Let Fear Motivate, Not Paralyze - Pam Hansen

Pam Hansen–a BYU Master of Public Health (MPH) student–opens up about heartwrenching experiences that led her down the path she now walks. Returning to university after raising her children,  Pam echoes CS Lewis: “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

Bio:

Pam Hansen is a 2nd year MPH student, about to graduate this Spring. She authored the inspirational book “Running With Angels,” in which Pam discusses her battles with the death of her children, family illness, and obesity, leading to her ultimate decision to run a marathon amid life’s tragedies.

Recorded, Edited & Produced by Averee Bates, Christy Gonzalez, Harper Xinyu Zhang, Madison McArthur, Kailey Hopkins, and Tanya Gale

Transcript

*Transcript  may not be entirely accurate due to autogeneration

Cougar: [00:00:00] Pam Hansen. Welcome to the Y Health Podcast. Thank you. It's great to be here. I have been so excited for this. I consider you a friend and I think we first met a couple years ago. You took my evening class and uh, and mind-body health. Yeah, mind-body health. And you had so many great insights and you gifted me a copy of your book.

Cougar: And now I guess I'm, I'm kind of your committee person for your MPH your field work and, and your course of study. So Wow, that's a lot. We have a lot to unpack for sure. , will you maybe get us started by introducing yourself?

Pam: Yes. I'm Pam Hansen and the book you referred to as called Running With Angels, and it was written boy, about 18 years ago, I guess, and then I wrote a follow up called Finding the Angel Within.

Pam: And I've had some really experiences because choice of those books. And I've always been really interested in public health. And so it, you know, I've kept a [00:01:00] journal my whole life and wrote about experiences that I had and my husband and I were in school for quite a while and when I graduated with a bachelor's degree in elementary education, about two weeks after my oldest son, our oldest son was born, I taught school for a little while and then decided.

Pam: To stay home and just work part-time here and there, and I had a baby. Then I had twin daughters, and one of them was diagnosed with the heart defect. I wanted a miracle. We prayed for a miracle. Of course, the miracle we wanted was for her heart to be fixed and to be that she would be born perfect.

Pam: And we realized that that was not to be. She was born with hypoplastic left heart, and nowadays they can fix that a little bit easier than they could then. But at that point it was not compatible with life [00:02:00] is what they told us. Yeah, it was such a roller coaster because I was grateful to have her surviving sister and.

Pam: we got to have her for a day. I sang her every lullaby I could think of. Told her every story, every nursery rhyme in that little time that we had with her. And and after that I had to, you know, feed her sister every two hours. So it was a lot of just really warm me out. Yeah. 

Pam: The grief was palpable. Yeah. And yet I was excited to have one baby and then felt sad to not have the other one. And then when I'd feel sad, I feel like I. Should be grateful. Right. So it was really a, a tough, tough set of emotions. 

Pam: So then we lived in Texas and I had another daughter, Sarah, who I'll talk about a little bit more. When she was about [00:03:00] a year and a half old, we discovered that she would limp. And she had pain in her knee and her foot, and we took her to a lot of doctors and they would do tests and one put her in a cast.

Pam: They made a prosthetic for her foot. And one doctor after doing an MRI said, there is nothing wrong with this child. Just take her home, don't baby her anymore, and just make her walk. Oh boy. as a mother, I don't know. I, I really firmly believe in the a mother's intuition and I just, Trying to find out what the, what the problem was.

Pam: It was finally at my little sister's wedding reception when I went up to my uncle, who is a surgeon at Primary Children's, and you know, he was having his punch and cookie and I said, could you please just look at my daughter's ankle and tell me what's wrong with her? And he said, I think she's got arthritis.

Pam: and I said, no, that's a [00:04:00] grandma disease . And he said, no, there's juvenile, rheumatoid arthritis. Yeah. So that started a path of a lot of medication for her and still a lot of pain. When she was in second grade, she had a lot of. A lot of flareups and she had it in her eye, so I was giving her eyedrops every two hours.

Pam: I didn't wanna make the school responsible for that, but I finally just pulled her out of second grade and, and thank goodness I had learned to, to teach school. Yeah. So I, cuz I could, I could help her with that. So a few years after that we had another daughter and she had a lump on her finger, and at first I thought it might be arthritis or that she'd broken her finger and I thought, what kind of mother am I to not notice that?

