Latest / We Didn't Plan for This Podcast / 8. We Didn’t Plan For This: A Place to Scream - Jason’s Story of Male Breast Cancer

Transcript

8. We Didn’t Plan For This: A Place to Scream - Jason’s Story of Male Breast Cancer · We Didn't Plan for This Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Hi.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, is he a little dogs then?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, he is a cheese it.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, he is so cute.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: Wait, what's his name?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_05: Harry.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_05: Harry Potter.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, I will come over here for a cheese.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_05: You want to say hi?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: How old is he?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: That could be like my next dog because look, it's got all the markings of a burner, just a smaller size.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: All the same coloring.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_05: You can't see like the like he has so many different colors.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_05: Like this is like an orange on his skin.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's got like brown on his face, like a tone brown.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, You're gonna show my skunk stripe, aren't you?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my god, I love that.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_04: This is his itch catch.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: He's like, okay, you're embarrassing me.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: You're embarrassing me.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: Stop it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm done with it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: Can I have a cheese-it now?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Did I do enough for cheese it?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, that was adorable.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, that made my day.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to another episode of We Didn't Plan for This.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: This is Adrian.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Nora.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: And today we are joined by our dear friend Jason.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_05: Hello.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_05: I was gonna say good morning.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not in the morning time.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my gosh.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: You want me to do it over?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: We can do it over because I suck it the morning.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: This usually it's three openings before, but I get it right.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: But Nora, take it away.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, try to pull it out of the privilege.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Today we have the privilege of talking with our friend Jason.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Jason is a breast cancer survivor whose journey reminds us that breast cancer does not only affect women, it can affect men too.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Throughout my diagnosis this year and all the treatment and surgeries, Jason has been a con constant source of encouragement, wisdom, and kindness.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're grateful he's willing to share his story in hopes of bringing awareness, offering hope, and helping others know they're not alone.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Hey Jason, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with us again.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_05: No, it's really it's really my pleasure.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_05: Like I I was excited uh to listen to you guys' podcast, and then just to be a part of it is even more um more exciting for me.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm I'm really glad to be here.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: No, that makes me so happy.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I um can you just kind of walk us in?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we know who you are and we're friends now.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, but for our listeners, can you give us a little bit about yourself and then also kind of set the stage for where you were in your life when you were diagnosed?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_05: I think the the tagline is perfect.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_05: You you didn't plan for this, right?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_05: Like that was kind of my thinking.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, actually, almost three years ago to the day when I'm sitting in the doctor's office and they're telling me I have have breast cancer.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_05: Like not only did you not plan for this, but it's like way outside of the realm of planning for this because how does a guy get breast cancer?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I I just was completely blown away and beside myself um at a at a diagnosis like this.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um so it was one of those things where you just sit and say, and I think this is one thing I told Nora over and over again.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_05: I just kept telling you my head, like I have I have cancer.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_05: I have I have cancer.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: Like it was something that I for weeks um that I kept telling myself and I didn't know how to break that cycle inside my head because I think that that was um that was really pushing me down in my spirit.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_05: So um yeah, it was it was just it was a is a is definitely a crazy time.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_05: And to think that it's three as I'm looking at the date, because it was nine-one was when my double massectomy was three years ago.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, it's almost that three-year anniversary.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so it's it's crazy as I kind of think back, I'm like, man, where did that three years go?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_05: But it yeah, it's so so three years ago, where were you and Frank?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: What were you?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: What was what was typical life like?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so we actually um so I was diagnosed it was early uh late July, early August.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we had just gotten married um the the March before.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so uh we were just kind of in a in a happy place.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: You had been together for a little while before.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_05: It would have been seven years.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you waited for that yet.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, we were, I mean, we were just living our best life.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: We had um, we were still still had my son in in the house.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_05: He was in high school, and um yeah, it was everything was going good.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_05: We were we were doing work, doing life, and going on trips and doing all kinds of fun stuff.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: So did you know that men could get breast cancer before you were diagnosed?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean, I'd heard like some rumors, and I think I can't remember if it was, I think it was Beyoncé's dad or someone's dad, some famous star got it.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_05: And then also, um, it was on a TV show that we had watched.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_05: I can't oh, A Million Little Things, where one of the main actors who who also had breast cancer.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_05: So I I had a little bits and pieces, but to me, it was so far removed, yeah um, that I just didn't even it didn't even dawn on me because I'd never known anyone at all that as a guy that had breast cancer.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_05: So I just didn't really think that it would number one ever happen to me.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_05: Number two, that it would, if cancer did happen to me, it was gonna be in my boobs.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_05: Like I just never would have considered, I would think for sure, given my family history, it would have been colon cancer first.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it decided to go to my boobs.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, yeah, very unique.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you have um something that's a little different that's offered to you through your employment um as far as healthcare goes, that um a lot of us uh don't are aware of.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Can you explain that?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so that's kind of how I found out about uh the breast cancer is um I have uh at my company they offer a wellness check every year that you not only do you get the benefit of having wellness and a doctor tell you, you know, all the things that you're doing bad and all the things you're doing good with all your blood work.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um stop eating cheeseburgers.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_05: They also give you they also throw points at you so you can get uh gift cards, which is how I buy all my shoes.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_05: But I uh I I had it my nipple had been inverted for I would probably say almost a year, and I thought it was just really because I was gaining weight, um, because I was at I think 250.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so I just was like, meh.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_05: And when Frank was like, I don't think that looks right.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, uh, when I was younger, I I was uh I was a chubby kid and my nipples were inverted, so I just figured that it was because I was getting fat again and I just kind of ignored it.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I had minimal discharge, nothing, nothing that was like alarming, but it was just kind of strange, and I just kind of like whatever, I'm moving on.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but in that wellness visit, um the um the PA just said, Yeah, that's actually not normal.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, let me schedule schedule you for a uh a mammiogram.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, wait, what?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, a mammogram.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even yeah, I don't I don't have I don't have breasts.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: What are you talking about?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm like, what are we talking about?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how yikes, how is this gonna fit in that?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I want to know.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_05: How are you gonna do that?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, but it was extremely without pain, I don't think.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_05: Oh no, it was definitely not without pain and discomfort and awkwardness because I think that the techs were also a little bit surprised that I was a guy in here.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_05: Wow, um getting uh they're probably not as trained to yeah, and so we had they had to bring in a couple of people in, like, hey, how do we get this tissue in here?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_05: Oh man, oh my god, can you because I had some boobs, like I had an A-B cup at least um at that point, but um yeah, they it is very uncomfortable.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_05: So I definitely have mad respect for anyone who has to get a mammiogram because it is very uncomfortable.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_05: And I can't imagine if you do have more tissue and more more boob power there because or less.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_05: That's yeah, it yeah, all the way around, yeah, it's uncomfortable.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_05: It's just yeah, absolutely.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_05: I agree.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's something that I was very shocked in my in my entire um diagnosis and journey and everything that technology hasn't gotten us to a point where we don't have to do that anymore to find it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't believe that in order to find testicular cancer, we have to put the testicles in a vice grip and then squash them flat and stab them with needles in order to find the cancer.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't think that's how they do it.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: But there are some people that I would love to put.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: I was gonna say, hold on a second.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: Wait, all paging, all female doctors, please begin the study immediately.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: We have some people to we have some volunteers.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: We'll be happy to volunteer for you.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and as as I think about that, I mean I just posted on Facebook today how annoyed I am that that Texas has banned Delta 8 because that is the one thing that has helped me sleep at night.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: I know, yeah.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it's gone now.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_05: Like I can't get it.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_05: Like I can't get it anywhere.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_05: No, it is absolutely I want those guys to have that testicular test.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I want to have it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think I have a vice grip at home that I would be happy to donate for me to just stand up and vote please happen here in a couple of months here.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: How the fuck does this even happen when it's like all conversation?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: I know, but anyway, this is a whole load of punis in this world.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this is that's not well, we didn't plan for Texas to be run by a bunch of dumbass.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Damn, damn fucking Patrick.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't plan for this damn idiot.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, anyway.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so let's get back to your boobs, Jason.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: Let's get back to your boobs.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_05: Well, so then after the mammogram, I mean immediately after, uh, they're like, hey, you know, the tech wants to go or the radiologist wants you to go.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_05: Wait, is it the radiology?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they want you to go ahead and stick around and we're gonna just do a uh an ultrasound.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Well, why are we doing this?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_05: I don't understand.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_05: And they were like, Well, it's just because we can't really can't really tell, and we just want to make sure.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Okay, you guys are really starting to scare me.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: Like, uh, what's going on?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_05: And so they did, and then the the radiologist came in.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_05: She's like, Well, we're gonna go ahead and schedule you.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we're gonna want to schedule you for a biopsy.