Speaker 1: This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Dorney. Hi, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to the Let's Be Clear Podcast. I'm Anna Luis
Speaker 1: and I'm your guest host for this episode. I'm so
Speaker 1: honored to have been invited to come help continue the
Speaker 1: beautiful legacy that Shannon Doherty created. Looking forward to talking
Speaker 1: to y'all. So some of you may or may not
Speaker 1: remember me from being on your television almost every day
Speaker 1: in the nineties as a VJ on MTV in the
Speaker 1: what I call the Golden Era of MTV, when we
Speaker 1: actually played music videos. In the mid to late nineties,
Speaker 1: when me, Carson Daily, Bill Bellamy, Matt Penfields and others
Speaker 1: launched the Times Square Studios in New York City and
Speaker 1: had an amazing time with you for years. Maybe you
Speaker 1: remember me as far back as teen Summit on BT,
Speaker 1: which was actually my first big TV hosting gig. Some
Speaker 1: of you might know me from headlines that happened this
Speaker 1: past October about my cancer journey. A lot of people
Speaker 1: said I was dying after I shared that I hit
Speaker 1: stage four. Oh, that sounded like a prize and it's not.
Speaker 1: But you'll know what I mean. And maybe you have
Speaker 1: no clue who I am, which is great because then
Speaker 1: we get to kind of start fresh right here. In
Speaker 1: all my years of doing TV, I never had the
Speaker 1: pleasure of meeting Shannon in person. I was a fan
Speaker 1: of her work like you guys all are and were,
Speaker 1: and then I dove into following her as she shared
Speaker 1: her cancer journey that she did so bravely right up
Speaker 1: until the end. I was inspired by her this is
Speaker 1: how it is, you know, attitude, and how she faced
Speaker 1: this monster head on. I hope to borrow from some
Speaker 1: of her strength as I chat with you guys today.
Speaker 1: And maybe we should call this episode Let's be clear
Speaker 1: being real about cancer, because I'm basically going to share
Speaker 1: my story with you as real as possible and for
Speaker 1: those of you who've been through it, like I'm in
Speaker 1: the middle of it right now. Cancer fucking sucks. It
Speaker 1: just does period, no matter how you choose to treat it,
Speaker 1: it sucks. This is the January February two thousand and
Speaker 1: five edition of Essence magazine, and in it there's an
Speaker 1: article pretty much detailing my cancer journey. I want to
Speaker 1: give a huge thank you to Victoria ul Morogi for
Speaker 1: spearheading this article and kind of guiding me through the
Speaker 1: whole process as we wrote it together. I actually told
Speaker 1: her the story and you know, it came out of that.
Speaker 1: So you can check out the full article right now
Speaker 1: on Essence dot com. It just came out earlier this month,
Speaker 1: so should still be there or you can go get
Speaker 1: a hard because there's some other big articles in there.
Speaker 1: But basically it covers how things happened, what I chose
Speaker 1: to do and not do for treatment. But the real
Speaker 1: bottom line for me was about reminding women that prevention
Speaker 1: is the cure. There are so many things you can
Speaker 1: do to avoid your body making cancer to begin with,
Speaker 1: and had I known those things, I believe I never
Speaker 1: would have ended up here, But here I am. I'm
Speaker 1: also grateful I got to clarify some things in this
Speaker 1: article that people clearly misunderstood, didn't understand at all, or
Speaker 1: decided to take completely out of context from the interview
Speaker 1: I did on scene in with my bestie Stephanie Elam
Speaker 1: and our friend Sarah Signer, who is also fighting at
Speaker 1: stage three breast cancer. I am someone who has always
Speaker 1: prided myself on being honest, being upfront, being able to
Speaker 1: talk about difficult things, and I've been doing that since
Speaker 1: way back at Team Summit. So when we sat down
Speaker 1: to talk on the CNN interview, we did this roundtable
Speaker 1: that was really fun. I was just honest and my personalities.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I say crazy stuff. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: all remember that from CD, but I said something like, oh,
Speaker 1: I kept my tumor and I did it, or said
Speaker 1: it kind of tongue in cheek. You gotta find ways
Speaker 1: to laugh about this or you will lose your mind
Speaker 1: and just be crying all the time. But that became
Speaker 1: the headline. She kept her tumor and now she's stage four,
Speaker 1: And as many of you probably already know, it's just
Speaker 1: not that simple. I know more than a few women
Speaker 1: who did everything they were told to do. They got
Speaker 1: the tumors cut out, they got the double mess deck
