'Healed on the inside': Polk man chronicles how God and family got him through cancer fight
Jeff Foley thought he was finished with writing books.
While pursuing a living as an author, Jeff Foley thrived on “participatory journalism.” In his most successful book, he chronicled his brief career as a 5-foot-6, 180-pound receiver with the Albany Firebirds of the Arena Football League.
Unable to forge a career despite writing seven books, Foley shifted into photography and public relations. But then he was drafted to confront a foe even more daunting than hulking football players: cancer.
Foley received his diagnosis on Dec. 23, 2022. That same day, he began writing what became “Healed on the Inside: The Power of God's Love, a Family's Battle with Cancer, and a Will to Live.”
“I thought I was done until cancer hit,” Foley said. “And I thought one of the only ways I'm going to get through this is to write about it. But then I also thought — there's really an opportunity to help other people and to maybe give them hope. I'm kind of a silver lining kind of guy. I want to find the good things.”
Foley, 53, describes “Healed on the Inside” as the sort of guide he wishes someone had given him when he embarked on his cancer experience. The 325-page book, which Foley published last month, seeks to encourage anyone coping with life’s darker spells with the overarching message, “Live while you’re alive.”
A native of upstate New York, Foley began writing books while employed as a sportswriter at a newspaper. Following marriage and fatherhood, he found a more stable line of work, creating a photography business, assisted by his wife, Jeanette.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, New York officials imposed restrictions that Foley said wrecked his business. Jeanette had fond childhood memories of visits to Central Florida, and the couple moved with their three children to the Poinciana area in 2021.
Treatment, side effects
Foley had developed pre-cancerous moles on his back as a teenager, but he said he had long forgotten about them. As they were preparing for the move, Jeanette noticed a mole on his back, which soon began to itch. Jeanette urged him to have it checked, but the family lacked health insurance as Foley sought a new job, and he put it off.
Foley landed a communications job with Polk County government in October 2022, and upon obtaining health insurance he went to see a dermatologist. He acknowledges that the delay of about a year was “a terrible mistake.”
Jeanette took the children to New York for the Christmas vacation in 2022, but Jeff had not yet earned enough paid time off to join them. The dermatologist called him two days before Christmas with the result of a biopsy — stage three nodular melanoma.
“He told me that it was cancer, which was, needless to say, quite a shock to the system,” Foley said. “And I think one of the first questions I asked him is, ‘Does what I have kill people?’ And he said, ‘It absolutely does, but we will get you through this.’ ”
After calling Jeanette to share the shocking news, Foley later that day began making notes for the eventual book.
“I sometimes think, I started trying to be a writer when I was a little boy, and maybe I've been building up to this book my whole life,” he said. “Maybe this is why I've spent all those hours writing and perfecting the craft, so that I can write this book in a way that would help somebody.”
Within a month, Foley underwent the first of four surgeries at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. The melanoma had penetrated deeply enough that he required two sets of internal stitches and one set on his skin.
Biopsies revealed that the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes, and he soon had another operation, during which the surgeon removed five lymph nodes from his left armpit, four of which were malignant. The surgeon excised another 19 nodes a month later, and those were free of cancer.
Jeanette said that seeing her husband after one of the lymph node surgeries might have been her lowest moment.
“I just knew that we were in for a little bit of a long haul,” she said. “In my head, I'm like, ‘I need to stay positive for him and just encourage him.’ You just have to be there for your partner and just always remember that God has got you, regardless.”
“It was quite the year,” Foley said. “I remember coming back to work and doing the (County Commission) board meetings with a drain sticking out of my side and literally trying to hide a bag of body fluid while I worked. Not only was I going through cancer and trying to be a dad and a husband still, but I was trying to hold on to a job as well.”
Doctors decided that Foley was a candidate for immunotherapy, a protocol intended to help the patient’s immune system detect and eliminate cancer cells. He qualified to receive free doses from the manufacturer of Nivolumab, a monoclonal antibody that normally costs about $30,000 a month, he said.
