Latest / Just Cut It Out Podcast / Just Cut It Out Podcast | Lady Madelyn Patterson: Breast Cancer, Finding Her Voice & Giving Herself Grace

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Just Cut It Out Podcast | Lady Madelyn Patterson: Breast Cancer, Finding Her Voice & Giving Herself Grace · Just Cut It Out Podcast

0:03
Kim Brown: This is just kind of different for the experience of a cancer technique.
0:07
Kim Brown: This has made people think differently differently.
0:11
Kim Brown: Each episode we cover a little bit of a practical feature.
0:19
Kim Brown: A little bit of a big picture.
0:21
Kim Brown: What does this have mean through conversations with patients, their families, and the teams who take care of the question?
0:32
Kim Brown: I'm Dr.
0:32
Kim Brown: Kimberly Brown, and this is just cut it out.
0:36
Kim Brown: Today my guest is Lady Madelyn Patterson.
0:38
Kim Brown: She is a breast cancer survivor.
0:40
Kim Brown: She is also the producer of this podcast and has a lot more to offer that I think you're gonna find very interesting as we get to know each other a little more through this conversation.
0:51
Kim Brown: Welcome.
0:52
Kim Brown: Great, thank you for having me here in front of the camera today.
0:55
Kim Brown: In front of the camera.
0:56
Kim Brown: Yes, uh, you have a production company called Gone Mad.
1:00
Kim Brown: Gone Mad.
1:00
Kim Brown: Okay, um with many questions.
1:03
Kim Brown: So let's start with how did you choose that name for your production company?
1:06
Lady Madelyn: So it's a play on my name, Adeline, and um I must have gone mad to create a production company without any film experience whatsoever.
1:15
Lady Madelyn: Um and so we kind of just came up with Gone Mad.
1:18
Kim Brown: I love that.
1:19
Kim Brown: Okay, so you started a production company for a reason.
1:24
Kim Brown: You have a really amazing philosophy that you talk about wanting to share people's stories, wanting people to have um authentic voice um to talk to tell stories of courage and resilience.
1:38
Kim Brown: What made you decide to start this production company?
1:41
Lady Madelyn: So, interestingly enough, um, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, I was working a full-time job.
1:49
Lady Madelyn: Yeah, and I told my staff of February 19th I'm going to be back after fouling season.
1:55
Lady Madelyn: But that never materialized.
1:57
Lady Madelyn: But going through the process of cancer, I was documenting myself, just kind of fight like a girl party.
2:03
Lady Madelyn: I um was telling people I'm gonna have a dummy type.
2:06
Lady Madelyn: I just had this new way of just looking at the experience from another lens of, okay, God, if we're gonna go through this, we're gonna go through it through um, um, I didn't have recorded the whole piece all along when I was going through my uh radiation and whatnot.
2:22
Lady Madelyn: And I remember one day walking into the game of room and getting my uh infusions, I was all dressed up in one man said, you know what, every time you come in here, you're sure.
2:34
Lady Madelyn: And I thought, oh, well, thank you.
2:36
Lady Madelyn: Praise God.
2:37
Lady Madelyn: And I went on that and I thought, you know, let me just record this and tell other people about this.
2:42
Lady Madelyn: And when I couldn't work anymore, I said, I'm gonna create a production company.
2:46
Lady Madelyn: We're gonna tell stories and just bring people who are going through whatever they're going through to connect with each other.
2:52
Lady Madelyn: And so gone mad productions began.
2:55
Kim Brown: Wow.
2:55
Kim Brown: That's amazing.
2:56
Kim Brown: So when how old were you when you were diagnosed?
2:59
Kim Brown: And what were the circumstances around coming to find out you had cancer?
3:03
Lady Madelyn: I had a mammogram um two years before because I was having some pain.
3:07
Lady Madelyn: Well, turned out it's calcification, and they put a um a little um marker in it.
3:12
Lady Madelyn: So the next year, the follow-up, they saw something.
3:16
Lady Madelyn: I thought, oh, but it was in my other breast.
3:19
Lady Madelyn: I thought, well, that's hot.
3:20
Lady Madelyn: And it turned out it was cancer in the other breast.
3:24
Lady Madelyn: And when we went to do the biopsy and that he confirmed it.
3:29
Lady Madelyn: But at that time when I decided, I'm gonna have a double mastectomy anyway, even though it's in the one press, talking to my surgeon and my oncologist decided to do a double mastectomy anyway, to just remove the whole thing and uh yeah, it got my tummy tuck in my new breast, is what I was just telling myself.
3:48
Kim Brown: So you had deep flap reconstructions?
3:50
Kim Brown: Okay.
3:51
Kim Brown: And what order did you do things in?
3:54
Kim Brown: Was surgery first or did you have other treatments first?
3:57
Lady Madelyn: So um I was diagnosed January 9th.
