Priorities tend to change with experiences as we grow and learn. I’ve had to learn important shifts in life that I’ve needed to make, but I had to learn the hard way for some shifts.
“You’d think fitness was on top of my mindset being a professional athlete. I had to learn the importance of proper fitness after blowing out my knee.”
That being said, it has all taught me to open my mind and see how I can be proactive to learning as well as share my experiences in the ope it inspires a change in those who may need to make similar shifts in your lives. 💚✌️
WHY we do anything is a million times more important than what we do.
WHY is the driving force behind what anyone does, whether they are conscious of it or not. Whether they like what they do or not.
There is a reason WHY they set out for that path and the more conscious we become of our decisions, the more we can navigate to the lives we want.
Find what you want to do in life and be conscious to your WHY. It will help navigate your path to success and keep you motivated in times of doubt. 💚✌️
Just the emotional response that “thing” triggers and the emotional state you’re living in once that “thing” is obtained. What would it take to live in that state of happiness, gratitude, ease, love, high energy, & optimism….now?
People and things don’t make you happy. YOU make you happy. It’s a choice. You either choose to be happy, or you choose to be happy because of this or that.
When you let go of the resistance to what you think will make you happy…”I’ll be happy when…fill in the blank…..” and choose to be happy because you’re grateful to be alive, then and only then will you find yourself feeling prospered in all the interests of your life. The universe provides you with your desires, “good” or “bad”. That’s only determined by your state of being and what you are focusing on.
Are you focusing on what you don’t have and living in lack? Hence, “I’ll be happy when I get that job, get that house, make that money, buy that car, find that significant other, etc, etc.”. Or are you living in gratitude for what you have, and because you know what you don’t enjoy/what, you do know what you enjoy and desire in life?
That’s the goal and that’s when the things we want and desire appear in our lives. When we let go of the lack, stress, worry, fear, judgment, anger, and suffering, and focus on what we do enjoy and are grateful for, the rest comes easy. It’s our choice.
Being diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor is not something anyone wants to hear, let alone a 21-year-old young adult living his dream. But, in March of 2010, I experienced this first hand after a new trick attempt had gone wrong.
Let me back up a little bit and fill you in some of my past childhood before people make assumptions about my life, one way or another.
People look into my life from an outside perspective and are quick to judge. They think, “He is so lucky to ride a bike for a living and not work” or “he’s from Cape Cod and has it easy,” etc. They don’t see the past years growing up abused by a bi-polar drug using drunk, being put down by step family members (my blood family was more supportive than I could have asked), and teachers telling me I am not going to make it. They don’t see the struggle of coming from a low-income family that struggled to make ends meet and lived pay check-to-pay check, leaving me with a bike re-welded three times and always breaking parts. They don’t see the start of being set up for failure from a deep-rooted subconscious belief, passed down from generation to generation, that you had to work for others and hardly get by while working your ass off.
Let me make something clear, in the most positive way possible, what I do is indeed “work. Maybe not what most consider work, because I love what I do and wouldn’t have it any other way, but it indeed takes hard work, effort, and long ass days. But that is what it takes to make a dream a reality. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
My family taught me the value of hard “work” at a young age so I could afford bike parts via working at gas stations, landscaping full-time, department store jobs, etc. That work ethic shaped my personality and perspective on life that had helped me get to where I am now by channeling the work ethic and energy into my dream and not stopping even when I wanted to give up. I thought, “F*%$, I can work my ass for these people and help make their dreams possible, why not take a risk on my dream and see how it goes? I can always get a job if it doesn’t work.”
I see this now, but back then, I didn’t consciously know what my subconscious was saying and how it was leading me towards success. I was just so set on taking action towards my dream that I didn’t even know my subconscious belief of hard work combined with my desire to live out my dreams, was what would lead me to become friends with my idols. I would later find myself on the same ramps as I saw on tv, competing against them all around the world, and being an inspiration to many with all my struggles and success in life.
As for school, I did decent in classes with B’s and C’s, the occasional D. Mostly because I was so focused on riding that I wouldn’t study much after completing my homework. I would just go ride. My mom had two rules when it came to school: 100% effort in class and completed homework before riding. But it was difficult to give 100% when my mind was so set on a dream that was outside of academics and when teachers would put my dream down and say “you are not gonna make it and need to focus on class.”
