The limitless mindset: A story of resilience and radical positivity | Part 2

In this episode of Beyond Brain Tumours, our host Ben Seewald, talks with renowned photographer Steve Carty about his extraordinary journey through a metastatic brain tumour, his experience with awake brain surgery, and his mindset during recovery. Carty is a Toronto-based photographer who has spent more than three decades using his lens to transform fleeting human moments into powerful, heartfelt stories. Join us as Carty candidly shares how his positive mindset, spirituality and self-advocacy shaped his treatment and recovery. 

Steve Carty: YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn 

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Transcript

Cheryl Steps Up

SPEAKER_00 0:01

On the Beyond Brain Tumors podcast, we aim to share personal stories from the brain tumor community and believe in creating space for people to talk openly and authentically about their lived experiences. We recognize that this may look and sound different for everyone. The views and opinions expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Brain Tumor Foundation of Canada. This podcast is intended for storytelling and community connection and is not a replacement or substitute for medical advice. We encourage our listeners to speak with your healthcare team regarding your specific symptoms, needs, and situations. Okay, welcome back to part two of Beyond Brain Tumorist, a podcast of inspiration, hope, and support for the brain tumor community. I'm your host, Ben Seawald, Support Services Specialist at Brain Tumor Foundation of Canada. Here in part two of episode 16 of our conversation with professional photographer, content creator, brain tumor survivor, and true champion, Steve Cardi from Toronto, Ontario. Please have a listen to part one of episode 16 with Cardi for a longer introduction and some context to his story. Okay, so part two, talk to me a little bit about your healer team. So doctors, nurses, support staff, other members of your community who helped you come out okay.

