Speaker 1: This is let's be clear with Shannon Doherty. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: let's be clear family. I'm so excited to be able
Speaker 1: to speak to all of you. My name is Amy
Speaker 1: Robach and for those of you who don't know me,
Speaker 1: I have a podcast called Amy and TJ. I was
Speaker 1: formerly an anchor and a reporter on Good Morning America.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you might know me from there, But it was
Speaker 1: through that job on Good Morning America that I had
Speaker 1: the honor and the privilege of meeting, speaking with, and
Speaker 1: interviewing the late great Shannon Doherty. It was twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: It was actually right before the pandemic, right before all
Speaker 1: hell broke loose in this country. In February of twenty twenty. Wow,
Speaker 1: that was five years ago. I got to sit down
Speaker 1: and speak with Shannon, and she decided that month, that
Speaker 1: day to let the world know what she had been
Speaker 1: dealing with and what she had known for some time
Speaker 1: at that point, that her cancer, that her breast cancer
Speaker 1: had come back, that it was stage four metastatic breast cancer,
Speaker 1: and it was gutting. It's the news that no breast
Speaker 1: cancer patient survivor wants to hear. It's the thing that
Speaker 1: we all fear I, for those of you who don't know,
Speaker 1: am also a breast cancer survivor. I had stage two
Speaker 1: breast cancer. It had traveled to my lympt notes and
Speaker 1: I was diagnosed through a work assignment on Good Morning America.
Speaker 1: So it was a full circle moment to be able
Speaker 1: to speak with Shannon there on Good Morning America. Seven
Speaker 1: years later. She and I were diagnosed within a couple
Speaker 1: of years of each other with early stage breast cancer.
Speaker 1: And so yes for her to have to come back
Speaker 1: and tell the world that her cancer had come back.
Speaker 1: And for a lot of cancers, I can come back,
Speaker 1: and you can fight it and you can beat it.
Speaker 1: But those of us who have had breast cancer know
Speaker 1: that when you get the stage four metastatic diagnosis, that
Speaker 1: it is a terminal one right now. And there are
Speaker 1: drugs and there are ways to fight it, to prolong
Speaker 1: your life and to live longer and better, but ultimately,
Speaker 1: right now, if you get a stage four metastatic diagnosis,
Speaker 1: you are dying. And so when Shannon sat down with
Speaker 1: me to break this news, it was heartbreaking and it
Speaker 1: was personal. I, like so many of you, grew up
Speaker 1: loving Shannon Doherty. I think we're we're about one or
Speaker 1: two years apart. I'm fifty two. I think she might
Speaker 1: have been two years older than me.
Speaker 2: So I was absolutely in awe of her and just
Speaker 2: got to see her from AFAR, got to interview her
Speaker 2: in a group, but I didn't get to meet her
Speaker 2: one on one, and sadly, it wasn't until she came
Speaker 2: to Good Morning America on that February morning in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty that I actually got to sit down with her,
Speaker 2: and what we had to talk about was the last
Speaker 2: thing either one of us wanted to but she was
Speaker 2: so brave, you.
Speaker 1: Know that is I don't know if people give women
Speaker 1: who come forward, especially women in the public eye, enough
Speaker 1: credit for coming forward, because especially when you're someone like
Speaker 1: Shannon Doherty, who was this bright, beautiful, shining example of
Speaker 1: success and health to then say I have this right
Speaker 1: now in curable disease, and I am dying and I
Speaker 1: am scared, and I don't know what's next, and I
Speaker 1: don't know how hard it's going to get and how
Speaker 1: dark it's going to get. But I'm sharing this with
Speaker 1: the world because I want other women to not feel alone.
Speaker 1: I want to promote and be an advocate for better research.
Speaker 1: So that we can find a cure to this disease.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to put my name, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to put my face, and I'm going to put all
Speaker 1: of this pain out there to the world so that
Speaker 1: we can all collectively embrace each other and then work
Speaker 1: together to try and find a cure. Is so brave.
Speaker 1: That is so brave. I remember when I first was
Speaker 1: diagnosed and decided to go public with my breast cancer diagnosis.
Speaker 1: My surgeon said to me the night before the surgery,
Speaker 1: are you sure you want to go public with this?