Speaker 1: to me, they did the full chemo and radiation and
Speaker 1: still died, because cancer freaking sucks no matter how you
Speaker 1: choose to treat it. I didn't pay much attention to
Speaker 1: the comments under those headlines from the other outlets that
Speaker 1: they took, you know, from CNN's headlines, based on the
Speaker 1: things I said there. But I definitely got to hear
Speaker 1: about it from everybody who reached out to me for
Speaker 1: the entire month. One of the comments that stood out
Speaker 1: to me, because it was said repeatedly apparently, was that
Speaker 1: that was so stupid of her. Why didn't she just
Speaker 1: listen to the doctors? And in my mind, the question
Speaker 1: became which doctors? Which doctors did you want me to
Speaker 1: listen to? The original ecologist who was the one who
Speaker 1: told me I had to do the double mastectomy and
Speaker 1: the full chemo and all the standard of care stuff,
Speaker 1: or the subsequent oncologists who were integrative oncologists and did
Speaker 1: things just a little different way, who think outside of
Speaker 1: the box when it comes to cancer treatment, who tested
Speaker 1: me first to get a breakdown of what chemos were
Speaker 1: going to work on the cancer in my body and
Speaker 1: wish ones weren't. Because guess what I found out, almost
Speaker 1: a year after not doing what I was told to
Speaker 1: do by the original oncologists, the chemo that they were
Speaker 1: going to use on me, there was not gonna work
Speaker 1: to kill the cancer in my body. It was third
Speaker 1: from the bottom. In fact, there were about twenty other
Speaker 1: chemotherapies that would do way better in my body than
Speaker 1: that one would have. And then it started to make sense,
Speaker 1: I have really listened to the doctors this whole time,
Speaker 1: but also, and more importantly to me, followed my gut
Speaker 1: and my intuition about what is good and right for me,
Speaker 1: and I had this vision sitting in that original oncologist's
Speaker 1: office of myself dead. I've had many more of those visions,
Speaker 1: more frequently recently as things you know, are continuing to
Speaker 1: as I try to get them back on track. Let
Speaker 1: me say like that, But this original one was a
Speaker 1: clear no from whatever source right for me. And obviously
Speaker 1: whatever you believe is up to you, and I respect it.
Speaker 1: For me, it's God for me, it's my angels and
Speaker 1: guides wherever it came from. It was very clear, and
Speaker 1: I said, okay, that was not going to work. But
Speaker 1: the bottom line for me was, after hearing those comments,
Speaker 1: I had never one time heard anybody say about a
Speaker 1: woman who did do the conventional route and didn't survive it, Well,
Speaker 1: that was stupid. You shouldn't shouldn't have listened to those
Speaker 1: doctors because we're so trained to believe that there's only
Speaker 1: one way to handle this, that is, except to ble,
Speaker 1: and that just has not been true from me or
Speaker 1: for me from the beginning. There's this weird selective and
Speaker 1: conditional compassion and understanding. That's really disgusting, and I'm hoping
Speaker 1: the more that I talk about it, the more light
Speaker 1: gets shed on the lack of fairness of even thinking
Speaker 1: like that, the faster it goes away. I think it's
Speaker 1: just based on I don't know, ignorance, and fortunately ignorance
Speaker 1: can be cured, stupidity cannot be. But that's another conversation.
Speaker 1: The message that has been important for me to bring
Speaker 1: to other women from the very beginning when I decided
Speaker 1: to share this, which was actually about a year and
Speaker 1: a half after my diagnosis. I was diagnosed in January
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen, and I shared it publicly in October
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty. My point then was to remind women
Speaker 1: that your best shot at being able to survive this
Speaker 1: is taking advantage of early detection, getting your mammograms when
Speaker 1: you're supposed to and listen. I am still not a
Speaker 1: fan of mammograms, but there are other options, like the
Speaker 1: QT imaging scan that's now available, or the three D
Speaker 1: ultrasound that they will send you to when your mammogram
Speaker 1: comes back funny anyway, And the problem is insurance may
Speaker 1: or may not cover those You may or may not
Speaker 1: have the finances whatever, you have access to take advantage
Speaker 1: of early detection. Right. That was number one for me,
Speaker 1: my number one mistake. I didn't do that. I shared
Speaker 1: from the very beginning that that was a big mistake.
Speaker 1: We have to be able to say when we're wrong
Speaker 1: so other people can learn from our mistakes and do better.