4:00
Lady Madelyn: Um, February 20th, I had the surgery, and I did um the double mastectomy, the D-flap, and reconstruction all in one time.
4:09
Lady Madelyn: So it was like 14 and a half hours just took care of all of that.
4:13
Lady Madelyn: Unfortunately, while I was in the surgery, that's when they found the cancer in both breasts.
4:17
Lady Madelyn: So we just took care of that.
4:21
Lady Madelyn: But then after surgery, within about four weeks, my left breast skin started dying.
4:28
Kim Brown: Oh, okay.
4:29
Kim Brown: So we had to uh do a skin craft, put that on I ended also with um wound fact.
4:36
Lady Madelyn: So I'd have somebody come and do my my my womb here because the surgery had opened up my navel as well.
4:44
Kim Brown: So a lot longer of a process than you had anticipated.
4:48
Kim Brown: Absolutely, and by that time it was like April or May.
4:52
Lady Madelyn: And um and then we had decided to do the chemotherapy and then radiation after that.
4:58
Lady Madelyn: So I it took eight to ten months for all of those things to happen just to get that that component.
5:04
Kim Brown: Yeah, and that's a typical timeline for someone who ends up with all three modalities of the chemo, the surgery, and the radiation.
5:12
Kim Brown: And and so that's a longer journey than you thought.
5:16
Kim Brown: Yeah, and how did you respond, or how did how did that news hit you when you found out that the cancer was more extensive than you had originally thought?
5:28
Lady Madelyn: I think I was almost in denial, like not really accepting the diagnosis.
5:33
Lady Madelyn: I was like, okay, but we gotta I just gotta get back to work.
5:35
Lady Madelyn: It's filing season.
5:36
Lady Madelyn: We got things to do, I have a whole team.
5:39
Lady Madelyn: Um, and so I I don't think I really accepted the fact that I was gonna be gone for so long.
5:45
Lady Madelyn: I was I was still trying to be in work mode, I was still trying to connect with my team.
5:49
Lady Madelyn: I think in in a sense, it was like, yeah, that's that's a piece of me, but that's not all of me.
5:55
Lady Madelyn: So let me just keep going and keep living and keep striving and keep doing what I what I thought I could do to kind of keep some sense of normalcy.
6:02
Kim Brown: Yeah, some sense of identity, maybe?
6:04
Lady Madelyn: You know, probably more if I'm honest with myself, my identity was ti is was tied up in what I was doing.
6:12
Lady Madelyn: Um and it took me a few years later to realize, you know, when you have a loss that I was grieving.
6:19
Lady Madelyn: It was it was a process of grief of kind of losing something.
6:22
Kim Brown: Yeah.
6:23
Lady Madelyn: And I but I didn't know that was grief that I was really dealing with, so I think I just kind of suppressed it.
6:28
Kim Brown: And just wanted to just be in the moment and not accept the fact that that's what you guys say we're gonna keep pushing on.
6:34
Kim Brown: Right.
6:34
Kim Brown: Yeah, I I think that's a common experience that people have, not to make yours less important and and meaningful, but there is a loss, and when that people become aware of it and how they process it, I think is really different.
6:50
Kim Brown: I think I see a lot of people who really do cling to their identity uh doing their work or you know, in their family, and they really don't want the cancer to touch that.
7:01
Kim Brown: Yeah.
7:02
Kim Brown: And try to keep it separate.
7:04
Kim Brown: Yeah.
7:04
Lady Madelyn: But then during during that same time when I rang my bell in October, um, after that, we started a oh my pink series, Fifty Shades of Pink and Pink Serenity breast cancer group.
7:15
Lady Madelyn: And it was just kind of, oh, there's other women out there, and I just did not want to fall into the space of woe is me.
7:23
Lady Madelyn: Um, I recognized that this is a very serious disease.
7:26
Lady Madelyn: I recognized it changed my body.
7:27
Lady Madelyn: But at the same time, I didn't want to live in a space of oh, so I can't do this, and I can't do that.
7:34
Lady Madelyn: No, there's no life.
7:35
Lady Madelyn: God still had life in my breath in my body, so yes, I want to do whatever I can do.
7:40
Lady Madelyn: The challenge for me was accepting the new physical challenges.
7:44
Lady Madelyn: Because my brain was like, no, we can do everything.
7:46
Lady Madelyn: It's like, no, you cannot.
7:48
Lady Madelyn: That was the hardest part for me.
7:50
Kim Brown: So hard, right.
7:51
Kim Brown: And so you were working, you said at the IRS?
7:54
Kim Brown: Okay.
7:55
Kim Brown: 34 years.
7:56
Kim Brown: And then you had to make the decision to step away from that permanently.
8:00
Kim Brown: Yeah, that and that took me two and a half years.
8:03
Lady Madelyn: Um, here's the beautiful thing.
8:05
Lady Madelyn: I am so grateful for the opportunity I had working there, and while I was going through my illness.