Speaker 1: Are you sure you want to tell the world about
Speaker 1: your diagnosis? And I said yes, but why are you
Speaker 1: asking me like this? And doctor Axelrod said, are you
Speaker 1: prepared to be pitied? I don't know that you are.
Speaker 1: It's a big deal to have people look at you
Speaker 1: and look at you like they're almost attending your funeral,
Speaker 1: and that will happen to you, and sure enough it did.
Speaker 1: You know, you get the cancer nod and the cancer hugs,
Speaker 1: and the people look at you with pity. And it's
Speaker 1: a strange thing to experience if you haven't before. And
Speaker 1: it's one thing to have an early stage diagnosis like
Speaker 1: she and I both did in the beginning. It's another
Speaker 1: thing altogether, when you're telling the world that you have
Speaker 1: an incurable disease and that you're dying, and that takes
Speaker 1: a whole other level of bravery that I just want
Speaker 1: to commend Shannon for doing. Because when you tell your story,
Speaker 1: when one person tells their story, it affects everyone around you.
Speaker 1: All the women in your life tend to go and
Speaker 1: make those manbogram appointments or to make that doctor's appointment,
Speaker 1: to keep those appointments that they hadn't before, because they're
Speaker 1: suddenly realizing how vulnerable we all are as human beings,
Speaker 1: and that if we don't have our health, we don't
Speaker 1: have anything. So every person listening to this podcast, no
Speaker 1: matter what it is you may be dealing with, whether
Speaker 1: it's loss or a disease or some sort of issue,
Speaker 1: when you share it with one person, it affects everyone
Speaker 1: around you because there is a collective learning and understanding
Speaker 1: and growing that comes from it. So when you're someone
Speaker 1: like Shannon Doherty and you take your tremendous and enormous
Speaker 1: platform and you tell the world what you're dealing with,
Speaker 1: the impact of that is immense. And so I just
Speaker 1: I was sitting there talking with her and interviewing her.
Speaker 1: I was in awe of her because I have thought,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of women who have early
Speaker 1: stage breast cancer have thought about what they would do
Speaker 1: and how they would handle a stage four metastatic diagnosis.
Speaker 1: Anyone who has had breast cancer lives with that threat,
Speaker 1: lives with that fear of it returning, of it recurring,
Speaker 1: and of it being stage four metastatic. And we live
Speaker 1: our lives differently because of it, and we spend our
Speaker 1: time differently because of it. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: fear and a lot of mental work that has to
Speaker 1: be done along with the physical when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: the breast cancer diagnosis, and specifically a stage four metastatic diagnosis.
Speaker 1: I have had two dear friends, One has already passed
Speaker 1: and one is rounding just rounded her seventh year as
Speaker 1: a metastatic breast cancer patient, and that is frankly remarkable,
Speaker 1: and I am an awe of her each and every day.
Speaker 1: It's people like Shannon. It's people like my friend Morgan,
Speaker 1: my dear friend Olivia, who I lost, we all lost
Speaker 1: last November. They are the women who I think of
Speaker 1: every day when I have little things that happen where
Speaker 1: I am upset or I feel frustrated by I think
Speaker 1: about those women and I say, I got this. This
Speaker 1: is a very small problem. This is just a situation
Speaker 1: that needs to be addressed. It's not actually a real problem.
Speaker 1: It just puts full perspective into your life. And I
Speaker 1: just want to share with all of you in this
Speaker 1: podcast what I learned from Shannon, from women like Shannon,
Speaker 1: and from my own personal diagnosis. I don't know how
Speaker 1: many people know my story who are listening to this,
Speaker 1: but I was forty years old, and at the time,
Speaker 1: the recommendations by all the different agencies that tell women
Speaker 1: how often they should get tests and when they should
Speaker 1: get tests. Even the American Cancer Society that point had
Speaker 1: said women could wait until they were forty five.
Speaker 2: And then the.
Speaker 1: Main group that determines when women should get mamograms, or
Speaker 1: at least advises women they should get mammograms, said it
Speaker 1: was fifty. So when Good Morning America asked me, when
Speaker 1: I had just turned forty, if I would go have
Speaker 1: a mammogram in a Mamma van in front of a
Speaker 1: live national audience for Good Morning America on October first,
Speaker 1: which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month to raise awareness about
Speaker 1: the importance of mammograms and the importance of early detection.
