188. We Didn't Plan For This: Wait...You Said No Chemo?!

Wait...I thought you said no chemo?!

Those are words no one wants to hear after believing the hardest part is over.

In this follow-up conversation, Nora shares what happened when her treatment plan changed. After preparing for one surgery, she found herself facing a second surgery, waiting on pathology results, and confronting the possibility of chemotherapy.

Together, Adrienne and Nora talk about the emotional roller coaster of changing plans, the anxiety of waiting, the pressure of returning to work before recovery feels complete, and the strange disconnect that can happen between your mind and your body after surgery.

If you’ve ever thought, “I thought I was through the hardest part,” this episode is for you.

For those who have reached out asking how to support Adrienne and her family during this time, click here to donate. There is absolutely no expectation—just sincere gratitude.

We Didn't Plan For This Special Series

This series exists because so many of you reached out and said, “I didn’t plan for this either.”

If you’ve gone through a diagnosis, a loss, a life change, a career shift, a divorce, becoming a caregiver, moving, starting over — we want to hear your story.

EMAIL US: WDPFTPodcast@gmail.com

You don’t have to have it figured out. You just have to be willing to share honestly.

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These podcasts are really about the same thing — how people move through the seasons of life they didn’t plan for, and what helps them along the way.

If you’d like to be on the show or share your story:  Fill out our guest form or email us at yogachanged@gmail.com 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to We Didn't Plan for This, a special series from how yoga changed my life. Normally on the podcast, we talk about practices like movement, breath work, and meditation, and how they've changed people's lives. But this series, it's different. It's about the moments that shift everything. The seasons you didn't see coming. And how we keep showing up anyway. And if something here resonates with you, follow our show. Share it with someone who might need it. Or send us a message. Because the truth is, we didn't plan for this. But we're here. Hi, this is Adrian. Welcome back to another episode of We Didn't Plan for This. Today I'm sitting down with Nora because a lot has happened behind the scenes over the past few months with Nora's breast cancer journey. And we wanted to kind of catch everybody up to speed. Also because she finally got some answers that she's been waiting on pretty much since two weeks after her first surgery.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

No, one week.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

I think it was like the next week. So, okay. Since we've last talked, catch everyone else up on kind of you know what's been going on with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah. Well, if you didn't hear before, I was breast uh diagnosed with breast cancer um from having symptoms in December and finally got a diagnosis in February and needed a bilateral mastectomy with the deep flap reconstructive surgery in order to um remove the cancerous cells. And um at that point I was told, you know, uh you'll be good. It's it's a major surgery, but you you're doing it at the right stage, you know, you're at stage one, everything's good. We don't think you're gonna need any other kind of intervention at all whatsoever after this. You just need to heal and get stronger. Okay, cool. Um so we went through all that um and we talked about the you know the journey of diagnosis and all the way up until that point um in the last two episodes about all of this. And then um I'm home, I I was recovering, I'm on, I was on a still on a lot of drugs, um, and my doctor called. And it was the doctor, it wasn't uh her staff, it was her. And she said the pathology came back from your bilateral mastectomy, and um the cells turned out to be invasive after all. I I said, um what does that mean? And um before that I had heard the words invasive versus non-invasive um as far as the cell diagnosis goes. Um invasive means that they have properties um that allow them to move or migrate to a different part of your body, take up shop there, and then cause cancer in that part of your body. So um, but of course I didn't know that until I was diagnosed with it and I started doing the research. Right. And I had no idea that you I even though I I knew what I thought I knew about breast cancer, I didn't realize that breast cancer, like before it goes metastatic, it can, it can literally, I guess that's part of it, is is going to you can get breast cancer in your bone and your leg. Yeah. And your brain, right? Because those cells can just migrate to that part, take up shop, and then just start duplicating, making, you know, doing their thing. And so I said, Well, okay, now what? Like, what does that mean? And she said, Um, it means I need to go back in. It needs I need to do another surgery. And I was like, wait, what? And she said, invasive. Well, the difference is is when you have just what we thought was DCIS, which is the doctocarcinoma in situ, it which means it was in place. Um, it turned out that the cancer by my nipple was the invasive cells. Um, and so she said, those, when you remove those cells, you need to have larger margins.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Because they have the properties of that that they like to move, mutate and move. Yeah. Um, you need to take out more tissue rather than less. And because your breast is most of it is just fat, like your breast tissue, a lot of it is fat. You know, there's milk ducts in there and there's other cells, but a lot of it is fat, and you can't to the eye like tell the difference, you know, where the wall of your skin and and the you need to have like a layer of fat to hold the skin together. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, to keep the like meat sack of the breast, right? For lack of a better term.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Of your cord. Take that orange cord and take it all the way back. Yeah. And then that way it won't drag against your headphone cord. There we go. Yeah. Okay. Um it wasn't that big of a deal. I just wanted to fix it. So where was I? The skin and the fat tissue.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Oh, so she had so she said, I need to go back in. And I said, Wait, what the fuck? What? And she said, then um, we have to send those cells. They came back invasive, but now we have to send them for something called onkyotyping. And I was like, what the hell is that? And excuse me, man. Don't worry about it. Um I can cut it out. Uh now we have to uh send those uh specific samples to for onkyotyping. And I thought, well, what the hell is that? I've never heard of that word, you know. And um so, and meanwhile, she's like, I need to you have your follow-up appointment with me. Um in a week, it was a week later. Right, it was a week later, and she was like, So we'll we'll, you know, we're gonna try and see what we can do and see how fast because we want to do this quickly um to take care of it. And then we once you find out the onkyotyping, then you'll find out if you need chemo or not. Or other therapy or radiation or a combination or hormone hormone therapy, right? And I was like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Right. But you said nothing.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

I mean, I was already at that, yeah, yeah, because you were like, oh, you do this right now, you know, you're good at stage one, like you know, you know, and I know it's not their fault. Of course not. Of course not. They don't know that until they take that. But of course, that's all I had known. Right. So that's what I had planned for, understood and planned for. Right. Right. And you know me, I was going into it, I was like, meal plan, settlements, workout plan, get ready, you know, do all these things to get ready just to bounce back from this horrible damn surgery.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

One surgery. Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

And um, so I go in for my follow-up that following week, uh, Wednesday, which was my normal post-op two-week appointment. And she says, I have room for you tomorrow. And I was like, Oh shit. So um the I and I was on so many drugs. I was still on all the post-op drugs, which included gabipentin, 300 milligrams of gabipentin every night for uh nerve pain. Um that shit really fucked you up. It really did, girl. It really did. I know you know because you were there the whole time, but it it made me psycho. Yeah. Um, and then and then the cocktail of um oxycodone for pain and what was the other Tramadol. The and well, we switched to the tramadol, didn't switch to the tramadol yet. I was still on Oxycodone at that point.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