Speaker 1: But for me, that's where my mistake ended. I do
Speaker 1: not believe I made it incorrect decision to forego that
Speaker 1: initial standard of care treatment. Even as I find myself
Speaker 1: at stage four today, I say that my full chest,
Speaker 1: I know in my heart I did the right thing
Speaker 1: for me. Based on everything I've learned since, especially based
Speaker 1: on the dear friends that I've met on this journey,
Speaker 1: some of whom I've lost since, who did the other
Speaker 1: standard of care way of doing it, I've found that
Speaker 1: there's almost no difference in the outcome from what I've seen.
Speaker 1: This is not scientific, this is my experience. When you
Speaker 1: look at stage three and four, the upper stages of
Speaker 1: cancer and how far it's gone in your body basically
Speaker 1: determines the staging. Right when you catch it early zero
Speaker 1: one two, like my mother and sister did. Now you
Speaker 1: have a chance at that standard of care being your
Speaker 1: best option and giving you back the years you would
Speaker 1: have lost once you hit three four and it's left
Speaker 1: that original site, and it's in other places in your body,
Speaker 1: which it was for me. What I've seen and believed
Speaker 1: to be true is that the outcomes even out. Honestly,
Speaker 1: the women I've known who's diagnoses happened around the same
Speaker 1: time as me, who went the standard of care route,
Speaker 1: four out of seven of them are no longer here.
Speaker 1: And although I'm still here and worse my body is,
Speaker 1: my immune system is still undamaged enough to be eligible
Speaker 1: for other kinds of treatments, which I now get to pursue.
Speaker 1: I had one friend who did standard of care. She
Speaker 1: was so her body I should say, was so ravaged
Speaker 1: by the chemotherapy that by the time she got to
Speaker 1: the place in Arizona, which is where I met her,
Speaker 1: when I did my first round of insulm potentiated chemotherapy
Speaker 1: and all these really fancy cool things, she wasn't able
Speaker 1: to do a lot of those because her body was
Speaker 1: still suffering from so much damage. So I really think,
Speaker 1: ultimately we have to respect whatever choice someone in this
Speaker 1: position makes, and God forbid, you're ever in this position
Speaker 1: and have to make these choices. For those of you
Speaker 1: who have been, I'd be interested to hear about what
Speaker 1: your journey's been like, because for every single person I've met,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if the diagnosis the same. The journey
Speaker 1: is very unique and very individualized, and you have to
Speaker 1: stand behind what you choose no matter what anybody else
Speaker 1: says about it. From the beginning, I felt like I
Speaker 1: had a better shot at surviving by going this different
Speaker 1: route and integrative approach, and I wanted to focus on
Speaker 1: my quality of life as well as the length of it.
Speaker 1: What I chose to do was an approach that did
Speaker 1: less harm to my body but was still very toxic
Speaker 1: to the cancer cells and was very effective my first
Speaker 1: time going into actual treatment, which was impacted by the
Speaker 1: COVID virus because the COVID lockdowns, I should say, because
Speaker 1: I went into twenty twenty still having not done real treatment.
Speaker 1: But by the time I did decide to do something,
Speaker 1: everything in California was closed basically, So that led me
Speaker 1: to Arizona because if you remember, Arizona was like locked
Speaker 1: down for what they stayed really open, They barely masked,
Speaker 1: They were in complete rebellion, and it was good for
Speaker 1: me because it meant that I could access care. So
Speaker 1: after sixteen weeks of treatment at a center called in
Speaker 1: Vita in Scottsdale, Arizona, I had gone down from A
Speaker 1: Stage three to a aage two. And I know that
Speaker 1: if I had the financial ability to continue doing that process,
Speaker 1: I probably could have gotten completely clear. I absolutely believed that,
Speaker 1: but I didn't have the money to do that, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford to keep where it was. The problem
Speaker 1: for me really became that insurance will not cover the
Speaker 1: same thing they would cover on the standard of care path.
Speaker 1: This is FDA approved chemo, it's just done in a
Speaker 1: different way when you go the integrative path, and they're like,
Speaker 1: we will not touch you even though it's the same
Speaker 1: chemo they weren't covered. I mean, I have submitted just
Speaker 1: in the last year about seventy eight thousand dollars worth
Speaker 1: of reimbursibles. I probably got back about six. So what
Speaker 1: I didn't know at the beginning was you need to
Speaker 1: be rich, You need to really have access to some
Speaker 1: money to go against what your insurance is telling you
Speaker 1: to do. And somebody said to me, doctors don't even
Speaker 1: determine standard of care the insurance company does, and I
Speaker 1: believed them. I don't know if it's true, but I
Speaker 1: believed it because that's what it feels like I've experienced. Wait,
Speaker 1: this actual doctor is saying, here's what we're gonna do,
Speaker 1: and this is what we recommend in the insurance to say, Well,
Speaker 1: we don't agree, and that is not what we tell people.
Speaker 1: Her position to do. So whether it's gonna help her
Speaker 1: or not, whatever, she's gonna have to figure that out.
Speaker 1: And I don't know. I mean, there's so much I
Speaker 1: could say on that, but I just hope that it
Speaker 1: starts to change. I mean, there's so many stories I
Speaker 1: could tell you, so many angles about different cancer treatments
Speaker 1: I've done, but I don't wanna run out of my
Speaker 1: time here with you today before I go over something
Speaker 1: really important that I consider really important anyway, and that
Speaker 1: is to remind you again that prevention is the cure.
Speaker 1: There are things you can do if you're in a
Speaker 1: healthy body right now that will hopefully prevent you from
Speaker 1: getting here in the first place. My goal is to
Speaker 1: keep my story from becoming your story. So here's my
Speaker 1: list of what I wish I knew ten years ago
Speaker 1: about breast cancer. The first thing I would do differently
Speaker 1: had I known, was better sleep. Sleep matters. There are
Speaker 1: so many studies linking awful sleep to breast cancer. Awful
Speaker 1: sleep like the kind that mothers get, which was the
Speaker 1: case for me when my son was young. He's thirteen now,
Speaker 1: but when he was little, I would sleep maybe three
Speaker 1: to five hours a night if I was lucky. Because
Speaker 1: I stayed up in the middle of the night doing
Speaker 1: all the things I needed to do for myself. I
Speaker 1: considered it my knee time. I had no idea that
Speaker 1: not getting enough sleep during the right hours. I'll add
Speaker 1: that cuts down on your melatonin production severely, and melatonin
Speaker 1: is one of the hormones the body uses to prevent
Speaker 1: and fight cancer. So I want you to do your
Speaker 1: own research. Don't listen to me. Am I a scientist, No,
Speaker 1: Am I a doctor. No, I'm just a woman who's
Speaker 1: been wrestling this for six years and struggling to stay
Speaker 1: alive and doing every single thing I can do back
Speaker 1: by science, looking at the studies to be here when
Speaker 1: my son graduates from high school. That's my immediate goal
Speaker 1: right now, and that's four more years, right and then
Speaker 1: I'll set a new goalie, because I plan on making that,
Speaker 1: and then I'll make a new goal and hopefully I'm
Speaker 1: better by then than I am now, and I have another,
Speaker 1: you know, five or ten year goal in mind. Anyway,
Speaker 1: God willing right, So look up the studies yourself. That's
Speaker 1: what I recommend. There's nothing like seeing the proof for yourself.
Speaker 1: Because listen, doctors are trained in a certain way. They're amazing,
Speaker 1: wonderful people who dedicated their lives to helping us, and
Speaker 1: they only know what they know. You know, they only
Speaker 1: know what they know, and they're not allowed to talk
Speaker 1: to you about these things that are outside of their
Speaker 1: scope of work and what they can offer. So you
Speaker 1: get them in trouble when you start to press them
Speaker 1: for telling you these other treatments or go that's not
Speaker 1: what they do. You have to And this I've learned
Speaker 1: about even how I treat my friends and people I love.
Speaker 1: Stop demanding of people's things they can't do. Accept people
Speaker 1: for where they are. That's been big for me on
Speaker 1: this journey. Some people cannot show up for me the
Speaker 1: way I need them to, and some of those people
Speaker 1: may be really close to me. I can either waste
Speaker 1: my time trying to demand and expect and wait and
Speaker 1: hope and dream and pray that they're gonna change, or
Speaker 1: I can control the only thing I can control, which
Speaker 1: is me, and decide to let them be who they
Speaker 1: are and find what I might need from them elsewhere,
Speaker 1: because that makes the most sense to me. So you
Speaker 1: get to determine what makes the most sense to you.
