Ink, Identity, and IBC: Katy’s Journey Through HER2-Positive Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Katy shared her personal journey with HER2-positive inflammatory breast cancer, including her treatment experiences and decision to pursue a chest tattoo instead of reconstruction. Through a discussion with Terry, they explored the impact of cancer on their identities and the challenges of balancing treatment with maintaining a sense of self. Both women discussed their experiences as cancer survivors and advocates, emphasizing the importance of creativity, self-compassion, and seeking support through resources like the IBC Network Foundation.

About Katy:

Katy Bowser Hutson is a writer and songwriter in Nashville, TN. She is the author of Now I Lay Me Down to Fight which chronicles her time with inflammatory breast cancer in poetry and essays. She is currently writing about play. Katy is married to Kenny and has a fourteen year old daughter and an eleven year old son. 

Transcript

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Terry Arnold: Hi! I'm Terry Lynn Arnold. I'm the founder of the Ibc network, and welcome to talk Ibc. And I have with me Katie Bauer Hudson today, and I hope I didn't butcher your name. I said it wrong when I tried the 1st time

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Terry Arnold: for a very long time, and I want her to tell us how talk about how we met and what she's doing, because she's been someone who's inspired me with her kindness

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Terry Arnold: and her storytelling and songwriting, and you're a great singer, I mean, I don't know what you don't do. Well, so let's just get into it. Katie.

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Katy Bowser: Hi, good to see you. Sherilyn. Yeah, that sounds wonderful. I was trying to remember exactly how we met. Somebody introduced us and said I needed to talk to you, I think, because I was interested in having a lymph node transfer.

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Katy Bowser: But.

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Terry Arnold: It was now. How long ago were you diagnosed with inflammatory.

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Katy Bowser: I was diagnosed in 2017.

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Terry Arnold: Okay. So I was 10 years before you.

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Terry Arnold: And that makes sense, because that's about the time all those conversations about lymph node transfers we're getting to go. So let's kind of get into the skinny of your diagnosis and all those things beyond.

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Katy Bowser: Okay, let's see. Well, my diagnosis. I was her 2 positive. I had inflammatory breast cancer. Oh, gosh! You know, it's been a little while I'm trying to remember, like all the things that people say, it's like when you show up in some rooms now, and you like. Give your pronouns, you know it's like, what are my things that I say? I was her 2 positive

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Katy Bowser: let's see, I so.

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Terry Arnold: What year, what year were you diagnosed.

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Katy Bowser: I was diagnosed in 2017. I had trimodal therapy through 2018

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Katy Bowser: After that I did not have reconstruction. That wasn't important to me, and I also was a little stressed about the idea that that could cover up anything. I really wanted to get a full chest tattoo. I spent lots of hours dreaming about what that would look like, and I got a yes, from my oncologist and a yes, from my surgeon. And I got to my radiation oncologist, and she was like, maybe please don't.

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Katy Bowser: So in case so she could, she could see anything that was there. So those were my initial surgeries, and then I came down to Md. Anderson. I did all my treatment at Vanderbilt,

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Katy Bowser: which which was amazing. How that all worked out I could tell the story around

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Katy Bowser: how that worked out beautifully, but and then I came down to Md. Anderson, and I got to hang out with you a little then, because I went and saw Dr. Mark Victor Shavering, and had a lymph node transfer which has been enormously helpful, I mean as a writer. How about? Just as a right-handed human being trying to live? The the lack of stress, the stress that that's relieved has been pretty great.

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Katy Bowser: and that.

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Terry Arnold: And I remember I remember that I remember that visit, and you had your husband, Kenny, with you. And it was really a fun memory for me, because y'all came over, and your husband and my husband play guitar for hours, and it was a blast happy

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Terry Arnold: having memories along the way. But so now you and I've been in touch, off and on over the years, and I followed you as you were a writer and a songwriter and a musician before, and shockingly enough, because sometimes I think, don't you feel like they expect our lives to end?

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Terry Arnold: For that you were still continuing on and and achieving new goals.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah. Actually, the 1st book I had published was after I had cancer. I'd written lots of things. I kind of self-published some poetry. And over the years I did a lot of songwriting. And that was my work.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, playing shows and writing songs.

