Follow @BetterThanBefore1210 on Instagram to watch this year’s event live on 12/17/22 at 1 PM Eastern.

On December 17th Joe Trovato, Kimo Smak & Patrick Jackson will be lifting to raise money for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Joe, an end stage cancer survivor is attempting to lift 140 lbs over his head 100 times in 1 hour. The lift he will be performing is called the standing shoulder press. For those unfamiliar see the Video link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGgz3ZbJhGg

Patrick Jackson will be attempting to deadlift 225 pounds 100 times in 1 hour. 

Kimo Smak will be attempting to bench press 225 pounds 100 times in 1 hour.

Kimo and Patrick are excellent trainers that live and breathe fitness every day. Both train at Dolphin Fitness Clubs in Brooklyn NY. These trainers contribute to the positive atmosphere of the gym and help their clients be the best version of themselves. The respect and encouragement they exude makes them great members of this year’s Better Than Before team in 2022.

Last year, the Better Than Before team raised over $35k for cancer research, patients, and nurses. Thank you to all who have donated!

We are grateful for anyone that contributes to this year’s fundraiser. Of course, every dollar raised goes directly to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. MSKCC will use the funds for cancer research, financial assistance for cancer patients that need help, and pediatric cancer.

Special thank you to our sponsors:

Dolphin Fitness Clubs- A great gym with an amazing staff, the best community of members, and top notch gym equipment.

The Spread Investor- Follow @SpreadInvestor on Twitter and Instagram for sports betting advice and sports news. This page is great to follow if you want to make money betting on Football, NBA Basketball, and College Basketball.

Holiday Collective- A creative design build firm catering to New York’s finest real estate, hospitality, retail, and municipal groups.

Boutros Restaurant- A modern restaurant with mouthwatering Middle Eastern/American food. Located on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Story: November 3, 2019 – December 10, 2020
In 2019 I was diagnosed with end stage testicular cancer. The cancer had spread to my liver, abdomen, both lungs, and my brain. After my second chemo I had bleeding in my brain, this caused me to have a stroke and led to emergency brain surgery. A permanent shunt was placed in my head to drain the blood in my brain, I was told that I was not myself for some time. I don’t remember any of it. I had numbness and weakness on the left side of my body. The next 2 months were spent learning how to walk again, I received 10 full brain radiations to treat my 7 bleeding brain tumors. After that, I spent the next year receiving chemo in the ICU. The support from my family was overwhelming. I consider the friends that visited me to be family. So many people prayed for me; my family, friends, and friends of friends. Even people I never met before prayed for me across multiple religions. For this I will be forever grateful. My first stay at the hospital lasted 66 days. My grandmother cooked my favorite foods. My aunts and uncles became my Uber Eats. My uncle handled insurance details. Friends, family, and coworkers sent cards and gifts and visited me. My sisters and cousins came to see me as much as they could. I saw my Godfather almost every day which made me very happy. My parents and step parents stayed with me night and day. To this day I am very thankful and I am so lucky to have all these wonderful people in my life.

After having a huge blood clot that was caught just in time, multiple chemo treatments, 2 high dose chemo sessions with stem cell transplants, many small surgeries, and 3 major surgeries to both my lungs, my abdomen, and liver, God blessed me with remission on 12.10.2020. Our prayers were answered and I thank God every day for this. After withering away to almost nothing, losing more than 75 lbs, I have made a lot of progress in getting stronger and fit. In my darkest moments, I made a deal with God (and to myself) that I will get back to being physically fit and give back to the cancer community.

Cancer has given me the super power of extreme appreciation, happiness, and empathy. My past hardships fuel me to give back to the hospital that saved my life. I am beyond grateful for the amazing Doctor Feldman, Dr. Diamond, and both of their teams. We are thankful for all of the other doctors, nurses, physical/occupational therapists, supporting personnel, and transporters that helped make me and my family as comfortable as possible during the most trying times of our lives. I will name a few nurses and personnel at the risk of forgetting someone: Jinanne, Noelle, Kenny, Lindsay, Jose, Jasmine, Michelle, Lenny, Coreen, Joanna, Chris, Niko, Molly, Xavier, Ola, George, and so many others, I am so thankful to have met you.

Story continued: December 23, 2020 – December 11, 2021
After weeks of trying, I finally did my first full pushup 2 days before Christmas!

After months of working on my pushups, I was blessed to walk into Dolphin Fitness Clubs (Instagram @DolphinFitness). The moment I met the staff and took a tour of the gym I knew I found a new home. I spoke to Murray (Dolphin General Manager) & Tommy (Dolphin Manager) after signing up and my story came out. I told them that in my life before cancer, the gym was my happy place. And at that point in time, I really needed to get happiness.

I grew stronger and built up the courage to pursue my deal with God. I decided to attempt an old workout routine that I did before I got sick; 500 pushups within a set time frame. Knowing this was a long shot, it didn’t matter how long it took me. I told myself I wouldn’t leave the gym until I finished. 5 hours, 11 minutes and 53 seconds later I completed my 500th pushup. My deal with God had begun. I called my parents, then told Murray what I had done. I told him I wanted to raise money for cancer by doing 500 pushups in a 90 minute period near the anniversary of my remission. After that we were off to the races. BetterThanBefore was born.

Results of 2021 Better Than Before event:
Over $35k raised for MSKCC and 643 pushups completed in 90 minutes.

Story continued: January 1, 2022 to Present time

I am extremely grateful to be alive, but for much of 2022 I knew it wasn’t the way I wanted to live. I am very grateful for my support system of family and friends. Apparently, the necessary treatment I needed to beat cancer caused a lot of damage internally, this had an extremely negative effect on me.

I can honestly say that this year’s experiences were mentally harder than battling cancer itself including all of the treatment I received the previous year. During last year’s event I felt good but I didn’t feel completely normal. I was referred to a doctor to help me and he told me in order to fix my hormones there would be detrimental side effects that made me decide that his treatment was not an option for me. After that, I went to an alternative medicine doctor for help. This doctor gave me over the counter supplements and combinations of vitamins. The alternative medicine helped a little, but not enough to make me feel like myself before cancer.

After last year’s Better Than Before event I decided to stop the alternative medicine that was barely keeping me afloat and to explore treatment with the original doctor. When I started the new treatment, I felt worse almost instantly. Thankfully a good friend told me about his doctor, an endocrinologist, Dr. Calamia.

Dr. Calamia spent 2 hours talking to me as he put together a treatment plan based on what he thought I needed to get back to my optimal hormone levels. I have never experienced such a thoughtful and tailored doctors’ appointment and I was so grateful. Within weeks I felt much better.

A few months later Dr. Calamia made an adjustment based on the progress he saw. The adjustment to my treatment made a tremendous difference. By September of 2022 I felt like my old self. I went from feeling tired and weak to strong and happy.

This happened just in time to set an ambitious goal for Better Than Before 2!

As stated above, I will be attempting to lift 140 pounds over my head 100 times in 1 hour. This is significant to me personally because if I attempted this before I was diagnosed with cancer, I don’t think I would’ve been able to do this without months of training. This encompasses the name of the event, “Better Than Before.” Because it truly is more difficult than something I could’ve done before my diagnosis.

I am thankful for all of you that have read this far, I know it’s a lot of reading.

100% of donations go directly to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
We appreciate all donations! Thank you and again if you are interested in watching this year’s event, follow @BetterThanBefore1210 on Instagram, we will be going live at 1 PM. God Bless all of you.