Fuel For Thought
Join hosts Tracy Elizabeth and Nicole Heller on Fuel For Thought, the empowering podcast designed to help women unleash a healthier lifestyle. With their expert insights and unwavering dedication, Tracy and Nicole delve into the challenges faced by women in achieving optimal health and provide actionable strategies to overcome them. From debunking myths about nutrition to exploring the latest fitness trends, they leave no stone unturned in their quest to fuel your body, mind, and soul.
Each episode of Fuel For Thought offers a wealth of practical advice, inspiring stories, and interviews with leading experts in the health and wellness field. Tracy and Nicole bring their unique perspectives and personal journeys, making every discussion relatable and authentic. Whether you're struggling with emotional eating, searching for sustainable weight loss techniques, or seeking to boost your overall well-being, this podcast serves as your go-to resource for transformation.
Through lively conversations, evidence-based research, and practical tips, Fuel For Thought will equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to make informed decisions about your health. Uncover the secrets to maintaining a balanced diet, discover effective workout routines, and learn how to build a positive relationship with food. Fuel For Thought embraces the mantra of relentlessly overcoming obstacles to achieve your desired results.
Tune in to Fuel For Thought and join Tracy Elizabeth and Nicole Heller as they inspire, motivate, and empower women to take charge of their health, harness their inner strength, and unlock their true potential. Subscribe now to embark on a journey towards a healthier, happier you!
Fuel For Thought
Braving The Breast Cancer Battle: Kim's Tale of Resilience, Early Detection, and the Strength of Support Systems
When the reality of a breast cancer diagnosis hits close to home, it's a wake-up call to the essence of resilience and strength. Our dear friend Kim joins us in a conversation that's as raw as it is inspiring, tracing her steps through the uncharted territory of breast health challenges and the immense power of early detection. Her journey is a testament to the unwavering support of loved ones and the life-saving grace of timely medical interventions, offering a vivid illustration for all of us about the non-negotiable priority of regular check-ups.
This episode weaves through Kim's candid account of the emotional whirlwind and grueling treatments that followed her diagnosis. By sharing the intricacies of her fight—including the unexpected discovery of hidden cancerous masses and the crucial role of advanced imaging techniques—Kim sheds light on the often under-discussed details of battling breast cancer. Her story is not just one of survival but also a reminder of the significance of a strong support system and the immeasurable value of a persistent, self-advocating approach to one's health care journey.
Beyond the clinical narrative lies a deeper reflection on the personal impacts of a cancer journey. We delve into the subtle yet profound ways that such a diagnosis can reframe life's priorities and the heartening fortitude found within the bonds of friendship. As Kim's story unfolds in our heartfelt discussion, we underscore the importance of informed medical guidance and the undeniable power of community and faith in navigating life's most formidable challenges. Through shared experiences and stories like Kim's, we aim to empower you to take proactive steps in your health journey and offer unwavering support to those facing their own battles.
Follow our journey on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/fuel_for_thought_podcast/
Welcome to a few for thought empowering women to live healthier lifestyles. I'm Tracy Elizabeth. I'm Nicole.
Speaker 2:Heller, and we are here with Kim so excited that you're here and we are coming together, the three of us, for a very special episode. But maybe we could just start quickly with how we know Kim and what you're doing here. I love Kim. Yeah, I can hear her, so I'll start. Me and Kim have been friends forever and ever. I met Kim when I was 10. You were my very first friend in my very new neighborhood when I was 10. And I moved to my dad's house and she was my very new friend in my new school First friend. Yes, she didn't beat you up at the new bus stop. I was not a beat her up. Yeah, I know, I was definitely not.
Speaker 3:I was like flock to me, I will take anybody in. You're like open arms.
Speaker 1:But how are you not scared of her? Well you know what I'm just saying.
Speaker 3:She was not scary and my mom, to this day, said I always felt so comfortable whenever you were with Nicole because she was like your bodyguard.
Speaker 1:Like I never had to worry about you getting into anything, because but notice what she said because she was good bodyguard, not because she was a sweet girl because I was just being to everyone else, just not Kim, no.