I remember this one “CAD” project I had in my landscape design class and how much negativity was in this woman’s life who taught the class. I don’t judge because that is where she was in her life and I can respect that, but at the time I was furious and full of hatred towards her. But, the project was to design your dream house landscape. I did so, very well as I love landscape design. I also nicely designed dirt jumps in the back that had grass grown all over them nicely, except the riding surfaces, as well as a sick backyard ramp.
All designed beautifully into the landscape and house set-up. She was so spiteful she failed me until I took all the BMX related design out. I wish more than anything I wasn’t conditioned from my abusive step-father to have had a voice at that moment and call her out and go to the principle about this situation. I now say what I believe is right, no matter who I may offend or piss off. I’d rather be true to myself and stand up for what I think is right, rather than have no voice. There is too much of that going on in the world, and I am changing that with myself. I am a big believer in being the change I want to see in the world. We can only control our actions and may as well utilize or free will to do so, or don’t complain about things that don’t go your way.
Another brief story with this woman, she sent me and best friend to the principles office for being giggly in “theory” class first thing in the morning. She suspected us of being on drugs rather than just goofy teenagers full of energy and laughter. I never touched, nor saw a drug in my life at the time and made that a priority because my goal was to be a pro and my perspective was I could not drink or mess with drugs if I wanted that to be the outcome I desired.
When I was 17, I made the decision to drop out of high school to pursue BMX, which is a story of its own. Long story short, I entered a video contest on VitalBMX.com sponsored by Haro Bikes offering ten spots to be flown out to Greenville, NC (I dreamed of going here to train with Dave Mirra) and ride with the pros and compete for a sponsored spot. I made a 36 hr bus ride out there a few weeks prior with my best friend, Brandon, to check it out. Met some of the dudes and rode the facility where we would be competing.
I was picked as one of the ten riders around the world and was flown out to compete a few weeks later. I didn’t win the top spot, but my riding style and skill, my personality, and my sketchy bike awarded me an amateur spot on the team. This would lead me to move to Greenville shortly after and sleep on my friend’s couch who was going to college in the same town, later leading me to pay utilities to sleep on a blow-up mattress in his large living room walk-in closet. Haha, that was such a great time, and I can’t believe it when I think back to what I did to make my dream a reality.
All around the same time, it’s a bit fuzzy being ten years ago; I was offered a month straight of arena motocross/BMX shows touring from Western Canada to Eastern Canada in the dead of winter. That is an entire story of its own, too. From almost dying on the snow/ice covered roads on a cliff, being 18 and getting into clubs, legally, and drinking tons of beer at our own sponsored parties, dancing with girls and my friends holding beers in both hands and in our back pockets, to smoking weed for the first time thinking “I am going to die on this trip”, while some meat-head stubborn dude thought he was invisible to the harsh driving elements and “I may as well try it before I leave this world,” to riding in front of thousands of people for the first time while learning tricks in the actual show, due to the energy and hype of the crowd.
I made a lot of wild and bad choices on that trip but, hey, I was young, living my rock star life dream, and we all start somewhere. I am confident anyone that I come across today knows I am not about that life anymore and live a healthy and holistic lifestyle. It’s also lead to an awesome story I can share as I get older and I had an amazing experience with some of my best friends still today. What’s a life worth living if you’re not feeling, experiencing, failing, and succeeding?
This trip also allowed me to acquire like five grand in a single month, which led me to stay in Greenville and to extend my visit. This is when I moved onto my buddies couch and then, later on, his walk-in living room closet. I laugh just thinking and typing that out. Safe to say I was doing what it took at such an early age. But, at this time I was still enrolled into school as a junior in high-school, my mom and I both forgetting. I was enrolled in a technical high school that allowed me to work for two weeks and attend academics for two weeks.
My school set-up allowed me to make money and fund my travels for national contests. I also remember not making a damn penny off my placings as one of the top athletes in the world and taking my paycheck and putting it right back into my travels/hotels for the next contest. Contests seem to have got worse and worse that now, unsponsored (which is a whole story of its own of why I think the industry is so s*** right now and I, a top ten ranked athlete, can’t get to the contests this year), I am not able to compete due to the cost of travel and prize money not making logical sense to attend.
