Keith Bellizzi, PhD, MPH is an educator, scientist, award winning author, speaker, and four time cancer survivor. Trained in psychology, public health, and human development, he is an international expert in resilience and trauma. He is author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications, is a sought-after speaker on resilience for both professional and lay audiences.

My Cancer Journey

I was 24 years old—fresh out of business school, ambitious, and mapping out a life I thought I understood—when everything changed.

A freak accident sent me to the doctor, and within days I was facing a diagnosis no one expects at that age: metastatic testicular cancer. I was given a 50% chance of survival and told the treatment would leave me unable to have children.

Just months later, during a routine follow-up scan, another blow: a mass in my left kidney. A second, unrelated cancer. Two cancers before my 25th birthday.

While my friends were climbing career ladders, getting married, and buying their first homes, I was learning how to live in a hospital. My days were filled with surgeries, aggressive inpatient chemotherapy, and the unsettling quiet of long nights hooked up to IV poles.

But those months changed me. In the midst of uncertainty and fear, I saw something clearly: how profoundly people need emotional support, guidance, and genuine human connection when life falls apart. I also saw how often our healthcare system failed to provide it.

One afternoon—weak, scared, and unsure of what my future held—I looked at my family and a remarkable hospital volunteer who had become a lifeline, and I made a promise:
If I survived, I would dedicate my life to helping individuals and families navigate the unimaginable.

And I meant it.

At 26, still rebuilding my strength, I walked away from the business world and started over. I earned three graduate degrees and completed a three-year fellowship at the National Cancer Institute’s prestigious Cancer Prevention and Control Program.

Today, I use every part of that journey—my research, my clinical work, and my own lived experience—to support, inspire, and empower people facing adversity of any kind.

Cancer transformed my life, but resilience transformed me.
Now, it’s what I help others discover in themselves.