Speaker 1: I said, no, I just I'm an authentic person, and
Speaker 1: I just I told my producers at Good Morning America,
Speaker 1: I had no intention of getting a mammogram, and I
Speaker 1: was planning on waiting ten years before I had my
Speaker 1: first mammogram, and so I didn't want to go on
Speaker 1: national television and tell other women to get a mammogram.
Speaker 1: If I myself was not going to get one, that
Speaker 1: was just a non starter for me. And they asked
Speaker 1: me to speak to Robin Roberts, who is also a
Speaker 1: breast cancer arriver. She doesn't even like the words survivor.
Speaker 1: She is a thriver. And they said, will you please
Speaker 1: talk to Robin for you make it an absolute no.
Speaker 1: I said sure. So I walked into Robin's dressing room
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, Robin, I'm not the gal. I'm
Speaker 1: not the one who should go into the Mamma Van
Speaker 1: next week. I have no connection to the disease. My
Speaker 1: mom is one of nine, my dad is one of six.
Speaker 1: At that time, I had all of my grandparents still alive,
Speaker 1: all of my aunts, all of my cousins. No one,
Speaker 1: and I don't even know how many cousins I have
Speaker 1: at this point, but no one has breast cancer in
Speaker 1: my family. So I just felt like I had no
Speaker 1: personal connection to the disease, and I certainly didn't think
Speaker 1: that I needed a mammogram. And Robin said to me,
Speaker 1: She laughed and said, you're exactly the person who should
Speaker 1: walk into that Mamma Van because you think cancer can't
Speaker 1: happen to you. And she said, I'm sure you're fine,
Speaker 1: but it's that mentality that causes women not to make
Speaker 1: those appointments and not to keep those appointments. And so
Speaker 1: let me just say this to you. Robin said, if
Speaker 1: you walk into that Mamma Van and you get that
Speaker 1: mammogram on live national television, and you show the world,
Speaker 1: you show the women watching that it's not that painful,
Speaker 1: that it's not that hard, you will save a life.
Speaker 1: One woman will make her appointment who wouldn't have otherwise,
Speaker 1: and she will find her breast cancer and she will
Speaker 1: thank you for saving her life. That was a really,
Speaker 1: really compelling argument, and I did a one eight in
Speaker 1: that moment. I remember feeling emotion. It felt like a
Speaker 1: watershed moment, and I said to Robin, I said, we
Speaker 1: were in her dressing room. I said, I cannot believe
Speaker 1: I'm saying this. I'm going to do a one eighty
Speaker 1: here and I'll do it. I'll do it. I can't
Speaker 1: beat that argument. I'll say yes. And so, because I
Speaker 1: was nudged by Robin and my producers to get into
Speaker 1: that Mamma Van and to get that mammogram, I found
Speaker 1: my breast cancer. And that was just the beginning. I
Speaker 1: got the diagnosis that they found a lump in my
Speaker 1: right breast, and it seemed like it was fairly small,
Speaker 1: and so my surgeon recommended that I have a lumpectomy.
Speaker 1: Something that Robin told me and something that Hotocopy told
Speaker 1: me too, women who I knew and loved who had
Speaker 1: survived and thrived beyond their diagnosis. They both told me
Speaker 1: about the power of advocacy and that each patient has
Speaker 1: a right to navigate their own treatment. And that's a
Speaker 1: scary thing for a lot of women. And doctors are
Speaker 1: much smarter than me. I don't have a medical degree.
Speaker 1: My brother does, so I was lucky enough to be
Speaker 1: able to lean on him as well. But when I
Speaker 1: was told that a lumpectomy was my best option. I
Speaker 1: dug in and looked further, and my brother, really, among
Speaker 1: all the people I talked to, convinced me to have
Speaker 1: a double mistectomy. And that is a scary surgery. It
Speaker 1: is it is an amputation. It is not something to
Speaker 1: take lightly, and it is life changing. And every day
Speaker 1: I am in the shower, I don't have feeling in
Speaker 1: my breasts. Every day I take a shower, I know
Speaker 1: that I'm a breast cancer survivor because it just the
Speaker 1: best way I can describe it is if you've had
Speaker 1: novacane to get a cavity filled, how it feels weird,
Speaker 1: and you can that's how my breasts feel. That's how
Speaker 1: they will always feel. And that's a lot better than
Speaker 1: they felt in the months after the double mis aectamy.
Speaker 1: So my point being, I am not advocating double mistectomies
Speaker 1: here because they are a very serious surgery that require
Speaker 1: very serious consideration. However, my surgeon really didn't think I
Speaker 1: should get a double mistectomy. She didn't think I needed one,
Speaker 1: and the night before the surgery, she also wouldn't that
Speaker 1: phone call. She also said to me, are you sure
Speaker 1: you don't want to get a lumpect to me, are
Speaker 1: you sure you don't want to change your mind? And
Speaker 1: I said, I'm sure. When I woke up from the surgery,
Speaker 1: there she was, my surgeon standing over me, and she
Speaker 1: said to me, Okay, you were right, but I was good.
Speaker 1: And she told me that when they did the double
Speaker 1: mistectmy she took her finger and just felt the lining
Speaker 1: of my chest wall. And I had had, by the way,
Speaker 1: an MRI, a sonogram, and the mammogram, and all of
Speaker 1: those tests only showed one malignant mass. When she felt
Speaker 1: the lining of my chest wall, she found another mass.
Speaker 1: They tested it on the site and found out that
Speaker 1: it too was malignant. So she found a second malignant
Speaker 1: tumor only because I had the double mistect me. And
Speaker 1: I just always want to tell that story because you
Speaker 1: never know. You have to trust really the research you've done.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, it was my gut.
Speaker 1: My gut just told me that I wanted to get
Speaker 1: a double mistect to me, and it proved to be
Speaker 1: the best choice of an the best course of action.
Speaker 1: When they did all of the testing on all of
Speaker 1: my breast tissue from both breasts. My left breast also
Speaker 1: was completely pre cancerous and so it too they believe
Speaker 1: would have ultimately developed into breast cancer. So having the
Speaker 1: double the bilateral mistectomy was absolutely the right decision for me,
Speaker 1: and it was confirmed with the surgical results. So I
Speaker 1: always always want to tell that story. The other decision
Speaker 1: you have to make is what happens afterwards. I went,
Speaker 1: I actually went, I had to have chemo. You get
Speaker 1: an ANCO score. It tells you your chance of recurrence
Speaker 1: and the threat of having a comeback metastatic mind was
Speaker 1: much higher than they wanted it to be. And just
Speaker 1: all the lab work that they did on my breast issue,
Speaker 1: my oncologist said, you don't have a choice. You have
Speaker 1: to have chemo. So I went through six months of chemo.
Speaker 1: And then when you're done with that and you have
Speaker 1: your reconstructive surgery, now you have drug therapy. And this
Speaker 1: is the point I want to talk about because Shannon
Speaker 1: and I had this discussion Shannon Dolherty and I when
Speaker 1: she came in and sat down with me. At that point,
Speaker 1: I believe I was on year six of tomoxifin. So
Speaker 1: tomoxifin is a drug that is offered to women who
Speaker 1: have er positive breast cancer. So you're it's hormonally fueled,
Speaker 1: and so the tomoxif in. I'm not again a medical scientist,
Speaker 1: but the best way in Layman's term I can describe it,
Speaker 1: the way I understand that it works is it suppresses
Speaker 1: your estrogen. It suppresses those hormones that feed cancer cells.
Speaker 1: And I remember my on college is telling me you
Speaker 1: have to get chemo, but even more importantly, you have
Speaker 1: to take tomoxivin. And it had just they had said
Speaker 1: five years was the gold standard, and they had just
Speaker 1: raised it to ten years. They want women to be
Speaker 1: on this drug for ten years. So I'm forty and
Speaker 1: now I'm going into forced menopause and all of the
Speaker 1: things that come with that, the hot flashes, the joint pain,
Speaker 1: the dry skin, the just there are so many negative
Speaker 1: side effects that come from it. But at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, my daughters were I had two little girls
Speaker 1: who were seven and ten at the time when I
Speaker 1: was diagnosed, and my oncologist told me right away, you
Speaker 1: are out of the baby making business. And I had
Speaker 1: been trying to have another child actually the whole year before.
Speaker 1: So she said, thank god you didn't get pregnant, and
Speaker 1: that really shook me. And you know to be told
Speaker 1: you're out of the baby making business. I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to have already had two children. Shannon did not.