Speaker 1: I'm just sharing what I've learned along the journey. And
Speaker 1: the next thing that I wished I knew ten years
Speaker 1: ago was how much of an impact stressful relationships can
Speaker 1: be on fueling cancer and causing cancer. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: all kinds of relationships, but ladies, you know, for us,
Speaker 1: it's really our significant other and being in a state
Speaker 1: of constant fear, panic, doubt, questioning the relationship, arguing too
Speaker 1: much or worse all keeps us in a state of
Speaker 1: chronic stress. Look up how much damage chronic stress does
Speaker 1: to your body, Lane, so you can start avoiding it,
Speaker 1: because it's one of the most simple things you can
Speaker 1: cut out of your life. And when I say cut out,
Speaker 1: I do mean like taking a scalpel. And you know,
Speaker 1: because when it comes down to it, you and being
Speaker 1: alive is more important than any relationship, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of what I had to come to in my life
Speaker 1: at the time too. I left my son's dad in
Speaker 1: September of twenty nineteen. I was diagnosed in January. That
Speaker 1: whole time things were being clarified, and I don't like
Speaker 1: to get into details about that because I love and
Speaker 1: respect my son. I love and respect his dad too,
Speaker 1: But listen, what happened happened between adults, and I get
Speaker 1: to share my story, right, I mean, you don't have
Speaker 1: to agree. The other person is never going to agree
Speaker 1: with what happened to you because it didn't happen to them,
Speaker 1: happen to you. But I preserve and protect my son's
Speaker 1: father because of my son, and so I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: go too far down that rabbit hole, which it definitely is.
Speaker 1: But I have bit my forbitten my tongue on it
Speaker 1: for all this time because I don't want to leave
Speaker 1: a legacy that my son has to deal with that
Speaker 1: isn't fair to him. And you know, ultimately it's only
Speaker 1: my side of the story. Maybe I was a nightmare too. Listen,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna owe my stuff. But the chronic stress begins
Speaker 1: to feel normal when you've lived with it so long
Speaker 1: and it is incredibly dangerous for your body. So that's
Speaker 1: the next thing I would say. I wish I knew.
Speaker 1: So let's see number three. They're not ranked in order.
Speaker 1: These are all just the things I picked up along
Speaker 1: the way. But the next thing I would say is
Speaker 1: the biggest one. Everybody says right now, what you feed
Speaker 1: your body matters. And I'm gonna tell tell you what
Speaker 1: kind of sugar fiend I was. I was eating maybe
Speaker 1: four donuts a day. Now, when you're in a chronically
Speaker 1: stressful situation. For me, food and alcohol became the go
Speaker 1: to to deal with a lot of what I was
Speaker 1: dealing with. And I'm not saying it was all about
Speaker 1: my intimate relationship. There were other stressers in my life too.
Speaker 1: There were other things that were causing me to be
Speaker 1: stressed out right. So whichever of the things I was
Speaker 1: dealing with that was causing me to stay chronic stress,
Speaker 1: what I went to to help myself was horrible sugar
Speaker 1: and alcohol. Basically, I was doing mammy juice wine, you know,
Speaker 1: red wine. It wasn't drinking hard liquor, even though I
Speaker 1: had at other periods in my life. I was doing wine.
Speaker 1: Though after I stopped breastfeeding, which I breastfed for about
Speaker 1: three years, I got my mama juice back because I,
Speaker 1: of course would never take a risk while while my
Speaker 1: son would have you know, had some kind of damage
Speaker 1: or curb potentially. But as soon as I got the
Speaker 1: green light, I was like, cooh, let's go. And that was,
Speaker 1: looking back, a horrible decision. I had no idea how
Speaker 1: much damage alcohol does to the body. We'll get to
Speaker 1: that in a sect because that's the next one I
Speaker 1: want to talk about more in depth. Right now, let
Speaker 1: me stick to the sugar, because the doughnuts were my
Speaker 1: best friend, and that one has become pretty clear to
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I think now we understand better
Speaker 1: than we did. You know seven I guess years ago
Speaker 1: and when I was in these bad habits fully and
Speaker 1: I say ten years because if I had started fixing
Speaker 1: things ten years ago, I would have avoided it completely,
Speaker 1: because I think I would have caught it before the
Speaker 1: tumor even started growing. That is debatable because I have
Speaker 1: no proof. I have no way of proving that right,
Speaker 1: but that's what I believe. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: studies getting traction right now about our diets and what
Speaker 1: we put in our mouth and fuel our bodies with
Speaker 1: being vital to the outcomes. Now we're not even just
Speaker 1: talking cancer. I mean, yeah, worst case scenario, but diabetes
Speaker 1: and a lot of these immunocompromised diseases are being attributed
Speaker 1: to bad food, and sugar intake absolutely falls into the
Speaker 1: category of bad. Now we're talking refined sugar, right, Fruit
Speaker 1: sugars are not as much on the chopping block for me,
Speaker 1: they are now because I've seen what a difference a
Speaker 1: kto diet makes to how my body feels while wrestling cancer.
