Episode 5: The Whole SheBang with Allison List (Part 1)

In Part 1 of "The Whole SheBang", Allison discusses her breast cancer diagnosis that did not "fit the mold" of typical diagnoses. She was 6 months pregnant at the time and she shares how that diagnosis affected her life, physically, mentally, and emotionally with her personal family life, friends, and colleagues. Allison is an incredibly kind human being who is exceptionally open about her journey.

Contact Allison List: 

allisonlistnv@gmail.com 

Resources:

Place your favorite resources that can benefit our audience 

My blog: http://allisonlist.blogspot.com/ 

Young Survivor’s Coalition: https://youngsurvival.org/ 

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/feminine_phenom/ https://www.instagram.com/wearecancerculture/
https://www.instagram.com/rethinkbreastcancer/

Redirect Athletics:
https://redirectathletics.com/ 
Owners are Tisha and Marcell “Yo” LaGrone   (Reno, Nevada)

Transcript

allison and jamie: 0:00

Well, hello, friends. Welcome back to Test Those Breaths. I am your host, Jamie Vaughn. Today I'm incredibly honored to have one of my pink sisters, Alison List, on my show. Alison is a single mother of two awesome and very busy kids: a counselor, professor, researcher, and currently the director of behavioral health at a nonprofit that trains juvenile and family court judges. She enjoys spending time with her family and friends who are like family. She treats her mind, body, and life like the precious elements they are, and always finds time to squeeze in a little fun wherever she goes. Allison loves cards, games, anything active, helping others, her kids, learning, her friends and family, her dog, her life, and her job. Well, welcome Allison. I am so excited that you're here on our show. I just want to let the audience know that I met you back in 2016 when we were at a local middle school, and it has come full circle that our stories have sort of collided, I guess. But I'm just so happy that you're on this show to share with us your story.

allison: 1:21

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And you know what, you're right. It's interesting when you think about how things have come full circle for both of us and how there's been a lot of parallel things that have happened and similarities. And I mean, not in the best way, but in an important way. And we're both here to tell the tale, which is really important.

allison and jamie: 1:39

Right. That is pretty spectacular, actually, because I've learned so much more about breast cancer and the statistics about breast cancer. I didn't even know you had cancer at the time that I met you. When I finally found out, I still had so much to learn. And of course, we can't really learn enough about it until we've actually gone through it. So here I am, right? And so we've connected again. I just really appreciate your being here. I would love for you to share with our audience. You had mentioned that your breast cancer journey and story didn't really fit the mold of the research as other breast cancer population. Can you share with us your story when you were diagnosed and anything you'd like to share?

allison: 2:30

Yeah, thanks. Um, I think before I talk about the actual diagnosis happening, there's like some context that I think is important here to highlight why I didn't fit the mold. And it what's funny about this whole thing is I've never fit a mold since like day one coming out of the womb. Like I've never fit any sort of mold. So anyone who knows me really well is not surprised that none of this fit for me, that I was like this anomaly that happened. So let's see, I had my son in 2012, Marco, my oldest. And I always really struggled with breastfeeding. It was always very painful, and it just was not a process, and I did it, but it was just never a process that looked like everybody else was cruising through it. And for some reason, I just was on the struggle bus with it. And I mean, it I it has to be graphic, the story, because of this nipple cancer that I had, I had two different types. But to paint a picture of what was happening, like my nipple would crack and bleed, it would bleed all over my son, it would just be like this messy process. And every time he was hungry, which babies are hungry all the time, my whole body would cringe up because I knew what was going to happen, and it was super painful. And I'm somebody that has a very high pain tolerance. So I started getting anxiety around having to breastfeed them just because the bleeding would start, it wouldn't stop, I couldn't get it to stop. It was just this very odd thing. So I would go in and see my OB and I would talk to her about it. And my mom was a retired OB nurse, and she was just like, Yeah, like this just looks like it's like just not working out for you. So cut to after breastfeeding him, I did that for a year. And so I went through that process for a year until I just felt like you have these societal pressures too, of like the importance of breastfeeding. And then I would try to pump and give it to him in a bottle. And so even when I would try to pump, it would become this big issue. Um, and I hung in there for a year until I just couldn't do it anymore. And it never healed. So it was one of these things where it would scab over and then it would open up and leap and bleed and ooze, and then it would go through this process again. And it did that for two years after. And I didn't know the difference of it, just was like, oh, I guess this is what happens with motherhood or breastfeeding. I guess this is just like what you do. So then I get pregnant with my daughter, my second child, and I'm going in for routine OB appointments, and one of the appointments, it my nipple was like in bad shape. And it I had been used to it for so long that I stopped bringing it up in conversation. But this particular time that I was in there, it was really painful and bleeding, and I could barely touch it. And the only way I knew how to describe it, it was like somebody had burned me with a curling iron. Like it just hurt. I couldn't even touch it, and it would rub on my bra. I mean, it's just a mess. But my OB was called out for an emergency C-section, so I was seeing a different doctor in the office. Someone who didn't know me, didn't know my body, didn't know anything about me. So he takes a look at it and he was like, huh, it almost looks like like a trauma wound or a burn wound. My God, that's what it feels like. It feels like a burn. So I looked at it and he was like, you know what, this isn't a big deal. We'll just wait for it to heal up and talk to your doctor about it when you come in. So it was just on your way. And I knew that wasn't right. But I didn't know what I didn't know. I just knew that it hurt really bad and it's strange that this thing is not healing. A month later, go in for my OB appointment, and I'm like, I'm gonna ask her if she'll just take a look. And I remember saying to her, like, she's a friend of mine. I was like, Can you just look at this? This just does not feel right. And the look on her face when she saw it, I knew right then and there that something was wrong. And I've known this person for a long time. She is steadfast, she is focused, she is in incredible, has an incredible bedside manner. And to see the reaction that she had, like even talking about it right now, my heart's starting to pound because I remember that moment, I went, shit, something's wrong. And she immediately got on the phone, she called Dr. Chu. I was in within two days to have a biopsy done. And I knew right then and there that something was wrong. And sure enough, it turns out that it was called Paget's disease of the nipple, which is a nipple cancer, and it is super, super rare. And there, I don't even remember the statistics on it now. I probably should have gone back and reviewed some of those things. But it is not only is it super rare, but it next to ever happens to anyone under the age of 60. At this point, I'm 33. So I get this wacky ass diagnosis, and I am pregnant, I am 33, and I already don't fit the mold of anybody who has breast cancer, just the different types. And now it's becoming more prevalent that women under 40 are being diagnosed, and some like women under 30, but I just didn't, it didn't fit. And so when we after we were deciding a treatment plan and doing all those things, it turned out I also had a second type of breast cancer. I had DCIS. And so they found two very large tumors underneath that breast that had the Paget's disease on it, and typically Paget's is associated with DCIS, and it had, I personally believe that I had been had that for a long time, and part of me having a struggle with breastfeeding Marco had to do with the fact that that nipple was deteriorating, and we were trying so hard to make it work, and I was probably making it a whole lot worse by overusing it. So I ended up with these two types of breast cancer, and I just remember sitting there getting the phone call. I was standing, it was the day after the 4th of July. I was standing in my son's room and he was playing out in the backyard, and I remember watching him on the swing that we had under this big mulberry tree. And I get the phone call that I had breast cancer, and I'm like holding the phone, listening to the words that are coming out of their mouth, hearing the C word, and then you instantly think death, because you hear cancer and you think I'm gonna die. I see my three-year-old, well, at the time, two and a half, out swinging on the swing in the back, just having a heyday, playing, laughing, having fun, our dogs running around. And then I look down and I'm holding like this six-month pregnant belly. And I just in that moment was just in it, it was just trauma. That's there's no other way that I can describe it because it's I'm uh I'm gonna die. Like how I have a I'm carrying a baby, I have another small child, like I'm not gonna get to see my kids grow up. And it was a horribly traumatic time and one that like I will never ever forget that moment in my mind. It's ingrained in my mind forever. And when I hung up the phone, it was funny you talk about trauma, you have these like trauma responses. I go to hang up the phone and I said, like, literally, I have my phone like this, and I'm like, okay, thanks for calling. Have a nice day. And I hang up like I had just like made an order for pizza or something because I think I was just like in shock that I couldn't. Yeah, I knew that was gonna be the call because I saw the look on my doctor's face. But when you hear the actual words and it all becomes solidified, it's just uh, and I'm sure like you have your own story and experience with getting that information, it's a surreal moment in your life.

allison and jamie: 9:46

It really is. Yes, you I absolutely relate. I was standing in line. I actually knew a few days prior my radiologist called, and we were just going into a concert, and I knew I was gonna get a phone call from him because I shared the results with him from another radiologist, and I remember him saying it's a 95% chance or more chance that you have breast cancer. And then that following Saturday, we got the official you have breast cancer, and it was very surreal, both times. I'll never forget that either. Yeah, what a crazy story that is, Allison. That's that's a lot, and you probably have a lot of in hindsight realizations about your diagnosis. And so, what about what kind of treatment did you go through? I know you immediately went through surgery. What other treatment did you have to go through during your journey?

allison: 10:49

Well, we had to be very careful about how we handled it when Simona was in utero utero because you can't overexpose her to radiation. And so my options were to do nothing and wait until delivery, to have a mastectomy. And I could only do that one side because we couldn't do both, because she could only be under anesthesia for 60 minutes before it caused complications to her into the pregnancy. And so we had a 60-minute window of okay, if we're gonna do surgery, we have to do this. I couldn't start chemo when I was pregnant, and then the other option was to abort. And to sit there and have those options presented to you, that's hard enough because there's just so many ethical concerns and dilemmas across the board of whatever decision I made, there was gonna be some major ethical issue around it. And I remember my doctor saying, Well, you have one healthy child. And that was like, oh, because I know what she's saying. Like it's okay to make the decision to abort if that means that you know it's gonna save your life. You already have one child that is healthy that you need to take care of. And I was just like, you don't, you never know how you're gonna respond or what you think, like when you hear other people's situations like that, but when you yourself are put into that position, it's extremely stressful because you don't know the outcome. And you can read the research and you can be told statistically, here's like what we know, but you don't really know. And so you don't really know exactly what the outcome is gonna be. All I knew was that if I waited, it was gonna be my life was over. If I waited the four months to deliver, the stuff underneath had already progressed so quickly that I didn't think I was gonna have a shot. And so to me, it was like my beloved boobs that I've loved forever are going to kill me. They've got to, I gotta take them off. I can always get new ones put on. So I chose to do the mastectomy while I was pregnant. And then our plan was after I delivered Simona, I would breastfeed her, we'd scan the other side to make sure that there wasn't any cancer there, that it hadn't spread. And if that side was clear, I could breastfeed her for eight weeks, and then I was gonna go in and have the second, the other side removed, and then we would start the reconstruction process. And if that was all good and fine, then no chemo. I wouldn't need anything like that if it hadn't spread. So I deliver her, she's healthy. We do the scan on the one side, the cancer had not spread, and luckily it had not gone into my lymph nodes on the other side. So I'm looking good. And they're like, hey, you've got eight weeks to breastfeed her, you enjoy your time, but you're coming back here in eight weeks. We'll see you back here soon. And it's like, okay. Yeah. I get the eight-week clearance. You talk about like shit that happens when you have cancer. I get the eight-week clearance, and I remember right at the eight-week mark to start exercising. I'm like, Marco, we're gonna go downstairs and do yoga. And I shit you not, I blew out my ACL within the first two minutes of doing yoga.

allison and jamie: 13:48

Oh, yeah. Oh my.

allison: 13:50

Yeah. Then imagine that conversation going in and seeing my knee doctor, who I had already seen for three other surgeries, like in my lifetime living here in Reno. And he was like, What is going on with you? And I'm like, I'm falling apart. My body has decided it's just giving up. So we had to do the full ACL reconstruction. I had to have bone plugs put in my kneecap because I dislocated my knee and it was like kneecap and it was deteriorating. So I had to do that, and then once I healed from that, then I went in for the other mastectomy.

allison and jamie: 14:21

It was a year of hell. Like it was yeah. Sounds like you and I both had a pretty major surgery and then another surgery after that. And then you had three surgeries.

allison: 14:34

And then the process, and I don't know how what your experience has been like with the reconstruction. So I'd be curious to hear your experience with this, but getting the having the whole process, and they don't do it this way now, but having to go in and have the spacers put in, and then having the, did you have to do that where you had the spacers put in, and then they had to pump them up to stretch out your skin? So I had to have eight treatments of those, and this was while we were working together. I would when I so they put these plastic spacers in, and then it has this magnet where your nipples would be, and you would go in every two weeks and they would take this big needle and inject it through to put saline in the spacers because you have to slowly start stretching your skin out until you find like the size that looks comfortable or right for you, or whatever you want to do to put the implants in. But when they would do that, so eight times I did that, and every time I would lose feeling in my arms. So I would have to go to work the next day, and it was like trying to type was super painful, and it was like this 24-hour thing. And then right when I would start getting feeling back in my arms, I could be a functioning person again or an able-body person. It was like right when I'd start feeling good, I'd have to go back in and have that redone.

