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Just Cut It Out Podcast | 69 Brain Metastases from Breast Cancer & Living with Purpose · Just Cut It Out Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Kim Brown, and this is just kind of where we talk about how the experience of a cancer diagnosis has made people think differently about what it means to them to live in a good place.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode we cover a little bit of practical wisdom and a little bit of the big picture.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: What does this all mean through conversations with patients, their families, and the teams who take care of them?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Kimberly Brown, and this is Just Cut It Out.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Today my guest is Susan Dawson, and we are going to talk about living with metastatic breast cancer.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would love to hear your introduction of who you are, since there are so many things about you, but what's most important to you for our audience to know?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, at the moment I'll tell you what I'm dealing with, and then we can kind of go to a little bit of background.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's in your head right now?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: What's in my head right now?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so over the last 10 years, I've had 69, if I count them right, brain metastases.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: That includes treatment with radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, five craniotomies.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And currently, of those 69, one of them is at three centimeters, about 12 of them are still active.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I got a lot going on in my head.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And yet here you sit before me talking, making lots of sense.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: You drove yourself here.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're living a meaningful life.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I think we have a lot to learn from you.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know if that's true.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: I can provide a little bit of my experiences, and maybe that'll be helpful.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh let me give you a little bit of background to start, is just so that people know I'm an engineer by training, so I'm a geek, and I will probably draw up lots of numbers, uh, but that's who I am.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also a mom of two wonderful children and a wife.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I've turned from tech leadership and tech entrepreneurship into social entrepreneurship for the last 20 years.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've run an organization that is driving systems change in education here in Central Texas and across the state of Texas.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Which is so desperately needed.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Did you bring any actual spreadsheets with you today?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've got a few in my bag in case we have to pull any out.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: See if we get to that.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: You are an engineer, absolutely.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's kind of step back and give an overview of what your cancer diagnosis looked like from the beginning and kind of where you've been with it on do you call it your journey?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: A journey is probably a good an ordeal.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: A journey.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: A journey is a good is a good term.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I was first diagnosed right after spring break of 20 six, 2026.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hold on, 2016.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: 2016 with stage three breast cancer.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went through the normal because it was stage three systemic interventions, chemotherapy, lots of throwing up, lots of nausea, lots of not being able to eat the things that I like to eat, uh, that kind of thing.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then went through radiation after that, then surgery after that, then uh reconstruction a year later.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when they were uh doing the mammogram in preparation for the reconstruction, they found more cancer, so went through more surgeries and then reconstructed the reconstruction.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've been through a lot of surgeries and a lot of interventions.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then they thought um everything would be pretty much done because my uh cancer was a very aggressive cancer rather than the normal five-year, you know, prediction of we'll see whether remission can happen within five years.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we probably expect two years.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so things were going fine.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then meaning at two years, if it hadn't come back, then you'd be really happy.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: High five.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be pretty clear.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty clear.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 2019, three years later, we were on another spring trip, spring break trip, also to New Orleans, and had uh some uh discomfort, uh hitches, nothing that would make me fall down, but something that would certainly cause me to curse and stop and take a breath.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And this was in your abdomen, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, in my abdomen.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so called my doctor.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she was out of town, but luckily she was also on my speed dial and called her, and she sent me in immediately for a new sonogram and CT scan.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, there were lesions in my liver, quote, too many to count, which is not what you want to hear.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my abdomen also, but went through another round of intensive chemotherapy, and things seemed to be clearing pretty well.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought about it and realized that all I really cared about was cognitive impact and my ability to think critically and solve problems.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so, even though it was not the standard of care, I requested a uh brain MRI, and we did a brain MRI, and sure enough, after a couple of mistakes, found 19 brain lesions, and so was on a separate journey then of metastatic brain cancer.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Since 2019.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Since 2019, so it's been a while.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: So when the scan was done that showed the two numeristic count lesions in your liver, at that point you were told this has come back, it's not curable.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: There are treatments that can hopefully give you many more years of life with variable degrees of side effects, but ultimately you kind of knew at that point that unless something happened, you got hit by a bus or uh some other um cancer that was gonna take me.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: This was gonna take you.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So at that point, there's a a mindset shift, I imagine, where most of us kind of walk around not really thinking at the foremost of our mind, like, wow, I'm not gonna live forever.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna die at some point.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all know it in theory, but we're not aware of it.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So now you have this awareness every day.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how does that integrate into the other things that you spend your time on or how you make decisions about what you do with your life on a day-to-day basis?