8:13
Lady Madelyn: God was so good that he allowed people to donate leave to me that I did not miss a beat for two years.
8:23
Lady Madelyn: And that is really unheard of.
8:28
Lady Madelyn: Like I'm I don't want to get really emotional, but it just it it it let me it showed me that when you're faithful and you're integrity and you when you show up to be who you are and people connect with you, they'll support you.
8:44
Lady Madelyn: And for two years people supported me, allowing me, giving me leave so that I could still go through my treatments, go through my processes and do all those things.
8:54
Lady Madelyn: And when I got cancer, I'd already had a Drake.
8:57
Lady Madelyn: Well, going through radiation and chemo, that changed some of my body chemistry.
9:03
Lady Madelyn: And the radiation caused some challenges with my drake.
9:07
Lady Madelyn: So we were doing my drake dilations every month along with the chemo and the radiation and all of the things along with that.
9:18
Kim Brown: Oh my goodness.
9:19
Kim Brown: Yeah.
9:20
Kim Brown: That's a lot.
9:20
Lady Madelyn: It was a lot, but I think mentally I was not accepting the physical I wasn't dealing with what was really happening.
9:29
Lady Madelyn: I think I was in my own kind of fantasy land of here's what we're just gonna keep moving.
9:34
Kim Brown: Okay.
9:34
Kim Brown: So as a coping strategy was to kind of put this in a little compartment for now to allow you to get through the day-to-day challenges.
9:43
Lady Madelyn: And then did you open up that compartment at some point, or is it still kind of I did, but I I ended up this last year writing a book and called the broken rib, and we dealt with some of the things in there, and and really that's when I realized, Madelyn, you were going through grief, you were grieving, and it's okay to grieve, and grief comes in waves, and you may feel okay for the first five minutes, and then maybe 20 minutes later you're bawling, and then next week you're good.
10:09
Lady Madelyn: I mean, that's okay, and accept that.
10:12
Lady Madelyn: And I wasn't in the space earlier to accept the fact that I was grieving.
10:16
Lady Madelyn: I was saying, I'm this strong woman, I can do anything.
10:20
Kim Brown: No, I can't do everything.
10:22
Kim Brown: Well, you seem like you can do a lot, though.
10:26
Kim Brown: You do a lot.
10:29
Kim Brown: Um and you mentioned the trait.
10:32
Kim Brown: Obviously, people who are watching this notice, and if you're listening, your voice doesn't sound the same as mine.
10:37
Kim Brown: Is there anything you want to say about that?
10:39
Lady Madelyn: Sure.
10:39
Lady Madelyn: Um so in 2001, I um had a uh sexual assault um event that that occurred, which resulted in my esophagus being strangled and choked.
10:54
Lady Madelyn: But 14 years we were going through dilations opening up the airway because it kept closing until September November 2015, where we ended up having to do a bedside tracheotomy because the the hole colluded after they did a tracheal resection.
11:12
Lady Madelyn: And that's how I ended up with a a Drake.
11:16
Lady Madelyn: Um I have to tell you this.
11:18
Lady Madelyn: Um the the Drake itself put me in a space.
11:25
Lady Madelyn: It really tested my faith.
11:28
Lady Madelyn: Before I had the Drake, I really thought I'd really trusted God.
11:33
Lady Madelyn: I really I was saying I'm doing all the things, I'm going to church, I'm doing all the things I'm thinking God wants me to do.
11:38
Lady Madelyn: But when I got the Drake November 20th, 2015, I couldn't speak for four months.
11:44
Lady Madelyn: Now, mind you, I'm a senior manager, I'm traveling around doing speeches and presentations.
11:50
Lady Madelyn: I sing at my church, I'm teaching choir.
11:52
Lady Madelyn: And I can't speak, I can't talk.
11:56
Lady Madelyn: I was really mad at God.
12:00
Kim Brown: Yeah, this is like Job level.
12:02
Lady Madelyn: Yes.
12:02
Lady Madelyn: I was I was I was angry, like, God, how can you do this to me?
12:06
Lady Madelyn: He did this in here, and now I can't speak, I can't sing.
12:09
Lady Madelyn: How can I do your work?
12:11
Lady Madelyn: How can I do the things that you've called me to do?
12:14
Lady Madelyn: And December 10th of that same year, because I was writing and meditating.
12:19
Lady Madelyn: He said, Madelyn, my grace is sufficient.
12:23
Lady Madelyn: I have seen that scripture, I've heard it before, but December 10th, it it gave me this piece, like, okay.
12:34
Lady Madelyn: Even if you don't take the trait from me, he's like, Because before I had equipped you, but you were walking around in your own name.
12:42
Lady Madelyn: You were doing things in your own power.
12:44
Lady Madelyn: And now did you see this a reminder for you that I'm the one that's carrying you.
12:49
Lady Madelyn: And now you can talk about your result without shame.
12:54
Lady Madelyn: You can talk about your past without shame.
12:56
Lady Madelyn: Little did I know that that drink two years later, I would get into breast cancer.
13:02
Lady Madelyn: And that that foundation just kind of gave me another level of, okay, God, now we're gonna go again.
13:08
Lady Madelyn: I thought we were good.
13:09
Lady Madelyn: But here's what's crazy.
13:14
Lady Madelyn: The year before I I had told God, I want to go deeper.
13:18
Lady Madelyn: Like I wanna I want to get to know you better, I want to be a vessel for you.
13:22
Lady Madelyn: And then he got I get the answer.
13:24
Lady Madelyn: I was like, okay, God, your ways are not our ways.
13:27
Lady Madelyn: Yeah, that's what we're doing.
13:30
Lady Madelyn: It's how he decides to use us.
13:32
Lady Madelyn: It's not necessarily how we may choose to be used.
13:36
Kim Brown: Or enjoy being used.
13:37
Lady Madelyn: Or enjoy.
13:38
Lady Madelyn: Yes, and it's not fun.
13:39
Lady Madelyn: I'm not I'm not taking please, I hope people are not uh mistaking um my joyfulness as happiness, but it's a beast that I have recognizing that there's a reason for this.
13:55
Lady Madelyn: And it's not just be because of me.
13:58
Lady Madelyn: There's a reason, and prayerfully somebody can be helped to go.
14:01
Lady Madelyn: If she can do it, then I can do it.
14:03
Lady Madelyn: If she can draw faith from it.
14:04
Lady Madelyn: I want to know more about where she gets her faith from.
14:07
Lady Madelyn: And maybe that'll be somebody who I can bring them to Christ through that.
14:12
Kim Brown: I have so many things to say.
14:14
Kim Brown: I don't know where to start.
14:15
Kim Brown: Well, that's a a powerful story, and uh, what are some of the things that you would have to do on a day-to-day basis to stay in that space of faith and hope and and not give in to despair or the I think you said that before, woe is me.
14:36
Lady Madelyn: Yeah.
14:36
Lady Madelyn: So that is a very intentional thing I have to do every day, even even now.
14:42
Lady Madelyn: Um because we even with the Drake and because of the gig answer, I'm still dealing with.
14:48
Lady Madelyn: As you guys can hear, my Drake issues, my voice issues, um.
14:52
Lady Madelyn: So I journal.
14:55
Lady Madelyn: Journaling is a big thing for me, and then I started this thing called mirror moments where I literally have to speak to myself.
15:01
Lady Madelyn: My answer's so funny.
15:03
Lady Madelyn: I've got um words and stuff all around the house.
15:06
Lady Madelyn: Little posters, little reminders of who I am and what he says I am.
15:12
Lady Madelyn: So when there's days when I don't feel well, I can look up and see on the mirror, like somewhere else.
15:17
Lady Madelyn: And I I recently started a prayer journal.
15:20
Lady Madelyn: So now I I'm writing my prayers, and when he does answer, I can go back and see.
15:25
Lady Madelyn: So if I don't remember, or if I find myself in a space, I get myself crazy and allow myself to be in that moment.
15:33
Lady Madelyn: But then if I get up, pick yourself up, grown.
15:36
Lady Madelyn: Reminder, he's already you've been here before.
15:39
Lady Madelyn: He's got you.
15:40
Kim Brown: Been faithful.
15:40
Kim Brown: He's been faithful.
15:41
Kim Brown: Yes.
15:42
Lady Madelyn: So faithful.
15:44
Kim Brown: And since I met you, the our first Zoom call, you have exuded a joy that is just so evident.
15:52
Kim Brown: And I think that's one reason I was really excited that we get to work together.
15:55
Kim Brown: And I wanted to say that the difference, in at least in my experience, between joy and happiness is like happiness comes from stuff around you.
16:04
Kim Brown: Like my dog makes me happy, right?
16:06
Kim Brown: Um and and joy is like internal, and and it's something you have to cultivate so that it bec it's not affected by circumstances.
16:17
Kim Brown: I mean, you can't help but you take a hit and things happen that are hard, but it's still kind of a space of integrating that hard thing into a bigger meaning or purpose.
16:32
Kim Brown: Yes.
16:32
Kim Brown: And that trust that the trust in something bigger than yourself, um I I think is one of the things that keeps that joy alive.
16:42
Kim Brown: Absolutely.
16:43
Kim Brown: We read the hard things.
16:44
Kim Brown: Absolutely.
16:44
Lady Madelyn: I I often repeat Romans 8 and 28.
16:47
Lady Madelyn: For we know all things work together for the good of those that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
16:52
Lady Madelyn: I keep telling this is your purpose, this is what you create, you create in me for this.
16:58
Lady Madelyn: And so I try to remember that and walk in that, even when it does get hard, because truth be told, there are moments, there are days, there are months sometimes when it's just oh, how do I?
17:10
Kim Brown: Well, in what I see, hard is has many levels, and fundamentally, if you can't breathe, nothing else matters.
17:19
Kim Brown: And I've had uh instances in my life where I've choked on something, and that is probably the scariest thing I've ever experienced is not being able to breathe.
17:27
Kim Brown: So the fact that you're living every day with something could happen where I can't breathe.
17:32
Kim Brown: It has to be terrifying.
17:34
Lady Madelyn: And here's what's interesting.
17:36
Lady Madelyn: My so this might when it's 2016, so it's 10 years or 11th year.
17:42
Lady Madelyn: And I don't think about it.
17:45
Lady Madelyn: It's um for the first few years I acted as if I didn't have a trait.
17:50
Lady Madelyn: Again, I was in that denial, I can do anything, I can go anywhere.
17:56
Lady Madelyn: And even now I don't really think about it unless, like for right now, because of the humidity or or I'm I'm struggling.
18:04
Lady Madelyn: Um But I need to do better.
18:06
Lady Madelyn: I need to be more intentional and say, Madelyn, you do have a you do have a an airway that is could collapse.
18:13
Lady Madelyn: Pay attention, also people around you, let them know, so that um you're it's not a beauty party, but it's also an acknowledgement and stuff because people I think people get scared.
18:25
Lady Madelyn: Um, I was just at an event earlier and a little kid was asking what this was, and the mother was like, No, no, no, don't ask.
18:32
Lady Madelyn: I said, No, no, it's okay.
18:33
Lady Madelyn: It's okay, and but I think there's this fear of what is that, and I don't know what to do, and and I try to I was doing the opposite.
18:41
Lady Madelyn: Oh, there's nothing wrong, everything's great.
18:42
Lady Madelyn: And I need to find a happy medium.
18:45
Kim Brown: Somewhere in the middle of that, yes.
18:47
Kim Brown: And I guess it's a point of education that it can be uh bringing awareness.
18:53
Kim Brown: Uh yeah.
18:54
Kim Brown: Uh as a medical person, I don't really think twice of it, but I also have come to learn my what I think is normal is not what normal people think is normal by any stretch.
19:05
Kim Brown: And and kids are so sweet, they're just gonna say what's on their mind.
19:08
Lady Madelyn: And so I ended up writing a children's book saying it's okay to ask what's that sticking out of your neck?
19:16
Kim Brown: You are an onion, so you're a children's book author.
19:18
Kim Brown: You've written your own book.
19:19
Kim Brown: I'm learning so much about you.
19:21
Kim Brown: You would think I would have asked you these questions when we interviewed to work together.
19:25
Kim Brown: You're this was more of a gut reaction.
19:28
Kim Brown: This is the person I want to work with.
19:30
Kim Brown: Yeah.
19:31
Lady Madelyn: I just knew.
19:32
Lady Madelyn: Speaking of that, um, I just knew there was something about you just connecting with you.
19:38
Lady Madelyn: You have this amazing uh spirit that's inside of you that just comes through the conversation.
19:43
Lady Madelyn: So this is a beautiful thing.
19:45
Lady Madelyn: I'm loving the conversation right now.
19:47
Kim Brown: We do.
19:47
Kim Brown: Well, and I'd like to hear some of your other production work, but what's like what's a story or two that you were just so excited to tell that was meaningful or impactful, being able to bring a story to life that might not have that might have gone untold.
20:04
Lady Madelyn: So there's a couple of them.
20:05
Lady Madelyn: Um so when I started the production company, I met a young lady who was from um Atlantic Beach.
20:11
Lady Madelyn: I had never heard of Atlantic Beach, South Carolina, heard of Myrtle Beach, but never Atlantic Beach.
20:17
Lady Madelyn: Come to find out that it's a a black-owned beach in in um South Carolina, between North Carolina and I mean North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach.
20:27
Lady Madelyn: Four blocks.
20:28
Lady Madelyn: And when she mentioned it, I thought, oh, I want to know more.
20:33
Lady Madelyn: I actually produced a short film called Four Blocks the Last Black Pearl that talks about the history we interviewed people that were there, the families so telling like stories that you would never hear about just kind of resonates with me.
20:48
Kim Brown: That's so interesting.
20:49
Kim Brown: In that area of the country.
20:52
Lady Madelyn: Yes, exactly.
20:53
Lady Madelyn: And even going there, I can when we went there, you literally see these floor blocks all up and down Myrtle Beach.
21:00
Lady Madelyn: You can't see the beach from the street because of high rises.
21:04
Lady Madelyn: But in Atlantic Beach, they put in the deep, do not build any high rises, it's only homes.
21:09
Lady Madelyn: So you can literally stand from the street and see the beautiful ocean that's there.
21:14
Lady Madelyn: It's just it's really a surreal kind of place to think, wow, this is where black families were able to go during segregation.
21:23
Lady Madelyn: They couldn't go to Myrtle Beach.
21:24
Lady Madelyn: I didn't realize that.
21:25
Lady Madelyn: And even in Atlantic Beach, they had a rope in the water to segregate the families.
21:31
Lady Madelyn: I thought, wow.
21:33
Lady Madelyn: But but to be able to preserve that history and tell that story and see the resilience and the hope and the people was just a beautiful thing.
21:41
Kim Brown: It's beautiful.
21:42
Kim Brown: I'm gonna go find that.
21:43
Kim Brown: Where can we find that?
21:44
Lady Madelyn: So it's it it just went through the um the film circuit one five awards.
21:49
Lady Madelyn: Our first film I'm just gonna do.
21:52
Lady Madelyn: So we're work um we're gonna we're working with the distributor and so hopefully with the next month it'll be on a on a on a T V somewhere.
22:00
Kim Brown: All right.
22:00
Kim Brown: And what's it called again?
22:01
Kim Brown: Four blocks of the last black pearl.
22:04
Kim Brown: Four blocks of the last black pearl.
22:05
Kim Brown: Okay.
22:06
Kim Brown: I'll be on the lookout for that.
22:07
Kim Brown: Any other stories in particular that kind of resonate that you were so grateful to be able to tell?
23:49
Lady Madelyn: Believing in that.
23:50
Lady Madelyn: Indivduals and humans and how they're dealing with life.
23:59
Kim Brown: Yes, taking a huge risk, not just for yourself, but for those who come after you.
24:04
Kim Brown: Yeah.
24:05
Kim Brown: So many of those stories.
24:08
Kim Brown: That's amazing.
24:09
Kim Brown: Well, what what have you learned from your breast cancer journey that you would want to tell your self, your earlier self, like the time of diagnosis?
24:22
Kim Brown: What would you say to younger lady Madelyn?
24:26
Lady Madelyn: I think I would say be in the moment.
24:28
Lady Madelyn: Like allow yourself to be in the moment and resonate with what's really happening.
24:33
Lady Madelyn: Um I I chose to kind of just push myself through.
24:38
Lady Madelyn: But I would probably go back and actually walk through the different emotions, the different feelings, allowing myself to be so focused to get back to work.
24:49
Lady Madelyn: But to be in this space, I'm a little what a what what feelings are you dealing with now?
24:55
Lady Madelyn: What is your feeling going through?
24:56
Lady Madelyn: I think I allowed myself to escape during that process.
25:04
Kim Brown: That's really powerful.
25:05
Kim Brown: So as opposed to putting the emotions kind of in that compartment like we talked about in service of holding on to your identity, pushing forward toward this other goal, you would want to process the emotions kind of as they happen.
25:20
Lady Madelyn: Yeah, I I think um it would allow me to to to go through the grief process to really deal with, hey, you may not go back to work.
25:31
Lady Madelyn: What are you gonna want?
25:32
Lady Madelyn: What do things you want to do?
25:33
Lady Madelyn: And what does life look like?
25:34
Lady Madelyn: Prepare for some things and not just this, oh, I'm gonna go back, I'm not gonna I'm not worried about that.
25:39
Kim Brown: Yeah, I don't need a plan B.
25:40
Kim Brown: I mean the plan, right?
25:41
Lady Madelyn: We're going back.
25:41
Lady Madelyn: And so you have it just a little bit differently.
25:44
Lady Madelyn: Yeah.
25:44
Lady Madelyn: Well, I feel like that's a a really powerful way to live and mindset that is makes a big difference in in a large number of circumstances.
25:55
Lady Madelyn: I think that even today, for me at least, I have things that I encounter that upset me, scare me, make me angry, make me anxious.
26:08
Lady Madelyn: And it's super easy to put it to to pay attention to something else, to distract, to escape.
26:15
Lady Madelyn: And I've found that when I do that, it that residue builds up, it builds up and it affects who I am, how I show up.
26:25
Lady Madelyn: And so I would agree.
26:26
Lady Madelyn: I've I've kind of made a daily habit of processing what's going on and not letting it build up.
26:35
Lady Madelyn: Because avoidance is it's a great strategy.
26:38
Lady Madelyn: Until it stops working.
26:41
Lady Madelyn: And then you gotta say later exactly.
26:44
Lady Madelyn: Well, I um I love that advice, and I think that resonates.
26:49
Lady Madelyn: There's a time like when patients are first diagnosed with breast cancer where they are literally overwhelmed with appointments.
26:55
Lady Madelyn: I need to get in to see this doctor, I need to go have this blood test, I need to have this scan.
27:00
Lady Madelyn: And there is a point where I do think survival mode is the only way to be, but the earlier you can catch that and recognize that there's some other emotions that have to be processed at some point and you cannot let it build up too much.
27:17
Lady Madelyn: Right.
27:18
Lady Madelyn: Yeah.
27:18
Lady Madelyn: Um the other thing that struck me that you were saying earlier is you seem to have a lot of daily habits that prepared you well so that when the hard time came, you you weren't you didn't have your rug totally pulled out from under you.
