posted it to TikTok and I put my phone away and I thought, you know, who knows who will find this. This is probably going nowhere. I had no thoughts of it really going anywhere, but I was hoping that maybe cancer patients would find it and find it useful.

Mark Story   16:13
I, I mean, I’ve watched several of your videos and I really want to get to that.
And one of them was kind of the day of BCG treatment. And then like you, I won’t say you updated, but you added to it, I think every hour. And viewers could watch, okay, this is the beginning of the day. This is the end of the day and everything that you went through.

Mike   16:25
Right.

Mark Story   16:41
That, to me, was honest and raw.

Mike   16:55
Correct.

Mark Story   16:56
You know, you’ll read the medical stuff online, but this is my experience and this is what happened to me. And I can imagine you got some good feedback from that and other videos, because you really do give a sense of what it’s like to get a BCG treatment.

Mike   17:15
Yeah, and I mean, as I was leading up to it, you know…
I feel like I’m a pretty intelligent guy, so I don’t want to be like, I do my own research guy. But I started, I started, you know, Googling it and reading and I was looking for like medical journals and I was looking for other cancer centers just to see like what they said about BCG treatment, what they said about patient experience, what they said about the protocols. And that was one thing that kind of surprised me was looking at different cancer centers and the differences, minor differences, but like, you know, you should bleach your toilet for 24 hours. You should bleach your toilet for six hours. You need to hold for two hours. Well, one hour will be good enough. So there were just little differences and variations. And I realized that, you know, I mean, cancer is a science, right? And medicine is called practice. But to see those differences, and as I’ve gotten deeper into this, I’ve joined a lot of also like, you know, forums and Facebook groups where I contribute, and it’s interesting to hear from patients in other parts of the US, other parts of the world, and what their what their treatments look like. And so it’s really interesting to try to share that, but it…
It really, as my videos started to be seen by people and people started commenting and messaging me, it really buoyed me in my own experience. I really felt…
Like, you know, that lifted me up, that me helping others was actually helping me get healthy also. And it was just something that I never, I never expected. I never expected it to go where it went and reach people in the UK and Australia, Canada. That blew my mind that my message had that much of a reach, but it really makes me feel good to know that I help others.

Mark Story   19:00
Sure. So let’s talk about your social media activities because you addressed it, but I, first time we talked, I found it fascinating that you went from, you kept it very close, like only a small circle of people knew. And then you’re talking to the world going, it burns when I pee.

Mark Story   19:25
Talk to me about that.

Mike   19:27
Well, I think you know part of it.
Part of it is that you’re, I was guarded also because of my role. I’m an educator. I’m known in the community beyond just my family. And so you want to be careful often about like the way that you portray yourself. The children are watching, right? But as I started to tell my story, especially to, I mean, I spend my time with a bunch of educators all the time.
I realized that, you know, this was teaching. I mean, people were curious. This is immunotherapy. It’s not chemotherapy. Your hair is not going to fall out. How do they put it in your body? I mean, everyone had those questions. And I thought, well, let’s try to take this kind of at first from a clinical perspective, like this happens to people, so let’s teach people about it. So I really approached it at first from an educator perspective. And I still keep that throughout all of my videos that I’m using this to teach you. But there is a great stigma around bladder cancer. It’s obviously it’s impolite to talk about your urinary habits over dinner. But at the same time, these conversations need to be had. People need to hear this. You feel validated, you feel seen when you know that someone else is going through this. And so I think being, knowing that I was having an impact and hearing back from other patients that this was helping them to be seen, it emboldened me in some ways. And then I also had some outreach from some organizations, pharmaceutical companies. I know BCAN partners with Johnson and Johnson. And so, you know, Johnson and Johnson had people messaging me and saying, hey, can we talk? And so getting that kind of support and having some other pharmaceutical companies say, can you make a video for us? It emboldened me to continue to talk about it.
And, but it’s a risk. It takes courage to put that much out there and you know, see what the world is going to say. See. My profiles are public, so people can find me, families at my schools can find me, and you know it, but it’s been it’s been a super positive experience. Everyone that has approached me about it locally that I’ve met, you know, I love what you’re doing. Thank you for doing that. Keep doing it. You’re helping so many people. And so that it really encourages me to keep doing it.

Mark Story   21:52
Sure. Well, let’s give you some social media love. Would you like to share some platforms and handles so people can watch these videos?

Mike   21:57
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure. Most places I am Mr. V3. So that’s, and I spell it all out. So it’s M-I-S-T-E-R-V-E-E 3. And so you’ll find me on Instagram, TikTok, on Twitter. I think I have to have two threes because someone else took the Mr. V3.
And it’s not Twitter, it’s X. On YouTube, I’m also Mr. V3. I know that’s more accessible for a lot of people. And then on Facebook, I am just Mr. First name, Mr. Last name, V-E-E. So those are all ways that people can find me. And there are probably about 10 bladder cancer forums that I participate on Facebook.
And so there are patients there. And I just contribute. And sometimes they go, oh, hey, you’re Mr. V. I saw your videos. And so that’s good to know that people see that. And, you know, sometimes in those forums, someone said, I’m about to start my BCG. What does it look like? And so I’ll just say, hey, I made a video about it. And I’ll drop that YouTube link right there in the comments for them to be able to watch the video.
And if they do, that’s great. If they don’t, then it’s okay too. But I just want people to know that there is help out there. And it’s also great to be connected with BCAN, with pharmaceutical companies to continue to spread the word because as tragic as a bladder cancer diagnosis can be,
It is really exciting to see the developments. It’s like the pace just keeps quickening. And I keep reading about more and more new treatments that are being studied and proposed for bladder cancer patients. And, you know, being someone who had to go through BCG treatments because it was really the only thing for me, knowing that there will be options for future bladder cancer patients. And knowing that I’m kind of part of helping to move that forward is really exciting.