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, I think not much.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think um I was committed to doing what I was doing, to making systemic change in education, to addressing the needs of the underserved in our communities.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to continue doing that.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I talked to one of my nurses and she concurred.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: She said that she had seen patients who focused internally only on their cancer and their cancer journey, and they ended up having a much harder time than people who focused on the things that were meaningful to them and the things that they wanted to do, and the things that they thought could make progress in their own lives and their families' lives in the world, and that by doing so I would be on a better path.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are definitely studies that support that in terms of the mindsets and the seeking out meaningful things to do, to create, to contribute, building community.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, patients who are engaged in those activities actually do better.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of people are fighting against cancer, but what it I've seen in you and others is you've got many things you're fighting for, many things that you're doing to make the space that you occupy, your family, your community better.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And they're not just distractions.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: They are something that I'm committed to doing, that I feel like not only provide meaning to myself, but to others.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And by having that commitment continue, it helps me also in my journey because I'm not just focused on the cancer.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I wonder, is that do you think how you're wired, or is there something that a person who maybe isn't sitting in that mindset right now could learn about the choices you make that help you sort of keep that mindset?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe both.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe both.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, and I think about what decisions that I have to make.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think one was how do I continue focusing on meaning?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to continue to have impact on making positive change in the world?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing is is truly embracing hope.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it used to be that many people considered cancer a death sentence.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not anymore.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: It is a chronic illness in myself.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: It will eventually lead to death, but not anytime soon.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Ten years proves that it's not anytime soon.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there are more and more treatments coming out every day.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: My I had an acupuncturist who used to say, you know, the longer you live, the longer you'll live.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, come up with new research and new treatments all the time, and just wait for the next one, and hopefully I'll qualify and it may help.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so far it has.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And just not concentrate solely on the cancer.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of other things to be done in this world.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you do many of them.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: But what are some of the like the practical things you found to help manage your symptoms and live the best quality of life throughout all these different treatments?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I think that leads to some of the advice that I would have for people who are diagnosed is not just to maintain hope and a positive attitude, but to look for different solutions and see what might be best for you.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did go through acupuncture.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that helped.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: It certainly was relaxation, relaxing.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: What symptoms did that help you with?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that I could say particularly.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: I just gave you a little massage.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they stick needles in you, and you end up feeling and coming out feeling a little better.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I think that helped.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I but uh more importantly, I think it it points to making sure to get as much input as you can.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that includes getting not just a second opinion or a third opinion, but looking for multiple opinions and what are people saying?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be embarrassed or feel like you're insulting someone to say, who else can we talk to?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: How can we get a you know, third opinion on this?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: How can we get a different perspective?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: How can we figure out what people are thinking?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you get the same advice from the next person, great.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you get something different, then you've got choices to be made.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's always worth looking at what are the potential ways that we can deal with this.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really important point.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I've noticed that some patients will feel uncomfortable bringing up the topic of a second opinion.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: They'll sort of confess it like they're in church.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, go get a second opinion.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can I give you some recommendations?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because I want patients to feel empowered.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if they're going to choose me, I want it to not be because they were afraid to ask, but because they looked around and they think that what I have, you know, fits best with their goals.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if somebody does come in with different information, that's wonderful for me to hear a different perspective and and learn from that experience.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So yes.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there's there's new research going on all the time, there's new things emerging.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and to have all that information in your hands is always a good thing.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's also a lot of crack bullshit out there.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So be careful about what it is that you believe.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that's a good point, and the subject of probably an entirely different episode.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So uh you you said you had a couple things.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: The getting other opinions.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Was there something else that you wanted to add that you I think just focus on continuing what is meaningful to you?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that could be your family, that could be your job, that could be your work in the community, it could be volunteering, it could be ways to think about how it is.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one of my mentors, the the fabulous uh late Barbara Jordan, used to say, um, who is it that's going to champion the common good?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Think about what we can do for the common good of the world.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Again, not just focusing on yourself, but what is it that you can do to have greater impact for those around you?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that can seem overwhelming.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can't change the world.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can't have an impact on all the things I see on the news.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if every one of us tried looked at the space that we occupy, like I said, our family, our neighborhood, our school, our community, and made a difference there, that multiplication, it would be incredible.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in terms of living with metastatic disease, one of the other things you and I have talked about in some detail that I think is super important is you know that you're going to die.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're all going to die.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty certainly.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: You you knew yes, we are all going to die, but you are in a situation where you might have health issues related to your condition that make you unable to voice your preferences for what type of care you would or would not receive.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Particularly with brain metastases.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard you talk about you know concerns or seizures, and and you've had at least one.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And one major one.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I as a as a surgical oncologist, it it is disturbing how few of these conversations happen.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And someone will come into the hospital and they'll have a condition where they they're unconscious for whatever reason, they can't, or they're confused, can't make their decisions, and the family is is struggling or or they have conflict over how to manage that situation.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: St.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: David's Foundation here in Austin has dumb done some research about people who receive a life-changing diagnosis, and 75% of them say that they would like to discuss that with their family, with their providers and dig into that.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, yet only 17% of providers bring up that conversation.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a really important one.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody should have a direct set of directions written down, not just put in the desk drawer, but actually laminated and given to friends and family and providers that say, what is it that you want?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a DNR?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want a DNR?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do not resuscitate.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um which means that if your heart were to stop, we would not do compressions, shock you, put a breathing tube in, give you medications to restart.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's what I want.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: But other people may want something different.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: It it doesn't matter what it is that are your preferences, it matters that you document them, write them down, and provide them to others so that it's very clear to um your providers and to your family what it is that you want, and there's no confusion and there's no horrible decisions about what is it that he or she wanted.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's the worst to find out because someone came in through the emergency department, there was no documentation or knowledge of their advanced directives, and to find out that we've instigated uh or initiated treatments that is not what they would want.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um so, yes.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did you approach that with your family?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: I did a lot of research first place, um and figured out figured out what it was that I wanted, made a very detailed spreadsheet, then and I was lucky because I've been through so many different treatments and in fact two different clinical trials, and as I said, multiple craniotomies that were able to provide me information about okay, when and what point would I like to be able to be forced to make which decisions?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, at what steps and what indicators in terms of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, ability to work with technology, interactions, and ability to communicate clearly with others.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: What are all these factors?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then at what point would I want to make the decisions about how to proceed?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I documented all those, again, in very detailed spreadsheets, which is a little geeky for most people, but helps provide my family and my doctors information about what it is that I really want to happen.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have a fundamental belief that I do not believe in the sanctity of life.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in the sanctity of productive consciousness.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want to be here unless I can understand that I am conscious, I am able to make decisions for myself, and I am able to be productive in those decisions with my family, with my community, with my commitments to others.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if I can't do that, then I don't want to be here.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you've gone beyond the if something were to happen to me where I needed emergency care, I do not want that rendered, which is most of what I see with advanced directives.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then you also have other, if I decline beyond a certain point, then at that point I I don't I don't want further life-sustaining care.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because I have brain cancer, um, it will be implicated in cognitive impacts impacts.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: It will not most likely not be pain from bone cancer or inability to breathe because of lung cancer or other things.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: It will be all cognitive.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so um if I or others are able to recognize that cognitive decline, then that should be the indicator.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And how did your family receive this?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Were they grateful for the clarity?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Were they upset at having to face a reality that maybe they weren't ready to face?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: They know I'm a geek.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I think they liked the clarity.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think they they received it well, they were able able to have then um directions and understanding about what it is that that I would um anticipate and want.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, we referenced earlier um that time in 2023 when I did have a major, major uh seizure and just collapsed.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: My husband knew my uh preferences and my advanced directives, and did not call the hospital and did not call the ambulance and knew that um what I wanted was for, you know, life to proceed if I lived and not if I didn't live.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he honored that.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, that was that was hard.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Most families that I see really struggle with not doing everything for their family member, even when we're in situations of what's clearly to the doctors taking care of them, futile care.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so But it's also the a reason to be very clear about what it is that your preferences are.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I a hundred percent agree.