What was the other one?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Um, diazepam. That's what it was, yes. And I was on diazepam every six hours for uh to control the muscle spasms, but my memory um was nowhere to be found. Yeah, it was like I was just walking around chewing on Xanax bars all day. It was crazy. I because it was like in my system, you know, because I had to have it like in there to keep so that nothing would spasm from all everything like stitch back up. So um my surgery was the next day and it was in the afternoon. Oh I remember like late in the afternoon, and I had to fast for eight hours before the surgery. And because I have to fast, I don't You can't take the medication. I can't take my meds. Um, and I had not realized because I'm such the role follower and the time, like I literally had my You had alarms set every time you took a pair of every single one too so that I didn't miss anything. Yeah. And um I was in so much pain by the time we got to the hospital because it's a three-hour ride um from where I live in the country to where I was having the surgery in Austin. Um and I didn't realize, I had no idea that not having my pain meds on time, along with the being in the car for three hours with the anxieties. Yeah. Um the anxiety. I know I had I had four drains. I had drains out of uh either hip and out of either breast. And um it yeah, it was it was wrong. I I once I I c got to the surgical center and the nurse took one look at me and pushed her seat back, looked to the left and said, Hey, I need a wheelchair. And then she was like, come around here, and she's like, just hand me your stuff. I'm checking you in. Like, I mean, it was just it, it was phenomenal. I cannot believe I'm I'm greatly impressed and indebted to the St. David's team at all. At so far, they've been absolutely phenomenal at every point. Um, and so I got in there, got the surgery done. Um, that was that day. Then I go, I you know, I have to go home and start healing, and then I'm like, well, now what? I have no idea what my future holds now.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Um because you didn't have because the on type type testing hadn't been back yet. Right. Because you had only had two weeks in between surgeries. 16 days. Yeah. It ended up being 16 days between the two surgeries. And she had said it would take at least three weeks to get the onc type results back. Think you even remember that. It was, yeah. So it was at that point, you still had to wait two more weeks to figure out if you had something that needed to be treated more than what you just had treated. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

After having two pretty sick extensive surgeries, you know, right away. Um, and so I shifted my, you know, I did what I could do. And like I mean, I thought I had already doubled down on controlling controllables. Yeah. And then it was just like an earthquake. I'm like, oh yeah. And you thought you knew what you were gonna do a whole and fuck you, here you go, you know.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Uh I just kept thinking too the whole time. I was like, fuck, like we really didn't see this coming. No, at all. Because everything was like, oh well, she found it early and it's not even really healthy. She's so healthy.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Oh, she's exactly she's the, you know, yeah. I've been called the granola girl my entire life. You're a nutrition. Yeah, exactly. Oh, she's strong, she's young. We founded this, we did, you know, everything's gonna be fine. You're gonna have surgery, then nothing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

And this isn't to say that like every situation has to be treated this way in our lives, like, oh, you know, we're waiting for the other shoe to drop, kind of bullshit. No. But at the end of the day, it was not something that you planned for whatsoever. No, not whatsoever. Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yet a fucking here I am. I was like, okay, and throw the cancer diagnosis into you. Okay, well, I but I found it first, and I've you know, I'm on top of it, and I'm gonna get strong and I'm gonna get healthy, and I'm gonna get right back to fucking work.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

And this is just gonna be Q2 of 2026. Exactly. Fast forward. Yeah. Now I'm a cancer patient. I mean, having that diagnosis, the difference for anybody that's confused, is that invasive cells, like you're gonna I have to be checked for the rest of my life now. Yeah, yep, you do.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

It's something that could come up at any point, and you have to be very mindful with your bones and you have to be very mindful with your brain. Absolutely. Those are the two areas you don't have any more breast tissue. So check that bitch off the box.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

But I know, you know, no more mammograms. No more mammograms. Not for me, bitch, but even just like that's a that's a silver lining right there.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Just like no more squishing the titties. Yeah, but just the fact of like what kind of waiting people don't understand, yeah, you know, waiting for that.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

That's definitely one of the things, you know, that you don't I I had no understanding, no realm, no nothing, no reference to understanding exactly what kind of limbo you can be stuck in when you're just waiting for fucking test results.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

No, when you when you called me that Tuesday after you got off the phone with the doctor, I was like, this is not at all. It's not okay. Like, I I could tell in your voice at that moment, like, what the fuck are we gonna do? You know, and I was like, okay, we can do this, like we're getting through this, you know? Because like one of the things your brain was not doing very well throughout all of this because of all of the cocktails of meds that they put you on. But what stories did your brain start to tell you? I mean well, this is how it happens. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

We think it's gonna be fine and then it's not, and the brain's pulled out from underneath us.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Because it's a it's a crapshoot. Yeah. And it's a numbers game. Yeah, and the uncertainty of cancer specifically versus any other diagnosis, like uh chronic illness, we'll call it. Like a chronic illness diagnosis is very different. This is we don't fucking know.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

Yeah, you don't know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yeah, we don't know why you got it, we don't know where it came from, we don't know what it is that you're doing that's helping you not to progress it. We don't know what it is, you know, that uh um is gonna make this one gene turn on or mutate, you know. And I have theories about that, but yeah, that's for another podcast. But but it's true because you're now so it's it's it's the fucking fear of the unknown. Yes. And holy shit, what what do you mean? And it's paralyzing. Yeah, it's paralyzing. I I mean there were days when I just couldn't do anything.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

No, you were uh it was and it was it was the almost like your body's way of protecting you by being like, okay, like we are just going to be right here, you know, and not try to do too much, you know. And I think, you know, the second surgery obviously was not as invasive as the first surgery, but it was still scary because then it was like a waiting game.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Well, yeah, it wasn't so much the surgery that brought on the anxiety, it was the unknown of what the fuck next. Right. Like, oh, now you're gonna scrape out more tissue, but then you but then you're telling me that you literally don't know what else you're gonna have to do to me.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

And now you're saying you you thought you told me I wasn't gonna have to do chemo. Now you're telling me I might have to do chemo. So what happened? And then fast forward, I go and I get the onko type results and I make a an appointment with a medical oncologist because now my surgeons have done everything that they can do. So now you need a medical oncologist to determine treat what treatment plan is next, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the surgical. Correct. They're the ones that talk about chemo, radiation, drug therapies, like whatever, you know, every different cancers have different um therapies, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