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Katy Bowser: But when I had a cancer diagnosis. Okay. So a week before, I was right, a week before I found out that I had cancer, I went to Martha's Vineyard because I had. I had gotten a scholarship to go study poetry for the week. It was wonderful. There's a group called the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and they give out. They they were giving out grants to artists with young children.

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Katy Bowser: which was amazing. So I won the scholarship to go up to Martha's Vineyard for the week, to go to a writing institute, and so I had just spent the whole week in workshops and working on my craft, working on my poetry

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Katy Bowser: and kind of getting everything I could get done in a week before I went back to my 3 and my 6 year old, just getting an outline together and preparing, and and I got on a ferry and went to visit friends in Boston, and looked in the mirror and went. That does not look right. My breast did not look right.

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Katy Bowser: I hadn't noticed this on the island. I had noticed it a couple weeks before. I had noticed that my breast was angry and pink and puckered, and at the time I thought that it was. Probably I have sensitive skin, and I thought that it was probably an allergy or a summer heat, rash irritation.

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Katy Bowser: and then I had kind of calmed down, and I hadn't noticed it while I was on the island, and then I saw it was. It was pretty intense when I saw it in Boston.

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Katy Bowser: and I went to my friend, who had gone on the trip with me, and was like, does your breasts ever do this? He's like Nope, and I Googled like you do, and my options were pretty small for things that were really like that, like orange field skin and hot and swollen.

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Katy Bowser: And so after that

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Katy Bowser: I drove to Pennsylvania to pick up my kids on the way back to Nashville, and I I mean it felt important and urgent that I get in there and go do something. So I was just in Pennsylvania for a day, picking up my kids and I told my parents, Hey, I'm gonna go into the little local hospital and go get a mammogram if they'll they'll let me in.

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Katy Bowser: And so I went in at like 4 Pm. For a mammogram, and they were annoyed like there was. It was. It was a very small hospital, and there was a clear sense that I was keeping somebody from playing golf.

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Terry Arnold: Old were you at this time.

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Katy Bowser: I was I I turned 40. That was when I was 40.

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Katy Bowser: So I went in, and I got a mammogram, and I would imagine this is more than one person's experience. But she was. This woman was rather grew up with me. Let me know that this was an inconvenience, and then afterwards she started being nice.

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Terry Arnold: Bad sign, isn't it?

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Katy Bowser: She started talking to me sweetly, calling me honey told me we needed another mammogram, and then I needed to get an ultrasound. And actually, that was when I started writing like immediately. I had been writing all week, and I was in that mode. So I grabbed my notebook.

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Katy Bowser: actually, I put a poem at the end of my book that I wrote when I was in my early twenties, because I have a poem as I was praying, and I was waiting for the doctor. Come in to come in to probably tell me I had cancer, and I had a line from a poem I had written in my twenties. I hadn't used any cancer imagery anywhere else, ever. But I have this one line that says it's a prayer, and it says I will come like Chemo to kill, so you can live.

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Katy Bowser: And I went. Oh, I have cancer. So I felt like a really kind little heads up before

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Katy Bowser: before the doctor came in. I kind of felt like I knew already. So when the doctor came in and told me I had started writing. Already I was already writing down what I thought, and and when so, when I was told I was by myself

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Katy Bowser: and I had a notebook in front of me, and it was kind of a shield. I I went. This is not the moment for me to have emotions. I need to talk those away from the moment I need to get as much information.

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Katy Bowser: You're on a road trip with your children.

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Terry Arnold: Tennessee.

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Katy Bowser: I had to get back to Tennessee, I had to get entry. I need to. It's like, Okay, if I have cancer, I need all the information I can get, and I need to get home and get in treatment. I am. I am going to have to admit I did so much texting and driving on that trip. I was just seeing how quickly I could get in touch.

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Katy Bowser: How my mom came with me, so that that leg. She did a lot of I I was not texting so much. I was doing a lot of calling

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Katy Bowser: but yeah, I was seeing how quickly I could get in for a biopsy. And amazingly, this is, there's so many little amazing pieces. But I called my friends from Boston because they my friend was a pastor, and he had led a Bible study at the Mayo clinic. I was like, Hey, I just looked this up, and I found 3 Ibc centers that are covered by my insurance, and Mayo is one of them. Do you know anyone at Mayo? He's like, well, I know the head of women's oncology.

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Katy Bowser: So that was good. So he called, I mean. So he called me up the next day, and it's like, How can I help? And he had a he had a research companion. What's what's the word research partner at Vanderbilt who, he said he said he can do everything that I can do here.