Mark Story   23:54
And thank you for everything you do for your fellow survivors and fellow bladder cancer patients. And I imagine the cool part is, you know, you’re helping people. You know, you’re helping a lot of people, but you’ll never know who they are. But there is someone stressed about a bladder cancer diagnosis at 2 a.m.

Mike   24:09
Right.

Mark Story   24:16
Wanting information, and they’re finding your videos, so…

Mike   24:19
Yeah, it’s just so cool to think that way and know that you can have an impact that way. And even knowing that it’s a quiet thing, that people aren’t, not everybody, a lot of people do message me and say thank you, but even if they don’t, it’s great to know that it’s out there and that it’s helping people.

Mark Story   24:38
Well, it sounds like you have some pretty good research skills. So my next question is, and I don’t know the answer to this, how did you find BCAN?

Mike   24:49
It came up along the way. And it wasn’t a direct like, you know, I wasn’t looking for it. As I try to explain it to people that don’t know what BCAN is, I try to call them, I tell them, they’re the Susan G. Komen of bladder cancer. You know, they’re the ones that are pushing the initiatives and the awareness part of this.
And, but you know, to get in and attend the first summit that I got to attend, we really walked into that thinking that, you know, okay, we’ll learn some information because my wife has also also attended. She also talks on social media about bladder cancer. And we attended thinking that, you know, this will give us some more information to present to our followers about some emerging things in bladder cancer.
But what struck me was two things. First of all, the relationships I was able to build in that just that short three-day weekend with some of the other bladder cancer patients. There were some that I’d met online that now I’m seeing face to face. I’m like, wow, we can hug each other. Like that was a really cool experience. But there were like there was there was one particular presentation
that my wife and I looked at each other and like, you can use this right now. Like even in my maintenance phase, there was an aspect of what was presented that I was able to use right now. And I took that back and I made it a video and I shared it with my other, with my followers because I wanted them to know. And I took it back to my doctor and said, hey, this is a combination of meds that
is helping with side effects and BCG treatment. And my side effects are getting worse as I go through this. Can you review this study and can we do this? And so he said, yeah, put it in my chart. Let me take a look at the study. And I had the actual study, like, you know, and I sent it off to him. And like 2 days later in the portal, I said, yeah, I’ll prescribe these meds on your next round of BCG.
This is great. So then, you know, from there, I made a video and I told people, you know, send me your email address and I’ll send you the study because I don’t want you to just go to your doctor and say, hey, some guy in a hat on TikTok told me I should take these meds. There’s science behind this. Let me send you the study so you can have an educated conversation with your patient. And I probably had about 10 or 15 people reach out and ask for the information to send to their doctor. So again, knowing that I’m helping people, but also knowing that BCAN is also through people like me that come to the summit, is able to spread some of this research farther and wider. It’s awesome. I also became acquainted with the walks and I did a virtual walk last year. I’m hoping to get to one.
Yeah, May is a tough month for educators because it’s the end of the school year. But I, in fact, like my wife and I, really, what we really want to do is have a walk in the Tampa Bay area. That’s what we want to do. But we’ve got to get to a different point where we can manage that and our duties as educators at the same time and find some other people that can help us with that. But the energy that looks like it comes from the walks, the videos and the pictures I’ve seen is just incredible. I know you guys do a great job of fundraising, of bringing together practitioners and advocates and people from all aspects of bladder cancer. And it’s a great organization to be affiliated with.
And I hope to find more ways to align myself and work and support the work of BCAN.

Mark Story   27:57
We can’t wait to work with you. It’s been amazing to collaborate with you up to this point. We can’t wait to work with you. I have an anchor question. I have one question left. We’re recording this in June 2026.
What would the Mike in June 2026 want the newly diagnosed Mike to know?

Mike   28:26
That’s, man, that’s a great question. You know, the Mike that was diagnosed was in a really rough place. It was dark. And I would want him to know that, that, you know, this is going to be hard. It’s not going to be easy. And there are going to be some things along the way that you’re going to question. You’re going to question yourself. You’re going to question your faith. You’re going to question the doctors. And it’s healthy to do that. But in the end, you know, be hopeful because there is hope in this. Bladder cancer is very treatable. And even if things go left and you end up with a muscle invasive diagnosis. I’ve now met so many patients that are muscle invasive patients that have had their bladder removed and have some sort of diversion. And watching them is so inspiring to me because if someday I do have to go down that road, I know that I’m going to be fine, you know? But that was a big fear early on also for 2024, Mike, was it?
If I lose my bladder, it’s going to change my whole life. I’m not going to be able to do all these things. But I’ve been able to learn so much now by meeting other people and know that that’s not, it’s not a death sentence. It’s not something that I need to be afraid of, that if that happens, we’ll do what the doctors say and we will move forward and still be able to have a healthy and active lifestyle. So I think, you know, the message and the message also permeates my social media as a message of hope. And really, I mean, in some ways, that’s all you can do is have hope. But I try to celebrate all of the wins. I I found a great word from BCAN: “thrivership.” I love that word. And I feel like I try to embody that in some of my videos also that, you know, here I am on the other side of this at this point. I still am battling, but at the same time, I’m moving on with life and I’m celebrating life the way that I like to.