Finding his voice after cancer treatment

Transcript:

Joel

Hey everybody, I’m Joel Alsup and this is St. Jude Storied Lives. 

It's where you can hear what life has been like for people who were patients at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. These conversations let you get to know the person, not just the diagnosis. But also how that diagnosis changes plans and sometimes opens new opportunities. I’ve seen it time and time again when I talk with patients.  

A great example of that is a young man named Nick, and that’s who you’ll meet today.  

Nick

It just made me shift gears. It taught me not to have such a narrow scope. There's so much out here. There's so much for you to experience and so much for you to do. Don't just dead lock yourself into one thing. There’s other things you can love too. There’s so much that the world has to offer. 

Joel

The way Nick shifted gears was away from basketball and toward writing and rapping. The first dream was all about physical performance and athleticism. The second dream has helped him look inward and helped him inspire other patients.  

Nick was raised to be a basketball star, both by his community – basketball is actually huge in Memphis – and his family. Nick’s dad played for the hometown team.  

 Nick 

Yeah, he played at University of Memphis back when he was younger, was a great high school prospect as well. He was number one in the country at one point. It’s in the blood, it’s in the blood. (laughs) 

 Joel 

Did that make you guys feel like you were competitive as kids because you had that in your blood, too? 

 Nick 

Yeah. I mean, he pushed us too. So, we were going to be competitive. We always wanted to win.  

Joel 

And, you know, that was your early passion. When did you start playing basketball? What was the first time you had a ball in your hand that you can remember?  

 Nick 

First time I had a ball in my hand, probably like four. But I started playing, like with a team with my dad at like six or seven, was when I started actually playing.  

 Joel 

When did you realize you were good? That, hey, everybody else around me is a little bit slower. Can't shoot quite as well.  

 Nick 

Okay, I know sixth grade for sure, because me and another friend of mine named Carl Johnson were the only two sixth graders to make the varsity team in middle school. So at that point I was like, okay, yeah, maybe I am a little better than, you know, a couple other people out here. But that was a very like distinct milestone like, oh, okay. Only two sixth graders.  

 Joel 

And so yeah, played in middle school, started playing through high school. How was it being on a competitive team? 

 Nick 

It was great because I mean, the thing you take away the most is like the interaction with your teammates. That's what you’re going to hold on to for, like forever. You know, going into battle, game in, game out. Getting a W is always, we always looked forward to that. So I enjoyed it.  

 Joel 

So as you grow, keep getting better and better at basketball. I know in high school something happened. Maybe something started changing in you that you didn't feel as well as you did before. Can you tell us about that? What were the first signs that you thought something might be off about your life?  

 Nick 

That was the eighth-grade summer, heading into ninth grade. We were getting ready to go on, I think it was the Adidas circuit that we were getting ready to go on. To warm up to it, you know, we played a couple of local tournaments around, just to get some games under our belt before we headed off to wherever we were traveling to.  

And for whatever reason, I just felt extremely tired. I started getting, like, knots in my stomach. And, of course, everybody just assumed it was a six pack, because I'm young, exercising all the time. You should have a six pack. You ain’t got no fat on you, you know? So that's kind of what we chalked it up to. So that was fine. Or we thought it was fine.  

But the summer kept going on. June, July and early August. And man, my fatigue. It was getting bad. It was getting worse and worse. And everybody was like, it's your diet, it’s your diet. And I was like, man, maybe it is. But I don't think I eat that bad man. I mean, I was eating everything at that age. 

 Joel 

But you can at that age, it doesn’t matter. (laughs) 

 Nick 

I was doing this before, and it was fine.  So, you know, we chalked it up to that, and then what started happening, I started sleeping like a lot. I would wake and then have these dark circles just around my eyes. And my mom would be like, you got any sleep today? I've been asleep all day. I wake up and I'm still tired.  

When those things started happening for prolonged periods, for like a month, like from July to August, the sleep started and just couldn't shake it. So, I enter high school, ninth grade. I'm in school like two and a half, three weeks and mom scheduled me a doctor’s appointment. And third week of high school, ninth grade, that same doctor’s appointment, I get sent to St. Jude that same day.  

 Joel 

So I'm going to take you back a little bit too, just to give an idea for people listening who might not know, like about competitive basketball. What was your schedule like then? I mean, you mentioned traveling around the country. Can you kind of give me an idea of what life and basketball was like at that time?  

