Latest / Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness / Breast Cancer Survivor: Healing Was the Goal with Tiffany Roth | Ep 21
Transcript
- Marie: Throughout Tiffany's career as a senior defense IT leader, she has built a reputation for strategic leadership, resilience, and service in high-stake environments. Beyond her professional accomplishments, her proudest role has been raising her two young adult children as a devoted single mother, instilling strength, independence, and compassion along the way. In the past year, she embraced a profoundly personal chapter. Crissy Florio: Hello everyone and welcome back for another two girls and a couple wellness chat. is Chrissy. And my name is Marie and today we have on Tiffany Roth. Hello Tiffany. Welcome. Of course. I'm very excited about ⁓ I always say that I just am realizing it more and more, I do. I get excited about every person that comes on because everybody has a beautiful story to tell and Tiffany Roth: Thanks for having me. Crissy Florio: Each story is an opportunity for more and more people to realize that they're also not alone. An opportunity for people to see themselves in every story. So I do like real, really excited. Yeah. So welcome to our family. Marie: Earning the title of a breast cancer survivor. This experience reshaped her perspective on health, purpose, and the power of self-advocacy. Through her journey, she discovered an unexpected well of resilience and a deeper connection to the importance of listening to the body, honoring intuition, and prioritizing whole person wellness. Today, Tiffany is passionate about using her story to inspire awareness. Tiffany Roth: Yes. Yes, thank you. I am so excited. was actually, while Jen had shared with me the episode where you had Chris on, Chris was cancer and I was a huge supporter of his book and have shared that out with multiple friends of mine in the same boat as I have been in. And so I was super stoked. And then I kind of, you know, went back through your previous podcasts and so I'm just excited to be part of this journey with you guys. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Marie: Encourage preventative screenings, and empower others to approach healing through a holistic lens that supports the mind, body, and spirit. Tiffany's mission is to help others recognize their own strength, advocate for their health, and find hope and healing even in life's most challenging moments. Crissy Florio: Yeah, we're trying to get some interesting people and cool approaches. And obviously Chris is amazing for anybody who's gone through cancer who knows of him, you know? Yeah. But yeah, his book's excellent. Just getting a lot of different perspectives and ⁓ views and everybody can take what they want from it, right? And what resonates with them. So why don't we start with you just giving a little bit more background of your history, your story, you know, what got you to sitting with us here today? Tiffany Roth: ⁓ Well, just a little bit of overall background about myself. I am a defense contractor. I've spent several decades doing cybersecurity in Department of Defense. So it's been interesting, wild ride there. And then also a single mother of two kids. I should say kids, they are now officially 18 and 19 as of last month. So that's been a big change for me. So I'm kind of navigating that, you know, empty nest side of things and what's next for me. So I think... You know, for me, my story over the last year was, you know, I was kind of prepping for this phase thinking of what, you know, what am I going to do next, planning all these adventures. And then it was like, wham, cancer. So I, last year in, I think it was February, I went for just a routine mammogram and I, I came home, I got the letter in my portal that said everything was clear and you know, it's one of those checkbox like, check, got that done this year, don't have to it again until next year. And then two days later, my phone started ringing from the radiology department and I thought they were confused and didn't think that I showed up. So I, you know, I picked up and said, Hey, I already took care of this. And they said, no, we need you to come back. And that was when my whole world just kind of like frozen motion at that point. ⁓ so I was really fortunate. They were able to get me through the additional screen, you know, scans and, and to biopsy pretty quickly. So I was actually, ⁓ I, I had a biopsy on March 17th. My daughter's birthday was the next day and I was. praying and praying that the results wouldn't come in on her birthday. So, and at this point I hadn't told anybody in my circle because I didn't want to worry people unless I knew there was a reason to upset them, especially my parents because they didn't handle that stress very well. So anyways, it was another day or two after that and then my results came in. So was actually at my desk at work remote, was prepping for a meeting and my daughter was getting ready to go to school and my gynecologist actually called me with the results instead of the radiology department. but she's birthed both my kids. She's been with me for years, so she wanted to be the one to give me the news. So ⁓ I had to hold it together till my daughter got out the door and I just remember crumbling to the floor. It was just, I don't know, when it happens to you, it's just, it's not supposed to be you. And I think that's what I kept saying to myself. It's not a key word, right? Yeah. And I think I'm a hard driver. I'm very motivated career-wise, very independent, very active. And so it just... Crissy Florio: Yeah, I know this story all too well, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah. Tiffany Roth: think for me, the biggest thing was the lens of my life went from like this to all of a it felt like it was here. And that was really kind of game changing for me. So anyways, I, know, I'm a project manager by trade and so I thought, okay, it's a project. Like we're gonna, you know, we're gonna go through the steps and we're gonna figure out what has to happen. And so that's really how I approached it. And then I just threw myself into tons of research. In fact, now I feel like I almost have a PhD in cancer, and I have other friends that are going through the same thing right now. So I help them dissect pathology reports and scans and things like that. So anyways, mine was stage one. I was very fortunate. It was caught super early. It was ER, PR positive, HER to negative. So the best scenario that I could have. Luckily, nothing had made it to the lymph. I had a phenomenal breast surgeon that did the lumpectomy. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Tiffany Roth: You you can't even really tell at this point that I had it. You barely see the scars. I was very fortunate for all of that. My oncotype score came back at a 20, which put me at that really pivotal, you know, where 50-50, the oncologist would say chemo, no chemo. So that was probably the biggest, I think, and that's where I started reading Chris's book, right? I'm thinking, what else can I do? You know, I'm not one to shy away from like conventional treatment. I thought, what else can I do to up my odds of, you know, this never happening again? So we ended up deciding against chemo. She said I don't want you to make a fear-based decision the gain it would get you in risk reduction would only be about a percent and so she said the toll on your body would outweigh that She said you're healthy. You're young you're active, you know, she said I think you'll be okay So, of course, I'm sure that's hard for any oncologist to tell somebody and then hope that you know something doesn't end up different down the road, but you know, I just made a decision that I would do the lumpectomy, the radiation. so it was a relatively easy process, I feel like from a treatment standpoint. ⁓ I did not have any issues with radiation. I didn't have the fatigue. didn't have, I had the burns obviously, but those resolved in like a week after I completed. So I went through 20 rounds of radiation. And then I went on to tamoxifen. So I was on tamoxifen for about four months and I was so excited, not excited to be on tamoxifen, but I was excited because I didn't have any those horrible side effects that everybody talked about. Um, you know, other than some hair shedding and some, you know, my skin was a little drier, but, um, so everything looked good about four months. then. I got a period and started to bleed and it went 90 days uncontrollably. You know, not to be graphic, but massive bleeding to the point. Yeah. Massive. ended up in the ER. I almost passed out. Um, I ended up having to have iron infusions and I guess the tamoxifen had, you know, has an estrogenic. Crissy Florio: Wow. You can be as graphic as you need to here. It's fine. We are an open. ⁓ Tiffany Roth: uterus, so it decided it didn't like mine. Fortunately, my gynecologist was like, let's just get it out. She said, you don't need it. That's too less cancers to worry about. And tamoxifen can increase uterine cancer risk. So January, this past January, I just had my hysterectomy and it's now about 12 weeks post surgery. So that was an unknown bump in the road that I, because I kind of thought I was done with everything. And then we went through that journey. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Tiffany Roth: you know, back doing Pilates three times a week, riding my bike, you know, prepping for a bike ride from Pittsburgh to DC in the fall, about 300 miles. So now I feel like I'm finally back on track, but I think, you know, the biggest reason I wanted to come on here and the reason I'm very open about my journey, because I do blog about it. you know, I share my, I know some people are very private about this, you know, their journey. I'm very open because I want to help other people and I want people to understand not only what happens during active treatment, but like, Crissy Florio: ⁓ wow. Tiffany Roth: the emotions that come after that because that's the piece I think people don't talk about. Yeah, and my aunt was diagnosed three weeks after me. ⁓ My good friend's mom two weeks after that and my good friend was just diagnosed this past month. So I'm now stepping her through this journey. Unfortunately, she has the exact same that I have as far as you right now she's headed to surgery. So. Crissy Florio: Yeah, it's definitely a missing link in cancer in general, but definitely breast cancer. Tiffany Roth: ⁓ I think it's made it easier for her that I can kind of walk her through this process, recent experience. But yeah, so that's why I wanted to share. Crissy Florio: It's shocking. So much. is. much cancer. Yeah. I mean, I was 42 when I was diagnosed and my story was very similar to yours with, I just dropped my son off to college maybe a month prior to, and just going for a routine and getting a regular checkup and my gynecologist started to feel around my breasts and she's actually the one that found it, not even the mammogram. And I had had two mammograms prior to that the last previous years, two years. Tiffany Roth: Yeah. Crissy Florio: And you just never, especially kind of being somewhat of a healthy person, you never think that you're going to hear those words. So it is a complete shock. And I love the fact that you are like, well, OK, this is just a new project. I'm a project manager of my own life, and I'm just going to take this on. And it's really a great way to look at it. Yeah. Tiffany Roth: Yes. I had a binder. I had a nice little binder and everything. Yeah, I think what it taught me too is I thought I was healthy. When you start to actually dig in, because as they say, only what, five to 10 % of cancers are genetic. The rest is metabolic or environmental. So I had to really start evaluating and that's where Chris's book was eye-opening for me into my. Crissy Florio: Yep. Tiffany Roth: food, like just things I never thought about because I was like, I'm healthy. had good blood pressure. had good cholesterol. had like all this stuff. But when I look back now at pictures, I realized like how inflamed I was, like how not healthy I was, you know, was like surface level healthy. But when you start to really dig into your, your biome and all of the, you know, kind of the terrain of your body, it's fascinating. You start to uncover all of these things. So I, and I had signs, I feel like I Crissy Florio: your gut health and yeah. Tiffany Roth: New Year's Eve, the year before I was diagnosed, had a party here at the house. Kids had friends over, had drinks and stuff, nothing wild and crazy. was just, I woke up the next morning and I was just kind of like, I don't feel like drinking anymore. And was just like a random, I don't know if my body was signaling that something was wrong. I also was making microwave popcorn one day, not long after that. And I remember looking at the bag and I'm like, this stuff has to be so bad for us. And I chucked it and. I don't know, it was almost like in retrospect, I think my body was trying to tell me something was wrong early on. So yeah, yeah. Crissy Florio: Yeah, and your