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Oh, okay, you want to explain why?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_05: Like, well, we do see a mass that is attached to your nipple, um, it's pressing up against your nipple, and we really want to make sure that uh we take a look at that a little bit closely.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Well, so can you tell me like the cancer?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_05: Well, we really can't tell you.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_05: So they give you the same clue that every radiologist will tell you, you know, I can't tell you what for certain what it is.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: You know, they don't want to scare you.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, Yeah, I mean you might as well because I'm just gonna run to Dr.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_05: Google exactly scare the shit out of myself anyway.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_05: And I just yeah, I pretty much had myself like writing out my will, telling everybody where I want to be buried, all that stuff um at that point because male breast cancer was something that is very unique, and most cases are not don't end well.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I was I was I was very scared um because of Dr.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_05: Google because I really thought that was the end.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, here I am newly married, my my son hasn't graduated high school yet.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_05: I still have a lot more to do uh in my own life.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, I I was just scared.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_05: So I scheduled the biopsy and I absolutely hated that.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um besides the biopsy, the only other thing that I hated was the nuclear radiation where they insert all the fluid the day before your surgery right into your nipple.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_05: And that was absolutely disgusting and horribly painful.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I did not like that, but the biopsy was not so much that it was painful-ish, it was more the clicking and the pulling things and the tugging and I I just yeah, it was it was not it was not fun.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_05: It was probably um one of the most uh trying things that I think I've ever gone through.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_05: Even even the double massectomy was more fun than that.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_05: So god damn.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_05: Probably because of the drugs.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_05: I really did love the drugs.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean they didn't help.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_05: I I loved I loved being free, free spirit in that in the recovery room with all the nurses.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: All the nurses.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know what?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: One story that you shared with me last time that I found just like really eye-opening was like going to the breast cancer center the first time.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, oh yeah, and being isolated.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it was very yeah, it was very I so so let me jump into the like the revelation of the cancer first because I think that part was was scary.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_05: And I I think that I want any listener who any guy listener, any woman listener who experiences this, just know ahead of time if you're going anywhere to find out results, take someone with you.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, 100%.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_05: It's just so extremely important.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, as I as and I still don't think it's really weird, but even though that this was not my primary care physician, he's the one that sent me to the for the mammogram.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_05: So I was like, Well, I really this is weird because I don't actually see you, you're not my doctor.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_05: I'm only here once a year.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but as I went in there, I he must not have had experience in giving bad news like this because here I'm sitting here, he goes over all the wonderful blood results, and I'm like, I actually don't give a shit about those.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, tell me the cancer stuff.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_05: I just want to get to the end.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_05: Like, can we just get there?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and uh yeah, so he's like, Yeah, so it is cancerous, it is malignant.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so I'm gonna go get you some paperwork for an oncology for an oncology referral, and then he just left.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so like and left you there.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_05: I'm here by myself and walked out the room.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I just was like, I uh uh what?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_05: And that that silence, not even elevator music playing in the doctor's nothing, was so I don't even know, like explosive.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I didn't know what to think, I didn't know what to say, I didn't have anyone to just like look at and say, Well, okay, we can't.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: What did he just say?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like what's going on?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_05: And so 10 minutes, I felt like 10 minutes, but it was probably like four or five.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_05: I have no, I can't even remember.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_05: It just felt like a very long time.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_05: I just know I text my coworker, uh, my best friend Liz, and I was like, it's cancer.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_05: And she's like, uh, on my way.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_05: And so, because it is at it with the clinic is at my job.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_05: So um, but by the time that she even couldn't come down, it I was already released and was out of there because I just I was ready to escape the little white room.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, I can't imagine.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so it was really it was really a start to a journey that I didn't want.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um I mean, nobody wants to enter into any kind of cancer journey at all.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: No, but to add that element as my beginning step was not good.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_05: And then it just seemed like at the beginning it was just rough patches.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um, even as I was at the breast cancer center, and um, and I think this is what you're you're talking about, Adrian, is uh I here I go, I walk in with my husband.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_05: So two men walk into breast cancer, and I'm sounds like the opening of a joke.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and it's stacked with women and their husbands, or just women and their sisters, and it's and it's me.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_05: And I it was all eyes are just kind of like, what are these guys doing?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_05: Are they here just to check out boobs or something?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it just was very, very uncomfortable.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then I mean, thankfully, uh I think you the University of the Mays Cancer Center, they're pretty diverse, so it's not like they were thrown completely off by two men walking in.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I don't think that part was as as big of a deal as just really being an a man being called Jason Potter, please, uh we're ready to see you now.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_05: And you just get all the turns, like, why is this guy here?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_05: Is he a trans man?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_05: And he's just like, like, what is because I've I've met uh several people who were, you know, women who moved into trans men and they did get diagnosed with cancer.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um so but that wasn't my story, and I just felt like man, they're their eyes on us, and it was completely uncomfortable.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_05: It was very scary.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I think that that that moment, that tension, um, really just kind of built up even more and adding to the downward spiral my mind and my heart were were go already going on.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then I met Dr.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: Mazo, who is my oncologist, who I mean, literally sitting there scared to death, me and Frank me probably more than Frank, um comes in and literally grabs my hand and just says, We are going to get through this together.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I have, I mean, talk about a weight lifted.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I have never had that bedside manner in my entire life at any doctor's office, no matter what I was facing, you know.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_05: I just was completely blown away.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I felt so much better in that little in that little moment.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it really just kind of kind of did a U-turn on where I was gonna go.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um and she did a really good job explaining like genetic, all the genetic stuff, the testing that they were gonna do, um, getting the family history, explaining all of all of that good stuff, and then just giving me such great assurances that everything was going to be okay.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so and even though I still had Dr.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_05: Google Gloom hanging over me a little bit, um, I still felt so much better.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_05: I felt so much more confident um with her as my oncologist that I was I was really gonna make it through this.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_05: And even to this day, I think I'm seeing her next month.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I absolutely love going in and seeing her.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um we've uh we've chit-chatted quite a bit, and it's funny because I ran into her at the grocery store.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_05: She's like, You're the only patient that I've run into that's seen me without makeup.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, oh my god.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I didn't even notice that she didn't have makeup on.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_05: But she's she was just an amazing she's just an amazing person, she's an amazing doctor, and um, she knows that I tell her this all the time.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I don't think I could have I could have done this really without her.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and she's just been uh this a solid oncologist throughout the entire process.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: So so your your journey here is backwards from mine in that I saw surgeons first and you saw a medical oncologist first, right?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, that's right.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_05: And so when you why is that when you only reason that mine was like that was because I couldn't get into the surgeon sooner.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_05: Gotcha.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_05: I'm a very persistent person.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: So I will call until I can get an appointment.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, me too.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, well, that's what I do.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was gonna say I I'm not sure why, Adrian.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's because my my um the person who ordered my biopsies was a general surgeon.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: That makes sense.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then and he's the one that gave me my diagnosis, my initial diagnosis.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: But then I had to get referred to oncologists of all kinds.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and since you got the initial, oh yeah, this is what it is.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and from no that it was from the clinic at work, then you got immediately referred into.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and is that how you got to Mays?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I well, oh no, I actually isn't I called, oh yeah, I forgot about that part of the story.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, um, so when they gave me the referral, it was actually for one of the other.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_05: I won't mention that person that that the name of that company because there's several people that I know that go there, and I'm like, oh, I wouldn't have gone there.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and even still to this day, I I still hear about people who are in that waiting room, and it's like a very scary place in those other waiting rooms that I don't have that experience at Mays.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_05: It's so easy.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: You said it was like uh going to the DMV.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it really was.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, really, yeah, yeah, really bad.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: That was my experience at that first place, too.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_05: And that's what I've heard.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I think Nora told me that, and then um a couple of other other females that I know have also said the same thing, but um, yeah, I called around to try to get in, and they were like, Well, we can get you in to six to eight weeks, and I was like, Yeah, that's not gonna work for me.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_05: No, yeah, absolutely not.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_05: I need to see someone now.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly, exactly.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's your body, yeah.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like at the end of the day, it should be a a priority, you know.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: And if and if the if the health industry is getting in the fucking way of getting care, that's what I mean.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: You have to realize at this point he just has a cancer diagnosis, he doesn't have a typing, right?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: He has no idea how aggressive it is or what type.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, there's different types of breast cancer, so you have to it was the waiting period that like what you had.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: You had that waiting period, it's too long.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, so do I just go ahead and you want me to just put in an order for a tombstone first, or you guys want to see me because yeah, I need to be seen because I pretty much know I'm gonna die.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_05: You guys need to see me.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_05: And and I just didn't the two places that I called before I went to Maze, they're the the receptionists, I just don't understand, like you know why people are calling you.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_05: Have some compassion, like just a little bit.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know, right?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_05: Not thank you for calling you for calling blah blah blah.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_05: Can you hold, please?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, are you serious?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_05: Like, so industry that's just not what I want to hear right now.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_05: Like, so I the first place that I called that they said, let me put you on hold after 30 seconds.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I'm done.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, quick, hung up.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna mess with that.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, then the second place said six to eight weeks, and it's like, yeah, not gonna do that either.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_05: Let me call around and keep finding it.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_05: And I mean, I know um that uh you that maze is is a non for profit unlike the other places.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so a lot of people said, Oh, you don't go to a non profit.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_05: They're just you just don't want to do that because that's probably state run.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, I don't yeah, I don't care.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I don't care.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_05: I'll I'm gonna try it out.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: If I don't like the people that I interact with, then I'll go somewhere else.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: I kept the appointments at the other places, even though they were far out.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_05: I kept them just in case.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I met Dr.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_05: Mazo and then I met my surgeon who, Dr.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_05: Tazi, and I was completely fine.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_05: Like I was like, these people are incredible.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_05: I loved filling out the paperwork.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_05: I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but I love that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that you are batshit crazy.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: Because Nora had well, Nora had a shitty experience, but Jason didn't.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's the difference.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because I only had to do it one time for days, and then they just kept it all.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_05: But I really like that because most doctor medical forms that you fill out, they don't allow for gay people to really fill out express who they are.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_05: And so your spouse is not a male spouse, it's a female spouse.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's not, you know, I don't care so much about pronouns.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_05: Like I respect people in their pronouns, but that was one of their big drivers on their form as well.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_05: And so to me, it just felt very welcoming.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_05: Like, hey, me and Craig are going to be accepted here.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_05: Like we're going to be accepted and we're going to be loved and cared on.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_05: Taken care of.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: We were.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like we really were.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_05: That's so good.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_05: From the from every person that we encountered.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, even the rehab place, which we'll get to later, but every place that we touched with Maze, I never had any, any negative experience at all.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_05: And it was, it was really, really incredible.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_05: And I think it made for such a good journey because as I hear what other people have, what Nora even went through, yeah.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my gosh, like I can't imagine like you're trying to fight this thing, and then you're also fighting the system.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_05: And you're fighting people and they're in their their their what's the word?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_05: Their non-empathetic belief.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_05: Like they're just who they are.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_05: I just, yeah, that's just not the way it should be.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_05: It should be, it should be open, welcoming, loving, caring, and we're we're we're arm to arm with you.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_05: And we're fighting this fight with you rather than hey, well, get in line.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: I feel really badly for people in the health industry that have positions like that that, you know, are probably some of those people are probably beaten the fuck down because they did get into it with the right calling.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then now burnout is a real problem in the healthcare industry.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's really.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it just feels like people they're also not cared for.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that encourages them to not care about what they're doing, then you know it's the same in the food industry.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: But it's a it's the same in any any place, right?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like I if when I talk about yoga, talk about a Pilates studio, if you pour into the people that work for you, if you pour into those people, they will work for you if you invest in them.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: But when you walk away and you don't treat people with the same kindness and dignity that you do for somebody else, then fuck off, right?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's like unbelievable.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, Google.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I want to know where I have one question real fast because I don't think I asked this to you before, but Frank.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: So how is Frank?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like, if you're the I'm Dr.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: Google and I'm gonna go down this spiraling toilet bowl, whereas like me, I get on Google and I'm like, let me find out all the shit that can go wrong so that if it doesn't, I'm gonna be perfect, right?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm gonna be okay because I'm gonna know all the angles beforehand.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like I literally feel like when something happens in my life, like even with Brian dying, like I have like thrown myself into these rabbit holes of trying to figure shit out on my own.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, Frank, I mean, he's he's amazing.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I'll say that right from the beginning, but he also is he's a dietitian, so he's in the med field.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he was also dietitian for oncologists, for oncology.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he's done PEDs uh in the in the hospital um realm.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_05: So he has a very strong understanding of of the medical side of things, and I think that's how his approach was.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think that's also part of his personality, is is more of the logical approach rather than the heart approach.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and that's the part I think I I also needed because I am, and most people who are listening to know me, know my heart is humongous.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_05: And like it it really is it's a great power balance for both of us.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_05: Like it really, really work works well together.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_05: That's awesome.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's the yin to your yang.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes, because my heart is really, and I mean, except in traffic, uh, outside of traffic.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, my heart is really frank, especially where we live.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Good God.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's ridiculous.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's it's really bad.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_05: So um, but yeah, I uh I he he was he was he was really just a rock star.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_05: And at first he was just kind of like, ah, you know, this is gonna be fine.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_05: This is it's just small, it's it's no big deal.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um but uh I think as we as we continue to walk through the journey and all the things that were going into it, the the surgical, the everything, it started to really shine a light in his eyes, like, wait a second, this is this is cancer.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_05: Like this is this is the real deal.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_05: This isn't something that that uh that is just a minor thing.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because it was, I mean, it wasn't.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_05: And then we went into the fun um double mastectomy, and then that I think were promoted.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so when did you get how did you get from uh meeting your your team at Mays to finding out surgery was happening?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_05: So when I met with Tazi, he was like he gave he lay laid out the options for me.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_05: He was like, Well, here's what we can do.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_05: We could just go and pick out the the portion of the of uh of the chest that has the cancer in it, um, and it was isolated to the nipple.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_05: And then, of course, once they go in, they can determine um if there needs to be more, or the other option was just a full full single-sided massectomy.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_05: And then, of course, I was like, well, because my family has all all a lot of the ladies have already had cancer from my mom to my grandma to my grandma's sisters to um a lot of their daughters, cousins, everyone's had it at least once and a lot of them twice.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, Yeah, we're not gonna fuck around and find out.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_05: Because at the time, let's see, I'm 40, 40.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_05: At the time I was 45, which is fairly young for a cancer diagnosis.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_05: So I was like, yeah, so I don't want the shit coming back when I'm 65 and I have to fight it even harder.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_05: Because you're 20 years old.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_05: 45 is just your bodies aren't the same, they don't respond as well.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_05: I and I just didn't want to do it.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_05: So I was like, you know what?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_05: At the time, I was like, I mean, they're just man boobs, like all they're gonna do.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_05: And at the time I thought that they were going to just like take off the like just take it off, like where the the fatty stuff was.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, right.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_05: So I was like, yeah, that's gonna be fine, that's great.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_05: Like now I'm gonna have a muscular chest.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_05: And then two weeks two weeks after the surgery, when I some of the swelling went down, it was I was like, What have I done to myself?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um and that then that's really where uh I started internalizing everything.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um and that that's I think where the harder part maybe started to really kick in.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um because I didn't realize what it was gonna take for me.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Can you explain to those who don't know exactly what a male mastectomy entails for the like surgery-wise?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so it's just removing everything.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it's removing all of your chest uh tissue.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it's it's everything.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_05: So the pecs that you think you are gonna have when you lift and work out, yeah, those are gone.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_05: I'm never gonna have those back.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so I it it's it's comic to me.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_05: Now it's comic to me.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_05: And sometimes I will say not only comic, but a little jealousy when I'm in the gym.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_05: I just saw this today when the guys, even though they're not supposed to take pictures in the locker room.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh god, all the fucking time.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_05: And these guys are just like, oh, look at this chest.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, Yeah, that's yeah, that's really funny.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_05: I'm hope you don't get breast cancer.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right, no kidding.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to have those?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that, but there's also a part of me that I I do, I still do miss it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_05: And even though I mean it's been a long time, I'm actually a little bit more comfortable with myself, like today.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_05: Nice in the locker room was actually the first time that I saw my trainer in the locker room, as I'm just in my underwear.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, oh, hey, Preston.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Yeah, I know that's not awkward at all the first time, right?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, oh, never seen underneath the shirt.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_05: We've talked about it like a lot um because he's been a an amazing source over the last year to help me with my lymphatic drainage, and he's been such an amazing rock when it comes to my physical fitness and just mental support to keep me in the gym.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: It makes me so happy to hear things for you.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_05: And and even as I looked, and I we I a few weeks ago I sent him a picture of like, this is what I looked like before I met you, and this is what I look like today.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_05: Oh wow.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_05: You need to share that 40 pounds, 40 pounds gone.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and like physical fit-wise, like I feel really good.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_05: You look really good.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_05: Amazing.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like when I see you in the gym, I'm always like, You look so good.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like you just look good, like you look like you belong there.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like some of the other people that are working out, like 90% just look like monkeys trying to like climb on shit and like thrust their hips, and then you got tripods you're kicking over, and videos and ass ruffles.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say Instagram butt pick.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: Going on in every corner, up their ass cracks.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, oh yeah, it's overstimulated.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_05: I just laugh.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_05: I just laugh.