I remember getting a call from my mom explaining how a letter int he mail said I was expelled and she forgot I had school. She was so used to me traveling and was excited to see me living it up, that we both forgot about it. Particularly because of the two weeks of work program I was in and then cutting to compete and travel to Greenville. Spoiler alert, two years after living in Greenville I decided to finish high school and surprise my mom with the new. She cried and said, “I am so proud of you and never thought you would finish.”
So, at the age of 17, I made the move to Greenville, NC in pursuit of this childhood dream of mine to ride BMX professionally, which went against everything an American society stands for and is full of risks on larger levels than most can fathom. I was living as a professional athlete, in a walk-in closet, who would ride, train, and compete with and against my heroes, like Dave Mirra, in X-Games and other various contests around the world when I fell from 10 feet in the air and hit my head one-day training.
Little did I know on this day, my life would change forever. That crash would lead to a life-saving MRI that revealed a mass taking up a good portion of the left side of my brain. It was a complete shock, but at the same time made sense due to the symptoms I was experiencing that were previously ignored by doctors, like migraines so bad I would throw up and I was going blind due to the tumor pushing on my optic nerve.
Requests for MRIs were denied and instead I was continuously instructed to take pain meds when I got a headache or a migraine. It was just something I was told I would have to live with as a normal part of my regular day-to-day life. If it weren’t for that crash and MRI, I would not be here today. Another thing that shocked my parents and I was the neurologist I would later see telling me that my smoking marijuana stopped the tumor from growing any quicker or spreading, and kept me from having seizures while flipping and spinning 15 feet in the air on my bike. He was confused as to how that wasn’t the case for me until we got to the part about drugs. I don’t consider the plant to be a drug, and I can write so much about this one topic, but it led me to research the plant and its therapeutic effects further. I am not very public about it, until now I suppose, and I don’t promote it due to the ignorance surrounding it, especially with children. I have learned there are harmful methods of consumption and then there are healthy methods of consumption.
When I was first diagnosed, I thought my life was over. I walked out of the office, stunned, as nurses tried to stop me and the doctor tried to share more and stop me as well. I didn’t hear anything. I just wanted out. I tried to call my mom and couldn’t speak for like ten minutes. It was almost as if my conscious was no longer within me for a moment. She knew instantly something was wrong and then it finally came out. She, being a cancer survivor herself, understood my emotions and was there for me more than a mother typically could.
I felt scared, lost, and sorry for myself for a week or so. I then began to worry more about not riding any longer, and that became my main focus once again in my life. I put all my energy into visualizing myself riding one day again and took all the support from friends, family, and people around the world to change my energy into determination like I did to become professional. There became a point my mindset went from fear to “this is just what I have to do and fear no longer serves me,” after the doctor explaining it was surgery or wait until my death. My situation was so bad that he rescheduled other patients of his to get me in as soon as possible.
I believe it was this mindset and the support of others, as well as knowing people like Lance Armstrong went through it and came out on top, so then I could too, that allowed me to overcome this and return better than ever. Not just on my bike, but off my bike too!
I had an immense desire to live and to ride. I made that happen and didn’t give up. I have learned now that if I gave into the disease and gave up mentally, my body and subconscious mind would agree and I may not have made it. A four-hour surgery led to six hours due to the tumor taking up space around the main artery in my brain and pushing onto my optic nerve. If I didn’t want a stroke, death, parlayed, etc. , which I had to sign waivers agreeing to the risk of all of those from the surgery, the doc had to be very precise and slow. He told me all about the surgery six years later when we met again, so crazy how good his memory is!
Since then, as well as being re-diagnosed in 2012 with two new tumors and in 2017 with two additional tumors, I have become very passionate about the importance of holistic health and nutrition, fostering a positive mindset, not giving up when times get tough and supporting others. I enrolled in an online nutrition program called the “Institute for Integrative Nutrition,” where I learned more about nutrition and how to share the message with others.
I have learned that many of my regular eating and lifestyle habits back then were just fueling the disease. It is now my mission to share with others the significance of the power to choose what we put into our bodies and the importance of the subconscious thoughts we have, our right to medical imaging, and the treatment options out there that are not as well-known as they should be. Had I not been denied MRI’s for a year or more, the possibility of not having my skull cut open and having Gamma Knife would have been greater.