 Nick 

You're traveling the entire summer. As soon as school ball ends, which if you made a push, it's probably like February, March, I believe. And then, March, you’re already practicing with your AAU team. And April, you’re playing, May you're playing. So we traveled that entire summer, we went from place to place to place.  

 Joel 

So I mean, yeah, you could chalk that up to some of the exhaustion as well. But obviously wasn't that. Get lethargic, don't feel well. Go to St. Jude. What are your thoughts as you enter St. Jude? You know, obviously being here in town, did you know anything about it? Was there worry as you were going to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for the first time?  

 Nick 

Well, at that point I really was out of it. I was so tired. But to talk about St. Jude, I really didn't know much about St. Jude before walking through the gates. I mean, I had seen the commercials, you know, I had seen the kids. And outside of that, I didn't know anything. I asked my mom, is this like the hospital for kids with cancer? And she's like, yeah, but, you know, they treat other things too. Because I honestly didn't know. And I knew the kids had cancer on the TV, but that was it.  

 Joel 

And so you get there, what do you find out? What do you learn is going on with you?  

 Nick 

They tell me that same day that I had leukemia and that they thought it was acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which it ended up being.  

 Joel 

And that's the most common form of childhood cancer. But it's still a scary thing to go through, and I'm sure too, like, because I had bone cancer, it was osteosarcoma, that didn't register to me, but the word cancer registered to me. That scared me. What did it feel like to you when you hear that word cancer and your name?  

 Nick 

Well, then, I really only had one thing on my mind. I was really just trying to get back to basketball, so I was like, whatever we got to do to get me back on court is fine. Let's do that.  

 Joel 

And so what did they do? What is treatment like for acute lymphoblastic leukemia?  

 Nick 

It's a two-and-a-half-year treatment. You know, different medicines. It didn't involve any radiation or anything like that. First, it was more oral chemo. And then, you know, you had a drug that was extremely tough called methotrexate. Which is like, I think it’s a 24-hour drip that, there goes the whole day, and you just, it takes you out.  

 Joel 

Yeah. I mean, how did you feel going from elite athlete to now being a cancer patient? How were you feeling from day to day when that's happening?  

 Nick 

Well, I never really thought that I wouldn't get back. So, I always had in my mind, like, I'm going to get back. So, the day to day, you know, when I wasn't feeling awful, I was trying to walk and get exercise as much as I could. It was always on my mind, like, I'm going to get back. So, I wasn't stressing it too much.  

And of course, my mom, especially when it first happened, my mom was worried, like, I'm not going to make it. Which is, you know, a very valid concern. But me, I was like, man, if I didn't make it then that was what was meant to be for me. That was that was my story. And if I do make it, then, you know, I'm going to try my best to get back to what I was doing before this happened.  

 Joel 

So how did you handle that? How did you push yourself through your treatment? You talked a little bit about, like making sure you were still as active as you could possibly be. Was there anything else you did to make sure that you were going to get back to what you were before?  

 Nick 

Yeah, there were a couple times I was in-patient and I would just take my little monitor. I would just do laps around the hospital. So, yeah, just stuff like that. 

 Joel 

And how did the doctors and nurses and other staff at St. Jude help you handle this? Because, I mean, this is a big interruption to life.  

 Nick 

I would say they did the best one could do. They were extremely positive, were extremely helpful. They always kept in mind what my goals were and what I wanted while also saving my life. So, you know, I don't think you can ask for any more than that.  

 Joel 

What's cool for me is, you know, getting to talk to you and share your story a lot of times I've seen a lot of photos through the years and seen you grow up a little bit. Because you were already super tall when I met you. But just seeing the kinship that you made through the hospital and seeing these pictures of you with friends and going through that. 

I know you had one special friend named Hannah who kind of shifted that passion in your life. And can you tell me about Hannah and what she was doing and how she affected your life? 

 Nick 

Yeah. I don't even remember how we – oh, we met in the Teen Room.  

 Joel 

Which is a place that only teenagers can hang out inside St. Jude, it’s just for them.  

