Episode 11: Lindsay's Journey with Appendiceal Cancer

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I can't even imagine.

(00:06):
Have you heard those words and thought to yourself, neither can I?
But it happened.
You lived it.
But most importantly, you survived it.
We hear you, we see you, and we're here to talk about it.
We're two moms, lifelong best friends, and we've both experienced traumatic life-altering
events involving our children.

(00:29):
Apparently that word is really old now.
Oh, cringey?
Yeah, that's so 2022.
That's what my kids told me the other day.
It's so 2022.
Okay.
Yeah, so just FYI.
We talked about this earlier.
That's just like a blip.
I know.
You were talking about 2019.
You're like, yeah, I was like yesterday, bro.
I know.
But that's like when my mom, talk about cringey.

(00:50):
Listen, I love you, mom.
But when she says the word peeps.
I still say peeps.
Oh, God.
That was super popular when we were like 12 when AOL was a thing.
I say peeps every once in a while.
And then, no, but your mom always says slick.
That's her old school word.
Yeah, that's her old school word.
I know that.
Slick, yeah.
What else is there?
I was teasing the kids on Halloween because they were saying crap like skibbity and whatever.

(01:14):
And I was like, yeah, you're so skibbity toilet.
And they responded back and I was like, cap.
And they just looked at me like, did that just come out of your mouth, mom?
And I, because I used it appropriately.
Right.
And they were like, what?
How do you use it?
Well, Keith came up with one for the kids and he uses it all the time.
And now my kids start saying it to each other.

(01:34):
Slapity capity.
Slapity capity.
I don't even know what it means or when, like how to use it in the right context.
My daughter, my middle schooler has to do a project.
She's in your book and TV production.
And I'm not sure which class this is for, but she's got to make like a, it's like either
a music video or like a small short film or something.

(01:55):
And she's doing it, her partner is this boy.
And of course I keep teasing her that it's her boyfriend.
And she just like keeps, it's very overdramatized the way that she's like, oh, with her hands.
I'm like, oh my God, she's so crushing on him.
She's, I'm sorry.
We're going to go old school with this one.
She's sweating him.
Oh boy.
And she, I'm like, you know, he thinks you're cute.

(02:17):
She's like, he's so mean to me.
Like laughing.
No boy.
Okay.
He likes you.
Okay.
He's joking with you.
He knows it.
She just doesn't want to talk to me about it.
Cause she's embarrassed.
That's funny.
Anyways, I said, you know what you need to do is do a music video and have dad write
you a song called slapity capity.
And then you guys can perform in lip sync in the music video to this song called slapity

(02:41):
capity.
And then you can like all the kids at school will start singing it and slapity capity will
be like in the zeitgeist.
Yeah.
It'll become a thing.
It'll go viral.
And it all stemmed here folks.
You heard it first.
Did she think you were a total loser for saying that?
No, she's like, it's a good idea, but dad doesn't have a lot of time.
And I'm like, no, you're right about that.
You're right.
Back to reality.
We come.

(03:01):
Yeah.
But it would be pretty funny.
I really was stupidly hopeful that my kids had somehow escaped the goofy words that are
now, you know, with all the middle schoolers, all the skippity and whatever.
And I was like, oh, my kids don't do that.

(03:22):
My kids don't do that.
They're not going to do that.
And then it really started with bra.
Bra took off.
And that was like the only thing I ever heard out of their mouths, bra for everything.
They still do it.
And it's nonstop.
And I say it all the time now, too, whatever.
It's like the new dude.
Yep.
I still say dude all the time.
So do I.
But no, I think it's honestly just the, it's the social, it's the social media aspect.

(03:46):
It's, you know, my kids play video games with their friends.
And I think they just all rubbed off on each other.
And now they're starting to say these dumb ass words.
And I'm like, you don't make any sense.
Stop it.
Like you sound, it makes you sound so unintelligent.
And I'm like, and I know you're just like, mom, you're lame.
You don't care about my opinion about it.

(04:06):
But now I'm like, well, how did my parents feel?
Mm hmm.
Well, I mean, what were we, we would say fat.
Oh my God.
Fat, cool with K-E-W-L.
He's fine.
He's fine.
What else was there?
We're showing our age, but like.
Sweating him.
Sweating him, I guess.
Well, I always think I always say crush.
But sweating, I feel like, was he older?
Crushing on him.

(04:27):
I gotta like, now I feel like I gotta look it up.
There was a, there's a new word.
It starts with an M. It's like a romantic term.
It's gross.
So you know what your kids are saying.
Oh yeah.
My daughter's been saying, giat.
Oh yeah.
Talking about my giat.
I'm like, I wish you had one.
I don't even know what that is.