Speaker 1: I say wrestling because I just don't like the word fighting.
Speaker 1: I guess it feels more like a wrestle because sometimes
Speaker 1: it's above, sometimes I'm above. We go back and forth.
Speaker 1: We dance, but that's too much of a compliment. I'm
Speaker 1: not dancing with this shit. I'm wrestling and I'd like
Speaker 1: to win. But basically, refined sugar causes what I just
Speaker 1: mentioned before with the stress inflammation, and if you're constantly
Speaker 1: eating it, your body is going to be in chronic inflammation.
Speaker 1: Refined sugar creates that the seed oils create that all
Speaker 1: of it causes inflammation, and for the sugar. The insulin
Speaker 1: spikes all day set you up for not just cancer,
Speaker 1: but the other stuff I mentioned before, diabetes and some
Speaker 1: of these immuno suppressive and what like MS. I have
Speaker 1: a friend who's dealing with MS and has been told
Speaker 1: to avoid all sugar. There's a reason for that. Your
Speaker 1: body can only handle so much inflammation. Now, cute inflammation
Speaker 1: is a logical and healthy and good response from your body.
Speaker 1: You cut yourself, you want your body to get inflamed
Speaker 1: around that cut. You want your body to send all
Speaker 1: the troops over there to help it heal. We're talking
Speaker 1: chronic inflammation where your body never gets a break. There's
Speaker 1: this constant inflamed state and your immune system gets worn
Speaker 1: out trying to put at sech. These fires in LA
Speaker 1: have been like the fire department had to go to
Speaker 1: five and six and seven different fires in one day.
Speaker 1: What the heck? That is too much to expect. That's
Speaker 1: what is happening to your body when you have these
Speaker 1: constant inflammations happening all over the place. So I would
Speaker 1: have changed my diet first, and it is one of
Speaker 1: the things I changed first when I found out by
Speaker 1: my diagnosis, because I'd already gone through this with my mom,
Speaker 1: and I saw that in her chemotherapy appointments that were
Speaker 1: giving her grape juice and Snickers bars and granola bars,
Speaker 1: and so I had started doing research way back then
Speaker 1: and knew that was a horrible choice for them to do.
Speaker 1: Some places have now come around and they're starting to
Speaker 1: make healthier choices for their cancer pations, and some haven't.
Speaker 1: And I think this is just something that is going
Speaker 1: to take a little time for people to start to
Speaker 1: change their minds. When people believe they're doing things correctly,
Speaker 1: this is true for all of us, myself included. When
Speaker 1: you believe you're doing something right and then you find
Speaker 1: out you're not, that is a shock to your system
Speaker 1: and change is difficult. I have witnessed that for myself.
Speaker 1: Change is difficult. But my diet was horrible thirteen years ago.
Speaker 1: All right. The next thing is exercise. Now. I have
Speaker 1: been back and forth on exercise my whole life. I
Speaker 1: found plans that worked. I did P ninety, Yes, I
Speaker 1: did the Beast program. I did all these different programs.
Speaker 1: But my goal was to make my body look the
Speaker 1: way I wanted it to look. What my goal needed
Speaker 1: to be about was my circulation and immune system, because
Speaker 1: when you move, your immune system moves and flushes and
Speaker 1: goes through and picks up the dirt and junk and
Speaker 1: starts to get it out and deal with it. And
Speaker 1: when you don't move, your immune system doesn't move either.
Speaker 1: Your lymphatic system is a huge part of your immune system.
Speaker 1: I think like eighty percent of your immune system is
Speaker 1: made in your lymphatic systems. Listen, don't quote me on
Speaker 1: these things. Like I said, I'm not a scientist I've
Speaker 1: been reading a lot of this stuff over the years.
Speaker 1: I picked it up along the way. Go look at
Speaker 1: it yourself, because the numbers don't matter. The facts do.
Speaker 1: And the fact is that your immune system does not
Speaker 1: have a pump. You are the pump. Your immune and
Speaker 1: lymphatic system work together. By you pumping them. What pumps
Speaker 1: your immune and your lymphatic systems working out. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying like I can't even lift heavyweights anymore. My
Speaker 1: skeletal system has a decent amount of cancer in it
Speaker 1: and it is limited what I'm able to do right now.
Speaker 1: But when I was it wasn't even about lifting heavyweights.
Speaker 1: I hear that that's important too, But if you aren't
Speaker 1: at the place. You know you're not going to go
Speaker 1: from not working out to doing some body competition. Right,
Speaker 1: Let's be realistic and let's take baby steps because those
Speaker 1: are important. To baby steps count. If you're not doing
Speaker 1: any working out or daily movement, just start by walking.
Speaker 1: Just start by parking the furthest away from the door,
Speaker 1: if the story you're going into and getting yourself used
Speaker 1: to that movement. That's what I've had to do. I've
Speaker 1: had to reduce the amount of movement to walking. But
Speaker 1: there was a time where I wasn't moving at all.
Speaker 1: I would do these programs and fail to meet my
Speaker 1: body goal of how I wanted to look, and then
Speaker 1: I would stop, and then I would eat the donetups
Speaker 1: again and go back to the well. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just this vicious cycle that I know I'm not alone in.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about myself, but I'm probably talking about you
Speaker 1: or someone you know and love too. And the point
Speaker 1: is you have a chance to fix it right now
Speaker 1: if you're in a healthy body right. Stagnation in the
Speaker 1: immune system is a huge problem when it comes to
Speaker 1: cancer and other things, and the way you fix that
Speaker 1: is by moving every day. If you can, I do
Speaker 1: a two mile walk every day now because that is
Speaker 1: vital to my survival. You have like a thirty five
Speaker 1: percent risk cut, right, you cut your risk, I'll say
Speaker 1: it in a better way. You cut your risk of
Speaker 1: developing cancer by like thirty five percent just by exercising
Speaker 1: and walking and moving your body. It's worth every step
Speaker 1: that you can figure out how to do. The next
Speaker 1: up is toxins. And one of the biggest ways that
Speaker 1: I have learned that toxins creep into your body. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: what you eat toxic food, right, Yes, you're breathing toxic air. Right.
Speaker 1: We can control the food part, the air we can
Speaker 1: control a little less, but what you put on your skin.
Speaker 1: Your skin is your number one organ, and everything you
Speaker 1: put on it, from perfumes to creams and lotions that
Speaker 1: have a bunch of toxins in them, to all of
Speaker 1: that seeps into your skin. THEEWG dot org has an
Speaker 1: amazing collection of chemicals that do not belong in our
Speaker 1: body care, hair care, skin care products. Many of them
Speaker 1: are still there, but they don't belong there. But you
Speaker 1: can check them out and find out the things that
Speaker 1: you need to avoid. We're talking household cleaning products too,
Speaker 1: and for me. One of the things that I did
Speaker 1: that was probably a little radical, but I'm in a
Speaker 1: radical situation, so it calls for radical solutions. I got
Speaker 1: rid of all the polyester clothing that I had, and
Speaker 1: I especially wanted to focus on the fabric I sleep
Speaker 1: And I'd say polyester, but all fabrics made from the
Speaker 1: waste of gas and oil production is what I mean.
Speaker 1: So polyester, acrylic, nylon, all the ones that come from it. Again,
Speaker 1: there's research to be done and everything is googleable. I
Speaker 1: wanted to focus on the fabric I sleep in because
Speaker 1: you spend more time in that clothing I do anyway
Speaker 1: about you when I'm in lounge clothes most of the time.
Speaker 1: So and also because you're sweating at night, your pores
Speaker 1: are opening up. Whatever is coming off of that fabric
Speaker 1: is leeching off of it is going to absorb into
Speaker 1: your body through your skin. So when I threw away
Speaker 1: all my polyester, it ended up being like five garbage
Speaker 1: bags the clothes things I loved. There were cute things
Speaker 1: in the bag that I was like, no, I can't
Speaker 1: do it, but I would look at the label. It's
Speaker 1: like a hundred percent polyester, And then I said, I
Speaker 1: can't do it. That's what I really can't do is
Speaker 1: the toxin. So I had to get rid of that stuff.
Speaker 1: That was again a very kind of dial down. I'm
Speaker 1: going to go the furthest I can. I'm going to
Speaker 1: get rid of the most I can. So that was
Speaker 1: me being extreme. But look at the fabrics. Look at
Speaker 1: the information about how fabrics can poison your body, and
Speaker 1: how the things you put on your skin can make
Speaker 1: you more toxic, because toxins are incredibly important to reduce
Speaker 1: to avoid developing cancer. Now we'll get to the obvious ones.
Speaker 1: Reducing alcohol, which I mentioned a few minutes ago, were
Speaker 1: going to get to a little more and quitting smoking. Now.