 Nick 

Yeah. And, when I met Hannah, I was going through a rough stretch. A rough stretch with the chemo and everything. Starting to have a couple doubts as to what my future might be at that point. And she saw me in the Teen Room, started talking to me, and, started talking about music and this and that.  

And I told her, yeah, I rap. And she was like, oh you rap? For real? So she ended up inviting me to this little party that a couple of patients were going to. I was like, I’ll show up. I’ll go. I'm not doing much else, you know. So, I show up and they’re playing like, these beats, you know, just instrumentals for everybody, kind of like dance to or whatever. And then they play one from, it was “Let the Beat Build” by Lil’ Wayne. And they played the instrumental. 

And I was just vibing to it. And she saw me nodding my head like heavy. And she was like, go ahead and spit something. I said, okay whatever I got you. And then I started rapping. And then everybody started gathering around. It became one of those moments. From then I was like, okay, people kind of like what I got to say a little bit. (laughs) From there she kind of sparked a different fire inside of me. 

It was it was nice just to express myself in a way that was, you know, different from what I was doing at first because, you know, I used to write rhymes or stuff like that in a little notebook. Nothing too serious, just here and there. But when that happened, I was like, okay maybe this is something I can do. So, she planted that seed in me, and I ended up doing a song with my cousin for the Teen Art Show.  

 Joel 

This is so cool. So, like, every year, our child life specialists work with our teenagers to do, like, their own art show, and they rotate the gallery out every single year. So, it's this perspective that our teenage patients have going through their journey at St. Jude. And it's beautiful because there's artwork, there's amazing music made by kids like Nick that you just get this insight into life. What did it mean to you to like, record that track and have it in a place where other people could hear it? 

 Nick 

It was great. I had my little speaker set out in front of my name, people walking by hearing the song. I was like, yeah, this is nice. I like this. And it was nice because I was just talking about what I was going through at that time. So, it was very therapeutic for me.  

 Joel 

That was going to be my next question. Did it help you feel better?  

 Nick 

Yeah, it helped me a lot.  

 Joel 

You know, the tough part – I mean, there's so much amazing stuff that St. Jude has brought I know both you and me. And the tough part is, like, sometimes you make those friends, and their journey doesn't end like your journey does. 

 Nick 

Yeah. Hannah ended up passing away. It really hurt me. I felt like the best thing to do, at least from my mind, was to, like, keep living and keep going after what you want to go after. Because at the end of the day, you wouldn't even pursue music if it wasn't for her.  

And even when she was sick and going through what she was going through, she made it to college. She was still striving to live even though she was sick, and she was hurting. She was like, no, this is not going to stop me from living.  

So, that's what I took away from it. Don’t take this as a defeat. Like, she went out doing what she loved. And that's all you can ask of anybody, like, do what you want to do. Because you’re only here for a short amount of time.  

 Joel 

Yeah, that's a beautiful perspective to have. And I'm amazed every time you talk about Hannah and just hearing that, like, does my heart good because I know a lot of same friends like that, that have affected my life that same way, man. So that's awesome to hear you talk about that.  

And as far as you, you go through your treatment, after you finish up at St. Jude, what happens next? Are you trying to get back to basketball? What happens to Nick after he's finished in his treatment?  

 Nick 

Yeah. The strive to basketball was still a dream of mine. But some of the treatments had damaged my knees and that was another setback. That was a little bit more difficult to overcome from a basketball standpoint, running and jumping constantly. So, I don't think I ever really just got it back to where it was, you know?  

 Joel 

Yeah. Did it help? Knowing what you’d been through, the people you've met when basketball wasn't going the way that you wanted it to, was your perspective okay? 

 Nick 

Yeah I think it just made me shift gears. And I still loved basketball, and I still wanted to play, but it taught me not to have such a narrow scope on what you can do, or just life in general. Like, there's so much out here. There's so much for you to experience and so much for you to do. Don't just dead lock yourself into one thing. Like, if you love it, cool, go after it, chase it. But there are other things you can love too. So much the world has to offer.  

 Joel 

Yeah. And now you're doing great. You're in school. Tell us about, what is life like now? What are you studying? What are you doing? What do you hope to be? 

 Nick 

Yeah, I’m a senior now. University of Memphis. Getting ready to graduate. Majoring in English. I'm aspiring to be an artist, but, you know, if I don't get it the way – or even if I do, I still see myself, you know, helping out St. Jude in the future. That's always a part of the plan.  

