The Light Roast Podcast

My Cancer Scare Story/BI-RADS 5: Questioning The Default Path & Taking Personal Responsibility + Health Into Our Own Hands

• Ashley Taylor • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Light Roast Podcast – Episode 1: Show Notes

  • 00:24 – Podcast Makeover: Why the show is rebranding and what’s changed since the last episode.
  • 01:12 – The Name “Light Roast”: The story behind the new name and its coffee connection.
  • 01:30 – Coffee Enemas: How Ashley discovered coffee enemas and their impact on her health.
  • 02:57 – Breast Imaging Roast: Frustrations with mammogram requirements for women with dense breasts.
  • 03:50 – Medical Advocacy: Ashley’s approach to personal health decisions and advocating for herself.
  • 04:23 – Life Updates: Relationship changes, breakups, and getting back together with Oto.
  • 06:00 – Health Scares: Discovering a lump, navigating medical advice, and making tough choices.
  • 09:55 – Scorpion Sting Story: A painful wake-up call and its symbolic meaning.
  • 11:00 – Follow-Up Ultrasounds: Monitoring health and interpreting concerning results.
  • 12:10 – QT Breast Scan: Exploring alternative imaging for dense breasts and positive news.
  • 13:00 – Function Health Testing: Using direct-to-consumer labs and new diagnostic tools.
  • 13:51 – Healing Practices: Sauna, castor oil packs, coffee enemas, and supplement routines.
  • 16:16 – Ditching Botox: Embracing natural beauty and new approaches to skincare.
  • 17:00 – Blood Sugar & Metabolic Health: Using CGMs, lab tests, and lifestyle changes.
  • 18:21 – Exercise & Lymphatic Health: Pilates, rebounding, and dry brushing.
  • 19:17 – Circadian Lifestyle: Lighting choices, blue blockers, and sleep optimization.
  • 20:25 – PEMF Mat & IV Ozone: Managing pain and inflammation with advanced therapies.
  • 21:41 – The Power of Prayer: Personal growth, faith, and gratitude in healing.

LINKS:

SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to the Light Rose Podcast. This is our first episode. I am your host, Ashley Taylor. Ashley Taylor hopped, but I go by Ashley Taylor on Instagram. You might know me as Ashley Taylor Wellness. The podcast started a couple years back and it was the High Maintenance Hippie podcast. A lot has changed since the last episode, which was just over a year and a half ago, April 2024. So as I have had a huge internal and external makeover, mostly internal, so is the podcast. And it's a new season, a new chapter, and I'm excited to introduce it and give some life updates. The new launch of this podcast is to be light, to be fun, to be even more raw and honest. And of course, centered around functional health and wellness because that's really what this is all about. But I do think that we can have fun, ask tough questions, and be healthy. Lots of ands there. Today I'm going to share what's changed, what I'm focusing on personally, and the big lessons that I've learned, the wellness practices that are actually working very well for me, the things that I've had to take a step away from, and why the podcast needed a makeover. It needed a new name. And Light Roast is the perfect name. So I wanted something coffee themed. If you're new here, I started coffee enemas back in 2016. I had a Chinese medicine doctor suggest them. I thought he was nuts at the time. I probably would have lightly roasted him. I actually totally roasted him. I'm like, you're nuts. And four months later I worked up the courage, I've never looked back. So that is something that has been tremendously valuable for me, especially at the time as I was not knowing that I had MTBE poisoning, a type of chemical poisoning. So 10 out of 10 don't recommend living next to an oil refinery if they have not cleaned up MTBE from the soil and the groundwater. So that's one fun lesson. Okay, love coffee enemas, and I wanted a coffee-themed podcast because my fiancé, Otto Gomes, and I would go on Instagram and we would go live doing our coffee enemas. We had a series called Coffee Talk and it was tons of fun. So something coffee themed feels very relevant. Roast. Okay. I can roast some things, especially in today's world, no problem. But I'm from the South. I'm from the South where we can be polite, so lightly roasting, but still, I've got some roasted me. And just to have fun because we gotta call some things out. It's a wild time to be alive. I'm grateful for it. Just enjoy the ride. Pretty sure the bookshelf behind me is about to be roasted by AI, so I might have to change my background there. And one thing that I would like to roast today would be breast imaging centers that are requiring a mammogram for women with dense breasts to get an ultrasound. They will not let women get the ultrasound without the mammogram first. I am very fortunate that I was able to get an ultrasound twice without a mammogram. And the reason I opted out of the mammogram, if it's right for you, do what's right for you. This podcast always is not medical advice. I'm just sharing my story and my experience. So for the mammogram, I have very dense breasts and it is going to miss things, which requires follow-up testing anyway. And I do have concerns