Pam: And come to find out she had a really rare disease called oars disease or Maffucci syndrome. [00:05:00] It's quite rare and it's, it means you've got tumors inside your bone. 

Cougar: Oh, wow. 

Pam: And so at that point, we didn't know how severe a case it was, but I felt like I, I had enough to take care of these two little girls with their conditions.

And so when I. It was a miracle then that I was, became pregnant again, and I knew this baby was supposed to be in our family. And when he was still born it was, it really just sent me I just didn't know what to do and, it was just heart-wrenching. Yeah. Because I realized that he was in, supposed to be in our family, but I didn't understand and I felt like I was at rock bottom.

Pam: After we buried him next to his sister, I started walking. I went out one day and I took about a five minute walk, [00:06:00] turned around, came back and thought, I don't wanna do this. I just, I just want my babies. The next day I went out again and I kept doing that, and finally there, there's a track at the end of our street, and I walked about a half halfway around the track before.

Pam: I started to turn around and come back and I thought it's the same distance if I keep going around . And so I forced myself to turn around and complete the circle and it felt pretty good. Yeah, so I went out the next day, kept walking, and that first five minute walk turned into 40, 45 minutes. and I had about a hundred pounds to lose at that point, and I started going to Weight Watchers and I lost about 50 pounds by that summer, and I felt great.

Pam: And so I thought, well, I've had a lifelong dream of running a marathon, the Desert News Marathon, in fact, where I volunteered in high. [00:07:00] and I thought, I'm gonna start training for that marathon. It's only 10 months away. Wow. And one night I went out to see just how far I could. Thinking few miles maybe. And I went 10 steps before I had to stop.

Pam: It was at night so nobody could see me . And then I thought, okay, all I have to do is about a million more 10 steps before I complete the 26.2 marathon mile marathon. I kept at it though. I pictured myself on the trail. I and in the winter I was on the treadmill. Thinking about running and, you know, grabbing the cup of water and drinking it, throwing the cup.

Pam: Just, I, I just pictured that in my mind it was, it was really difficult to think about. trying to run a marathon, but it was something I really wanted to do. So the next summer I did do the desert news [00:08:00] marathon, winners of marathons, run it in about two hours-ish, and my time was four hours.

Pam: 98 minutes , which sounds a lot better than five hours and 38 minutes . Which it was , but it was just incredible. Yeah. Crossing that finish line. And I a actually cut an hour off my time the next year when I ran the Wow. , St. George Marathon, but it was such an amazing feeling crossing the finish line. I felt my little angels with me and I thought, well, why not write a story about this and kind of condense my journal entries?

Pam: And so I, I thought it would be a good story to leave my children and grandchildren someday. And then I realized that I wonder if somebody else could benefit from this. So I started putting in, into co cohesive chapters and, and then actually sent it to Deseret [00:09:00] Book where they were kind enough to publish it.

Pam: And I, it, I think it resonated more than they thought it would and I thought it would I thought maybe only my mom would read it, but a lot of people sent me emails and said, , thank you for sharing your story. Yeah. Here's mine and I realized that when we are open and vulnerable with people, they, they want to be open with us.

Pam: So at, at about the time the book came out, I thought, wouldn't it be fun to have everybody cross the finish line? So I talked to Deseret Book and wanted to give back to the hospital, maybe to the newborn intensive care unit where our children had been and give, give money back to them.

Pam: So we all kind of. pulled together and arranged a [00:10:00] 5k, and that first year a lot of people signed up and it was just an amazing event and we decided to do it the next year because so many people had helped and had a great time. So for the next, well, for 18 years. Wow. We did the 5K with proceeds going to , something called Angel Watch, which is where they they go into the room or in the, into the family's lives that families that are going to maybe lose a child or that lose a child soon after birth.

Pam: They go in and make molds of the hands and feet and let them know where there are resources that they can turn to for  help. So it's a wonderful organization. 

Cougar: Yeah. That's amazing. 

Pam: So that's, and after 18 years, , I was in school, , and I had a great committee and they were [00:11:00] doing different things with their lives. So we did do, I I people write to me and say, Hey, this is what I'm doing now, because we don't do the 5K anymore. And so it's been, it's been a wonderful experience and I'm not sure if everybody feels the same as I do about crossing the finish line, but it's, it's been a wonderful experience. 

