Night Shift, Breast Cancer, Babies and Jungle Gyms

In my debut podcast episode, I sat down with Robin Cote, studio Director at Star Worldwide networks. She interviewed me to get things rolling and help people get to know me. We talked about books and podcasts, nursing and night shift, and how a successful career sometimes looks more like a jungle gym than a straight ladder. We even went deep into the themes of my first book, Piece of Work, a Memoir.  We talked about faith and doubt, love and lust, marriage and divorce, breast cancer, grief, and the American healthcare system. We are all a piece of work, a work in progress, and a work of art, all at the same time.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We've all looked at someone shaking our heads in annoyance, disgust, or disbelief and muttering under our breath, boy, she's a real piece of work. But every time I hear myself feeling that way toward another person, a little voice inside me says, oh yeah? Well, who are you to judge? You're the biggest piece of work around. As I worked to write my memoir over so many years, trying to make sense of a story where I was way too often the bad guy instead of the hero, I came to understand that we are all a piece of work. But we're also a work in progress. And even in our messiness, we are a work of art, too. All at the very same time. Life and work Hello, I'm Danielle Tantone. And at the moment, I feel a little bit like a zombie because I worked night shift last night as a nurse. And here I am recording my first podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

I'm here with Robin, my producer. at these beautiful studios in Scottsdale. It's kind of fun. It feels much more official than if I were to do this in my closet like A couple of my friends have done when they started

SPEAKER_01 1:21

podcasts. I can't even imagine what it's like because you guys are like first responders.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

You're the one everyone comes to when it comes to health.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah. I am now a labor and delivery nurse, so not quite responding to trauma, although

SPEAKER_01 2:02

sometimes it's traumatic. That is traumatic, and you're bringing in new life. See, that's even better, and I don't want to discard anybody else in the medical industry because everything they do is important, but you're bringing new life into the world.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah, it's pretty awesome, and it's... It's especially neat that I just turned 48. So to start a new career, I feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose, but it is so exciting and beautiful to be doing this. And I sometimes feel like, gosh, this is what I was meant to do all along. And then when I look back at my life, I'm like, no, I don't know that I could have done this at 20 years old, but now I can. So you're okay with the

SPEAKER_01 2:43

screaming babies and all of that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah. You know, on my job, there's so much more than just that. There's coaching a woman through breathing, through the pain. There's all of the administering of an epidural and all of the medications. So it's a lot of nursing care, monitoring the baby, a lot of very technical stuff. And then It's exciting, too, because something's always happening just by definition of it being labor and delivery. So we're sort of like an ER nurse and an OR nurse and sometimes a trauma nurse all at the same time. And it's really awesome. And then we get to see this baby emerge. And that's pretty awesome, too.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So if you had to take a guess, how many babies have you been involved with delivering?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

That's funny. So I only started in July. Okay, so you're

SPEAKER_01 3:36

a

SPEAKER_00 3:36

newbie. Yeah, I'm brand new. I graduated from nursing school in May, and I started in July. I work three shifts a week, and there's usually a baby on every shift, most shifts. Last night, I delivered two. Oh, my. The night before, it was one. So if we were to say, so I don't even know how many weeks I've been working, but maybe 30? Yeah. 50? That's quite a bit. I'd have to count it up. I'm not really sure. Wow. Someone told me a great idea, and I almost did it, but I'm just not organized or cute enough to do it. They said, you should count, you should get a jar and have blue beads and pink beads and put a bead in the jar. Every time you deliver a girl, you put a pink bead, and every time you deliver a boy, you put a blue bead. And at first, I was like, yeah, I'm going to do that. And then just the reality of especially working nights and You know, nights jumbling into days, and it just isn't me to be that, like I said, organized and cute.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

It's kind of like the swear jar. You really don't want to put the dollar in the swear jar when you do that, and it's like, oh, I'd rather spend that dollar on a taco or something. Yeah, so you work nights. That's

SPEAKER_00 4:52

crazy. Yes, it is crazy. It probably wouldn't have been my first choice, although there's always a silver lining. There's benefits to it.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

So what about family?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Well, what's really interesting, so it's still three nights, three shifts a week. So I work from 6 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. So I get... I get my daughter from school, my little one. I have three girls. The older ones kind of do their own thing. They're in high school. They don't want anything to do with

