Qualified - Lessons in Loss

Cancer, Infidelity and Divorce - How I survived breast cancer and betrayal

• Michelle Heaton • Episode 63

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Laura endured the adversity trifecta- cancer, infidelity, and divorce.  Listen in as she opens up about her bi-lateral breast cancer diagnosis, ravaging chemotherapy, congestive heart failure, a heart transplant, and coping with infidelity and divorce after 27 years of marriage.  

Through it all, she not only regained her strength and recovered physically but she emerged stronger and more determined to help others.

https://www.icope2hope.com/

Michelle:

Well, hey everybody, and welcome back to Qualified, the place where incredible people share their stories of overcoming great adversity and loss to inspire you and give you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton. The end of a marriage can be devastating, depending on the circumstances and the number of years invested. It can truly cause deep emotional pain and, in some cases, be likened to a death. The abrupt and sometimes unwanted end of a relationship that will never be again can bring serious grief, and in addition to grief, a person might also experience anger, fear, anxiety, loneliness, depression, and the list goes on.

Michelle:

Divorce is a hard reality that some face in this life, but toss in family trauma, a breast cancer diagnosis and then a heart transplant and that load would seem way too much for any one person to bear. Well, my guest today lived that story and today she'll share with us how she managed to not only persevere through the hard times, recover physically and emotionally, but she also chose to use her circumstances to help other people by writing a book and offering support to others who have experienced their own adversity in life. Today she's a resilience coach, author and volunteer mentor with youth aging out of the foster care system and transitioning into adulthood. Her name is Laura Mangum-Broom, and it's my honor to have her as my guest on the show today. Welcome to Qualified Laura.

Laura:

Thank you, Mi michelle, I'm so excited to be here.

Michelle:

Great, glad to have you Well. As I said in the intro, divorce is certainly not an easy thing to live through, but you also had a series of other life-changing events happen, all within a very short period of time, had a series of other life-changing events happen, all within a very short period of time. Can you just set the stage for us by talking first about your breast cancer diagnosis that you received back in 2015 and the treatment you received and how it all impacted you?

Laura:

Sure, sure. And in 2015, we were three years into my husband's new business, 2015, we were three years into my husband's new business, and so I was handling the day-to-day operation to kind of get him started. And then I was just going to kind of take a back seat and was hoping to get more involved in an organization I had started becoming a mentor with. And so when you're just kind of going through life at them and happy, you know, you kind of get a little jolt. And that's what I got the summer of 2015. I was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer and I remember the oncologist telling, you know, talking to me, you know, after I had some scans, biopsy, and it was just kind of like Charlie Brown's teacher Womp, womp, womp, womp, biopsy and it was just kind of like Charlie Brown's teacher. And but then I heard her say, I thought I heard her say but you can beat this, you know, we know what to do. You just, you know, just have to have a positive attitude and eat healthy and and I was just kind of like it just threw me out of that going. I said what can you repeat that? And so that just was out of that going. I said what can you repeat that? And so that just was. That was enough to give me hope.

Laura:

So I just decided I'm just going to do exactly what you tell me to, because I was having to decide how am I going to help my husband run the business? We were hoping to get to a point where we could hire a manager to take over my duties, but this kind of just that put this to a halt, because the additional medical expenses insurance covered a majority of it, but the additional medical expenses in the time it was just had to rethink everything, and so I was already trying to train some other employees. We had four employees. I was trying to train some to take over some of my duties so I could start getting out of working so much. So, fortunately, my oncologist was.

Laura:

We lived close to one of the hospital systems here in San Antonio, so she was part of a medical building that was just outside of our neighborhood, so she did chemo treatments there in her office, and so I planned on going to work and then she was able to get me in for chemo treatments in the afternoon. So then I would just go home and rest and I was telling her the dilemma I was in and she said well, I don't do this to many of my patients, but I can let you have half dose chemo treatments for six months instead of the full dose over three months. And she said sometimes the half dose treatments, it's easier for people to kind of maintain their normal routine.