Hospital Team And Surgical Journey

Rapid Recovery And Discharge

Community Support And Voice Notes

Sharing The Journey Online

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Um well we start with Cheryl, um, my fiance, and I proposed to her like two weeks after I came into the hospital. Um I came into the hospital on the um 25th of September. Cheryl's Cheryl's birthday is the um it's the 11th of October. So so close. And I wanted to propose to her on her birthday, but she was away. She works um in education, she helps um international students come to um schools here, and um she's an amazing humanitarian and is the number one support team from day one, where it's like we're going to emergency to um all through being in the hospital and like excuse me, what's your name? Taking picture of badges and like okay, excuse me, who you who are you? What's your role? And like making notes, and like my brain wasn't working, and I needed help. And Cheryl was like, she's at the top of the heap. Um, as far as my helper, I got three tattoos um for her after um, like three tattoos literally in two weeks um after um getting through this thing and proposing to her. So um, yeah, she's on my body and in my life, and the number one um healthcare supporter that I have. Beyond that, obviously, um, the team of doctors at Toronto Western, my surgeon, um who I'm not allowed to say his name because we have an agreement. Yeah, yeah. We have an agreement. Um, but he he literally truly is the hand of God, and um he's uh like top, top, top, top, top on the list because we both have a dialogue with the man upstairs, and um he knew I was coming for the surgery before I knew I had brain. Like it's just it's just him, yeah. Um incredible. Um like all the nurses um and support staff at at Toronto Western, everybody that took care of me on the fifth floor, everybody that took care of me on the sixth floor. Um I I can't explain the level of professionalism and just like always positive, always like happy, always small, like just truly God's people, like um that that I experienced and all the way to the security people, the people who were like letting me in and out of the building late at night, and like yeah, like every even at emergency, like everybody was so next level that as a patient, I wanted to make sure that I was like a model patient because my support care was so next level. Leading up to the surgery, it was so professional. And by the way, I also predicted the day of my surgery to the day it was my dad's birthday. Um, I knew that I would have my surgery on that day. Um, like yeah, it's just, and of course, they're like on the 20, on the on the um the the 20th of is like no surgery today. And every day you're in surgery prep. Every day you go through the thing, like where you can't eat, blah blah blah from midnight, and like you're on IV and like surgery prep, like the 20th, the 21st, the 22nd. But I knew it was like I knew it was happening on the Tuesday, and um yeah, so then post surgery, like yeah, like they came in and and they're like like an hour after, and they're checking on me, they're like, Wow, you're really good. I'm uh amazing, like you know, like my head is all like lobbed, like literally the swelling was preposterous. Like you like looking at me now compared. I mean, again, I know you're you're only listening to me, but um like the swelling was preposterous, and then they came and checked on me like six hours, and it was like, oh my god, like you're you're you're so with it, and it's like okay, and then it's like so I was so good that they're like, You're going home. And this is like the day after my surgery, because I had surgery, you know, I don't remember what time of the afternoon or whatever, and it's like so evening time sleep over the next day. They're like, Oh my god, you're going home. Like, we have sick people here, you need to go home. Like, like so, and then literally like the next day I go home. So, um, that care team, and then getting transitioned into um Princess Margaret and like the care there, it like amazing, amazing, amazing. The people who are taking care of me. I also have naturopaths, I also have um Michael and Maria who are like advisors who are helping and helped, and like just there's so many people. Um, my like my Cardi Method team. Like, I I have a business called the Cardi Method where I help photographers transition from a life of making no money with their camera to making a full-time living. And I have staff um that help me run it's part of my YouTube channel and thekardi method.com and blah blah blah. So it's like my staff that helped me run, like help the business continue to run while I was recovering. Like my team is next, next, next level. And of course, just all my audience, like everybody who reached out and sent love and sent because I couldn't read. Um, I would only accept like voice notes. So if you wanted to communicate, you had to send me a voice note. And if you sent me like a block of text, I would just I thought you cared about me, bro. I thought you know that I can't read. Like, record a voice note. If you care about me, record me a note or make a video and send it to me. So that like I now had like 50, 60, 100 people like sending me videos, and like, and now it's like that's all I was like just watching videos and getting all this love and getting all this fill-up. So yeah, it was amazing. And then I started walking, and um, I like it was still um October. I started walking and documenting these walks in the morning and um posting to Instagram stories, and I mean I have a pretty okay following on Instagram, but like through posting every day and sharing all of this cancer stuff on Instagram, like I I went from like, you know, like 50,000 people looking at my account in a month to like 1.5 million. Like it was like it went like just the engagement went out of control. Um, and again, I shared everything from like like having brain scans to like everything. So um, yeah, if you're interested, Steve Cardi um on Instagram. But yeah, I just transparency's the new meta, and and telling people what you're going through and communicating with people in real life and trying to get off your phone and get back into your body and like the digital detox. Like, I go to a doctor's appointment and I don't even take out my phone to stare at like I just sit and like look at people and just like like I through this whole hospital thing, like it like, and I'm very connected with all obviously like I have to be very connected, but I can also um just like step away. It's it's it's weird, like and again, I'm still I'm still working on being my best self, and there's still we have little battles that we deal with personally, but I don't know. I'm just trying to be good every day, just trying to be better every day, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

That's awesome. Well, definitely you're I mean, even just being on this podcast, you're you're helping the brain tumor community, uh inspiring them, um, showcasing phenomenal example of what's possible when you just sit with good vibes and believe in yourself. So, I mean, thank you for that on behalf of everyone uh who's going through a similar journey.

Mindset: Rise To The Occasion

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Well, if you're going through, if you're going through some sort of brain trauma, some sort of maybe you need to have surgery, some sort of like there I again I'll say as I said earlier in in part one, there's nothing that's put in front of you that you can't handle. There really isn't, and all you have to do is step up. And like we don't we can't control what's going to happen to us, but we can control how we react to it, we can control how we um rise to it, and and and I feel again, it's like you have to rise to the occasion, and um you can do this, like you can do this. You you right now listening to me, there is nothing that you can't handle. There's nothing that you can't overcome, and there's nothing that's put on your lap that is by accident. Everything has a reason, and you're to learn something from this so you can be a better person afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

I love that so much. Do you want to talk a little bit about kind of your post-op life? Kind of how you impact your career, what your mindset is moving forward, talk a little bit about the Cardi method.