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Katy Bowser: So so I had a. I had a great oncologist at Vanderbilt and she was all over it, and then and I yeah. So I had a team. It was all super fast, super furious. Look. I'm rambling because I'm you got me back in this area.

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Terry Arnold: I feel like I'm walking along with you.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, so.

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Terry Arnold: Memory.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah. So yeah. So I went from just getting as much information as they could back to my house, where I saw my parents, and just bawled and called, well, called my husband first, st and just bawled, and then went back and cried, wasn't gonna cry because my kids were there, but my dad was already crying.

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Katy Bowser: yeah, Colonel Bowser was already crying. So yeah. And then I explained it to my kids. I mean explaining that to a 6 year old. Do you need to have like a whole session on what it's like to talk to your kids? Do you have one on how to talk to your kids about this.

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Terry Arnold: We've had them, and we need to have more. Unfortunately, we need to have more.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, it was I, I remember I I my daughter's name is story. My son was was too young to really get much. I said, story.

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Katy Bowser: she said, why is grandpa crying? And I said, I am sick. I said, I have. I have cancer. Cancer is the sickness that's in my body, and I don't feel sick right now. Story, but it's bad for me, and I have to get it out, and so to do that the doctors are going to give me medicine that's going to make me feel sick to make me better, and my hair is going to fall out, and she laughed.

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Katy Bowser: Because she's like, what in the world? What in the world? Which is just the best 6 year old response. She's like, what is this? And yeah, what is this ridiculous business we're about to go through?

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Katy Bowser: Yeah. So I told them all that. We raced back, got a couple of biopsies, and and we were off to the races. So.

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Katy Bowser: yeah, that's that's.

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Terry Arnold: Well, I know you had, unless I remember, a good response to treatment.

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Katy Bowser: I did.

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Terry Arnold: You're still well today, and I know your interest in the bypass surgery was because around that time lymphedema bypasses are being talked about.

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Katy Bowser: And it was.

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Terry Arnold: Kind of a new thing, and they didn't know. But how is your arm doing now?

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Katy Bowser: It's great. I actually. And I think, okay. So tell me if it's the same or different. There's lymphovenous bypass where there's the coupling of lymph and veins, and and I have the, I think I have what you had approximately a lymph node transfer a vascularized lymph node transfer.

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Terry Arnold: We've actually had every single surgery available in.

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Katy Bowser: Oh, that's true!

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Terry Arnold: All been unfolding in real time. I know I know I'm such a little overachiever, because back when they 1st started for those of you that could see this on our Youtube channel. And I've got these tiny little cuts that you could barely even see that there's a couple of places where they connected those nodes where there was blockage they reconnected, you know that is a bypass. But then, later, I had no transfers, and I've had a couple of node transfers, but I think you were fortunate that the bypasses were enough for you.

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Katy Bowser: The transfer was enough for me. I only did a transfer, so.

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Terry Arnold: Transfer.

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Katy Bowser: They went in through my belly button. They went. They took 30 lymph nodes from my omentum. I remember him saying, we're taking. They took out 13. We're going to put in 30. We're going to supercharge you.

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Terry Arnold: Wow!

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Katy Bowser: I was a little bummed because I thought that I was going to have a tummy tuck with this, and apparently that wasn't what they were teaching, whoever they were teaching at the time, and they were like, this is much less invasive. I'm like fine make it much less invasive. But I was kind of excited at the thought.

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Terry Arnold: Well, I know, but I'm glad that lymphedema is under control, because people is something I think we need to talk a lot more about, and I know sometimes people say they don't want to go through treatment because they're afraid of getting lymphedema, and I would never risk my life over not such a thing.

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Terry Arnold: Oh, yeah.

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Terry Arnold: more about lymphedema. And that we could, we could about that all day. Okay, so you're doing well, you're trying to get back in that whole new, normal thing which is sort of a trigger place for me about what's a new normal.

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Terry Arnold: and also, too.

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Terry Arnold: when you're in the place of survivorship, which is something I don't want to not give appropriate do, because many don't survive.

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Terry Arnold: It's weird for me

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Terry Arnold: how I don't call myself a survivor. I say, I'm surviving because I have issues.