(04:47):
My kids say it all the time.
It's a big booty.
Oh God.
Uh huh.
Of course, my son says mid.
He says cap and no cap.
My daughter's been saying mid since before her accident a year and a half ago.
She would, like we even, I even say it now.
We were practicing volleyball in the backyard the other day and I was teaching her how to

(05:08):
serve.
I don't know how to serve.
I just have seen volleyball and played it like maybe twice in middle school PE.
So I'm teaching her my, my extensive knowledge on volleyball.
And we would rate each other's serve and we'd be like, oh that was mid, mid plus, mid minus.
Oh, as if all that in the bag of chips.

(05:30):
From ours, from our days.
Chad, as if all that in a bag of chips.
Of course.
Do you remember the whole like loser, loser moron?
Oh my God, whatever.
Oh yes.
Yeah.
Talk to the hand.
Booyah.
Oh yes.
Whatever.
Okay.
Okay.
Scrub.
Oh yes.

(05:51):
Dabam.
Fat.
Homeskill it.
I still say Dabam.
Yeah.
Kidjiggy.
My bad.
Still say that.
Word.
Still say that.
Not.
It was so stupid.
Let's bounce.
I say that with a kid sometimes and I'm like, you're so weird.
Was up.
Or sup.

(06:11):
Was up.
Yeah.
Fly.
That would be how old you are.
Fly.
I say oh snap.
I say all the time.
You go girl.
And no duh.
No doi.
You remember that?
No doi.
Doi.
My daddy's gonna make so much fun of me for saying that.
He would copy me every time I said it.

(06:34):
My daughter was crying.
She's eight, nine.
And she was like upset about something the other day.
I don't remember what it was.
And she's like just not sobbing, but just like sad, you know, in bed.
I don't even know what it was.
And my husband found a string on the floor and he brought it up and he's just, we always
like try to get our kids out of their crying or their upset with humor.

(06:59):
So he comes up, he's like here, I got you this really amazing string.
And she's like, huh.
And it was tied together in like a loop.
It was a big string like yarn tied together in a loop.
And my other, my 13 year old is probably crocheting something and that's where it came from.
Yeah.
God only knows in our house where things come from.
But I said, oh, I have never taught you cat's cradle.

(07:23):
Oh yeah.
I did that with my daughter.
It's so fun.
I got her the book, the same book that I had as a kid still exists that comes with the
string and has like all of them in it.
I couldn't remember how to get it started.
But once we got it started, I was like, oh, and then you use panchera and you go underneath
and then you put your pinkies and then you go looking at you like, what is this witchcraft?
What are you doing?
I know.

(07:44):
And then she's like, what's the point of this?
I'm like, absolutely nothing.
I said, listen, we didn't have cell phones when I was a kid.
Sometimes I would do cat's cradle by myself and I'd put them on my toes and then do it
and then have it on my fingers and then put it.
If you do it gentle, put it on your toes.
Like I would put it on her hands so that I could make the next move and teach her.

(08:05):
And I'd hold it and I said, okay, now you hold your hands like this and let me put it
on your hands and then I'll teach you the next one.
And I was like, I used to do that to my toes.
Yeah, you work all the way up to like, you did like the witches broom, the owl eyes,
the Jacob's ladder was like the really hard one.
You didn't get all the way to that one.
Yeah, I know that's so much fun.
I still like doing it.
I think it's fun.
And she and I, my nine-year-old and I have a special handshake kind of thing.

(08:30):
It's like a Miss Mary Mac that we do every night.
Oh my gosh, she wants it every night.
Every, probably week or so, she wants to add something to it.
Yes, it takes forever now.
This is why I don't do those things with my daughter because it becomes a ritual.
And then she adds same things.
She'll start adding stuff to it.
And I'm like, no, what we're already doing is enough.

(08:52):
No.
Yeah.
And my thing is if we mess up, we just keep going, pick it up and just keep going.
She wants to start all the way over.
And sometimes I'm so exhausted.
I'll literally just be like flopping my hands.
Get this over with.
Yeah.
Oh, so my daughter on Halloween thought she was funny because she was like showing off
in front of friends.

(09:13):
They're like up ahead of the group.
And she was just yelled out something.
I don't know what the subject was, but she yelled out the word gay.
And she was like, blah, blah, that's gay.
Oh no.
And I was like, excuse me, what did you say?
And I get real closer and I was like, I whispered down like, what did you just say?

(09:34):
She goes, gay.
She has no idea.
And I'm like, really shouldn't say that, especially like blurting it out loud the way that you
did.
And like, you're not using it correctly.
Not in the right context.
Like, don't do that.
Well, it's a life lesson.
Yeah.
Because I was just kind of like looking around like, oh my gosh.

(09:55):
Don't embarrass me, child, please.
Don't do that.
When my 11 year old was a baby, she was obsessed with people.
She would compliment people.
She's probably two would compliment people on probably like their deepest insecurities.
Didn't you tell me stories about how she would like rub people's bellies and like compliment

(10:16):
their bellies and.
Oh yeah.
Well, we have our pediatrician and he had like, he was balding on the top like Dr.
Phil Hare.
You know, it was just around.
I think I know who you're talking about.
You know, she was like, oh my God, I love your hair.
She's so cute.
She was so cute.
Like genuinely.

