Heath Ritenour On Finding Grace In Cancer

Cancer is a diagnosis feared by many and experienced firsthand by those from all demographics and walks of life. Heath Ritenour, chairman and CEO of Insurance Office of America, is no different from others in receiving the worrisome diagnosis. It changed the course of his life, creating a unique opportunity to view life in a new light.

Heath Ritenour shares his experience with cancer, as well as the wisdom and thoughts that came from it. His insight aims to inspire others to change the course of their own path before they face this type of challenge themselves.

A Diagnosis of Cancer

At the age of 39, Heath Ritenour found himself facing a new challenge of cancer. Ritenour isn’t new to challenges. Though he went to a Christian college and played football, he struggled to find his way in his early adult life. He’s the first to say he made plenty of mistakes. Yet, that changed as he got older, finding a religious path that made more sense to him. Cancer wasn’t on the horizon, though.

Heath Ritenour says his journey through this health battle was one that made him a better person. It made him a better husband and father. It also made him a better human being overall. He says cancer helped him be more empathetic and aware of the daily joys in his life. The diagnosis transformed his attitude. He went from having “a long to-do list” to having “things to do.”

Ritenour wasn’t the “obvious” choice for cancer, if one should ever exist. He was young and fit. He rarely had a reason to visit the doctor. He was active, played basketball, and ran often. One day, on the basketball court, he knew something was wrong. He experienced intense pain in his groin that, at first, seemed like nothing more than a strained muscle. It continued to worsen and eventually forced him to visit the doctor. There, his doctor shocked him with the news that the pain was really the result of a fast-growing tumor. He would later learn the tumor was, in fact, cancer.

Shifting Life and Priorities

There’s little doubt that a cancer diagnosis is life-changing. Most people facing one have a sudden change in the outlook of their lives. Life becomes less about work and the stress of living and more about getting through to the next day, ensuring there’s a chance at a future. It’s physically demanding and emotionally draining.

Within a short amount of time, Ritenour was forced to pull back from board meetings and, instead, found himself facing daily chemo treatments. That doesn’t mean he gave up on life and focused on nothing more than cancer. In fact, that’s the opposite of what happened. He was forced to face the reality of his life, but he also continued to work hard at his business and personal life.

His first step was to let others in his business know what was going on. To do it, he filmed a short video, detailing what was going on and what they could expect of him. He also encouraged employees to seek out help from their own doctors for suspected tumors. One employee’s tumor was, in fact, cancerous and could be successfully treated.

Dark Times Require a Need to Shift Focus

Anyone facing cancer can find themselves in a very deep place. That’s what happened, initially, to Ritenour. He suddenly found himself depressed, thinking “why me?” He was no longer the person he was before he received the diagnosis.

It’s possible to say a lot of people go through similar thought patterns. Heath Ritenour was lucky. His doctors told him that, with chemo – which required 5 ½ hours of treatments each week – he had a 90% chance of recovery. Many of the people he met along the way didn’t share that same opportunity. Some needed to do the exhausting work of chemo for years to come, perhaps even the rest of their lives.

One such person Ritenour describes as a man around his age, with a family, and with a much worse diagnosis. That person was told he would live as long as chemo worked, and once he stopped, his cancer would take over. This person was an important inspiration to Ritenour, making him take a step back and realize just how lucky he was. He suddenly realized how much he had to be grateful for and stopped looking at his life and cancer diagnosis as the worst thing that could have happened to him.

His thought patterns allowed him to realize he was going to be OK and, as a result, he was incredibly lucky and blessed to be in this position. He was able to confidently say he was going home each night, could spend time with his kids, and attend all of their school functions. He could and would remain their father throughout their childhood. Other people, like this man, may have six months to do the same things.

The revelation of where this man was compared to what he was facing created an eye-opening experience for Ritenour. It was a day he said he was done feeling sorry for himself. It changed him and his outlook on not only his work and personal life, but also his passion.

Finding Grace

There’s no doubt that a cancer experience can make a person take a step back to think about what they really believe in and the path they wish to take. Heath Ritenour grew up in a Christian household. Though the image he grew up with of God was vastly different from what he believed today, cancer changed his perception of life as well.

Cancer made him realize that it was just him and God on this journey through life. There’s absolutely no control over anything – it was all in God’s hands to control and manage. For a while, he was angry that he seemed to have no control over what was happening to him, especially in relation to the cancer diagnosis. It wasn’t until he looked past that and realized that God was in control that things started to become a bit more clear.

It’s that realization that there’s no control that can help a person to let go and realize there’s no sense in worrying. All of the emotions he had stored in the back of his mind flooded from him. That feeling of sadness, anger, and fear was gone. Replacing this was a sense of joy, a feeling that he was blessed to be where he is right now.

A simple statement helps to sum up this experience. Ritenour says, “When you are threatened with not being able to do anything, it is no longer what you’ve got to do, it’s what you get to do.” These thoughts and experiences changed the way he looked at life. This was his new mantra moving forward.

Examining a New Life and Future

Cancer taught Heath Ritenour many things. He is noted for saying that it caused him to become more empathetic. That’s another important lesson learned from cancer’s one-on-one experiences with others battling the disease. It began as he started to look around the room and see and feel people going through the same battle he was in. As he recognized his blessings, he also recognized other people’s pain.

At this point, he states, he found himself listening more to others than talking. The advice he was giving people has seemed to shift, too. He had a new outlook on life, a new view from which to make decisions and face life’s challenges. He wanted to share that with the world around him. Putting himself in the shoes of others who were facing these incredible challenges creates a unique sense of empathy.

Empathy like this is not just a requirement for battling cancer and supporting others doing the same. Rather, it was also about applying the same type of compassion to people throughout his life, including at work and personally.

Creating a Way to Give Back

After battling back a cancer diagnosis, Heath Ritenour has managed to create a new way forward. He works harder to give back to people in the community. He’s done so many times since his diagnosis. He’s met with and worked with many people who have faced the same type of cancer battle and other struggles and found their way forward.

Heath Ritenour may have found himself battling cancer unexpectedly, but he learned quickly this was a life-changing situation with many things to be grateful for, including a new view on life and new opportunities in life to help others who may not have the same ability to do so. Today, Heath Ritenour continues to support his community and others, while working hard to remain healthy.

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