Post-Op Hustle And Creativity

Radiation, Seasonal Lows, And Fatigue

Conflicting Oncologist Opinions

Choosing Agency In Treatment

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Sure. I mean, again, it's just it's it's all of a sudden like a new lease on life where I quickly proposed to the love of my life, Cheryl, who had been such a an amazing, like like has went and bought like the biggest diamond, like you can imagine. And like again, she's never someone who thought that she'd get married, and like it's just like, oh my god, like it was one of those, like, and completely surprised her. Like, so post post like surgery, like it's like first of all, propose to your girl, lock that down. Like, so I made sure that I did that. Um, after it's like, well, work, you like you, I I I not being at a hundred percent, and not like I instantly went into like working at like a hundred and fifty percent, which was a little excessive. Like how I I started doing photo shoots the day like I came, I got out of the hospital at two. There's people at my house at five, and I was doing a photo shoot, like the hospital day. So again, I'm like a savage, so I just like and again podcasted with my head stapled and like, hey, welcome to Cardi Myth Podcast. Let me tell you a story about like like so podcasted, did like an hour podcast telling the whole story of like the brain surgery, and like that episode is on my channel, and it's like the miraculous story of my brain tumor, brain cancer, and miraculous recovery. Um, so yeah, that is that brought a lot of boys to the yard. The thing that was different was all the stress, all the anger, all the anxiety, all the worry was gone. Like it just gone from my body, and I was just like um liquid. I I can't explain it. And I just poured like the amount of content that I made in like a 30-day period would be the amount of content that I would normally make over the course of six months. Like it was, I was like a machine, the point where my girl was like, you need to slow down. And I'm like, I can't. I this is this is the speed that I'm going right now. And of course, like, you know, I I suffer from this seasonal depression syndrome. And once like November came and then the clocks went ahead, and then it got cold and the light disappeared, like all of a sudden it was like my mood and my everything kind of shifted. I also had to go through a round of brain, um, brain um like what did I have? Radiation. Yeah, we had some radiation on my brain. I did five day, like five sessions of radiation treatment on my brain, which I was that was really like it all of this kind of coincided as like a really down point um post surgery, um, where I the light disappeared, it got cold, I couldn't do morning walks anymore. Like I stopped doing my stories like at the same velocity, and it's just like, and then I like the positivity, like it's almost like the positivity, I was it was slipping, and I was like starting to get frustrated again. And and like again, I went through all of like I fell asleep through my radiation treatment. Every single and I said, I because like I have my my mask like on my wall back there, like my radiation mask is like back there in the corner, and um I I slept through five radiation sessions. I said, I'm gonna sleep. She's like, it's only seven minutes. I'm like, I'll be asleep in about 35 seconds. And as soon as like they lock me in and the sound starts, I'm like like asleep, and they're like, You're not supposed to sleep because the eyes need to be open. I'm just like, I don't know, man. Like, I I can't, like, it's too droning. But then they say that for two weeks on an upwards trajectory after day five of the like when the radiation is over, for for two weeks, you're gonna feel worse to a peak, and then for two weeks you'll start to feel better, and then you'll go back to baseline, and then finally it started to get better. So then, like, that's now um four weeks, like a month after, at six weeks, depression is a symptom that I didn't wasn't told about this. So, on top of every like now I'm like spiraling in depression, and I'm not knowing that this is part of the symptoms from the radiation, and it like it was hard. Like, I I can't even like I like late November, like because I I went through this in October, and then like, but time goes by before like the effect. So November was just like holy crolly, it was like a a real difficult time. Again, there's nothing put in front of me that I can handle, but holy moly, like the like why are you testing me like this? Like, why are you testing me like this? Like, have I not endured enough? Oh my god. So after now, now like I mean, let's back up into November at some point, where I see my uh I have two uh thoracic doctors, like one is like uh one is a radiation specialist, and one is a chemo specialist. After like I see my chemo doctor, and she's like, you have stage four cancer, stage four. Uh like and it's in your lungs, and you need right, you need like further treatment. And I've been just like I'm like, I'm done with the treatment, yo. Um like you have stay my girl, of course, like she's exploding, tears are shooting out of her face. It's like stage four cancer. It's like listen, yo, I had stage four cancer, okay? It went from my chest to my lungs. That was what I learned the day that I went in the hospital. It stage four means it moved from one place to another. It started in my lungs, went to my brain, turned blah blah blah. We know the story. We cut that part out. So now, according to me, we're back to neutral, we're back to just cancer in the lungs where it started before it it moved. If it moves again, let's talk. But right now, I'm not doing any more treatment. I'm done. And in fact, I had an appointment with now my the um radiation doctor, like two hours later. I'm like, I was so vexed because the way that this doctor delivered the information of like, no, you like this is uh an emergency, you need to like this could happen, this could happen, this could, it's just like, and my girl is just like exploding, tears are like shooting out of her face. She's like, I'm just like deadpan. I I'm gonna be fine. And and again, I'm not saying I'm not gonna do anything, but I am not going into chemo right now. And she said, Okay. So two weeks later, I talked to now my radiation doctor, and my radiation doctor says, the cancer in your in your chest is so small, it's minuscule. You have a two-centimeter nodule over here, and you have like a five centimeter sprinkling of dust through it's so minimal, I wouldn't even treat it. My radiation doctor is like, these pieces are so small that they don't even really need treatment. And if they're not moving anywhere, listen to your like he's like, you're perfect. Look how healthy you are. Look how like like you're not like the patients that I see here are like you're you don't even look like you belong here. Like you're fine. What did the other doctor say? I'm like, I'm gonna get scanned in in in on January the the 18th. He's like, I'll talk to you in February. See you later. Like, not even the smallest, like it's so I wouldn't even treat it, it's microscopic. And and like having to determine, like he says, and again, radiation doctor. If you're coughing up blood, if you're like literally like can't walk around the block, if you can't get it a bit, it's like then there's a problem, and we need Need to do something, but he's like, you're literally moving like you have nothing wrong with like look at you. He's telling me, he's like, look at you. You're listening how do you sound? Listen how like how alert you are. Like, yeah, you don't need chemo. Like, you don't need that. And I'm like, that's what I said.