intuition. Yeah, for sure. What were some of the big changes that you made with your diet once you read Chris's book? Tiffany Roth: Um, I got rid of all processed in fact for a long time. I, you know, have slipped a little bit and cheat these days, but I, I was like, whatever, you know, at least through treatment, I have to go completely clean. So anything that was processed, I went to all like whole foods, um, got rid of red meat, got rid of, well, I had already stopped with alcohol, um, and just all that I up the cancer fighting foods. So I ended up having this regimen. It's a good thing I work at home because it was such a process every morning to like. Crissy Florio: Right, it's a lot of work to be super healthy. know, to juice or any of that, Tiffany Roth: all the things. Yeah, it was, you yeah, the juicing, like I was doing the juicing, ⁓ doing shakes. ⁓ And then I just, I really focused on getting my metabolic, like, you know, the one thing I had that a lot of people don't get was I was given an integrative care doctor, which I think was amazing. Like that was the one piece of the care team I think people were missing. And she looked at me holistically and did blood work and said, Crissy Florio: Wow. That's key. Tiffany Roth: let's not pump you over the bunch of supplements. Let's give you what your body actually isn't producing and let the rest do it the way it's supposed to do it. So, ⁓ you know, my glucose was a little high and she attributes a lot of that to the stress of the diagnosis and the surgery and things like that. But I just focused on things that would, you know, bring my blood sugar down, ⁓ you know, kind of balance me out. started electrolytes every day, hydration. ⁓ red light therapy, I was thrown at all, anything in Chris's book. Because like you said, have to kind of, and I do tell people when you read it, I said, you have to take it with a grain of salt because not all of these things may work for you. And I'm also not wanting to say don't get any medical treatment. I know Chris chose that path and it worked for him. But what I tell people is nothing in that book can hurt you. Like, know, nothing you do in there is going to cause negative impact to your health. I tried to stick to it as much as I could. I probably didn't juice as much as he did. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Tiffany Roth: I was like, that's crazy. don't know how you found time to only juice it, but drink it all. It wouldn't be able to do that. Crissy Florio: was one of the first things, the day after I got diagnosed, excuse me, I went right to one of the little farmer stands and I just got a bunch of stuff and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna juice because I remember seeing something way back when that, you know, I think it was probably Chris's story and another story back on Oprah like forever ago. It was Gerson. ⁓ And I was like, okay, no, I'm gonna start juicing. And then I had to start chemo and then that just was kind of like, okay, I'll juice every now and then, but then my taste buds were just like, bleh. Tiffany Roth: Yes. That's one thing I'm grateful for because I have friends that have had chemo and I know that impacts the body. you know, imagine it's hard on chemo to want to feel like you're being healthy because your body's just, you know, taking a beating. So I was very fortunate that I didn't have to do that. I do question sometimes I'm always like, did I do the right thing? Should I have gotten chemo? Cause recurrence always, you know, in your head. ⁓ but I focused on like all the cancer fighting foods, like watermelon and tomatoes and blueberries and Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. Tiffany Roth: green tea and soursop tea and like anything I could find. It's expensive. Cancer is expensive. It wasn't even the medical bills. It was all the supplements and the, you know, everything else I was buying. The red light machine. I got, I ordered a PEMF mat. You know, I was anything I could do to increase the modalities of healing is where I went. So. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So in kind of our corresponding and stuff like that, you mentioned that you didn't realize like the strength that you had, right? And I think that a diagnosis, a cancer diagnosis, but a lot of traumatic situations ⁓ force people to dig deep and to, you know, to fight for themselves and to show up for themselves more. And We don't realize, we truly don't realize the strengths that are within us until we have to. So for you being a single mom, two kids, I mean, did you have a lot of support around you that helped you also so that you could fight and do everything that you needed to do? And I don't love the word fight so much, but show up for yourself and heal through it. I mean, did you have a lot of support? Tiffany Roth: Yeah. Yeah, I did. I was very fortunate. What I found strange, well, my parents lived two blocks up the street, so that was super helpful. I was in the midst of having a senior graduate and they also have another parent with cancer as well. So it was hard. I was trying to manage my emotions without impacting theirs. I think that's what drove my strength was I had to be strong for my kids because it was very hard for them. My parents were a great support. I had a lot of great friends and neighbors that showed up. know, I mean, I didn't, you know, when I had my surgery, I think it was vacuuming two days later, you know, so everyone's like, do you need food? Do you need this? And you just, but what I needed more than anything wasn't help cleaning or cooking or any taking care of the kids. It was just someone to sit at the edge of the couch and just listen on the days when it's hard because there were days I was super positive. And then there were days I get angry and you guys probably know that feeling like you get mad. Cause it's like, why, why me? There's so, you know, sometimes you Crissy Florio: Yeah. Tiffany Roth: There's so many awful people walking the earth. Why is it the people I care about that get this? ⁓ But the one thing I did notice is the people I thought would be here through the process, people that I thought were closest to me were not. And that was for me. People that were good friends, but I didn't expect anything out of them, they were the ones who showed up. And that was a weird dynamic for me. So I don't know if it's just people couldn't handle the part. Yeah, it's weird. Crissy Florio: Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Yeah. had the same thing. I just think that some people just don't