My heart has always been in BMX as it’s served me in so many ways. BMX has shown me the world and all the places I learned about in school, took something negative like a crash and saved my life, taught me life skills at a young age, and provided me with an income I could live off of 13 hours away from home at the age of 17. BMX has taught me so much about myself, healthy life/business choices, and what matters most in life.
That is why I have started my foundation “The Josh Perry Foundation,” in partnership with the Athlete Recovery Fund. It’s my way to share all the beautiful things I have learned about life and health through BMX, and my experiences, as my way of giving back support to those in need as well as my sport, who needs it. We will spread our message with non-profit BMX stunt shows for hospitals around the world to support those in need with brain tumors, injuries, and other disorders through BMX, education, and entertainment.
I am grateful and fortunate to be alive and healthier than ever today, and I want to share my passions to help support those in need. Gary Vaynerchuk puts it perfectly “It’s 400,000,000,000 to 1 that we are a living human being”, stressing the importance of gratitude and hard work to make your dreams a reality. I live my life like this to the best of ability while also sharing it with everyone I come in contact with.
Do what you love, live in gratitude, always stay positive when times get tough and don’t be afraid to take a risk. You never know what you may learn and whom you may inspire.
I’m alive because of my BMX bike. The pain pills doctors kept feeding me almost killed me. A crash, leading to an MRI, saved my life and revealed a brain tumor taking up almost half my brain. I was then rushed to Duke for surgery to remove the meningioma brain tumor. My neurosurgeon said I had kept taking, or avoiding pain pills because they make me sick, rather than treating the underlying cause (brain tumor), I would not have woken up one day.
It’s crazy how it literally took a crash for them to scan my brain and see I wasn’t making shit up. They kept saying “no, you don’t need a scan. Headaches are just something people live with and it’s very common.I am going to prescribe you pain pills.” Then society acts like there is this huge opioid epidemic. True, but it’s created from doctors hiding behind their ego rather than helping patients. Goes without saying but not all doctors. Voicing this concern has led me to doctors that believe what I believe and truly care to take the extra step to help their patients.
For those of you who have no idea who I am, I am a Pro BMX athlete who moved away from home on Cape Cod, MA at 17 years old to train with pro’s like Dave Mirra in Greenville, NC. About two years later I rode X-Games for the first time after winning my first pro contest.
Less than a year later I fell and hit my head, and an MRI revealed a large brain tumor that was taking up a major portion of my brain. I didn’t know where to turn, but Athlete Recovery Fund stepped up to the plate and provided the financial assistance and direction that ultimately saved my life! Despite all odds, I recovered to become 10th overall in the 2016 UCI BMX Freestyle World Cup standings, not even a year out of ACL reconstructive surgery.
It is estimated that about 700,000 people are currently living with a primary brain or central nervous system tumor diagnosis in the US alone. Nearly 79,000 new cases of primary brain tumors are expected to be diagnosed this year, almost 5,000 being adolescents (0-19) years old and 17,000 people will lose their battle with a primary malignant and central nervous system brain tumor. An estimated 1.7 million people sustain a TBI annually, 52,000 die, 275,000 are hospitalized, and 1.365 million, nearly 80%, are treated and released from an emergency department.
Along the way, I’ve become very passionate about holistic health and nutrition and enrolled myself in a nutrition program to earn a certification as a Holistic Health coach on a path to better my health, life, and others in the world. I want to combine all of my passions into one live BMX event that will directly and financially help brain tumor and brain injury patients around the world. Being a brain tumor and brain injury patient myself, I know the mental, physical and financial toll it takes on you. I want to use my experiences and abilities to lessen that for others as much as I can.
I come from a family with no money, and I have been supporting myself since I was 17 by living my dream from riding my bike. I do whatever I can to give back now, and these global events will allow me to give back even more and on a much greater scale than what I can currently do on my own.
I want to create a global touring BMX event that will positively impact the lives of people around the world. To do this, I need funding. The problem is, I don’t have that kind of funding. So, how can I make this happen? Then I thought, wait a minute. “Josh, you’re a man of the people. Let’s start a fundraising campaign!”
