Latest / Cristy M. Diaz Podcast Conversations from the Heart / Laura Smith: Breast Cancer. 5 Surgeries. 1 Woman’s Story.

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Laura Smith: Breast Cancer. 5 Surgeries. 1 Woman’s Story. · Cristy M. Diaz Podcast Conversations from the Heart

Today, I'm sitting down with Laura Smith, a mom of three whose routine mammogram at forty-six led to a diagnosis she never expected: DCIS.
What followed was a lumpectomy, a bilateral mastectomy, an infection, and five surgeries in total.
But this conversation goes beyond the procedures.
It's about finding your way through recovery, deciding how to tell your children, and learning to let them see you be human.
As we continue our conversations during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, hers is a reminder of why screening matters and why every woman's experience deserves to be heard.
Hi everybody, and welcome to another conversation.
I am here with my friend Laura Smith.
Hi, Laura.
Hi, Kirsty.
Thank you for having me.
Hi, thank you for being here and sharing in us as we celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
And we wanna thank you so much for your heroism of coming forth and sharing your story with us.
I know that you're a very private person when it comes to this.
But the fact that you're willing to sit down and share your story, I know it's because you wanna touch so many lives- Yeah and spread the awareness of detection.
For sure.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Please start by introducing yourself.
Okay.
Yeah.
As you said, my name's Laura Smith.
I've lived here in Coral Gables for about five years.
We moved after the pandemic from the Bay Area in California.
I have a husband, three daughters.
Two are in high school and one in middle school, and I have two doodles as well.
So yeah.
Popcorn's always here now.
I think she's so happy we're in a new studio where she's allowed.
I love it.
She's a good therapy dog.
Yeah, indeed.
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Discover Artful at shopartful on Instagram Didn't think a thing of it 'cause I'd never really had anything and didn't have family history.
So I remember that day being at the, the imaging center for Baptist in Coral Gables, and getting ready to order lunch, and I had my phone up, and then I noticed I was the last one in the waiting room.
And actually, a lady came by and kinda tapped me and said, "Good luck."
And that's when, my blood pressure just dropped, and I was like, "I am.
I'm the last one in here.
What's going on?" And so they came out and they said, "You, come back."
And the radiologist right there on the spot said, "Here, I want you to come take a look.
This is your image from last year.
This is this year.
See this little area right here? It wasn't here last year, and these are the things that we look for."
And I was like, "Oh, okay.
What is that?" And he was like I'm not gonna say that it's cancer."
And again, the hair stands up on the back of my neck.
Sure.
And I was like, "Oh, okay."
And he's like, "But I want you to go get that biopsied."
And I was like, "Of course, let's get that set up."
So within that appointment, I had an appointment at the Miami Cancer Institute set up for a biopsy.
So I went within the matter of days and had the biopsy, and the results came back and yeah, I remember where I was exactly.
I had just had lunch with some of my friends in The Grove, and I came out and I remember specifically my doctor saying, "No news is good news."
And then the phone rang, and it was her.
I was in lunch, so it went to voicemail, and she was like, "Your results are back.
Give me a call."
And that's when I was like, "This is not great."
So I called her back immediately, and she said, "Yeah, it looks like you're positive for DCIS, ductal carcinoma in situ."
And "If you're going to have it, this is the best because it's known as stage zero."
But she's like, "I'm not the specialist.
We're gonna get you set up with a, surgical oncologist and see what the options are."
So DCIS and stage zero breast cancer are two words or three words I had never heard of.
And coincidentally enough, we just had Lourdes Millan on here.
She had the same diagnosis.
So I learned through her- what this was, and when you called and told me you were finally ready to share your story- and you told me you also got the DCIS diagnosis- I was shocked.
Yeah.
What are the chances? of you- are willing to share your story and it's a DCIS stage 0.
But I think it's just so perfect that we're talking about that one, because people don't know about it.
People don't know stage 0 is actually a cancer diagnosis.
And does need to be looked after, but it's also, thank goodness, something that you guys were able to find through early detection.
Exactly, yeah.
