Five questions for . . .

Certified Integrative Wellness Coach Tom Sprague

Tell us about your background — where you’re from, how you ended up in Beverly.

Grew up in Needham. Played soccer, basketball and baseball at Needham High School then D3 baseball at Babson College. Moved to Connecticut for 10 years after high school. Married Jen. Became UConn fans (because what else would you do in Hartford back then, root for the Whalers???). Came back to Massachusetts for a writer job at a big ad agency (Arnold) in Boston. Lived in the Witch City (Salem) for a year, then Beverly for the past 36, where our daughter Delaney was born. Jen’s dad was a lieutenant colonel in the Army so after moving around her whole life, this is the first time she’s felt like she has roots. On occasion, people even recognize us here. “Hey, you’re Delaney’s mom/dad.”

Delaney went to Harborlight Montessori for a few years, then Beverly Public Schools Grade 1 through BHS. I coached her softball and hoop teams from rec league through travel teams. For the basketball teams, we took regular field trips to the University of Connecticut so the girls could see the best women’s basketball team in the country. But also, so they could feel empowered seeing women athletes (who were rock stars in Storrs) playing in front of sellout crowds on ESPN and winning national championships — 12 and counting. I loved watching the girls’ faces light up the first time they entered Gampel Pavilion (capacity 10,000+) and saw how big-time WOMEN’S basketball was. In eighth grade, our travel team got to play on the UConn court at halftime of a Huskies’ March Madness game. A lifetime memory for the girls.

What led you to become a certified integrative wellness coach?

Three-plus decades ago I was diagnosed with a rare disease, Gorlin Syndrome (one in 35,000 people have it). It continuously makes basal cell carcinoma skin cancers in your body. Doctors said all I could do was to have them surgically removed before they got big. Every three months. For the rest of my life. I was in my 20s. When I went to a new ad agency and worked on a stressful account, my BCC counts spiked. One was so big it needed six Mohs surgery slices to get it all and I had to have a plastic surgeon reconstruct my nose the next day. That was a wakeup call to do something dramatic.

Luckily, my aunt in Arizona sent me Dr. Andrew Weil’s book “8 Weeks to Optimum Health.” It was a revelation. I didn’t have to be a cancer victim the rest of my life after all. I could do integrative wellness techniques to reduce my stress, my chronic condition and my cancer by improving my mind/body/spirit health. Over the years, a pattern emerged. When I had a stressful job/commute I got 60-120 basal cell carcinomas per year. But as soon as I left that job, my cancer counts dropped dramatically. Like clockwork. I created a healing regimen of integrative wellness techniques that helped me contain my cancer with a baseline of 16-20 per year. I could live with that.

Then COVID came. My stress/anxiety blew up due to lots of lockdown extracurriculars and my PTSD (from childhood — my dad had the disease of alcoholism and could be abusive) was triggered. Since mind/body/spirit are intertwined, that led to me getting bronchitis, COVID and pneumonia. Simultaneously. Then, my worst skin cancer surgery ever — I left Lahey two days later with 75 stitches and staples in my head.

The upside of COVID was I learned that the Dr. Weil Center for Integrative Medicine’s Coaching Program was opened up to non-medical people like me. I’d been following Dr. Weil for 30 years. SIGN ME UP!!! Three years of studying and 75 practice coaching hours later I was certified. But as I studied, I tweaked my healing regimen. And the past two years have been my best surgery years ever!!! As a coach, I’m thrilled to share what I’ve learned to help others reduce their stress and improve their chronic conditions/cancer.

What has been the most difficult part of dealing with your 30-year journey with cancer?

After getting through the initial shock, then denial of a cancer diagnosis, the hardest part was what I call the “incessantly relentless” aspect of this Gorlin Syndrome disease. Doctors said this disease was hereditary with no cure. The protocol is: get surgery. Then four to five weeks of wound care. Then seven to eight weeks later, another surgery. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. It never lets up. There is no break from it. No “ringing of the remission bell.” When I had a bad commute to a toxic workplace, the 120 basal cell carcinomas per year was pretty rough. Compounded by the fact that moving and getting comfortable enough to sleep is hard with 30 wound sites and bandages all over your body. And Jen and I had to set our alarm an hour earlier to do daily wound care before I took my long, crappy commute to spend the day in a toxic workplace, followed by a long, crappy commute home to do it all again the next day. Non-stop stress. Jen was an English major in college who, sadly, got her Nursing School education via on-the-job training.

What’s your No. 1 piece of advice for people who want to improve their overall health?

Start with reducing stress and anxiety. We live in such a stressful time right now. Eighty percent of doctor visits are stress related. In my 30-year cancer journey, I’ve learned, along with my dermatology surgeons on this ride with me, that when stress increases, so does cancer. When stress is under control, cancer counts are much lower. But it’s not just external stress. It’s also internal (what we put in our bodies, our negative self-talk, and judgment can be brutal and can greatly impact our mental health which then affects our physical health). And there are so many environmental stressors that affect us on a regular basis in the U.S. I often work with clients to mitigate all forms of stress to empower holistic health.

Who was the most famous person you worked with in your ad agency career? What were they like?

We got to do lots of fun TV commercials with pro athletes including Hall of Fame players like Kirby Puckett, Paul Molitor and Randall McDaniel and comedians such as Rita Rudner and Ellen DeGeneres. They were all great to work with. My favorite was Drew Bledsoe. He left college early at age 21 and moved 3,000 miles from home after being the first pick in the NFL draft, by the Patriots, with a mega contract to match. After shooting McDonald’s commercials with him most of the day, I couldn’t believe how friendly, mature, intelligent and down to earth he was. Such a class act. No posse. No prima donna attitude. Just a pleasure to work with. I had so much respect for him (if I had all that fame and fortune at age 21, it would’ve been a disaster for me, I’m sure) and thought “this kid was raised right.” I wasn’t surprised at all to find out his parents (both school teachers and his dad was his high school football coach) wrote a book, “Parenting with Dignity.” I was so impressed with Drew the person, I read his parents’ book multiple times before we had Delaney and gained so much wisdom I could use in my own parenting. Who knows, if Drew hadn’t been on a team that drafted the greatest QB of all time, he might have made the Hall of Fame himself.

Tom Sprague will share insights and anecdotes from his 30-year walk with cancer with a presentation, “Reducing Stress, Anxiety & Chronic Conditions with Integrative Wellness,” on Monday, March 9, at 6 p.m. at the Beverly Senior Center, 90 Colon St. Cost is $30 per person. Register and get full details at www.bevrec.com.