know how to. don't know how to deal with it. Yeah, they don't know how to show up. It's like they don't want to overstep. then it's like you would think that they would because they're a part of you. But I just literally have been having this conversation lately also in another kind of situation going on in life. it's I just think that people should definitely Tiffany Roth: Okay. think it's through the healing because you start to stress is a big factor in energy and emotion. So you start to weed out things that aren't serving in your best interest. And sometimes that was friendships for me, you know, that I had. Crissy Florio: What? Right. Yeah. And things that you can control, you know, you can't control other people's actions and what they do. And we can't have expectations on them. I wrote about that a lot in my book. ⁓ But you can't have expectations on others, right? Because that's just going to lead you to disappointment. But that's a hard lesson to learn for everybody. And it doesn't have to be a cancer diagnosis. could be anything. But that is a hard lesson. You know, it's the expectation of like, I thought you were going to Tiffany Roth: Please. Crissy Florio: show up differently. And I went through the exact same thing, but it's very interesting. Tiffany Roth: Yeah, it's weird when look back on it retrospect. And then there were the care takers, the people that I met through my care teams. My breast surgeon still texts me to this day. In fact, she wants to do a podcast at some point as well, just because she's doing a lot of research into hormone therapy and things like that related to breast cancer. But even like my radiation specialist, she... you every time she was a breast cancer survivor, every time I go climb on that table, she would always put her hand on my back as like a pad. It was like a reassurance of just, I understand. And that's, you know, that that's almost like you can't convey what that means to other people. But, you know, so whenever treatment ended, it was left almost like a hole because you're like, wait a minute, when we, you know, I'm not going to see you guys again. mean, 20 trips there and, you know, the high fives in the morning and the and then all of a sudden they're gone. So it's like a vacuum. So that's the other thing, too. People don't understand, like Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Bye. You're done. Tiffany Roth: Everyone's like, ⁓ but you were just, and it's the comment I hate the most. You were just stage one and was just an easy procedure. And it was just a, you know, I had someone call it a minor procedure. And yes, in the grand scheme of medical things, was minor compared to what it could have been. But you know, it's, it's just like, for some people it just ends when your treatment ends. And for you, doesn't, you know, endocrine therapy that, you know, what comes after tamoxifen, you know, the recurrence. Crissy Florio: Right. Tiffany Roth: I mean, all of that kind of stuff continues to circulate. think this year, last year I was focused on healing and this year I think has been more, how do I move on where it's not. Crissy Florio: Yeah. The healing, the emotional healing aspect and layer of cancer is for sure, like missed, right? Like we just, people just hop right on over to like, okay, well you're cancer free, so get back to life. But there is, because I mean, you're fearful for your life. You are looking cancer in the face and that is also for a lot of people equal to death, right? So. taking the time to kind of go through and heal what you all went through and then how do you continue moving upward? You know, what does this all mean now moving forward? And for you being able to help a lot of your loved ones and even on the show, helping people to understand, that is your gift, right? That is your gift back to the world. And I know that for me too, I questioned all the time, ⁓ why me? But I had to realize that It was because I was going to do something with it. was going to be able to help others somewhere or another, whether it's the book, the podcast, my yoga teachings, whatever. ⁓ But it's the giving back and helping people that come after us. That is the gift of it. Tiffany Roth: Yeah. And that's why I felt like I had to use my voice. I I blog, when I started blogging, ⁓ you know, originally it was just because I was updating so many people via text and it was just like, you'd forget, ⁓ I forgot to tell aunt Donna this or I forgot to, and so I said, Hey everybody, here's a link and I'm going to update every day. And then it became like therapeutic and then it became like educational, you know, cause I went and did the research and explained what things meant. And so I figured, you know, if it helps one other person, then I feel like I've done my job. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm Tiffany Roth: It helped me through the process and it helped keep my family and friends close to what was happening. So, ⁓ I'm kind of hoping I never really have to blog in there again. Like I should. Yeah. I haven't updated in a while. I feel like, you know, I'm going to hit my one year mark in July from ringing the bell. ⁓ and I, you know, I might do an update then, but I'm like, is it a good thing that I'm not on it anymore? But, ⁓ yeah. Crissy Florio: I was just going to say, are you still doing it? Yeah. Or create a Substack page, right? And go on there. Because I think there's a lot of people who may not even know you that can still find you through Substack or something like that to where you can really hit the masses. And a lot of people who are needing and craving this type of information would be so helpful for them. Tiffany Roth: Yeah. Yeah. And I think what helped me too, I had a pre-med degree. talking back to knowing Jen, when I was in ROTC, I wanted to be an army doctor. I got injured at airborne school and the military put me out. I said, I don't want to take on all the debt myself. My plan was to have the army pay for it. So I was fortunate enough to have enough of, mean, not graded, my medical background is, I won't say how many years old, but I knew enough about anatomy, physiology, like to... Crissy Florio: It's like a good foundation. Yeah, I understand that. Tiffany Roth: the material and honestly in a world of AI, know, that's 10 times even more helpful because I would literally take my pathology report, upload it, ask it to summarize the key points that I needed to understand. And you can prompt it to say it in a not scary way. So it would filter out all the glue. Yeah, like it was, cause you have to prompt it or else, you know, cause I had joined like, was like, ⁓ I'll join this breast cancer Facebook group. And then the horror stories just came. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Humanize it, please. Humanize it. ⁓ yeah, no. Yeah. Tiffany Roth: Yup, leaving that, and I back down that and, you know, so there's actually another podcast that I was on called Not Today Cancer that my friend Jen runs and she has a Facebook page that's really geared towards the positivity side of it. So it doesn't feel, you know, scary and dangerous when you go into it. But so I was able to educate myself and I think, you know, I want to teach other people to advocate for themselves because I feel for the women that like don't have the resources or the education to understand and they're just taking Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Tiffany Roth: whatever the doctor says to them and not understanding what else they can be doing. And I would love to be able to, you know, at some point as outreach to, you know, some of the local ⁓ providers here to provide some of that support, I could, I don't know what capacity that looks like, but, you know, help women understand that you don't have to just take for fact everything you're told at the doctor's office. can, you know, like it's, because, I mean, I was fortunate, my care team was phenomenal. I had no complaints, but I've had other friends that went to other, Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Reach. Reach. Tiffany Roth: providers and they just didn't have a great experience. So it's like, how can I, how can I help bridge the gap between medical community and then what the rest of us are figuring out? I, know, Chris Beats cancer book goes everywhere. I'm like, you need to read this. You need to read this. Crissy Florio: And that's why I wrote my book too, because of that, because, you know, when people get their team of doctors, and I loved my doctors too, but they definitely pushed me towards just the traditional protocol, Chemo, mastectomy, radiation, tamoxifen, end of story. ⁓ I just, the book was kind of there to be that girlfriend's guide. to your journey of how do you create a sense of grace and ease and connection to your intuition so that you can make the decisions. Doctors are amazing and we need them. By all means, we absolutely need them, but they should not be put on a pedestal above you and your own connection to your body, right? But we do, we do that in this society. And we just need to change. Tiffany Roth: And I think that's the one thing they don't prepare you for in cancer. And I don't know if it's more so with breast cancer. assume it's, you I don't have the other ones to be able to say, but you feel complete disconnect from your body. It is like, I had to get myself out of the mindset that my, it was like my body had betrayed me. Like it was almost, and you have to rebuild that connection. And I think some of the healing components that you do help, help with that process. Even me going to Pilates and like I said, with you being a Yogi, Yogi, you know, ⁓ I started doing that and. Crissy Florio: Range motion. Tiffany Roth: That was really when I started to build strength back and it was kind of frustrating because I was going and then I had to have a hysterectomy. So I kind of, you know, backtracked a little bit, but my instructor did private reformer classes with me to help me get my body back. but I, was the first time I felt reconnected to my body again. So I don't know if it was just the Pilates and the, and the mindfulness of that, or if it was just in general where I was at on my healing path, but Crissy Florio: I think it's a little of both to be honest, because Pilates would be a really beautiful type of exercise and movement to be able to go back into it as well as yoga, right? But yeah, still to this day, like some range of motion, certain things that are still limited. And I'm, you know, five years out, you know, so. Tiffany Roth: Yeah, I still have like, I have this weird sensation where I get itchy, but I can't, and I feel the itch, but I can't feel myself. I don't understand that in way, the nerve damage and the, still get a cool, you know, I don't have any issues with lymphedema, but I still get like stains and like, I don't know, like electrical zaps in my armpit where they cut the lymph node. And I don't think people understand that either. When I do like, Crissy Florio: can't scratch it. that was nerve damage. Tiffany Roth: When I've been over backwards in the well and the reformers, you I still feel the tightness in this arm, matter how much I out and stretch. So I think that's the thing people mobilize to, like, it's a minor surgery, but at the same time, there's a lot of, you know, underneath damage that is done that you will never, like, it'll never be normal again. It'll always just feel like that. You just kind of have to accept. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and dealing with the scars and looking at your body. know for me, it took me a long time to be able to look at myself without a top on, right? ⁓ Because, first of all, I never wanted implants. I did get reconstruction. I did get implants, little ones, ⁓ but I am very mindful of even what type of shirt I wear. I don't like it when you can see the one scar on, because one scar is... where the cancer was. That's more of like a horizontal scar. The other one is under the breast so you don't see it. But the one where it's horizontal, if I wear a shirt that's low enough, if I see the scar, I don't like it. Or I can't wear low shirts anymore to wear it because you can see the ripples of the implants, right? So little things like that that people have no idea that I still work through five years later, you know? just, it's all work. It's everyday work. Tiffany Roth: I remember I almost passed out in the shower after my surgery. And I remember my mom said, she was like, don't you get a shower by yourself, you know, in case you get, and I'm, you know, was fine. So it was like two days later, I started to pull off the bandages. And I think the anticipation of seeing what was under there got to me and I almost passed out in the showers. I literally had to dive out, grab the toilet and hold on. But yeah, it was just like, it was the fear of seeing what it looked like, but I couldn't get my head around, you know. Crissy Florio: One thing that ⁓ I kind of, again, I talk to a lot of people. And one thing I say, before you're getting ready for either, I talk more about the mastectomies. So right before