This is not the type of breast cancer that you feel.
It's detectable only through a mammogram, and that's why it's so important to get those annual screens and why, we get those screens early where you can compare them year over year and set them side by side, because things like this show up.
Sure.
Especially for women that have dense breast tissue, which I did.
And they said, "Okay, this is great because now it's showing."
And yeah, it's nice because if it is strictly DCIS, it usually means that it hasn't become invasive.
If it has become invasive, that kicks it into a different category, but that's how you do different pathology and you figure that out.
But once I did the first biopsy and I got the results back, the radiologist actually called me the following day and said, "You know what? There was a second area that we were going to monitor, but now since this one was positive, I want you to come back for a second biopsy and let's test this other area."
So again, said, "Of course."
In we go.
That second area was also positive, and that's when I kinda lost it, 'cause I was like, "Wait, there's two, that means there's more, and what does this all mean? Is it even scarier than I thought?" And again, they blame a lot of it on dense breast tissue that they can't really see, and mammograms are great, but they're not perfect.
So then I went in for a breast, MRI- And that didn't find anything, so that was good.
Just the two areas that we already knew about.
And so at that point, we scheduled a lumpectomy, hoping that we could get that area.
Even though it was two separate spots, we were hopeful that- Yeah we could try to do that.
And went in, and it was not.
After that surgery, they came back to me and said, they sent it off for pathology, and the margins weren't clear.
Which I was like, I've heard that term, but it's all such a learning process.
So much research, looking into what all these different things mean, 'cause I hadn't had a lot of exposure to cancer.
So for me, it was like, okay, let me learn again what that word margins means.
And basically, what the, my doctor said is that they had spread it out over seven slides, and they want it clear the, the cancer cells to not continue on all four sides.
So I was clear on the left of this slide, clear on the tops, clear on the bottom, but it ran off on the end on the right.
So they were like, "We just didn't get it all, and we don't know how much more."
So she's like, "If you were 66 and didn't have estrogen..."
So let me back up.
These were also found to be estrogen receptor positive- Okay and progesterone receptor positive, which are female hormones, as we know.
And why when you're post-menopausal, some of these things are a little less intense, because you don't have those- Sure as many of those hormones anymore.
Since I was pre-menopausal, that's when she was like, "Okay we don't really need to mess around with this anymore, because you have a fuel source for these tumors."
That's when we went in and did the, the bilateral mastectomy to just make sure that we had everything clear.
I wanna take this back, Laura, because I wanna know at what point you told your daughters and how much you told them, and I wanna go through the process with you.
So you start with a lumpectomy.
At that point, did you sit your daughters down and tell them? So once we got the lumpectomy scheduled, it was an odd time for our family because my oldest daughter was currently in Australia as a foreign exchange student.
Wow.
So for me, it was really important to have all of them together.
So luckily with the biopsies and with it being so early, biopsy takes a little bit of those cells with it when they do the process.
So my doctor, I told her the story.
I said, "We're gonna go pick up my daughter in Australia.
Can I push this off until I come back?" Which would've been, like, three weeks.
And she was like, "Okay, I will let you go, but we're doing it as soon as you get back."
Oh, wow.
And I said, "Fine.
It's a deal.
That's pinky promise on that.
We'll do it."
So we set that date.
We went to Australia, and I was so anxious to tell them.
I'm very close with my daughters and I feel like I want them to be able to come to me and a lot of give and take in our relationship.
So once I got to Australia, I was so excited to tell them.
I wanted to tell them the first moment we saw everyone together, and my husband was like, let's wait until we have a moment to just be able to sit and really talk about it."
And I was like, you're right."
So before that, I'd even made some PowerPoint slides.
I'm a, a former consultant, so to me I like to see things visually.
I like to see how it's broken out, explained to me, and th that's what I liked myself as I was learning about what DCIS meant, the treatment options, and where we were gonna go from here, and how serious this was or not serious.
So I made some slides for them so that they could see, and I could explain it to them.
So we had an opportunity.
It was a quiet afternoon.
I got everyone together.