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Terry Arnold: But I am. I did survive cancer. I have issues. But also, too, I think we kind of get stuck there. And this is something you I talked about before we started. Like for me. If my, if someone's best friend's dog cousin in Zimbabwe gets cancer. I get a phone call.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: But I don't guess I get invited to the birthday parties, because I'm a little bit of reminder of something scary, even though I'm well.

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Terry Arnold: but also, too, I think, or if I said I used to own a bookstore, and I said to somebody, I really would like to open a bookstore again they go. Should you do that? You've had cancer? How is it for you? Because you're a lot younger than me

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Terry Arnold: now that you're on that kind of the other side of it being in that survivor side, or navigating future goals, because at 40 years old you're still a very young woman. I was young at my diagnosis. Thank God, I'm an old lady now. I want you to be an old lady, but.

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Katy Bowser: I'm 48. Now, I'm getting there. Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: And I'll keep going. But the thing is, though, how do we

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Terry Arnold: do this? Because I think it's something I know you're willing to do a writer's workshop with this in Nashville, the ultimate meetup. I'm very excited about that. I think you're gonna have a lot to lend to the conversation of

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Terry Arnold: How do we go? How do we keep going? How do we not let the fear come in? But how do we still have hopes and dreams and accomplish goals, past.

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Katy Bowser: Okay. Can I read a short poem?

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Terry Arnold: Please.

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Katy Bowser: Okay.

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Terry Arnold: And, by the way, one of my favorite treasures is a handmade book you made me. Your very 1st published book has got this beautiful red cover.

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Katy Bowser: Yep, that's.

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Terry Arnold: This is a place of honor in my house, so.

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Katy Bowser: Oh, thank you, Terry Lynn. Well, I after that I we published that. Yeah, we publish. Now I lay me down to fight, and it looks like this kind of if you're looking.

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Terry Arnold: I have that one too.

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Katy Bowser: Yes, you get all of them. You get all of them forever. You were just just quickly. You were. You were very special and very important to me in the process. I remember when we got in touch, I remember you calling me and saying, How do I not know about you yet, because you knew everybody, you found everybody with inflammatory breast cancer.

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Katy Bowser: And I just remember I think I was at that point like I think we talked by the time I got to radiation. And you were like, how do I not know about you already?

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Katy Bowser: Because gather us all up? And yeah, you have been over and over again, such a friend and such an ally. So thank you. Okay, so poem here.

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Katy Bowser: This is called Eraser, and this is pertinent to the conversation. Then I'll chat about it, losing my hair. No big deal, really. Eyelashes, on the other hand, scared me. The shadows, the depth of my face erased blanking me out. Blankety, blank cancer already attempting to flatten me into a 1 dimensional character.

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Katy Bowser: I have other stories to tell. I have things to do. I'm a beauty bearer where you cancer copy furiously, I fumblingly create. You cannot uncreate me. I was so

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Katy Bowser: frustrated with the idea that cancer could become my identity. It was annoying. It's like, yes, we have to talk about it. Yes, I could die.

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Katy Bowser: And yeah, it has to be a forefronted conversation. But I'm Katie. Things that are true about Katie are that I like to write. I like to talk about ideas. I like to talk about God. I like to talk about what in the world is going on around here. I like to be with my friends. I like to play, and the idea that

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Katy Bowser: cancer was the most interesting thing about me was exhausting and annoying.

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Terry Arnold: Stop you there for a second because

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Terry Arnold: you you are singing my song. You have no idea, because one of the things that was so weird for me was losing my hair wasn't a big deal. And when you say losing your eyelashes.

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Terry Arnold: what I found hard about having cancer is, I didn't recognize myself anymore. I was not overweight for cancer. I bloated up like a balloon, my skin turned green. I looked like a whole different person. I didn't recognize myself. What was weird is, as I got better, which

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Terry Arnold: I didn't lose all the weight I gained in cancer. And my hair looks so different. I look so different I would go through the grocery store, and people didn't recognize me.

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Katy Bowser: Man. Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: But also

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Terry Arnold: what I realized. It's almost like they made me into the other a different person. They made me into their cancer friend.

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Terry Arnold: and I wanted to be Terry Lynn Arnold, the woman who has all kinds of passion and interest and drive, and 100 million things I want to do. I tell my husband today? I think I'm gonna have to live about 150 to do all the things I want to do. And he goes. Well, okay, good luck with that, you know, because I'm so not done. But I felt like people were like, and I am super grateful to be alive, because I know many don't make it, but I felt like I was being put in a box.