Cougar: Yeah. Oh, I am so appreciative of you sharing that story. It's, it's still a, it's really personal and it's, it's real. I, I can hear it in your voice and I can see it in your eyes as we're talking. And it's, it's really public health grief and grieving and dealing with loss. It doesn't just take time. It, it takes a lot of work to, you know, to work through those different feelings and, and when we don't do that work, there are significant consequences for our, our mental and our physical and our spiritual health.

Cougar: And so I, I really appreciate that you did decide to share your story and to be vulnerable and to, and to share that with others and what. What an amazing [00:12:00] experience, and it has to feel really good. Pam, you're incredibly humble, but I, I hope it feels really good to know that you've helped countless families both inviting them to share their story, which is part of that healing process, part of that grieving process that we need to engage in.

Cougar: But also just, just kind of leading the way and, and showing them, Hey, we're, we're all capable of doing so much more. And and holding, holding significant heartache, but also moving through that heartache. Not to forget, but be able to remember right without, without the searing pain, but to remember the importance of our loss and move forward. I'm rambling. You don't ramble. That's why I love listening to you, but thank you.

Pam: I, I think that there is such a connection between mind, body, and spirit. Yeah. And I, I've more fully learned that when I gave birth to this little stillborn son, when. I, I didn't want to let him go. And the doctor had a really tough [00:13:00] time getting the placenta to deliver and I realized that not just my mind and my spirit wanted to hang on to him, but my body wanted to too. And there really is an intricate link between all of those facets. 

Cougar: It's all connected. I'm a believer there for sure. Take me from there. Cuz you mentioned you're like, we're not doing the race after 18 years. We're not doing the race because I'm in school. So now you did a whole bunch of school early on and your husband did a whole bunch of school early on and I, I think we're kindred spirits because we're both educators, and I filled this, this connection with every teacher K through 12 at the university, wherever. There's just, there's something about teachers that just, I, I think we can. We have some contact points there as our, our care for the people we teach for young people. Our passion for what we teach. So here you are again. You're passionate about education and you're, you are truly a lifelong learner.

Cougar: So, so what brings you at this [00:14:00] point in your life to be in the Masters of Public Health Program in the same cohort with your daughter Sarah? This is really cool and I hope inspiring for so many of our listen. 

Pam: Oh, well, it, you know, I love, I love learning and my husband teaches in the business school here at BYU, so we've always had, we've, we've been on some study abroads with in Europe with, with kids and it's just been such a wonderful ride.

Pam: But I, I realized as I was navigating the healthcare system with our, our daughters and their weird little problems. That it, I got to know a lot of people in public health and I still have, in fact, I have some friends that we call ourselves the magnificent seven, and they all have something to do with public health and they're very inspiring to me.

Pam: And I think it's so important to surround yourself with, with [00:15:00] inspiring people. But I met I, I met you a few years ago. Just I, I knew I wanted to go back to, to school mm-hmm. to get a master's degree. And so I, I took your class and it was a really good experience and I also took a. , I knew, I, I knew that biostatistics was one of the classes and I had no idea about statistics, so I took a, a statistics 1010 and then another statistics class.

Pam: But just to be back into the, the whole environment of being in school was very scary. So it was a, it was a good experience in your class, and I took a class from Josh West. That was a wonderful experience as well. I applied for the MPH program maybe five or six years ago. And I thought, you know, I'm a non-traditional student, so for sure I'm in

Pam: I've written a couple of books. I mean, [00:16:00] isn't that, isn't that good enough? Well, my GRE score wasn't that great and I didn't get in and that was devastating because it was so scary to try to, to try to do this, and I didn't get in. Well, now I realize. I, the reason I didn't was because I needed to do this with Sarah.

Pam: She called me the day before, I think, the day that I was sending my application in, and she said, Hey, mom, I applied to. and I said, “oh!” cuz she'd heard me talk about it and I knew she wanted to, to do something, but I, we didn't plan it together. And I don't even know if the application committee knew that we were mother daughter.

Pam: I don't know. Because then I thought, well if they can just take one of us, let 'em take her. 

Cougar: [laughs] Sure.

