Everyday Wonder Women
Each week, I sit down with a woman you probably never heard of before—but trust me, by the end, you’ll be so glad you did. This is where we get real about the tough stuff women go through, the grit it takes to get through it, and the lessons they pick up along the way. It’s honest, inspiring, and full of stories you won’t forget.
Everyday Wonder Women
Episode 4: How my friend Sarah overcame a childhood shaped by addiction and loss
Sarah’s story is proof that your past doesn’t have to define your future. She grew up in chaos—addicted parents, violence, and a home life that felt anything but stable. But she always knew she wanted something different.
• Left home at 17 to live with her grandfather and escape the dysfunction
• Lost her mom at 20 and took custody of her 14-year-old sister at 21
• Faced career setbacks and divorce, then started her own copywriting business
• Transformed her health and committed to breaking generational cycles
• Built a thriving business that’s about to hit its 10-year mark
• Created the “normal” life she always dreamed of for herself and her son
Your destiny is not written in ink, it's in pencil. No matter what situation you're facing, you can find your bright lights and redefine your future.
On today's episode you're going to meet my friend Sarah. She's somebody I've known for about 10 years and I met her through work with my app company, Vet2Pet. I had run into her through a mutual acquaintance and I knew she did some writing. I asked her to do some work for me at my company and it became evident very quickly that she's a lot of fun to be around. She's so nice and we really got along well. So we started hanging out personally. We've even gone on vacation together. She's just one of my favorite people.
Me (Stacee):So we were recently at a veterinary conference in Orlando and I had a chance to sit down with her one evening and hear her story and, to be honest, after she told me her story, I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was so powerful and she's so authentic in this episode that I hope you guys are ready for it. She's going to talk about some tough things, like when your parents are addicts and what it's like to grow up without a parent. This episode also deals with death of a parent. She has a great story. She saw the direction her life was headed. She didn't like it, so she turned it around 180 degrees and now she's one of the most successful founders of writing company in veterinary industry. She does amazing work and she never stops. She's always pushing herself forward. So let's go come with me and meet my friend Sarah. I am excited to have you sit down with me.
Sarah:Thanks, I'm excited too.
Me (Stacee):I thought you'd be a great guest on the podcast. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself.
Sarah:I grew up in a really small town and ended up moving in with my grandfather right before my senior year of high school, and after I graduated I wanted to do something fast. I didn't want to just like. I mean, I would have loved to have gone to like a four-year college or something and lived in a dorm like a normal kid, but that wasn't in the cards for me at the time, and so I ended up going to like community college and I had heard my grandpa had emphysema and I was really close to my grandpa and I thought it would be cool to do something that could help someone like my grandpa. So I went to respiratory therapy school, so I was a respiratory therapist in human medicine for a short time. I hated it, though. I really hated it.
Me (Stacee):Right away. You hated it.
Sarah:Yeah, kind of. I never really liked it. I just think humans are kind of yucky, you know so I didn't really enjoy it, yeah. So I ended up going back to school eventually and getting my bachelor's degree in communication, but it was much later. I got my bachelor's degree when I was 30 and got my first job as a writer right after that with a veterinary association called the American animal hospital association and ended up working for them for five years. And then I started a copywriting company in the industry and I've been doing that for almost 10 years. It'll be 10 years next year. Nine years, that's awesome, 10 years. Yeah, started it in 2016. It's great.
Me (Stacee):Yeah, what was it that made you want to start your own business?
Sarah:You know, they had legalized recreational marijuana in 2014 while I worked for AAHA and my commute to work was kind of not good and it was just getting progressively worse. The more people who moved to Denver, the longer it was getting. And I had a little boy at home he was three and some days it would be like two hours just driving to and from work and I hated it. And I asked them if I could work from home two days a week and I thought, as a writer, like that was something that should be, but that this was before COVID it wasn't like super common for people to work from home yet and they said no, and I don't know. I just thought, you know, while I worked there, I got in a lot of connections. People would come to me and ask me for help with, you know, writing stuff on the side like their resume or their website, and I would do it, and I just had enough that I thought, well, maybe I can make a go of this on my own. What really prompted me to do that was when I left AHA.
Sarah:I worked for a company, a mark marketing, like website company in the space, and they ended up laying me off and so I had this moment where I was like, do I need to go apply for jobs somewhere or do I need to kind of figure this out and see if I can make a go of it on my own?
Sarah:And um, it was really scary. And at the same time my husband of 10 years told me he wanted a divorce. So it was like kind of all these things happening at once. But I decided to try to make a go of it with my writing company and while it was a company, it was really just me doing everything on my own. You know, like, yes, I, I went to the Denver like the small business bureau or whatever they're called I forget what they're called now, but small business association, I guess and they help people. Like I met with this old man who volunteers his time and he like told me everything I need to do to start a business, Like he did. Yeah, we met at this little coffee shop and that's just a free resource in the community.
Sarah:Yep How'd you know about it. I don't remember how I found out about it.
Me (Stacee):I hear there are so many um things like this available in in the town. Yeah, aren't there.
Sarah:Yeah, yeah, that people don't even know about, don't even know about. I don't remember how I found out now either, but I remember requesting an appointment online and hearing back that you know I forget his name now likes to meet people at this coffee shop in Golden. So I like drove out to Golden and met at this coffee shop and it was kind of cold that day it was in October, I guess and, yeah, we just sat there and I just took like a yellow legal pad and I just feverishly took notes as, like, he told me every step to do and I'm a rule follower I like I did all of those steps. You know, I like I like you, had a plan.
Sarah:Oh yeah, yeah, as soon as I left that coffee shop, I went home and started working on that. And you know, it's like some of it is just really easy you just go, like the Secretary of State website and you choose a name for your company and you pay the $10 fee every year, or whatever it is, to be registered as a business in the state of Colorado. Yeah, so I did all those steps and so officially became a company, like by the end of October in 2016.
Me (Stacee):And don't you think by doing that I mean it took some guts, because sometimes I have moments like this where I have to put myself out there. It's a little unnerving. It'd be way easier to stay home, Well, yeah for sure. But to go meet somebody and ask for help and you don't know how it's going to go, but I'd say almost all the time it goes better than you could have ever expected.
Sarah:For sure. Yeah, I mean, and I didn't want to mess it up, you know, like I knew to start a business, like there were certain things you had to do and fees you had to pay, and and I just didn't want to mess anything up. I knew that, you know, people had said, oh, you have to pay quarterly taxes, estimated quarterly taxes. And I'm like, well, I have no idea what you know. So like, yeah, I'm not an expert in those things and I I think it's important to lean on people who know what they're doing and talking about and get help from people like that.
Me (Stacee):And then it's just some steps. It's one after the other. Yeah, it's not like anybody out here is doing brain surgery. I mean, it's literally just some steps and if you can follow the steps you can have what you want. Yeah, for sure, it sounds simple, but I think it's right there A hundred percent.
Me (Stacee):Yeah, yeah, my Uber driver yesterday she was telling me how she wants to be an occupational therapist. She's getting her master's and she was an occupational therapy assistant and part of the training is you have to do like four to six months of an unpaid internship. So she had to quit her paying job of $35 an hour to do her unpaid internship to take the test to get her master's. And so she's Uber driving at night to try to make this go. And she's telling me she's from Puerto Rico and she moved here when she was like in 11th grade and didn't know any English. Yeah, and so she's had to learn English and but she's just telling me she's like I just do these steps and I can get there, and it takes me longer, but I'm just doing my steps.
Sarah:Yeah, yeah, I love that. I mean, I think people see these things they want to accomplish and it looks like this mountain, like this insurmountable mountain, but yeah, it's like one foot at a time and you're going to get up to the top. You just have to keep going.
Me (Stacee):Just keep going and usually it's like I mean I hate hiking, but that last part's the hardest Totally, so what's been a time of your life that's been really challenging for you personally?