But my little one was off doing something, and I couldn't get her to come to us.
And so I was like, "Guys, I just, I can't wait any longer.
I'm gonna go ahead and tell you."
And I got out my slides, and I showed them, but my older two.
So you shared this news picking up your daughter from her foreign exchange student process in Australia? In Australia.
So it was nice and quiet, and I think at that point we were, outside of Sydney, and I sat all of them down and I said, "Here's what we're going to do.
This is the diagnosis.
This is what it means.
I'm going to have this surgery, and I'm going to be fine.
As long as they don't find anything worse, there will be no chemo, and I will be able to just be, like, fine."
You were very matter of fact.
I was very matter of fact because to me, that was important that I came to them with facts and- gave at least the impression that I was confident and that it was gonna be okay, that I didn't want to scare them.
But there's no two ways about it, any time you say that C word, it's scary.
So the oldest said, "Sounds like you have a great plan."
The middle burst into tears and was hugging me just took it as this, there's a lot of what-ifs here, and I need to make sure that all is gonna be okay.
And then they said, "And furthermore, wait to tell the little one until she's back from summer camp."
They're like, "She'll never leave to go to summer camp."
And I said thank you guys for your input on that," because to me, I was so nervous and wanted to make sure everyone felt like they were in the know.
And I said, "I have to remember that she's only 10, and yes, we need to make sure that everything is fine before we talk to her."
So we came back home, got her off to summer camp, had the lumpectomy, went to pick her up from summer camp, was still very sore, so she comes to run and jump when I go to pick her up, and I was, like, putting my hands out to "Oh, hi," try to hug her.
And my husband tried to kinda sweep her into a big hug so that she wouldn't big hug me.
And I think pretty soon after that point we knew that I was gonna have to have a subsequent surgery.
So let's talk about that because they recommended a bilateral mastectomy- Yes based on your lumpectomy results.
Yes.
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And now back to our conversation you have to have them replaced every 10 to 15 years.
The technology keeps getting a little bit better.
They can prolong it, but it is I'm looking at more procedures down the road.
So it was a decision that we had to really talk through and think about.
And yes, ultimately I came to the conclusion myself because it is your own body part.
And I just thought, "Hey," again, when it comes to my family and my kids, this is the best long-term decision so that we don't have to keep worrying every six months anytime there's anything that shows up on any kind of mammogram or MRI.
Mammogram, MRIs every six months, I just thought, "Okay, let's just do this."
Yeah.
Your story is just making me realize that you're a prime example that no matter what's happening, you're still a mom.
Yeah.
And you still, have to rein in the kids- Yeah and be the captain of that ship.
So you know, you get this result that you need to have a lumpectomy, but you need to go pick up your daughter- Yeah at school.
So you tell them in one country.
Yeah.
Then they tell you not to tell the baby because she's going to summer camp.
And you find out going to pick them up at summer camp that you need the double mastectomy.
How do you have those thoughts going through your mind while you're mothering, knowing that you've got these massive surgeries ahead of you? Yeah.
I think I was saying, for me it was important to understand it so that I could break it down to them.
So I made sure that I did lots of research and, made my PowerPoint slides so that I can speak to it and let them know there was science behind it that and that we had a great team that knew what they were doing and were trying to give us the best amount of care that we could so that we had the best prognosis long term.
And it's funny how each daughter, same parents, same household- Yeah had such different reactions.
And the little one I said, you know, "We have time.
We're on a plane coming back from summer camp.
Tell me all of your questions."
And she would ask a question and then she would sit on it, and then she would come back and ask another question.
And that's how it went with her is that she would be fine, and then she would think of something, and then she would ask me.
And I wanted to keep that dialogue open so that she felt like she was in the know.
And It did.
It made her, I think it empowered her to have that information and It helped her to be stronger to get through it even though considering, she was only in starting fifth grade.
By the time we went to school it was starting fifth grade.
And luckily the, her fifth grade teacher, to talk about stars aligning her fifth grade teacher had breast cancer a couple of years prior.
Wow.
And when I walked in that day, I said, "That is that sweet little teacher that had the scarf two years ago."