Pam: But it has been so fun to do this with her. She's the one that struggled with arthritis when she was a little girl and she had a really [00:17:00] tough. A tough road Ahoe, and it was, she's been a lot of pain and right now she's in remission as she has been for about 15 years, which is wonderful.

Pam: But it has been so fun to do this with her and the rest of the cohort is incredible. I mean, you, you get to, you get put with a lot of people who are. come from so many different backgrounds. Yeah. And my greatest fear was that people would say, what is this old lady doing? in the program? Don't put us with her in the same group, but the cohort has just been amazing. It has, and I heard, I listened to your podcast that you did about your study abroad and about how amazing those, those kids were. Yeah. And I think four of 'em are in my cohort. So Cool. They went with you and they they really are. They're just wonderful. [00:18:00] And I, you know, I'm old enough to be all of their mothers as well as a few professors’ mother, so it has been a little bit it's been difficult to think about that, but they have been very welcoming as have the faculty.

Pam: I, you know, Cougar, you're my mentor and. I come away from talking with you about whatever project we're working on. Just so excited because you're so positive and Oh, thank you. And I, I really, I really feel that, and as well as the, the rest of the faculty, you, you are all very inspiring. I love to see the passion that you have for public health and

Pam: I know when I took biostatistics, I was so worried and so scared about that, but the professor, Evan Thacker came in and he said, how are my biostatisticians today? He kept telling us, you are all biostatisticians. And I really believed it there toward the end of the [00:19:00] semester. And in fact I thought, you know what? I am a biostatistician. 

Cougar: That's awesome. 

Pam: I've run three marathons. I have birthed seven babies, but I am a biostatistician. I can do anything. 

Cougar: You can! It's so cool because I think it, it, it is so easy to be intimidated. It is. And, and no. , I do have to say, no one's ever referred to me as a biostatistician. So, and that completely freaks me out just thinking about that class. Been there, done that, and it's all gone now. There's nothing left in my noggin that will allow me to analyze data, but, I am so impressed that you just, whatever the hurdle is, you're like, ‘yeah, I can do it.’ And and I've, I've watched you in this cohort, and you're right, some of them are, they're considerably younger than you and I right.

Cougar: but you have been the glue, whether it's getting together for a Thanksgiving, you know, pre-dinner or having them to your home because you are, you are in a different [00:20:00] place in life. Our students live in tight, cramped apartments. And for them to come to your home and visit with you there and have a vision of wow, there's, there's so much ahead of me still.

Cougar: And I think it's been really cool. They, they all love you to a person. That's for sure. So it's been, and it's been wonderful for me too. I have really enjoyed our visits and talking about your classes and your ideas for research, your ideas for your field work. Maybe tell me some of the, what are a few of the things that you, that really have your interest, whether this is you know, working at a food bank or addressing the issue we have with radon there?

Cougar: I mean, we've had so many conversations, Pam, so, so. Maybe share just a couple of things and maybe a take home for our listeners. Like, have you learned something here, whether it was formally taught in a class or it's an insight gained through the Holy Spirit that, that you could share with others to help them where they are at this time?

Pam: I think that there, oh, there have been so many things I've learned and I, I honestly feel like my life [00:21:00] has been changed forever because of doing this because of earning this. , my life has been changed forever because of doing this MPH program. From knowing the, the people in the cohort to taking the, all the takeaways, and perhaps on this time in my life I can look back and see what really matters.

Pam: And like the, the radon, we, I had an assignment in environmental science that I had to write a letter to a legislator about some hot topic, and I just chose radon. And as part of the assignment, I thought, well, I'll just get my houset ested and so I did, and our numbers were just sky high . Oh no. So we tested again and they came back down, but then they went back up.

Pam: So we knew that we needed to do something. So just a couple of weeks ago, we finally got a, a mitigation system. It's been fascinating to learn what. [00:22:00] goes into all that, and, and I had the opportunity. Then after I wrote to my legislator, Kevin Stratton is our legislator, and, and he's a, a friend and he invited me to go up and testify at the capital. That was really scary too. 

Cougar: Yeah. That's nerve wracking. 

Pam: Yeah. The field work that I'm doing in is with Community Action Services. Karen McCandless is the CEO there and she's a good friend and she has been wonderful to work with. When I went down there, I wanted to just see what, what they were all about there, the food bank.