And um I it was a terrible experience. I I went, I had this horrible, I mean, like it was a horrible experience at a at a clinic. Um, and I mean, like you walk in the door and they want you to scan a barcode so that you can sit down and wait for your name to be called.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Instead of, you know, like checking in at the desk and being like, you know, yeah, reading by somebody. So what? Uh and and the whole day, the whole uh um appointment was like that. It was like, okay, scan your barcode, wait here. Okay, now registration will call your name. Okay, now scan, now go and go stand by this picture and wait for your name to be called again. Then go over here and wait for your name to be called again, then go back to the lab and wait in their waiting area and wait to be called again. It was nuts.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

You felt like you were at the DMV.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Yes, I felt it 100%. That's exactly what it felt like. It felt like going to the DMV during COVID. That's what it felt like. Yeah. I mean, it was worse than just the DMV. Like it was a bad day at the DMV. Yeah. And um, and and and the doctor that I saw was 45 minutes past my appointment time. Yeah. And I'm sitting there trying to find out whether or not I'm gonna have to do chemo. Right. So I can't breathe. I haven't been eating. I um I had that stomach bug.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Because my immune system was depleted and we had had a weekend trip. We had a little too much fun over the weekend. We did, exactly. And then I ended up getting sick from it because I hadn't changed my immune system and everything, you know. Yeah. So um I was really not feeling well. And then that and all of these little signs, but I wasn't feeling myself and I wasn't trusting anything. I was feeling crazy from the drugs, and I'm going out of my skin with the anxiety.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

And you can't move and do the things.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

And she's just it was awful. It was, I don't know what happened. My husband was there with me, so he was my witness because, like I said, I was not in my right mind. And I tried to explain that to her. I was like, I don't do well on drugs. I'm, you know, I'm trying, I'm sorry. I'm like, my husband's here so that you know I can make better um informed decisions or not. But not that I needed, I don't know. That doesn't sound right. But it uh I at some point in the exchange, I had I said something that it changed her demeanor. She got offended. Oh, yeah, you questioned her on something. I remember that. I did. I don't remember what it was. I just said I understand this. I'm sorry, but I don't, it's not adding up to me. Like, tell me why, blah, blah, X, Y, whatever. She had this one paper, and she was like showing me this paper and telling me I didn't need chemo, but that I needed to take a hormone blocker for five years. And I was like, I don't understand. What are you talking? You know, why the oncotyping is very um confusing. And the way that statistics are studied in cancer are very confusing. Yes. So you need to understand the difference between like me as a patient, I'm trying to think of it as my percentage of if I do this, then this will happen. Right. Right. And and but in cancer, you can't do that. Right. It's more like if I do this, my chances of this happening are XYZ. Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:39

Yeah. Right. Or or lowered by or affected or hired. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Or, or you, you know, your recurrence rate at 10 years is blah, blah, blah because of this, right? Like that's what um the oncotyping just gives you a number. It gives you two different numbers, right? Well, that report that you're thinking of has three numbers. It had the one thing and then that and then that. So that was also very confusing. Yeah. So each of your doctors, depending on which doctor you have, they use different tools, you know, that they're they have different tools and um use different things to help give you the right uh diagnosis. Well, um, apparently I said something, I questioned something, and she got it very defensive with me and just locked down and was like, Well, then you just don't have to do anything.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

Don't forget to who else was there and what was she doing. With remember, she had somebody else with her in the she had a resident watching.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yes, she had a resident who was shadowing her, and she was recording the um oh my god, media appointment, thank you. Yeah, I'm like, word. I know, me too. She was yeah, she was recording it with an AI scribe. Yeah, you know, to and I was like, Yeah, absolutely. I know how much that time that saves. Anyway, but I don't know. I saved, I I said something because Denny was like, Yeah, no. He was like, as as soon as you he was like, I don't know what you said, but she flipped on a dime and immediately got it got defensive and was just like, oh, well, you can either do it or you do or you can't do it. That's all we got. You want to just make your okay, you want to make your decision. Well, you want to wait, then you can wait two weeks and then we can remeet. And I was like, what the fuck just happened? I just I was seeking to understand. I wasn't questioning your fucking volume, you know, whatever as a doctor. If you're that secure in your own, I don't want, I don't think you're the fit for me, first of all. No, and um what I was understanding, what I was starting to understand is that me, I'm I'm a unicorn. I'm I'm technically too young to be post menopausal. I'm this, I'm that. I like all my numbers were right on the edge of of being, oh, you should do this, or versus you should do that. You know, it wasn't like a it was like right, once I got all of the answers. Every of all of my numbers were right in the middle in the gray area. You know, there wasn't anything that was like clear cut. You do this, this is gonna help your chances. Blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

No, there really wasn't at all.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

So I was like, I really want to make sure I'm making the right decision. I'm I'm this granola girl. Like, you think I'm gonna put chemo in my body if I don't have to? Like, that's I'm not gonna what? I think that was. I didn't even want to take the hormone drugs if I don't have to. You know, I don't want to take anything that's not I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Well, the thing that bothers me about the whole thing is that like if you if you're a medical oncologist and someone and you you have their chart, so you can see this person was diagnosed in December or no, January, was diagnosed in January, February, was diagnosed in February with breast cancer. It is now May. That was yeah, uh yes, May. May that was May. Yep. So we're talking a few months later. She's had two surgeries.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

End of June. Or end of April? No, no, because the surgery April 7th, then 16 days later was second surgeries, end of April. It was end of April or beginning of May. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

But whenever it was you, it still was only a few months after diagnosis, and you've already had two major surgeries.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

And you were told that, and by everything that she and each time I was always told that nothing else was gonna have to be done. Oh, wait, psych my bad. Yep, another surgery. Actually, we're gonna have to go back and do some more. Yeah. And by the way, now you might have to do something else. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, I just it's what I'm saying. And and it knowing allows me the analytical brain, the A-type personality, the let me just, you know. That yeah. Um, I don't know, just evaluate, overcome whatever.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

But you're not a you're you're also a typical person, and like I want to know that if I don't know what the hell is going on.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

I want I need you to give me the next step so I can figure out how to how to how to live my life, how to go, how to go about this.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Well, and that's the thing is that they I think that a lot of times, especially the way it sounds like at this clinic that you went to, is that they are so overwhelmed and overworked and not have support and don't have the answer.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

That's what I told Denny. I w my I told my husband. I was like, I can you not feel how miserable everyone is who works here?

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Yeah, yeah. Like their energy.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

I can feel each one of them is like eeyore. Yeah, like it's just it's really bad in here. I don't want to be here. This is where people come to die, right?