SPEAKER_01 5:23

me. Typical.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

But the little one, I get to get her from school and spend a little time with her, get myself ready for work, and then I head off to work. And then my husband takes care of her and puts her to bed and all that. And then I go to work, and I work while they're sleeping. And then I come home pretty much when they're waking up and getting ready for school. So it's actually... you almost miss less of their lives when you're working. And of course, I need to sleep while they're at school. But, you know, sleep gets sacrificed for sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

It kind of works out a little bit, especially if they're in school. But I mean, I've always had problems sleeping in the daytime. I don't know if that's your case.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Definitely. I struggle with insomnia even at night. But when you're really, really tired, it happens. Like I've gotten better even just over the last several weeks as I've gotten used to it. We have a real dark room, blackout curtains, a noise machine. My dogs cuddle up with me. The air conditioning's humming. So it's not too bad.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

So, you know, I kind of peeked and looked up a little bit, just kind of checking up on who you are, because when I have a new show come into the network, I kind of want to know who the person is that I'm talking to and meeting with and doing a show with. And when I saw that you're not only this woman who's working in labor and delivery, working all night and then having this family, I've seen that you're an author and you're getting ready to put a book out and you're a cancer survivor.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Wow.

UNKNOWN 6:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

If you saw my recent post, I kind of feel like I'm hardly a cancer survivor because I had a little touch of, a little fleck of cancer. Almost exactly three years ago, I was diagnosed. Right at the end of September, right before COVID, right before October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But they caught it real early. I was stage zero DCIS. But I chose to have a double mastectomy. For me, I was in nursing school at the time, and my mom had been diagnosed 10 years previous. And I had seen friends die of breast cancer and seen women struggle. I had seen multiple patients that I was taking care of in the hospital who got recurrences. And I just said, you know what? I'm not messing around with this. I'm just going to take it out. And by doing the double mastectomy, I didn't have to do any extra treatment. I didn't have to do chemo or radiation or even the hormone pills that put you into early menopause. So I did do that. And thankfully, that was all right before COVID hit because that would have been all elective since it wasn't life-threatening. And here I am. Yeah, I guess I am a survivor.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Well, that's a hard decision to come to for, I mean, a lot of times with women, you know, the breast is a very big part of who we are as females because that's, you know, it stands out in our form. And my late husband had testicular cancer and they removed one of his testicles. And he used to get teased by some of the guys that he was less of a man for that. And I didn't notice anything different. But I mean, for women, were very visible with that. So, I mean, that must have been...

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Absolutely. It

SPEAKER_01 8:44

must have been not an easy decision for you to make, even though you were in nursing and you understood the medical side of the prevention. So, I mean, that had to be a little bit difficult for you to come to that conclusion to remove your breasts.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

You know, Robin, there's been a lot of difficult things in my life, but making that decision to get a double mastectomy was a no-brainer for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Really?

SPEAKER_00 9:04

And I know it's not that way for everyone, but for me... First of all, I was 45. My breasts were saggy, and they had already breastfed my three baby girls, and they'd already entertained my husband and my two previous husbands and more than a few other guys before that. And I didn't want to risk it. So to me, I was like, I'll chop them off and get a brand new set. And of course, the reality is it's not quite just a little boob job. It's You know, I don't have nipples now. I have just like two Barbie boobs. They're nice and perky, not quite as large as my previous ones. But it was just a no-brainer. I just was like, what do I need to take a lumpectomy and take a chunk out of it only to then still have to keep monitoring? Because I was already high risk. I'd already been getting MRIs and ultrasounds and, you know, just it was so much worry. And so... I just didn't want to have to think about that anymore. I

SPEAKER_01 10:07

like your way of thinking because what's the purpose for fun bags anyways, especially when they go south? If you're thinking about the odds of... that coming back and i've never known anyone to have cancer that it hasn't come back

SPEAKER_00 10:23

that's that's like chilling to hear that

SPEAKER_01 10:25

yeah everybody i've ever known that has had it that is still alive they've battled it several times in different ways and that is that is a very tough realization that once you get it there's always the possibility that it could come back and i like your way of thinking because i mean you're 48 and you can wear a strapless sundress oh

