My Breast Cancer.

We know on average 1/7 women will experience breast cancer in their life time. 

Join Hayley as she shares how her journey with breast cancer and double mastectomy affected her life, relationships and mental health.

And remember Check Your Breasts!

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Uncommon Expose, where I want to change your life by sharing someone else's. If you've got an open mind, then please join me and my guests as we share their incredible, inspiring, true stories. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for sharing your story with me today. I think that this is like, this is going to be streamlined. I feel your story from start to finish. It's just, and it's going to one in, one in whatever, one in whatever women have a very similar story to yours. So I know that you're going to reach so many women with what we're going to be sharing today. So welcome and I'll get you to introduce yourself and then we're just going to crack straight on with it. Yeah, cool. So I I am Hayley. I am 43 and I have two young children. So I have a nearly 13 year old and nearly 12 year old. They're close. Yes. That was not planned. Um, but yeah, Irish twins. Yeah. Yeah. Often, um, often I do describe them as twins. So, um, yeah. So yeah, lots of fun with the kids. Yeah. Yeah. Alrighty. What's your story about? Um, so I am going to share about my journey through breast cancer. Um, So I was– I've had breast cancer twice. First diagnosed when I was– I don't even know the ages, but I think late 30s, so– 2019 no 2018 actually Halloween was when I was diagnosed yeah um so I was in the shower and showering away and then just literally swiped underneath my breasts and then was like oh that doesn't seem right what's that so I actually found it yeah yeah and then it just kind of went from there all the doctor's appointments and biopsies and things like that the biopsy was extremely painful um It was interesting because at the time we kept it all to ourselves. So it was just hubby and I that knew about it. Didn't tell the kids. The kids at the time were, what would they have been, four and six, I think, something like that. And Tommy actually came to me with all my appointments but didn't know anything. He just was strapped in his little stroller there. So you were before. Yeah, yeah. He came along to my appointment where the nurse– sorry, the GP said, yeah, I think this is what it is. He was there in his little, in his pram there playing with the toys, the ultrasound, um, where they actually found, like did the ultrasound to, you know, check what it was. Yeah. There he was in his little pram, no idea. Yeah. Um, and I think it's something in life we've always sort of done things on our own. Um, and it's something I'm realizing more and more now that you don't have to do things on your own. So, um, so yeah, we kept it from everyone. My mom's been through it, um, a couple of times as well and she'd actually been through it again that year as well yeah um but yeah we didn't didn't tell anyone we just sort of wanted to work through it ourselves find out what it was and then yeah go from there and um it was a bit of a whirlwind actually so I was diagnosed um officially diagnosed Halloween and then so what's that like October November um and then I had my first treatment chemo treatment was December that that same year so straight into it um and then i went through um six months or seven months of chemo treatments um the first four treatments that i had were horrible um basically put me out for a week um i still remember the very first treatment i had was the day of um my daughter's uh christmas concert and it was the week of my son's kindy graduation um so yeah it was her first year of school prep um so she had her oh was she prep or grade one no she was sitting grade one sorry grade one yeah so we went to the Christmas concert literally had my treatments we hadn't even told the kids um that I was having anything had my treatment that day friend picked me up dropped me off at school hubby was there with the kids you know pretending everything was normal obviously trying to hold it all together um and yeah sitting at the back of the Christmas concert I was like oh this is okay I can do this and then it hit me and it was just like this wave of like it just felt like poison running through my body basically just what they'd pumped into me um and then I spent yeah the next week pretty much on the couch and that was something we weren't prepared for yeah and hubby was just like you got to get better you can't you know we got to we got to keep going we got to keep you know fatigue nausea headaches everything yeah just everything like a bad flu oh Gastro? No, like just there wasn't anything coming out of my body. Like I was very, like I didn't have the vomiting and the diarrhea and all that. There was, if anything, it was more constipation that first, were the first lot of treatments. Actually, all of my treatments, I had trouble with the constipation and that can be worse than diarrhea, you know, and also I was having steroids. So you're wanting to eat all the time. So I was eating so much and nothing was coming out of me. So just So, yeah, clogged up. But, yeah, I couldn't drive, like blurry vision. Pretty much sat over there on the couch and just laid on the couch the whole time for that first week. And then I realized, okay. I've got to do better next time. We didn't tell, we told a few close friends, but we didn't tell many people until the kids went back to school the next year. So I was very lucky because I had my treatments in the December and then the kids had eight weeks off school, 10 weeks off school. So we pretty much just hibernated for that whole time. I quit my job, said to hubby, I can't do this. I can't do this with a job. I was working three days a week in the city. So having to commute in there, plus do all the things. Yeah. As a mum with young kids. So in a sense, I'd always wanted to be a stay-at-home mum. Yeah, okay. So it gave me that wish. Manifested it. You have to be specific, right, with manifestation. Yeah, 100%. So it was really lovely because I love Christmas and I love that time of year. So I was able to be there every single day. I was there with Jennifer in her class helping doing kindy craft and, you know, all the things. We made handprints on calendars. I helped all the kids. and like I knew a lot of the mums. So I was like, oh, this is really sweet. Now I'm here internally knowing what I was in for but not telling anyone. So I sort of kept it all to myself even then. At that point because were you at any point like this could be my last Christmas or were you very hopeful because of the stage of cancer or anything like that? There was a lot of fear around that. I didn't at that point know. I didn't have those kind of feelings. And then going through it all again. So the first round I had two years of treatments. Well, 18 months to treatment. 18 months to two years of chemo surgeries, radiation. Yeah. And then chemo tablets. Yeah. And then I had probably a year and a half, maybe two years. And then I was diagnosed again. Right. And then, yeah, after going through it again the second time, that's when I really stopped and went, hang on a minute. I'm not going to survive. Like I'm, it's going to come back again and I'm going to get it again. And this is after the second time. And that's when I went into like a real spiral, real dark places. And then, yeah, since then, obviously worked through so much healing and yeah, coming through the other side of a lot of that now. But yeah, going through, once I got through that first initial lot of treatments, the first time around, the second lot of treatments I had weekly, The first lot was fortnightly and they sped that up. Normally you have every three weeks, but because I was young, fit and healthy, they decided to give it to me every two weeks, which made my symptoms like even worse because my body didn't have time to recover. So I'd sort of recover and then it'd be like, here we go again. So you lose your taste. Started losing my hair. I did what they call a cold cap where they put almost like a headgear, like a footy headgear thing on. and it pumps freezing cold ice through your, through like this system and cools your brain down. So your brain, I forget the exact temperature, but it's crazy low. You're almost not really functioning while the chemo is going through you. And apparently that helps with the hair follicles and helps because the biggest thing for me was losing my hair. My hair was like my identity, one of my identities, you know, that I really did not want to lose my hair. And I think also losing my hair meant people could visibly see that i was going through something so um tried really hard to hold on to that i think i did that twice and i was just like no this is too hard because it was also the time as well you had to sit there for an hour before treatment have this thing on prepare your head and then you had to sit there for an hour after treatment plus the treatment time as well it just ended up being almost a whole day at the hospital so i think it was two hours two to three hours for the first lot because they had to run it through quite slowly and then there was the running stuff through at the end and and the beginning they had to run some saline and stuff through plus you had to have the prior to that you had to sit there and have a blood test then you had to have a cannula put in you had to have the doctor do his you know assessment so often you were waiting for the doctor and all the things so yeah it was quite a drawn-out process could you eat and watch tv yeah yeah yeah so it was really good where i was was at the martyr i was very lucky um i was a public patient but i got access to the private facilities. So they actually would bring me a menu and I could just order whatever I wanted from the menu. So I think that was one thing that I took from that journey was really grasping onto the little glimmers that there was. And I used to look forward to the orange and almond cake, I think it was. So I'd have my chicken and Caesar salad and my orange and almond cake and also the volunteers that were there. So they had volunteers that would come around and sit with you. It was quite challenging for Hubby because he's had family go through cancer. So for him to be in a hospital environment, it was really tough for him. And after the first one, I just said to him, you don't need to be here. I can do this with friends and other people. That's okay. Which then allowed him to be there for the kids and do that. Also, he was able to kind of work as well. So he was very lucky with his work. They were very flexible, but it allowed him the opportunity to go and do what he'd to do and then he'd have that time after my treatment to care for me and look after me and the kids when I wasn't feeling well so yeah I had a beautiful friend who would come she actually in the end she would come and actually pick me up and take me to treatment and then bring me home which was really lovely and she would sit with me and with Chad and I made friends with one of the volunteers there he was really lovely an older guy he was actually from New Zealand I'm from New Zealand originally so he lived in New Zealand for a while as well so we'd share stories so I had and the nurses as well I knew all of them my mother-in-law had actually been through treatments in the same facility so she knew them all as well so she would often pop in and say hi to them and yeah so it was almost became like a bit of a second family yeah it was a little family affair yeah so I think that was one thing that kept me going through through a lot of that was just knowing I'd have those people there like it was just Yeah, really beautiful. Beautiful setting, beautiful environment. The kids were amazing, absolutely amazing through it. And hubby, you know, he was really good too. We sort of did a lot by ourselves. We had a few friends that helped out with meals and stuff like that. But we were very independent naturally. So we kind of just pushed through and, yeah, did a lot of that ourselves. And I was, just before I was diagnosed, I'd just gone through a big weight loss transition. transformation so I'd lost nearly 40 kilos was really fit probably the fittest and healthy well felt the fittest and healthiest I'd ever been in my life and then obviously had this I'm like what how does this happen yeah yeah so um so I was right into exercise and I think that was one thing that kept me going to was was active being active every day I still did park run during my treatment so I'd go to every park run that I could get to when I was feeling well enough I did yoga I So every day I did yoga, mindfulness, journaling, meditation, surrounding myself with as much positivity as possible, personal development, always on, like always. Dropping the kids at school was always on in the background. It was something. The kids now often will say to me, oh, mummy, remember you listened to that guy? Can we listen to that guy again? So yeah, they remember that as well. So I think that's probably one of the biggest things I would say going Yeah, you need to support yourself through that. And then the second time, I'm sorry, so yeah, the first time, just after I had my surgery actually, I had an event for the company I was working with at the time where I needed to go to Hong Kong and be on stage in front of, it was about 20,000 people. I was sharing my weight loss journey. So I said to my surgeon, you have to make sure that this all lines up because I've got to be, I've got the ticket booked. I have to be there. So I had my surgery and as part of the surgery they have to get clear margins so often they need to do a second surgery but they need to allow time between for them to heal so I had my surgery booked I think it was six weeks out from my trip to Hong Kong so I was like yep that'll give me enough time to heal of course they didn't get clear margins so I had to go in again two weeks later so actually no it was more than that in the end I had surgery a week before I went to Hong Kong so I ended up going to Hong Kong because Got an infection while I was over there. Just kind of masked that with Panadol and Urofen and pushed through and still did my 20,000 steps a day that I did while we were over there making the most of it all. Was on stage. Yeah, no one would have really known any different. Obviously, I didn't have much hair. So my hair had just started growing back by that stage. So yeah, I looked a bit different. And I felt like a bit of an imposter, to be honest, because I didn't look like that person up on the screens. that I'd lost all that weight because I'd put a lot of it back on through my journey so almost there was all these fit you know people around me and here I was you know maybe not so well and well I wasn't well I don't even know how I got on that stage to be honest and sometimes people don't even think that that's the option they would have just assumed that you had gone back to old habits or weren't maintaining your exercise or you know whatever the assumption was but there is a bigger picture. Yeah. A hundred percent. There is often more going on than we can kind of realize in a person's life. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I think that's, yeah, that's one thing like you just never know what people are going through. And, you know, there was times where I still remember going to school pickup. I forget what stage of all the treatments it was, but I remember driving to school pickup and my stomach was really not well. And I used to drive to school with a towel and a plastic bag underneath me just in case you know I had blisters on my feet like I could hardly walk some days like it was so bad like I remember the whole bottom of my foot was just peeling away with blisters and I had to walk in because at the time Tommy was in prep you have to walk in and get them you can't just you know have them meet you at a certain spot so I had to physically get a car park and walk in and yeah do all the things and that was through that was through like the hottest time of the year as well. So it was, you know, gross and hot and I had radiation burns from my radiation and yeah, it was, it was not fun. So, but you know, we still, we love to go away. We love camping. We love taking the kids down the coast for weekends. So we still did all of that. We still kept life as normal as possible for the kids. And, you know, that was through that whole thing. My biggest thing was the kids and my making sure that they were okay yeah and that they understood that i was going to be okay yeah internally i didn't necessarily know at times you know uh but just yeah making sure they were going to be okay yeah and then the second time around um it was a bit of a whirlwind as well i we were away camping and i leant against the back of the car and i was like oh that feels a bit funny um okay i've got my check up in a in a couple of weeks you know we'll we'll get that sorted and you Yeah, straight away they were like, yeah, I think there's something here. I was just like, ah, here we go again. And I had surgery. So it was on the other side. So it was the left side first time. This time it was on the right side. I had surgery and they said, look, we haven't got margins. They did some testing and they said, look, we think your best option is double mastectomy, given your age, given, you know, all the things. So yeah, within, I was diagnosed in the It must have been 2022. And then actually, it's like almost to the day. It'll be this weekend, three years since I had my surgery. It was Jennifer's birthday, my daughter's birthday. So yeah, wow. So her birthday was the 16th. My surgery was the week before her birthday. So... Of June. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the date today? Today's the 6th. The 6th. Oh my gosh. I'd have to look it up and see. I reckon it's almost three years to the day. Yeah. So yeah, I remember having the double mastectomy and I was terrified of what the recovery was going to be like after that. And I still remember sitting there on the day of my surgery and the surgeon said to me, I was thinking about you last night and I was wondering whether we just do one or whether we do the both at the same time. I'm like, you're just doing both, mate. I don't care what you want it like we're not doing this again yeah this is they're both going or they're both staying they're not like no you're not just taking one so when you found the second lump were you expecting that a mastectomy or a double mastectomy would be on the table or did that come as a bit of a shock initially as well i think deep down at that so the first time around the worst thing they could have said to me was mastectomy i was like no i'm not they're not going they're staying um so Second time round, it was like, yep, just cut them off. I don't want to do this again. Yeah. And when he said double mastectomy, both hubby and I felt, well, I sensed hubby felt relief. I certainly felt relief. Yeah. That was the way to go. And yeah, so the surgery day was, yeah, it was full on. I still remember a lot of the details of that day, actually. Oh, no, it was the first one. Sorry, they kept me waiting because the surgeon was sick or something. But yeah, the The second time round, yeah, so then I spent two nights in hospital, had drains coming out both sides. Luckily, I was able to have one drain removed before I left hospital. The second drain they left in... But what happened was it kept filling up with fluid. So I had to then go back into hospital once a week and have it drained. So they would drain it and then literally within a day it was full again back to the same size as the breasts that they'd just removed pretty much. Did you have double D breasts? It was no bigger than that. It was probably E, maybe F. Yeah. Yeah. So very big. Did you love your breasts? 100%. Yeah. They were like my identity. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, not my identity, but they were like a massive part of who I was. Yeah. And, you know, got the hourglass like shape as well. And I was always known as that person. Yeah. With the big boobs. The nice boobs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even from as young as, oh gosh, like 11, 12, I was, I was taller. I had the boobs, you know, always looked older than everyone. Like it was just literally, that's all I've sort of known. I guess that is part of your identity then. Yeah, definitely. So yeah, losing that, it was like, okay, well, who am I? How am I going to, you know, is hubby still going to love me? And then after it too, it was so painful that hugging, you know, there had to be pillows involved and all these things. And then there was so much pain already there from the radiation I'd been through previously on the other side. And then I had to have radiation again on the right side. And even now, if the kids come in too hard for a hug, it does hurt. But I'm only just now realizing, literally in the last six months working through so much, that I'm still worthy of love and that I'm still feminine without them. It's very challenging because I can't wear anything that, like even swimmers, I can't wear anything that's close on there because I've had lymph nodes removed on this side. So it puffs up and swells up. So it's very uncomfortable to wear anything, even singlets. I can only wear certain singlets. I can only wear certain T-shirts. Yeah, certain materials really irritate me. So I've had to change so much about my wardrobes, had to completely change, like all the things you just don't think of. You know, you just think you still just get dressed. But no, you've got to change everything. I tried. These like, oh, they weren't silicon. I'm not getting reconstruction. Haven't had reconstruction. I was curious about that. Yeah. Not interested. Not for you. Not interested after all the stuff I've been through. Yeah. Another surgery, not a chance. Yeah. And the risk of complication again, not a chance. Yeah. Absolutely not. I wanted to get a reduction. Yeah. So I'm kind of like, oh, that was my reduction. Once again, you have to be careful what you put out there, what you want. yeah um so yeah no i'm happy and i tried having so you can get these bras that have um they're not silicon but they're they're actually really nice and they feel like breasts and you can actually pump them up to a certain to what size you want them to be but because i can't wear anything that touches that area that's really close they were so uncomfortable to wear plus the weight of them i was just like no i don't need them. For a while there, because this side kept filling up, I was sort of felt uneven. So I was wearing just like, you know, the Rockwear crop tops and they have those inserts in them. I was wearing a crop top that had just the padding on one side to make it look even. Now I'm just like, whatever. When you say that, I know you spoke about the lymph gland bit, like you get pain and like discomfort. Is that physical pain or is that a little bit of mental pain? Oh, it's absolutely physical. It is? Yeah, 100%. So because I don't have the lymph nodes on this side, the fluid's got to go somewhere. Right, okay. So because they've removed the lymph nodes, any fluid that's kind of in this arm or anything, it gets stuck in that little pocket there. So I have to be really proactive around massage and I have some lymphatic gloves that I use. and do a certain sequence and that's not just for me lymphatic health is so important for everyone like everyone so I have yeah a routine where I sort of do like a massage each morning and I have to do that and if I don't do that I know like my body tells me straight away I've had times where this arm has gotten really quite puffy and I've thought here we go I'm gonna have lymphedema and lymphedema is something that after having this surgery it can flare up at any time if you're not careful so yeah so i have to be really careful you've had breast cancer and your breasts have been removed and now there's nothing there there's so many other things 100 like i don't have anyone who's experienced breast cancer so these are things that i just you just don't know about yeah you just to me in my mind double mastectomy that's the end but no yeah no and you know i still get um i get cramps so when i do my yoga I was going to a gym, I was doing a lot of yoga and I'd be in the middle of a pose and I'd just be like pulling out like, ah, like in pain because you get cramps. So like where I've had all my radiation, it's like all my ribs and everything, it kind of cramps up. And mum said she gets the same thing. So it's obviously from, yeah, the radiation stuff. But yeah, certain positions if I'm, it goes pretty much straight away. But yeah, there's certain things where, like I was doing a lot of aerial yoga and I was finding that was as much as I loved doing it and doing planks you know just the strength I am working on I need to strengthen this area because I'm finding that I'm really rounded in my shoulders at the moment 100% so then I get pains through my back and pains through my neck so especially this time of year being a bit cooler you're even more sort of hunched over so yes trying very very much to I was even thinking like there must be some kind of brace you can get to like pull your shoulders back a little bit there is but then I don't think that they're very highly recommended because then your muscles just rely on that brace 100% and it would probably be uncomfortable for me anyway having wearing something there so yeah so all the things yeah that it's a it'll be a lifelong thing there will be things that I have to work through and one of the big things that I didn't do when I was going through it was any kind of cleansing or detoxing of all the chemicals and stuff. My diet was pretty good. So, yeah, I've just gone through and I'm working with a naturopath now and we've just done a big liver detox and we're currently working on gut health because obviously there's so many poisons right into my body. It's literally poison, isn't it? It is, 100%, yeah. So, yeah, my body has just– Yeah. just would not stop. Ended up in the hospital, ambulances, all the things, like it was full on. And they were doing testing to see if there was something wrong again. I was just like, here we go again. Like there's going to be, you know, they were doing all these testing of the lining of the uterus and all this stuff. And I'm just like, far out. Like I spent pretty much two weeks of, I'm dying. That's it. I'm done. You know, it's going again. It turns out that it was probably just my body going through, obviously not having a period for so long, but I feel like I'm now in that perimenopause phase. So my body's just shedding what it no longer needs. And yeah. Was that what prompted you to spiral? You mentioned earlier that you kind of spiraled. Yeah. So I, towards the end of... I don't know exactly what year it was. We were away on a family holiday and it was amazing. It was a September. It must have been 2023. So this is after your second diagnosis? After the treatments were all finished. So I think I must have finished treatments the Christmas. Yeah, I did. The Christmas of 2022. And then 2023, it was like, okay, this is my year. It's going to be amazing. And the year was pretty good. And, you know, work was good. Work was picking up and, you know, money was coming in, all the things. And then, yeah, it was the September. We went on a beautiful family holiday. Went all the way down to Tarthra Bega down in New South Wales. Went through Canberra, Sydney. It was amazing. Two weeks. It was full on. We got back and I was like, man, that was a big holiday. It was amazing, but it was a lot. And looking back now, my body was already giving me signs of, hey, you need to just slow down a Yes, you're feeling good again, but let's just ease back into life. And then, yeah, in the October, that's when I had all the heavy bleeding and my body literally would not allow me to leave the house. I had so much anxiety. I couldn't get in the car. If I was in the car, I would just, yeah, it was horrible. I can't even describe it. I remember I forced myself to go camping the December, twice actually. And I remember driving home from one of the trips and I was literally wanted to just open the door and jump out. I had some really, really dark moments during that time, like really dark. I've never been to places like that in my mind. And upon reflection now, looking back on it all with all the healing that I've done over the last 18 months, it's a combination of heading through that next chapter of life. I'm 43. So heading into the next season of life through perimenopause and menopause it's been what are we 10 months now since i've had a period so you know a couple months i mean i'm in menopause so you know i'm like please don't want that anymore so i'm happy to head into that next phase of life um and i think just knowing that it's okay to slow down like all my life i've just ran all these marathons and you know going through all that breast cancer stuff it was just like marathon after marathon and after marathon it's like now is my time and being positive i can't speak for your experience but being positive sometimes through that can be exhausting as well trying to constantly find the good thing while it's necessary for survival 100 it can be draining to be like god what's good today yeah you do you find that small kernel of positivity of hope to focus on but sometimes god that's so hard and and i was saying staying so strong for people around me as well like i was was putting on that, I'm okay, I'm all good. Like I still remember through one of the treatments, I walked into the shops and I had to actually just stop for a minute and tell my body to take the next step. My body was just, and I, at the time I was like, oh, it's just the chemo doing it. My body was telling me it was exhausted. It needed to stop. And I didn't, I didn't stop through all of that stuff. I still went to all the events. I still went to everything. Like I literally didn't stop. So yeah, I think the last 18 months has been my body's just slowed down, healing. I've been on a retreat. I went away March this year on a beautiful retreat with, what was there, 10, 15 women. And it was just amazing. It was just a weekend for me to really reconnect with myself. Who am I? What am I here for? What's my purpose? And yeah, see that vision for the rest of my life. So yeah, it's exciting. So you feel now... to going through all of that and I'm sure multiple times I mean questioning who you were you feel like you're on that path now yeah you know you know you feel who you are now hundred percent I mean each day it's getting clearer and clearer but I feel like I've gone through that awakening I guess for one of a better words of yeah realizing what I'm here for and my purpose is you know to really inspire motivate others and share my story and And that it's so simple. It's just the simple daily things by me showing up and doing those simple things of sitting in the morning, doing my meditation, having my tea, having those quiet moments, and then sharing that with others can literally change people's lives. And knowing that it's okay and that I'm worthy of sharing that and trusting. Yeah. personal experience we don't feel worth unless we're doing and that's represented from our mothers from our grandmothers um who are always busy always cleaning maybe working and they didn't seem to stop and there would be a lot of guilt i remember like seeing my mom feel guilty about sitting down or you know whatever and learning now that actually that's a really shitty place to live every single day yeah and for some women they thrive yes and there's no moments where I do thrive on that like I feel like this the kitchen like I feel like I'm trapped in there sometimes like I describe that to hubby I'm like I just want to cut that