Speaker 1: She was not in that same situation. And so when
Speaker 1: she was then presented with these same options because we
Speaker 1: had similar hormonally fueled cancers, she opted not to have
Speaker 1: the demoxifin. She wanted to keep her options open. And
Speaker 1: that's a very fair personal decision that every woman has
Speaker 1: to make. But Shannon decided not to have tamoxifin. I
Speaker 1: decided to have tomoxifin. No one will ever know if
Speaker 1: one decision led to the next outcome, but I know
Speaker 1: that that Shannon at the end regretted not taking the demoxofin,
Speaker 1: and I remember when she told me that she was
Speaker 1: not she decided not to take the tomoxfin I just
Speaker 1: thought a mop in my throat because my friend Olivia,
Speaker 1: who I just mentioned earlier in this the beginning of
Speaker 1: this podcast, who passed last November. She and I were
Speaker 1: diagnosed again like she had an ER positive cancer. She
Speaker 1: was also staged two. It had traveled to her lymp notes.
Speaker 1: Like me, she also opted. She started on the tomoxopin.
Speaker 1: She's a professional dancer, she said her joints hurt too much,
Speaker 1: and so she stopped taking it, and when her cancer
Speaker 1: came back four years later, stage four metastatic, she said
Speaker 1: to me, God, I wish I had stayed on that
Speaker 1: tom oxivan. So it's just it's not fair. No one knows.
Speaker 1: Olivia and Shannon could have stayed on to moxifin and
Speaker 1: been on to moxifin and they still may have had
Speaker 1: the same outcome. But it's just worth mentioning that. It's
Speaker 1: just I remember feeling, and I still feel to this
Speaker 1: day that when you are a breast cancer patient, suddenly
Speaker 1: all of these decisions are handed to you, and people
Speaker 1: can tell you what they think, and they can tell
Speaker 1: you what the best advice they believe is. But ultimately
Speaker 1: you go with your gut, you go with your heart,
Speaker 1: and you make the choice. But that's a scary thing
Speaker 1: because no one really knows what one decision leads to,
Speaker 1: and you just have to make the best decision in
Speaker 1: the moment. I know that's what Shannon did. That was
Speaker 1: the best decision for her and her life in that
Speaker 1: moment and what she wanted, and it was the best
Speaker 1: decision for Olivia in her life. I do know that
Speaker 1: I have made a lot of changes over the years
Speaker 1: since I've been diagnosed with breast cancer, health choices. I
Speaker 1: started running. I've always been a runner, but I OpEd
Speaker 1: my game. It took me a couple of years. I
Speaker 1: just don't want anyone to think somehow I got cancer
Speaker 1: and then became a superwoman. I was at that point
Speaker 1: I was writing a book, and I did write a book.
Speaker 1: If anyone would like to pick it up, it was
Speaker 1: my book is called Better, and it was about how
Speaker 1: my life has gotten better through this diagnose. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it was easier, it doesn't mean it was less challenging,
Speaker 1: but I was able to make better decisions, and so
Speaker 1: many of my decisions, even my last decision to leave
Speaker 1: my last marriage, was absolutely influenced by my cancer diagnosis.
Speaker 1: Because people who have not just had cancer and lived
Speaker 1: with cancer, but had any sort of life threatening situation
Speaker 1: happened to them, and it happens almost at some point
Speaker 1: to everyone, just depends on when it happens to you.
Speaker 1: But you realize that the most precious thing in life,
Speaker 1: and we all know this intellectually, but you realize it
Speaker 1: on a cellular level that time. Time is the one
Speaker 1: thing that we don't get back that we're not guaranteed,
Speaker 1: and so how I spend my time and who I
Speaker 1: spend it with, and how I make my decisions, we're
Speaker 1: all now funneled through that lens of time is precious
Speaker 1: and it's not guaranteed. And you know it intimately when
Speaker 1: you have had cancer and you are constantly or at
Speaker 1: least feel like you're under the threat of it returning.
Speaker 1: I think about it all the time. I think about
Speaker 1: what I would do if it came back, who I
Speaker 1: would tell, would I go public? And you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to that. I don't know
Speaker 1: that I would go public until I had to. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I would want to be the face
Speaker 1: of that the way I was even with early stage
Speaker 1: press cancer. And so again I just give so much
Speaker 1: credit to Shannon for allowing us on that journey with
Speaker 1: her so that we could could be with her but
Speaker 1: also learn from her and hopefully keep champ fighting and
Speaker 1: being champions for her in the cause and the cure.