And so I went home and I wrote an email to her and told her my story, and she said, I'm here.
I'm here for her.
I'm here for you.
Whatever you need."
So it was just a blessing in disguise to have her as our homeroom teacher that year.
Wow.
And I'm still really good friends with her.
Those are moments that I like to call in the podcast God-cidence.
Totally.
Because those aren't- Yeah that's not a mistake, and that's not a happy acci- That's a God-cidence.
Yeah.
That was meant to happen.
Yeah.
I hadn't told school.
I hadn't told anyone.
So it wasn't like they placed me with her on purpose.
Yeah.
It just, it's a God-cidence.
Yeah.
There you go.
Yeah.
So you go in for your bilateral mastectomy.
I stayed overnight, and I left in the afternoon on the second day.
So I was able to rest and, kinda get through the anesthesia, start to feel better before I went home that evening.
And from what I learned from Lourdes's conversation- is that she had the opportunity, if her stars aligned in surgery- to have her reconstruction done in the process.
Yes.
Was that an offering for you? They didn't specifically offer that because in the surgery they were going to be doing a lintonal, lymph node biopsy.
Okay.
Yes.
And if the results went one way or another it would mean that it had spread or not.
So they took two lymph nodes, and both of them were clear.
But still, it was just always part of our surgical plan to do the tissue expanders before they did the full implants.
So that's what we did through the surgery, and that's how it ended up.
So I woke up having the result that I thought I was going to have.
Okay.
I had the spacers at the time that I woke up.
And so you wake up very uncomfortable.
When did they come and tell you the results of it? Yeah, that's a good question.
Was it the next day possibly, or was it once I got home? It took a little bit of time, I think.
I don't think I was still in the hospital.
What were the results? The results were good because it was exactly what they thought it was, which was DCIS.
The lymph nodes were clear and it hadn't spread to any other part, so that's where they were like, "We're good with what we have found, and since we did the bilateral mastectomy, you're good to go with no radiation."
So no radiation and no chemotherapy.
What a blessing.
What a blessing.
Yeah.
So you're coasting at this point.
You think you're in the clear.
You've got this wonderful news- from the doctor.
But you develop an infection.
Yes.
That was odd because I went home, and within a couple of days...
I was just very obstinate about I'm gonna get back to it as quickly as I can.
So as soon as I felt better, I was up and, you get four surgical drains with a bilateral mastectomy, so you, I had a little belt where I could put the drains, and I was up walking around doing things.
And then it was like one afternoon it just hit, where I all of a sudden had a lot of swelling and a lot of pain, and then I blamed myself, as we do Oh, I did too much.
I've done something wrong.
But in the instructions it said, "If anything like this happens, you call immediately."
So I did, and they said, "Okay you're gonna come in tomorrow anyway to remove a drain.
We'll take a look at everything at that time."
And so they did, and they were like, "Yeah, it looks like maybe we had a little blockage from one of the drains," "But we're gonna go ahead and give you this antibiotic."
So I took the antibiotic and it didn't improve anything at all.
So it just progressively got worse to, where I finally got to a point, I was keeping the doctors updated with pictures and description and how I felt, and the my reconstructive plastic surgeon called me one morning at 7:00 AM.
And just as a side note, my husband had left the night before to go on a trip, a business trip to China, which he hardly ever does.
Oh, wow.
So of course, again, like things were not aligning as they should.
And they said, "Don't eat anything."
And I said, "Okay.
Why?" You're coming in for surgery today.
The infection is getting worse, and what we think is that those antibiotics aren't reaching the infection."
You have a piece of plastic in between very thin skin.
When they do a mastectomy they cut as close to the skin as they can to get clear margins.
So that's why the risk for infection is much higher than just your standard surgery, because it's really difficult.
There's so much lack of blood flow, and it's hard for an oral antibiotic to get to that area.
So I went in and that's when I found out really quickly was that we were going to remove the implant spacer, the tissue expander And then I said, "Okay, but once you take that, then what's there?" Nothing.
The protocol is to leave that area free and clear for six months.
I ended up getting an IV antibiotic that I had to take with me for a week.
I didn't have to go in for infusions.
I had that set up, and then I took it with me, and then my husband had to plug the medicine into the IV that went into my arm twice a day for seven days.
And then after that, we just let everything heal, six months go by, and then rescheduled to put the implant, the tissue expander back in.
Real quick- your husband did not get on the plane to China? He did.
He got on it.
He was already on it at the time- No that I got the call.
So luckily I was able to get ahold of him and tell him what was going on.
And this is just another sidebar where at the time of my diagnosis, I had only lived in Miami maybe two and a half years.
I was just gonna ask you.
And I thought, "I don't have a village here.
What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?" I found out that I did have a village, that once you start reaching out to your friends, that people do love you and care for you, and they really want to help.
Even the people that were just like, "I'll pick up your youngest and take her to school," bring by food, bring by flowers, books.
It really made me realize that, okay, Miami is my home.
I do have a village here.
Absolutely.
So that's when that kicked in, is I spent that morning figuring out how I was going to take care of the kids in the afternoon.
I boarded my two labradoodles because I was like, I'm gonna be recovering.
I can't take care of them until Hudson gets back."
So I knew that he was going to be coming back soon.
It was a really short trip.
That's a really long- It's a really long way- trip to go to go for a short trip, but thankfully it was primarily for one purpose, and then he got to turn around and come back.
That turned out really well where I did have friends that could help me out.
And then once I got home that evening, that was an outpatient, and so I was home that evening.
Really? Yeah, it was really quick.
And they were expecting me at the ER.
They had me check in through the ER.
The surgeon was there, and off we went, and it was done.
And then I know I went home that evening, and my daughters were there, and they were wonderful.
And they were aware? They were aware.
I'd already let them know that I wasn't gonna be home after school, that this was happening.
And again, different reactions, different children.
Like my oldest was the one who was the point of contact since my husband was out of the country.
And the surgeon had actually called her and said, "Hey, your mom is out of surgery.
Here's how it went."
Wow.
I know.
It really showed what a mature young lady she was.
Yes.
Yeah, that she took that call, took the notes, knew what was going on.
And then I arrived back home, my middle daughter was turned into nurse mode, where she was there to help me to get comfortable.
She basically tucked me in- How beautiful made sure I was propped up nice and comfortable, brought me whatever I needed.
It was a surreal kind of family moment where I got to see How my little girls became big girls a little bit in that one afternoon because it wasn't planned, it wasn't part of the process.
That was not on the slides that I showed them, and the resilience that it showed them to pitch in, and it was my turn to be human and to be vulnerable, and the tables got turned that evening unbeknownst to us.
The love and the support that they gave me made me, I feel like it made me heal even faster- That is so beautiful because I was very proud of how resilient they were.
Yeah.
That is so telling- Yeah of the three young ladies that you are raising.
Yeah.
So I commend you for that.
Yeah.
Because that has a lot to do with your parenting as well.
Absolutely.
You mentioned that they took the tissue expanders out, but you weren't really thinking it was gonna be for as long as you thought it, as long as it turned out to be.
What they had told me that day was that it's, typically around six months where you were scheduled to have the tissue expander put back in.
But for me, that timing was going to be in the middle of the summer I think, or the beginning of the summer.
And I said, "You know what? This has already impacted me more than I really wanted it to be.
I'm gonna schedule it on my terms."
So I actually pushed it to August because we live in Miami.
We swim, we boat- we're outside a lot, and I said, "I'm not gonna have to have six weeks of recovery where I can't swim and I can't do all the things."
But also what that meant is that I had to wear a prosthetic for all of that time.
So that was probably one of the more emotionally crushing blows was how is this gonna look? How is this gonna work? Are people gonna be able to tell? At Baptist there's this fantastic prosthetic boutique that's in the ground floor where women can get wigs and they can also get breast prosthetics.
And there were fabulous people in there that, that fitted me.