SPEAKER_00 10:43

yeah i couldn't do that before no so i do have reconstruction so i do still look like Like, I mean, from the outside, no one would ever know. They're much perkier. I can wear like spaghetti strap dresses, which I couldn't before. There is that plus side, right? There is that plus side. And as far as the recurrence, I will tell you, you're actually one of the first people to know this. I have a little like a little pain on my right breast right now when I kind of when I bump it like and there is this there's this worry I did go to my doctor a couple weeks ago and and say you know what what if it's in the chest wall because there's no breast tissue left but what if and she's like okay probably not but we'll you know we'll go take you go get an ultrasound and they checked it out and they didn't see anything but now I'm like well maybe I need to do an MRI and see just make sure because there's something going on there could be a pulled muscle or something Thank you. totally different.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

You never know. But once, you know, the thing I've learned through the people in my life is to always be super cautious. And the problem I had with my husband's doctor is they basically sent him to die. And that's the hard part because he had a very beatable form of cancer. But when it came back in full metastasis, seven tumors, there was no hope. It was too late at that point. And, you know, being 36 years old, he had a lot of life to live and he had the number one most beatable male cancer and it just I tell everyone as soon as I hear anything about that is look you've got to hold your doctors accountable there's a lot of great doctors out there but there's a lot of them and like in my husband's case it was he didn't have time to look at lab results it was up to my husband to call him and he ordered the tests and he never told my husband anything and it was like by the time we got back in touch it was too late and that's That's kind of the thing when I see what you're talking about is you're being more proactive.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, that's so sad. That makes me just want to scream when I hear stories like that because you really do have to be almost beyond proactive. You have to be almost bitchy, pushy to get anything done sometimes. Now, I had a wonderful group that took care of me. It was not that case, but at first... Before I got in with them, before I was considered high risk and got in with them, it sort of was. The first time I had a breast cancer scare, I think it was about two years before the actual diagnosis, I had had a little lump. And it turned out it was just like hardened breast milk. I was still breastfeeding my youngest daughter. But it looked on the ultrasound like a tumor. tumor, like a mass. And so they did a biopsy and they're like, okay, it's not cancer. And I'm like, but what the heck is it? So I went and saw a breast specialist and he was able to aspirate it. And then I became a patient of this practice that is wonderful. So my point is that when it was negative, they didn't tell me anything. They don't call you to tell you you don't have cancer. They do call you usually when you do. But sometimes, like you said, it's too late. I was so grateful that it was so early. But the only reason it was caught so early is because I was diligent about getting those mammograms and ultrasounds in my case and MRIs. But it was a mammogram. They saw just calcification, little micro calcifications on the mammogram. And they were able to tell there's something new that wasn't there last time. And we want to check it out.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

So... The thing that I have always had the issue about with cancer, and I know we're getting into the medical side of things, but it's just really interesting to me is I myself went through what I would call a cancer scare. And it was misdiagnosed by another doctor saying that I had a burst blood vessel in my foot, but that wasn't the case. I went to an urgent care and found somebody so wonderful who x-rayed it and found a softball-sized tumor in the base of my leg near my ankle. So they scheduled me for surgery, and they removed it. And I wanted to see this, but the doctor threw it out after he took a sample for the lab. And where I have the issue that's the hardest part is when you're in limbo. And they tell you, we'll get back to you as soon as we get the lab results. And it took eight days before they got back to me. And it's that portion right there that

SPEAKER_00 15:10

is the scary part. And there's no way they couldn't have gotten those results for you. Like, why not? Mine was the same thing. It was like a Friday, and I had to wait the whole weekend. And I was like, they won't tell you over the phone if it's just like a tech or somebody. If it's not an actual doctor, they can't tell you results over the phone. And I'm like, you know what? Tell me if I don't have cancer. That's an amazing thing. And then, you know, thankfully when I did, when I did get the diagnosis, my doctor did call me and, and she, she told me and she, she set me at ease. She answered all my questions. She gave me her personal cell phone and it was awesome. But when I didn't, it was actually a more stressful situation. There was more waiting, more stress. than when I did get cancer, which is so strange. But it's that, it's because it's like, you're not, it's not really a rush. You know what? They're negative. They're good.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