bench off because I feel like I'm just trapped in there because I am exactly like you said I fall into that trap of just busy busy busy and we've we've really set in place some really simple things like um Jennifer and I every night now we sit down and we watch a show and we watch a series and we're watching it and there's like multiple seasons so we'll be watching it for many, many years probably. I don't know. There's so many. So it's just knowing that it's okay. It's okay for me to go sit outside and watch the sunset every night that I love doing. Yeah. And it's okay to, yes, the mornings can be a bit crazy and there's fights and there's things, but there's also beautiful moments. It's finding those beautiful still moments as well and stopping for a hug and we're going to get through this. Let's get through this together. And I think that's one thing through my journey I did so much of it on my own that now it's about you know we are a beautiful family and it's bringing us all back together and you know there was times where the kids just sat on devices because that was what was what had to happen because I needed to be outside and resting or inside resting or whatever the kids were sitting on their devices and you know I think it's it's what I went through but it's also to day you know that's often what kids do so it's about no well hang on let's put that down let's go outside and let's play and let's have that time and trusting that it's okay to do that and we don't have to be busy all the time yeah that's right hmm Well, thank you for sharing that. I always like to finish with what would your advice be, whether it's to younger you or someone who could be going through a similar journey as you or know someone who's going through a similar journey. What would you like to share with them to help them through that? I think the biggest thing in life that I've learned is that you're worthy of love. You're worthy of love from others. And that you're worthy of loving yourself. first before you can help others. So it's okay to love yourself and it's okay to put yourself first. I actually do have another follow-on question, which has just come to me from that discussion or from you saying that. At any point, did you feel like the breast cancer meant that your body was failing and that you weren't good enough? I don't think that at all, but was that ever a thought or was it never part of your life? There were certainly frustrations at times, like why me? Especially because I said I'd go on through that weight loss journey and that transformation I was like why is this like this but upon reflection it's what I just said I wasn't putting myself first I wasn't taking care of that whole picture there was parts I was taking care of but I wasn't I was probably over mothering over nurturing and that's what breast cancer can traditionally be like in that if you follow a Louise Hay I don't know if you follow Louise Hay at all around like your body shows you signs so like you know if you have a pain on this side of your body it could be this or if you have a pain on that side of your body or if something in your body your shoulder is hurting then it means this like there's different meanings for different things within your body and breast cancer one of them is that you're over giving you're over nurturing you're over mothering and you're not giving to yourself interesting I have not heard of her and I never heard that before yeah that is such a different perspective yeah and and she's she was one that i really uh using the affirmations um that she shares yeah there was a lot of that through and you feel that that was true for you 100 yeah yeah 100 there was yeah so many areas of my life where i felt i was just over mothering and over giving so much and i wasn't yes don't get me wrong there are parts of your life where you have to give and you have to mother and you have to nurture however there wasn't that balance there was too much of it so yeah interesting so yeah I have a lot of beliefs around breast cancer and around like I said my mum had it neither of us have the genes that they can currently test for we both had different types of breast cancer so for me I think it is about the whole picture it's not just about the genes it's about what is your environment what is your mindset what is what are you eating what have you been eating because it's cancer is something that builds up in your body it's not something that all of a sudden you have it it's it's a process so it's about yeah being mindful of what you've put in your body and then cleansing when you can detoxing both your mind and your body very interesting is very and there's so much Yeah. That's like a whole other conversation. I could talk for hours about all of that. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing your journey with me today. Yeah, like I don't even– I can't remember what the ratio is of one and– No, I think it's like one and four. One and eight or something. Women experience breast cancer. So I know that this is going to reach someone out there. So thank you. That's okay. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today as we share these stories. Make sure you follow us on social media– and hit subscribe. You can always DM me with any questions or follow-up information you would like from any of my guests.