239: Kyle Garlett Podcast

In today’s episode of the ‘Finding your Summit’ podcast, host Mark Pattison, former NFL Player, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, and Mountaineer who has climbed the Seven Summits, talks with guest, Kyle Garlett, a Philosopher, Author, and Speaker who shares his journey on surviving cancer four times, and finally, a life-giving heart transplant.

Listen to “EP 239: Kyle Garlett-Overcoming 4 bouts of cancer and a heart transplant but this dude keeps living life to the fullest..” on Spreaker.

Episode Highlights

• 02:19 – Kyle shares the qualities that allowed him to get through and says his struggles aren’t unique to him; it’s something that we as human beings have.
• 04:16 – Kyle knew that he had treatable/curable cancer, and there was this young boy who had a brain tumor.
• 06:01 – Mark asks how the other students treated Kyle once they found out he had cancer.
• 08:01 – They went to the doctor together and he did a biopsy again, and it was confirmed that it is recurring. At that point, he began a seven-drug chemotherapy course that started in June through the end of 1991.
• 08:31 – Kyle talks about the play of all the awful things that are associated with one when somebody is taking chemo.
• 10:10 – The first week you’re having chemo, you have nausea and vomiting. By the end of your six months, everything is hard, reveals Kyle.
• 11:09 – In the middle of his chemo, Kyle turned 20. All of his friends were in college, while he was at home every day getting treatments and getting sick—it’s a tough road.
• 13:12 – Kyle points out, the third time in late 1994, it was again Hodgkin’s.
• 14:31 – They were beginning trials on recurrent lymphoma to see if this therapy would work on that, and he was part of that trial, says Kyle.
• 16:38 – The guest says he survived and the lymphoma was gone again. By that next year, he was back in school.
• 18:49 – Kyle’s doctors told him that as long as nothing is interfering with the drugs they’re giving, he can do whatever he wants. So, they experimented with things.
• 20:01 – Mark inquires if there is any reason why Kyle had this one kind of cancer and then his body took on a blood issue—and how did he get through that?
• 22:30 – These drugs work differently on people for different kinds of cancer. So, they came up with a cocktail of five or six different drugs to give him over three years, shares Kyle.
• 24:05 – Mark says about Kyle—Cancer did attack his heart and now he’s got to deal with essentially replacing his heart.
• 26:56 – The guest mentions that the heart was a big factor as he was getting closer and closer to the day, as he was hopeful that he would get that phone call.
• 28:12 – All of a sudden, he had this pump in his chest that worked and he felt better immediately, mentions Kyle.
• 30:34 – Mark asks Kyle if he has any more scares or physical issues that he has had in the past.
• 32:30 – “What does life look like today in terms of day-to-day, how you’re attacking life, how you’re staying positive?” asks Mark.
• 34:37 – Kyle shares that it’s about loving each day of life, both of getting up and realizing that we’re lucky to be here and we’re going to make sure that today is a good day.
• 36:05 – Kyle says he is a Sports Writer by trade, but he has also written about his own experiences and journey.

Three Key Points

1. Kyle says that the support was a big part of keeping him up and keeping him a part of the world. Even though he was somewhat isolated from his friends, he still had people around him who were there to help pick him up. Also, he never wanted to give up because he was still very much convinced that he was going to have a life afterward.
2. Kyle was willing to give a lot of things a try in terms of changing his lifestyle, and incorporating other things into it, because he was a little desperate to stop cancer from happening at this point.
3. Kyle had about a dozen wonderful medical minds figuring out exactly how to treat him, and they came up with a three-year course of chemotherapy that he started in 1997 and finished in 2000—and it worked.

Tweetable Quotes

“We just simply don’t understand how strong we are until we have to be.” – Kyle Garlett

“Getting Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is one of the better cancers to get if you’re going to get cancer.” – Mark Pattison

“I began that battle right off the bat knowing that I had a pretty good chance of survival.” – Kyle Garlett

“You’ve been a cancer patient for 20 minutes and they’re already digging around in your bone.” – Kyle Garlett

“I was senior class president, I had this fantastic year set up for me, and all of a sudden, I’m a cancer patient.” – Kyle Garlett

“Once you feel cancer, you know what it feels like, and so, I knew before anybody else, I knew before doctors.” – Kyle Garlett

“The idea is that it will poison you enough to kill cancer and hopefully not kill you in the process.” – Kyle Garlett

“I was a big fan of eating a bowl of cereal in the morning, and I got to the point where I could not lift a gallon of milk anymore.” – Kyle Garlett

“I was convinced that cancer was a thing of the past, and all of a sudden, a lymph node popped up on my neck again.” – Kyle Garlett

“This was no longer cancer you wanted to have because now it was multiple recurrences of cancer that was proving to be stubborn to new treatments.” – Kyle Garlett

“When the Leukemia came around, that was my fourth diagnosis, my second type of cancer.” – Kyle Garlett

“One of the chemotherapy drugs that I had for the Hodgkin’s is probably what caused the Leukemia. It’s a known possible side effect.” – Kyle Garlett

“When I was diagnosed with Leukemia, the drug that had caused my Leukemia is one of the drugs they would have normally given me.” – Kyle Garlett

“The doctors were kind of figuring out a new course of therapy to do.” – Kyle Garlett

“The idea is the longer we can hold this permission, the better your odds are on the back end of it.” – Kyle Garlett

“I finished the first chemo in 2000 and 2001, and then they told me that for me to live long term with my heart, they are going to need to give me a new one.” – Kyle Garlett

“I was always being treated for cancer. I never could identify what was chemo-related, what was heart-related. I just knew that I felt terrible and was limited.” – Kyle Garlett

“It wasn’t uncommon for me to have little black moments where I’d have to sit and hold on to something and wait for my blood to get back into my head.” – Kyle Garlett

“As soon as I woke up from surgery, I had energy, I had a blood pressure, I had color in my face, I just felt good, and that was not something I had felt in years.” – Kyle Garlett

“My body will never recognize it as part of its own. So, I always have to take rejection drugs for the rest of my life.” – Kyle Garlett

“I’ve had blood clot issues where the blood clots were exactly where the bacteria started. They’re not quite sure if it’s related or not to that.” – Kyle Garlett

“I haven’t done any marathons yet, but I would like to get back and do a marathon or triathlon.” – Kyle Garlett

“I would be a different person if these experiences didn’t happen.” – Kyle Garlett

 

Resources Mentioned

Kyle Garlett: Website

Mark Pattison YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingYourSummitWithMarkPattison/featured