Episode 285 - Gabby’s Journey: Cancer, Hope, and Resilience

In this deeply personal episode, Gabby shares her extraordinary journey of being diagnosed with stage IV metastatic colorectal cancer with liver involvement during the final stages of her pregnancy. She discusses the emotions and decisions surrounding her diagnosis, what she looked for when choosing her oncology team, how openly she communicated with her husband and young children, and the realities of navigating cancer treatment while welcoming a new baby. Gabby also reflects on documenting her experience in real time on social media, exploring both the support and challenges that come with sharing such an intimate journey publicly, while offering insight into the many clinical and personal decisions she has faced along the way.

Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. https://www.chadinabhan.com/

Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to Healthcare Filter. I am your host, Shadi Nabhan. I'm a hematologist and a medical oncologist with interest in all aspects of healthcare delivery, treatment, leadership, mentorship, and policy. Today's podcast is very special because I'm hosting a patient, and every time I have a patient on the show, it is always a true privilege and an honor. Patients are the reasons we do what we do. I have actually come to meet this patient on social media as she was really posting on her journey with cancer. Gabby is a patient that was diagnosed with stage four metastatic colorectal cancer that has gone to the liver and has gone, has undergone various therapies. And it is important to learn from the journey of um that Gabby has gone through. I really come came across her posts and was genuinely inspired. There were times I was I teared a little bit because I was uh um you know it gets very emotional when you see patients going in um real time uh through the treatment of cancer. But Gabby inspires and she inspires all of us, and you could really follow her on um Instagram, uh Mrs. Gabby Gabrielle. I've invited Gabby on the show to share with you all her journey of diagnosis, treatment, and what she has gone through as she navigated the world of colorectal cancer. But I also wanted to know from her her thoughts about science, education, and social media, the good and the bad of blogging and posting everything pertains to your disease and your treatment on social media. Um and Gabby shares it all with all of you on healthcare unfiltered. So, Gabby, we are cheering for you, and we are all behind you, we are all inspired by you, and we all believe in you, and thank you for everything that you are doing. Thank you for spreading the word, thank you for teaching, thank you for education, and thank you for letting everybody learn about the challenges of going through the treatment of cancer, but also the perseverance and the resilience, and how that there is an actual person behind the cancer, and that individual is you who is really doing everything that you can to help people who are dealing with cancer just like you are. Folks, before I air the episode I taped with Gabby towards the end of May 2026 and before the annual meeting of ASCO, I ask you to subscribe to the show, rate it, and join the conversation. Comment and let others know about this podcast episode and other podcast episodes. I appreciate everything that you are doing. You can follow me on X at Shadi Nabhan on Instagram, Shadi underscore healthcare unfiltered. You can watch all of the podcast episodes on YouTube. Please subscribe to my channel and visit my website, shadiNabhan.com. Also check out my books, Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials and the Search for Justice, and the Cancer Journey, Understanding, Diagnosis, Treatment, Recovery, and Prevention. Without further ado, Gabby on Healthcare Unfiltered Well, folks, I'm super excited today. I really, really, really am. Not only because we have a first timer on Healthcare Unfiltered Podcast, but because my guest is someone I actually haven't ever met in person, but I came across um her inspiring journey uh on social media, on Instagram, and I kept just following her progress as she was navigating healthcare and managing cancer, and I was genuinely inspired. And um, she always, despite what you're going through, Gabby, you always manage to put a smile on my face. And um, and I thought, you know what? I think we should really bring Gabby on my podcast because I am 100% positive that many folks who are listening and watching this will be inspired as I was. So, Gabby, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Thank you so much for having me on today.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

And um, it doesn't go unnoticed that you have way more important things to deal with in life. Um, so giving us some time um is really, really very helpful. And I I promise you this is going to help a lot of patients and families who are watching and listening to this. But but first, tell us a bit about you. Um, who is Gabby, I guess, before you were diagnosed with cancer, and then and then how did this all start?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

So I am a I'm currently 38. Uh, when I was diagnosed, I was 36. I'm a mom of three little kiddos, two girls and a boy. And um, my life before cancer was filled with school drop-offs, making lunches, you know, chasing the kiddos around, and I never expected to face cancer in my 30s.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

But then something happened.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yes. So um I was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in December 2024 at the time. Uh my oldest was five years old. I had a four-year-old, and then my newborn just turned five months old the day before a colonoscopy that changed my life.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

So you had symptoms that made you have a colonoscopy?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

I mean, yeah. So while I was about while I was pregnant with my third pregnancy, I was about six months pregnant. I started to notice blood in my stool. I brought it up to my OB, and she said that it was likely pregnancy-related hemorrhoids. So I didn't think much of it. Um, I trusted that answer. I wanted to believe that it was hemorrhoids, and I kind of just went on through my pregnancy hoping for the best, and uh the symptoms got worse. And it was the day before my due date that I actually um went and I passed gas and it was straight blood. And in that moment, I knew that it was something a lot more serious than hemorrhoids. Um, my husband and I went to OV triage and they said that it wasn't baby related, but suggested I get um induced the next day. So the next day my son was born happy and healthy, and I thought I was healthy too. Um they had suggested the day before when I went into OV Triage, they had suggested sending somebody up to kind of look further into why I was there after my son was born. But um, we asked about it and they said, Oh, it's okay, we'll just give you a referral. So once again, I was kind of reassured and I was surrounded by medical professionals that um I thought that if they were concerned, they would have addressed something and they didn't. So I didn't, I didn't really see a need to keep pushing at that point. But I did I did think that something else was going on and I didn't think that they were taking it seriously. So I reached out to my primary who got me a referral with a GI um pretty much the same day that I reached out to them. But when I went to book the appointment, they were booked out three months, three months out. So my son was born in June, and um I didn't see any urgency. So I had my appointment with the GI in October, and during that appointment, he did a stool test. I'm not, I I know there's a technical word for it, um, but they put the stool on a card and he put these drops on the card and he held the card to himself, and he said, um, if the stool turns blue, it means that we there's blood in it. So that day too, I I checked my stool as I had been, and I didn't notice anything in there, and I was like, oh no, I'm gonna have this appointment with the GI, he's not gonna see anything. And when he flipped the card over, it was fully blue, and I was like, oh no, like this is this is this is gonna be something bad. Um he said it might be hemorrhoids, but he was like, I need to know for sure. So I'm gonna give you a prescription for a steroid, and we are gonna book a colonoscopy for you. So he booked that colonoscopy appointment for me, and um, that was going to be a month later, which was in November, two days before Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

So, in the beginning, when you were having these symptoms, you mentioned that some of the physicians at least um just did not take it too seriously. Why do you think that was?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

I think that I always have a fun, happy, um, bubbly personality. I'm young, I'm not one to really complain much. Um, and I was pregnant, so a lot of my symptoms were so justified. Like I was tired, um, it was my third pregnancy, I was a little bit older than I was with the first two pregnancies. So their response of it just being hemorrhoids, like it seemed it seemed to be the right answer.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Did you um as you called in June and it took four months to see a gastroenterologist as a patient? Uh I mean it goes without saying four months is too long to wait, but do you did you like were you nervous? Were you anxious during that time? Did you try to call and say, hey, can I be seen sooner? I mean, I don't want to be four months. Like, how did what happened?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I was so busy being a new mom, or not a new mom, but a third-time mom, you know, waking up multiple times in the middle of the night, um, not taking, you know, my nutrition seriously and kind of eating as on the go when I could, uh, not resting throughout the day, just nonstop go, go, go. There wasn't really much time for me to actually sit down and and and think about the symptoms and how much worse they were actually getting, because they were definitely getting worse like every every day. It would be like, okay, what am I gonna see today?

SPEAKER_02 11:56

So then you had the colonoscopy um in November, two days before Thanksgiving. Is that when they found out about the cancer? Or uh they said we are not sure waiting for biopsies. What happened when they came out from the colonoscopy?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So the day before the colonoscopy when I was doing the prep, I was having a really hard time um keeping the prep down. I drank, I finished the gallon of drink that they gave me and uh threw up half of it. And then by the time my stool was clear, I could see noticeable blood in my stool and like quarter size cloths. Um and when I went in for my colonoscopy and they came in to ask if I had finished the prep, I explained what I had been through the day before. And he was like, That's why you're here. We're gonna we're gonna figure out what's going on. Um and so when I woke up from the colonoscopy, my husband was standing next to me, and the doctor was standing next to me, and he had the printout of what they had found. And um he showed me all of the different pictures, and I thought that the pictures were comparing, you know, this is a good colon and this is a not good colon. And when he said that these were all pictures of my colon, I immediately um my heart sunk. Like there he there was a clear mass in my colon. Um, they had found it immediately, and they had also um assured me that uh the next morning they already had a appointment scheduled for me with to meet with the surgeon. Um the GI doctor couldn't confirm that it was cancer because he took a sample of it. But when I met with the surgeon the next morning, she said that she has seen this before and that she was 99.9% sure that it was colon cancer. Um so after I met with her the next morning, she scheduled me to go get a CT scan, and that's when it confirmed the mass in my colon, but it also showed lesions in my liver.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

And this was um all happening around the holidays, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Yes, yeah. So um my colonoscopy was on a Tuesday, um, Thanksgiving was on Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

So when the CAT scan showed these things in the liver, um did then you have a PET scan after that?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

I didn't have a PET scan just yet. Um a week after I had that colonoscopy, I had colon resection surgery. And while I was recovering from colon resection surgery, they biopsied the lesions in my liver, and that's kind of when all of the pathology came back and they diagnosed me with stage four colon cancer.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

So, does cancer run in your family, Gabby?

SPEAKER_00 15:26

So this is kind of a an interesting question, um, because I'm not a genetic carrier, um, but my grandma was actually diagnosed with colon cancer at 84 years old. They said that it's not connected, and I even told my OV that my grandma had colon cancer when I was noticing the blood in my stool, and that was not a concern to her either.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

So in October, you had no cancer, and fast forward a few weeks after that, you have stage four colon cancer with a disease that has gone to the liver. I am not going to ask you how you felt because I know how you felt. It's impossible not to feel terrible. But tell me about the first oncology visit that you had, and how difficult was it for you to decide on the oncologist? I ask because obviously your primary care or your surgeon will say this is the medical oncologist you need to see. But I know from experience, sometimes your family, your friends, your neighbors, whoever it is like, well, you go see this person, you go see that person, and so on. This is pretty serious now. How do you how do you get to the point of saying, This is the person I'm going to trust with my oncology care? Do you do research? Do you do search? Like, what do you do to decide that okay, I'm gonna go with that person, I'm gonna trust what that individual is gonna tell me?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

I was initially assigned to an oncologist that was in my network, and my husband did a little bit of research, and that's kind of what brought us over to City of Hope. Um, we met with Dr. Cassie for the first time, and I immediately knew that that was who I wanted to be, my oncologist, and he gave us hope from the beginning, made us feel so comfortable, and it I'm so thankful that we chose to um start my chemotherapy treatments with City of Hope and with Dr. Oncology or with Dr. Cassie because he is absolutely brilliant and so kind and has been our biggest supporter from day one.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

No, I know Pashtun very well. Actually, he's been on my podcast as well. Yeah. So are you in California? Do you live in California?