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

The fuck I don't want to, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Well, in bedside manner, like I like I've said, I think I've said it like 18 times this week. What do they call a doctor who finished last in class? Doctor, you're not gonna get the best one all the time. But then you went to after you saw this doctor, yeah. You then I went. I I you didn't know about she said you don't have to do chemo.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

She said, I don't have to do chemo. She said she gave me this paper that said that if I took the tamoxifen for five years, it would give me that it that the invasive can there's only a six percent chance that the invasive cancer would come back. That's what she told me. On that, remember that paper with the little people that were like lit up or whatever. Exactly. That by the way, I didn't realize at the time, my name was never on that paper. My date of birth is nowhere on that paper. Nothing other than a 46-year-old female is on that paper.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

And that paper was not in your medical. Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Well, I didn't know that until later.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

So I find so anyway, so we had this horrible experience. I freak out. I don't now I I don't know anything. I've waited, I'm sick. Yeah. Um, so we go get Indian food because that's my comfort place. Anti-inflammatory, lovely Indian food. And and a and my husband was like, fuck that. He's like, You if you're talking about you're gonna need therapy of some kind for up to five years, you need to be somewhere where you're comfortable. Yeah, you know, and and you believe that they believe in you. And I'm like, I fucking love you, man. Thank you. Yes, I feel crazy, but I'm glad that someone else is here to support me crazy and telling me you're not crazy. Yeah, actually, no, that was really fucked up. I don't, I'm you shouldn't be treated that way. And um, especially because I had been treated so well, yeah. The entire program. Yeah, well, not just that, but also at Peterson in Kerrville, where all my diagnosis happened. Yeah, yeah. They were very they were they are so good. And so um, so we go through, I and and I do some more research, and I'm like, well, you know what? Let me just go back to, you know, there's a there's a medical oncology in Kerrville. Let me go back and see. And so I looked at and I saw the doctor that my doctor who diagnosed me, um, he had uh originally recommended the doctor that I chose. Um, and so I get an appointment. It's two more weeks until that appointment. Yeah. So here I go, another two weeks of not knowing. Well, fuck, now you may you may now you might have to do chemo.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

Well, no, at that point you didn't know you were gonna have to do chemo. I didn't know you thought you were gonna have to do the hormone blocking that was a big concern.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

And big concern because I had an endometrial ablation in 2010 that makes your uterus very scarred tissue-y and makes it hard for uterine tumors to be found.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

And tamoxifen does increase your chances of uterine cancer. It's very small, but it's there.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

And I'm like not ignoring anything anymore because I wasn't supposed to have cancer in the first fucking place. Exactly. So I'm like, well, I'm yeah, no, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna take that precautionary. So um, so I go, I find, I wait, I meet with him, and I'm like, please explain to me, you know, why this is working.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

Pause right here. That is exactly what pissed her off. If I remember correctly, talking to you on the phone right after you got out of the appointment, was you said to her about, well, I heard that if I take tamoxifen and I've had you've told her about the event and metriosis thing. Yeah, no, and that's when I think that's what it is. I think that's exactly when it is. Because you asked her about she was like, Because I had already done the research, yeah, the percentages of ovarian cancer. She was like poo-pooed on that idea.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Yeah, she had told me she's like, that's not a thing. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Exactly. What do you mean that's not a thing? I read the research. Like, I know I'm not a research specialist, I'm definitely not a medical oncologist, but but I know I know how to read research, and evidence-based research. And by the way, I'm a human magazine.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

Like, I can read it. I'm a human. You shouldn't even talk to me that way. Yeah. When it's my body that's just been through hell. Right. And I've only been dealing with the word cancer for four fucking months, you bitch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

So I go and I meet with my new doctor, the in in in Kerrville, and I'm like, please explain this to me. And so he's like, let me be clear. You have a very, very, very good outcome. Like, you are very, you are, you did what you were supposed to do. You the after bilateral mastectomy, like the numbers are very low. He's like, then you did the invasive, you know, you let her take out more tissue at larger margins. Like, that's you're already putting all your eggs in the right basket. Yeah. He said, So let's see if we can help you with the symptoms. Because one of the things was, you know, the hot flashes have been trying to kill me. Yeah, I know. I mean, literally, it's been miserable existence of um they're they they've hit me harder than any of my friends that I know of. Yeah. Um, I'm also technically younger than they tell you, which I'm did I'm finding out now. They don't, and I'm when I'm saying they, I mean doctors in the United States assume that all women under 50 are pre-menopausal. No matter what your health history is.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

They just assume that you haven't had the change. They just assume. Even though most of the time, if your mother went through it early, you probably will go through it early.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

It could. It could. You could also take after your father's mother in that aspect. I don't know what the genealogy is of that. But anyway, you uh you know, yeah, I've I've they've been significant. That was the original reason why I got on HRT. I couldn't fucking sleep. And if you can't sleep, you can't recover. And if you can't recover, you feel crazy and you want to murder people and you know, all these things. Um, so he was like, Let me look at your um, you know, your lab work, um, and let's start, let's do this uh drug for um hot flashes and see if it helps. See if it helps, see if it works, see if it makes you feel better, and um get your labs done in two weeks, and then at that point, like you can tell me if you want to do the tamox fit or not. And he's like, you know, here's this or the tamoxin or the aromatase inhibitors. Those are the two options, right? And I'm like, okay. And then um, and he's like, so we you can come in and do the labs, and then we can just do a virtual visit and catch up, you know, once the labs are done. And I'm like, okay. So I do that, and I'm in the parking lot of HEB and I go to do my virtual visit. Um, HEB is our awesome grocery store. Now sponsored by one day. One day. Okay. Um, yeah, I'm sitting in the parking lot at HEB's. I found a shady spot, which in South Texas is, you know, not everywhere. And I'm like, let me just do this virtual call that I run inside and get the groceries and then I'll be on my way home. And um I get on the phone with him and he's like, hey, he's like, I gotta apologize. He's like, I don't know what's going on. He's like, but your I went back or when we spoke last, I based our appointment off of your prior appointment with this other doctor on her notes. He said, but I went back and I looked at your results, and your results and her notes don't match. I said, what do you mean? And he said, Well, you know, she's saying in your notes, da da da da da I'm looking at your results. That's not what this says at all. He's like, I'm looking at your results. Your Anka type testing is telling you that you're this number, which puts me right on the border, right? But then it has two more numbers that it multiplies in, and it tells you if I do tamoxifen alone, my chances of reoccurrence are 15, 14.7% in the next 10 years. But if I do chemo and tamoxifen, then it's only 7%. And I was like, wait a minute, what? I thought I didn't have to do chemo. I thought we were just talking about hormone theory. And he said, I thought we were too. That's why I'm confused as to why this is in her notes when you're clearly not, you know, it it from everything I'm reading, it's telling me that you would benefit that it would cut your chances of reoccurrence in half by doing chemo.