Speaker 3:And that's why I needed her in my corner.
Speaker 2:But so Kim and I went to grammar school together. We went to high school together. We've just been friends forever. Kim actually is the person who introduced me to Terrence. What, what, Like? I mean found me the love of my life. So you're going to find me at Terrence.
Speaker 3:I will, I am, I'm on the job, I am on the job.
Speaker 2:Like we just been friends forever and ever. Um, and it's just been A lifetime, yes, just a lifetime of memories. So I'm really happy that you're here and just because we've always had a relationship. Whoever's best friends with me is best friends with Kim, and that's just the way it is. So Tracy came with just friends by default, because that's just how it has to be.
Speaker 1:Um, we bonded, yes, friends, with all of your friends, but I think me and you have always had a special thing. Yeah, probably because we were also single at the same time. Um, so you helped me out with some texting, but I think that your personality was very much like mine very open and sweet and feisty. Um, honest, honest and compassion and real, and I think that our relationship always started in that place. So I always loved seeing when you came to visit 8th street.
Speaker 3:Ditto baby. So give us a little rewind. Then you had to go get married.
Speaker 1:Sorry.
Speaker 2:So give us a little rewind, like tell us where you are, like married kids, like where are you at.
Speaker 3:So I am married, uh, married for seven years. I have two girls, three and six. Yeah, they're so cute, they drive me crazy on the daily, but love them dearly. Um, so, yeah, that's where I am. I started a little bit later in life than Nicole did, but, um, I wouldn't change it for anything because it led me to where I needed to be. And here I am. Yeah, so you know, everything happens for a reason. I'm a true believer in that. Yeah, and here we are.
Speaker 2:I love it. So one of the main reasons why we wanted to have Kim here and actually Kim wanted to be here, which is what is the most beautiful thing about having any kind of platform and we hope that this, we pray actually that this, this podcast today falls on the ears, that it needs to, is really what our hope is for today is Kim wanted to be here today to share her story and and her story is actually just beginning and her, her bravery and her heart and everything about it is just starting and she wants to be here to share it all and just just go with it. Just tell us what you want to shout from the rooftops and what you need people to know, and you just just let them know.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I will start off by saying get your mammograms, like right now, like go right now.
Speaker 2:Hold the job to right now. Like go right now.
Speaker 3:And make that appointment, and I'll tell you why because I turned 42 in September. I had my annual mammogram in October, almost to the day. I've been going since I'm 40 and I go, and every year it was in and out, no biggie. This year, however, I go in and they say well, you know what, we see something. Why don't you come back in a week? Let us do a diagnostic ultrasound and mammogram. Okay, that's fine, I come back in a week. Now I've had ultrasounds before.
Speaker 3:I know when the tech starts typing and making the little you know like inches and whatever they do on that screen, so she's spending a little bit more time than normal in a spot. So I'm thinking to myself oh, that's probably not good, but you know, let's not veer to the negative. Let's, you know, see what this could be. And they say to me okay, well, we see three spots. We're not really so happy about them, so we want to do an ultrasound biopsy for you. So why don't we come back next week? So I felt like, you know, we're doing this a little fast, you know, which is fine, cause I I'm the kind of person you give me a task, I'm going to get it done. I like to follow instructions. I just want to be on this. You know, let's go the faster out.
Speaker 3:So I go back the following week. I have the ultrasound biopsy. The nurse holds my hand as I sit there, crying like this can't be cancer, this can't be cancer. And she's like, no, you know, you're going to, no matter what, you're going to get through this. And she says I'm going to rush the results for you. Okay, got special treatment. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3:So I will never forget the day and time October 19th 2023,. I am ready to sit in a tattoo chair to get a tattoo and my phone dings. I have an email with my portal notes and now the doctor told me that the portal might come up before they call me to give me any of the results. So I don't have time to wait for them to call me. I know what I'm gonna be looking at. Let me see what it came back as. And I opened my phone and it says Invasive Lobular Carcinoma, aka breast cancer. Wonderful, wonderful. So at this point I'm like you know what I said to my tattoo guy. I said I just found out because I was telling him the whole story. I just found out I had breast cancer. Just tattoo me, just do it Like I was in that, like let's go.