Speaker 1: I smoked for way longer than I'd like to admit.
Speaker 1: It was one of the nastiest habits I've ever had.
Speaker 1: I smoked the entire time I was on TV, and
Speaker 1: I was so ashamed of embarrassed. I was so ashamed
Speaker 1: and embarrassed I should say of it that I hid
Speaker 1: it from everybody. Most people who knew me did not
Speaker 1: know that I smoked unless they were some of the
Speaker 1: very few people that smoke with me. And we're hiding too.
Speaker 1: We would go around corners during the beach house anyway
Speaker 1: to get it all those stories, because listen, the point
Speaker 1: is letting you know that you need to stop smoking
Speaker 1: if you're smoking and that alcohol. I know you guys
Speaker 1: have seen all the information in the last couple of
Speaker 1: months demonizing alcohol. It's true. Alcohol is a poison, and
Speaker 1: that's why it makes you feel the way it makes
Speaker 1: you feel. It's poisoning your body. And the effects you're
Speaker 1: feeling are your body dealing with poison. It's why it
Speaker 1: ruins your lover, because your liver has to detox all
Speaker 1: that poison. And you know they say one drink is
Speaker 1: all you need to poison your body. I honestly believe
Speaker 1: that alcohol was a huge fuel for me and this
Speaker 1: cancer that I'm wrestling, and that's just again my gut.
Speaker 1: I look at the things I was doing and there
Speaker 1: was a lot of wine passing my lips. With the alcohol.
Speaker 1: I stopped cold turkey. I was scared enough and it
Speaker 1: was something I could give up easily. With the smoking,
Speaker 1: I used hypnosis high and you recommend took me one time.
Speaker 1: Never touched cigarette again. I did that more than a
Speaker 1: decade before the cancer ever, you know, was an issue
Speaker 1: and was found in my body. But I wish I
Speaker 1: had done it even sooner. I wish I had gone
Speaker 1: to some kind of therapy more consistently in my life
Speaker 1: to start dealing with a lot of the trauma issues
Speaker 1: that I live with, and just you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of childhood that I had, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that haunt me because they add to your chronic stress.
Speaker 1: But also those were the reasons that I was reaching
Speaker 1: for all this anesthetizing in my life, And had I
Speaker 1: dealt with those issues a little sooner, I probably would
Speaker 1: have done less of that. But alcohol and cigarettes and
Speaker 1: how much of those things you can handle depends on
Speaker 1: your body. I think in all of these things that
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, it's all about your specific body. Listen.
Speaker 1: I know people who have drank I mean hard alcohol.
Speaker 1: Johnny Walker black type hard alcohol for decades. Grandfather decades
Speaker 1: of drinking, and his body was fine till he was
Speaker 1: like seventy eighty. Some bodies are heartier than others. It's
Speaker 1: just how it is. It's not fair, But most things
Speaker 1: in this life are not fair. They just were just
Speaker 1: what they are. So if you notice in your body
Speaker 1: that you can't take certain things, those are the things
Speaker 1: you need to get rid of first. But none of
Speaker 1: the stuff I was doing was worth the risks that
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize I was taking. And that's why
Speaker 1: I want you to know those things now. There are
Speaker 1: more things that I could share with you. I could
Speaker 1: talk forever about this, because I am really passionate about
Speaker 1: helping people preserve their lives given where I'm at. But
Speaker 1: my time is almost step and the bottom line is
Speaker 1: again it's my mantra, prevention is the cure. If you're
Speaker 1: in a healthy body, do the things you can do
Speaker 1: to avoid my story becoming your story. I go into
Speaker 1: more detail about my journey in the Essence article with
Speaker 1: beautiful Shakerri rich In on the cover. If you're looking
Speaker 1: for the hard copy again, Essence dot Com is where
Speaker 1: you can go online right now to read it for yourself.
Speaker 1: There's some other great articles in there too. Like I said,
Speaker 1: you can follow me on Instagram. I'm at I'm Ananda Lewis.
Speaker 1: I do more discussions about things like this, and I
Speaker 1: will be doing even more as as I can. It'll
Speaker 1: be one of the things I start digging into. So
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you again to the
Speaker 1: Let's be clear team for having me, and I am
Speaker 1: going to and I hope you are to honor Shannon
Speaker 1: Dougherty's legacy by living our lives boldly like she lived hers.
Speaker 1: And I hope you had a good time listening to
Speaker 1: me bent on about these things today. And that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm Ananda Lewis and it's been real. I'll see you
Speaker 1: out there.