SPEAKER_00 18:10

I am in California and I'm fairly close to the City of Hope Orange County Lenar Center. So it made it that much more um of an easy choice for us to transfer my care over there.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

So when you met with Dr. Casido, you said he was very, he's he's obviously on your side, he was very hopeful and so on. Do you recall the first conversation? Did you did he discuss what the prognosis was? Did he go over the kind of therapies? Like what was the conversation like? What made you leave that visit knowing that this is the person I'm gonna stay with?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

We we never discussed the prognosis. I feel like that is almost a better way to go about cancer and cancer treatment. I think that there is always hope. Um, and I didn't want to know what a prognosis was, uh, but he gave us hope from the beginning. He came into that initial appointment with a plan. Um, he said this these are the different types of chemo that we're gonna use. We're gonna do surgery and you're gonna do kind of like a mop-up chemo, we're gonna do a hepatic artery infusion pump, and um it the conversation was very positive.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

So, Gabby, um, how do you decide whether you should tell your kids about the diagnosis and that you're gonna get treatment? I'm pretty sure you and your husband had this conversation, whether we do, we don't, um, because you they were young, right? I mean, they're like five, six years old.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Yeah, so uh right now my oldest is seven, um, and our middle daughter is five. When I was diagnosed, we knew that we wanted to tell them something, but we didn't want them to worry about me or um, you know, for for any additional stress on them. We wanted them to be kids and to just have fun and play. And um so we told them minimal information. Um but what got them kind of worried was that every other day or every few days I was going to a doctor's appointment. So we kind of had to shift instead of saying that I was going to a doctor appointment to um me having to go to a meeting or me having um just to get therapy or a massage or something that wasn't doctor's appointments over and over and over and over because they know that when they go to a doctor's appointments, it's because they have a cold or they need medicine, and um I really didn't want them to stress out about what I was dealing with.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Is there a specific age you think as a mom where you believe that just being very upfront with the children is advisable, or is it more like you know, playing it by ear type of thing, depending on each family's dynamics?

SPEAKER_00 21:38

I think it's playing it by ear uh based on each family's dynamics. I think it's hard for me to say what that age is because I don't, you know, my oldest is seven. If I had an 18 year old, maybe I would say, okay, I would tell them when they're 14 or when they're 10. But um I also think that the worst. Chancer is just very there's a lot of negative associations with it that I don't want them to um tie to me.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

There was a point where you made a decision that you are gonna share your journey with the entire world. That's how we met, at least online. Um, what made you decide that you know what? I'm gonna tell everybody about what happened with me and what's going on. Um, what was that event that made you decide?

SPEAKER_00 22:38

So before I was diagnosed, I was pretty active on social media. So the decision to share my story came pretty easily. When I was diagnosed, I didn't know what to expect. I'd never seen someone my age go through what I was about to go through. And I felt like it was important for me to share my story with somebody else so that it could bring them hope, so that they would know what they were going to be going through, uh, so that it can inspire people and so that I could connect with others that were facing a similar battle. And um one of the biggest reasons is to spread awareness about it. I mean, I I never expected to face cancer in my 30s, and I think that it needs to be taken more seriously, and you know, age, the age of patients needs to be taken more seriously, and the symptoms.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

What what elements of your story, how do you make a decision into what what things to share, what things not to share? I mean, I've seen a lot of clips, and I um I'm curious, is it that you say, okay, I think I need to talk about this? Um, is there are there specific things that you feel they're more important than others?

SPEAKER_00 23:57

There are some things that I get more questions on than others, and those things I try to really share a lot about. I personally don't like sharing um you know days where I'm upset and crying. I feel like I've had those days, but and it's important for people to know that I've had those days. But I think that people can tell that I've had those days without me needing to be crying on camera. Um, I I try to keep it really positive, and thankfully, my journey has been incredibly positive. There's been a ton of ups and downs, but uh you know, one negative thing has kind of been the stepping stool to the positive thing. So I I try to share those both at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

And um and the the goal of this is educational, mainly. You want to you want to raise more awareness. Have you had people that connected with you through social media, like more of a community feel, of whether it is questions about scientific questions or social questions? Have you had that?

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Yeah, I've had a lot of questions about you know, or so connecting with people. Uh there have been a lot of people that have reached out saying that they have been inspired by my story, and because I shared my story, they have gone to get more treatment when they originally were like, We are done, we don't want to do this anymore. Or they were um recommended to get the HAI pump but didn't know much about it, and then after seeing my story, they said, you know, I I need to get that pump too. Um as far as the community, I've met a lot of young women, young adults that are going through the process, and to be able to say, Hey, how was your scan? Or what did you do for this, or how did that make you feel has been helpful, I think, for for me and for them, just to be able to relate to somebody that's going to going through something similar.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

There's a couple of things that uh I recall from following you on social media that that uh uh about three things like really intrigue me. One I recall, and maybe I'm not uh remembering the exact detail, but um you were probably going to New York for a clinical trial. Maybe that is the hepatic arterial infusion. I don't remember exactly, but I remember you were going and you posted something about you're getting a scan to see if you qualify for the trial and so on. Take me through this because I could tell that you wanted people obviously to understand the importance of clinical trials, uh, because there's some so many miss a lot. But tell my tell me about the clinical trial part.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

So this was when I had my um my CT DNA started showing detection, and um I had just or I had gotten my second liver surgery, and my CT DNA still was showing an increasing detection. Um, so I tried to get into a clinical trial in New York, and in order to qualify for the trial, you had to show CT DNA, but nothing on your MRIs or CT scans. So they had me do an MRI and a CT scan, and their MRI showed that there was uh a tumor on my liver, so I didn't qualify for it. And the window, well, to find a trial that you match with is sometimes challenging. And then once you actually match with it, to actually get in is also another kind of at least for me, it was a challenge.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

So but but but you did not know that you had something on the liver and you just found out about it because you were they were looking if you qualify for the trial?

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah, so I had so back in December I started having CT DNA. Um, I went out to and and I want to say in November I had had a MRI and a CT scan, and both of those said not detection, nothing detected in there. So I went out to New York the first time, and that's when they had me do their version of the CT DNA test, the Cignetera. And while I was waiting for that initial Signatura result to come back, we did a PET scan back in Orange County because my Tempest CT DNA had like tripled. Um, so during that PET scan, they saw activity in the liver. And then a couple weeks later, I had surgery in that spot to remove what they had, what they had seen. So um, when I went back out to New York, it was because I had just had surgery to remove that activity. And it wasn't until their MRI that it said there's actually something gave them, it gave them a better idea, I guess, where that activity was.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

So then you did not qualify for the trial.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

How how bad did you feel?

SPEAKER_00 30:04

I felt pretty bad. I felt pretty bad, but at the same time, I knew that I would prefer something to show on an MRI for that to be the reason why my ct DNA was rising. Because having a rising CT DNA and not knowing where it was coming from, yes, that would qualify me for the trial, but to know where it was coming from meant that we could treat it and we could um do whatever to remove that.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

So they went back and did another surgery to remove that thing in the liver?

SPEAKER_00 30:46

So I uh initially tried to ablate it, but the spot was too close to my stomach. And we had known that going in, but um we wanted to give it a try to try to separate the stomach from the liver. Um, but when they got in there, they decided that it was unsafe to be able to do the ablation. So um a week after that, we did another surgery, and that's when they could see the lesion on my liver. Because at this point, from November to March, that lesion had grown so much that it, you know, they could they could directly find where it was and completely remove it. And since then, my ct DNA has been coming back zero.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

And and the scans are also negative.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

And I just had a scan last Wednesday. Um, and my interpretation of them, I'm still waiting to review with Dr. Cassie, but my interpretation of them is that there's no cancer.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

And the part of the education that you provide people, I have seen, is your your belief in the CT DNA and the sequencing and so on. Have you done a lot of research on that? Just as like a patient, do you feel that this is intuitive? It seems, you know, I mean, how easy for patients and families to understand that concept?