Pam: And they also counsel with homeless people about what they're doing, what their plans are, and they have a program called Circles that help people get out of poverty. . So I'm working with actually the youth in that program. A lot of their parents are in the, the program [00:23:00] and I've had the opportunity to sit down and visit with a few people that are experiencing homelessness.

Pam: And I realize as I drive down the road and see people holding up signs and walking along with what seemed like all of their possessions. A, a lot of my first thought has been, you know, why don't you go get a job? Or, you know you're evicted. Well, that's what happens when you don't pay your rent.

Pam: After being in class and after visiting with with people, I realized that there, it's so much more complex than that. And just sitting there with a man who's got grown children and he says, I, you know, my wife has them and I, I wanna get back to being able to see them. And he was given a voucher for a motel stay for one night, and I knew there was a huge snowstorm [00:24:00] coming. It was just a few weeks ago. And I said, so what are you gonna do tomorrow? And he told me about a couple of places that he knew of where he could roll out his tarp in his sleeping bag and sleep. And he was trying to get a job. And there are some people that prefer living on the streets, but more often than not, they are really trying to get back.

Pam: And get their lives together. A lot of the, the people that I've met had back problems, so they couldn't do their jobs and they were evicted because of one thing or another, but it wasn't just because they couldn't pay their rent. Often they need to choose between putting food on the table or paying their rent or paying a doctor bill or something like that.

Pam: You don't need to go far to see people that are really struggling and [00:25:00] there, there's so much to do just here in our community. 

Cougar: Yeah, no, it really is. I think sometimes we think public health, well I wanna, I want to have a National Geographic experience. I want to go to the developing world and help folks. And whether it's working with displaced, the displaced population or refugees you know, All different layers of, of that particular health challenge. And it really uncovers the social determinants of health, doesn't it? 

Pam: It really does. 

Cougar: I, I appreciate when you say it was way more complex than I thought. All of the health challenges that we deal with, , they're much more complex. That's not what, well, they should just exercise. Well, they should just eat different. Well, they should just get a job. And that, it's so easy to say that, but once you stop and you actually investigate, or you, what you've done is actually gone and visited with and tried to understand the challenges that people are, are navigating at this time, you realize, oh, there's so many layers to this. And this is why in public health we need to be so [00:26:00] much more Keen and aware and plan into our programs, how we, how we collaborate, and how we reach out to a variety of different stakeholders, and we come together to really address these issues. It's not, it's not one person, one agency, one, one. one nonprofit or one government program.

Cougar: It's, it's all of us working together. So anyway, so it really is, you're much more the expert now than I am, that's for sure.

Pam: No, no. We had a, a project last year working with Utah Valley refugees, and we went down there for an English class one night. I started, I was in one class with the teacher. There were about five or six students, one of them, most of them in their forties, fifties.

Pam: And I taught 'em the ABC song, and one lady told me to stop singing, and I sat with one of them as the [00:27:00] teacher wanted them to write letters. I sat with one woman as they, the teacher wanted them to write a, write a word, and it started with the letter B, and I helped her to, first of all, hold the pencil she had never written before in her life.

Cougar: Wow. 

Pam: She was from a country somewhere in Africa and a refugee and. .I spent 15 minutes with her just writing the letter B and she was pretty proud of herself after that. Yeah. But wow, there's so much that needs to be done. 

Cougar: Yeah, for sure. Oh, that's amazing. Tell me, as far as returning to school, I, I'm so proud of you. You, really are a lifelong. But is there something you would say to a [00:28:00] listener who maybe didn't. complete their undergraduate degree, or maybe they did and they're anxious to come back and, and maybe they're at a time in life where, where they can, whether it's take a few more classes or whether it's actually work towards another degree insights, advice, inspiration, that you could share.

Pam: I have always loved learning, but I discovered that I was passionate about. About public health, about, and, and truly it was because I, I think I became acquainted with a member of the faculty here. I, I can't remember who or when, but I also. became interested in…I, I think all Crandall was doing some research, some somewhere, and I just called her up one time and I said, can I come talk with you?