Though the treatment is considered gentler than chemotherapy and radiation, it carried significant side effects. Foley developed high blood pressure, diabetes and a case of vertigo so intense that doctors suspected he was having a stroke. And he lost 60 pounds.
Foley, who now lives in Bartow, also suffered through a “horrific” infection and, in November, a recurrence of his cancer on the opposite side of his back, requiring another operation.
“The scariest part of that is, I was on immunotherapy, which is supposed to keep that thing from happening,” Foley said. “So, to have it happen anyway, you wonder how well your body's taking to it.”
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Foley rang a bell at Moffitt in May, signaling the completion of his 12 rounds of immunotherapy.
While recovery from some cancers is considered complete at a certain chronological milestone, Foley knows that his melanoma could come back. Even so, he is now in remission, and he decided after the November surgery to declare himself free of cancer.
“At that point, I kind of wanted to stop putting out into the world that I had cancer, and I wanted to start putting out that God had helped me beat it,” he said.
Vowing to treasure each day
As the subtitle suggests, Foley’s book emphasizes his religious faith as a crucial component of his ability to endure a hellish period. He said that he could only withstand the delays in learning the results of continued tests by placing his trust in God.
“I was a Christian going into this journey, but cancer has certainly strengthened my relationship with God,” he said. “We've had quite a few times throughout this process where my wife would look at me and go, ‘Jeff, you're so calm about this. How is that possible? That's not like you.’ And I would say, literally, ‘The only thing I've done is turned it over to God.’”
Foley also decided not to be merely a passive patient, instead endeavoring to fully inhabit every moment.
“I have really strived to wake up every day and challenge myself to live while I'm alive,” he said. “Kind of made a decision that, even if this was something that was ultimately going to take my life, that I was still here today, and I have a young child that I need to help grow up to be a happy adult who loves God and accomplishes good things, and I need to be a good husband for my wife. And, for the most part, I've been able to do that, but only through God.”
Jeanette said that Jeff’s cancer diagnosis, as frightening as it has been, had produced unexpected benefits.
“I feel like we've gotten closer,” she said. “We've been spending more time together, because at a time like that you just kind of realize you can lose something quick. In my head, I’m like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’ You don't want to take anything for granted.”
Following his surgery in November, rather than heading home to sleep, as he normally would, Foley noted that he and Jeanette, his driver, rarely had time away from their kids and suggested enjoying an impromptu lunch date.
A similar moment came about two weeks after Foley’s first surgery, when Jeanette was working and he was running errands with their youngest daughter, Jaylynn, who was then 4. At that point, Foley was so weak that he needed Jaylynn, who goes by “JJ,” to help him put on his socks and shoes.
Driving past a playground on the way to Walmart, Foley asked Jaylynn if she’d like to stop. As they walked toward the swings, hand in hand, Foley’s daughter asked about the “zigzags” on his back, meaning scars from his surgery. He told her that he would always have the scars but he was glad that she didn’t have to see them, concealed as they were under his shirt.
“And she said, ‘Well, Dad, maybe God's healing you on the inside first,’” Foley recalled. “That’s where the title of the book comes from. I just thought — God is answering your prayer through your toddler. He’s telling you, ‘You're going to get to keep being a parent. Just live and enjoy the moments.’”
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Though the book is self-published, Foley said he took a rigorous approach, completing five drafts as he worked with his editor, Mark Eby, a church friend. As of Wednesday, the book ranked 567th on Amazon’s "survival biography" sales list.
Though “Healed on the Inside” chronicles a unique experience in coping with a specific form of cancer, Foley said the book explores universal themes.
“I think it shares a very specific cancer journey, but I don't think it's cancer-specific, if that makes sense,” he said. “If you're going through a hard time in life, it's a story of somebody else going through a hard time in life that you might identify with.”
He added: “I also do hope that it helps drive people to God and to turn their problems over to him and lean on him. He’s given me a lot more than I deserve.”
Gary White can be reached at [email protected] or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Bartow man hopes new book about cancer and faith encourages others