SPEAKER_00 32:17

I think that ct DNA tests are so important for people going through cancer, for people that have finished their cancer treatments. Um, I think it's so important for people to take these tests. They really do, you know, put up a red flag for something's going on, something's going on, something is going on, well before it's picked up by scans. Like it had been months before it actually showed up on that MRI. Um, and it alerted everybody so soon that we were able to kind of cut it out as soon as we we could.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

There was, I mean, uh, there was times where um you showed people the scars of the liver surgery.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

And I actually admired that post. From my standpoint, I felt that um it it means it made me think a lot of thoughts, actually. I can tell you, as you know, I thought about resilience, I thought about perseverance. I also thought about the fact that you know what you are embracing what you went through. This is really a sign of just what you went through. It just you you're the strong person that you are. Was that the intent? I'm just trying, like, I always try to think what is the persona behind the post, what what is the goal? How much thought do you put into it, or is it just completely spontaneous? Like, do you think, okay, you know what? This deserves a post. I'm gonna actually put some thought into put a post, or is it just I feel like posting today, which is I'm like the second one. Like, I don't have but I I always wonder about that. Think about it.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

There's a there's a combination between uh the post. Some days I'm like, oh, I gotta share that. Some days I think about posts for a while, and I say, okay, next time I go to City of Hope, I want to capture this, this, and this, and um make a post about it. Sometimes I work on posts for weeks, editing them, revising them, putting text on them, changing the songs. Um, sometimes I work on posts for 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

So uh I'd say as far as the posts about the scars, it's important for me to show that you know just because something looks one way, you know, there's there's I don't know, I don't know how to how to how to say it, but just I I guess that it's more like uh there's an actual person that remains beyond the scars.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Don't exactly don't judge a book by its cover kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

The scars don't define you. I mean, that's really that's how I really felt.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Yeah, that well, the scars don't define me, and like the scars show what I've been through, and um the journey is not easy, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

No. How do you get through the bad days?

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Uh with a lot of help from my husband and my family, and um I think that the kids push me to stay motivated, stay out of beds, you know, stay positive. Um I I try to focus on the things that I can control. I think that's huge. Uh you know, moving my body, getting outside, getting fresh air, exercising. Um, I know that I'm doing everything that I can do in my power. So I lean into my faith and I really I feel like if I'm doing everything that I can do, that's that's that's good enough, you know, and that really helps me to stay stay positive and um to deal with the the hard days a little better.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Are you on any treatment right now? Your complete treatment holiday right now?

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Treatment holiday, yeah. I haven't had chemotherapy or immunotherapy since September 2025. I do um high-dose vitamin C IVs. Uh, I try to do them every other week. And if there was an immunotherapy or something that I could do right now, I'd probably be doing it. But a lot of them do require you, at least from my understanding, to be showing active um disease. So, and I would I would prefer to cut something out than to keep having immunotherapy or uh chemotherapy.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Have you had any negative experiences on social media because of your posts or anything like that? Was there I always say there's the good and the bad. Has there been any bad?

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Surprisingly, everybody has been really supportive and encouraging, and I feel like I feel like we're all like very connected.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Yeah. And how do you how do you stay up to date with what's happening in the literature? Uh, or do you feel you need to?

SPEAKER_00 38:01

I don't feel that I need to. Uh my husband uh researches or does a ton of um research every day, all day, um, whenever he has free time. He he kind of keeps me up to date. And then Dr. Cassie is so great at answering every single question we've had about any new things that are on the topics. So yeah, thankfully that's one last thing for me to have to do.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Yeah, yeah. So um one of the things that I always feel um, you know, the caregivers in this situation, your husband, sometimes they they also need some attention because they go through a lot of the emotional aspect and so on.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Are there support groups? Like, do you uh I mean, do you feel that this is an opportunity for support groups, social support, psychosocial support?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

I attended a few support groups at City of Hope, but as far as my husband attending them, he has not, he has a really um strong relationship with his family that he's able to lean on and talk to, and some friends that he he can kind of uh lean on. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Gabby, you clearly have a very, very wonderful presence and your messages resonate with people. Um have you thought about what you could do that even at a grander level? Um or have you been approached by whatever, like non-for-profit organizations, colorectal cancer folks, or molecular testing, whether it is the ct DNA folks and so on, just to help spread awareness or the words? Or I mean, are there opportunities like that that come your way just because of how effective you are in communicating?