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Terry Arnold: I didn't get to be anything else.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: You said, erasing me like in the poem you just read. The book is now lay me down to fight.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: That poem.

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Katy Bowser: It's called eraser.

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Terry Arnold: Would you read that one part again? It's not a very long poem. You would read the whole thing again. That was very moving.

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Terry Arnold: Oh, thanks! Here, I'll read it again, because I'm not sure. Yeah, it's short.

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Terry Arnold: Hello.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, losing my hair. No big deal, really. Eyelashes, on the other hand, scared me the shadows. You can stop me, too, if you know where the part is.

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Terry Arnold: Go for it.

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Katy Bowser: The depth of my face erased, blanking me out. Blankety, blank cancer already attempting to flatten me into a 1 dimensional character. I have other stories to tell. I have things to do. I'm a beauty bearer where you cancer copy furiously, I fumblingly create. You cannot uncreate me.

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Katy Bowser: See one of the things about like like the actual nature of cancer, is it just? It's it's dumb like it. It replicates and replicates. It's not making anything new. It's a copy camera and the nature of me is I create. I am made to create.

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Terry Arnold: A beauty bearer. What a beautiful term, you know, and.

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Katy Bowser: You are so.

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Terry Arnold: To create. She would create art and music and and all that vibrancy, and and I felt like I was being erased. I was being flattened. I was being made into a 1 dimensional thing, and what was hard for me was not losing my hair. What was hard for me was my brain went to mush.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: I have 2 very beautiful sisters, and I don't mean this in a bad way. They were always the beautiful ones, and I was the smart one, and all of a sudden I wasn't the smart one, which meant

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Terry Arnold: I even lost more identity.

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Katy Bowser: Yep, absolutely.

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Terry Arnold: That was so hard.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, absolutely. It was.

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Katy Bowser: I mean, I wrote my way through. But one thing that's nice about poetry is it's a short form.

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Katy Bowser: So I recommend it. So, for one thing, if you're trying to. If you're trying to get your story down, just get your feelings out. Just get all the things from pinging around in you. Poetry is good for that.

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Katy Bowser: Because it's short, and that's kind of nice.

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Katy Bowser: But yeah, same here.

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Terry Arnold: I think if you find sorry to interrupt. But don't you think if you find a way to process your thoughts.

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Terry Arnold: you're I've been told before, our brain is something that hasn't evolved. If they think there's danger, they think it's a bear, and and if you're not paying attention to the bear. It keeps tapping on your body, saying, Hey, hey? And then the anxiety. And so you literally have to tell yourself out loud, and maybe tap as you do it, tap your body and say, Hey, I'm paying attention.

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Katy Bowser: Yes.

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Terry Arnold: And I am safe. There is not a bear calm down. Okay, I think

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Terry Arnold: for me. I'm prone to nightmares, and if I ignore what is bothering me. The nightmares are worse that night I have learned, if I say it out loud, or write it down, if I don't want to say it out loud, and I don't. Maybe once I find it so, I will really tear it all in a million pieces. But just the act of writing it down

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Terry Arnold: makes that anxiety go away.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So I just heard a thing. I just heard a thing on my sub stack about about prayer. It was about how to tell things to God, but also specific, I mean, but also just to say something, period apart from telling it to God, apart from telling it to anyone.

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Katy Bowser: I'm I'm a big fan of that. I'm a big fan of telling things to God and telling things to people who love you. But, for that matter, just I wrote this list about a 42 things I was like. Write it down and tie it to a bottle rocket and send it off, take it on a piece of paper, and put a seed in it, and plant it in the ground. Write it on your hand, but, like get it out of you.

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Katy Bowser: you know. Don't like those things. Sit there and can kind of just just get all stuck in you, and that anxiety makes everything harder. Of course it's not going to make it all better, but you have some control over it. If you you fling it out of you and you and you have the words, and you start putting words around it. It gives you a measure of control and knowing what's going on, and it helps. And so and not only

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Katy Bowser: it's not that you can just catch it. But but you, you understand what's actually going on better.

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Katy Bowser: You understand what's going on?