It's a rush no matter

SPEAKER_00 16:00

what. It's a

SPEAKER_01 16:01

rush because you want to let that person know that they're negative. Right. In the back of their mind, they're going through every emotion possible. And this, my husband died in 2001 and this happened to me in 2014. So of course, I'm like extremely diligent calling every day to find out. And I'm like, well, we don't have the results yet. It's like, how long is this going to take? We'll call you. And you're sitting They're just waiting and waiting and waiting, and everything is going through your mind. Do I have a bad doctor? Do I have someone that's not doing the right thing that they did in his case? And you just... They don't understand. And I think we need to become more compassionate. And I know what you do with labor and delivery, that requires a lot of compassion because you're dealing with tiny human beings that are coming into the world and breathing their first breath. And you're dealing with compassion because the mom's going through thousands of motions, grabbing your hand, beating you up, or her husband beating him up, squeezing him hard. And you're trying to be extremely compassionate. And everyone in the medical profession, I see this a lot with seeing and nurses and I'm gonna slam doctors a little bit but I don't I don't see it that much with doctors I don't see the compassionate level very often with doctors and I think they kind of need to loosen up a little bit and have some heart

SPEAKER_00 17:17

yeah yeah there's there's a few that do but just the way it's set up in the hospital I didn't really realize this until I worked and that started working in the hospital because and I started as a CNA and The nurses run the hospital. The doctors show up and come for a few minutes and round on the patients, and that's it. And then they give some orders to the nurses, and it's a really different... It wasn't until I started nursing school that I realized how detailed and skilled the nursing profession really is. We're the ones that are... They're the closest to the patients, literally and physically and physically. you know emotionally and then so it's just an interesting it is interesting but once in a while you do find a doctor that um is is pretty awesome my oncologist so i had a couple different oncologists but my um there's a surgical oncologist and then a medical oncologist and i only had to meet with my medical oncologist i don't know if am i supposed to share their names i'm not going to share names i'm just going to just going to talk about them i only had to meet with him for for one visit because they did do the double mastectomy. And he basically said, you know what? By choosing the double mastectomy, you don't ever have to see me again. He's like, I hope I see you at the grocery store. And that's about it. But he was actually so awesome. And his office was so warm that I was like, gosh, I almost wish I got to come back here. It's

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Exactly. You just have to be more selective and find the right people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

And then you also got to give people a little grace, too, because I think that it's hard. It's easy to forget that those are human beings, too, and that they have so much on their plate. And they come to work, and who knows what happened right before they seeing you, and who knows what happened in their own personal life. And we're all just people. We're all just dealing with things. And I think it's just really easy, especially if they've never been a patient. They've never... personally experienced something like that to really, to really realize we face it every day, even with labor and delivery. I mean, it is like no big, it's actually kind of sad that I used to get tears in my eyes every single time that baby emerged, but I, I don't as much anymore already. And it's so, it makes me so sad that it's already losing. It's just amazingness. And I think that if that's happening to me a couple of months into this as a, you know, second child, or fifth career, then that happens. We get burnt out. And so anyway. So

SPEAKER_01 20:23

now you're touching on something that I want to go back to, second or fifth career. So what did you do before you

SPEAKER_00 20:28

became a nurse? Oh, my gosh. What didn't I do? Well, tell me. My mom likes to say I'm a Jill of all trades. I

SPEAKER_01 20:35

like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

So let's see. How far back should I go? Well, in high school, which I grew up here in Arizona, and I went to Horizon High School. In high school, I was in musical theater. I did all the plays in the theater. I was also, you know, I was a good student. I really excelled in English and, you know, those types of things. But I took some chemistry and biology too. And so I had a lot of interests, but I mostly really wanted to be on stage and wanted to be a singer. So I went to U of A and I majored in musical theater my first year of college. And I took dance classes and acting classes and theater classes. And I I loved it. I had a professor during that first year that said, you know what? If you have anything else that you could imagine yourself doing, then go do it. Because showbiz is impossible. It's hard. And it has to be your one thing, your only thing. And sometimes I really want to slap that professor because the 18-year-old version of myself heard that and was like, OK, well, I have this. I like to write. And I like this and I might want to be a doctor someday. And I might want to, you know, I had so many things that I was just like, okay, I guess I better not do this. So there was an audition at the end of the year and I kind of bombed the audition. I was probably hanging out with some guy the night before and just wasn't focused. And I, and it just didn't go well. And I just took that as a sign. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go a new path. I can always be a singer, an actor. I don't need to major in that. I can major in something else. So I majored in journalism. I switched my major to journalism. That seemed like a practical solution. You know, I like to write. And I did love that. I liked writing those news stories, especially feature stories about people. I really, really liked that. And after college, I minored in French also because my dad's first language is French. I have family in France and I always loved, I'd taken French throughout junior high and high school. Toughest language to learn. Look at you. Moi, j'aime le français.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Look at you.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