The goal of this fundraising campaign is to raise funds to start and operate for a whole year so that way all the events we book, the merchandise we sell, and donations we acquire hereafter will be used to donate percentages of the proceeds to direct financial patient care. We are more than a BMX stunt show, we are a BMX stunt show offering free clinics for people to try BMX out after the show, live music performances, professional athletic trainers on site to provide demonstration therapies and techniques, and are backed by some of the biggest health facility, organizations, and corporations in the world.
I truthfully think the only thing standing in the way of me getting from point A to point B, is proper funding. Point B being inspiring, educating, entertaining, and supporting people around the world. I want to create and cultivate something large enough so that I no longer need financial support to operate events, and the organization is overbooked and giving 100’s of thousands of dollars away each year to directly support patients and get them the care they need.
This project is so important and means the world to me. If you guys help us out, I know I can inspire hope to those in need and completely change the lives of many around the world.
I can do this, but I can’t do it without you. Together, we can have an amazing time and leave a positive impact on our world.
Thank you for your time. I appreciate each and every one of you. See you soon!  -Josh Perry
You can help Josh achieve his dream of giving back and support his cause to bring awareness and assistance to those who suffer from tumors, cancers, and injuries of the brain by donating today!
For as long as he can remember, Josh Perry has lived off adrenaline. “I started riding a bike when I was 3,” he tells PEOPLE. “When I was 13, I went to ramp parks. I got my first BMX bike, and I loved it.”
He loved it so much that he decided to turn BMX riding into a career. Going Pro at 16, he entered his first contest. At 20 years old, he won his first event in Joplin, Missouri. His prize: a Harley Davidson.
That same year, he competed in his first X Games, the annual national event that focuses on extreme sports and airs on ESPN.
Things were going well. “I was looking to progress in my career,” he says. “I got a good start and was excited to travel, compete and make videos.
A Frightening Diagnosis
But his plans came to a screeching halt in March of 2010. After a fall while training, he had to get an MRI. When the doctor came back into the room, Perry sensed that something was wrong. “There was a weird energy in the room,” he says. “The doctor came out and said that I had a brain tumor on my left side. He said, ‘If it doesn’t get taken out, you will die.’ ”
In retrospect, Perry knew that something had been wrong. “I was getting the headaches in mid-2009,” he remembers. “And then I had some blurry vision.”
Still, the news was devastating. “My first thought was, ‘I can’t ride anymore.’ But then, I had to focus on preserving my life.”
Perry had an operation at Duke University in April 2010. “It was supposed to be a five-hour surgery, but it took longer,” he says, but the surgery was successful.”
Almost immediately, he noticed an improvement. “I wasn’t getting any more headaches. My vision was back to normal. I wanted to ride again.”
A Discouraging Recurrence
With the surgery behind him, Perry began to practice. Within three months, he was back to his old tricks – but the surgery had taken a considerable psychological toll. “That took two years to get my confidence back,” he says.
And then, tragedy struck again. In 2012, he was doing some BMX demos in India. “My mom messaged me, saying we needed to talk about a recent scan I had done. I knew instantly that something was wrong.”
Sure enough, Perry learned that there were two more blueberry-sized tumors in his brain – one in the right side, and the other in the rear. “They were near arteries,” he says. “Traditional surgery wouldn’t work.”
Instead, Perry had Gamma Knife treatment, a new procedure that bombards the tumors with radiation. Again, it was successful: the tumors have shrunk considerably and continue to get smaller.
A New Motivation
While Perry’s life still includes regular brain scans – his next one is in November – he has resumed his career. “I’m ready to keep riding and competing, making videos and succeeding in the BMX world,” he says.
My message is bigger than that,” he continues. “I became a science nerd when it comes to nutrition. People are torturing themselves by eating processed foods. Fast food isn’t really food at all.”
“I don’t know what caused my tumors,” he says. “Could it be from living near power lines? Or what I ate? Or head trauma? I don’t know. But what I do know is that people are killing themselves if they live miserable lives when they have the ability to change it. That includes how they eat, and how they live.”
“If there’s a message I’ve got, it’s that you can’t live in fear or dread. No one knows how long they have. So everyone, including myself, needs to try to live a happy, healthy life. We’ve only got one.”