Sarah:Yeah, I mean I think that you know talking about taking one step at a time. I remember being little and just thinking like listening to my parents fighting in the other room and they didn't just have like normal fights, Like it was like knock down, drag out, like abusive fights, and thinking I'm going to be normal, Like someday I'm going to have a normal life, and like I remember normal thinking, I want normal, I want normal. I just remember saying that and thinking that a lot as a kid, because we weren't normal. My mom worked out of high school. She started working with Illinois Bell, which became AT&T, that later became Lucent Technologies and then Avaya Communication, but she was with them from high school until she died. But, um, when I was five, she got transferred from Springfield, Illinois, where we lived, to Denver and so we moved and at the time it was just me and my sister, two of us with my parents. My parents later had two more kids after we moved here, but I'm the oldest and my parents always had a really dysfunctional relationship and they both had substance abuse issues my whole life alcohol, drugs, both and they would fight a lot.
Sarah:You were little yeah, I mean my whole childhood, from when I can remember until so, when I was 11, maybe it like kind of reached this tipping point they were doing I don't know what drugs they were doing. I know they were doing not great drugs though, because it was weird, my mom still had a good job. Like my mom was a breadwinner and she had a good job. It wasn't like she was like this drug addict on the street, you know, like she was actually a good mom. She came to all my games and like she loved us.
Sarah:She was a really good mom, but she just had her own demons. She was diagnosed bipolar. Anyway, they were doing drugs. I remember one time they called the cops because they thought they saw ninjas out in the trees. We lived on land out in the country. The cops came and I remember them asking did you see ninjas? I was like, well, I don't know, Maybe I just remember wanting to see ninjas because my parents were so adamant that there were these like bad guys out in the trees and I didn't realize like what was going on.
Sarah:You know what I mean. And when I was 12, my parents both went to rehab for a month, so they went to two separate rehabs and my grandma and grandpa, my mom's parents, came and stayed with me and the kids. When they came back a month later they were so clean and sober and then they really didn't like each other. Like they just. I think they just. They always had a very passionate high low relationship, but when they came back and were sober, it was like I think they realized like we don't really like each other anymore and so shortly thereafter they decided to get divorced. But, um, they did. Oh, they got clean and then they got divorced. Yeah, and it was the second time they got divorced. They got divorced when I was one oh really. And then they got remarried and had my siblings and then they got divorced when I was like 16 for the second time.
Sarah:Oh, my Mm-hmm. Yeah, they had a very tumultuous relationship, but, oh, yeah. But, um, oh yeah, at one time they got into such a bad fight this is before they got clean. My dad shot a hole with a gun through the floor of our house into the bedroom that my sister slept in, like we knew they were fighting. Obviously it was very loud and not good and we were all kind of like hiding down in the downstairs and next thing, you know, he shoots a hole through the floor and we slept in the car that night. My mom left with us kids and we slept in the car. We drove to Parker and slept in a parking lot all night long. It was horrible.
Me (Stacee):Did you try to tell anybody what was happening to you? Or like your grandparents, you were yeah.
Sarah:Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, I was really embarrassed and I I didn't want anyone to know that that was happening and so you hid it, yeah, from everybody. Yeah, so I've always been sort of like a problem solver, like you know me, you know when am I allowed to say bad words? I just want to say, like, when shit happens, like I would try to fix it and not tell anyone. You know, just like I would just fix it and make it better.
Sarah:Make it better. Before I wouldn't want to get help because I would. Just I was embarrassed about that and so I would just try to fix it?
Me (Stacee):Did you have to kind of look after your?
Sarah:siblings. Oh yeah, like I was, especially after my parents got divorced. My mom relapsed by that point. She had been sober for several years and, um, I don't know how it works biologically, but like I guess, if you're an alcoholic and then you're sober for a while and then you drink again, you have a very low tolerance and and she would be clean for months and then she would relapse and drink and it wouldn't take very much and she'd be falling over drunk and sloppy and sometimes she would just be gone for days and I wouldn't tell my grandparents. I didn't want them to know. I was embarrassed, and so I would just take care of the kids. And how old were you? Uh, 15, 16.
Me (Stacee):Yeah, that's a lot to take on.
Sarah:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I remember one night waking up late at night and I just had like a bad feeling late at night and I just had like a bad feeling and I went downstairs and my mom wasn't in her bed and all my siblings were in bed. I mean, it was a probably one in the morning or something, and we lived in this small town with dirt roads and I just remember it must've been summertime, because I remember walking out in my pajamas and like wandering down the dirt road, crying, like I walked. There was a little bar down like a block and a half from our house or something, and there were no cars there. Like she wasn't there, I didn't know where she was and I was just crying and I was so mad and she had bipolar and so there would be times when, like the like, they were adjusting her meds or something, and she would just be, she would just stay in bed, she wouldn't want to come out of her bedroom for, like you know, however long days, and you'd take care of everything. I would take care of everything.
Sarah:Like I remember one time my little brother my brother's the youngest he's 10 years younger than I am and he had, like he was probably in kindergarten and he had like a school play or something like a little performance that they did and he had to wear like black pants and a white shirt and I remember my mom was in bed and wouldn't come out and I was frantically trying to find Matthew black pants and a white shirt and I couldn't find anything. And I just remember being so like frustrated and like I went up to the school and watched his play. You know what? I just remember being so like frustrated and like I went up to the school and watched his play. You know what I mean.
Sarah:Like you were like the mom. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, so that's why I ended up moving, because, um, the summer of my after my junior year of high school, I had just, I was just like so tired of that, you know. So I just wanted a normal. I want a normal, I wanted a normal life.
Sarah:And after we moved from Illinois to Denver, my grandma and grandpa, my mom's parents, would come out every summer, like in May after school got out, and they'd drive out and they'd pick up my sister and I and we would go out to Illinois and spend the whole summer with them, and then they'd drive us back in August before school started, and your two younger siblings would stay with your mom. Yeah, because when we first moved, it was just me and my sister Kate. Um, the two younger ones weren't born yet, so, um, it really wasn't until. I mean, it was like, and then when Emily and Matthew came along, they were like younger and you know so my mom would stay with them. But, um, but yeah, and when I look back on it now I think it's it was more just for childcare. You know like, now that I have my own kids, like in the summertime, if you're a working parent. It's kind of expensive to, like you know, figure out what to do with your kids during the summer, and so I think it probably started that way. It was my mom, it's like you know, needed something to do with us in the summertime and my grandparents would come take us. But I loved my grandparents so much and we would have like the summers are my favorite, and every summer, every August, when it was like I would have diaries. I still have diaries that I wrote, like you know, 29 days until we have to go back to Denver.
Sarah:I don't want to leave. I love grandma and grandpa so much. I don't want to go back to Colorado Like I would cry and cry and beg my mom can I just stay with grandma and grandpa? Cause it was like a normal life, you know they were, they weren't dysfunctional Like my parents were, so I never wanted to come back.
Sarah:But in 1996, my grandma passed away when I was 15. And so we, like we didn't go to my grandparents after that, after my grandma passed away, um, that summer anyway. And then, when I was 17, after my junior year of high school, I wrote my grandpa a letter and asked him if I could come see him for the summer. And so he drove out to Colorado and picked me up and just you, yep, just me, and I don't remember why Kate didn't.
Sarah:I was the one that, like, specifically requested it and you were already advocating for yourself. I was, yeah, I wanted to get out of there. Um, and I just, you know, I just knew I wanted normal, and so we drove out and I had my driver's license by that point. So I actually helped drive for the first time, make the trip from Denver to Springfield, illinois, and as soon as I got there, I started applying for jobs and I bought a car and I got a job at Country Buffet as a cashier, and it was just a great summer.
Sarah:And by the end of summer I didn't want to go back and I knew, like, I had this car, I had this job. I just wanted to keep all of that going. And I asked my grandpa if I could stay and he said, if your mom is okay with it, I'm okay with it. And so I made that call to my mom and asked her if I could stay for my senior year of high school and it was heartbreaking. I remember her crying and saying that she understood why and that she was okay with it, but that it made her sad.