So I minored in French and majored in journalism, and I got a job right out of college with the Associated Press. They wanted me to go to Concord, New Hampshire, which is about as far from Arizona in every way without leaving the continental U.S.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Way too cold.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yeah, too cold. The people are very different than here, too. Arizona is just a melting pot. Everyone's from everywhere else. People are very warm, just like the weather. In general, of course. In

SPEAKER_01 23:13

general,

SPEAKER_00 23:14

yep. And New England is just very, a little bit closed. People had been there their whole life. They'd never met anyone from Arizona or even really thought about Arizona. And it was real hard to break into, to make friends. I'm outgoing and bubbly, and I was even more so back then. But it was hard, and I was all alone. I had a boyfriend at the time that was back home, and I was like, I just felt so lonely. And also... the reality of working as a journalist and having deadlines and just writing these quick, heartless news stories. Because back then, when I studied journalism, people talk about the media being so biased, but I learned we are not supposed to put our own opinion in it. You're reporting the news. And if there was even any editorializing, they would take it out. It's interesting how that's evolved.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Today, they're just talking heads, not journalists.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Yeah, sort of sad because that was the value, the ideal that I was taught. But anyway, so I digress. I was only there about six months, and I started in September. So by the time six months hit, that was February in Concord, New Hampshire, freezing, icy, cold. And I loved the cold and the seasons, but it was already wintry for me in September. So by February, I was like, okay, I'm going to go home, and I think I'm going to become a kindergarten teacher. So I came home and got my sub certification and started substitute teaching. And I was like, okay, I'm not ready for this yet. I don't want to be so saddled down. I think I'm going to go work for Club Med. It's an international resort with a French flair. So I got to use my French. And also I had learned Spanish by then. So I got to be a, at first I worked with the kids and then I got to be an excursions tour guide. I did that for about a year. And that job was a little bit like living on a cruise ship. So it's not really reality, although some people stay for years, but it was so fun. And then I decided to go to grad school for international business because I'm like, you know what? I like this international stuff. Maybe I can do something with this. But I did one semester and realized, oh, no, this is not I do not want to be stuck in some corporation. This isn't going to work for me. So I had gone to New York City for an internship with an international advertising company and I decided to just stay there. Both my parents were originally from New York and I was like, I loved the energy and the excitement and I ended up getting my real estate license. so

SPEAKER_01 25:52

damn what haven't you done

SPEAKER_00 25:54

yeah my dad was a realtor growing up and i had no interest in following his footsteps but when i was in new york city with those high rises and it was so interesting to me so different from arizona with these cookie cutter you know suburban houses so i really i really was interested in it i worked in real estate for about two years there and then i decided to move home to arizona and i got i continued in real estate here so Over the next 20 years, I was in real estate in one way or another. That's

SPEAKER_01 26:27

your longest career so far from what I can

SPEAKER_00 26:29

tell. Yeah. Now, even if you were to look at that, if you break it down, I've been with almost every real estate brokerage in the Valley. I worked as a title rep where I was a sales and marketing rep working with realtors. So I still didn't just stick with one thing, but I tried some different things within real estate and I'm still active. In fact, crazy enough, I have a couple clients that I'm working with right now. Even after my 14-hour shift last night, I was talking with my client who was trying to buy a home, and we almost had to write an offer today, but it didn't work out. So we didn't write the offer, and I was able to take a little nap before coming here. But I don't go out and try to get that business or anything, but I do still love it. parts of it. I didn't love having to constantly sell myself, but I love helping people buy a home, then negotiating and the staging if they're selling the home. So

SPEAKER_01 27:27

why nursing then? What happened to take you in that direction?