They talked to me about my life and my lifestyle and what I did, and they fitted me with two separate ones: one for swimming so that I could swim, one that could get wet, and then one that was beautiful and it worked day to day, and I had to buy different bras that it could have a pocket that it could fit into, and I wore that.
And I had to kinda modify.
Nothing could really be worn without...
There was no push-up, no strapless bras.
So anything that I wore had to really have, a neckline structure so that I could wear a full bra that would hold the prosthetic it made you feel comfortable to walk out the door with? It did.
It was really life-changing having those ladies that really were so helpful and to have these really nice-looking prosthetics.
So I managed to get through the next few months, and then scheduled it for August, and I can't tell you how happy I was though to get rid of those prosthetics.
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And now back to our conversation You kept a lot of this private.
Why talk about it now? I think I'm one of those people that I really like to tell the full story, and I wanted to be able to tell it at the end and looking back.
And there is a lot of uncertainty.
No matter what stage, I think that you always are concerned that, "Oh, okay, we're gonna have a surgery.
They're going to find something.
There's gonna be a surprise.
There's gonna be more to it."
So I think in my mind, I needed to know that it was gonna be okay, that everything was fine.
And as I continually learn more about cancer and the way that it behaves in women's health, I do think that it is important to share this story 'cause like you said, I hadn't heard of DCIS.
You hadn't heard of DCIS.
I had to really do a lot of research to find out what this all meant.
Right.
And that yes, it is more common than you realize 'cause you do, you start talking to other women, and I don't know why we don't share it more than we do because it's a fellowship.
It's we're in this together.
We're here to support one another.
And any time I meet someone or I'm told about someone that just had a recent diagnosis, I'm always there to talk to them, tell them my story.
And you know what's funny? No two stories are ever exactly alike.
Never.
Never.
Never.
Yeah.
I, Lourdes had the same diagnosis.
We just heard her story.
Completely different from yours.
Actually, she chose to withhold information from her children.
Yeah.
And she felt that she was...
She goes, "Look, I don't know if I made the righteous or choice as a mom in not telling them, but I wanted to protect them as..."
And I- Yeah I, I agree with that.
Yes.
And I think that every household is different.
And you know your children best- Yeah and you know what your children can handle and can't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there's no right or wrong way to parent- when it comes to the news of a cancer diagnosis.
Yeah.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah.
So with that said, I also wanna ask, you have three daughters.
I had asked Lourdes.
She has two daughters.
Yeah.
Do you fear for your daughters having a predisposition to cancer? I do because of diagnosis, they will start to get their mammograms earlier.
I believe it's 10 years earlier than I had my diagnosis, which mine was 46, so they'll be more like 35, 36 when they're getting their first mammograms.
And heaven forbid, keeping out- keeping an eye out for lumps- Sure or anything like that before, and hopefully that doesn't happen.
But like I had said, I wasn't in that category.
I wasn't in a high-risk category.
I even did genetic testing after the diagnosis, and I didn't have any kind of genetic markers.
And again, the genetic marker field is growing.
There might have been something that I have that they haven't found that is a correlation.
So maybe that's TBD.
But, as of right now No, not for me, but I do.
I'm-- And, but it's great that knowledge is power and that we can get ahead of it for them.
Now, I have a sister that because of this, she's a few years older than me, and they made sure that she did all of her mammogram.
They made her do an ultrasound and a breast MRI, and everything came back fine.
But she also did genetic testing, and she, tested positive for a genetic marker that makes you much more likely to have a handful of cancers, including breast cancer, um, endometria- endometrial cancer, colon cancer, just to name a few.
But she hasn't had any kind of diagnosis so far.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow.
So again, we're just, it's making her be more aware, more screening because she has other things to look at other than just breast cancer.
Sure.
Yeah, we'll do the same for the girls once they get older, and they can do any kind of genetic testing to see if they have any kind of markers.
But yeah, I think just staying on top of things and getting ahead of the screening early.
That's what we're hoping everybody gets out of our celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month because it doesn't hurt to get a mammogram.
Yeah.
It's uncomfortable.
Yeah.
But it doesn't hurt.
No.
And if there's something that you can do to catch things on time- Yeah it's that.
Yeah.
Right? Exactly.
And that's the thing that I ask is I-- One of the many questions that I asked my surgical oncologist was, "How do you know which cancers started at DCIS?" And she was like, it really, the only way that you would know is if you had a DCIS patient and they waited, and they saw, like does it progress?" And so she said not many do choose to do that.
But the studies they have done in the past shows that 60% of DCIS cancers become invasive, so that they do eventually break out of the milk duct, and then they become, invasive into the other breast tissue and then, God forbid, go to lymph nodes or furthermore after that.
Heaven forbid.
So yeah.
You mentioned to me that you feel that you cannot call yourself a cancer survivor because you didn't go through chemotherapy.
What kind of survivor's guilt is that? I know.
I-- It was something that I really struggled with, and I think it also played into the part where I didn't really want to talk about my diagnosis because I felt like I had met some of these women that had gone through so much, and how can I put myself in the same bucket as them? So it took me a lot of time, a lot of contemplating, talking.
I talked with a therapist for a little while to of help me to, pull my feelings together and figure out how I can take this, digest it, and move forward, learn from it.
And in our conversations was like, I think we finally Had the one specific conversation where we talked about the word survivor, and it's just because you weren't on the brink of dying does not mean that you didn't survive something that was really traumatic.
And so that's where I think, okay, now I think I can finally talk about it and talk about how it was a really trying time.
No matter w- how things turn out, it's always scary, and you're learning about something that you didn't see coming.
It's impacting your life.
It's impacting your family.
And then when you get on the other side of it, you survived that.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
How has this experience changed you in the way that you see your body and your health and your life today? I have become a l- I was healthy I thought before.
I liked to run and, do moderate exercise.
Now I'm incorporating more strength training.
I'm being really aware about the processed food that I put in my body.
Sugary drinks.
Trying to really cut back on alcohol consumption.
I had a period of time where I was like, "Okay, I'm not going to drink at all anymore," and I-- moderation is my name of my game now because, again, I just feel like I want to be smart about the decisions that I make and, use my own best judgment in trying to be the best that I can be about my own personal health.
So I've, I do feel healthier now than I ha- ever have, crazy enough.
I do feel like I'm eating healthier.
I'm more active.
I have a more well-rounded exercise routine than I had before.
And, yeah, and I think just staying on top of that and not letting it just be something that I do and then I forget about it and put it in the past like, "Oh, okay, now I feel better.
I'm not going to continue up on that regimen."
But it's a lifestyle choice.
Absolutely.
If a woman who is newly diagnosed and terrified and trying to hold it all together for her children- is listening to you right now- what would you want her to hear? You have to know your own child and know what is best for your child, your family, and for you.
I think also, as a mother, that kind of that relationship that you have and how you wanna be able to retell that story at the end, if that's something where you'll feel better having protected them from it until you have that final outcome and you know that you can back up that story and tell them.
Or if you feel like it's something that you need them to feel as you go along, then that is, that is ultimately your decision.
And m- trust your mother intuition.
Your mother's instinct is usually the right instinct to go by.
Yeah.
Well, I wanna thank you so much for your honesty today and for coming forth with your story in the hopes that it comforts somebody else.
And even more so that it prompts somebody to pick up the phone today- Yes and call and have their appointment scheduled for their mammogram because I am sure you're gonna touch somebody's life today in coming forth with your story, and I can't thank you enough for choosing us to be that vehicle.
Of course.
And I thank you for having me and for making me feel so, so at home and comfortable to share my story.
I hope so.
Yeah.
I hope so.
Yeah.
We love you truly.
I mean, I had no idea you were going through any of this, and I've known you for years already.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you once again.
Thank you.
Please, everybody, may this serve as a reminder of calling to get your mammogram scheduled during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Detection is everything.
I wanna thank you all for listening today as we shared Laura's story with the world, and I wanna thank you for always, counting on me to be the one that shares these stories and gets them to you.
If you've liked what you've heard today, please hit the subscribe button on YouTube Spotify or on Apple Podcasts.