about mammograms. I'm not saying there isn't a time and a place, but they're not the right tool for me, especially because of how dense my breasts are. And I learned that from something called a QT breast scan. My breasts are 51% dense, and so I'll share more about that. No family history of breast cancer. That's something that this breast imaging center is very concerned about, and I'll share the story. But no family history of breast cancer. My mom or grandmother, they asked about that. No Bronchogenes. I did not take the you know what in 2020. No judgment if you did, and I will say that I am a fierce medical advocate. I said back then it is not my choice to make. I will never tell you what's right for you because I am not you. But you have to make your own health decisions. Your health, your choice, your responsibility. And while I love doctors, they are not there with you in your everyday life making your decisions. You are. So it does require personal responsibility. And because I care deeply about my health, I want to do it in ways that feel right for me. And if not, then I'll pivot. So I have full faith and it has been quite a wild ride. So some updates since the last podcast release in April 2024. In January 2024, Otto and I broke up. We were just treading water, in my opinion, for a couple years. Really not on the same page with a few issues, and it just seemed like deal breakers. And if you love someone and you know you want different things, perhaps it's better to let the person go. Love is not control. Otto and I believe that deeply. So that was a really tough time. And at that point, I was like, I need to get off all mind-altering substances, really reevaluate my life, and I did. And at the time, I was using something called feel-free. My personal experience is that it's the devil in a bottle. It started great. I did feel free. I felt amazing actually, until I didn't. And it was chasing that same feeling, a very expensive habit and a very difficult withdrawal. Very difficult withdrawal. I don't even care for opioids. I've had surgery before. And Kratom is similar in many ways to opioids. Very different feeling for me. And absolutely feel like I need to let people know to be cautious. As always, weigh your pros and cons, make the right choice for you. But it is not the right choice for me. And I found it at a wellness place, not at a gas station where it's sold now. Back then it was not labeled like it is now. You didn't know how much Kratom was in it. And they really made it sound like a kava product. That is something that I have had to really recover from. I lost a lot of hair, I lost my life force. I feel like I lost my soul, truly. So that was really brutal. And then just seeing things through a lens of clarity and saying, what do I really want? I wanted love, I wanted connection, and I wanted a healthy relationship with Otto. So you got back together in August of 2024. In August of 2024, I also took a travel nurse contract down in Tucson, about two hours away. So I'm back and forth. I had a place down there. And it was a very interesting time to be together, but living apart most of the time. I came back in March of 2025 full time. And then a few weeks later, we went to St. John for just a celebratory trip for being done with the hospital and then autoproposed. It was so sweet. And I did know that it was coming. It wasn't really a secret. I mean, we'd been together for now eight years, over eight years. So that was one of the things. If we're going to get back together, how are we going to create a path together that works for both of us? So we are working on that, but we had a little bit of curveballs. We were going to start the podcast then. And at that point, went to go visit some family. Otto's dad was not doing well. I went to go see my family back home. And shortly after getting home from visiting my family on the East Coast, I noticed a lump in my armpit. It felt like the size of a large grape. Wasn't too concerned about it, but after about five weeks, I'm like, I should just get an ultrasound done just to see what it is. I suspected a lymph node, but I didn't know. Sure enough, it was a lymph node. And at that point, I was told from the breast imaging center that they were very concerned for malignancy. And the reason was because it showed complete cortical effacement in one of the abnormal lymph nodes, which is very concerning for malignancy. So it's described to me like an egg yolk, and think about the egg yolk splitting. So this structure had changed, not great. And at that point, I said, Well, whatever it is, we're gonna figure it out. No, thank you to the mammogram, but they really wanted it. They even held me after, called my doctor, and my doctor said, I'm pretty sure Ashley doesn't want one. Let me talk to her first. And sure enough, I said, I don't care for one, I'd like to talk to my doctor. So we were on the same page there. And I just want to make grounded decisions, not from a reactive or fearful or emotional place. So I wanted to sit with that for a few days and see what felt best. So I made a plan with my doctor, started some things, and options were biopsy, MRI with contrast, and