While his friends from law school were battling hangovers, David Podein had all the same symptoms, but without the parties, minus the fun. Instead, he spent full days in a chair at a medical clinic receiving chemotherapy. He'd then get the weekends off, have a rest day on Mondays and return on Tuesdays for a treatment so harsh it ravaged his body and required a full week of recovery. When he threw up, it wasn't because of a night of drinking.

“That was one cycle. I did approximately three cycles of that,” said Podein, now a partner practicing real estate and construction law at Haber Slade in Miami. “It's the toughest thing I've ever experienced in terms of physical and mental pain. It feels like the worst hangover you've ever had, times a thousand.”

That fight transformed him.