PALM BEACH GARDENS — Carl Feldman believes that a person’s attitude can have more impact than a surgeon’s knife.
It’s what his own surgeon told him before removing a 28-pound, basketball-sized cancerous tumor from his abdomen two years ago. Through the daunting experience, Feldman knew he would be alright.
Feldman’s positivity carried him through six weeks of radiation and the nine hours of surgery it took to remove the tumor. Today, Feldman is cancer-free. He said he never felt worried when he had cancer because he didn’t fear death.
“I’m a lucky person,” said Feldman, a 69-year-old supermarket equipment builder from Palm Beach Gardens. “The universe has treated me and my family in ways that are just undeserving. … My whole life has been a fairytale.”
Staying positive amid cancer diagnosis
Feldman was tipped off to his tumor not by any particular symptoms but by too-tight shirts. The increasingly snug fit prompted him during a routine bloodwork appointment in 2022 to ask his doctor about his rounding stomach.
The doctor tapped it a couple of times and ordered a CT scan that afternoon. Feldman said the next 24 hours were a blur. He visited oncologist Dr. Vijay Narendran, underwent more tests and was told he had liposarcoma, a rare soft-tissue cancer that grows in fat.
“This is something that really just crept up on him,” Narendran said. “It was probably because this tumor had been growing extremely slowly and creeping into his life slowly and his body had been able to compensate for it.”
Feldman asked his neighbor with pancreatic cancer for advice. The neighbor told him to do three things, which Feldman took to heart: Don’t tell many people about the cancer, don’t read about the diagnosis online and keep a good attitude.
Palm Beach Gardens man with basketball-sized tumor is cancer-free
Feldman went through radiation treatments and lost his appetite before he got surgery at Tampa General Hospital in March 2023.
“I was in the hospital the night before (surgery) and we FaceTimed my grandchildren. … I said to my grandson, ‘Let’s get this party started!’ ” Feldman said. “He said, ‘This is not a party. This is surgery.’ I said, ‘I understand that. But everything is going to work out fine.’ I believed it.”
And just as Feldman expected, the surgery worked.
Feldman was back on his feet walking that night. Twelve weeks later he was playing tennis again — one of his favorite activities.
Today, he said he is playing the best tennis of his life. He also loves photography and has a renewed interest in travel. He recently visited Spain and Portugal and is planning trips to Asia and Alaska next year. He still gets checked for cancer semi-annually.
He documented his cancer journey in a photo album so he wouldn’t forget how he overcame it.
“My life is better than I could have ever imagined,” Feldman said. “On my last day, I want to read the book and remember how I was touched by a miracle.”
Maya Washburn covers northern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network. Reach her at mwashburn@pbpost.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: ‘I’m a lucky person’: How a Palm Beach Gardens man survived a 28-pound cancerous tumor
Reporting by Maya Washburn, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