(10:38):
I love it.
He's like, oh wow.
Thank you.
And then we went to another place that was some kind of maybe a dentist or something and
the guy had like a big bulbous chunky almost red nose.
The huge with huge pores and divots in his nose.

(11:00):
I love your nose.
Oh no.
And here's one more that I will never forget in that about I like I wanted to just vaporize
in that moment.
We're at Walmart and she's in the cart.
And she said she's two about two ish yet to two and a half three something around that

(11:21):
time where they're just getting vocal enough to embarrass the fuck out of you.
Yeah.
And this guy walks around the corner and he must have been very overweight at one point
and had lost a bunch of weight.
And she goes, oh my God, you look awesome.

(11:42):
You look like you're melting.
I know.
I know.
I was like, oh my God.
I was like, okay, just keep going.
Run.
Because he obviously had worked so hard and all that loose skin.

(12:08):
I know.
It does look like they're melting.
No, but she's not wrong.
No, she's not.
Oh my God.
It was so embarrassed.
I don't point that out.
What are you doing?
Oh, it was horrible.
Did that person say anything or react anyway?
No, he just was like kind of head is how like hung his head a little.

(12:29):
I'm like running.
So cute.
And yet so awful.
Yeah.
She was really, really sweet.
So funny.
Does she know these stories?
No, no, probably.
I need to tell her again.
So she ever has she done anything like that since she was a toddler?

(12:51):
No, no, she's been very quiet.
She's my quietest kid.
She doesn't, you know, she doesn't talk like like.
I wonder if she's still like inside like in her mind.
She admires people's flaws.
Maybe.
Yeah, that would be cool.
Like what a great gift to have.
Right.
You just don't say it that way.
To be a kind of person that just saw such beauty in what we in our American culture

(13:17):
consider flaws, right, would be so cool.
That's a really good story.
I never heard that one.
Like saying it to him.
What you saw my reaction.
I know people.
Other people could see my reaction when you said that like you were so surprised.
You were silent hand over mouth.
I'm my face.
Probably just was massive.
My mouth wide open.

(13:38):
My mom said I told somebody that she had a really big butt when I was like four.
Mom, look, look, she's got a really big butt.
Yeah.
The lady was right there.
And my mom said she was like, it's okay.
She's just telling the truth.
That's the thing about kids is they tell the truth and it's such a beautiful innocent sweet thing.

(14:00):
I was trying to think if my never did anything like that.
I'm sure that they did.
I just have a terrible memory.
Yeah.
Today we are speaking with Lindsay gotchall.
Lindsay is a family photographer on the East coast of Florida and mother of a five year old little girl and a stage for appendiceal cancer survivor.

(14:25):
Welcome Lindsay.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having you guys.
I really appreciate it.
I'm excited to speak with you.
So I am originally from New York City.
I moved to Miami about 15 years ago.
I was in marketing for a long time.
And in July of 2020, when it was like the height of COVID and you know, no one was leaving their house.

(14:47):
It was locked down.
I had a pain in my stomach for about 36 hours.
And I was like, you know, as one does you go on Google and you try and, you know, be your own doctor and figure out what's going on.
But maybe I have like appendicitis or something.
I think I have to go to the hospital.
Where was the pain and like what like location?

(15:08):
Where was it?
My like the bottom right part of my stomach.
Okay.
So appendicitis like, you know, Dr. Google probably diagnosed you.
Exactly.
And for sure.
Diagnosed me correctly basically.
So if you're your bottom right stomach hurts, know that it's your appendix.
Right.
Well, most of the time.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(15:29):
I'm sorry.
So I went to the hospital.
I was in the waiting room basically for like 16 hours because it was like everyone was in hazmat suits.
And it was over packed and terrifying.
It was like, I'm literally going to die of, you know, COVID right now.
Cool.
They finally took me in and they saw that I had a large tumor in my appendix.

(15:50):
They're like, okay, you have to have surgery.
Let's, let's remove this and figure out what's going on.
Over night before I had the surgery, my appendix burst in the middle of the night, which was extremely painful.
And then had, you know, the surgery the next morning and they had found out that it had spread kind of all over at that point.
How did they find that out?

(16:11):
Just seeing it?
Yeah, I guess they saw that it was on fallopian.
So they also removed a fallopian tube at that point as well.
And then they said it with everything else, we're just going to kind of leave the rest of the tumors that we see there because we wanted probably do chemo to see if we can shrink them before, you know, removing everything.
I then did three months of chemo.

(16:33):
And then they decided that the chemo wasn't working.
It wasn't shrinking the tumors, but it wasn't, they weren't growing.
So that was like, okay, but I also like can be on chemo for the rest of my life.
So they decided that I was going to have a major surgery.
I flew to Sloan Kettering in New York for that had a 12 hour surgery where they ended up removing most of my organs basically because they found out that it had kind of spread all over.

(17:01):
Oh my God.
I was in the hospital for almost two weeks.
I had tons of complications.
And then after that I had to do three more months of chemo is like preventative for anything microscopic that they couldn't cut out.
So what side effects that you deal with and what like medical complexities post surgery that did you have going on.

(17:26):
So I literally couldn't get out of bed for the first two weeks.
I couldn't they they cut me open from like the top of my breastplate.
They say like up here, all the way down.
Oh my God.
My health at phone. Yeah, so my entire inside they had to like open my ribs. So my ribs were super. Yeah, it was very painful.

(17:49):
You know, one point in the hospital, my lungs filled with with water so they had to drain my lungs.
Anytime. I also have since now figured this out but I guess I'm kind of allergic to.
Oh my gosh, what's morphine.
So they were morphine like an epidural for the pain and whatnot, and it was making me every time I would stand up I would like throw up and pass out.

(18:15):
So after like day five they took the morphine out and I was in more pain but I was able to remain conscious.
That's there.
So what do they give you instead of the morphine once they figure that out.
Some other other heavy narcotics orally at least not through the epidural so.
But since then I have had, I've had 11 surgeries in the last four years.

(18:40):
I've done three different sections of chemo because every time I'm in remission, as one would say, I'm in remission for a few months or years like that and then they find another tumor.
So I like to not really say that I'm in remission anymore because with my cancer unfortunately it is known to come back time and time again. There's no cure for it. It is one of the most rare cancers in the world.

(19:08):
It's one in a million.
And I have the rarest kind of the rare cancer only 10% of those people it's called goblet cell.
They don't know how to treat it because nobody has it.
Wow.
Did they give you any kind of like a prognosis it's survival rate or anything when they originally diagnosed you.
Um, so of course that was, you know, one of my first things as well and they're like well most of the people that get this are like, you know, older.

(19:34):
So, you don't really know you're young, you know I was 35 when I was diagnosed.
So they're like you can probably tolerate these surgeries and the chemo better. We have no idea at this point kind of because not enough people have had this type of cancer there's no research on it really.
So they don't have numbers so like we literally can't say anything, which was like good and bad, you know because sometimes it's like when you get sick you're like oh I just want to know like, is it a flu or is it COVID so I know how to treat it or something

(20:07):
and someone's like hi we don't know how to treat your cancer. We don't know what to do with you. We don't know how long you have you're kind of left in this like limbo.
So are there just like throwing different chemo's at you or is there any rhyme or reason to their treatment plan.
Um, for the most part. Yeah, they were kind of like there was a designated like first thing that we try and if that doesn't work then maybe we'll try the second thing and then if that doesn't work.

(20:32):
We don't know. But I recently started seeing a doctor at MD Anderson in Texas who's like leading the research in appendiceal cancer.
And he said that immunotherapy has basically just been approved in the last few months. And that's has promising results. So when if it comes back again type of thing. That's what we would try next.

(20:56):
So if you've had your appendix removed which I imagine they took it out. Yeah, the recurrence of the cancer that's known to come back. Is it just in random spots.
So okay, all of our organs and most of our stomachs are in something called the peritoneum. I've never heard that word before I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with it, but it basically is like the stomach sack.

(21:19):
So all your organs are inside of it. Once one of those organs has a tumor, it can touch the peritoneum. And if it touches the peritoneum then it can spread throughout the peritoneum and then touch any organ that's also inside of it.
So that's basically what happened to me is it was on my appendix, went to my fallopian tube, touch the peritoneum and then started touching all the other organs within the peritoneum.

(21:44):
And so that's why it's so tough because it's like okay it's not just attacking one organ, handle that organ you're done. Now it is literally basically everything within that.
Like they removed my fallopian tubes, my ovaries, my uterus, my spleen, part of my colon twice. I've had half of my bladder removed twice.

(22:09):
And I'm like, is that it? There might be more. Yeah, it's like your entire GI tract. Yes. So my stomach hurts. Like every other day, basically eating fatty foods is tough.
I actually it's funny enough I had my gallbladder removed three weeks after I gave birth, like totally unrelated. So I don't have a gallbladder. They probably would have removed that anyway.

(22:35):
And so just with that one thing, it's hard. But I've had two hernias now after surgeries, because it's like one in every 10 surgery can have a hernia from that.
And so I've had two of them now and I've had to have one, one hernia fixed already two years ago and I currently have a second one right now that I'm going to have to have surgery again within the next three to six months to fix because

(23:00):
Wow. Like, I just started working out and moving my stomach is really hard. You know, sometimes going to the bathroom is very difficult. I feel nauseous. Certain foods hurt me. It's, you know, even though I I'm about a year out almost from my last surgery, I, my stomach is swollen and the scar tissue, I don't want to say I'm deformed, but I'm very lumpy in places that I wasn't lumpy before.

(23:28):
And the amount of exercise will fix that. So even after all of everything that I've gone through is kind of done and over with I'm still dealing with those effects basically for the rest of my life.
And that does physical I'm sure mental as well.
Oh yeah. I know you mentioned I have a five year old daughter. She was 10 months at the time of my diagnosis.

(23:50):
It was easy in the sense of back then she was so young obviously she had no idea what was going on. We had to move into my parents house who live a few miles down the road so they could help take care of her because when I was doing chemo and surgeries I was, I was useless.
And my husband was great but he was working of course it was during COVID and I wasn't able to work so having all those adults kind of around to help me and take care of her and help literally raise her especially in the beginning, you know, was was everything but as she's gone older now.

(24:25):
She understands she's five. When I got sick really badly again last September.
She saw everything that I was going through and she understood it. It's the saddest thing ever watching your child be sick or watching your child watch you be sick.
You know, it hurts them so when every time I saw her hurting it hurt me too.

(24:50):
And yeah, I mean obviously it's, I was bored. I was sick. I felt awful. I lost my hair twice. I am a very, very strong individual. I'm very lucky that I have an extremely good head on my shoulders and I was able to kind of not let it consume me.
I know most, I don't want to say most many people do, but I am a warrior is what I like to tell myself.

(25:16):
Yeah, you are.
Thank you. And yeah, it's, it's, it's tough. I would never wish this upon my worst enemy type of thing.
So your daughter is basically like, I hate to say it this way but like a way of life because she hasn't really known a whole lot different with with you. I mean seeing seeing her mom go back and forth to the hospital or back and forth the doctor's appointment is to her it's probably normal.

(25:43):
It is and and I wanted to have a second child. They removed my upgrades and so I'm unable to and she constantly asks me for a sibling.
And it destroys me every single time and I say to her I'm sorry I wish I could give that to you. And she goes I know it's because of your boo boo mommy because we told her that mommy has a boo boo in her belly.

(26:08):
And so she she understands you know she she's grasping it more and more she gets older. But last September when I got sick again I had to fly to New York for one of my surgeries and I remember I was laying in bed with her the night before I was leaving.
And she you know we were kind of cuddling I was asking her how she was doing, how she was feeling I was always trying to like kind of check in with her like, Are you okay like mommy's you know okay where mommy is doing this for you like know that and she started crying

(26:40):
and tears coming down her face kind of the silent cry. And she goes mommy I'm just so afraid you're not going to come back. And, and that literally, like my heart crumbled.
I didn't, I was like, I don't even know what to say because in so many ways like, I wasn't even sure I was going to you know you have such a risk with these 1012 hour surgeries I didn't know what they were going to find when they opened me up again for, you know the ninth time at that point and I just

(27:14):
was like, I have to tell her like I'm going to be okay I am coming back like don't worry don't, don't be afraid. And ever since that like that was one of those moments I will never forget it. Yeah, yeah.
But like, understandably. Yeah.
And this is has made her a better person. And I know that's like crazy to say but she's so empathetic. Her ballet teacher told me a couple of days ago was like, I know I shouldn't say this but like she's my favorite and I she's so kind and I said you know one day I was teaching

(27:49):
class and I was like guys it's gonna be a slower class because I have a headache and she like got up and came over and gave me a hug.
And I was like, are you okay? Can I do anything for you? And I was like, oh my god this poor kid. Like this is what she knows this is what she sees and it's made her this beautiful person. I just feel so bad that she's had to become that person at such a young age and doesn't really understand it.

(28:14):
Yeah. And how was your support system when you were diagnosed and you know I know you had your you know you moved in with your parents to help with your child and your husband was working but did you have other support outside of your family?
Oh absolutely. I'm so blessed. Like truly my sister and her husband lived down here and we're incredibly incredibly close and I have tons of family and friends around and everyone was like what can we do? How can we help?

(28:46):
And sending meals and taking Olivia to dance classes and play dates and things. I'm very lucky. I never once felt alone and I know not everyone can be so lucky in these situations so without everyone I would not have been able to do this truly.
That's amazing.

(29:07):
I'm really happy that you had that support.
Thank you.
It doesn't happen for a lot of people and that's so what do you even do? What do you do?
Yeah. And you're given a diagnosis that is potentially fatal and to be alone with your thoughts is a very scary place to be.

(29:29):
Yeah.
So what was, can you kind of backtrack a little bit and maybe discuss a little about like what was going through your mind at the moment of when they told you your diagnosis?
It's hard because every, you know, what is it like the five stages of grief or something like that, right?
You know, of course I was like no way. Like how is this happening to me? That's not even possible. Like I'm healthy. I'm young. Like this is, I'm not 90. Like why is this happening?

(29:55):
And then I of course got angry and scared and I never let the anger and the fear really consume me until I got sick again last September because in the first few years was very much of like I got this.
This is no problem. I'll do the chemo. I'll lose my hair. I don't care. I'll have surgeries. I'll bounce back. This is not forever. Like this to show pass. It's fine.