Speaker 1: And that's where my my focus is right now, because
Speaker 1: I do try to balance my life in a much
Speaker 1: different way, you know what I do, and I encourage
Speaker 1: everyone to do this you don't have to have gone
Speaker 1: through anything too significant yet to choose this. I choose fun.
Speaker 1: I choose fun, I choose laughter. I wake up most
Speaker 1: mornings and literally say to myself, how am I going
Speaker 1: to have fun today? It doesn't have to be silly
Speaker 1: or inane or something. It's just it's a choice about
Speaker 1: how you go through life and what your attitude is.
Speaker 1: And yes, I have bad days where I am not
Speaker 1: in the mood to have fun, but I do prioritize
Speaker 1: fun in a way that I hadn't before. I prioritize
Speaker 1: enjoyment of life. And that's why we're here. I believe
Speaker 1: that's why we're here to love each other, to love ourselves,
Speaker 1: and to learn and that can all happen with joy.
Speaker 1: And that is the biggest lesson I learned. And I
Speaker 1: know that. I know that this is such a sad
Speaker 1: topic and a painful topic, and I think for that reason,
Speaker 1: a lot of people shy away from it. They shy
Speaker 1: away from talking about it, and sometimes from even making appointments.
Speaker 1: I have heard from women who say they have not
Speaker 1: made their mammogram appointments, that they have not even made
Speaker 1: doctor appointments because they don't want to know that ignorance
Speaker 1: is bliss, that it's better to not have the test
Speaker 1: and not be worried about it, and that to me,
Speaker 1: I understand, I was that person. I would have waited
Speaker 1: until I was fifty to have that mammogram. And I
Speaker 1: honestly do not believe that I would be here talking
Speaker 1: to you today if I hadn't been pushed literally into that,
Speaker 1: Mamma Van. And so for anyone who was listening, and
Speaker 1: if you're a man listening, tell this to the women
Speaker 1: you love in your life. Ignorance is not bliss when
Speaker 1: it comes to cancer. The earlier we find cancer, the
Speaker 1: better chance we have of surviving it, period, end of story.
Speaker 1: And so my daughters, the recommendation is for them to
Speaker 1: have a mammogram ten years before their mom was first diagnosed.
Speaker 1: So at thirty, my daughters are going to have their
Speaker 1: baseline mammogram. And I had a slow growing cancer. So
Speaker 1: I absolutely got breast cancer in my late thirties. And
Speaker 1: that's a very very very scary thing and that should
Speaker 1: not be happening. And so I change my diet, I
Speaker 1: changed my lifestyle, I change my attitude. Those are the
Speaker 1: three things that I had control of. I don't have
Speaker 1: control of anything else. So yes, I run marathons. I've
Speaker 1: left my game. Like I said, I work out at
Speaker 1: least five days a week, I watch what I eat.
Speaker 1: I've lessened my drinking, and I've lessened to my stress level.
Speaker 1: I really think that's an important part of this, to
Speaker 1: make sure that we take care of our mental health
Speaker 1: along with our physical health, because I do think those
Speaker 1: two are connected, and especially when it comes to cancer,
Speaker 1: we can all do better at just relaxing and creating
Speaker 1: a real perspective in our lives. Is this going to
Speaker 1: matter in five minutes, This is going to matter in
Speaker 1: five years? And really put that to the test when
Speaker 1: we try to recognize how we're reacting to life into problems.
Speaker 1: And I do believe that every woman should get a
Speaker 1: mammogram by the age of forty. And I do believe
Speaker 1: that you should be able to have access to not
Speaker 1: just a mammogram because you have dense breast tissue issues.
Speaker 1: For a lot of women, so we need ultrasound opportunities,
Speaker 1: three D mammograms, and all of the tests available to us.
Speaker 1: I just I'm imploring you who are listening to make
Speaker 1: your appointments and take advantage of these life saving tests
Speaker 1: that we have now. Mammograms are not perfect, and there
Speaker 1: is no perfect test, but they're the best test we have,
Speaker 1: and they certainly have saved countless lives. This is the truth.
