I’m Fighting Cancer—Not Making Friends With It

Terry Tucker is a former NCAA Division I athlete, police officer, motivational speaker, cancer survivor, and author of Sustainable Excellence. Diagnosed with a rare form of melanoma over 13 years ago, Terry has defied the odds with unbreakable resilience, unwavering faith, and an ability to find humor even in the toughest moments of life.

 In this raw and empowering conversation, Terry opens up about choosing to fight cancer with everything he has—refusing to accept it as a part of his identity. While many might cycle through the stages of grief multiple times as their diagnosis worsens, Terry shares that once he reached acceptance, he never looked back. His mission became simple: live fully, fight fiercely, and leave nothing on the table when it’s his time to go.

Terry also reflects on the importance of humor, perspective, and dignity after multiple amputations and changes to his body. Whether walking into a room on his own two legs or rolling in with one, he reminds everyone that identity is deeper than appearance—and that sometimes breaking the tension with laughter is a gift both to yourself and others.

Key Topics:

• Refusing to accept cancer as part of his identity
• The mindset shift that changed everything after his diagnosis
• Finding humor and humanity even in moments of loss
• Embracing public vulnerability after multiple amputations
• How attitude and humor bridge the gap between "different" and "human"
• The freedom of living fully once you stop living in fear

Guest Contact & Resources:
📘 Sustainable Excellence: Ten Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life
🌐 MotivationalCheck.com

Find out more about Kali and the show HERE: https://humanityoffame.com/

Transcript

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Did you find yourself going through the five stages of grief multiple times? Because it seems like it started off with, you know, a cyst on the bottom of your toe. Then it went from this, to that, to now it's foot amputation, leg amputation. I mean, I imagine it was a pretty tough emotional roller coaster. Yes, you're absolutely right. I mean, I'm a human being. I'm not, you know, I'm not Superman. And, but did I go through the stages more than once? No, I didn't. Okay. It was like, all right, I'm going to figure this out. I am going to do this as much on my terms as I can with the understanding that I'm not in control of any of this. But at the same time, you know, and I've heard people say, well, you know, cancer is part of you. You need to accept it. You need to incorporate it into your life. Bologna. I'm fighting the heck out of this disease. You know, I'm not incorporating, you're not getting part of me at all. Absolutely not. You're trying to kill me. So I want to kill you and get rid of you. So no, this is, this is, I'm going to fight my brains out to have as much time with the people that I love, the people that I care about, the things that I enjoy in life as I possibly can. And then when it's my time to go, it's like, all right, I did the best I could. I mean, 13 years later, it's 13 years and I'm still alive. And the doctor gave you two years and I'm still here. So this is something bigger than me. This is, this is not, you know, just about Terry Tucker. This is something that's much bigger than me. Yes. And when you said, when it is your time to go, you will definitely be empty because you've given it all that you have. There's no, maybe nothing else to give. Right. And I caught on to what you said when I said, did you go through the five stages, you know, more than once. And from what I'm gathering is once you made up in your mind and you got to that acceptance stage, it's like, whatever comes with me, it is what it is. You know, I'm not going backwards. Right. Yeah. I mean, I started to joke, you know, I always say, you know, for all the amputations I've had, it's like, they're piecemeal in me to hell one body part at a time. It's like, you know, here's the way, you know, it's like, I mean, you do have to find some, some humor in this, you know, you do have to be able to laugh. I'm six foot, eight inches tall and 230 pounds. I'm a big guy. When I used to walk into a room, people would stop and stare. Now I'm in a wheelchair and I don't have a left leg. So when I come into a room, the same thing happens. People stop and stare. And I feel it's incumbent upon me to try to break that tension. And so I'll usually make a joke or do something that that makes people not feel uncomfortable. Who's this guy? I'm different. And it's like, yeah, but I'm still a human being just like you are.