those can get you a tumor diagnosis. But I decided to hold off on those and once again just see what my body could do. In July, after the ultrasound, I was sleeping in my bed. I live in Arizona, and I was stung twice at four in the morning by a bark scorpion. It got my left hand, and I was like, ah, I didn't know what it was. I wasn't even thinking scorpion. And I said to Otto, I'm like, something got me. There's something in this bed. He's like, maybe it's a dream. I'm like, no, it is not a dream. I got up and it stung me again on my right forearm. So painful, so painful. I walk in the bathroom and the lights on, it's climbing at my back. And to me, that felt like a huge spiritual awakening. Like, watch your back. Because there were things in my life that I was not being as discerning as I could. And I will take full ownership of that. So some people might think, or you just live in Arizona and it's scorpion season. So that's true. But it also felt like a wake-up call in many ways. And it was extremely painful. It feels like I was being skinned and branded at the same time. Electric shocks, like absolute hell for four hours. Took me about 28 hours to get full sensation back. So I don't think that the lymph node was because of the scorpion sting, because that happened five weeks after this start and after the ultrasound. And then on September 18th, I went in for a follow-up ultrasound. So this is two months later from the initial one, and we did not only the left armpit, but also the breast. And there were some suspicious findings in the breast. Okay, great. We're going to take that as a new baseline. But what we did find is that the armpit nodes, the axillary nodes, all three, so there were two they were concerned about, but there were three that were abnormal. All three decreased in size in all three dimensions. And the one that had complete cortical effacement was no longer effaced, it had the fatty helium return. And now we want to see that structure get thinner until it's back to where we want to be. So that's why I'm doing serial ultrasounds every two months. That was a very reassuring sign, but I'm not out of the clear yet. And on September 18th, when I did do that ultrasound, the breast imaging center, Simon Med said, Birads 5 on the bottom of the report. And when you look that up, BIRADS 5 means that 19 out of 20 people will have cancer. So that's a 95% chance. I like to think of myself as being an outlier in life. So hopefully that is the case. And I know that I am taking risks from many people's lenses, but for me, I feel like I am doing what is right for my health. And once again, we will see what happens. On October 8th, I did a QT breast scan. This is an FDA-approved type of imaging. Many people don't know about it. There are a limited amount of centers in the country that offer this. Fortunately, there's one in Scottsdale where I live, so that was awesome. I did that. And the reason why I wanted to do the QT breast scan is because it's ideal for dense breasts. It is no pain, no compression, no radiation, and the images are very detailed. So I was very pleased after I got my results back. And on 1111, November 11th, I got a call from the oncologist that it did not appear to be cancer from the QT scan. I'm not out of the woods yet, but that is still a great sign. When I was at the breast imaging center getting my ultrasound on September 18th, I said, Hey, have you heard of the QT breast scan? And this woman said thermography. And I said, no, it's not thermography. I understand that that can be unreliable depending on who's doing it. I'm not saying not to do it, but for me, I don't want to rely on that solely. I wouldn't rely on any type of one thing solely. It's a variety of different ways to assess what's going on. But I said, no, it's actually an FDA-approved imaging modality. I'm so surprised you wouldn't know about that at a top breast imaging center. She didn't have much to say after that. And it is FDA approved, not as a standalone treatment, but as follow-up imaging. So this is something that I'm very grateful that I did. I also have some blood work. We tested some cancer tumor markers, and one that is relevant for breast cancer would be CA15-3. CA stands for cancer antigen, and that came back where we would want it. So that's great. Now I have a baseline and we can trend those tumor markers. We can trend the ultrasound report. We can also do another QT scan, the oncologist said 12 months. Some other things that I will be doing are the Galari Cancer Test. I have that set up. There is a service called Function Health, and I'll put the link in the show notes. I was actually able to order that test for myself today through that service. So it is awesome. Direct-to-consumer functional blood testing, lab testing. You can do MRIs, they just keep adding more. It's awesome. So I'm going to do that as a baseline as well as the Ourea tear test. It is something that detects two proteins in the tears that can detect breast cancer. So I'm just trying all of these different tools and options, sharing my thoughts on them, but I'm not relying on one single thing alone. I want to do the ultrasounds until it is