Me (Stacee):And you transferred school at a place you didn't even know anybody. Yeah, that must have been a little hard.
Sarah:Yeah, it was my senior year of high school. I went to a Catholic school in Springfield called Ursuline Academy, which is closed now, but that's where I graduated from. But all of those kids had gone to Catholic school together since grade school so they all knew each other really well and I was definitely an outsider. But yeah, I mean, I made friends. Okay, it was fine, but yeah, it was hard.
Me (Stacee):Well, I know when we have Zoom calls, I'm pretty sure. Correct me if I'm wrong. There's a picture of your grandpa on your desk.
Sarah:Um, yeah, yeah, Behind me in my office. Yeah, I have lots of my grandpa, my grandpa. So my grandpa's name was Henry. He went by Hank. I named my son Henry, like I, was I really him letting me come stay there with him.
Me (Stacee):Yeah, life-changing, yeah, yeah, oh. And what happened to your mom and your dad?
Sarah:Um, so I was 17 when I left and went to Illinois and my mom had the next few years kind of continued the way they had been, like she were she would be sober and then drink, and sober and then drink, and she did rehab and she got a DUI with my little brother in the car, you know. It was just sort of like a spiral. And then when I was 20, I was going to community college in Springfield and I had a full-time job at Singular Wireless, which is, I think that became AT&T also at some point. I was customer service in a call center there and then I'd go to Lincoln Land Community College at night and my grandpa wanted to go to Arizona for the winter. My mom's sister and her husband lived there and so he went to Arizona for the winter.
Sarah:This was in November and I stayed at the house and came home from work one night and there was a message on the answering machine and I couldn't make it out. It sounded like a crying noise. It was really brief and it was just like and I kind of hung up and I did the star six, nine thing to see what the number was and it was a Colorado number and so I called the number back and this teacher from my old school answered and I knew her name. And when she answered and I said this is Sarah Yocum and calling because someone called this number and left a message on the answering machine, and she said, hold on, sarah.
Sarah:And then, um, a police officer got on the phone and told me that they found my mom dead. Oh no, yeah, she apparently went to the grocery store and bought peppermint schnapps I don't know why that, but among and also some groceries, and she took her laptop and went to some park in Elizabeth, colorado, and sat outside on a picnic table and drank and worked on her computer. And then we think she got like cold at some point and went into her car and started it and turned the heat up full blast and put the seat back and fell asleep and just never woke up. And they didn't find her for two days. Oh no, some guy walking his dog in the park two days later found her. My siblings never called me to tell me that she was gone, because they were trying to take care of themselves and they were trying to protect her Hide it.
Sarah:Because after I moved, I was so angry with her for, like you know, cause it was one thing putting me through that and making me be the mom but after I left, my sister, kate, the second oldest I think, she still to this day really resents me for leaving. I think she thinks that I abandoned them and I made her be the mom, and which I did. But I was a kid myself, you know, yeah, you were a kid. I had threatened many times in those couple of years since I had left, to call social services.
Me (Stacee):Like my mom was already, Because you're starting to realize like this isn't okay. Yeah, right.
Sarah:And I also just, I guess I was thinking like Mom, I'm going to call social services on you, you have to get your shit together. I thought that was thinking like mom, I'm going to call social services on you, you have to get your shit together. I thought that would carry weight and she would feel like, okay, I need to fix this. I don't want social services to be called. It'd be like a wake up call, right, but you know, I don't know, I guess it doesn't work that way.
Sarah:But so my siblings really didn't want to go live with my dad and they didn't want to go to a foster home. They hadn't been in a foster home, briefly, when my mom got a DUI with my brother in the car, and so, you know, they just been through a lot and they didn't want me to call social services and so they didn't tell me that she was missing and they were just trying to go about life like I had been doing when I lived there. But yeah, so she passed away and I was the oldest, so I planned for the funeral and that was probably like the single hardest time in my life. You know, I was 20 and I remember getting on a plane and flying back to Denver. Did anyone help you?
Me (Stacee):Yeah, my grandpa and my my aunt and your dad around.