allison and jamie: 15:43

Um yeah, so I did hear about that process and I almost went down that road. I have a friend of mine who was telling me about the injections and how they really affected her and it really hurt actually. I chose at the very last moment not to do it that way. And I chose to go to New Orleans to the Center for Restorative Breast Surgery. And I had the Autologus surgery where they took it was the deep flap. It's a much more modern and newer type of surgery where they take your tissue from your abdomen area and then they reconstruct. So I had my complete mastectomy there and right after that reconstruction. So I woke up with new, warm, living, my tissue, my blood vessels, breasts. And that's what I opted for because I just didn't want to do implants, and that was just my choice. And I have literally nothing against anything that anybody does. I just am very much an advocate for helping women know their options, and this is just something that sort of fell on my lap. I always call it kismet. I have had I had three different friends who reached out to me to tell me that they knew somebody who had this autologous surgery that I should look into it. And this started happening last summer that I was told about this surgery, but my mind wasn't really there yet until late November when I found out that I needed a mastectomy on my left breast. And so I started really doing the research and I called the center, had a consultation with them, and discovered that that is what was best for my body. So that's how I did it. And but I did hear about the spacers and how that really affects your body and it's painful. It is a lot for you.

allison: 17:46

Yeah, it's this foreign thing underneath your skin and it's sharp plastic. And so, yeah, there's nothing about it that that feels good. I remember I was just recently hiking, I became friends with my breast surgeon, and we were out hiking not too long ago, and she was telling me about oh yeah, there's this new process now that you basically like they do the incision right underneath the breast, like it's your typical implant surgery, and they clean everything out and they put them, you know, your implants in, and then boom, you come out and you've got boobs. And I'm like, damn it! Why couldn't I have cancer five years later? I mean, I don't, I mean, heaven forbid, and now I'm mad that I even knock on wood that I even said that now because I mean I'm a believer that you throw something out to the universe, it's gonna come back at you. So I did not mean that universe, I do not want cancer.

allison and jamie: 18:31

No, but I didn't even know about that myself. And I know that your surgeon, Dr. Chu, I think you mentioned.

allison: 18:39

Yeah.

allison and jamie: 18:39

Yeah. So she was originally going to be my surgeon, and she's actually the one that put my port in. And I love her. She is what I really loved about Dr. Chu was that she, when I first met her, she talked to me a lot about nutrition, which a lot of doctors don't do. They don't really go into that, but she spent a lot of time talking to me about nutrition and what I should and should not be eating. So I just thoroughly loved Dr. Chu. She really calmed me down before she put my port in because I was in a pretty gosh darn dark place. And the only reason I did not have surgery here in our city is that they don't do autologous surgery here. And that's just what I opted to do. So I that's why I ended up having the mastectomy in New Orleans instead. But she is she is a fantastic surgeon.

allison: 19:32

She is and a perfect all-around person, and she is one of the only, and I know I don't know a lot of doctors in town, but I know a good number. And I would say that she is one of the only ones that really centers mental health and understands the importance of mental health and how that goes hand in hand with all of this. And she is, I can just not sing enough praises about her. She goes to all these different professional development and conferences on mental health, she reads all the time about it. She's always asking questions about it. And to know that she has such an investment or made an investment in learning more about the intersectionality of mental health and cancer is just it's very telling to her character.

allison and jamie: 20:16

Yes, it is, because there are so many doctors who do not pay attention to that. That was one of the things I loved about the Center for Restorative Breast Surgery is that they have it's all about holistic health, mental health. And that's we were taken such good care of. And I just love the fact that Dr. Chu is focusing on that because there's so many doctors, it's just like this wham bam, here you go, have the surgery, go home, and not pay attention to your mental health. And so that makes me really happy to hear that. Thanks for sharing that. So you never had to go through chemo.

allison: 20:55

Nope, we were able to get everything out on the first shot, which I am so grateful for because I knew that was going to be a grueling process while pregnant, delivering a baby, having a child at home. And so I will never understand someone's experience having to go through something like that. I will only ever understand my experience. But I am thankful every day that I did not have to go through that next step.