(30:20):
And when I got sick again last September, it was kind of like, wow, like this is not going away. Like the chemo is not working. These surgeries are not helping. I can't have tumors come out of me every six months.
Like, like at what point is my body just going to kind of give up? Like my mind is still strong, but how do I convince my body to keep doing this?

(30:46):
Right.
I mean, I had some time where I was, you know, I was a bit distraught. I would say, you know, I was, I was never consumed by it. I was never depressed. But, you know, I would definitely be sitting in my room having the chemo running through my body and being like, is this it?

(31:10):
Chemo is tough.
Yeah.
It's toxic.
It's really poisoning you. And it was like, oh my God, I'm not going to die from cancer. I'm going to die from the chemo.
Right.
Like the first round that I did this time, I couldn't open my eyes for five days because I was so sick. I literally, if I opened my eyes, I would start dry heaving, not even throwing up because I couldn't eat. I didn't eat for five days.

(31:34):
I couldn't move. I couldn't function.
So when you're kind of in the middle of that, yeah, your mind will go to dark places, but then Olivia would come home from school and come into the room and give me a big hug and say, mommy, can I get you water?
Can I, can I hug you? Can I talk to you? Can I tell you about my day? And then everything would switch.

(32:00):
Yeah.
And then I would tell someone to be like, oh my God, yes, I'm, this is not forever. I'm going to be okay. Keep fighting for her, for her.
It doesn't matter anything, anyone, whatever is happening, I cannot leave this little girl.
Yeah, you're not, you're not just fighting and living for yourself. You've got to fight to live for her and for your family, for your husband.
My parents would go berserk, of course. Like my husband, how he could function without me. And we're a team. I love my husband. We've been together 15 years today.

(32:30):
Oh, happy anniversary.
Thank you. So cute.
What I've come to realize over these few years is that cancer is just not about you.
No.
It's about everyone else. You know, they're going through it too. And the first few years I didn't really understand that it was very much like my fight, my battle.

(32:51):
And then, you know, I started seeing a therapist and she very much was like, well, imagine what they're going through. And now like as a mother, I'm like, oh my God, of course my mom is, you know, beside herself, if God forbid this happened to my child, what would I be like?
So it's tough, but like you have to remain strong. You can't, you can't let the bad days win.

(33:15):
No.
I think my favorite quote because we're all fighting our own battles. We all have our own shit to deal with. And you just, you can't let them win. You just have to get through it.
And how did it go when you told your husband? How has he been through this?
He's been amazing. He's been my rock. I could not have done this without him. The first year that I was battling it was very different than this last year.

(33:40):
In the beginning, he kind of had like these blinders on where he was like, okay, we're getting this done. I'm gonna take care of Olivia. I'm gonna cook dinner. I'm gonna clean the house. I'm gonna go to work and I'm gonna do this.
And I don't want to say like he forgot about me, but like he was so busy taking care of everything else. That was his focus. And it was a little difficult for me because I was like, sometimes I just need you to be like, hey, do you need a hug?

(34:09):
You know, like, like, are you good? Like, I know I'm gonna take out the garbage and, and walk the dog and, and make dinner and all these things, but you good?
That was something that we kind of had to work through. And I told him how his feeling of like, I need you to, yes, thank you for doing all of these things, but I also need you to like be my friend.

(34:32):
Yeah, you needed him emotionally.
Right, right. I was like, I appreciate everything you do, of course. But like, you know, when all of my friends and family members are constantly texting, how are you? What's going on? Can I, you know, and then I don't want to say my own husband wasn't doing that.
But like, it was just, it was the acts of service type of love language. It has gotten much better. Like we kind of talked about it. And I also, I couldn't find the words at the time to, to tell him that, because I didn't really understand, comprehend it, I guess, until later on.

(35:02):
But when I kind of had that like year break in between the bouts of cancer, I figured it out, talked to him. And then this time around, he was like, perfect.
So I'm sure it was his way of, he's trying to compartmentalize and do anything he can in a way that he can control.

(35:23):
Right. He can do the laundry. He can do the dishes. He can do the dinners. He can take the dog out. He has full control over every single one of those things where.
Anything that has to do with you and your cancer, he has, it's so out of control and he can't fix it. And I'm sure that that had something to do with it.
Because I feel like that would be me as a spouse. I'd be like, what can I do to control anything in this moment?

(35:47):
Perfectly said. Exactly. Everyone feels like they want to help in some way. I don't know what to do for you. How do I make this better? So his way was to take care of the house.
Which is a full-time job? Absolutely. You guys get it. I know.
I don't do my full-time job in that way like I should. I slack on that. That's part-time for me. Does anyone really go? Does anyone?

(36:16):
They pretend they do. Especially us being, you know, like serial business starters. Exactly. We talked about that in our pre-interview. Serial entrepreneurs.
Yeah. But yeah, I mean, there were times where he would lay in bed with me, of course, and had his moments of like, please don't leave me. I can't do this without you.
No. That's so heartbreaking.