SPEAKER_00 40:07

I I think the last year and a half of this battle has been so overly consuming of all my energy, and my focus has been on kind of my family and just getting healthy and getting through this. So I'm kind of just now at the point where I can branch out to those types of opportunities. Um I love collaborating with City of Hope on on anything that uh they're doing or working on. Um, and then I think I I connected with a couple people over at um was it a few people have have connected with me, but I haven't been able to really um lean into that just yet. But I do hope to do more of that once um kind of the kiddos get back in school out of summer. And this summer is really my my focus this summer is on you know having the best summer with the kids because I feel like it's need to make up for lost time. And last summer I was laid out pretty much most of the time. So to be able to do fun things with them and um feel good and feel strong enough to be able to do things with them is really important.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Well, you make us all feel strong, and um you know, all of us in the oncology profession, when we see this, it's really keeps us going and wanting to do more. Maybe my last question for you, uh Gabby, is um if a patient and a caregiver are listening to this, what's your message to them? And if a physician is listening to this, what's your message to them? We'll start by a message to the physicians who are listening to this. And I know you're getting a bit emotional, and I am as well, but we're gonna try to power through this.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

All right, we'll start with the physicians. I would say, um, you know, keep being positive, keep encouraging your patients, uh keep working hard to find those cures and those treatments that are working, and get patients to see you faster.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Can you say that?

SPEAKER_00 42:37

No, you know, so when when the doctor takes a while to see me, I just try to remind myself that it's No no, I meant the appointment that you had to wait like four months or five months. Oh, the the GI appointment that you know that that that that needs to change, but I I'm talking about waiting for your oncology.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

No, no, that's yeah, that's totally fine, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Oh yeah, yeah, that I think I think like a two-week wait for a GI appointment would be um would be would be reasonable.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Right. Right. Your message to patients and caregivers who are listening to.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Oh, my message to patients would be to just remember there's always hope to uh focus on the things you can control. Um do things that make you happy, you know? Get outside, go exercise, go watch a fun movie, find a good show that that can take your mind off of things. I think that for me, Instagram and social media was uh it was my creative outlet. Like I could I could just dive into that, take my mind off of things for a few days. Um, so find a hobby, find something that brings you joy and just kind of put one foot in front of the other every day, get out of bed, and remember there's always hope. And for the caregivers, like you guys are incredible. Uh keep doing what you're doing, keep encouraging the patients, keep, you know, making them meals. One thing that was so nice, like that my husband did that took a lot of stress off of my plate was just to, you know, research things that I should be eating and to like make those meals for me. I had my sister-in-law, she would make me little lunches, so I didn't have to think about it that day. I just would go in the refrigerator, pull out my little pre-made healthy lunch, and um, you know, eat something, even if I didn't feel like eating. And a lot of the time going through treatment, I didn't feel like eating something or something didn't sound good, or it tasted a little bit different. But to know that it was gonna fuel my body with something healthy um made it that much easier to actually eat it.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Well, Gabby, I can't thank you enough. This is um I I can tell you that uh we learn from you, we we admire you, and we are rooting for you. And I hope to uh have you back in about a year where you can just continue to tell us what's happening, uh what's happening with you, and um, you know, we keep beating this cancer until it's yeah, ever there.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Yeah, and I think an important thing to remind people is just that the you know the finish line isn't always linear, you know, there there might be ups and downs, but um healing is possible.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

The finish line is not always linear. This is what we're gonna take uh home of today's podcast. Um, Gabby on Healthcare on Filter, thank you so much for coming on.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

You're so welcome. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Thank you everyone for listening. I appreciate you tuning in for today's podcast. Thank you, Gabby, for sharing with us your vulnerability but also your inspiring journey. I promise you that many people who are listening and watching this are going to be inspired and they will probably reach out to you for more guidance. Thank you for everything that you are doing. And before I let you go, I'm gonna leave you with a saying by Socrates. He is the richest who is content with the least. For content is the wealth of nature. Until next time.