Speaker 1:I get home. How did you tattoo?
Speaker 3:it. I was just not that I'm the distressing, but I'm like wait. So I have a tattoo on my shoulder it's 7-Eleven and it's in memory of my grandfather.
Speaker 1:And I just yeah no, not the coffee.
Speaker 3:I'm not trying to, you know, do anything with that. But 7-Eleven was his bus number. He drove a school bus. So I see 7-Eleven. I see signs all day, every day. I just needed to do something with that. And I had a tattooed on me about a year and a half ago. But I didn't like the way it looked. And this tattoo guy gave me one with my daughter's names. He's great, I loved him. I said I want to do something with that, but just make it pretty Like. I feel like it needs something. So that was what I was going in for to him, to kind of upgrade it and jazz it up.
Speaker 3:Exactly. So I go home and obviously my husband knows everything that's going on here. He's giving the girls a bath and I said I got the results and I think he was expecting me to say everything's fine and I'm like it's cancer. I was just so matter of fact about it. It didn't really hit me in a way that I feel like maybe it might hit others like a debilitating. Oh my god, let me crawl up in a ball and die. I was just like it's cancer. We're going to take care of it and move on. So he's like I don't understand. I said what's not to understand? There's spots, they found it. It's cancerous. We go, let's do this. My doctor calls me the next day and he said I'm going to be straight with you. We got to get you into a breast surgeon immediately. I said, ok, fine. He gave me the name of an awesome doctor. I met with her within 10 days and at that point he said since you have very dense breasts, we need to have an MRI also. So I said, ok, fine.
Speaker 3:I met with the breast surgeon and he said already decided that I was going to do a double mastectomy because they weren't able to save the right. There was just too much tissue involved that they would have to remove with a lumpectomy. So I said I'm 42. I want to have symmetrical boobies while I still can. I want to have something that still makes me feel like a woman. I don't want to go flat, which people do, and by all means that's cool.
Speaker 3:I didn't want implants, I didn't want any of that. So my doctor says to me he goes you know, you can get a tummy tuck with this. I said is that the silver lining in all of this? Do I get a mommy makeover, get a girl I was like. So it took a cancer diagnosis for me to get my boobs and my belly cut, all right. So I said OK, that's fine, we'll figure this out as we go along.
Speaker 3:So I met with the surgeon, opted for the double, opted for the reconstruction at the same time. Is that normal? Yes, yes. So a lot of women. If you want to do the implants at that time, what they'll do is they'll put the expanders in. At that point I didn't want to do implants because it would be there'd be no tissue, it would just be implant skin and it just wouldn't look natural. So what I had was called a deep flap. So they pretty much give you a tummy tuck and they take your belly tissue, fat AKA, and they stuff your new boobies. So it's your tissue that is in your booby 2.0s, because that's what I call mine.
Speaker 2:It's amazing what they could do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it really is amazing what they could do. So I have a quick question, because that's a lot of information. So did you know any of this prior to seeing your doctors?
Speaker 3:No, OK, no. So I literally had zero symptoms, zero. There was no lumps, there was no bumps, there was nothing that could be felt. And even the breast surgeon, when she was examining me, said I don't feel anything Like you would have never known that you had this had you not gone for your mammogram. And that's why I think it's so important for women to go, because you could be sitting there with underlying cancer spots in your boobs that you don't feel.
Speaker 3:And I know a lot of women. It's the unknown, maybe, of they don't want to do it, because what could happen if I do that, but I feel wouldn't, isn't it scarier to not know? And then it years down the line. You have pain somewhere and they're like oh, you're stage four now, which could have been prevented years ago. So I'm not trying to tell anybody get off your ass and don't be scared, because you're going to be scared. But I feel that what's scarier is the unknown. Figure it out, you have a diagnosis, you have a plan and you move forward. That's just that's me. I know that's not everybody, but I feel like for myself, the unknown is so much more scarier than knowing and having a plan 100%.