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Terry Arnold: Think if we learn how to talk to ourselves about these hard things, too, we can pay it forward by how we talk to somebody else to maybe ease their load. A little bit of lessons learned

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Terry Arnold: and

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Terry Arnold: I found that difficult with. I had a lot of great friends who took care of me, but some of the ones who had cancer before me had something that wasn't nearly as dangerous. And so they're like, Oh, it's a bump on the road. I'm like, no, I'm really trying hard not to die here. So I think, and not to. You know.

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Terry Arnold: less than anyone's experience. It's all horrible for everybody. But if we can learn how to talk to ourselves, then we can pay it forward, and we can better equip. Because I asked somebody once who was very wealthy. How do you measure success? Because often we measure success and wealth and the people younger than us? I thought, this woman's so rich. Her kids will never do better than her, and she said she measured success in wisdom and kindness, gained generationally.

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Katy Bowser: Oh! Oh!

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Terry Arnold: No. Can you write? Write that down? I would listen to write about that, because the thing is, I thought, yes, if I can give my children more knowledge.

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Terry Arnold: and and I love that you call yourself a beauty bearer.

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Katy Bowser: I got goosebumps thinking about that. Oh, lovely thing!

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Katy Bowser: Hmm!

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Terry Arnold: And you own, and you are a beauty bearer. So I love

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Terry Arnold: the way you wrote that up about the things that cancer is trying to make you be versus who you knew you were and who you wanted to be. Later.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, can I? Can I share another poem? Because it's it's a similar thought. Okay, so it's called cancer poet.

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Katy Bowser: you know what Kudzu is right. Y'all kudzu in Texas. The plant that like destroys everything we call them kudzillas. When when Kudzoo like takes over everything.

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Katy Bowser: do you get dry mouth from cancer. By the way, yeah, nab it.

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Terry Arnold: In my heart still stream, they say, stream.

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Terry Arnold: So I got places that are dry, and places that are wet.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah for sure. Okay, so this one says it's called cancer poet. Cancer is an overgrowth, a kudzu tangling and strangling legitimate life. Chemo is a killing, a burning out, burning down to ashy carbon indiscriminately. But cancer. Did you know that I am a poet? My job is to call through the chaos with tweezers and magnifiers.

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Katy Bowser: I have wings on shoulder blades and ankles just big enough for hovering me inches above the terrain, traversing without smothering my subject with pen and pocket and fingers and eyes I cipher, meaning siphoning liquid beauty that seeps from the edges into a tiny vial, taking pains with my pain, it fruits sweetly.

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Katy Bowser: If in this year's ravaging I eke an ounce of beauty, it will outweigh all of your ashy remnants. I can paste it on my foot soles and stick me to the incinerated earth, where I will wait for the rich loam tear, soaked and fertile to live. That is what poets do cancer.

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Katy Bowser: And it is important to me. It was important to me in the middle of it. If you sit there and you just stare at the cancer, and you stare into the void. It will suck you in

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Katy Bowser: looking out and seeing what is good and what is beautiful. Those things are still true. It's it's not pretending it's not going on.

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Katy Bowser: I mean also, yeah, is it, Dylan? Thomas? Rage against the dying of the light? Yeah. Rage rage against death work hard against it. Get mad at it when you can't do anything about it, because you can't just make cancer go away. I'm not trying to say I was on a podcast last week with a really cool woman, Liz O'riordan, this wonderful woman who's talked about cancer. And she's like.

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Katy Bowser: I don't know if I like all of your battle imagery because I don't want people to think that that you she's like, I don't like talking about winning or losing against cancer, because it's not like it's your fault.

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Katy Bowser: It's not like you did something, or that you can fix it. And I was like, Well, I hear you. But I like my book is called now I lay me down to fight. I guess it's kind of a it's kind of a paradox, because

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Katy Bowser: because you do have to kind of. You have to kind of lay down and take it a lot of the time, and and take the. But

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Katy Bowser: you don't have to take it without without still like grabbing for life with everything you've got, you know, like you like you want to do a bookstore. I mean, I love it. Like all those things that were true about you before. Like, keep your identity. Keep those things as as best you can, and and find out. I don't know if it's an opportunity. See?

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Katy Bowser: Like maybe like, take the moment to say, What do I really love? You know.

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Terry Arnold: No, and it's interesting about the battle language, because it is uncomfortable, because some people feel like there's some judgment, you know. She lost her father

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Terry Arnold: kind of mentality.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: People sometimes say when you're not doing well. We'll just pray harder, or do this like like

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Terry Arnold: or whatever like. There's some kind of magic, Santa Claus, or whatever.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah. Not fair.