SPEAKER_03 33:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

And I was sitting in the fucking parking lot at HEB, and I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?

SPEAKER_03 33:19

And so now here I am dealing with the idea.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Yeah. What? And and I'm like, what are we talking about at this point? And he's like, this type of chemo, it's the most uh common for breast cancer. It's these two drugs together, it's one infusion every 21 days, four cycles. Yeah, it's 12 weeks. You will lose your hair. And I was like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 33:45

Well, what's crazy about that is that as a as a woman myself, if somebody were to say to me, like, hey, you've got cancer, we're taking your breasts, we're we're doing this surgery to you, and now we're gonna take your hair as well, right? I'm sure that's what every cancer patient thinks. Yeah, but you but I didn't realize it. But you also shaved your head for one of your dearest friends who had cancer and did that in solidarity with them. Is that what it's called? In solidarity, in support of? In support of. Okay, in support of a friend of yours. So you already knew what your head looked like when it to be bald. Yeah. So that was at least the ball to me. Yeah, so that was at least one thing that I would do.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

I would say I but that wasn't the point. No, it was the it was the fact that it was the I'm sick and fucking tired of getting throat punched with life altering, life-altering pseudo facts. Yeah, yeah, I guess is the best way to say it. Yeah, or like it's like, wait, what? Right that changes my entire reality if it goes down this way versus this other way.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Right. Because now it's May and you're going back to work in a month. Yeah, and you've had two surgeries, and now you're told, well, chemo is on the table again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

And now I'm gonna have to go back to work as a chemo baby. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

So what did you do? You went and bought an Alpha Romeo SVP. I mean, let's let's be honest. Like, I just you deserve a midlife crisis cancer car for sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

And she's a beauty. But I'm not saying that's exactly what you did afterwards, you know that. But no, the doctor was great with the way he handled it.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

He is fantastic. I am really glad that he's my doctor, and I feel very, very well cared for there. Um so he actually said to you that day, he said, I'm gonna call you tomorrow. And and uh you tell me what you want to do. And I was like, fuck, okay. I have now less than 12 hours to decide whether I'm gonna do chemo or not. And you didn't have really a whole lot of information. Well, I didn't have anything else other than what we had this conversation in the parking lot, and Denny was on shift. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was coming home the next morning, right? And so we go over this, and then we get on the phone, and I show him the paper from because I didn't have all that in the parking lot. Right. You know, and he was like, wait, he's like, put that up here, let me see that. And so he's looking at all this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

This is the paper that just said 46-year-old woman didn't have your name on it.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

It didn't have my name or my birthday on it. But everything in your medical chart has your birthday.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Like everything. Yeah. That's that's that's the serial number for them to look you up, right? Yeah, yeah. Um and he's like, that is not in your chart anywhere. He's like, show me that again. And so I'm like showing it to him. He's taking screenshots, he's looking at the stuff, and he's like, I'm looking this up. And so then he uh tells me, look, I don't want you to do chemo if you don't need it. But if you need it, I want you to do it. You know, if if that's what you you know that you're gonna choose, then I want to help you do that. But he's like, I am a part of this organization of breast cancer specialists in the nation that review cases like yours. Um, that's what they do. They help us with these determining factors because everybody's not cookie cutter.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

And he was like, So we have all of you know this data that says this, we have this data that says this, we have this data that says this. The question is, what the fuck do we do now?

SPEAKER_03 37:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, that's what I would like you for help with. Thank you very much. Yes, that's what we're trying to figure out, and all this nonsense is what the fuck do we do now? Right. And so he that was like Friday afternoon or whatever, and he sends up my case. Um, and then Monday his office calls me and is like, Can you meet with Dr. Tucker Thursday at 11? And I was like, Thursday at 11. I'm like, that's a hold. That's like four more days. But yeah, and so finally I and I go right back into that stage of I now I don't know. And what does this look like? And I am going to Burning Man. Yeah. And I'm gonna be this and I'm gonna be that. And fuck, I can't believe I have to go back to work and let everybody know like what's going on. You know, like we're on stage in our job. Yeah, we are 24-7. And the energetically, it's exhausting sometimes. It is, it is, and especially when you don't want to talk about it. Right. Um yeah, right. We're acquaintances, right?

SPEAKER_03 38:45

It's it's like there, there is a uh there is kind of like a you don't want to go to the sad no chemo cancer drainer. Yeah, you don't want to go to the widow trainer either. Right, exactly. You don't want to go to the window.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Exactly. That's not that's not my brand. That's not who I am. Exactly. This is not it. This is just the latest fucking thing I've had to deal with.

SPEAKER_03 39:10

Yep. But um the other thing, too, just on my point though, is like you said this in one of the earlier episodes about how people have always underestimated you. Yeah, you know, and like I do feel that there is a piece of you that like you're always gonna be misunderstood in some way because of the fact that you are very open and honest about what you believe and what you know, and you want people to experience things in a different way than you had to do it. Yeah, and so I think it's like interesting that you know you're strong, but you still need help, you still need to go through these things with people, you still need to have you know people in your life, but it's also like not the definition of who we are as people, you know, it's like a piece of us, but we are way stronger.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

And I know and and you know being the cancer kid was not something that I had in my bio. No, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

Fought breast cancer and beat us.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

That's just yeah, that wasn't something I thought I was gonna have to put as a bullet point under the name, but here we are. So, um so fast forward another week of anxiety and stomach problems and diarrhea and all this kind of stuff. You were a mess. Yeah, the anxiety was just really bad.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

And the right around this time was also you came over and we started to do some stuff for you for from a yoga perspective because Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

We had, yeah, in in the midst of all of it, I'm like, again, here we go again. And I thought I was doubling down on my controlled controllables, but I can still, even though I we know whether or not I can do chemo, I still need to extend my spine. Yeah, yeah. And that I wasn't available to me. Right. And it's something that I need to get back desperately. Yeah, and so yeah, through thank God, thank god. You know, um, did you see that meme that or that thing I sent you guys about um yeah, I know all my friends are badasses. You think I hang out with losers, bitch? No, you know, it's like look here, look at my bench. I have, I you know, I've had these horrible surgeries, and what do I need? I need restorative yoga. That's what I need in my life. I need yoga therapy, you know. And so yeah, it of course helped me write out, you know, certain poses and things for me to do on a regular basis. And so I have like sent you home with a bag full of shit. Um, it was like well, a bag full of shit plus five bolsters.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

Well, you need them to wait, yeah, you need to.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Orange, purple, and blue. Yeah, four, four bolsters, four blocks, yeah, and a bag of other toys. Straps, yes, all that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

So um and my handwritten crazy notes.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

I which I have memorized now. So that's just my like normal nightly routine. But yeah, now it takes me 47 minutes to do all of the postures in, you know, some of them are five to seven minutes. Extension is really still only two to three. That's fine. But it's still it is what it is, and there it is, you know. Yeah, so I'm so I'm doing all of that. Um, but and and doubling again on my supplements and and and the nutrient density of the things I choose to put in my face um because I ate a lot of sugar with the gabapentin and the swings and this shit. Like, yeah, I did. I ate a lot of sugar, and it was super weird. Um I didn't notice that. Well, you weren't at home with me sitting on a couch eating pints of uh dairy-free ice cream.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

No, I wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

But I was there, it was happening.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

You were just um I just remember, I just remember a lot of crying, and I'm going, I can't understand what you're saying. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

Say it again, say it again. I can't understand. It was my psychobabble.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

I was like, the world is ending.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

I know we're gonna be okay. Yeah, that was uh that that was it. But anyway, so we made it through that week, and then um and and so he uh my husband comes home, we we get onto the call, we find out that he lines it all out for us. He says, I've had uh responses, you know, responses from this organization that have over that have looked at everything in your file, um, and we don't think that you'll benefit from chemo. And I was like, why is this so hard to figure out? Not like thank you. I'm I'm very, very grateful, but I don't understand why it's so hard to tell. And so he was like, for you specifically, this original document, this system that the that they all use, all the oncologists use it, with you when you get the oncotype um score, I think it's called, you know, that's one factor, but then your age and then this and then that, like all your other demographics go in. Calculator itself defaults to every female under 50 as being pre-menopausal. Right, right, not post-menopausal. Correct. I am postmenopausal.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

And I had it in. Okay. But what difference does that make? They assume that every female under 50 is pre-menopausal. In my case, I'm not. And the benefit of chemo comes from the fact that the chemo basically chemically castrates you. Right. It shuts off, it kills your ovaries.

SPEAKER_03 44:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Because what they're trying to do is be specifically for my type of breast cancer because it's estrogen.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Um positive. It eats it eats estrogen protein, uh, killing the ovaries is a benefit to the long-term outcome, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

And he's like, but your ovaries aren't doing anything. So if that's the main benefit of chemo is really just shutting down the ovaries, and that's already happened for you, there's not really gonna be. He's like, there's not another way. And I said, Okay, well then if my ovaries are not making estrogen and you know, whatever, and I'm postmenopausal, then why do I have to take an estrogen blocker? Yeah. And it's because you you do make estrogen out with other right, exactly. It still is in your mouth. It's about blocking the uptake, yes, um, in order to starve any potential invasive cells that have gone to other wherever when the once they got mobilized.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

Well, I think the Cancer Society should look at the fact that if you're talking about a woman who is in their 40s, I think it's just it's if you're talking about a woman, if she's talking about a woman, she has ovaries. And I mean, even if if I had gone in and I had the same kind of breast cancer, I don't have any ovaries. Right. So they would have said I would have needed chemo, or would that have been part of it? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Exactly. Right. Would that have even been I don't know? Throughout this entire thing, no one ever asked me about my endometrial ablation. And I had to bring it up to them.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

So I don't know. I'm like, what do you mean I don't know? I'm like, I don't know. I had an endometrial ablation in 2010. I haven't had a period since then. You tell me how to track your periods without having a period.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

Exactly. I mean, and that's the thing too.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

It's like trying to track your hormones and your fluctuations and your phases and everything. You there's no way to do it.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

If you don't have any really hard, no, you can't do it. Yeah. With all of this being said about hormones, and if you now kind of look at all of our friends, all of our friends are going to functional medicine doctors that are not covered by insurance to get hormone testing done to see why the fuck they feel so goddamn crazy in their 40s.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Last week was 11 weeks from the first surgery, and I saw Jen, who is my um plastic surgery team, and I got cleared to exercise.

unknown 46:58

Finally.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

First surgery took out the cancer and rebuilt the breasts from the deep flap reconstruction. Right. But then the second surgery took out part of that transplant in order to clear the margins. Right. So it looks the right breast looks like someone took an ice cream scoop out of the quarter chunk of it. Um, and so in order to fix that, they're going to do some liposuction and spin the cells down and take those fat cells and replace them with the ones that they lost that I lost in the second surgery. Um, but they're gonna do it at the same time that they give me nipples. So one more surgery, hopefully that's it. Yes. I told I'm told I told you earlier, I hope this is the last surgery of my life. And I know you think I'm crazy, but I really hope that I never have to get another surgery in my life. Hopefully.

SPEAKER_03 47:49

I'm knocking on wood for you.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

So yeah, we're gonna do that. They're gonna do um, and and and then I have to wear spanks. I have to wear this crazy, like under weird bodysuit thing for three weeks after. Um, but I have been cleared to go back to work part-time. Yes. Um, I can't obviously can't lift anything because I just got nobody's gonna make you lift anything. Um to no, I know that. I'm just saying, like, for those who know what I do. Yeah, I I can't I can't spot, you know, my 200 plus pound men on the squat rack yet, but you know, I but I can start and I can start to teach and um maybe not demonstrate everything fully, but I've used many teaching I've well and I've used many teaching tactics where you know I I mean use your words. Exactly, you've got to use your words. Like you're not always allowed, you know, to to demonstrate what you're talking about. And nor should you. Um yeah, so just yeah. So we'll be we'll be going um back to work part-time the 6th of July.

unknown 48:50

Yay!

SPEAKER_03 48:51

I can't wait to have you back.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

And then um, and I'm am able to exercise. So I've been the last three days in in for class. Which has been great, and um that's been humbling. Um, I'll tell you. It's super weird because I have to tell you, I'm still numb. Yeah. Like my entire my chest, my my ribs, my um abdominal wall, all the way down to my pubic bone, everything is still numb. Yeah. So I and for somebody that can feel, I can I can usually feel when I'm engaging my psoas, which I don't know, I guess I know regular people can't do that.

