I Need Blue
I turned around to see a masked man pointing a gun at me. It was just the beginning of a series of events, including robbery and abduction, which changed my life forever. I Need Blue, hosted by Jen Lee, is a podcast series featuring lived-experiences from survivors of life events. I NEED BLUE creates space for survivors of trauma to feel they BELONG, are LOVED, UNDERSTOOD and EMPOWERED! I called 9-1-1 and they provided me with life-saving directions to help my customer who was having a medical emergency. Law enforcement rescued us and caught the robber. Our first-responders face unique traumas every day. I NEED BLUE provides space for them too!
I Need Blue
Trish: Surviving Stage Four Cancer and Finding Peace
Trish, a retired dentist and devoted wife and mother, faced a life-altering diagnosis of stage four uterine cancer after moving to West Virginia. What began as a terminal prognosis became an incredible journey of survival through medical care, unwavering support, and deep spiritual transformation. Her recovery was both physical and emotional, a process she describes as an “undoing” of fear and limiting beliefs. Today, Trish embraces each day with gratitude, sharing her story to inspire others to find peace, release burdens, and lean into love and support.
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By sharing the hidden lines of our stories, we remind each other we are not alone — together, we step out of hiding and into healing.
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The background music is written, performed and produced exclusively by Char Good.
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Everyone has a story. They just don't always have a place to share it. Welcome to I Need Blue, the podcast about to take you on an extraordinary journey where profound narratives come to life, one captivating episode at a time. I'm your host, jennifer Lee, and I founded this podcast because I know there is healing and sharing. Each story you will hear shared on this podcast is a testament to our collective strength, innate ability to transform in the incredible power of healing. Please remember you are never alone. Please visit and share my website with those seeking connection and inspiration wwwineedbluenet. Thank you, char Good, for composing and performing the introduction medley for I Need Blue. You can find information about Char on her website, wwwchargoodcom.
Speaker 1:Before starting today's episode, I must provide a trigger warning. I Need Blue features graphic themes including, but not limited to, violence, abuse and murder, and may not be suitable for all listeners. Please take care of yourself and don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it. Now let's get started with today's story. Imagine in just two days, your body swells to the size of someone nine months pregnant. Then you receive the devastating news You're diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that shows no markers. To make it worse, it's stage four already spread to multiple areas, including your liver and ovaries. What would you do? Today, I'm honored to share the powerful story of my friend, trish, who lived through this nightmare. Trish faced this terrifying diagnosis with incredible strength. She underwent multiple surgeries, explored alternative medicines, leaned into her family and incredible support of her community. But through it all, she experienced something life-changing, an unexpected spiritual awakening. She's here eager to share her story and the lessons she learned with all of us. Trish, thank you for being my guest today and welcome to the I Need Blue podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited to share my story Absolutely, and I am so happy that we were connected through a mutual friend and your smile and your energy it just sparkles and I love that.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. That is so beautiful. I'm so thankful for you. As soon as we met, I knew we had to be friends, and there is no coincidence when we run into other like-minded people Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And you know, you get a little older it can be a little harder to find friends, that's right. But when we do it's just like this little gem. Oh well, thank you, you're welcome. So let's start out, share a little bit with our audience about you, and then we'll go into your diagnosis.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, I am a retired dentist, a mother of two. I have an amazing husband and just an amazing network of friends which really helped through my healing process. I grew up in Ohio. I had a practice in Charleston, South Carolina, which I loved. I am not practicing now because my oncologists believe that the aerosol spray and the germs involved are not good for my health and they recommended something less stressful and a lot of rest. I rested a long time.
Speaker 1:Yes, rest does a body good, it does, it does Wonderful Well. Thank you for sharing with us Trish about you. Tell us what happened with your diagnosis. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was practicing in South Carolina a dentist and I met my husband. He's a chiropractor. He was taking a break from chiropractic and went to law school at the Charleston School of Law. Some friends introduced us and the rest is history. And my associate in Charleston wanted to buy my practice and I sold it much earlier than I ever imagined. My husband convinced me to go to West Virginia with him for a year just to explore some different things. And so we went and that is where I got sick. So within two days I swelled up to the size of a pregnant person.