Laura:

And I said sign me up, I'll do whatever you tell me, and that was such a blessing because the first month it was it was terrible, just the nausea and just getting used to all the drugs. There's some pretty powerful chemo drug and so there was a sign in the chemo room that said stay positive, it could be worse. And the chair that I usually came in, because the time that I would come in in the afternoon there were a couple of chairs available but I would always sit in the chair where I could see that sign because I just needed to concentrate on it and I did. You know that it really helped me get through those six months of chemo treatment.

Laura:

Wow, I know that was rough on you, but I'm so glad that you chose to stay focused on that sign. That's great. And you told me that during your treatments. You know, just, it was time for themselves, so I'd always play it by ear. I kind of was one of those. I just wanted to kind of be left alone during it was like an you know, a couple of hour chemo treatment.

Laura:

But I sat next to a woman who, gosh, I still think about her. She was in, she had terminal breast cancer. She waited too long to go in and get diagnosed because she didn't want to face the diagnosis and so when her children finally made her go in and they, you know she found out it was too late. She could take chemo to prolong her life. So she decided to do that, to spend as much time with her children as she could.

Laura:

But she had such a positive attitude, you know, and I time with her children as she could. But she had such a positive attitude, you know, and I thought, oh, I felt so sorry for this woman but I was so grateful that, you know, and she said, but now she was a strong proponent of just telling every woman she ran into go get diagnosed. Don't do what I did, you know. And seeing a teenager, a young teenage girl, when I started my chemo treatments she was just finishing hers and her high school friends came in with some balloons and a little maybe tear up sign that said congratulations. You know last chemo and I thought gosh you know, yeah.

Michelle:

I'm so sorry you had to go through all that. I have a friend who's supporting someone in her chemotherapy right now and just going into that infusion center and sitting with her, she sees all those people like you, like you described, and her heart goes out to him because there's so many different stories and ages and you know, is it going to work?

Michelle:

Is it not going to work? You don't know, and I know that it can cause you to feel really bad, really horrible in some cases. So let's talk about that. You started the chemo. You were going through all the infusions, the half doses, and then later you started to experience some physical symptoms you thought were out of the ordinary and you went to your doctor to have it checked out. What happened?

Laura:

So over that six-month period I got used to the drugs and everything was going better, I was more stable, and then my last chemo treatment was on December 31st.

Laura:

What a way to end a chemo treatment, you know fireworks and everything and I was so excited and within about a week I just started getting out of breath. I noticed some swelling in my legs and this happened over the next couple of months and my oncologist wanted me to see a cardiologist and my sister I have a twin sister who had been recently diagnosed with congestive heart failure and so she was seeing a good cardiologist. And so my oncologist knew him and got me in and he was running some tests and trying to figure out what was going on. Well, this went on and then he started thinking well, her sister has congestive heart failure, she's having same symptoms. So he told us what he thought it was, but he couldn't do the types of tests needed to find out if it might be genetic. So he referred us, both my sister and I, to the Advanced Heart Failure Clinic here in San Antonio to see if they could find out what was going on. And we found out it was a genetic marker.

Laura:

Without the chemo treatments I probably would have never been diagnosed with it. But the chemo this probably isn't the proper medical way of explaining it, but I just say the chemo treatments kind of flipped on that marker. So the heart clinic said, yes, you do have congestive heart failure, but chemo treatments really damaged your heart and you're going to need a heart transplant.

Michelle:

Oh my gosh.

Laura:

A lot.

Michelle:

Uh-huh, yeah Well, I'm glad you found out about the genetic marker and now the doctors are treating you and your sister, since you were both having the same symptoms, both having the same symptoms, and you told me that they gave you both defibrillators that would continuously monitor your heartbeat and they actually deliver a shock when needed to restore regular heart rhythm. That's a good thing, but again sort of scary. Did your doctor explain what you should expect once it had been put in place?