First, they said I’d never ride again. Then they said I’d never compete again. Then they said I’d never win again. I didn’t believe them. I was right.
Let me back up. I’m a professional BMX athlete, which means I compete in freestyle BMX bike riding events where we do tricks like backflips, spins and tail whips. When I was in my 20s – not long after I had won a major professional competition and competed in the X-Games, the most elite of extreme sports competitions – I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. This tumor, known as a meningioma, took up almost the entire left side of my head. I went from feeling on top of the world to feeling like the world was on top of me. A team of surgeons opened my skull and cut out the tumor. The surgery was intense and the recovery was tough, but fortunately, I was back on my bike just over a month later.
The experience changed me, but not as significantly as you might expect. I thought of my brain tumor as a short pause in an otherwise normal life; not much different than the sort of bumps I went over on the BMX course. I went back to training, traveling and competing. I was your basic 20-something kid: I rode hard during the day, and ate, drank and stayed out late with my buddies at night. Life goes on, right?
Wrong. Two years after making a full recovery from surgery, I was traveling in India when I found out I had two more brain tumors. The news hit me hard. I knew I was lucky to have come out of the first diagnosis and surgery with little more than a scar on my scalp. With this second diagnosis, I started to worry that my luck was running out.
That was when I knew it was time to make some changes. While I had probably known all along deep down that I couldn’t fuel my dreams on 42-ounce sodas and microwaved burritos, the return of my tumors made me realize how precious good health really is. It gave me the motivation to take a serious look at my life and lifestyle and to reconsider my choices.
I started with my most pressing issues, which, quite literally, were the brain tumors pressing on my skull. My intense desire to beat the tumors and get on with my life almost matched my desire not to live through another craniotomy. I believed that there had to be another way to fix the tumors, so I sat at my computer searching the web until I found something that seemed like it might be an alternative: Gamma Knife radiosurgery, a way to treat the brain tumors without having to cut the skull open. I soon found a doctor who would perform the procedure, which involves directing a high dose of irradiation through the intact skull to control the tumors. The radiation works to make the tumors disappear, shrink or stop growing.
Next, I focused on revamping my diet. Now, the sodas, beer, and fast food are out, and real, whole foods are in. I try to eat organic whenever possible. I’ve cut way back on sugar and I drink a lot of water. One of the things that surprised me when I changed my diet was that eating healthy really isn’t that complicated. Staying away from packaged and processed foods and eating organic when I can are small changes that made a big difference – at least for me. I now have more energy and fewer midday energy crashes, which means I can train harder and longer. My digestive issues have gone away. I heal faster and get sick less often. I’ve also found that my mood is more stable, which helps me focus my mind and block out anxiety and fear.
Finally, I made important changes to how I view and use my brain. I started to use breathing and visualization techniques when I’m practicing and competing. For example, before a competition, I run through the moves I want to do in my mind, picturing what it would look like if I accomplished them perfectly. Then, I focus on my breathing, telling myself to take nice, slow, deep breaths. This routine, which I perform over and over, keeps my energy up and my heart rate down, and also lets me really be in the moment. To be honest, though, these rituals don’t always work. But even then, I just take the hit and get back up on my bike and try again. If brain tumors weren’t enough to knock me out of the race, then an occasional fall off my bike isn’t going to stop me either.
Taking better care of my body and my mind is paying off: I recently competed at the FISE World Series in Osijek, Croatia, where I had hoped to make it to the top 12. (I didn’t set my goal higher since it was my first big event since I had ACL surgery in November 2015.) At the competition, I didn’t stress about being back in the spotlight and instead visualized myself succeeding at each stage of the competition and made sure I kept breathing. I made it through qualifiers, then through semifinals and hit my goal of being in the top 12 finalists. Then, I took third place.
Since my second diagnosis, I’ve learned that fear is something that exists in our minds. If you focus on a goal rather than on the fear, you can accomplish anything. Mental focus is important for success, and how we fuel our bodies impacts how we think and feel. Since I started paying more attention to my mind and my body, I find it’s easier to deal with stress and anxiety. I can pick myself up, take a step back and then figure out the best way to keep pushing ahead.
