Dave Balch has gotten to know cancer pretty well. Since 2002, Balch has supported his wife through four successful battles with breast cancer, going with her to medical appointments and caring for her during six surgeries, two rounds of chemotherapy, and three rounds of radiation treatments. He did everything from bathing her to making her meals to changing her surgical dressings, all while maintaining his home software business and taking care of a ranch, two horses, two cats, two dogs, and a really mean parrot.
Now Balch is committed to helping other patients and caregivers. His book, Cancer for Two, www.CancerForTwo.com, is an inspiring, detailed, and humorous chronicle of his wife’s and his journey through her breast cancer treatment. The book is peppered with a lot of advice and lessons learned.
Balch travels around the country sharing his presentation, You Can Handle More Than You Think You Can, with patients, caregivers, nurses, and oncologists. The presentation provides coping strategies that Balch and his wife used to get through her treatments. These strategies were learned through the experience of cancer, and the lessons learned are universal and apply to most of life’s challenges. The presentation includes videos that bring cheers and tears; these are available for viewing at www.ThePPP.org/speaking.
As a professional speaker, Balch has met many world-class experts on health and wellness and has recorded a number of interviews with experts on a variety of topics. They are available to the public at www.CopingUniversity.com.
Balch has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and is a contributing author to Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cancer Book.
In his spare time, Balch is an avid eclipse chaser. He has observed 13 total eclipses of the sun and intends to see every total eclipse for the rest of his life, no matter where they occur. His eclipse world and his real world collided in 2006 when his wife had a recurrence four days before they were going to leave for a Mediterranean eclipse. She said, “You better find another way to see this eclipse because you’re not going to miss one because of me!” At the last minute he arranged a trip from Los Angeles to Turkey and back in 67 hours, 30 of which were on an airplane!
Balch’s background is in software development; he says he is a “recovering programmer” after running a successful home-based software business for over 20 years before his wife’s diagnosis.