Laura:

This is how you inject humor in your difficult situations. We said what are the symptoms? What do we expect if we have a shot? And they said well, we hear different things. Some people say it's just kind of like a jolt, some people say it feels like a horse kicking you in the chest. And then you thought, gosh. So my sister and I were just kind of making light of our situation and just saying we're just going to be sitting across the table from each other.

Laura:

You know doing something and she gets a shock and I laugh at her and then I get a shock.

Michelle:

Yeah, Anyway, we do have a positive attitude.

Laura:

Yes, I mean, what can you do at that point? Wow.

Michelle:

So they told you you needed a heart transplant. I mean, that was shocking, but your heart was in bad shape and now the doctors were telling you what the next steps were, and you're trying to balance this with everything else you just went through, right?

Laura:

Well, I don't think I realized how serious the condition I was in. My heart was just really starting to give out, and I was always out of breath. I had to walk with a cane. I started working from home because you know, we're still trying to run this business. I was getting to the point where I was. You had to limit my fluids because, since my heart couldn't pump properly, it couldn't distribute all the fluids throughout my body, and so I would retain water. A couple of times I had to go in for them to remove the fluid around my heart which was causing the difficulty in breathing, and so by the time I was diagnosed with a heart transplant, I was working from home. I couldn't do anything but just sit. Basically, the business still continued. We had clients to serve, I'd still go to my doctor's appointments, still trying to find relief, and so it was bittersweet, I just needed relief.

Laura:

It got so bad, michelle. You know we take for granted just being able to breathe, but I couldn't even take a deep breath. I was so shallow that for me to take a deep breath, like just to like, I wasn't even yawning, but you know how deep when you yawn, you take that all the way down to your throat. I couldn't even do that. If I felt like I needed to take a deep breath, I had to close my eyes and relax, just relax my body, just to try to breathe in through my nose. If I couldn't do it the first time, I would almost start to get a panic feeling because I just wanted to take that deep breath. I couldn't sleep in bed. I would sleep. We had a like a rocking chair that I would just kind of get a pillow and kind of just sleep bent over so I could still breathe. I was just miserable at this point.

Michelle:

Yeah, that's pretty scary too, I think so this was all leading up to the transplant.

Laura:

By the time they got me on the heart transplant list, the pandemic was happening, and this was early 2022. And so the pandemic was starting to shut everything down, and so the doctors were concerned because, with people not moving about, it really lowered the percentage of getting organs, yes, and so, again, I don't think I really understood the dilemma. I was in yeah, and so they explained the process to me. We had to go through some educational classes to understand exactly what all was involved, and I just thought it was going to be a simple process you get your new heart and life goes on, or you don't make it. But you know, I just needed relief. So they said you could be in there for weeks and they only let you stay in the hospital for about six weeks and they'll send you back home. And then, you know, wait to find information, because, I mean, it is such a specific match. They have to match the blood type, the tissues. There's so much that goes into matching an organ donor.

Michelle:

So that's I mean, that's huge all of that, and you must have just been emotionally anxious, worried, trying to figure out. You know what's going to happen. I've got a family, I've got a business, I've got all these health issues, and then eventually you go into the hospital, and this is in 2020, like you said, during COVID. So it was kind of a environment where a lot of visitors weren't allowed, right?

Laura:

Oh, sure, of course. Of course I go in right, right when everything shuts down. I can't have any visitors, I know. I know I mean basically, my husband had to drop me off and I had to go in the hospital by myself and, you know, I just had to make the best of it. Thank goodness for technology, you know, with video chat and phone, and I brought work in with me because I might as well do work, because I'm just going to be sitting here, you know, and I don't like to just be idle Right.

Michelle:

I kind of joked around and said it just keeps getting worse. But I'm only half joking there, because it actually does get worse. So you're in the hospital. What happened that caused more trauma in your life? Talk about that part.