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, you guys are so silly.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_05: For sure.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_05: But those moments when you have that, like in those, those what I would call locker room moments, because that's really the only place that I've ever taken my shirt off in public.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um, even at the pool, I'm I still like at first I would only I would wear a shirt, like I got a swim shirt and it would just always cover it.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_05: But I've graduated to um a crocheted shirt so it's see-through ish.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: Nice, very nice.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_05: I yeah, so I I will move to that, but I think I think the part that really and the reason that it stands out, not only am I missing the chest, but I guess I went ahead.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_05: Let's go back.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so after after the double massectomy, um, it took about six to eight weeks to heal.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I had had drains, I had two drains, one on each side.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um, those are absolutely disgusting.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I think I've said it before, but I for a while I couldn't eat salsa because that's exactly what it looks like when it's coming out of there.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: Just the drains in the chest is just like when you guys start talking nipples and like I just have to cover my nipples because I'm just like, oh, like just I get like phantom boob pains for you.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I get those too.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_05: Like there's every once in a while.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, especially right after surgery, I would I would wake up and I would be like, Man, this left side really, really hurts.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_05: And it shouldn't because you don't have any nerves anymore.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I can touch my chest, I can scratch it, and I feel nothing.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's so weird.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: I just had last night I was having crazy, like weird, like phantom nerve pain from my sternum to my like the outside of my rib under my armpit across what I think was where my old left boob was.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's kind of like phantom limb syndrome, right?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like your nerves are going, what the hell?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wait, this isn't what this was before.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so it just kind of like gets stuck trying to send that signal because it's not bouncing back correctly.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, fuck, I'm so sick of this fucking shit.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: So fucking sick of fucking pain and fucking sick of being sick and fucking tired.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Fuck.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:35
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's just frustrating.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_05: When they did the double nasectomy, they did find a little bit more cancerous tissue um along my chest wall.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_05: So they ended up pulling that out.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but when I talked to my surgeon the first time before surgery, he was like, This should be easy, we're gonna take it all out.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you might you may have to be on uh Moxavin for a little bit.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but that you know, that'll be up between you and and your medical oncologist.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but you shouldn't need chemo, you shouldn't need radiation.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_05: Your onkyotype was was not uh was not that high, so you're you should be good there.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um but then after surgery, I met with the uh radiation oncologist and like, so we're gonna start radiation in in November.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, wait, what?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_05: Huh?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_05: I thought you said that since I got the double nosectomy and I was gonna take tamoxifen that I wouldn't need radiation.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_05: And they're like, No, you need it, but you don't need chemo.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, okay.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um and at that time I didn't realize like, like I was like, radiation, that's I mean, the only part about radiation, it's like a fancy x-ray machine and you have to go every day, so it's a small inconvenience and that's it.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um which basically they decided that was the next best course of action because when they went in, they found a little bit more than what they had seen on the images, right?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it turned out to be it.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Did they use the word invasive?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Was that also used with you?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of I mean, almost exactly what happened to me.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: So they ended up having to take more tissue out.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you had to you had to keel from that.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then were you were you how how long did you have to wait from surgery to be starting November?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um was that September?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: November's it was two three years.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, September 1st until November, so two plus months.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: So and it was Jason.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't, I mean, I just didn't realize again, one of those things that yeah, um, I didn't realize like, should I be asking more questions?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_05: Should I like put up a resistance?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_05: Because I just thought, well, radiation's a superpower X-ray machine, and maybe I'll be like like Cyclops or you know, Superman or something.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_05: I'll be right back.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Superman, right, exactly.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, turn into an incredible Hulk.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_05: Who knows what'll happen?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, I mean, I don't think anybody knows what radiation really entails until they have somebody that they're close to that goes through it, right?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Can um can you talk about that?
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like what radiation was and and and yeah.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_05: So and at this during this time, I was uh I was like joining groups trying to find a good men's group to really kind of connect to.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_05: And um, this is when I I think the first group that I jumped into uh was the male breast cancer global uh alliance, which um they were extremely helpful, gave me a lot of good resources, um, referred me to another group called Man Up to Cancer, um who I connected with with Danny, and he just was sending me messages at words of encouragement all the time.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_05: And he was he's just he's he was just a firecracker.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_05: Like he he shared his opinion and um he was just he was really good a good guy and set the stage for a lot of the stuff that like was worst case scenario, like more chemo stuff.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_05: So I was like, I was like really scared of that stuff.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but we really never talked about radiation.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_05: I never really asked, and because I just thought, again, radiation, what's the big deal?
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_05: Like it's not bad, like it's superpower X-ray machine.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I was wrong.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I wish I would have known those things you don't know until you know.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: So radiation, you were like radiation.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_05: So the first time that you go in, um, and I most people might not know this, but whenever you have radiation, they they give you three little tattoos um that are really god-awful ugly, even though they're small little dots, they look like mold or not mold, like moles.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, green moles, and because they kind of discolor after time because they probably don't use a good ink.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so it just kind of looks gross, but I was like, Yeah, nobody can really see it, especially with all the hair that I have.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I wasn't really prepared for radiation.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I after the first couple of weeks, the first one is it's really exhausting.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_05: So I remember like going after the first one.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_05: I continued to work during like that time.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I took my time off.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, my company gave me six weeks off um after the double mastectomy, and then I went back to work uh because I was like, I can handle radiation and going to work.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_05: My my boss, she's an amazing person who is extremely flexible.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_05: My company is extremely flexible.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_05: It's amazing.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_05: And she just, I mean, and her herself is a she was a survivor as well.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_05: She was diagnosed after I was.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um so we kind of went through the cancer journey together.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I was able to help her, like, and that's kind of I think where it started for me to help other people.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because as I'm giving the feedback that I have experienced, not so much advice because I don't believe in giving advice.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_05: I believe more or less just tell your story and tell what you would have done differently.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but radiation was it the first couple of weeks, I didn't even really it didn't really phase me.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but then it started to burn and it started to feel like a really bad sunburn.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, man, this is why they give you the aquifer to put on because it was gross.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_05: And then I started losing the hair, which I was like, I thought you only losed hair with chemo.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_05: Why am I losing hair now?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: Did you just lose it on your chest or did you lose it all over?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_05: No, just on the side where they radiated.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so my question for you like when you go there, are you like you said, like it's a big x-ray?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: Is it a big x-ray machine?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like you lay down on it, how long does it take?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what is it like?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_05: 10 10 minutes.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_05: Like you're you lay there and they zap you.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_05: It's like you're getting an x-ray.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_05: It really, it really, really is.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I love the radiation text.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_05: Like again, Maze people are just amazing and phenomenal.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um, actually, one of them was is the reason why we are living here today and uh and uh next to next to the rim or in the rim, is because he was like, Man, I really love the love the the place where I would live.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, you know, I really never considered that place because I was always looking at the fancy apartments next to it.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, I don't I don't know.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_05: So I went, we went, came here and scoped it out, and I was like, man, I do like these.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_05: I I absolutely love it.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so anyway, so that was a side story, but it was it was really it started to get to me, and I started noticing that I was losing my hair.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so I started asking questions like, hey, so I noticed I'm losing my hair.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_05: Is this is this gonna come back?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_05: Like this looks really weird when I have one pectorial-ish.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because it really wasn't a pec, it was more of a hole, but one without hair, and it really stood out that I had a surgery and I now look like I have no boobs.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and if I have hair that's not able to hide it.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_05: So and yeah, it it it they told me it wouldn't come back.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's you're you're not you're most likely never gonna see hair grow there.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so I was like, well, that sucks.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but not only that, um, the radiation does all uh because they took out lymph nodes as well, it also pushes you for a risk for lymphedema as well, which I did struggle with.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and that again is where um they sent me to rehab, um, which is not something that is really popular um for for lymphedema exposure, people who've had that exposure.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: Can you explain that for like what what your symptoms were, what kind of that was like?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_05: So lymphedema is I don't know if you've ever seen people with those compressions where they have their legs are extremely swollen, their arms are extremely swollen, but that is what lymphedema is.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_05: And there's just like cancers, there's different stages to lymphedema.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so I wrote around zero to one stage.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_05: I think it goes up to four or five.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_05: I can't remember exactly.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_05: I just never wanted to go past one or two because once you get higher, it's more permanent.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_05: Oh wow.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so really making sure that you you curb that right away.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_05: And Dr.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_05: Freeze, who is my um plastic surgeon slash lymphedema um physician, he is a um very well known in the area for starting this program for rehab for lymphedema.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_05: And so I it was fairly new and I jumped right in.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um nice and it was amazing.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_05: Like Dr.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_05: Shawmi and and and and doc and and I I guess he's not really a doctor, but Justin, they both were my rehab specialist and phenomenal.