Speaker 1: Wherever in the world mimmography has been introduced, the death
Speaker 1: rates from cancer have dropped. Period. Now it's again, it's
Speaker 1: not there are can't There are women who have had
Speaker 1: cancers that have gone undiagnosed or undetected by mammograms. So again,
Speaker 1: they are not fool proof, but they are the best
Speaker 1: test we have, and that is what I'm asking each
Speaker 1: and every woman listening here today to take advantage of
Speaker 1: because it's saved my life and I have been. When
Speaker 1: I first started speaking publicly about my breast cancer, I
Speaker 1: was taken to task by some people, especially those in
Speaker 1: the metastatic community, who want there to be less of
Speaker 1: a focused on early detection and more of a focus
Speaker 1: on raising funds to find a cure. And I fully, fully,
Speaker 1: fully agree that both need to happen, and both need
Speaker 1: to get equal time and equal press. That isn't the
Speaker 1: case right now, But they have said to me, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't say that a mamma save your
Speaker 1: life and technically they're right. I can't prove that a
Speaker 1: mammogram saved my life, but I can tell you that
Speaker 1: it gave me the best chance at surviving this insidious disease.
Speaker 1: It gave me the best chance of dying from something
Speaker 1: else other than breast cancer, and that cannot be refuted.
Speaker 1: So I just make that argument to anyone, and I'm
Speaker 1: acknowledging that more needs to be done in terms of
Speaker 1: research so that we have more tests and more ways
Speaker 1: of detecting cancer. I am a huge advocate of that.
Speaker 1: And again I am a huge advocate of raising fund
Speaker 1: Someone once told me there is a cure for cancer.
Speaker 1: It's called cash, and so I implore everyone if you
Speaker 1: have a charity that you love for me, it's BCRF
Speaker 1: Breast Cancer Research Foundation. They do more. They are actually
Speaker 1: a huge reason why demoxithin even exists, that drug that
Speaker 1: I think is of course life saving or at least
Speaker 1: I credit in part to saving my life or keeping
Speaker 1: me in the health that I'm in today. That all
Speaker 1: came from research, and any organization that funds research that
Speaker 1: gets these scientists working together to collaborate to find a cure,
Speaker 1: I am there for it. So we can all do
Speaker 1: our part mentally, physically, and maybe even financially, but let's
Speaker 1: think about what we can do to honor Shannon's memory,
Speaker 1: to honor the women who are fighting right now, and
Speaker 1: the women who don't even know they're about to receive
Speaker 1: that diagnosis. And it happens every day in this country,
Speaker 1: and more often than it should. But I just I
Speaker 1: want everyone. I want to end on a positive note
Speaker 1: because there are beautiful things that come out of dealing
Speaker 1: with something so scary and so awful. And the number
Speaker 1: one most important thing I learned is how to live
Speaker 1: that you can be living but not really And Shannon, Shannon,
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave you with my favorite thing. And
Speaker 1: I talk about this a lot. Shannon showed me the
Speaker 1: most amazing, the most amazing cartoon that she said she
Speaker 1: looked at almost every day, And I'll leave you with this.
Speaker 1: It is Snoopy and it is Charlie Brown. And Charlie
Speaker 1: Brown says, Yolo, Snoopy, and Snoopy says, you got it wrong.
Speaker 1: We don't only live once, we only die once. We
Speaker 1: live every day and that is what I think of
Speaker 1: every day. And I think of Shannon often because she's
Speaker 1: the one who showed me that beautiful way to turn
Speaker 1: Yolo around. Yeah, we only die once. We live every day.
Speaker 1: I want to thank everyone for listening to this episode
Speaker 1: of Let's Be Clear, and I want to thank the
Speaker 1: producers for giving me the opportunity to share my experience
Speaker 1: with Shannon, my experience with breast cancer, and I hope
Speaker 1: that my story connected with some of you in a
Speaker 1: meaningful way. And I also just want to let everyone know,
Speaker 1: if you didn't know, please check out Amy and TJ.
Speaker 1: We have a couple podcasts we drop every week, but
Speaker 1: then every morning we have our Morning Run. So if
Speaker 1: you want to have a quick twenty minute catch up
Speaker 1: on the headlines before you head into work, or as
Speaker 1: you're heading into work, or as you're dropping off the kids,
Speaker 1: consider checking out Morning Run on the Amy and TJ podcast.
Speaker 1: But until then, I hope you all have a wonderful
Speaker 1: day and thank you for letting me share my story.