allison and jamie: 21:21

Yeah, just having the cancer alone is huge. And I have learned that I didn't realize how many different circumstances women have gone through, and men for that matter, with breast cancer, because when I first got mine, I had a lot of people say, Well, why don't they just go in there and just cut that sucker out of there? And I said, Well, I guess they don't do that with my kind of breast cancer, which was the HER2 positive, estrogen and progesterone negative, where I guess if it's positive, they do the surgery first and then chemo and radiation, but mine was chemo first, shrink the tumor, mine was about five centimeters, and then surgery. And then after I was done with surgery, when I went into my one-week post-op, I was cancer free. So they had taken some lymph nodes, they had tested those, and I was cancer free, so I didn't have to have radiation. So all of these different treatments, and that's why I always ask everyone, what was your treatment like? Because no one's is the same.

allison: 22:28

Yeah, no, I was involved with the Coleman, I want to say a week after my mastectomy, I started getting involved with the Coleman Foundation. And because I knew like the only way that I was really gonna start to feel I don't even know how to explain. I was standing in the shower. I remember this was like post op week after, standing in the shower, and I thought to myself, I think I know how I'm gonna get through this, and it's to give back because it's gonna be therapeutic for me, and I'm gonna meet other people because my friends couldn't understand what I was going through. My family couldn't understand what I was going through. My husband at the time couldn't understand. No one, it was the most isolating experience I think I've ever had. And I was dealing with all these emotions and fear and just going head on into these things that are just indescribable. It really was one of those things where I thought I'm gonna have to be very savvy about where I find my support because God love my family and my friends, but they're not gonna be able to give it to me. They don't have the capacity. So I'm gonna have to figure this out by myself.

allison and jamie: 23:30

Right. It's interesting that you say that because I just had an interview with my mental health therapist that I've had all year, and she said seeking out this therapy in other places, no matter what that looks like, is definitely different than your friends and your family because they just cannot understand what it's like at all. And it is isolating. I had all kinds of support. My friends just showered me, and my husband was a great caregiver, but there was nothing that any of them could do to even understand unless they'd gone through it. Even if they had gone through it, they understand a whole heck of a lot more than other people, but you still feel super isolated. And so it's nice to talk to other people.

allison: 24:18

It is, and I think that's the part that my I was overwhelmed by the amount of love and support that came out of our school alone with the meal drop-offs and the cards and the people that were like set up raised enough money for me to have a house cleaner for a year. And I just people were helping in the best ways that they knew how, and I was overly appreciative, in fact, overwhelmed by that of just like how giving people were in that moment and how important I was to so many people, and I had no clue. But there was a really big piece missing, and that was like no one had walked this path before that I knew. And so, in order to really start to heal and understand and break apart all those things that were happening, I needed a different type of support. More than it wasn't that I wasn't grateful for what I was already receiving, but when you look at how people help, it's important to understand how someone helps and be appreciative of that, but know what you need as a person in order to heal and move forward. And so I had to be very specific and intentional about like where I sought out support and help.

allison and jamie: 25:20

Let's move into as you were going through this experience, what activities did you engage in? I know you were talking about Susan B. Coman and getting involved with that, but and you are you're a physically fit woman, and so you exercised. And what is it that you did during that time to keep yourself going as far as maybe even physical activities?

allison: 25:52

Yeah, it's funny that you bring that up, Timocha Dixon, you know Timocha. Yeah, so she she came to me in the midst of all of this and said, I have someone that I want you to meet, and I have somewhere that I want you to go. And Monday after school we're going, I just need you to bring your workout clothes. And I was like, uh, okay. And when Dixon tells you to do something, naturally you do it, you know. So pretty much. Okay, yeah. So I had all my stuff ready. She takes me to this gym. I meet this guy named Marcel Legrone, and I meet his wife, Tisha Lagrone, and I instantly fall in love with these two people. And they to this day are some of my closest and best friends. They've become like my second family. So he's a boxing trainer, and Tisha is also a trainer. And I started working out with Dixon and Tisha, and he was like our boxing trainer, and he would put us through all these grooming workouts. And I started boxing. And I tell you what, Jamie, the first punch I threw, it was another one of those moments that solidified. I remember he's holding up the boxing mitts, and I remember, and I've always loved a fight. Like, this is like this secret of mine that like I love. And I throw this punch, and immediately I remember thinking, like, why have I never done this before? This is all I need. This is it. And it that became my thing every day. I was going in there five days a week, and he and I would just talk and I would hit and I would cry and I would just go through the damn thing with him daily. And he single-handedly, him and Tisha kept me afloat. Had I not had that outlet, because there were all these emotions that I was constantly carrying. And as a mother, I didn't have the time. I was working full-time a lot of the time. I had to compartmentalize everything all the time and move on to the next thing and move on to the next thing. And granted, I was a counselor on top of that. So I was holding everybody else's shit for them too and helping. And I needed a space to be able to release all of that because that is energy that gets clogged up in your body. And I needed to have some sort of blood get it all out. And that's what boxing did for me. And it, I remember when we found out that Darren had gotten, that was my husband at the time, had gotten a job offer up in Portland, and I was leaving the gym. And I remember thinking, like, this is my lifeline. I don't know what I'm gonna do without this thing. And I will forever be indebted to those two people. I love those two humans. Like I said, they've become like my second family. And I tell them often, like, you, I think kept me alive.