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_05: Like I they uh they walked me through the steps, they were there while I was going through radiation, they were there while you know, while I was like really struggling with the identity part of what I was going through.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_05: Um and as I was noticing my body had changed drastically, um they they got to see the raw side of my I guess self-esteem issues because that's what it started creating for me.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um because wearing shirts, I mean, uh obviously I was still overweight at the time, and so my belly stood out um quite a ways.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_05: And when you have that and then no chest, it really looks like you know, no washboard.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_05: It's yeah, it's like more of a diagonal washboard.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_05: And it just really, really stood out.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and of course, I mean, I bless everyone's heart.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_05: I always wanted to say that.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um they're like, oh Jason, we can't we can't tell, we can't tell.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_05: But I'm like, you all don't have to be nice, like really, I already know that there's nothing here.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_05: I already know that I look very abnormal.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so you don't don't sugarcoat things for me.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_05: But being the big hearted person that I am, I just went with it.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then I just internalized it.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_05: But as I'm in rehab, you know, yeah.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: Explain what that was like because I want to know like what did they do from a rehabilitative standpoint?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_05: So they do a lot of the um lymphatic uh like drainage type things.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so a lot of normal physical therapy things.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, even Preston, who's my trainer now, we still do some of those uh quite frequently.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_05: Matter of fact, some of those things that we do, I'm like, man, I really hated these when I had to do these in rehab.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because I hate that little, is it the bocce ball that's like the half ball?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_05: I hate that thing.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_05: I absolutely hate it.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my gosh.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a love-hate relationship for sure.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_05: And as soon as Preston brought it out, I was like, why are we using this machine?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_05: This this well, not machine, but this stupid thing.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_05: I hate it.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but actually, we haven't used that in a while.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_05: So if Preston, if you're listening, that does not mean we're using tweets.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um I absolutely hated that thing.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but there are so many things like we did shoulder taps, we did like just so much stuff.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_05: And then the massage part, like massaging the arm.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, one of the things that Justin did that really helped me, and I didn't realize how much it was helping me, but he would actually massage the left side of where the scar tissue was and try to help that.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and that was the other thing that I I mean, I didn't that I Loved about radiation.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, that was one thing I loved about radiation, is it actually shrank the scar significantly.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_05: So, like if you looked at it, it was like almost a very thin line.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_05: You could barely see that there was any kind of surgery.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_05: Whereas the right side, which I did prophylactically, because it didn't have cancer in it, it is a horrible heloid scar that's absolutely disgusting.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_05: They've tried to fix it two times in plastic surgery, which I'll get to in just a second.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_05: But it was, I mean, it just it just never healed the same.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, can we just do radiation on the right side too?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_05: Because that would shrink.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_05: Even me out.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, they're like, no, we're not gonna give you extra radiation just to even you out.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_05: Not how any of this works.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, well, dang it.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um come on now.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so yeah, it was it was, I don't know, the rehab is it was amazing and it helped out a lot.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, they always gave me homework that sometimes I did.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_05: Good.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but most of the time I didn't.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so because it's just like anybody.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_05: It was just it's just like physical therapy overall, is what it is, but it was um it was very helpful.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and we did measurements every every time we met.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um, every time I so I went two to three times a week, and they would just measure at my at my wrist level, all the way up my arm, just to see if there was any swelling.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_05: And every once in a while it would increase quite a bit, and we would have to, you know, change course on how the the PT would go.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but they did a really good job tracking that and making sure that I stayed, stayed focused on on the rehab part of it.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_05: So and so that helped out a lot.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it just it, you know, we talk about this pretty much in everything in life.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I had a conversation with a student this morning about it.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, no one teaches us in school how to like handle taxes or, you know, what happens when you get pulled over?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what should you say?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: What should you not say?
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_03: What happens if you go to jail?
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_03: What happens if you get cancer?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: What happens if you just spend the night in the hospital?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like all of these adulting things that no one has ever talked about.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's like to me, it's it's important.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I find it interesting because it's like you they were talking to you about radiation and not because you've had great experience.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm definitely not dogging on maze at all here.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_03: But it's interesting to say, like, okay, well, how how is it explained or how wasn't it explained in a way of like assumption, right?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like a lot of times when you go and talk to a doctor, there is a level of assumption that they have that, like, oh, you must already know this.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, well, bitch, maybe I don't know this shit.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's like and I think you're right.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_05: Like, and and that might have been communicated, but I think I was just so focused on so many other things at the time.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I had a lot of reading material that I had, and I just didn't really read it.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_05: And I probably should have.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I think that one of the things that I if I could have gone back and changed things, I would have probably, even though I like the virtual groups that I was part of, I probably would have preferred an in-person type of group setting.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um because I think that gives you a little bit more connectivity with the actual survivors.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_05: So that would probably be one thing that I would have definitely done differently is connected with with people.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_05: And that's why I think I'm passionate about that now.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_05: Is really getting a group of people together that can like just talk and just be real.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's so important when you're in a cancer journey, is I know I've said this to Nora many times.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_05: I've said it to so many people.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_05: Cancer is is is a struggle, right?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_05: And whenever people find out you have cancer, it's it's thoughts and prayers, and it's oh, you know, God's got you got your back, you're gonna be okay.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_05: And that's good.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_05: Like I I like that that empathy.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's that's that's that's good.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_05: But inside I'm screaming.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm screaming that I don't want to hear that right now.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_05: I just want you actually to yell with me at how mad I am that I'm having to go through this.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I think as I started to like look at my body more, even though I was post-cancer journey, and I wasn't even that mad during the cancer, like fighting the cancer.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_05: It was actually more after when I started looking at me and like, man, this is not, it's not filling up, it's not growing back, right?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's really gone.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_05: And I think I became more and more and more angry at what cancer had done to me after I beat it.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: But here's the thing I was thinking about too is like when you were talking about like you, you know, you got you found out something was wrong July, August, September or June, July, August, right?
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: Then September, you have your double vasectomy, and then November, you have freaking radiation.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_03: And then it's okay, you're cancer free, right?
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you think about that, that's like going through a horrific car accident for six months at a time, right?
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's an exorbitant amount of time to be in this traumatic place.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I think what you had said too is like people were coming up and and saying things to you, like, hey, you know, I'm so sorry.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so sorry.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, how do you say something, you know, to people?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like I put you on the prayer list.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, I really appreciate that.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's awesome.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: However, there was a lot of anger.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there was.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_05: And I was, I mean, I believe in God, like I I do.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_05: I just was very mad.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_05: I was very angry, and that's why I think there was a point in time like I was like, I don't really actually want you to pray for me.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_05: Like, me and God aren't talking right now, so I don't need you talking to him on my behalf.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, because I'm really mad at him right now.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I don't, yeah, I don't get it.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I don't, I don't understand, um, especially in the culture that we live in right now, the state of of of church Christianity in in our which is a whole nother podcast, but yeah that state is is just so it's already anti-gay, so it's already anti-me and my husband's marriage.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I was already like, I just was really disdained, especially with um the church we were going to.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_05: It was it was it in the middle of our cancel journey at the end.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I mean, we left our church actually in November, right before I started radiation.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because they went um on a series that was anti um our lifestyle.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_05: And so I was like, wait, what?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_05: We've been here for five years.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_05: How do we do this?
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's the one thing that makes me so my god angry about about organized religion is you know, eight.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's just it's it's got it's got to be more forgiving and more open and more available to all, right?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's just not it's not cool.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, Campbell was funny because you said like the prayers and all that stuff.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and Campbell said recently to me, she's like, you know, I appreciate when people come up and they ask me how I am, or they like, oh, you know, I'm so sorry for your loss, you know, I'm sorry, you know, you're in our prayers.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_03: And Campbell's like, I would rather you just ask me a question about my dad.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know, just say, like, what was your dad like?
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_03: Or what was your what was wrong?
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me about your dad, you know, because I think that for and that's different because like we lost a person, you know, you lost a part of your body and a part of yourself in this journey.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_03: But then what I find really fascinating is that like you said, hey, I was overweight three years ago, you know, and then you have cancer, you you get married, right?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_03: And then you get cancer, and your husband is a is a dietitian, right?
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_03: Is that the right word?
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I just want to make sure I gave him street cred that he deserves, right?
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, yeah.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and all the work that he does there.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: So, like, how like I would probably be annoyed if my husband had been a nutritionist because like he would probably be telling me what to eat all the time.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how you know what I'm saying?
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like, especially when he worked with in oncology.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like, did he ever like look at you and be like, you really shouldn't eat that cheeseburger?
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_03: Or like, you know what I mean?