Speaker 2:Long story short, I go see an oncologist and I'm basically told I have stage four cancer, most likely, and that I have a few months to live. And I met my surgeon. Was absolutely amazing, she saved my life. She was at University of Pittsburgh McGee Hospital for Women an amazing place. I'm so thankful for everyone there. And I've had a series of surgeries. Somehow I went from a few months to a live to now. I am doing great. I don't want to jinx it, I don't want to jinx anything, but I am doing really well and I want to let people know that you can overcome something like this Stage four cancer. You can overcome it. It is not what it sounds like. I think there's such a limiting belief about stage four cancer. Anything is possible, right.
Speaker 1:In your stage four cancer, the first symptom was basically you had bloated up. Yes, yes, what other symptoms occurred.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, what other symptoms occurred? There really is no diagnostic test for it. A lot of women that are diagnosed with uterine cancer, they end up being either stage three or stage four because there is no diagnostic test. So some of the signs are heavy menstrual periods, but other than that, there really are no other indicators but that a heavy menstrual period could be really anything Well and heavy menstrual periods can be quote normal for some women. Exactly, they could be fibroids, they could be all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:And I'm assuming you had your checkup physical every year and everything was good.
Speaker 2:I missed a couple of years from COVID because I was diagnosed in 2021. And so there were a couple of years missed, but not a lot, and so I had had regular checkups and everything and everything was always fine. I went to the doctor Everything was always healthy, and I was stunned, I thought. Went to the doctor Everything was always healthy and I was stunned. I thought I was really healthy. I was shocked when it happened.
Speaker 1:Do you remember the moment when they said to you you have stage four cancer?
Speaker 2:Yes, Right after I went to see the oncologist, they had set me up for chemotherapy. The doctor called me before I started the chemo. She called me and she said I've been thinking about you. Something is different, something is different about what I'm seeing. And she ordered another test and that test indicated to her that we should not do chemotherapy, that we should do surgery.
Speaker 2:I was preparing for the surgery and I thought to myself you know, I've had a really nice life. It looks like this is it for me. It's okay if I pass on. And then everybody around me just started. There were so many tears and there was just an outpour of love from my husband, my family, my children, my friends, everybody just pulled together and I thought I can't go yet. I have more to do here. I can't go.
Speaker 2:It was the day before the surgery. My husband. He said I'm gonna take a picture. I can't go. It was the day before the surgery. My husband. He said I'm going to take a picture of you because we're going to tell this story later, after you make it. And I thought, okay, all right, I took the picture. Then I had the surgery the next day and it was rough. It was a really rough surgery. I woke up with an ostomy. An ostomy is where they have to reroute your digestion because the cancer had spread to my intestines and so at the time they thought that I would die within a few months. And people who have cancer tend to have a lot of issues with constipation, and they'll do an ostomy at the time of a surgery just to make you more comfortable in your last few months.
Speaker 1:Wow. So they were prepare you as though this was going to be a few months.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they did not think I was going to make it. They did not think I was going to make it and most women honestly do not, they don't and there was a moment where I really I felt at peace and I let go. I call it an undoing rather than a doing, because I just released all the baggage that we all carry feelings of fear, all kinds of fear-based beliefs, like not feeling good enough, feeling fearful about things, feeling depressed, feeling sad, feeling just all those emotions that every human goes through. I was able to undo all that and just release it and just be at peace, and it was just such a moment of peace and happiness After I released those emotions. I feel that was the moment that everything switched, everything changed.
Speaker 1:You know they say that all of those adverse emotions and the things that we have been through we carry in our body and they manifest in physical ways. Do you think the fact that you were able to undo I love that word that it contributed to your healing process, contributed to your healing process?
Speaker 2:A hundred percent yes. Once I came to a place of peace and letting go of all that and realizing that we don't need those emotions, they're not serving anything, there's no purpose for them. Once I realized I didn't need all that, then synchronicity started to come into play and all these therapies crossed my path and I started off-label pharmaceutical therapies with another oncologist. All these series of events happened that led me to the physical healing, but I believe the emotional and spiritual and mental healing began in a moment and the rest followed. The physical followed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's beautiful. Speaking about the physical, can you tell us what it was like for the next year two?
Speaker 2:years. It was very difficult. Two weeks later we get a phone call and the doctor says interestingly enough, this is low grade and before that I had thought that's it. You know it's not looking good and the doctor had told me before the surgery. She said uterine cancer does not have a very high survival rate. Uterine cancer does not have a very high survival rate.