27:36
Lady Madelyn: And I I think from having watched so many patients go through cancer, I've really thought about that of what do I need to do now when the times are good to make m myself strong, to build my reserves, to keep my habits up that will they help me in the good times, but they're also gonna help me because life is always gonna be hard.
28:00
Lady Madelyn: Bad things are always gonna happen.
28:02
Lady Madelyn: That's like the nature of the world we live in.
28:04
Lady Madelyn: Yes.
28:04
Lady Madelyn: It is.
28:06
Lady Madelyn: It's a mindset type of thing.
28:08
Lady Madelyn: Um to intentionally practice it so that when it goes back to what Alana Beard said.
28:15
Lady Madelyn: And I think about that often, you know, it's it's the is the preparation.
28:19
Lady Madelyn: What you're doing right now is gonna prepare you for the things that will come.
28:23
Lady Madelyn: And if you prepare at this level, then that's how you're gonna rise.
28:27
Kim Brown: How you're gonna perform.
28:28
Kim Brown: Yeah.
28:28
Kim Brown: Yeah.
28:29
Kim Brown: Another person, uh uh content author I follow, uh Scott Cleary, said, Who who you are today isn't a surprise or an accident.
28:39
Kim Brown: It's like it's a receipt, meaning everything that you've done in the last one, two, five years has contributed to who you are today.
28:48
Kim Brown: Yeah.
28:48
Kim Brown: And so who you are in a year or two is reshaped by the choices I make today about what do I spend my time on, where do I put my attention?
28:58
Kim Brown: That's what I tell my kids what you do today and back here tomorrow, which is Yes.
29:02
Kim Brown: That that's showing up.
29:03
Kim Brown: I love that.
29:04
Kim Brown: Well, in the spirit of just cut it out, was there anything that you cut out of your life after your cancer experience because you realized it was no longer important?
29:14
Lady Madelyn: So my friends would say, I didn't cut anything out.
29:17
Lady Madelyn: However, what I have got out, heart, I've now prioritized.
29:22
Lady Madelyn: Um, but it took me a few years to get to that point.
29:25
Lady Madelyn: I am now prioritizing me.
29:27
Lady Madelyn: It took me some time to go.
29:30
Lady Madelyn: It's okay for me to have my time.
29:33
Lady Madelyn: It's okay for me to feel a particular way, it's okay for me to go.
29:38
Lady Madelyn: Every way, everything trying to be everything.
29:44
Lady Madelyn: Everything everybody else.
30:03
Lady Madelyn: I gave myself if I couldn't achieve something.
30:19
Lady Madelyn: I was thinking I was thinking it's a failure to me.
30:25
Kim Brown: So you were treating yourself, talking to yourself with a very mean self-talk.
30:29
Kim Brown: Absolutely.
30:30
Lady Madelyn: Absolutely.
30:31
Lady Madelyn: And since then, again, it's been the last year where I've now come to a brand new perspective of here's my new reality, and it's okay if I don't get this done today.
30:45
Lady Madelyn: It is okay to my choose to just sleep all day.
30:48
Lady Madelyn: That's okay too.
30:50
Lady Madelyn: I'm okay with that.
30:52
Speaker: A lot of women, I think, spend their lives taking care of other people.
30:56
Speaker: And in some cases, it's a mutually caring relationship, and in some cases it is a very one-way.
31:02
Speaker: And why do you think that?
31:04
Lady Madelyn: I know.
31:05
Lady Madelyn: Are we wired?
31:06
Lady Madelyn: Like we just have to be that for everybody.
31:08
Lady Madelyn: Well, I'm so glad you're taking care of yourself.
31:10
Lady Madelyn: And I'm so glad that your mean self-talk is taken on uh.
31:14
Lady Madelyn: Absolutely.
31:17
Lady Madelyn: It's you know, it's funny we can give praise to others, but sometimes it's hard to give praise to ourselves.
31:23
Kim Brown: For sure.
31:23
Kim Brown: All right.
31:24
Kim Brown: Well, what is a question that you would like to ask me?
31:27
Lady Madelyn: So I have been really wondering this cam.
31:28
Lady Madelyn: You know, I know we you talked a little about the podcast, but an oncologist, a doctor who deals directly with people that are going through cancer, why that field?
31:40
Lady Madelyn: Like what in that spectrum of all the different things you chose?
31:45
Kim Brown: Oncology and surgery in particular.
31:48
Kim Brown: So I chose surgery because I was in love with the operating room with performing surgery.
31:56
Kim Brown: And I tell medical students that when they're trying to figure out what career do they want to go into, if you love the OR, it it ends up being a calling because you literally can't imagine doing anything else.
32:07
Kim Brown: And oncology, surgical oncology brought together a lot of things that I either was good at or enjoyed.
32:18
Kim Brown: Um, and you know, the best profession is you're doing something that other people value that you're good at and you like.