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how did that work in your relationship?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he's I guess he doesn't get too bossy over me because he knows my personalities, I'm gonna do what I want to do.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, good, good, good, good.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you did have a pre, you did have a quite a while to learn each other's patterns before the rings were put on.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_05: So, and I think that I mean, we would do it like meal prepping and stuff like that.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_05: Like, we did a pretty good job at mostly eating healthy.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_05: We never really ate out at like the most unhealthiest places, like we just really didn't do fast food, he didn't do fast food, I really didn't do fast food, so we avoided places and he was we were more attentive, and he made me more attentive to what I was eating.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but there's still some addictions that I had, like bread and ice cream and sugar.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but since then I I've like I've been able to kind of grow past that and look more at what I eat.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and he helps out quite a bit.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so I really enjoy that part of it, but I don't think he would ever tell me what I should or shouldn't eat, especially since I know what he should, I know what he eats as well.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_05: So um and rat on your on your husband.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_03: That would be okay, that would be the one person that I don't want to run into in the grocery store and see what's in their cart, right?
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like, or maybe I do to see if they're really true.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean, we're human at the end of the day, and I'm with you.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I have found over the years that like I am a sweets person, I like sweets, right?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_03: But I will get good sweets if you're gonna indulge, like get real sugar, right?
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like get real butter, get the real ingredients, and just you know, that's that's coming from someone who should never give dietary advice to anybody.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_05: So I mean, and he knows always tell me, like, why why would you why do you get like why do you drink the diet stuff?
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's it's the artificial sweetener that is actually probably worse for you than sugar.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_05: You might as well just eat eat the sugar stuff.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_05: And so I stopped drinking all the time.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_05: Like we stopped drinking the crystal light, all that stuff I was drinking.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, Yeah, you know what?
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_05: I don't really, I don't really need it.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, if I'm gonna drink a a Dr.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_05: Pepper or a Mr.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_05: Pib, which Lord forbid anybody finds a Mr.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_03: Pib in this Oh my god, don't don't don't say that.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: You're gonna get ostracized.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_05: People are gonna I love Mr.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_05: Pibb.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_03: I know that's that's like a that's like a southern east coast midwest kind of thing.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it really is.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_05: And it's funny because the only place that I found it here in San Antonio so far is AMC.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_05: And AMC is based in Kansas City where I'm gonna go.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_05: There you go.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_05: Makes complete sense that they don't have Dr.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_05: Pepper and they don't have Mr.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_05: Pibb, but I don't even like to me that was I think I when I started realizing like how much artificial sweetener was in stuff and like just seeing what it does and his knowledge behind artificial sweeteners, I was like, Yeah, okay, I'm I'm done with that.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, whether or not it gave me the cancer, I have no idea.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not gonna go that far, but right, um, I just wanted a course correct.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_05: And if I'm gonna eat, enjoy the sweet stuff of life, I'm just gonna enjoy what is natural and sugar is exactly surprisingly natural, just not and what he always says you can enjoy those things in the right amount of quantity or and not an excess.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_05: That's excess.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_05: Don't moderation.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_05: Moderation.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_05: There we go.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, nor knows.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I I tell everybody what the fuck they should be eating.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna be quiet about it.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's my personality.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, she's like, eat a potato.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: Eat a fucking potato and stop talking.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm like, you're talking mad crazy because you haven't had you decided you were gonna just eliminate carbs and then you wonder why you feel crazy.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, eat a fucking potato anyway.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like do okay.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then let's let's bring this back back to what we're trying.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're way down a rabbit hole.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to ask you, Jason, what is one myth about male breast cancer that you would like, or any uh are there any myths that you want to um address?
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_05: I would say men get it too.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_05: Uh that's probably the biggest overall theme.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I just as I've talked to other men who've had breast cancer, I think that and they did have a lot more seriousness than than myself.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um they did have to go through chemo, and a lot of times the men just ignore.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um they ignore the lumps, they ignore you know any abnormalities in their chest area.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um they they write it off as just a cyst that's probably not gonna ever amount to anything, and they ignore it.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_05: And we shouldn't ignore it.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_05: You should you should pay attention.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_05: We should always pay attention to our bodies, and I think that men are the absolute worst.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_05: They don't like to pay attention to their bodies like that, they don't like to go see the doctor, they don't, they don't like to be I guess what's vulnerable.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_05: Investigated vulnerable.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_05: They just don't want that piece, and I think that that is what hurts the men more than anything else.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_04: For sure.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_05: And as you know, um NBC, as they kind of uh male breast cancer global alliance.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, the stats are really crazy.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_05: I think I don't have them pulled up, I think it's one out of seven hundred and twenty something breast cancer.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_05: And it's it and most of them is it's it's something that's so easily avoidable.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um that they just get checked.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_05: Like men should check as well.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I I and I have it all hanging up my desk too, like how men can check for for breasts.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was just gonna say what what are the things that you would be telling that men to know and not to ignore?
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, if you notice this.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_05: Feel your chest.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_05: If you feel something that is a hard lump or it feels like what they would call a cyst or a pee in your chest, or uh what's the other word?
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_05: A pee or uh your nipples are inverted, or you're having some pain or something, just get it checked out.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a bloody discharge.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_05: Like just tell your doc.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_05: Like your doc is gonna say, Oh, well, let's take a look at that.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I know it's very uncomfortable to have your doctor feeling all up in your chest, but I mean, if they grab your balls, why not let them in the back of the house?
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_05: It's not that hard and it's so preventable.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: I looked up the the stats um to be like Did you?
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so it's one in 755 to 1 in 1000.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it also says that um proportions fewer than one in 100 breast cancers happen in men, and most cancers are found in men between the ages of 60 and 70.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_03: And common sign, yeah, common sign is a hard, usually painless lump behind the nipple or areola.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_03: Risk factors include genetic, you know, history, older age, and then a family history of cancer with the BRCA one or BRCA two.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_05: And my whole family tested negative for the BRCA gene.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_03: So and they and they all had breast cancer.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_03: Surprise!
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I just that's why I'm like, ah, yeah.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, I think the genetic part of that is also one that is a an arena that is not even close to being researched enough.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we have not figured that out for sure.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: Mine was also negative.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, we've and it's it's crazy how much money.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, uh, we I don't want to go into the money part of cancer because that's yeah, absolutely is a whole other podcast.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's an industry, I know.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's a very sad thing.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, I I yeah, I agree.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it just I think with men, it's the biggest thing is just get it checked out.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's yeah, men the idea that men can't get it because they don't have breast is completely wrong because we all breast like there's breast.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_05: You can call it chest if you prefer.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, but it it goes along with our species, right?
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh in and actually all mammals, all mammals, but both males and females have to have nipples because then the offspring would have the if they if one of them didn't, then the offspring would have 50-50 chance that they wouldn't have it.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that like you're saying the plumbing is there.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that yeah, even though it doesn't develop the same way, it's it that the plumbing is still there, and apparently that some rogue genetic sequence can happen just as just as awfully yeah.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think it's really important that you said this early on when we were talking, is you know, I'm not here to give advice, you know, it and that's the whole point of this podcast.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_03: We are not here to give you advice.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_03: We are not experts at all.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_03: We are just simply other human beings having a human experience, and you may relate to our human experience here.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_03: And if you don't, that's fine.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_03: But maybe one day you'll meet someone and you can share this with them because I feel like this is the point of what I wanted to establish is you know, yoga changed my life.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yoga's been there for me, right?
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_03: But really what changed my life was understanding that I'm in control of my life.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like I remember I was talking to, again, a client this morning talking, and she said, um, I said, God, when I was little, I had no idea that I was in control of my body.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_03: I literally felt like my parents were in control of my body, right?
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_03: Like they would tell me when I had to eat, when I had to sleep, when I had to, you know, go to the bathroom, when I had to take a shower.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_03: So there was like this kind of feeling of like, well, I don't know what to do in this stupid meat suit, you know, like what am I supposed to do?
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_03: And then as you get older, it's like, oh shit, like how do I do this thing called adulting and how do I move my body and not feel shitty or get injured?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like it it goes back to kind of really educating yourself as much as you possibly can on things that you might not plan for, right?
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like things that you might need to have in your back pocket one day.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um and don't think that you're immune either.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I think that that is uh also something I hear like I I don't I would never get that.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_05: I eat healthy, I exercise, I do everything right.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_05: I think Nora has said that many times.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's me.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_05: You just didn't think that would ever remove your story.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly because you do everything right, but that's not that entirely.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_03: No, it doesn't.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that that's probably the hardest thing is processing that anger.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_03: And and like you said, you went through a period where you internalized a lot of that anger, and like I'm just curious now.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think it's because it, you know, during like for me, it you have this sequence of events that are gonna happen now, right?
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to focus on, okay, now I'm gonna have this surgery.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I gotta recover from this.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I'm gonna tackle this part of the treatment.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I've got this.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, now that they said this, but now actually it's a whole another thing.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the whole time you're going through it, you don't have time to process right.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: What the fuck is actually happening to you?