Speaker 3:So fast forward to now the MRI. This is what really gets me, because I had the ultrasounds, I had the mammograms on both breasts. They were only seeing it in the right. So now the MRI comes and I do all of that and they call me and they say well, we see a mass in the left. So did you see a mass in the left? I had ultrasounds and mammograms. No, it didn't pick it up. The MRI is a little bit more invasive. I said, ok, fine. So now we have to do an MRI biopsy of the left side. Now they do that and that comes back as cancer. So had I not had that MRI, I wouldn't have known. What I do know now is that I had it in both.
Speaker 3:And the craziest part is I go in for surgery on November 30, which is the double mastectomy with the reconstruction, and they had to take the lymph nodes as well. There was no indication on any test that it was in my lymph nodes. And during surgery they take out the lymph nodes, they dissect them to see if it's in there and then they go accordingly. So they keep, they take out, take out to make sure that they're not in the closest ones, and then they move, they radiate out. So it happens to be that on the left side that came up on no films is where two of my lymph nodes were cancer positive and one on the right. So we knew about the right, had no idea about the left until then MRI, but then we have a two node positive on that side. So I remember it was an eight hour surgery. It was crazy. I had never had general anesthesia in my life.
Speaker 3:So that's what I know ever in my life I've never had a broken bone anything, so I am.
Speaker 3:that was the scariest part for me, I think I'm like I'm gonna be out for eight plus hours, oh my God. But then I remembered this is their job, this is what they do, and they're keeping me alive, they're going to keep me alive and they're gonna give me the proper amount of what I need and I'm gonna wake up and that's it. And so it was like a blink of an eye. I remember getting wheeled into the operating room. Hi, where you're operating team. That was the last thing I remember.
Speaker 3:And then I remember waking up and saying you're all done, you're all done, and I was feeling so hot. I remember that I'm like can I get a fan in here? So I was just so hot I couldn't move. I had dreams coming out of me and all that. You're emotional at all? No cause.
Speaker 3:I was just so groggy from the, from the anesthesia, and I really had no reaction to it, thank God, other than my blood pressure just stayed low for a while. So they had to monitor me for like a couple of hours before they put me up to my room. So I finally got to my room and, you know, my husband was there waiting for me all day and his cousin came to keep him company. So he comes in and the first thing I ask is do we know if it's in the notes? And he's like God? He said I wasn't going to say anything to you unless you asked me. But I said to the doctor, if she asked me I have to tell her he's like it's in the notes.
Speaker 3:So now that was like a crushing part of it. Sorry, because I wasn't anticipating that and neither was anybody else. So at that point I knew that the surgery wasn't it. My journey was far from over at this point. So I said, okay, all right, let's just heal with, let's deal with healing first. That's the first thing I need to do. I need to get strong from the surgery. I need to heal. I need to get to a point where my body's gonna be able to take the chemo that I'm gonna need.
Speaker 2:So we go home and my little one is my little one is.
Speaker 3:all she wanted to do was just sit on my lap and she knew mommy had surgery and we explained to them that you know, sorry that I can't really have you sitting on me because I have drains coming out, and they kind of knew that mommy had something going on and you know we just have to be extra gentle and not jump on me and soft hugs and all of that. So my little one was just so excited of the day when I got all of the drains out and she could sit on my lap. So that was like a great day, little victories, so that was a great, great day. So we meet with the oncologist and I had some issues healing wound wise, which was fine. It's all. I'm all healed now, thank God, everything's great. We met with the oncologist and she had said to me well, we have to do, based on, you know, being in my lymph nodes and the sides of the tumors, it's considered just stage two B. So I said, okay, well, this could be positive. Two B are not to be right. So so I'm gonna be a fighter and I'm getting through this. So we came up with a treatment plan and I started that.
Speaker 3:Last week I had my first chemo session. It was I don't know if I was going into this thinking that I was going to just sail through this, but I kind of had a rough time. I had a rough time with it and it was a daily thing for me last week and I was thinking one day at a time but it turned now into one hour at a time because I, you know, I had my session on Monday. It was great, you know, everybody is so wonderful there. I came home a couple hours later is when I started to feel symptoms. I started to feel a headache and I started to feel hot.