allison and jamie: 28:26

I really need to do that. I have a really interesting story to tell you just because you told that story. Number one, I remember you boxing. When you mentioned that, I'd forgotten it before, but now I remember you guys going to that boxing place. And several years ago, I had gone to Louisville, Kentucky to grade some, score some AP exams. And I went to the Muhammad Ali Museum, and Muhammad Ali had literally just died when we were on the airplane on the way to Louisville, Kentucky. And we had gone to his museum. We were staying at a hotel right near there. And guess what? I brought home with me as a little souvenir. Little pink boxing gloves. Pink. There you go. You started manifesting it. Yes, they had they were sitting, they have been sitting in my, I have them hanging in my bedroom. They were sitting somewhere else. I think they were on my car mirror or something for a while, but then I have them in my bedroom. But isn't that interesting that they were pink? They are pink and they're boxing gloves. And I've always loved boxing as well. I used to go to turbo kickbox all the time, and one of my favorite things to do was boxing. Yeah. So I'm not thinking I may have to do that.

allison: 29:53

You should. In Dixon, she had given me a pair of pink wraps for my hands, and I just remember it was like this every time I would wrap. My hands up in those, I would think of her and I would think about the significance of like why those were so important to me. And I give a shout out to Tisha and Marcel about keeping me afloat. But had Dixon not approached me and said, I think you just need to come and try this thing, she was a very she was a huge turning point for me with and I wasn't in a funk, I just was trying to figure shit out. And she just, it's like she knew what I needed. And without having to overly explain, just said, get your ass to the gym at 5 30, I'll meet you there. And I was like, okay, let's go.

allison and jamie: 30:31

I call it kismet. I call those moments kismet. And a lot of a lot of things like that have happened to me throughout just this one year. I mean, I'm only one year out from my diagnosis. And I know that we still are on a healing path. You are further along than I am, but you're still on this healing path. A lot of people think that once the diagnosis is you are cancer free, that okay, let's all get back to normal.

allison: 31:03

That's the biggest myth out there. No, you don't, you don't ever go back to normal. Normal no longer exists. A new normal that you have to build exists, but that is one of the biggest myths that I like to talk about is that just because the treatment is over, it's the healing process will be lifelong. It's not over. The psychological damage and fear that will sit and reside in your nervous system in your body is not over. It takes a lifetime to unlearn a lot of responses and to rebuild your life in the ways that you really want to live. You get a second chance at life. It's an emotional process.

allison and jamie: 31:38

And so you don't and you become stronger, you know? Yeah. You've you become stronger. I always hated when people told me, and I shouldn't say I hated it because I do appreciate it and I get it. You're the strongest person I know, things like that. And I didn't feel strong in a lot of ways, but I do feel that after where I am now, I do feel like a stronger person in my mind, in my heart. I have learned how to set boundaries. I have learned how to say no to people, and I've learned how to take things off of my plate that aren't serving me. Because before I just really didn't know how to do that.

allison: 32:23

No, and I can remember many a conversation, Jamie Vaughn, in your classroom when I would walk through and check in and like check on kids or like checking in how you're doing. And there was always like some major thing going on and another project and adding another thing. And we were engulfed in a lot of stress. Like I remember having a lot of those conversations with you in your classroom.

allison and jamie: 32:44

I absolutely loved working with you and all of those kids. Okay, friends, I'm gonna stop it right there, okay, because Allison has so much more to tell us, and we interviewed for over an hour because she has so many good ideas and advice and just all about her journey. And I just love listening to her, she is so inspiring. I hope you have found it inspiring as well. So we have decided to have a part two to Allison Liz's whole shebang. The next episode, she will be talking more about her healing process and how she used her blog. And let me tell you, her amazing blog that you need to read. It's in the show notes. So definitely dig into that. But she's gonna talk about how she used that blog for her healing process. Of course, she's gonna be talking about much, much more than that in the second part of the whole shebang with Allison List. So stay tuned, and I will see you next time.