SPEAKER_03 49:29

No, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Most of my clients can't do that. So, but for me to be able, so it I was telling Laura this morning, you know, it feels good to move, but then it's also I'm having to have a lot of faith in myself, yeah. That I or in my body that it remembers what to do because I can't feel it working. So, whereas before, you know, if you're trying to do a roll down, you can feel your abdominal wall lift, you know, brace, and then you can feel your spine safe before you move into it. I can't feel that.

SPEAKER_03 50:02

You can just feel it from the back line, right?

SPEAKER_00 50:04

And it and and through the breath.

SPEAKER_03 50:06

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Because that's deeper, that's like underneath the numbness, yes, right.

SPEAKER_03 50:13

That's really good though, because that's something that people don't I know, they don't take you know, um, advantage of utilizing your breath. And that's something I've said from the beginning of this whole journey with you is practice, yeah, breathing, absolutely breathing, lateral breathing, back breathing, all of that breathing.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

So that part has been that part I'm excited about. And yes, I bought my car. Yes, I bought my car. I know um that it I don't care if it fucking sounds silly. I um but for it wasn't frivolous, by the way. Yeah, you needed to buy a car. Right. I did. You were in a situation that you need to buy. My son's car had died for the last time and we were just done.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

And we needed to, he's been using my car since I haven't been driving because I haven't been, you know, yeah. I've been I've been existing. Um, yeah, exactly. But he um uh needs, I I can't just go back to work and him not have a car now. So I had to figure out this situation, and then this car came up that was this great deal, and it was this whatever, and I was like, you know what, just fucking do it. We need to cross this off the list, we need to get it done. We need to, you know, I gotta prepare. I get to go about I'm trying to reclaim my life.

SPEAKER_03 51:25

And this was also while chemo was still on the table, too.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

It was, and it was a good distraction technique. Exactly. Um, so I was like, okay, we got to figure out the car situation. Whether or not, whether or not I was gonna have chemo, I was still trying to go back to work. Yeah, yeah. You know, I was hoping that she was gonna give me the clearance. That was what we had talked about. She's like, you do all these things, then you know, I'll clear you for partial duty, you know, here. Yeah. And I'm like, okay. Um, so I get the car and I was miserable. And um, not to say that it wasn't a great car, it was a beautiful car. It was just not me. And I'm gonna tell you right now, I it may sound fucking bad shit crazy, but bitch, I am not buying all new fucking cups. No. Just because I got a car that seemed to have this fucking car, had one normal size cup holder that my water bottle would fit in.

SPEAKER_03 52:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

And then immediately behind it in the little center, it had two what look like Red Bull size. Like if I could put a Celsius or a Red Bull in there. Oh my god. Or a plastic water bottle if I drank out of plastic. Yeah, but nothing I own, not one of my coffee cups, not one of my protein cups, not one of my water bottles. The three things that I have, I'm the beverage queen with the coffee. I always have beverage. I walk out the door, I have three beverages at no Adrian has three right now. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 52:44

Yeah, always, always, but not one of them fit. No, that would piss me off.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

I was so irritated and I was like, what is this? I just don't want this another thing to be annoying. Annoying. When it's supposed to be my midlife crisis cancer car, it was I know when you said those words to me, and I was just like, you know what? This should be my midlife crisis cancer car. It never occurred to me that I should do that. And then that brought that triggered a memory. Um, I lost my my mother-in-law to breast cancer 13 years ago. Hers was metastatic, but it it didn't start out that way, right? So she had cancer, she had surgery, um, she went into remission. Then it came back, she had radiation, it and chemo went into remission. The third time it came back, she didn't tell us. But she went out and bought a shiny red Cadillac convertible. And I was just like, oh shit, Adrian, if you aren't fucking brilliant, you're right. I I don't want to be the person that waits to find out that she's dying.

unknown 53:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

In order to drive the fucking car she wants. Exactly. What the hell am I doing? And so I I went home that night and I told Denny, I was like, I don't like her.

SPEAKER_03 54:03

Not Adrian, the car.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

Yeah, not Adrian. Not Adrian. The car. I just don't like her. She's very pretty. She's just not like her. She's got this, and you can wave your foot under the back tailgate and it opens. That's cool. But she's pretty for somebody else. I just don't like her. And like, you know, yeah, shout out to Carvana. Hopefully it's a good one. Sponsored by every day. Every day.

SPEAKER_03 54:26

Yep. Manifest this shit.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

Yeah. Carvana, um, you when you buy a car, you can you have seven days or 400 miles to figure out if you like it because you're buying a car that you've never seen, right? 400 miles. Yeah. So I drove, I drove it. I drove it 250 miles. I tried. I, you know, I yeah. And there were other things. It was little things, but there were other things. And then it was just it came back to the fucking cups. Yeah. And I'm like, at the end of the goddamn day, I'm not buying all new fucking cups. Exactly. Are you insane? You know how many other things I have on my plate right now? I'm not fucking buying new cups. I have to buy bras. I have to buy pants. I have to buy all this other shit. You know, fuck it, I have to buy space. Yeah, exactly. $50 a fucking pop, these crazy bodice things I have to wear. Anyway. Um, so then he's like, it's okay. He's like, don't worry. He's like, we'll find you in the car. It's not a big deal. He's like, so we sit on the couch and we're watching a show that we're watching together. And he's like, it this was maybe 35 minutes later. Pause the show. 35 minutes later. Exactly. And I'm like, I he paused the show and he showed me, and I was like, that's it. That's the one I want. I don't give a fuck. I want that car. She's she got red leather interior. She's a beauty. It's the little things in life, you know. Yeah. And she's Italian. She's so beautiful. I love it so much. Panoramic sunproof. Um, so yeah, so I got my car, I got cleared to exercise. I gotta have one more little day surgery. Going back to work. We're going back to work part-time for a few months, but that's okay. So I can um, you know, get I gotta fucking get my endurance back. I go up the stairs and I'm like, it's okay, we'll get it back. You know, you'll be up there. So yeah, so it's gonna take me a little while, but I mean, that's it. That's the um restorative yoga, walking. Oh, I'm hiking a lot in the in the garden. I got a swing for the garden, so I can just sit and meditate in the swing. That's really been lovely. Um, and then yeah, I think one of the funny, funniest things, I guess this is the last thing that was on my list, was that I had no idea. I first of all, because I'm the granola girl, I never in a million years thought I would have plastic surgery. Right. Or really any surgery. Like, really, I was trying not to ever have surgery again. Did we say that? Okay, right. Yeah, exactly. No fucking surgery. Um, but for real, I'm really I'm not that. I'm just not that girl. Um, and but damn, it's fucking fun. I had no idea. It's fun and it feels posturally so fucking good to have perky tits. Yep, yep. For the first time in 20 fucking years. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I don't feel that I am being pulled forward and down. Right, right, right, right, right. From the second I open my eyes in the morning. Exactly. Until the time I fall asleep at night. And that's really nice. Okay. So exactly. Shout out to all my fake titty mamas out there. I fucking get it, girl. I get it now. And fucking more power to you. I it feels fantastic. My shoulders feel better, like it's nuts. My thoracic, yep, you know, mobility, like it's everything just feels better. So I thought, man, that's really funny. I never, I in in all of this, yeah, never thought about getting breast reconstruction, a tummy tuck, and lipo. Yeah, now I'm gonna be like the poster child of fucking anytime. What do you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_03 58:03

Here you go. Exactly. Wait, did you have breast cancer? Oh no, you didn't. You just had a tummy tuck. Oh, yeah, we could talk about that. Yeah, we could talk about that. Yeah, lipo? Oh, yeah, I know what that's like. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

We could talk about that too. Yeah, yeah. Let's get right down to it. Yeah, here you go. I know, isn't that nuts? So, yeah. Whole new meaning to the phrase tits up bitches. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 58:21

I've got a couple of things that I thought would be really good to end on. Finish these sentences. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Okay. Nobody told me. Nobody told me cancer telling people that you have cancer was so emotionally draining.

SPEAKER_03 58:40

That's a good one. I already said that one.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

We just started this game. Exactly. We just started.

SPEAKER_03 58:49

I wish I'd known.

SPEAKER_00 58:51

Oh, that's a big one. I wish I'd known that uh female reproduction was something that I needed to self-educate my self-educate on and not rely on my medical team to be uh educated in.

SPEAKER_03 59:11

Yes. Yeah. Big time.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

I wish I knew that earlier before it was already happening to me. Right. I wish I knew in my 30s.

SPEAKER_03 59:20

I wish I knew when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

I wish I knew when I got my period.

SPEAKER_03 59:23

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 59:23

Like you're gonna have periods for this many years, but then these things are gonna change.

SPEAKER_03 59:27

And then the change is coming.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

It's just, I mean, you know, if we fucking talked about it, it wouldn't be this, oh you know, whatever woo-woo, it's menopause talk, you know, like just women being crazy. It's just, yeah, it's just hysterical women. Women hysteria. You know, yeah, what what?

SPEAKER_03 59:46

Yep. Yep. Yeah. What about um I was surprised by this year?

SPEAKER_00 59:52

I was surprised by how um fast everything seemed to move. Um even though it took time for me to be diagnosed, it could have taken a lot longer.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

It took me, you know, whatever a couple of days or a week to get into surgery, but it could have been weeks, you know. Yeah. It could, I mean, it could have been every time I turned around, it was like, oh, I moved somebody, like even my initial appointment with with Dr. Griffin, right? Like, oh, there was a cancellation. Can you come tomorrow? Yeah, exactly. Oh, well, I have it, and then we show up for my follow-up, and she's like, I have room at tomorrow at three. Yeah. Oh shit, okay. Um, yeah, that was really That is true.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:37

Cause I think too, you you know, even though we talked about the waiting a lot, having to wait for answers, having to wait for I know people that have had to wait right a lot longer than I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:51

And then they get like sometimes you get bad information, you know, like I did. Yeah. And then it it's it's kind of like a yo-yo, like, oh, you think you know this, and then oh wait, now you're back here, and then oh wait, now you have all these things to put in to calculate. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:09

Exactly. Yeah. All right, what about um I was gonna ask the hardest part, but I don't really like asking that kind of question. I would rather ask I mean the whole thing is hard. Yeah, exactly. It's like what else is hard by fucking everything. What's the hardest thing about your husband dying? Right, exactly. Everything. Right. My whole life, my existence, breathing. What? Right, everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

What was the easiest part? I think the routines. Because I'm good at them. Um, like I already knew what to do as far as supplementing and you know, coming to you and getting the stretching, like like sequences written and things, you know, um, uh being able to control the controllables because it's what we do.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

I think that was probably the easiest part of it. But exactly most people don't have those tools in their tool bag. Um which is why I wanted to talk about this in this format, because I think people need to understand that what we talk about on a daily basis is the thing that's gonna be there and can be the easiest part of going through this process is the worst part of your life or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:15

Okay. There's another question, it's like I cried when. It's like, well, what the fuck? We've been crying this whole time. So what everything, but I laughed when. And I have a couple that I remember.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

Um I mean, I well, when I've when I figured out that I like the way my tits feel, um, that was pretty amusing, you know. Uh once they weren't hurting anymore, you know. Like I like, you know, I love my fake tits. Yeah, exactly. My Franken boobies have turned out to be really fun. Fact that every single nurse, doctor, everyone, like medical assistant, they're like, damn, your tits look good. And I'm like, oh damn, dude. That's exactly what I was thinking about. Yeah, they do. I was like, they do, don't they? Yeah, wow. They're dead. They're right there.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:10

He's a he was a um what is a genius and an artist. He said, Yeah, he's a professional, absolutely, but the man is an artist. Exactly. Exactly, exactly. Your calendar says it's time to go back to work. Does your body agree? No, yeah, but you're gonna manage it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

I am, I'm gonna manage it. I'm gonna fake it till I make it. And just knowing no days are guaranteed.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:32

Yeah, that's a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

I mean, except yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:37

Exactly. And we don't have to do yesterday again.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:39

Except yesterday was kind of fun because we went out to dinner with our friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:42

It was for the first time, the five of us, and only the five of us. And it felt so fucking good to just be.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:58

Nope. We just enjoyed an eight.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

An eight and eight so much and it was so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:06

It was so good.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

It was so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:08

No, we got we got that's I think if anything has come out of all of the year of the fucking fire horse for us so far is we didn't plan for this, but we're here. And for now that's enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:24

For now that's enough.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:26

Thank you for talking to me again. Thank you for sharing. Listeners, if this episode resonates with you, please share it with someone. But we're gonna have some more episodes of We Didn't Plan for This coming for you shortly. Be on the lookout for some new things headed your way, as well as in case of emergency press play, small little meditations and chomps, bobos. What else did we name drop? Oh, HGB. If you're out there, yes, if you're out there and you're looking for a small, niche little cute podcast that you want to spend a conversation. Just a little tiny conversation. We're we're open. Thank you guys so much. Until next week. If this conversation meant something to you, share it with someone who might need it too, or reach out and tell us what landed with you at yoga change on Instagram. And before you go, take a breath. Take a second. You don't have to have everything figured out right now. We didn't plan for this.