Speaker 3:And I texted Nicole and I'm like I don't know if I could do this. And she sent me a video Get your ish together. And I needed that, I needed that. And I'm like, okay, I'm getting it together, I'm getting it together, I'm gonna pull myself out of the bathroom, I'm gonna be there. And my girls were. You know, they knew something was up. You know mommy's not feeling great and my older one was rubbing my arm. Can I get you anything, mommy? And you know I mean, they're in tune, they know something's up. So I Made it through the weekend and it's an off week for me this week, so I feel like I have that going for me. So I said, while I have my good days, I'm going to take advantage.
Speaker 3:You're gonna live, and yes and I'm going to do things that I'm not gonna be able to do on the bad days, and that's fine and that's fine, we will get through that too. But I'm going to take every day as an opportunity to really live and to really Take all of the positives that come with the day and Embrace that. And even on the bad days, embrace the bad, because there's a bright side to the end of this. Like this is not gonna be over for me for a while. I mean I'm looking at not being done Until June with treatments, but June is also both of my girls birthdays, so I feel like it's gonna be a big celebration month of being done, of being okay.
Speaker 3:Now we have Kim 2.0 with her new boobies and her flat tummy. Oh, we're having a party. So I feel like that is Going to be something to look forward to and what's gonna get me through and it's the little victories that will carry me through this. But the main thing of what I tell women who I've come in contact with and I don't mind Telling women that you know and school in my girls schools, moms of the girls you know like please go get your mammogram, please just don't put it off like here I am, I have breast cancer and I'm 42 and my daughter is in your daughter's class. Like, do what you need to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah you know, just get it done.
Speaker 2:What about like the mammogram with the sonogram? Like is that it's not standard procedure.
Speaker 3:No so. I but it is covered, correct, it is. So I mean, I don't know how the insurance company is, how all of them do it, but ever since I turned 40, my gynecologist is the one who orders my mammogram and ultrasound. Because of my dense breasts, they need to do both right.
Speaker 2:So maybe it's worth asking yes, 100% knowledge is power. Yes, so just asking, when you're asking your doctor about your mammogram, can I also get, yes, an ultrasound at the same time, just to really give yourself that knowledge, I mean I would think that there's so many women out there that wouldn't.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't know that.
Speaker 2:I just.
Speaker 3:Whatever they tell me to do right Right, right, right.
Speaker 1:And I even for some insurance companies or even gynecologists like I have a history of women in my family with breast cancer, but not direct to my mom, but my mom's sister and then a few aunts. So I wanted my mom wanted me to go before I was 40. But I was like one of those women, like I don't need to go, like I can't go until 40, my insurance won't improve it. And my mom is very like, no, go, go, go, go. And I was just like alright.
Speaker 1:But when I asked my gynecologist to write me a script to go or a furrow, she was like I can't, because that your insurance company doesn't prove to 40. But I'm like, but if I have a like history in my family and with breast cancer, why can't I go? And she's like, well, it's not direct to your mother. And I'm like, well, that's freaking stupid. I'm like it's still in my family and I feel like there's so much out there that women may be able to do, to come together or maybe create those ways to change that with education, but also with things that need to be changed, to be proactive and preventative.
Speaker 2:I think in situations like that, women taking it one step further and calling the insurance and just asking, like it just doesn't help hurt to Ask and just taking taking the initiative to just taking it one step further. I think in this type of situation in 2024, women just advocating just a little bit harder and just taking the one step further, instead of just saying okay, oh wait yeah, you know, just taking that right ended up approving.
Speaker 1:I was able to get it cuz I did yeah exactly that and my doctor was in favor for that. But I mean, if I didn't have my mom telling me, I probably you wouldn't have done that.
Speaker 3:But even the advice that you just gave, I wouldn't know to, to ask for both yeah, right, and I mean every insurance company is different and you have to advocate for yourself. Yeah, no, 100%. You have to advocate for yourself and you have to have doctors on board with you that are gonna advocate for you as well, because when my doctor ordered that MRI, my insurance company denied it. They denied it and he had to get on the phone with them as a peer-to-peer review and scream to them and say she has a cancer diagnosis. This is medically necessary and they finally approved it. But had they not, I would have never known that I had it in my left and the outcome could have been very different.