you're getting either a single or bilateral mastectomy, take a picture of your OG breasts, right? Take a picture of them. Yeah, the OGs. ⁓ Because every now and then, ⁓ gosh, this just came out. Every now and then, if I am scrolling through, I'll be like, Tiffany Roth: this. I love that. Crissy Florio: ⁓ there's my old boobs. And it just like a moment. Tiffany Roth: You can that two-pot trend with the, did my mom look like in the 90s? could do the backwards trace on that. Yeah, it is, because they are different now. I mean, I didn't have to go to a mastectomy, thankfully, but you know, they're still different. They're not 100 % the same size. You know, radiation changes color. It's like, you know, so I'm like, maybe it's a cool trend. I don't know, but it's, yeah. I think the one thing too, though, my surgeon Crissy Florio: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. Tiffany Roth: told me this and I always tell people this going into surgery. She had me drink two protein, two or three protein shakes a day for two weeks up to surgery date and two weeks after. And I am convinced that was monumental in my healing because like you can't, when I went to have my repeat memo this year, they wanted to put, you know, sticker on the incision just like, or the, you know, the little marker and she couldn't find my scar. So I was like, that made me feel, you can see the one. Crissy Florio: Wow. so helped in the healing. Tiffany Roth: Yeah, my sentinel lymph node scar you can see cause the purple marker did not for some reason decide to come out of my skin. So that's like a purple line, but yeah, the one on the breast, they can barely find it. So I attribute that to her and I sing her praises all the time. She's in Philly now. ⁓ So unfortunately far away from me, but yeah, she gave me that trick and I actually did that during radiation as well. ⁓ That helps radiation. think that's why I didn't get fatigued. I was golfing, hiking, like all that stuff during radiation. Crissy Florio: That's great. Mm. Tiffany Roth: Yeah, so that's yeah. Crissy Florio: Okay, I love that. That's a really huge tip for... Yeah, your metabolic need increases for healing, and I guess you're prepping beforehand for two weeks, but definitely after surgery or any procedure. Your metabolic need for protein has increased. Tiffany Roth: Yeah, swear by it. fact, did a hysterectomy too, because I was like, you know, now the hysterectomy, I will say, got me. didn't, I thought I was to be out vacuuming again in two days, like I was with the lumbar. That one took me down. I think I had it on Tuesday. I think I went back to work on Monday, but I work remote. So I was just, so I would just rotate the chair and the couch, you know, as I got tired. But that one definitely, definitely more involved for sure. Crissy Florio: It's a little bit more of a surgery. Mm-hmm. How are you feeling now? Like, what are some of the things? I know you said that you kind of fell off a little bit. You've brought some things back in, you know, just kind of, I don't want to say normal because we can always create a new normal any day. But what are some of the things like, what is a typical day for you look like when you just get up in the morning? What's some of your routines? Tiffany Roth: I get up in the morning. I, so I switched to like a really clean coffee. Um, and I do decaf. I don't do caffeine anymore. Um, so I do that first thing in morning, just cause I like the taste of coffee. That's usually my morning. And then I, I have droppers of, um, the methylated, um, B12. Cause I have the, what is it? The MF. I always get them backwards. I call it the mother. Crissy Florio: I thought MFTHR or something like that. I mean, I know what I really want to call it. It's the mother effort. Yeah. Tiffany Roth: That's what I call it, mother effigene. So I have that, my son has it. So I take the methylated B12. have some soursop drops. I do that. And then I do a shake. So I have a shake with almond milk, protein powder. have my AG1 greens, flaxseed, rice coffee. That's where I kind of get my energy from without the caffeine. I mean, it has a little bit of caffeine in it. And then omelette powder. What else do I jam in there? Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ omelette powder. How'd you find out about that? Tiffany Roth: Yeah, I mean... Um... I don't remember. Crissy Florio: I wonder if we're Chris's book. Dr. McGregor talks about it a lot. I don't know if you know who he is. He wrote Eat to Live or How Not to Die, How Not to Diet. That's that's a big one for… That's a great book. Super antioxidant. Tiffany Roth: No. ⁓ yeah, I take that too. Yeah, I put that in every morning. Then I put frozen berries in there so I get all my berries. ⁓ And then I work my tail off all day. Well, actually, I should say three times a week I get up and I drive to Pilates at 6 a.m. I drive 30 minutes to get there because I love the studio. My instructor is amazing. So it's worth a 30 minute drive. But I do that at 6 a.m. because my work day will completely blow me over then. ⁓ Crissy Florio: you Tiffany Roth: And now I'm trying to like, once my daughter gets through graduation, I'm trying to get back to the, you know, riding bike in the evenings, like going and doing something that's not work because I do, you know, I'm a director at my company now. So I do work a lot of long hours. ⁓ you know, so I'm, taking some trips this summer. Like she's in Puerto Rico. I'm, you know, flying to see my best friend in Atlanta this weekend for her birthday. ⁓ she's gone on her senior week trip and I'm going to take some time and hit some concerts with some friends. And so I think I'm just trying to like, get the good balance of like behaving, but then also having fun. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. Tiffany Roth: I try to stick to decent diet. eat, you know, as clean as I can. I'm probably eating out more now than I did originally. I wouldn't go anywhere to eat because it's like, can't process crap. So my family made fun of me because they're like, can you just go out to eat just once? yeah. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. It's tough. It's really tough to make all of these changes. And then it's like how sustainable is a lot of it, right? So we start to kind of bring certain things back in. But I think coming back, let's really bring in that 80-20 rule, right? If you're at home doing the best you can, eating as well as you can, and you go out every now and then or whatever, it's not going to be detrimental to our bodies, right? Yeah. Tiffany Roth: you Yeah. Yeah. also have, think I'm sitting here. I also have electrolytes in my, I think I have coconut water, aloe water, and carrot juice in there. So that's, I forgot that for the rest of the day. That's a big, big vat of that that I drink. Yeah. So that's really as far as my daily routine. And then I just try to eat like, you know, salad, chicken, whatever. I miss red meat. I do eat it, but I just try to minimize it, but I miss a good steak. But then you read all the stuff about, you know, Crissy Florio: Hmm. Tiffany Roth: grilling, like even not even just beyond the meat itself, the process that I used to love. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Right. mean, you can do the farm raised, grass raised. But it's even how you cook it, know? It's how you cook it. how high the heat. cancers. Yeah. Yeah. Tiffany Roth: Yeah, my neighbor, he smokes and grills all the time and I can smell it's like waffles over here. I'm stop making that. But unfortunately his wife is headed for a biopsy here Thursday. So I'm actually going to spend time with her tomorrow night to talk through the biopsy process. Crissy Florio: It smells so good. There is a study done in... Yeah. Is it China or which country smokes a lot of meat? It's one of the Asian countries. They smoke a lot of fish. think it is China. And there was a gastrointestinal study done there with all the stomach cancers and they linked it to the smoking of their food. Tiffany Roth: Do you know what's interesting? My breast cancer surgeon going through my medical history found IBS on the list and she immediately lit up and she made that tie. IBS is actually a because of all the hormone receptors in your gut lining. That's actually a, can be a contributing factor and she immediately honed in on that. So that was a big focus too. Like I'm still working on trying to keep the gut, know, when I changed my mind, I can hear a lot of that. Crissy Florio: Thank you. Yes. It's huge. Yeah. And there's a bacteria. So 60 % of IBS is actually linked to SIBO. So there's an actual bacteria that gets an overproduction in your small intestine that blocks the breakdown of estrogen through your liver. Like it's amazing how all these little things do different things that go to different places, right? How our bodies are so connected. But when it isn't able to clear the estrogen through your liver, it continues to circulate. And that's when it gets dangerous. Never mind if you're exposed to Tiffany Roth: That's it. Yeah. Crissy Florio: like the endocrine disrupting estrogens from plastics that start to play role and this all builds up in your system. Tiffany Roth: Yeah. Yeah. And I did a lot of that too, swapping out products in my house. That's hard. You know, because they just show up with, you know, they'll go to like target and come home with every smelly thing you can find. You know, I'm trying to find the balance of not wanting to, but I do worry about my daughter. You know, it's, that's another factor now. You know, I was bracket negative, but you know, what am I putting into her? Like, you she's, she's at an age where she has to start thinking about birth control and like, do I want hormones in her? I, know, it's, it's Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. ⁓ 100%. Yeah. No, I would say no. Oh, 100%. That's what I do all the time is hormones. Tiffany Roth: Research is changing on the hormone front, know, now saying, yeah, they say hormones can be protected now with breast cancer and there's that conflicting view. So which one do you, you know? Crissy Florio: Well, I think it comes back to understanding your body and how does your body process these things, right? So if you're one that is the estrogens are not being detoxed and released, then maybe that's not the best thing for you. Right. So it's like, ⁓ no, it's like what Chris said, like our boards, like this whole switch panel and there's these big switches. Tiffany Roth: Yeah, I'm not sure if you need to use... ⁓ sorry, go ahead. Crissy Florio: You know, so if you're not doing, and I love how he said that, I've said that so many times to patients. If this is like your diet and this is your exercise and if you're drinking and smoking over here, all these fancy little saunas and red lights and peptide therapy, none of that's gonna work unless you do the big factors, you know? So if you're gonna come to me for hormone therapy, but you're eating fast food every day, I'm gonna say, let's work on your diet first because I don't want to put that in your body. You know, you have to have a clean diet. Tiffany Roth: Yeah. Crissy Florio: be somewhat healthy. Yeah, you know. Tiffany Roth: The biggest thing I tell people is you have to create, I don't know if I might be quoting Chris when I say this, but I can't remember if it came from him or just my collective research, but you know, have to build a terrain in your body where cancer can't thrive. And that's the target. Everything has to create a holistic terrain. And until you get there, you know, the risk is always going to, because your body is meant to heal itself. It's, it's all these hormones and all of these mechanisms that happen in the body are built by nature to heal. And, you know, when you get sick, it's, Crissy Florio: 100 % Tiffany Roth: I always, the one thing I, I should say, I used to tell people I won't use the phrase I'm sick because I didn't see myself sick. I saw myself as I have a foreign thing in my body needs to go and I need to get my body back into a place where that can't exist anymore. And that's the way I thought about it because even just saying I'm sick, you know, that mental energy. Yeah, it's, it's, ⁓ you're very mindful what you say about your body, you know, when you go through this process. Crissy Florio: Mental. Yeah, wording is everything. What you say and what you think is everything too. And how we word things matters. There's so many words now that I'm like, I don't like to use. don't like to use, know, sorry, fuck cancer. I don't use fight. I don't use, you know, there's preventative. I don't love the word preventative. like proactive, better than preventative. Tiffany Roth: I also wasn't a fan of anything pink. Like I just, I didn't want it to be who I was. you know, I don't know if you, like whenever, I don't know if it's just here in Pennsylvania, but I got a huge box in the mail. I guess the second you're diagnosed, they register you into the breast cancer association or whatever. And I got this huge box of pink stuff. And I was just like, you know, hats. And I'm like, I want to go