Speaker 2:She was very kind about it and compassionate, but I could read between the lines and I knew I'm so thankful for the people around me. They made my life so much better just through their love and caring and their beautiful gestures. I think without them it would have been much more difficult. I had eight surgeries. It's been a lot of recovery. My husband took off almost two years of work to help stay home and take care of me so I was never alone. My kids called all the time, visited, checked on me, were always there. My friends made meals for us, called, visited. The outpouring of love was just amazing and if you're a caretaker out there, just know that all those things you do for someone that you care about that is suffering or going through a difficult time, it really makes such a difference. It really helps a lot.
Speaker 1:It's great that you shared that, because I know, having worked in that field a little bit in the past, that being a caregiver is selfless, it's dedication. It's hard. It's emotionally hard as well. Yes, yeah, because you develop a relationship with that patient if you didn't already have one. Now, being family, you already love that person and you want to take their pain. You don't want to see them be in pain and suffer. So did you opt for traditional forms of therapy for cancers? Traditional forms of therapy for cancers?
Speaker 2:I did 100% what my doctor recommended. The type of cancer that the pathology showed is called low-grade endometrial stromal sarcoma and that is treated with surgery and some other medications. And I did everything she said. I followed everything. I did the medical treatment as well as alternatives. So I did both. I started reading and researching and what came across my path is they call them off-label prescription protocols, prescription medications that are intended for something other than what you're using it for. So the medications I'm taking are not FDA approved for cancer necessarily, but there are lots of studies that show how effective they are and the oncologist that I work with he's getting two times the survival rate of cancer patients and it has helped so much.
Speaker 1:That's great, Again being connected divinely. Yes, To where we are supposed to be. Earlier you said you had to get a lot of rest. How long did the rest period last?
Speaker 2:Well, I remember after the first big surgery I was in bed. How long did the rest period last? I really could not do much. I was in bed most of the time. I watched a lot of videos, did lots of reading, talked on the phone to friends and family. That just gave me so much inspiration. I was in bed a lot. It was very hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to ask how did you stay positive?
Speaker 2:I've always been a really positive person and I felt such a sense of peace. I never really went through a lot of pain, necessarily, other than the surgical recovery and the pain from surgery. I never really had pain, I think because I did stay so positive. At that point I knew I had a feeling I was going to be here for a while and I was just listening to my body and resting and I had the support system where I was able to rest.
Speaker 1:And I want to go back to when we were talking about the caregivers, yes, and talk about what it was like for your spouse, for Emil, to watch his wife go through this.
Speaker 2:It was so hard for him I mean in the beginning he was in tears so many times because it was hard for him to see me go through all this he was so loving and so caring that it really gave me a lot of reason to stay around and that was so, so helpful and that was a big part of the positivity that I felt. He was pretty amazing and my kids were great, my family was great, very touching, and I'm the kind of person who never asks for help. In the past I would never ask anyone for help or tell them I'm struggling or tell them I'm not feeling good. I would never ask for help. And then this taught me it's okay to ask for help.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Prior to this journey. What role did your spirituality play in your life?
Speaker 2:I feel like I've always been very spiritual. I feel like I have grown so much through this health challenge that I've had and you could almost say that on a spiritual level, it's probably been the best thing that's ever happened to me, which may sound surprising to say that, but it has led to so much change, love and spiritual growth and I feel like I'm not even the same person. I feel like every day is a gift and I see so much more beauty around me and I don't take things for granted, that's great.
Speaker 1:It's interesting how life experiences can change our perspective, or enhance our perspective Like you said, you were already a very positive individual or enhance our perspective Like you said, you are already a very positive individual, exactly.
Speaker 2:And in fact I love to focus on the end result more so than the physical journey, because the physical journey I mean a lot of people have gone through difficult physical journeys but it's really where you go with it from there. There's just so much suffering out there that I want to let people know that you can find peace and you can find a better way of thinking.
Speaker 1:So, aside from going through this or while going through this, yes, what were other ways that you found peace? So maybe somebody listening that is searching, that's like wow, trish sounds great, but I have no idea how to find peace.
Speaker 2:It's hard to describe. That's a tough question. I would say, through some meditation it's very internal. There isn't anything that I did to become more spiritual or to find peace. It was all within. It's difficult to describe, but it's actually very simple and happens in such a split second moment. It goes back to that undoing. There's no other way that I can describe it. It's a moment of undoing and once you let go and undo, then everything falls into place. Question.
Speaker 1:Life throws curveballs. Have you had moments where your undoing has been shaken?