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's typically a nuance between if you have a condition that the doctors think is reversible, you would allow these things to be done.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if the situation arises where this is the beginning of the end, there's not a way to keep the cancer from causing these end-of-life conditions.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's where the the wishes are no further support.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and even in that, there are still um micro decisions that need to be made.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: If I break a leg, yeah, put me in a cast.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm okay with that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if I start to decline, uh do not intubate me, do not put me on uh food support, do not put me on other things that may eventually or may not turn things around because that's not what I want.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And one last point on that.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: There is a concern, I believe, that people think a do not resuscitate or DNR means do not treat.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I see that as a major barrier for people um signing and declaring that they do not wish to have depressions and shock to the start of their heart because they're afraid that other treatments won't be given.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's um that's uh not how the medical system works.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um anything else you want to say about the end-of-life decision making or talking to your family about that?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Just that it's something.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: That I think almost all of us agree is an important conversation, and almost no one has.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so to be purposeful about not just thinking about it, but but documenting it and discussing it with others and making sure that everybody's on the same page is really important.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in the spirit of just cut it out, uh, at any point in this journey, what have you what's something that you've gotten rid of in your life, jettisoned, because you had the lens of cancer focused on that was something that was not important.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, what have I cut out?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: I did actually semi-retire at the beginning of last year, and so I'm not working uh 60 to 70 hours a week.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm working more like 20 to 40 hours a week, uh, which is better for me, but I'm also dealing a lot with uh family health issues and community issues and things, and I'm not stopping just because of that.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but that also gives me the opportunity to read more for decades and decades.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: I read nothing but uh materials that were related to my work and to my vocation, and now I'm able to actually read some fun fiction and things like that.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I've added um, which I've been able to do because I've cut out a little bit of the work and I'm I'm trying to vacation a little bit more.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you have amazing trouble.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I love hearing about all the places you've gone.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: All right, what's the uh best book you've read recently?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in the middle of a gentleman from Moscow, which is really, really good.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: I would recommend it to anyone.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: If any of our listeners uh would like to learn more about your work in education equity through E3 Alliance or your work in healthcare equity through the addressing cancer together, how can they find you?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where would you like them to go look?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, certainly I'm still very much involved in E3Aliance, which stands for education equals economics.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I suggest that anyone who is interested in not just changing the lives of one student or 10 or 100 or 1,000, but for tens and hundreds of thousands of people, go to the website e3Aliance.org and take a look at what we're doing.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to be involved in that, and then be involved locally in your community because a lot of stuff happens nationally, but a lot of stuff happens locally, and there are good organizations focused on cancer and other diseases throughout the country that you can be involved in in your own community.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we can find you on LinkedIn and Facebook, I understand.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm rarely out there, but I will be out there occasionally.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: And let me ask you a question.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: So your theme is just cut it out.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: You are a renowned cancer surgeon.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: How did you decide to go into that in the first place?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: How did I become a surgeon?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, or a cancer surgeon in particular.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: When I went to medical school, the last thing I thought I would ever be is a surgeon, and I did my surgery rotation at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my first day on call, we had a patient with an appendicitis, and we took the patient to the operating room.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the experience of working with my hands, of seeing the actual anatomy and the just diseased appendix that had been causing his symptoms, taking it out and then seeing the patient get better was absolutely compelling to me.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: I could not think of anything else that I wanted to do.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And surgeons, we are happiest in the operating room.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as I went through that rotation and then subsequently, I'd realized I just wasn't happy if I wasn't in the operating room for at least part of my day.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I chose surgical oncology in residency.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: We went through different rotations as a general surgery resident.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: You do vascular surgery, you do colorectal surgery, you do trauma surgery.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what I loved about surgical oncology was that the people, the patients were super nice.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: They were people just like you and me who, and more you than me right now, but they were people living their lives who had something terrible happen.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I'm had a natural ability to walk with people, to not distance myself from the pain of what they're going through, um, to have difficult conversations, which is a lot of what surgical oncology can be.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was very rewarding to be able to play a role with the team of the medical oncologists and the radiation oncologists and all the other professionals who take care of cancer patients as a team.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I really, really love the team-based part of it.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it was great to have a relationship with a patient that was based on helping get them back to what they wanted to do with their lives.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for joining us for just cut it out.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Dr.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Kim Brown.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you've taken away a nugget or two of useful information and that something in our discussion today sparked curiosity and you think about how to get more of what matters most to you out of your life today and every day.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.