“I Didn’t Die So I Wrote A Book” - Denise DeSimoe - Podcast
I was so honored to interview Denise DeSimoe.
Denise DeSimo
Denise is an author, speaker, mentor, minister, documentarian, podcaster, and certified in many alternative healing modalities. She got cancer and she didn’t die. So, she wrote a book.
One dreadfully hot Saturday in August, 2005 her life changed dramatically. That day was the culmination of months of training, preparing to participate in a 90-mile bicycle ride with the Pan Mass Challenge in Boston dedicated to raising money for children’s cancer research. A few hours into the ride she could feel myself failing physically. It took everything she had in her to barely finish the ride. But she did! Not long after she learned, if she didn’t move at rapid fire speed, she was only 90 days away from death herself. Diagnosis – stage IV throat and neck cancer. She was catapulted into treatment: surgery to implant a feeding tube into my stomach, exploratory surgery to see exactly where the source of the cancer was, and a treatment protocol that needed to commence asap. It was the beginning of the most challenging and profound time in her life. She lost the ability to eat for a very long time, to speak, and to drink even a sip of water for months. The only ability she had was vulnerability. She chose to befriend my cancer and not battle it. She had open dialogue with it. She asked many questions and was open to the still small voice that taught her more lessons about life and about herself than she had learned in her first 50 years on the planet. This is when she learned, among the many lessons learned, the important art of turning challenges into doorways of transformation. Her doctors warned her that post-operatively, she may lose my singing voice for good. Well, 22 months post diagnosis, she sang the National Anthem before a sell-out crowd of 37,000 Boston Red Sox fans at Fenway Park. From the very beginning, it has been an honor that her journey with cancer has touched many lives in positive ways. From public speaking to supporting people one-on-one across the country, Denise has become a real-life inspiration and mentor to many. She didn’t learn what she taught in a book or from sitting in front of a guru for years. She learned it by living it. She teaches from a place of experiential knowledge.
Listen to this episode where Denise shares more of her story and the lessons learned along the way.