unknown 22:20

You know what I mean?

Advocacy, Toughness, And Perspective

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Again, this is no slight, but at the same point, it's like everybody's playing their position, and they know, like, well, the radiation doctor is like, Well, no, I've seen this go from this to this, and go from this to this, and this could happen, and this could happen, and this is how we can prevent it. And it's like, okay, if we need to talk to me in two months. It's just like, so again, as I've said, I have my medical team, but then I also have this other team of people who are um naturopath and like advisors and spiritual warriors, people who are like, again, it's I just have a crazy amount of people who care enough about me to try to keep me alive and give me good information. And um, it's been working. I respect the medical field, but at the same time, I I honestly believe that like we have to take a little bit of our own control back. And I think that that like that message is the one thing that you got to take away from from this section of the podcast, is from a guy who has brain cancer, chest cancer, brain tumor, open brain surgery, awake for three and a half hours. Like at the same point, I also question every decision every doctor says that they want to do when it comes to my health. I want to know the exact why. Why? What is this doing? What are the side effects? Like, and I'm that patient. And it's like um, my girl is a savage, like she's also why? What is this for? What's the side effects?

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Like, so well um and yeah, to be an active participant in your treatment plan, right? I think that's the most important thing. Um and to advocate for your own self and health and well-being.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Um who else is gonna do it? Literally, who else is gonna do it?

SPEAKER_00 24:23

You know your body better than anybody else, right? So yeah, I I uh I love that.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

That's how we live. That's how we live long, healthy lives, is by a balance of relax and doing hard stuff because it makes us tougher individuals and it gives us resilience and and like at fortitude and like um intestinal fortitude, and it and it and it makes us like hard people. And and funny, you like North Americans are kind of soft. Like, if you really, and and again, we're speaking to you from North America, we're both in Toronto, Canada, and it's like um Europeans a little harder than us, Africans, Indians, like if you really like you go to even you travel, you go to other countries, you're like, wow, these people are like way tougher than we are. Like, Jesus, we're softies, and there's not a single pure person scrolling their phone. You're like, wow, everyone's just like doing something, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, so I don't know. Like, I think we're softies here in North America, and we could we could learn a lot from other countries and being like tougher, more resilient humans.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Wow, Cardi, we are so lucky to have connected with you today. Um, you're such a courageous and shining light of hope and strength. Um, thank you so much for sharing your raw and authentic journey, for sharing it with the brain tumor community all throughout Canada. Please click on the link in the episode to send us your direct feedback or to let us know if you'd like to be our next guest on the Beyond Brain Tumors podcast. In the world where the challenges of a brain tumor diagnosis can be devastating, Cardi is standing with Brain Tumor Foundation of Canada as a beacon of hope and transformation. Thank you. Stay creative, stay hydrated, and stay strong.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Thanks so much for listening, everybody.