Speaker 2:No, I would say no. I would say what this health crisis has taught me is that everything is okay. I used to be nervous about things or worry about things. I don't worry as much anymore. I sleep really well. I feel at peace.
Speaker 1:Well, that is inspiring and hopeful. Thank you, because I have to work at this.
Speaker 2:I wish I could describe it better. I wish I had a formula to describe it a little bit clearer. But it's an undoing. It happens so quickly. It's not going out and doing a specific thing. It's letting go of beliefs that don't serve you anymore.
Speaker 1:The feeling of peace I think it is something that many people strive for. I wish I could feel peace 24-7. Well.
Speaker 2:I can't say that I feel it 24-7. I mean, there are moments where I have a moment too, and what I do for that is I take a walk outside, I lay down and close my eyes and just focus on my breathing, walk on the beach. So many ways to relax your mind. Nature I hear nature a lot.
Speaker 1:Nature is the best. Yeah, absolutely. I like to journal and I like to take naps. I need to be better about journaling. I need to be better about meditation. But meditation is like, oh my gosh, I have to sit down for a half hour or whatever. It is where journaling? I can just sit and it just comes and I can write for five minutes or 20 minutes or whatever I want.
Speaker 2:Well, with meditation, you don't have to lay down, you could sit somewhere and just think positive thoughts to yourself. You can do that a couple times an hour, just for a second. Meditation comes in so many different forms.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I make things probably harder than they have to be. Yeah, we all do that. We all do that Absolutely. So let me ask you this Are you in quote remission or they haven't actually called it that.
Speaker 2:They just say that I'm doing well. Okay, Maybe because they can't explain it, but I'll take it Doing well.
Speaker 1:I'll take it Absolutely. We don't have to put a label on it. Right, right, right, doing well, I love it. So how long have you been doing well?
Speaker 2:I would say nine months to a year now, I would say.
Speaker 1:Wow. So how has life changed? Other than your attitude is great, your spiritual side of things is great. What else have you noticed that has changed Other than your attitude is great, your spiritual side of things is great. What else have you noticed that has changed?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm still returning back to my energy level. I'm still not there yet Because I've had so many surgeries, I am not allowed to do certain exercises and I need to work on building my muscle tone and endurance. That takes time. I'm not 100%, I would say, but I'm pretty close. I wonder if my positivity doesn't elevate it to the next level. But my body is still catching up. My body still has to exercise more, eat better. So many things my body needs to do, but my mind and my spirit and my emotions are very positive.
Speaker 1:And I think honestly that that's more important. Probably so. When you set your mind to something, you can do anything. Growing up as a kid, that's what you heard. You set your mind to it, you can do anything.
Speaker 2:Yes, when I was first diagnosed, the doctor told me that the best results are with a low-carb, ketogenic diet. Well, when you're faced with a serious illness, you listen to that. I mean, I did not touch sugar for a year and a half. I was so good, and then, as I started to get better, I got more lax with the diet and now I need to go back to being more strict because I know I need to do that. So that's an area that I'm working on.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's an area that probably we all work on constantly. What would you like our audience to take away from your story and your journey?
Speaker 2:The best advice is to release old belief systems that do not serve you anymore. It's simple, but that's it.
Speaker 1:That's powerful, and it's something that a lot of us don't have self-awareness about, I think, because we've just lived with those beliefs for so long that we don't yeah, we don't believe that there's actually an alternative or a different belief Exactly, is there one belief in particular that was like really engraved in you that you let go or shifted?
Speaker 2:Yes, definitely. Well, when you hear stage four cancer, you think that's it. That is a major belief to let go Stage four cancer you can get a diagnosis. It forgets cancer. It could be anything. You could get a diagnosis and anything is possible. It forgets cancer. It could be anything. You could get a diagnosis and anything is possible.
Speaker 1:It is so true. Anything is possible, and even when the doctors were preparing for the ending of stage four cancer, you defied the odds.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and pretty exciting when the doctors were so surprised. I just wanted to thank you for having me on your podcast and I just feel honored to be a part of it and I hope that my story helps somebody out there.
Speaker 1:I thank you, Trish, for being my guest and thank you for listening. This is Jen Lee with the I Need Blue podcast. If you want to learn anything and everything about I Need Blue, you can visit my website, wwwineedbluenet. And remember you are stronger than you think. Until next time, Thank you.