Pam: And so I, I did, I went in and visited with her. And I can't [00:29:00] remember exactly what it was about, told her some of my interests and is, would this be a good fit? Or, and she's, you know, she's very encouraging. And I visited with Carl Hanson. He was also very encouraging. And Ben Crookston, I mean, what a great faculty we have here. We really do. And they're, they're so encouraging and inspiring and helpful. And I…they're very helpful and I realized that this was the college I wanted to be in. I had also become friends with Keith Karen, because his son was in. my husband's class, and I gave him a copy of Running With Angels. He read it and did a little blurb about it. And so I, I taught one of his classes every semester for a few years and told him my story. And, and so I, I became very interested in, in that too. And he was very helpful and [00:30:00] very encouraging as well So that's what, what got. into coming back. 

Pam: And I think if anybody is interested or passionate about whatever it is to, to set aside the fear, and I think in ether it says you must first walk a a few steps ahead into the darkness before the light goes on. And sometimes we just have a really small flashlight to, to go ahead into the darkness. Yeah. And, but it's so important to just take those few steps and it's really scary, but I'm realizing more and more there's, there's not, you don't need to be scared about a lot of things. Right. There are a lot of things that you don't need to be scared of.

Pam: And, and coming back to school is, is not one of 'em. Coming back to school can be very scary, but I've realized that my [00:31:00] greatest learning and my greatest growth has been working through the fear, trusting those who I feel I can trust, ex, including experiencing vulnerability and trusting myself as well.

Pam: There are also so many heavenly and earthly angels around us that can help us along our way, and we need to consider them and and achieve our dreams. I think it was CS Lewis that said, you are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream. 

Cougar: That’s awesome, I love it. Next level, let me ask Pam. is, you're so busy, you're, you're logging your 300 field work hours right now. You have a wonderful family, which, which is…that would take all your time as well. Just, [00:32:00] is there something that you're reading, is there something that you're listening to right now that's keeping you inspired, that's keeping you motivated, that, that gets you up in the morning and keeps you, keeps you going?

Pam: My husband and I started watching “Call the Midwife.” We, I had two daughters, daughter-in-laws who gave birth with midwife at, with midwives at home, which was really scary for me cuz I'm, you know, I've done so much work with the hospital. But they had a wonderful experience and so we started watching that and it's about post-war England and in East London and it talks, there's so much public health involved in it. And so that's, that's one thing that we've been, we've been doing and I'm also reading a book called “Bridge Bridges Out of Poverty,” which explain how to help people out of poverty and the difference in mentality between those in poverty and those middle class and those who are wealthy and how, [00:33:00] how differently they look at life oftentimes. Yeah. I'm also, we just started reading a book called “The Happiest Men on Earth.” I'm really interested in positivity and happiness. Visited the, the Happiness Museum in Copenhagen while we were there this summer, but the the Happiest Man on Earth is about a man who is survivor of Auschwitz. And he says, ‘life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful.’ And I'm excited to read it. 

Cougar: it. Yeah, that's certainly the takeaway from the class that you and I had together that Mind body health class in every chapter was the importance of perception and how we're choosing to see the world and how we're choosing to interpret what's happening. And then, you know, from that, of the stories that we tell ourselves, right. . And so often our default setting is to tell ourselves this worst-case scenario of a story. And I think I love that mind body health class and, and the positive [00:34:00] psychology that you're talking about that learned optimism. Because it, it really teaches us to identify. Some of that dysfunctional thinking, which then leads to some of those worst case-scenario stories. We tell ourselves to recognize those things and to, to tell a better story. It just, it, it truly makes all the difference how we. Are choosing to perceive what's going on around us and the experiences that we're having. It's, it's really powerful stuff

Cougar: I, I have not read either of those books and I haven't seen the show either, so Summer can't get here soon enough here, have a little bit of free time to catch up on some of these great things that you're partaking of, Pam. I have so enjoyed our conversation. Any, any last minute tidbits or thoughts that you want to share with our listen.

Cougar: you, you have, I, I would love to keep going for three more hours, but, what do you want to end with Pam? 

Pam: I think just setting aside the fear that that always comes, but, but learning that that you can, [00:35:00] fear can be paralyzing or motivating or, a little bit of both. And I think that if you can work through that, that you can a, achieve your dreams and, and do anything you want.

Cougar: Love it. Thank you so much for sharing your story and for sharing your time with us on the Y Health Podcast. Really appreciate it, Pam. 

Pam: Thank you.