(36:39):
It is. I just, I feel so guilty. And like that's something that I'm trying to work through is how much crap I've put other people through. And like obviously I know it's not my fault. Like.
Yeah. It's those words that we're going to come out of my mouth.
Yeah. I just, I feel bad.
I know. But it isn't. You didn't ask for any of this.

(37:02):
All right. That's a part of the emotional process. I mean, that comes up with pretty much every interview we do. There's always, there's always guilt, whether it's the child going through something, whether it's the mom going through something.
It's, it comes up all the time.
Yeah. Humans love to find a way to feel guilty about anything.
We are human. I don't know. Maybe because we're not sociopaths.

(37:26):
Oh, I like that.
I mean, I guess I kind of feel like if you're not experiencing some level of guilt when you go through something like this, then maybe there might be something wrong with you.
Right. That's what I said. We're not sociopaths. We're human beings, you know.
Right. We are good and we care about others.
Yeah.

(37:48):
Yeah.
So I know that you're a photographer and I love that because I'm a photographer too. So how did this affect your ability to work? And did you have, you know, a lot of setbacks and support from your clients?
So I wasn't a photographer when I first got started. It was something that I did kind of for fun on the side, always like kind of wanted to do it, but never did it seriously.

(38:12):
I was an actor, singer, dancer in New York. I broke my foot in half the week before my first off Broadway show opened and it ruined my career and was like, you know what, screw this.
Like I'm going to go retire and live on a beach in Miami. And so when I came down here, I did marketing for about 10 years just to kind of still work with that creative outlet.

(38:33):
And then when I got sick, I was like, you know, chemo brain is real. Like the fog is real. I was losing a lot of memories. I was losing a lot of moments, especially with Olivia, because I was sick and unable to kind of be there for certain things.
And I was like, how can I kind of hold on to these fleeting moments? Okay, I can photograph them, keep those forever.

(38:56):
I bought myself a camera. I went to YouTube, and I figured it out. And then I hired myself a mentor. Once I was kind of a bit stronger and able to move around.
And I created a business. And it was like one of those things where I'm like, if I make it through this, then you know, I'm going to do what I always wanted and become a family photographer and help people capture their love and, you know, travel the world and make pretty things.

(39:23):
And I did it. And now, thank you. Now I have a thriving business. And it's, it's tough because like, every time I get sick again, I and then have to do chemo I've had to do this twice now unfortunately, I have to like say hey everyone that's booked with me over the next three to six months,

(39:44):
gotta cancel and refund you unless you want to put your shoot off for three to six months forever. I don't know.
Do you just from a business standpoint, I'm thinking of these things as if it's also being a photographer myself. Do you present your cancer as part of your diagnosis, like as far as like your your branding is or your marketing is like that's, you know, that people kind of go into it and

(40:09):
booking you knowing that this woman is a cancer survivor, like something could come up.
Yeah, so yes and no. I thought about that like for a long time I was like, do I kind of like make that my thing like hey get photographed by the cancer chick.
Right. Or do I kind of like, no, like, I, you know, that's something that just happened to me. I'm not doing it right now. So like, let's not even think about that or worry.

(40:34):
Right.
I'm kind of somewhere in the middle. I don't want to be known as right for photographer. Right. So I, I grapple with that myself because for so long. I kind of had this identity is I'm a cancer mom, right.
And in my, you know, my business, like I do have my little bio page I have something on there that's like I'm a mom of a cancer survivor.

(40:57):
But if the, if the script was flipped and it was me, I'm just kind of thinking right now like, how would that change things in the way that I present myself and way I go about my business because anything could happen at any time where you have to
close business and take care of yourself. And I also at the same time, I don't want it to be my identity. I wouldn't want it to be my identity. So I, I wouldn't be wanting personally I would not want to advertise myself as the cancer survivor photographer.

(41:31):
You know, unless unless I was purposely niching to like the cancer survivor market, like if you were known for photographing other survivors and things like that, because there are photographers out there that do that I know plenty of like breast cancer survivors that do
boudoir for, you know, women who get, you know, corrective surgery and, you know, they want to celebrate surviving and they do shoots like that for themselves. So I know I'm kind of rabbit trailing a little bit here but I'm just literally thinking out loud from a

(42:03):
business standpoint of how that would change things.
Right now it's, it's like a it's a fine line, because exactly I don't want that to be my identity, but I also like, it is also part of me, especially a few months ago when I didn't have any hair. And I was like okay well people are going to like show up to their shooting
me like hey what's what's going on with you or something. I have in my like Instagram profile it says rare cancer survivor or appendiceal cancer because it is part of me I don't want to hide it, but I'm not also like, hi, this is me with my cancer, you know, I find that some people