SPEAKER_00 27:33

So I had done real estate for many years, and then my ex-husband had also got into real estate. And when we got divorced, I was like, well, I don't really... you know, real estate is very much, you have this sphere of influence. You have, you know, you work by referral a lot, at least we did. And so he was the main, you know, the main realtor. And I was more, I did some of the backend stuff, the marketing and stuff like that. And I, didn't want to compete with him. So when we got divorced, I said, well, what else can I do? And a friend of mine, um, did employee benefits insurance. So I actually got my insurance license and did that for a couple of years, employee benefits. So just kind of consulting with companies on, on their employee benefits. And that was really interesting and fun. It was a little bit more corporate than some of my other jobs. And then when I got remarried to Mike and, um, and all that, I decided I wanted to be home with the kids. So I was like, oh, you know what? I have my real estate license. I have my insurance license. I'll just kind of be an entrepreneur and do my own thing for a while. And I was also writing this book for years and years and years. It took a while to actually make it happen. But I've always struggled. I've always gone back and forth between wanting to be an entrepreneur and wanting the structure and the regular paycheck and the just stability of a of a corporate type of job. So that's one reason why I've fluctuated and gone back and forth, flitted around. And the other reason is just that hearing that professor's voice in my head saying, you know what, it's got to be your one thing. And I'm like, well, I have lots of things.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

He planted a lot of self-doubt in you.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Yeah. And it's only, it's taken me a long time to realize that, you know, on one hand, if I had stuck with any one of those careers, gosh, I would be so much further along. But My career path has been more of a jungle gym than a straight ladder, but it's like exactly how it was meant to be. I have followed my gut and I've followed my dreams and I've, um, I've learned to be a little bit more, you know, if I could talk to my younger self, I might tell myself to, to push through a little bit more, um, to, um, The grass is not always greener, and sometimes it's worth pushing through. But I think that at the time, with every transition and move, I really was following my gut and doing what I felt I needed to do. And

SPEAKER_01 30:02

I just wish some of these teachers and professors would understand that instilling that type of advice is very important. discouraging for us because even if we're not paying attention to what is being said out loud subconsciously it lies back in the brain and it haunts us for our entire life until we figure out that you don't need to hear that person's voice and maybe just maybe it's because he failed and what he wanted to do. So he was discouraging instead of using the right words. And I'm like you, I went through that process of doing 10 different things at once when I became a single mom at a young age after my divorce. And I'm like, well, I still wanna do this. I still wanna do this, but I have to pay the bills because no child support. I gotta do what I gotta do. So I worked the paying jobs. And then on the weekends and the evenings, I had my radio gigs. I worked for a publication. I worked for a sports team. But I could take my son to certain things. I mean, I worked at a radio station where I bought a portable cot. I'd pick him up from school. He'd do his homework at the radio station. We'd eat dinner and then he's laying down on the cot because I didn't get off till two in the morning and had to drive, you know, like 45 minutes home. So I put him on the cot and he slept and then I carried him to the car and he slept and I carried him to the house.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

And I wonder what his memories of that time are, what he's taken from that.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

He loves all of that stuff. I mean, he's 37 and he is the father of of his two children and he told me, he says, mom, he goes, you always told me to follow my heart and follow my dreams. And I'm sure his wife, He gets on her nerves sometimes because he's like me. He will do 10 different things. He's a superhero. He dresses up as Thor to go help an organization putting on the Cape Foundation. And they help these kids that are going through trauma. And they do shop with a cop. They take all these gifts to kids. They help kids. He does movie cars. He's involved with a Jurassic Park motor pool. He's now helping his boss run this glass company. And he does all these different things. And yet he still makes time for his family. and he got that from me of course because his father wasn't around but the idea that you instill in your children and they watch what you do and if you tell them look follow your heart follow your dreams but always be prepared you may have to he saw it with me I had to work full-time somewhere else just to have the radio career part-time until the radio career could go full-time It took a long time for that to happen, but he was always with me in everything I did. When I worked at the TV station, we did pledge drives, and he was up there with me because we got really good food catered in. He was loving it. And working in the music scene, he met so many famous rock and rollers. We worked in the film industry. We still do time to time. He's been on set with a bunch of famous actors. It's so neat.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