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're trying to take on the next step of okay, I gotta do this and now I gotta prep for that.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: And oh shit, I just did this research and now I'm losing my fucking mind because now I gotta do this.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: And oh my god, I went down, Dr.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: Google just scared the shit out of me again because now I've got fit it video or footage of whatever this is gonna look like, right?
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, I don't know, I I think I'm kind of going through the same thing right now because I'm just so fucking angry.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm so fucking angry, like just pieces of it over and over again.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like, yeah, I think it comes in stages, Nora.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_05: I really do.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's just kind of back and forth, and you just never know what the day holds, and then then you add in the meds, and that makes it 10 times worse.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: Already feeling fucking psycho, and then now and now I know I'm taking drugs that are gonna make me feel a little more psycho.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like you don't have I don't have those, but like I made jokes about the fucks not growing back, yeah.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like it's that that's just for real now.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_01: So don't fucking find it.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_03: Jason, you're three years out from where Nora is right now, so like you know the anger and you know how the frustration and what she's going through, like how how do you or how did you or what perspective do you have on the other side?
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_05: Like I think that the how part is is kind of it's a day-by-day thing.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um I did go back into counseling, which I think has helped out significantly.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because as I'm three years in and the meds, like the tamoxifen, the side effects are ones that just add to self-esteem issues.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because it kills your libido.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_05: It you can't sleep at night.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I mean, the only thing that helped me were my fun delta eights.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that helped me get like all the way to the colour.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_05: The hot flashes.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_05: The hot flashes, they're not near as bad as what the females usually get.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but because I my boss has gone through that and I've seen her struggle through those hot flashes, and they're awful.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_05: Mine have not been near as bad as hers.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but the sleep part is what kills me, and actually actually the libido as well.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_05: Uh because not only do I have a problem with my husband touching my chest still, you're also killing like the meds kill that.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_05: So um it's been a a very strong um self-esteem issue, I would say, for me.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, because it's still like it still feels really weird when he tries to touch.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, ah, I cringe.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um but I've tried to open myself up a little bit more and just allow.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but it's still even to this day, it's still one of those things that's just very difficult for me.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um and it sucks because here we're I mean, even though we've been together for almost I think a little over 10 years now, um it's still a killer.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_05: Like we're still in a post-marriage like event, and it just shouldn't be like this.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_05: It should be the prime and having fun and doing the things that we liked.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_05: And it's just it's really hard.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_05: The physical, the physical part of it is is much more challenging than I thought it would be.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I don't know if that will ever actually resolve.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_05: I think that it's gonna be something that we go through up and down, um, just like in just normal life stuff.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_05: Like you're just gonna have those things.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I don't know how I don't know how I get through that other than just really engaged, just embracing it each day, um, surrounding myself with.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_05: People that that do boost me up.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and also let me let me go, like let me talk and let me get mad and not have judgment when I say things that are completely off base and it's just more venting than anything else.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think that that helps more than anything.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that's why I'm so passionate about like small groups just getting together of cancer survivors that can just be raw as as much as they want to be.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like just saying, like, because you know, we see all the signs out fuck cancer, fuck cancer, but we don't actually express it like we want to, like screaming it, like how much it how much anger just letting it go.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I've I mean, I've done that a couple of times, and as therapeutic as it is, it I mean, it really helps.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it does.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_05: But just having people around you that also feel that same way, um, it's it just it just goes so far.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_05: It's just that's weird.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: We need to find a waterfall, Jason.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: We need to find a waterfall as soon as I'm healed from all of my incisions and can get wet.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I go find a waterfall and just waterfall scream.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's what my latest obsession is, is finding these videos where people go and they find and they're getting dumped with the the water from the waterfall and they're just screaming, letting it out, you know.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, that I feel like is my next thing I'm gonna attach to this because I think I yeah, I need some kind of like release.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: Release, yeah.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_05: Release.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_05: There's a there's a movie that I saw too where that's what they did.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_05: That's how they released their anger with underwater.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_05: You can scream as loud as you want underwater.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, of course.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_05: I'm more afraid to do that because I'm probably like, okay, whenever you scream, you exhale.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_05: No, you will you'll be fine.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_03: You'll be fine.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_05: You're not gonna like I don't want to drink this man.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_03: No, you won't.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_03: You you breathe out, you scream out just like you're exhaling bubbles under the water.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_03: It is really very therapeutic and and I think that like anything that you can do to whenever anyone has these kind of feelings of pent-up frustration or anger or or sadness or grief, it's like do something that's going to make you feel better, right?
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that could be screaming into a pillow, you know, it could be screaming underwater, or it could just be like, you know, going outside and putting your feet in the grass, just something, sun on your face.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_03: And know that, you know, as hard as fucking life can be, like find the good in that piece of that moment because that's it.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's all we got.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_03: We don't have yesterday and we sure as fuck don't have tomorrow.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_05: And I think I like what you said, finding the good.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because that's what I've learned to do in this.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_05: And it's so funny because me and Frank were just talking about when is midlife?
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_05: Like, when are you in that midlife point in your like I'm like, I don't know.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_01: Debatable right now.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_05: Why I said 30 to 40, I was like, Oh, I shouldn't have said 30 to 40 because he's in his like lower 30s.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, okay, maybe not, maybe more over the yeah, I was like, and then I was like, Well, I guess it just depends on when the average age of your family is.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_05: Like, my grandma lived at 96, so my mid-age is gonna be like 50.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_05: 50.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_05: As I got my sleeve on my on my my leg, he was like, Are you having a midlife crisis?
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_05: Is that why you're doing this tattoo?
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Maybe because I love the pain.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like it feels good.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's cathartic, but I gotta tell you, your leg looks fantastic.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_01: It does perfect canvas for this.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, your legs look really good.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: Did you see the no?
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen the cherries, not yet.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_01: The the blossoms, but yeah, because they look it's I was gonna say, yeah, last time I saw it was you had just gotten all of the trunk and yeah, branches and everything in.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's fantastic.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_05: So we have we did one more, we have one more session coming up next, actually this upcoming Friday, and he's gonna finish it this Friday.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_05: So that's amazing.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_05: Really, really, really, really, really, really good job.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm really excited to see what the whole thing looks like when we're done.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_03: So just first word that comes to your mind, so kind of like kind of like doing this now, has like a little rapid fire.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_03: So complete the sentence.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_03: Cancer taught me.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_05: That family is not biological.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think that was extremely important because uh the only person that in my family that really kind of walked that journey with me and encouraged me was my grandma.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um and of course she passed away a year after my diagnos after my battle.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um but she was the she was the one, like the one that I had that really walked me through.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_05: But then my team, my my team at work.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um I had just got promoted to become uh a leader in the company I work for, and had a team of people that I was leading, and then also had new peers as as a as leaders.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_05: And my boss, I mean, I couldn't ask for a better work family in in my life.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_05: Like they they just took really good care of me, um, always offering support, always several of them allowing me to be as raw as I wanted to.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um so cancer really taught me that that family boundaries are not just biological.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um because my family, my all of my family besides my grandma, they just were not uh they weren't there.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_05: We I did this um without them.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_05: And uh then when my son got testicular cancer, we did that without them.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's really I call it family.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's friends that are your family, right?
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_03: You get to create your own family now, and that's what's beautiful.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, okay, how about this?
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_03: I wish people knew what.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_05: How much I love how much this has taught me to love.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_05: Uh because you don't know you don't know what tomorrow holds, and you don't know when your last moment is with people.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um I really think that just loving people is so extremely important.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I I think we live in a day and age where people just get so hung up on the past.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I mean, I just this past week I had an issue with one of my uncles telling my mom how much of a liar I was, and that dude hasn't hasn't really actually interacted with me in almost 30 years.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_05: Oh Jesus.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_05: And the last interaction, I mean, I made mistakes as a teenager in high school.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Who doesn't?
