What I Learnt From Michael Crossland.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to speak with one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting on my Podcast Flamingo Sunday’s.

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Michael Crossland’s story of overcoming adversity is both a timely reminder of how important every day is but also how we should be thinking about our impact on the world and what we’re leaving behind.

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Michael was born in Coffs Harbour and was for the most part a healthy baby boy. Until one day when his mum took him to the doctor because his sister had an ear infection, as it turned out it was a day that would change his life forever.

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Michael went and gave the doctor a hug and the doctor noticed there was something wrong with his stomach. After an examination, Michael was airlifted to Sydney Hospital, and the following morning was diagnosed with an incurable cancer of the central nervous system, called neuroblastoma stage four.

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The doctor said there was no chance of survival, and told his mum to take him home to allow him to live the next few months with his family.?

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However, Michale’s mum wasn’t prepared to hear that. She said she didn’t want to know what the chances of her son dying were, she just want to know what the chances are of her son surviving. The doctor said Michael had a 96% chance of death and to go home. But his mum chose to look at his life as not being 96% empty, but she chose to look at his life as being 4% full.

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Michael started chemotherapy on his first birthday, as they couldn't wait a single day.?

His treatment was nine days on, three days off, nine days on, three days off. Back in those days, he didn't have the medicine that prevented him from vomiting, so he would just constantly vomit.?

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He was on that treatment for nearly two and a half years, when a doctor came in and said to his mum, "Kerry, we're sorry, the treatments have built up a resistance. It's taken over half of your son's body, we need to go into surgery."

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Michael went into surgery and six hours later, the doctors came out and they said to his mum, "We're sorry, we didn't get it all, there's now nothing we can do."?

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His family were flown from Coffs Harbour down to Sydney to say goodbye. But the next day, there was an American doctor who was trialling a test drug, he was trialling it on 25 patients around the world. He had 24 candidates and he asked Michael’s family whether we wanted to be number 25. They obviously said yes.

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He started the drug on Tuesday morning with 24 other families. Within one day, they were all transferred from the oncology ward to the burns unit. The after-effects of the drug were so bad that we were completely covered from head to toe in blisters. They would wrap everyone up in bandages and they would lay them in baths full of ice, trying to prevent the fallout from the drugs.

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Sadly 24 out of 25 of the participants died from that drug. Michael survived. But the toll it took on his mother was large. She was forced to inject her son with a deadly drug every single day and she needed to do a considerable amount of counselling to get through it.

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Recently Michael realised, that it is far easier to lie in the bed than stand next to it. His Mum burnt him for 18 months, hoping and praying that one day he would be allowed to go home.

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Finally, the doctors told Michael’s mum that they had no idea how or why, but she could take her little boy home. But he would never go to school, would never play sport, and be a housebound baby, and if he reached my teenage years, it'd be a miracle.?

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His mum come through the curtains and Michael asked, "What did the doctors say?" And she said to him with a smile, "Son, the doctors told me that everything was going to be okay." She believed in him.?

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Ultimately, Michael was told he'd never go to school. He went to school, graduated high school, got a full-ride scholarship to play baseball in America. He was told that he would never play sport, yet he represented Australia at the age of 14.?

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He was told that he wouldn't make his teenage years and that almost was true. At the age of 12, he suffered his first major heart attack. And again, he was told that he would never play sport again and again, his mum told me that everything was going to be okay. But once again he made it through on went on to build a career and life for himself.

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In 2019, Michael went on 185 flights, spoke in 22 countries around the world, had a chance to share the stage with the likes of the Dalai Lama and Sir Richard Branson.?

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However, he continues to have health challenges. He had another heart attack when he was 18. 10 years ago, he had bacterial meningitis,?got fluid on the brain and had Bell's Palsy down the right-hand side of his body. He had to learn to walk again and talk again, that was the lowest point in his life. And in 2016, unfortunately, they found four more tumours in his throat and they told me that he wouldn't make Christmas.

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But he continued to overcome these health battles. The hardest thing he ever had to face, was when his role was reversed in 2018 and he was told his newborn son had only days to live. He remembered, what it must have been like for his Mum sitting next to the bed and hearing the bad news from the doctors.

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He had to watch a man resuscitate his little boy and at the time he was, praying, yelling, screaming, crying and he said to himself, "Take my house, take my car, take everything that I own, but please don't take my little boy."

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Fortunately, Michael knew, like his mother did, that everything was going to be OK. And it was and his son made it. Another miracle.

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Michael ultimately realised that if we believe in ourselves and we dream big enough, it's remarkable what we can achieve.?

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After dealing with so much, he doesn’t complain about the little things. He wakes up every morning knowing how lucky he is to be here.

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If Michael’s story shows us anything, it’s that adversity doesn’t define us, how we deal with it does.

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But don’t wait until it’s too late to change. You don’t need to have a life-altering event for you to focus on what your real priorities in life truly are. Make every moment count starting right now.