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Terry Arnold: Sometimes the treatment just doesn't work, and I know in some ways I don't feel like I fought. In some ways I got fortunate the treatment worked, but doesn't mean it wasn't hard. It doesn't mean it almost didn't kill me a couple of times, because it really almost did.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: And there was some resolve there, but I also feel very blessed that I'm well. But then again, just using that word, blessed, I have a friend who she wasn't doing well, and she was a pastor's wife, and she said.

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Terry Arnold: So God doesn't love me anymore. And I said, This is a complicated conversation.

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Terry Arnold: because I don't feel that that.

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Katy Bowser: She's so much.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: I don't feel that she was abandoned, and I don't feel I was favored, and I use the word blessed out of a form of gratitude.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: Gratitude, but like we.

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Terry Arnold: So when you talk about fight language.

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Terry Arnold: when we're grateful to be a survivor. And since you're a wordsmith.

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Terry Arnold: how does that make you feel? Do we get stuck there and lose our identity to a certain level.

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Katy Bowser: Like if we stay there, and that's all we talk about, or that's all we think about.

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Katy Bowser: I mean you. I I think you can get stuck in that. If that feels like it becomes the overriding thing that's true about you.

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Katy Bowser: I mean, I I can get I get it, and that if you've had a life and death struggle, death, struggle. That is worth celebrating. And and if you, if you're in the middle of it, it is is worth.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, of course it's important. But if you're surviving, what are you surviving for? You know, what is it that? What is it that you are holding on, for you know. What? What do you want to do.

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Terry Arnold: Hi!

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Terry Arnold: Well, I see women, you know, and they're wearing their T-shirts all those years later, and I'm grateful. They're well all those years later, you know I want, and I know they're giving hope. But it's interesting to me that I see some women. They're washed pink head to toe 24, 7. And that's all they talk about. And and I think it's because it is such a big goal. Maybe we're afraid to let that conversation go for fear that cancer would slip back up. But what

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Terry Arnold: I'm trying to figure out is, where is the beyond?

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Terry Arnold: And not that. It's not a huge part of me. I've got scars all over my body that remind me every day, and I have various physical issues that remind me every day.

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Katy Bowser: Yep.

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Terry Arnold: But also, too, I want to be the beyond. I honestly don't want my obituary to mention cancer.

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Terry Arnold: I wanted to say I'm a woman who loved God, love my husband, love my family, and try to do good in the community because I've tried to do good outside of cancer. I've done a lot of other big things in my life.

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Terry Arnold: I've told my husband it sounds weird to say I don't want a eulogy because I know someone's gonna get there and talk about cancer. And it's like

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Terry Arnold: that is not what I want to be remembered for.

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Katy Bowser: Does that make sense? Yeah, cancer is the thing that tried to mess it all up. It is the uninvited guest. So to give it that much real estate in your life more than you have to give it?

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Katy Bowser: So I'm I'm writing my next book, and it's not about cancer.

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Terry Arnold: Yes.

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Katy Bowser: I mean so Liz O'riordan. She yeah, I'm excited about like Liz has made a career out of it, and it makes sense because she was a breast surgeon before, and she has seen both sides, and she has so many things that are helpful. And so that is what she writes about. But I was writing before I had cancer. And now I want to write about play.

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Katy Bowser: And it's it's interesting. It actually, cancer was kind of a springboard into it, because I learned how play and playing with God were a real thing that happened at the bottom of things. I was like, oh, this is still true when I'm wondering if I'm going to die. And so that that got real interesting. And that's what I've been really chewing on for years here has been been real fun for me.

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Katy Bowser: But thank you for the springboard cancer. But you are not actually the 1st impetus for it, and you're not going to make it onto the front page of my book. You're not the big idea.

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Katy Bowser: It wasn't. It was a space that where that kind of grew. But but yeah, no, there's so many there's I don't. Okay. So I'm a writer and a speaker. And when people ask me to speak about cancer. I will. Because I am grateful and it helps other people. And I'm but you know, when I when I do go, when I do talk about cancer stuff.

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Katy Bowser: It! It's hard. It wears me out, and it takes me back there. And so when I do it, I I know that I'm doing it out of a giving place because it takes something out of me so to continue to live in that space is exhausting. And and I am. I'm amazed that you have done as much advocacy as you. You have, because I know that takes a toll.