32:25
Kim Brown: Um, and I was able to talk to people about hard things.
32:31
Kim Brown: I d I don't think I'm a horribly anxious person.
32:36
Kim Brown: I have I've I mean everybody has some anxiety, but I see some people shying away from reminders that we're all gonna die.
32:44
Kim Brown: And cancer can be one of those.
32:48
Kim Brown: And so I don't have that anxiety.
32:50
Kim Brown: I am very comfortable and aware that our time on this earth is limited, and I've gotten to a place where my response to that is that I treat every day like it's a gift.
33:03
Kim Brown: And so I'm not afraid of cancer in myself because I know any day I could get it.
33:10
Kim Brown: It could be me tomorrow.
33:11
Kim Brown: Like, why not me?
33:12
Kim Brown: Um and I feel that I offer people that calm, even if they don't have the same faith background that I do, I think they feel and are soothed or feel better because of my calm.
33:33
Kim Brown: And I am often able to do something very meaningful uh in terms of curing somebody of cancer.
33:42
Kim Brown: And even if I can't, I can walk with someone, I can help them make choices about whatever part of their life they have left.
33:52
Kim Brown: Hopefully it's lots of life, and they're choosing between different surgeries, such as you know, lympectomy versus a mastectomy, but sometimes they're making choices about do I want to have a surgery that might impact my quality of life, or do I want to really focus on having as much good life as I can as long as I can, and um I I respect and honor all of those choices.
34:17
Kim Brown: I don't have uh as much ego in this game as maybe I used to.
34:22
Kim Brown: And I think the ego is what gets in the way of uh being able to help somebody make good choices for their their outcome that that matters most to them because their values are not my values.
34:35
Kim Brown: They're everyone has their own set of what matters most.
34:38
Kim Brown: So it's the combination of really interesting medical problems to solve, being able to do it with surgery, working with my hands, which I love, and dealing with what I just think is really meaningful.
34:53
Kim Brown: Um you know, why are we here type of questions.
34:58
Lady Madelyn: I love that, and that just comes through even just from our conversations.
35:02
Lady Madelyn: It just comes through.
35:03
Lady Madelyn: I love that you have this passion, but there's also this calling, it just seems like this on your life, and through the medical field is how you're presenting it.
35:12
Kim Brown: So Yeah, it it academic medicine has rank systems to it.
35:17
Kim Brown: So you come in as an assistant professor and you have to check these boxes, you have to, you know, have do research and publish and be on national committees, you have to have a national reputation to get promoted to associate professor and then full professor.
35:32
Kim Brown: And I'm a full professor now, so there's not another part of the ladder to climb.
35:38
Kim Brown: And I've felt very excited about being able to ask, well, what do I want to do that I don't have to worry about?
35:45
Kim Brown: Does it check a box toward promotion?
35:47
Kim Brown: And that's where some of the inspiration for this podcast.
35:51
Kim Brown: I want to tell these stories.
35:53
Kim Brown: Um I I want people to see in this world where everything is about how can I make another dollar, how can I take care of me, you know, that there are people out there who are caring for others and how important that is.
36:08
Kim Brown: That not just for our own our community, which it is important, but I also think individuals who are focused on themselves live a more anxious life there, less joyful, um, less meaning, purpose, less connection and community.
36:27
Kim Brown: And I think we all need connection and community.
36:29
Kim Brown: We need each other in ways that we're starting to see in some of the outcomes of a societal focus on the self at at the expense of everything or everyone else.
36:42
Kim Brown: So I hope this podcast is inspirational for people to think about their role in uh in a relationship and a family and a school and a community in all the ways that we can make the world around us better.
36:55
Lady Madelyn: The whole human connection.
36:57
Kim Brown: Yes, absolutely love that.
36:59
Kim Brown: Alright, well, thank you so much for serving as a guest and a producer.
37:04
Lady Madelyn: It's a little nerve-wracking on the guest side.
37:06
Lady Madelyn: Yeah.
37:07
Kim Brown: Yeah.
37:07
Kim Brown: After serving as a producer for so many different films, shows, podcasts, what's it like to be the guest?
37:17
Lady Madelyn: Honestly, it's a little um different.
37:19
Lady Madelyn: Um, as a producer, we're telling people how to, you know, show up and all the things.
37:24
Lady Madelyn: The cameras on, the microphones, it's and then ask questions.
37:31
Lady Madelyn: Yeah, that's a little different.
37:33
Lady Madelyn: Yeah, are you thinking to yourself, like, oh, I'm gonna edit that out because we need to show.
37:39
Lady Madelyn: Great.
37:42
Lady Madelyn: Okay, well, thank you very much for joining us for this episode of Just Cut It Out.
37:46
Lady Madelyn: We look forward to seeing you in future episodes.
37:48
Lady Madelyn: And if you want to learn more about Lady Madelyn Patterson, please see the information linked in the YouTube webpage.