• 1:12:30
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_05: And so we have this opinion, and I'm just like, yeah, you don't know me.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_05: Like you don't know me at all.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um I'm not the person that you think I am, but I I think that would be the I think the theme for me.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_03: I now appreciate Um women.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_05: I I really, really have a much deeper respect for women.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think that before my diagnosis, when people said they had breast cancer and they had a double massectomy, I was like, oh, okay.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_05: Moving right on along.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, even as my aunt and you know, my my grandma, as they went through theirs and they had their mastectomies, I just was like, it didn't really like I knew it was a serious ordeal, but I didn't realize how much it actually impacted their identity.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because I can't imagine now a woman losing her breasts.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_05: Like I can't imagine how painful that is, um, not physically, but emotionally and and mentally.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because again, we go, we live in a culture where that's where the focus is.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, boobs and ass.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Boobs and ass, tits and ass, exactly.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_05: And it's to me, it's just it's like, man, now I I I really truly understand women better.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_05: And even my friends, my girlfriends, I am always on them like, make sure you're getting checked.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_05: I don't, I don't want you to have to go through this, just get checked, get checked, get checked.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, and so I'm always on top of my lady friends all the time.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_05: Even my male friends, I'm like, you're in the bathroom, just check.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, takes two seconds.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_05: Men are always rubbing on their chest anyway.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_05: So you might as well just blow yourself up.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's not ours.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_05: But I think I appreciate women a lot more when they have to go through that, especially when they have to get the mammograms.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm just like, ooh, yeah, you now know what that's like now.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_05: It's it sucks.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I now I have a lot more empathy for them for sure.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_03: All right, so uh I don't waste time on bullshit.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_05: I don't, I don't I just I really don't.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_05: I don't I just think that we live we live in a time where we focus too much on all the crap going on um and what really doesn't matter um that we lose focus of what really does.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I think that as people we should love each other no matter what we look like, who we are, what our or sexual orientation is, the color of our skin, where we've come from, our background.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_05: None of that should matter.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_05: You should just love people.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's extremely important.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_05: We just I think getting away from that, but I also see like I have a lot more hope in in people now as I've encountered more people who just love.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, love and it doesn't matter who you are.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that's uh I think that's where I'm at right now with with people that I've interacted with.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_05: Like I just like even you ladies, like I just the love that you can feel um with the questions that you ask, things that you say, seeing each other at the gym, like I just anytime it just feels it makes me feel good to know that there are still people that love no matter what.
• 1:15:41
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I I totally agree with you because I think that throughout losing Brian and going through, you know, the the idea that he doesn't have a will and that, you know, my I'm dealing with a house and the cars and all this stuff that is, you know, beyond my control right now.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, you're right.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_03: It was when people know you and know your story, and you can just make eyes across the room and just say, like, I fucking see you, you know, like you're here, I'm here.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_03: Let's fucking do this shit.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like we have to.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_03: We have to.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_03: We don't have a fucking choice.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_03: We have to put one foot in front of the other, and there's a purpose behind each step.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_03: There has to be intention as we move because we it's just too quick, it goes too quick.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_03: You don't know.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_05: We can just, we just I think sometimes we just get in a place where we waste so much energy on negativity, yeah, and and looking for the things that don't really matter.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_05: I I think I've even as my grandma passed away, the thing that I see the most is is the greed and and how like she didn't have a lot, but even the little that she had, the greed that surrounds that that's gross.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_05: I don't get it.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_05: And it creates such negativity, and that's such bad energy.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_05: And it's just I don't we don't have time for that.
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_05: Like I just don't believe that we should be focusing on stuff like that.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_05: Like you should really enjoy the family that you have, enjoy the people around you, love on them, love back, like share the moments, have good times because you don't know when those are gonna be gone.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_05: You just you really don't.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_05: You really don't.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_05: And um, Adrian, you know more than anybody else.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_05: Like how that that just you just really you don't know.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_05: You don't because you don't plan for things like that.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_05: And so you can kind of look back, and I mean, I know my grandma, she was old, uh 96 when she passed away.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_05: Like she lived a long, long, long life, but there's still like and she's still gone.
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, she was my she was my rock, like she was the one that she made sure I went to college, even though I had to go to Bible college.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_05: She made sure I was going to college when I took when I took my son on.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_05: She was like the biggest supporter and and helped in any way that she could.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_05: And I took a lot of that stuff for granted.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_05: And now that I look back, I'm like, man, what I wouldn't give for just one full day where I could not be frustrated when she calls me to help her with her cell phone.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, our oh my gosh, old people and cell phones.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, Jesus.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_03: Trust me, I know.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_03: I have my dad lives with me, and and it's like, I'm like, you had this in Australia, right?
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_03: You had you had this same fucking phone in Australia, right?
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, just want to make sure you know how to order DoorDash.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_05: Well, my favorite thing is she would always put herself in do not disturb.
• 1:18:24
  SPEAKER_05: And so she's like, I don't know why I'm not getting any calls or text messages.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't understand why it's not working.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_03: I gotta share this is really cute.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_05: My wipe your finger down and turn off do not disturb.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_03: My in-laws are the most amazing people on the planet, and I love them more than anything else.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_03: They're just they've been the biggest, greatest supporters of my family.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_03: And um, my in-laws, and when they text back on our group chat, for some reason, they have everything in gentle effect.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like, we love you, Mallory.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it does that like gentle effect and it comes in and goes out.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's the best.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_03: It makes me so happy.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_03: So it's so funny.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_03: And then I think the other day they did one that was like kind of uh what's the word I'm looking for?
• 1:19:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like it was like um uh like exaggerated.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like it was like, wow, yeah, crazy one.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_03: But we always say like sent with a joke.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_05: Do Androids do that?
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_05: I don't think they do.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's just an iPhone thing, right?
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, we no, we we can we can control ours a little better than that.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And our photos.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, the photo thing is play with the photos, don't have to send you a photo of the moon I took the other night.
• 1:19:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, send that picture to uh to our group chat because that's a really good one.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's fantastic.
• 1:19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, we gotta wrap this up.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_03: You guys, I love you to death, Jason Jason.
• 1:19:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like getting to hear your story and and getting to connect with you again has just been awesome.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_03: And and it means the world to me that you're open to sharing such a vulnerable piece of your story with you know 128 countries and I don't know, 220, what is it, 2000?
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like 2600 cities, 2600 something cities.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_03: So we're worldwide bitch.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's yeah.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, thank you for sharing.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being such a fucking amazing human.
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad that our um that Preston brought you into my life.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know how I would have survived the last year.
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, can you talk a little bit about our the organization that you brought me to?
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because we haven't mentioned that one.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, the Pink Warrior Angels.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yes, just real fast before we're done, because that's another one I want to link.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:20:33
  SPEAKER_05: So Mel Breast Cancer Global Alliance linked me up with uh Pink Warrior Angels, which has been a phenomenal um organization.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, they do this thing every year.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_05: It's called the Runway of Hope.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and it's strictly for cancer survivors.
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and basically what it is, and talk about self-esteem boosting.
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it was it's amazing.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_05: So we all know that there's like the Paris runway, all the runway events, New York runway where it's all fashion stuff.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, well, what Pink Warrior Angels do is they have one for cancer survivors, and we get dressed up and we walk a runway.
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_05: We have an amazing person.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_05: Lolita comes out and she teaches us how to walk the runway, even though it goes without rhythm, like myself.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, struggle really a lot with that.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but it's just a freeing event.
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you get to walk and prance in front of uh a crowd full of people, and then also online.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um you get to like make a statement saying, Hey, cancer may have knocked us out, but I'm here and I'm able to walk with my head held high.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, amazing organization.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_05: I absolutely love them.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I'm I I lead the the San Antonio area, um, and it's it's amazing.
• 1:21:46
  SPEAKER_05: We do chemo boxes whenever someone is going through chemo.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_05: We send those out to people.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it's just an amazing organization.
• 1:21:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it's pink.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_05: And since now that is my new favorite color, um, I really love it.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_05: I love your sneakers.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_05: She's anti-pink, and I'm like, I don't care.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_05: I still like pink.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_03: You have my favorite sneakers.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_03: I love your pink sneakers.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_05: I love them.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_05: I love them all the time.
• 1:22:09
  SPEAKER_05: People always come and they're like, oh, those are so bright.
• 1:22:11
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, yeah, I know.
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_05: I do that on purpose.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_05: It's all about me.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_05: That's right.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_05: As a shit.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_05: Look at my feet.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you again, Jason.
• 1:22:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I can't wait to see you at the club.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I can't wait to have you in Pilates, too, because you still need to come take your intro to Pilates with us.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_03: Don't talk to Preston.
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_03: Come talk to us.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just kidding.
• 1:22:34
  SPEAKER_03: Keep Preston and come see Nora and I for some gyro and Pilates.
• 1:22:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:22:38
  SPEAKER_05: And so one other thing I just want to say if there is anyone who's listening who has questions or just needs someone to be raw with, you can reach out to me.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, as Nora knows, I'm I'm very open.
• 1:22:51
  SPEAKER_05: I I have no problem sharing anything about my story uh and just listening to yours.
• 1:22:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um listening to your story, listening to you scream.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think it's extremely important that you have a place to scream.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um without a place to scream, but you will you will hold this all inside and it does not help you heal.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_05: It doesn't help you heal at all.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_03: A place to scream.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you so much.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_03: And love you.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate it, brother.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_03: We will talk to you soon.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_03: All right, sounds good.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, ladies.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, have a good weekend.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, you too.
• 1:23:30
  SPEAKER_03: Bye.