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Terry Arnold: It does, but it's interesting, because lately the the talks I've been given. I hope I get more speaking opportunities because it changed a lot of the pandemic. But the ones I've done in the last year, when people ask me to come, talk about cancer, I say I will. But then I come at it with a completely different angle, and I say, these are the things I'm supposed to tell you that you expect me to say.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: But this is what I'm gonna tell you. So get ready. And they're like, what

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Terry Arnold: not. Gonna give it away here. Maybe people will book me in, and they'll.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, no, I can't wait.

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Terry Arnold: But they have sort of an expectation that you're supposed to say things of gratitude, and rally your troops and do all the things and get your posse together. Well, you know a lot of us don't have posses or have other issues in our life. My husband shattered his arm in a ridiculous accident not long after I got through treatment, so I was busy taking care of him, you know, and I know women who said my husband got diagnosed a month before me a month after me, or they had a kid at something.

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Terry Arnold: You know we're not all just sitting on a pillow with all these things available to us eating salmon because they all think somehow salmon cures cancer.

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Katy Bowser: I love salmon, but.

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Terry Arnold: You know, and and so, anyway, but it's like

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Terry Arnold: so I'll come in and go. Here's what I'm supposed to tell you.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah.

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Terry Arnold: Quick, Skinny, and then I go. But this is what I want to tell you.

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Terry Arnold: you know, and and I've had good feedback.

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Terry Arnold: But

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Terry Arnold: I hope that people will come

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Terry Arnold: to the ultimate meetup in Nashville, because I think it's great. I know you came before and seem to get something out of it.

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Terry Arnold: I did. You want to be

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Terry Arnold: with us to do a writer's a little mini writer's introduction.

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Terry Arnold: and I hope they look for your next books.

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Terry Arnold: because I've enjoyed your poetry very much.

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Katy Bowser: Thank you so much. Thank you.

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Terry Arnold: We want to end this today, because I think we've been talking a good long while, and people can look for you and the book that you read from was now lay me down to fight, which I love that title. But what are the other titles.

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Katy Bowser: Oh, I have a little children's book, you know. If people want to see what I'm doing now, I would love if they want to follow. I'm on substack, and it's Katie plays KATY. Plays PLAY. S. And I'm talking about play now, and I actually think it's a really good place to go. If you've

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Katy Bowser: I don't know if you've been dealing with cancer, because I'm digging into what play is and why it matters, and what attributes of play are, and those things feel like a really good thing to have. You know, I read, the body keeps the score during cancer. And some of this kind of is kind of springs out of that. But

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Katy Bowser: but the way you think about things and the way you look at them, and even in heavy places, levity or a sense of curiosity.

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Katy Bowser: really can change how how you're

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Katy Bowser: it can change everything about how you look at your life. So this book is going to kind of be a workbook and and an art piece, it's gonna poetry and essays and lots of illustrations. Yeah, I would love for people to find me there, and.

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Terry Arnold: We will. We will share those links in all of this so hopefully, people can find you, because, you know, there's no expression you can't pour from an empty cup, and if we don't find things to to give us joy to renew us, then we we don't have things to give. Yeah. And and and I know

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Terry Arnold: different people find renewal different ways. But I think it's something we need to learn to cultivate. So we can be all the things we're meant to be.

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Katy Bowser: Yeah, and also stick around with, yeah, I mean, I I could not be a bigger fan of the Ibc Foundation. Just stick close to Terry Lynn because she knows what's going on. And I and I would, if people are listening to this, podcast I would imagine there are already people hanging around the crew

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Katy Bowser: at the Ibc Foundation. But that was an enormous support on a very practical level on an emotional level. That you guys were you guys provided information like cutting edge information and and deep emotional help that other people just couldn't didn't didn't know about you guys. You're.

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Terry Arnold: That means a lot to me. It means a lot to me because I was really hesitant to start a charity. But when I started realizing there was a niche, and I thought, Okay, this is something I can do, and I'm grateful. Well, I love you. I love talking to you.

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Terry Arnold: love your family. I cannot wait to see you in Nashville this October. And thank, yeah, this today.

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Katy Bowser: I'm so glad to be with you, Cherry Lynn. Thank you.

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Terry Arnold: Thank you so much.