Laura:

Okay, okay. When I was in the hospital and doing work, my husband told me that he needed a check for about $1,500 to pay this woman he had hired to help him with another side business that he had, and he had brought her on with our business and said he needed a check for $1,500 because she was going to build our website or improve our website. And I said, well, I'll give her a deposit and that can pay up front until I see the finished product, just like we do with all our other vendors. And he was adamant about no, I've already told her I'd pay her this up front. And we went back and forth. So I just said if you're going to pay her, you write the check. So I refused to write the check. So he did, and I suspected something might be going on. But anytime I approached him and asked him point blank are you having an affair? Are you seeing her? He would look me in the eye and say, no, I'm not. And I would just I'd find more clues. But I didn't have evidence. So while I was in the hospital, he was real good about checking in with me. But when then, when I tried to contact him, I usually couldn't get a hold of him. And I called the office because he would tell me I usually couldn't get a hold of him and I called the office because he would tell me he was at the office or he was working late. And I just had to say if you don't have any evidence, you got to let it go. And I expected to be in the hospital four to six weeks. I was only in the hospital three weeks.

Laura:

They found a heart that fast, but the doctors had a hard time getting in touch with my husband to let me know that the procedure was over and that the heart transplant was a success. And so my family is trying to get in touch with him to see if the surgery is still going on or what is the status. And they couldn't get a hold of him either. So I guess eventually they got a hold of him. My family kind of spares me from some of the details of that, which is understandable, but when I came out of the anesthesia the doctor was going to come tell me what was going on, how everything looked.

Laura:

He wanted to have my husband on the phone too to be able to tell us both, because I was still kind of groggy from the medication and the doctor would come in and say sometimes we're still trying to get ahold of your husband and we've left a voicemail, you know. We're just waiting for him to contact us back. We'll try in a little bit. But he was kind of nonchalant about it and I didn't think much of it either. I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. Then, surprisingly, two weeks later I was able to go home on Mother's Day weekend. Oh, I was so excited and told the nurse who was taking me down to meet my husband I'm so happy to be spending Mother's Day weekend at home. This is the best Mother's Day gift I could possibly have. And little did I know a month later the other shoe would drop.

Michelle:

So at this point you're recovering from a double mastectomy, a heart transplant surgery, and now you said the other shoe's going to drop. Tell us what happened and how you responded.

Laura:

So I've been home from the hospital for about a month and my legs were so weak I could barely get out of the chair and my husband was home. I was supposed to have 24-hour care for the first three months. After the first week my husband started going into the office again and I was there during the day by myself and he would call and check on me every now and then. Then, after about a month, the telltale signs were coming back and he was coming home late at night from the office. So I just asked him do you want to continue this marriage or do you want something else? And he said I just don't think I can make you happy. And I realized he didn't want to continue the marriage. He already had somebody else in the wings.

Laura:

We had our ups and downs. You know we've been married 27 years but I never thought it would come to this. But I knew I had no regrets. I knew I had given it my all that I could do, and so I just decided this was it. You know I made that decision, but you still, you go to bed, you get up and you go. Well, maybe we can work this out, but a lot of stuff that had been hidden kind of came out in the open and I realized I just want to get this over with as quickly as possible. And my doctors, my heart clinic doctors, were in a panic because I had to let them know what was going on. And you know their whole thing to me for quarantining for a year. You know, keep the stress level down, you know, yeah, yeah.

Michelle:

Yeah, so again, I'm really sorry, really sorry. I mean it's difficult and I know that you're a woman of faith and so I'm curious, as you went through this process, how you struggled with your faith, if you struggled with your faith, and what role it played in your, your healing and recovery.

Laura:

It was a big factor because I had gotten so busy with the business, I was not reading the Bible daily like I used to, and so that's immediately what I started doing again and thank goodness I did, because at this point I felt like, you know, I've been through a double mass act, my body has been through so much and I felt like I just was unworthy, I was damaged goods. You know, I didn't want to be a statistic, you know, middle-aged woman whose husband left her for another woman, it's just everything that I had been through. It's like that was kind of like just kicking me when I was down. So by reading the Bible and reminding myself I'm a child of God, I am, you know, fearfully and wonderfully made. I'm made for his purpose, and that was so comforting because it's like he is my father. That's all I care about is being a child of God, that he loves me unconditionally. I am worthy and I will get through this because he's going to help me Wow, I love it, and I think you absolutely did the right thing.