 Joel 

Let me tell you all something cool about Nick, too, is I got to meet him, I think we just bumped into you at the cafeteria, like one of the first couple of weeks you were there. Maybe within the first couple of days. And it's an overwhelming experience when you walk through the doors of the hospital for the first time, and I don't think you said a word to us. 

It was me and my future wife had bumped into you because she had the same type of cancer that you did, and we just said hello and kind of met you and your mom and told her, if you need anything, just let us know. So, you went from that guy to like, I remember like a year or two later they were like, Nick’s made a rap song and he's going to be on stage with you. And he's going to sing it. I was like, the Nick I met?  So, this was in front of like a couple thousand people. And you get up and you sing the song that you and your cousin wrote together. What was that like now performing in front of audiences now for the first time?  

 Nick 

To be honest, I didn't really think about it much. It was just kind of like, I practiced, and it was time to perform. And I just performed. I don't think about it like, consciously. I just prepare as best I can and then just go out there.  

 Joel 

And what's it mean to you to see people responding to your music and listening to the messages that are in it? 

 Nick 

I feel like it's always just good feeling to be heard in general. Whether it’s just music or you’re just trying to have a conversation with somebody. Just to be heard, I feel like it's a very good thing.  

 Joel 

As you move forward through life, what is your inspiration as you're writing songs? 

 Nick 

Well, I try to take experiences that I go through and experiences of others. Sometimes people don't necessarily have the platform or the place to speak about what they're going through. So, I like to, sometimes look at other people's lives and tell it from somebody else's perspective, a story. Because I know other people want to be able to relate to stuff as well through music. And I feel like that's a great way to bring people together. 

 Joel 

And you’ve come such a long way. If you look back on that time, that kid who walked through the doors of St. Jude for the first time, what would you want to say to him? What advice would you want to offer?  

 Nick 

I’d just tell him don’t be stubborn to change. Because it's inevitable. It’s going to happen at some point. Even if you didn't go through this, stuff is still going to change regardless. Because at first I think I was fighting it a bit because I was just so dead set, like basketball, basketball, basketball, get back to basketball. But then after awhile, you know, you meet new people, go through new experiences and start to open up.  

Which is why the quiet kid you met is now a little more open now. He talks more. Oh, he can speak, he can rap. But at first, it was like, even in school, like, I had my teammates and a couple of friends here and there, but other than that I wasn't really just speaking to people like that. That wasn’t me. I was just quiet, keep to myself.  

 Joel 

And looking ahead too, where do you see yourself or hope to see yourself here in like the next five, ten years? 

 Nick 

Hopefully on stage somewhere. (laughs) That's the goal.  

 Joel 

And whether it's in the future, whether it's now, what do you hope people see and can learn when they look at you? 

 Nick 

I hope people can just take away the fact that life can sometimes deal you a bad hand. It’s okay to be down for a minute, like it's okay to be down, but try your best to bounce back. Try your best because there's so many blessings and opportunities that you can get just by staying in the game and staying in the race. Don't take yourself out. 

 Joel 

Nick, man, you're an inspiration. I always love talking to you. Thank you so much for taking time out to do this with us. 

 Nick 

Yes sir. Yes sir. 

 Joel

Nick’s got that star quality, and you can see it for yourself. There’s a link to a video in the show notes that’ll tell you more about his story and let you see him perform.  

Finding a way to express yourself, to be yourself, that’s so important as you begin to take your first steps into the wider world, to decide how the world will know you. 

St. Jude knows how important the mental and emotional side of treatment is. That’s why things like the Teen Room and the art show exist – to give patients an outlet to express the feelings they’re having during treatment. You can support the holistic approach of St. Jude by sharing this podcast. And thank you for listening.  

This podcast is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. It's produced by Geoffrey Redick and edited by Grace Korzekwa Evans. Music production by Kazimir Boyle. Recorded by Jason Latshaw, Nathan Black, Bobby Mitchell,  

Orlando Palaez and Dan Yohey. And I'm Joel Alsup.  

Announcer

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital understands that every patient’s journey through treatment is unique. Listeners who have questions about their situation, diagnosis or treatment options should talk to their physician. These personal stories are not intended to provide medical advice. 

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