Sarah:Yeah, um, yeah, my dad just had his own issues Like he was like fun guys sometimes, but he wasn't really a fit parent. And after my mom died, my sister, kate, was 17 when she died and she emancipated herself and she just went and lived with her boyfriend and Emily and Matthew didn't want to live with my dad, and so me, my aunt, my uncle, my people in our community wrote letters. I was trying to fight my dad for custody of Emily and Matthew, and so it was kind of a long process. The court always. Their number one goal is to reunite the children with their parents, and my dad was saying that he wanted the kids, but Emily was adamant, she did not want to go live with my dad. Emily was 13 at the time and Matthew was 10. I don't know why, but the way it worked out was I got legal custody of Emily and my dad got legal custody of Matthew, and so, yeah, when I was 21, emily was 14 by the time, all the legal stuff was over and she came and lived with me in Illinois.
Me (Stacee):Oh, my gosh and you continued to help her out until she got through high school.
Sarah:You raised her? Yeah, pretty much. She went to Ursuline Academy, the same school that I graduated from in Springfield, and I remember she moved there during the summer and school was going to be starting in August, but before school started they had like open gym for volleyball and Emily had always played like basketball and volleyball and stuff at our school in Colorado and so she wanted to do that. So I convinced her to go to this volleyball open gym and she was so nervous, you know, and you know she was 14 and her mom was dead and I don't know. It was just a hard time.
Sarah:But I remember walking into this gym, all these girls are there bouncing volleyballs, and Emily was really nervous. I knew she wasn't going to like introduce herself or anything. So I just like walked up to this group of girls and I'm like, hi, this is Emily, she's new, she's coming to Ursula next year, she's going to be a sophomore or whatever. This girl named Katie Mealick, who's still her best friend to this day, was like hi, emily, and like they just started talking and they've been best friends since then. But yeah, so that was like that was a really hard time too. I mean because Emily was, I was always her favorite sister. Like we were kind of thick as leaves and then it went from like me being the cool older sister to me being like tell her no. And that was hard. We had some good arguments. She really hated me off and on for a while there.
Me (Stacee):Were you trying to be like? You should come home at this time and you can't stay? Oh yeah, I mean, I had to give her rules you know like she was a teenage girl.
Sarah:Yeah, it was really hard and I was 21. So like I wanted to be hanging out with my friends and going out and partying a little and dating around, yeah, so like a lot of that kind of you know that was. It was just not normal. Yet I was on my way to normal it took a while.
Me (Stacee):It took a while. That's quite a story, sarah. I don't know if you fully appreciate how impressive it is, all the things you took on as a little girl and even as a young woman.
Sarah:Yeah, when I look back now I'm like, oh my gosh, that is a lot. I'm kind of shaking just thinking about it, remembering it all. It's overwhelming. But I mean, obviously, if I could take back my mom dying and my mom going through all that stuff, I would. But I think I had to go through all of that stuff to become who I am today and to persevere and figure out how to do hard things, figure out how to climb that mountain, and one step at a time. You know it takes a long time to get to normal, but I got there.
Me (Stacee):Well, walking around with you at the conference, I mean you know so many people, you run in all kinds of big circles and I think, too, you've built an amazing company with an amazing reputation in your writing high-end articles for big, big money, and I mean you really did it from your own bootstraps. It's really impressive and, I think, so inspiring to other women out there that are in a difficult time in their life. Like, what would you, what advice would you give to a young girl maybe who's got a not so, not so perfect parent and their life isn't as normal as they would like? What would you tell your younger self if?
Sarah:you could. Yeah, I mean, I think that everyone's different, obviously, but I think the important thing to remember is that you don't have to continue a cycle. Just because you were born into something doesn't mean that's what you're destined to be like. That doesn't mean that your life is destined to be that way, and I just always knew that I was going to have a normal life. Come hell or high water, I was going to make myself have a normal life, and I've always just been that way. I don't know. When I was younger, I was overweight too, and I'm sure that some of the trauma that was going on in life. And when my mom died, I gained like 50 pounds pretty fast, and so I went from obese to like morbidly obese.