Michelle:

I always say to people and I've said this on many other episodes it seems like when people go through really difficult things in life that they either run to God or they run away from God. So I'm glad that you chose to run to God. I did the same thing and I think that's something that we'll never regret. No, so, Laura, you've been through a lot. My friend, you had a cancer diagnosis and needed chemotherapy, but while receiving treatments, you focused on remaining positive and practicing gratitude for the blessings you have in this life.

Michelle:

Your cancer treatment was a lot to endure, but what was revealed in the process would end up saving your life. So you were grateful even while going through it. And when your sister and you found yourself in similar situations, you chose to allow humor to make things more tolerable and keep your joy intact. And when you ultimately discovered that your marriage would end, you chose to run back to God and to His Word to strengthen your faith and keep you focused on the truths about who you are and that you're fearfully and wonderfully made. Laura, what other lessons have you learned that you want to share with listeners right now?

Laura:

Oh, I have so many life lessons, but the most important ones that I would say the biggest thing that was a game changer for me was no-transcript difference. But I mean, I got to the point where I had to. I had to literally do that. I would start writing things down that's out of my control, but this, I can do something with this. And that kind of became my mantra is I can't do that but I can do this.

Laura:

And when we think we're do that but I can do this, and when we think that life is out of control, and the most important thing is you have so much within you that you have control over, you have control over your thoughts, your words and your actions. Like, I didn't have control over what my husband chose to do, but I did have a choice over what I could do and I had in my situation. I had a brand new heart, I had a second chance at life and I was going to make the most of it and that's what I chose to do. And so you know, for your audience, just know that you can overcome anything that you're willing to choose to do.

Laura:

I think there's people out there going through tough times that they just don't think they can do it. Life's not fair, life's never going to be fair. But just because it's an obstacle doesn't mean you know you can't turn it into an opportunity, and as I wish I could just tell that to everybody going through hardship. I mean, we pretty much have a choice between being a victim or a victor, and I wholeheartedly say choose victor. Life is good when you can look for the positive and focus on what you can do to move forward. And I'd say that's it in a nutshell Just focus on what you can do and be grateful.

Michelle:

Yeah, those are great lessons, and I love the sign that was hanging on the wall in the infusion center. Tell us what it said one more time.

Laura:

Stay positive. It could be worse.

Michelle:

It could be worse.

Laura:

And that's how you find gratitude is finding out why things aren't worse, Right yeah?

Michelle:

Yeah, I love what you said about radical acceptance, because I think that applies to so many types of grief and loss in life. It does, I mean you have to face the reality of what is and know that you can't go backwards, accept it and then choose to thrive again. So I love the way that you laid that all out for us. Thank you very much. Well, at this point, Laura, I just want to thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show and be my guest today, and I'll put a link in the show notes to your website where guests can go and learn more about your book and the services you offer. Thank you again for coming on the show. What a pleasure talking with you.

Laura:

Thank you, Michelle. It was a joy to be here and it's just an honor to be a guest on your podcast. So thank you very much.

Michelle:

So, for those of you listening, you might be thinking, wow, that's a lot for one person to endure Cancer, congestive heart failure, a heart transplant surgery, infidelity and then a divorce. And you'd be right. It is a lot. But Laura chose to keep the faith. When the business no longer consumed her time, she turned that time back to God, and when she was feeling unworthy and unloved like damaged goods, G god reminded her that she is more than worthy she's His. So my prayer is that you will remember that today, my friend, that you'll remember who's on your side and who will never leave you, and one day you too will be able to help someone else with the lessons you learned in your loss. Thanks for listening.