Speaker 1:Well, truth be told, had they not approved it, she would have been out of it flipping tables. What's that movie called, where the guy holds that hospital hostage?
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1:Dendo Washington. Now it'd be Nicole, I mean it's just.
Speaker 2:Sorry, terrence, sorry to mean it, but I think it's just. It's crazy to me the just there's so much, so many like so much red tape.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that women should just get a little louder for themselves, and I think that that's what I want that takeaway to be Just get a little louder for yourself. Ask the questions. It's really important to just ask the questions. Get a little louder for yourself. More importantly, go. I get that.
Speaker 2:It's scary and I'm scared. I'm scared, not that this is at all about me, but this is my friend for a really long time and like I looked at the message and her voice on the phone and I was like I spoke to Terrence immediately and I was like I just want to say this and I'm only going to say this to you, and I think I probably said it to you and I was like this is not about me at all and I want to be here for her. But I just want to say this, because she's been my friend for a really long time and my best friend has cancer and I don't understand why she has cancer and even for the friend of someone who doesn't have cancer, the friend of someone who has cancer, to be there for that person and know how to be empathetic but also know how to send that video that you have to find that strength.
Speaker 2:Because when you sent me that message that you were crying and you were sad and hurting and your girls were there, like I was crying and I wanted to hug you, but in my head I was like that is not what this girl needs right now. And I walked in my office and I was like, oh no, she's getting it right now. And I bucked up and I was like, no, she needs strength, she needs you know so, like you know, knowing as a friend when you need empathy and when you need strength, and finding that strength, and knowing that I keep saying to myself that, yes, these next few months are going to be really difficult for you. And that one statement of just thinking to myself that there is something inside you that wants to hurt you and the stuff that they're putting in you wants to kill, the stuff that wants to hurt you.
Speaker 2:And of course it feels like shit and we have to be OK with that. And the more you feel like shit, the more it's working. And we have to be OK with that for right now. And that's what I personally keep thinking and want to support you through, and I think that for the friends that are listening to this and I hope this does reach the friends who are supporting a friend that is going through this that find that strength to be there for that person, Find the humor.
Speaker 3:Right, you have to find the humor.
Speaker 2:We've been joking and saying some really stupid shit too. You've got to joke a little bit, You've got to find the humor. I mean, we were joking on the way here. Ok, so if you lose your hair and it comes in gray, we are definitely dying it. We're not going bald.
Speaker 1:Like we've come out, we're going bald.
Speaker 2:I'll take my weave out, put a little biggy tattoo right on top of the head top. I already told her she's not allowed to keep it gray Like that's not an option.
Speaker 1:It's not happening.
Speaker 2:But we have to find the humor Like. Your positive mindset is incredible, but it's also OK to feel the feels and that's what you're doing, and I think that the friend supporting your husband is so supportive. Your family is so supportive. People from afar are supportive.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, I can't even like the, which is so humbling in a way and this is the part that makes me so emotional because I had posted on Facebook shouting from the rooftop ladies, get your mammograms please. And I was going back and forth with it for a while, like, do I post? I don't want people to look at it like, oh, let's feel bad for Kim, because I don't want anybody to feel bad for me. This is the cards that I was dealt. I'm playing the hand. Ok, I'm going to win this fucking thing and that's it. That's it.
Speaker 3:But the outpouring girls from high school sending me gift cards so I don't have to cook, sending me beautiful blankets, colleagues sending me soups and all of these care packages Every day I would get something and my husband would say you got something else. And my mother-in-law was in for the month of December and she was at my house a lot helping me out and helping with the kids and she said I cannot believe how much you are loved. And it truly is so humbling how many people care. You know, it's really just incredible and I think from all of this negativity is that beautiful positivity of so many wonderful people in my life, whether directly, whether indirectly, through someone.
Speaker 3:It's just an incredible feeling, and those are the times when I'm down and feeling like crap that I will muster that feeling of love and support and that's going to carry me through and that will be the factor of what is going to help me to get to the end of this and say I made it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I made it and I may not make it with such grace, but I am going to. I don't think that even matters.