Me (Stacee):Which is so hard to picture, because you're like the perfect size, you're so darling.
Sarah:Well, that was another thing. I just remember being in my early twenties and late teens and just thinking like I am not meant to be a fat girl, like I'm not, I'm not. I'm not supposed to be a fat girl Like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not supposed to be this way and I'm going to make it different. And so I did so. When I was 22, I had gastric bypass surgery and I remember telling my grandpa that I was going to do it and that I had looked into this thing and I had gone to these support group meetings and I figured out what the insurance required to pay for it. I've done all the work.
Me (Stacee):Oh yeah, you man, I will say this about you when you set your mind to something, it's happening. Oh yeah, like it's not a question. No question, it is happening. Yes, it's just a matter of like, when and how.
Sarah:Exactly. Oh, there's no question, I am very determined when I want something. But yeah, I did all the legwork and my grandpa's like, oh Sarah, you don't need to do that, Just stop drinking that Pepsi and eating pickles. I'm like grandpa, that's not going to make me lose 100 pounds. I need to do this. I'm young. I want to do it while I'm still young. I don't want to keep living this way.
Sarah:So I had gastric bypass and I was my surgeon's youngest patient at that point. I don't know, Maybe he's had done it on someone younger now. But and yeah, what was your weight then? I was 237 pounds on surgery day and I'm five foot four perspective there, Five foot three and three quarters. I always round up, but yeah, so you know, I wasn't like there are some people that are like really big that have that surgery. I was definitely on the lower end, but I qualified. So that was May of 2003. And then by December I had lost 110 pounds. Are you kidding? Yeah, it was really fast. And then I had like loose skin after that. That I didn't like. And so you know, I set my mind to something and I ended up going to Costa Rica for plastic surgery by myself at 22.
Sarah:I had no idea you did that. Yeah, yeah, I went and had. I got all the. I had a tummy tuck. They took all like two pounds of skin off my belly and a breast lift and augmentation. Like two pounds of skin off my belly and a breast lift and augmentation.
Me (Stacee):Wow you guys, I'm going to post some pictures of me and Sarah, mostly of Sarah. It's so cute You're going to like I can't see you in that other body.
Sarah:I think you're in your right body now. Oh, like this is you. Yeah, I mean. No, I knew, knew, you know, meant to be that way. You had to have a metamorphosis. I was meant to live a normal life and not be overweight.
Me (Stacee):I knew that well, and now you have like a really successful company and you have a great family. You have a very handsome boy. How old?
Sarah:is Henry. Now Henry's 16.
Me (Stacee):Yeah he's a cutie.
Sarah:I know it's crazy and I've done everything in my power to make sure that he has a normal life. I think he would say he has a good life, which makes me really proud and happy, proud and happy.
Me (Stacee):I'm one of Sarah's number one fans. I think she's so authentic, so real, such a pleasure to be around and I hope you get a chance to meet her someday. Actually, she's one of those friends that makes your life better just being around. I really loved her story, particularly the part where she had such a tough situation handed to her and she had to make some big calls, big decisions early in her life to turn herself around and get out of what was probably set as a predefined destiny for her. And one of the things she did is she found a bright light in her world, which was her grandpa. He really was her savior. He gave her a place to go where she could redefine herself and unlock her true potential. Sarah's grandpa was a black diamond and she knew it and she did whatever it took to get over to where he was so that she could start moving forward with her life. And I hope that if you're in a situation right now where you're looking around and maybe you're not where you want to be, maybe you're not with the right friend group or even family group, take some inspiration from Sarah and realize that you can be anything you want to be and your destiny is not written in ink, it's in pencil.
Me (Stacee):I hope you enjoyed today's show and if you'd like to see some pictures of Sarah, you can find them on Instagram at Stacee, underscore, Santi, underscore, Longfellow and you guys all know my mom and dad were weird, so my first name is S-T-A-C-E-E. Come over there, check out the pictures. Please leave a comment. I know Sarah would love to hear from you and I'm so glad you're here. I hope that you'll come again next time.