It wasn't a sacrifice. He might have been on the cot at 2 a.m., but he had such a rich childhood from that. And I think it's probably formed who he is.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

So, you know, I'm sure with your melding of everything you've been through, you instill that in your own children. I guarantee you they probably

SPEAKER_00 33:16

see... Oh, my children think I'm crazy for sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Well, yeah, but that's the whole thing because crazy... It kind of is like crazy equals fun. You know, you got to have fun in life. And to me, it sounds like you're pretty well-rounded. You've done a lot of things in your life. And now you're doing this show. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

I thought I'd add one more thing to my plate.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

So, Piece of Work. That's a really interesting title. And I know that's the title of your book that's coming up.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

So what are we going to talk about on this show? I mean, we're listening to who you are. We're getting to know who you are. So what is your purpose for doing this show and where do we see this going?

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Well, I feel like it could go a lot of different ways, just like my life has gone a lot of different ways. The meaning behind the phrase piece of work is, well, many times over your life, you're like, gosh, that person is a real piece of work, you know? And then I'd be like, yeah, well, so am I. And so are you. And so are we all. And I came up with this little phrase as I was... It was right around the time I was going through breast cancer, I think, that, you know what, we're all a piece of work, but we're also a work in progress and a work of art all at the same time. We're constantly evolving. And we're also a piece... of the masterpiece, the master, you know, God. I believe in God. And you can use whatever word, universe or whatever. We're all like waves in the ocean, you know, connected. And so I have just learned in my story, if anyone ever reads my book. They will. There is some ugliness. There's some chapters that I wish I could unwrite. And My mother-in-law was like, why would you put that in your book? Why would you throw yourself under the bus like that? Why would you share that with people? And I just felt this need to, because I think that it's what, I wish I had not made those mistakes that I made, but making them and then coming through and then learning to love myself and learning to forgive myself has given me an empathy and an understanding and an ability to go down in the trenches with somebody who's suffering or who has darkness in their life in a way that I couldn't have done before. So anyway, it's a story. It was originally going to be called Believe, and it was the story of how I grew up Jewish and became a Christian, and a license plate said Believe, and it was this dramatic thing. And then I had this whole life change, a whole faith change, belief change. And then... I was unfaithful to my husband. And I was like, well, what do I do with that? I thought I was this new creature in Christ and this supposed Christian. And now I did that. And how can I ever become anything? How can I ever be anything other than a scarlet letter on my chest? And it took years and a lot of things. And so in some ways, becoming a nurse has helped me come out of all that. And really just learning to love myself. and not chasing that fake love that I chased for so much of my life.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

I think that's true with so many of us because we don't really teach our children anything about self-love and self-awareness and anything like that, self-esteem. And when we go through life not truly understanding what it means to love ourselves, we're seeking that elsewhere. And it's just, it's not real. It's just make-believe and then We put everything on ourselves. And you may have cheated, but that's a very human thing to do. It doesn't excuse anybody's behavior, but it's a very human thing to do. And it happens to a lot of people because we don't understand why we do those things until we start really self-assessing and go, you know, this is all coming from a place of self-loathing. It's not self-love.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Totally. And

SPEAKER_01 37:30

that's a journey that...

SPEAKER_00 37:31

And then it creates more self-loathing because you're like, I'm not supposed to be this kind of person. Who does this? How did I become this?

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Well, when you're so down on yourselves and somebody comes along and they pay attention to you and they make you feel good, the endorphins are going haywire. It was like a drug.

UNKNOWN 37:51

I mean, that's the only drug I've ever been addicted to is that.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

I mean, they call it love addiction. It's not really love, of course. And it's not even sex either in my case. It's just that attention, that thrill, that, yeah, it creates those endorphins. It makes me feel high. And I've had to find other healthier ways and just learn to just breathe and to feel negative emotions too because I think that's part of the root of any addiction is whether it's a substance or whatever, is you're trying to drown out those negative feelings that we all get. And I've had to learn that, you know what, negative feelings are okay. You can just breathe into them and feel them for a while and let yourself feel them and then move out of them.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