Speaker 2:I don't think that matters.
Speaker 3:I am going to make it through with humor, and I'm going to continue that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's all I can do. You know what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking about like your daughters, like when they're in their 20s and even 30s, like looking at a picture of them with you now, right, being like damn. Like you remember when mom like kicked cancer's ass, like. Or when they're like talking to their daughters, right. And like I remember when grandma like kicked cancer's ass. Like I remember when we had to give her soft hugs because she had all these trains, yeah. And like I remember when it was like really crazy because everybody was sending stuff, because mom was going to chemo and stuff and she had these really cool ligs. Like I remember that time but grandma kicked cancer's ass. Like I'm thinking about that future piece and how it'll all be like such a past piece, but like you came out on the other side of all of that Yep, and like this will be such a distant memory, yes, and that's incredible. To show them that strength of what that future will look like.
Speaker 3:Agreed, agreed, and I know people sometimes take this as a negative, but I always try to find a positive in and I truly believe everything happens for a reason and as much as this sucks and it's like why me, it happened to me because God chooses his strongest soldiers.
Speaker 3:And I know that he knows I'm going to be able to get through this and I know that he is surrounding me with love. And I was never truly a religious person, but I feel like I know I have so many people praying for me and so much love and faith and I know that it will be OK and I will get through this. And maybe it's just for me to take a break. Take a break, you know, and take it all in. And yeah, and take it in and be good with the band.
Speaker 3:The facts of life, you know, but I feel like it's happening for a reason. I may not get it right now, I may not get it in a year, but one day I will understand why this happened and I know that I will embrace it and it will be good and there's going to be a positive outcome to this, no matter what it is, whether it's my girl seeing what a strong-ass mom may have, or me having a new body, or whatever it is. Whatever it is, there will be a positive spin to this and that will be what my story is. This is not my story. This is only part of my story.
Speaker 2:One chapter.
Speaker 1:Yep, this is just the start, where you can be sitting here right now speaking to somebody that's going to listen to this, and maybe they're in a place where they don't have faith or they don't have hope, or they don't know how to wake up in the morning and have light, or they don't have a friend that they can really lean in on or be able to tell them how they need to be supported and loved at this time. And I think that we always talk about surrounding ourselves with people and I think, at a moment where we're in a place of darkness and we know we need something or someone like this is the time to lean in on that person or that community, and it is, you know faith over fear.
Speaker 1:But I do think that you can find light and really trying to stay in that optimistic place of poison and saying, when you think about your life prior, like how fast-paced it is and how we don't take those moments to enjoy life, or we don't take those little moments for our children or our husband or a friend where now that darkness now becomes that reason to take that pause and to appreciate and value and see light. So when you do get cancer in the ass, you're going to be living life a little differently, while you shine light into somebody else's life and with our faith and looking at what Jesus is here for is to be serving somebody else. So your strength is going to lead somebody else's strength to somebody else's.
Speaker 3:And that's what I hope for. And that's exactly what I hope for, hoping it helps a woman say, ok, let me call my doctor today and make that appointment, and I'm not alone and there are so many resources out there. And just have faith and stay positive. And it sucks, yes, but you will get through it and you will be a completely different person, you know, and for the better, yeah, for the better.
Speaker 2:On the other side? Yes, on the other side.
Speaker 1:You're going to wrap it up. Wrap it up, ladies, not that we want you to leave.
Speaker 2:We honestly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Because, you changed lives today being here. You did, you really did I get to hug it because I'm next door On that side of the table. I love you. But, sid, you changed lives today because of your bravery and your strength, and you didn't wait till you were on the other side. You came now because you wanted people to know now, and that's strength and bravery. And here's to kicking cancer's ass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so thank you very much for joining us From the bottom of our heart. I hope that this meant something for you. Drop us something in DM or in the comments. Let us know if you are going. Let us know if you have emotions here. Kim's handle is here as well. You want to let Kim know. If you have your mammogram, let her know. Thank you for spending some time with us today. Thank you, kim, for spending some time. Thank you, girl, we will see you next time. Bye guys, bye.