around like a poster child. Like I am being in the fact that I'm advocating and educating, but like. I just, didn't want everything I had on me to be pink and to go into a restaurant and people would be like, oh, she's got breast cancer, you know? Because I just feel like that mindset, like that, you know, I didn't want people to look at me and feel sorry. I wanted people to look at me and be like, be amazed at how well I was doing. And that's people would always say when I ran into them. They're like, you're doing so well. And it's like, you know, and they don't always see the emotional toll inside, but you know, so yeah, the same thing with the pink stuff. I'm like, I don't want pink shirts. I don't want it. Crissy Florio: Mm. powered. Tiffany Roth: I gave it all away. ⁓ Crissy Florio: Yeah, because there's some people that do and that's fine too, right? know, it's just everybody is a little different, but I know a lot of people are like, I don't want anything pink. just, you know, want to almost disassociate myself with it. Not like that's what you're doing, but. Tiffany Roth: My good friend, she went and got the pink shirt and stuff, so she bought me a blue one. It was like a shirt that was blue as kind of a joke. And so I did wear that to radiation on my last day. Crissy Florio: I know. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. Well, we like to normally end with three things or however many things you want to tell our listeners. So what would you like to tell everybody or recommend or? Tiffany Roth: I think the biggest thing is just ⁓ be diligent about your routine checkups. that's, I was late getting my Mammal and I actually think it helped me because I think it was so small that they almost missed it that if I had had it at my normal time, we might not have seen it. But I think that was my fated thing. But I think it's just super important. I know so many people that put it off like, and I'm not just talking mammograms, I'm talking, you know, pap smears, I'm talking just blood screening like because you have an opportunity to intercede in some of the stuff. So think that's one of the biggest things I like to tell people. And then I think just advocating for yourself. Like you have to be your own advocate because I was fortunate and had a great care team that gave me all the things I should have had, but there are other folks that aren't going to do that for you. So you have to ask questions. My friend that just went for her press consult, I just wrote her up a list of questions and like, you need to come out with answers to all of these things. So that's probably number two. And number three, gosh, I don't... Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Tiffany Roth: I think it's like you said, back to the strength thing. Like you just, you don't realize what you're made of until you have to go through it. So you can make a choice to be a victim of it or you can make a choice to push through it. And I know not everybody's in that situation. Like I lost a good friend last year. He was diagnosed at the same time I was. And unfortunately this was so far advanced and it was an awful thing to watch him go through. But he even went through that was strength and dignity, like even, you know, at the end. ⁓ But I think it's just. Crissy Florio: choice. Tiffany Roth: Yeah, you have to figure out like, I'm gonna do my best to try to get through this or, because that mindset is almost more important than the medical treatment. So I think those are three things that I would say to people in this path or on this journey or folks that have loved ones there. And I think, so I'm gonna throw a four. I think the other thing too is as a loved one, just making sure that it's the phrases of like, well, it could have been worse or it's just stage one. Crissy Florio: Love it. Go for it. Thank you. Tiffany Roth: to caution people against saying those things because ⁓ those are hard for people with cancer to hear. It's just that it's not competition. It's not, you know, one is harder than the other. It's cancer sucks. And I think that's just where we need to keep the focus and keep praying for cures. So that was cool. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. Oddly enough, had so many people still to this day, well, Chrissy, what I'm dealing with isn't as bad as what you did. like, but I hurt my leg, but Chrissy, it's not as bad as cancer. And I tell people all the time, listen, it's not a competition, right? It's your experience. So your experience is just different than mine. Who's to say that one's quote unquote harder or easier or better or worse or whatever? Tiffany Roth: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Crissy Florio: It's not, it's just your experience. So I never care if somebody says, well, Chrissy, they're coming to me because they have ⁓ something hurt on their body or emotionally they're stressed. But when they say that to me of like, but it's not as bad as you, I'm like, stop, why downplay what your experience is? Your experience is different than mine. But I mean, that's obviously a little different than what you're talking about as far as like people saying this. I've had many people say things like that to me too. And it's just like. Tiffany Roth: Yeah. Yeah. I see. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just, always say to people, and even if it's not physical ailments, it's like someone else's is like, well, I know this isn't as bad as so-and-so has it. And I'm like, yeah, but it's important to you and it matters to you and it's impacting you. So it does matter. it's, you know, nobody can take that emotion from somebody. And I try to be that way when I see other people going through struggles, like, you know, like, wow, that must really be hard on them. And that's, I think there has to be that shared compassion because, you know, how we make it through this crazy world. It's just making my sanity, you know. Crissy Florio: Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yep. Meeting everybody with compassion. I love that. Well, that's a beautiful way to end for sure. Thank you so much, Tiffany. It was nice to meet you. Tiffany Roth: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I'm glad I got to, it's been about a year since I've shared this journey on podcast. So I'm super excited and I'll continue to follow your episodes. Crissy Florio: Yeah. You're doing amazing. You're doing amazing. Keep showing your light in the world for sure. All right. Well, thank you so much. Until next time, guys. Bye. Tiffany Roth: See you guys.