Whether it’s a health scare, a relationship that has gone bad or career setback, eventually, we all get knocked down. The trick is to get back up, learn from it and keep going. You don’t need a frightening diagnosis to change your life for the better. The only second chance you need is the one you give yourself.
Josh Perry has a lot of reasons to not be here. In 2010, shortly after becoming a pro BMX rider, he received the first of his three brain tumor diagnoses. That one was a meningioma, a large mass on his brain that was benign but only removable via open craniotomy. The next one, two years later, called for an evocatively named procedure called gamma knife radiation, which beamed radiation into his brain.
“It sounded pretty scary, just because of the name, but the more I researched it the more comfortable I became,” Perry says today. “It seemed painless, and it was.” He was back on his bike six days later.
Perry, now 27, says it took going through surgery to get him thinking about nutrition. These days, when he’s not riding up to six hours a day, he’s touting a holistic post-cancer lifestyle. That means a diet benefitting both his body and his brain, including these two super-simple, instant-fresh meals—which he can assemble in about 10 minutes.
Mornings
“I never get tired of this: Sautee organic coconut oil, organic butter, minced garlic, onions, purple cabbage, and broccoli. Add pink Himalayan salt, black pepper, turmeric, ginger root and maybe some curry. Sautee until the veggies are soft, and then crack an egg over the top. When that’s about done, add sliced avocado, a little sriracha sauce, and organic olive oil.” While that’s happening, he’ll whip up fresh oats, with chopped apple, cinnamon, and peanut butter.
The secret, he says, is advance prep. Chop veggies in advance (make it a Sunday night project) and store them in glass Tupperware. Buy spices in bulk, and store them in glass jars as well. Then it’s just a matter of grabbing what you need and throwing it in a skillet; it’s a mix of good-quality fats, proteins, and carbs.
Afternoons and Evenings
Perry takes the ready-made approach for lunch and dinner as well: “Sautee spinach or kale, chopped-up chicken, avocado, BBQ sauce, olive oil, pumpkin seeds and chickpeas. I can put that Tupperware and take it to the park or the gym. If I’m late, I’ll whip up a smoothie with banana, peanut butter, avocado, cinnamon, salt, and ice. It’s too easy.”
He’s also big on sweet potatoes, which he toasts in their skins at 400 degrees for an hour. “Take them out, slice them open and they fall right out of the skin,” he says. “And they work for any meal.”
Finally, Perry has joined the growing group of athletes and chefs focusing on GI health. “I never thought I’d eat sauerkraut, but there are so many different variations. I’m into ginger beet sauerkraut, which is great for your gut.” He’s also known to knock back kombucha, which has its own probiotic benefits. “Everything we put in our body goes to our gut, and fermented foods are amazing for that. At the end of the day, everything I do is for my brain—which is for my body.”
Just got off the phone with Tuft’s Medical Center in Boston, where I had Gamma Knife Radiosurgery treatment in 2012, and this is the new challenge I face…
The 2 newer brain tumors that were treated on the left side of my brain via Gamma Knife Radiosurgery in 2012, near the middle of my brain, was shrinking for 1-2 years and is now stable (good news).
There are now 2 new masses on the right side of my brain the size of peas (from residual cell growth), opposite of where the original surgery in 2010 was performed. My options are to follow it and see if it changes in growth with an MRI no sooner than 6 months, Gamma Knife radiosurgery, or full on open cranial surgery.
It took 7 years for these new growths to accumulate, which would have been dramatically sooner had I not changed my diet and cut out 95% of sugar, alcohol, and other crap food-like products.
It’s times like these that challenge our beliefs and our strength, mentally, the most. It’s also the most important time to practice positive thinking and manifesting the outcome and life we want. It’s easy to do so when times are “good” but it matters most when times are “bad”.
I have practiced a positive mindset and not giving into fear for the last 2 years so much that it shows in my riding now and in my everyday life. This challenge is no different. The way I see it is I can feel sorry for myself and give into fear, or I can stay confident and push forward like I have always done with obstacles in life I have to overcome to get where I want to be.
I believe these obstacles are thrown my way because I do have the strength to deal with and overcome them, and show you all that you can too. We all possess the strength within our minds to do and think whatever we want, and I want to continue to show you all this by living my message to the fullest. If anything, this is just more motivation and fuel for my goals with my BMX career and life in general. 💚✌️