fully resolved. So some things that have helped me along the way. Sauna is something that I have been doing for years, diehard. However, when I started certain medications from my doctor, which were ivermectin, albenzidol, and itrochondazol. So ivermectin is an antiparasitic, the other two are antifungals. I noticed that I started to have drainage from that axillary, that armpit node. And one time it was brown. It would cycle about every two weeks. It would start to swell. And while I was on these medications, it would weep the fluid and the node would get smaller, or so it seemed, confirmed with ultrasound, and it would just repeat this cycle. So that was very interesting. The other thing that caused armpit weeping was SCFT. Only in that spot, nowhere else on my body. And I learned about SCT at the truth about cancer conferences many years ago, back in like 2017, I started to go blew my little conventionally trained nurse mind. Wait, people can heal in ways that we haven't been told. Like, I don't know if I believe that. I'm so grateful for all that I learned and to see many of these people and to see what it looks like in the conventional world versus in the alternative world, if we even want to call it that. So sauna was a huge part of my self-care, but not when this was weeping. Same with castor oil packs. Huge fan. I would use the ones from Trust Your Gut over the breast. Love them. High quality. And if you get a kit, it comes with the full set for the body. I used to use a different company's castor oil packs, but they have straps that dig in, not these ones from Trust Your Gut. So definitely recommend those. And I used frankincense with the castor oil. So a few drops of frankincense, but no castor oil packs whenever it was weeping. Coffee Edemas, as I mentioned, those are something I'm very, very passionate about. And I love the kits from Trust Your Gut. Awesome quality, reasonably priced, and they do make the silicone bags, which are a little bit easier to use for people who are newer to them. But the bucket is also great. Stainless steel bucket. You do have to tilt it a little bit. But either way, great options. And the coffee I use is Light Roast from Keon. As far as supplements, I'll get more into it on future episodes, but dim is something that I took because of the sulforophanes, calcium glucurate, a lot of different things for inflammation and supporting my lymphatic system and liver, especially while on these medications. I ditched Botox. So the podcast started as high maintenance hippie podcast. I've grown. And I don't think you have to be 100% healthy, but in a situation like this, my body is clearly saying I am overwhelmed. Let's not add more to it. And I actually feel more beautiful than I've ever felt being off of Botox. I can't, I literally cannot believe these words are coming out of my mouth, especially if you go listen to episodes years back. I started when I was 18. I am now 38. I just turned 38. And that's 20 years of Botox. So I have wrinkles and I'm grateful for them. But what I have been using are sealed wrinkle patches. The ones from sealed are more flexible and they go over your skincare and don't fall off. I love them. I feel like every morning I wake up with a smooth forehead and it helps with wrinkles, but it's not freezing the muscles. It just relaxes things while we sleep. I gave up alcohol, which was not difficult at all. Balance my blood sugars. So I've used a CGM for years to learn how to optimize my blood sugar. And I'm definitely there, but I wanted to spot check it. So that looks great. And my labs look great as well. Fasting insulin, not just my fasting glucose and A1C, but fasting insulin, leptin. I mean, leaving no stone unturned, looking at all the metabolic factors that could be playing a role. And I did hyperbaric oxygen therapy as well. So I had to take the CGM off for that because it's medical grade. And so they wouldn't even let me wear my aura ring in there. No metal, nothing, because they're concerned about it being flammable. And for soft chambers, it's less of a concern. So safety first, but obviously die hard for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, especially after a concussion. But many, many amazing uses. Wound healing. I mean, I wish hospitals had hyperbaric oxygen therapy in them, but there are many things that I would change about hospitals if I were hospital CEO. That could be a fun episode. If I were in the hospital, how would it look? No processed sugar. I mean, very strict on this. Whether it's fungal, parasitic, cancer, something else, I don't feel like feeding processed sugar to my body would be helpful. Exercise was important. I wish that I had done more strength training, but Pilates is what felt really good and what I enjoyed, so I chose to do a lot of that. I maintained my muscle mass throughout this whole period as well. I did a lot of rebounding. I would do one song a day. It's fun. And I will say dry brushing is great. It's easy for the arms. Okay, straight, short strokes up to the heart. Okay, got that. But the belly, I get a little confused, the back, rebounder, you are moving your lymph in all directions in that up-down