And that's the thing. We don't talk about it that often because we, there are people that stay in the negativity and they have the victim mentality, but then there's other people who understand that you can feel what you need to feel, but then you need to move beyond it. And I always call it when you're going through it, it's the hurting pain, but on the other side of it, it's the healing pain because it's not that stuff can't hurt you anymore. It's in the past. It can't define who you are, but it can refine who you are by taking that on and saying, okay, I'm human. I made this mistake. What can I do to not make those mistakes moving forward? How do I begin to love myself? And it took me till 52 to figure that out. And I always thought I had my stuff together for many years, but I, like you, had multiple marriages and lost a spouse to death. And it really opened my eyes a lot to things because at that point, I still struggled with why the best marriage I had, he died. So I threw myself at someone else. Three years later, I let another guy come in that was not really good for me and spent 11 years tackling those kind of issues within myself. And I'm seven years out of it. And it took me five years to finally get out of that whole situation in my head and figure out that it wasn't necessarily just him. It was me because what we tend to forget is Even though the other person may not be very good, it's what we allow. Their behavior is their behavior. We're not responsible for that, but we are responsible for what we allow other people to do to us. And that comes from a place of not having that self-love. But when you get to that place of self-love, man, the game is different.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

It

SPEAKER_01 40:23

is. It is. Wow. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about since we're coming up to the close of the show and this is your first inaugural show? What do you want someone else to know about you?

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Well, the book is supposed to be, I've decided to self-publish my book and the cover is beautiful. I had some people help me design that and it's super exciting. And I even already recorded an audio book, even though it's not even published. So it'll be published in multiple formats. I'm shooting for October 27th as the release date. And I'd love people to read the book, even though I've been listening to the audiobook on my commute. And there are times when I'm like, what the heck? What was I thinking? Like, I don't want people to listen to this. But I really do, because I think that in my story, you'll find someone who's really real and really human. And I really do care. And it's like, I want my life to be helpful to other people. Some friends commented on my Facebook post about, you know, on October 1st, I had posted about the breast cancer and how I don't really feel like a survivor since they caught it so early and I suffered so little. And a couple of friends said, you know what, you actually might have saved my life because of you, I did this and this and this because of your story. And so, you know, maybe even with that infidelity stuff and that love addiction stuff, if someone sees, you know, I'm not alone in this, that that would be worthwhile to me.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

And it always is because when we share our stories, we never know who's reading them, watching what we do, listening to a show like this. Thank you so much. Certain subject matters will get a lot of people sending me messages or commenting, and I keep that flow going because we never really know who's going to look at that and use it as an instruction manual for their own life. And the fact that you may have saved a few lives by putting that post out, you may not have had full-blown cancer and had to go through all the chemo and everything, but what you're teaching others is don't wait for that time. Go and have it checked out now, be proactive, and take that part of your life and to your own hands. Don't wait until it's something so severe that you have to fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, and then you may end up losing.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

And that right there is something I wanted to say earlier, but we got on a new sidetrack. Don't be afraid. It's so much better to get an early diagnosis. I think sometimes people are like, they resist going to the doctor, resist having tests done because they don't want to know. So many people have that mindset. And I would just encourage them. It's so much better if you can catch it early, if you can treat it. It's better to go with eyes wide open than eyes closed. Modern medicine is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

And it's all about your mindset too. Having a positive mindset seems to be the key in a lot of what I've seen with people that have beaten cancer is the positive mindset.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

There's always a silver lining. Breast cancer had lots of silver linings for me.

SPEAKER_01 43:59

And the fact that you can wear that dress and

SPEAKER_00 44:01

look that

SPEAKER_01 44:04

good. Well, you know, it's been such a pleasure getting to know you.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Thank you. Thank you for doing this and drawing me out because I had no idea how I was going to sit here and talk for an hour. But you made it so easy, like talking to an old friend.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

Well, that's what this is all about. It's a conversation between people and it's real. And that's what I like about you. I think

SPEAKER_00 44:22

I might need you to be here with me every time.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

I'm right here as your guardian angel. I will never fail you. So any final words before we end this show?

SPEAKER_00 44:30

No, read the book. I'll make sure I put the link out there when I figure out how to, how the heck to do that.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

All right. So I'm going to close your show this time, but next time that's on you. So thanks everybody for listening and we'll catch you back here next time.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Thank

SPEAKER_01 44:43

you.