movement. It's a great heart rate accelerator. Often I can get my heart rate up to zones three to five, and it's great for the lymphatic system, and it's fun. Also, a circadian lifestyle, something very passionate about. In our house, sun goes down, all overhead lights go off, and we turn on the glow infrared lights from sauna space. That's six of those. Or you can use lamps with incandescent bulbs, but overhead lights can confuse the body because we're not experiencing overhead light at midnight in nature. So it can make us think, oh, is it daytime? And when I was back visiting Hilton Head, which is where I'm from, on the beach, it even says no bright lights at night because of the turtles. It will confuse them for their path. Red light is what you're supposed to use. So if red light is good enough for the turtles, it's good enough for us. It's actually a much better option, in my opinion, than the LEDs, the artificial bulbs, smart bulbs, your healthier choice. But I strongly recommend incandescence. I also use raw optics blue blockers religiously after dark if I'm using screens. So they have two: the yellow, which are the daytime lenses, and those you can wear day or night. So if you're gonna get one pair, I think those are the best. But if you struggle with sleep, the amber ones, they're the reddish-orange color. They're called the sunset lenses. They are sedating. It literally is like black and white vision, except it's red and black, and it cuts out all the blue light. If you put them in front of a microwave or a clock that's blue, it will look like it's off. So they are awesome. Sauna Space and Raw Optics are just amazing companies. The PEMF mat is something that I use from Therasage. I've had it for years. I didn't use it too much until this happened. Well, one with the Scorpion after that, it was so helpful for my pain. And then also I would have pain, it almost felt like nerve pain, as I would have drainage and just weird, almost like shock sensations. The PEMF mat helped within 30 seconds of getting on it. At my doctor's office, I have been doing IV ozone and vitamin C infusions. It's not just vitamin C, but those two work together synergistically, allegedly. And many people in the alternative world will use that as a treatment. I've been doing IV ozone since 2018 anyway, and I love it. Also, continued that. IV ozone allegedly can be helpful for inflammation or infection, but we want to make sure that it is safe and appropriate. And a doctor has to okay that. It's not something you can go get at an IV place. So your doctor should ask the appropriate questions and make sure that it is safe for you, but I am so grateful for IV ozone. And last but not least at all, prayer. I did not think I would say that when I recorded my last episode or even a year ago, in the way that that is a part of my life today. I am never here to force my beliefs, my practices, anything on you. I'm just telling you, it has brought me so much peace. And I prayed and I said, God, please use me for good. Please use me as an example to show women that we can heal, we can listen to our bodies, we can pivot. And I am just so grateful for this opportunity. 2018, when I had the chemical poisoning, at the time I was not so grateful, but I didn't know my options for healing. And so my world has expanded. And that's why I have full faith that whatever we find will pivot and adjust the plan accordingly. So I did an ultrasound yesterday actually on 1125 with her scan. That is a screening ultrasound. It's not diagnostic. So it's not going to be as detailed as the ones that I would get from a breast imaging center, but don't worry, I'll be back there. I'm sure they'll be so grateful to see me. At the end of the day, if I'm going to be lightly roasting anything, it is the fact that insurance is dictating care, the order in which certain things are done. And I don't want a middleman. I want it between my doctor and myself. And I'm so grateful that that is the case because I am a cash pay patient. I don't use insurance. I pay my doctor directly. So as a cash pay patient, I do get lower prices. But if something catastrophic happens, then I understand that I would be dealing with a major bill, but there are health share programs, and we'll get more into that. And we just want to lightly roast things in the world. I mean, how can you not? How can you not? It's just such a wild time. I want to add value, humor, and learn. And I may or may not have a special co-host who will be joining me from time to time, Otto, my fiance. And once again, this podcast is coffee themed. We did coffee enemas live on Instagram. It was a hoot, and we just want to have fun and add value to your life. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. We'll have more to come. And you can lightly roast us on the Light Roast podcast on Instagram or email me at Ashley at Ashley Taylor Wellness.com if you have any ideas or suggestions or things that you want us to lightly roast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to me if you left a rating andor a review on Spotify or iTunes wherever you listen to this. Thank you, and I'll see you soon.

Contributor

Ashley Taylor

Host