(42:41):
like asking me about it. Some people like, I don't want to say like getting photographed by me because of that but a lot of people connect with it. And so I think you know sometimes people will see my story and maybe potentially get moved by it or like, hey my
brother had cancer and like it's so cool and we can kind of talk about this and connect about this and I think it makes me seem more human to them. I did worry for a while that like, are people going to see that and be like I don't want to book with her like what happens if she gets

(43:14):
sick again and then maybe people aren't. That's definitely something I've talked a lot about with my family of like do I try and hide this. But because unfortunately I have had to cancel on clients twice in the last three years. I don't want that to potentially be a shock to them.
I mean I think that you're like welcome email like thank you for reaching out for a quote I don't know how you guys word it in your business a little bit about me and you know a clause in your contract, you know just having it out there that in the event of x y and

(43:49):
x y your deposit will be fully refunded blah blah blah or whatever. Just to have it out there and let people know that they're not necessarily maybe booking you because you have cancer. There's probably people out there that are like oh that's cool she's you know cancer
survivor let's have her do our session that's great. That's cool too but then you know probably like you because of your work. Right right you know and if they don't know and they only book you because of your work because their friend had a great

(44:18):
experience with you or whatever. Then you know maybe a little you know welcome email to let them know a little bit about the situation with a little bit of information of if this happens again here's what we'll do right it's a part of your story it's not who you are
right right perfectly said like it's on my bio page but it's not in my welcome email you know like that type of thing it's like it's there if they want to look into me if they're curious about who I am.

(44:44):
They can find that information but if they literally just like look at my website and my photos like I love her photos let's book her and they don't even see that at all and cool like I'm fine with either type of thing it's
I never want it to be a negative for anyone in my mind I'm only hoping that it can be a positive of like wow this chick is cool like look what she's gone through and she's like still out here working and stuff if something comes up someday you know we'll deal with it then.

(45:12):
You know like most of my clients when I had to tell them that I was sick and neither had to cancel or put them off almost every single person was like.
Don't worry about it like you do you when you're ready we'll get to this you know there were there were a few people that are like these were for my Christmas cards I'm so sorry I love you but that happened.
That happened to quite a few people last year when I got sick in September. They were like okay we booked with you last year we can't this year now because you're sick but we're going to come back next year and in the last like three weeks I've shot like four people that waited for me basically.

(45:45):
Oh that's wonderful.
That's that's that's really good to hear that.
Yeah, so people people are kind about it.
Nice.
I feel like if you're not kind you're kind of a dick. You know what I mean if you're going to be mean about it like.
My friend asked me she's like are people as holes right now are they being like on give me my money back cancer girl by.

(46:07):
Yeah, no.
No one has been like that.
I feel the majority of the time people are kind.
Yes.
You know in life for the most part face to face people are generally generally kind.
It's pretty amazing like I definitely like with my whole journey I realized who who was like that good friend and who was like okay you're a fair weather friend is what they call her something.

(46:35):
Was it surprising the people who kind of dropped off or the people who stood up.
There weren't a lot of surprises a lot of them are like I can see this about you it's not surprising but then there were quite a few people that like really stepped up their game.
I was like oh wow I was not I was not expecting that from you.
A lot of stay.
Like did they stay.

(46:57):
So the beginning of anything there was like a million people that come out of the woodwork and like support and they're so nice and then out of nowhere they're just like gone.
Right.
Okay I checked in with you a lot first time they sent you a meal and then I haven't spoken to you in two months right like okay from like 60 to zero like.
That definitely happened to a few people for sure but I will say overall like most people were really genuine and really kind and treated me exceptionally well like I'm very lucky I was.

(47:30):
I was like room mom at my daughter's school last year.
And so like all the teachers and all of the other moms and everyone basically was like let's take Olivia will take her for a plate it will take for ice cream we'll do what we can for you everyone was just very very helpful and there was sometimes I was like I'm good like.
I don't need any more help I felt bad saying no to them but it was actually almost too many people offering yeah that is really good.

(47:56):
So what do you said you keep referring back to when you got sick last September when you say that you got sick like what what happens what's your signs that something's not right and then you have to seek medical help.
So I get CAT scans every three months.
Okay.
Which is also a problem unto itself because okay maybe now the cancer is not going to kill me but all this radiation will at some point I have like five to eight CAT scans a year and that's a lot because I've had so many complications over the years where I've had to go back into the hospital for little

(48:33):
years and I've had so many other random surgeries and stuff so I keep having to have CAT scans like December or something like that I had some pain in my stomach and was going to the bathroom nonstop for three days and I was like okay like something's going on went to the hospital and they're
like oh okay you have colitis I'm like okay I don't even know what that is inflammation of the colon oh and actually we also see another tumor. Maybe that's a tumor could be benign. We're not sure actually know this was in June this was like four or five months ago and crazy.

(49:09):
So like okay well now we need to do another CAT scan. I wasn't scheduled for one okay so now we're doing a biopsy and okay this one came back negative so it's like every three to six months it's something is happening so in February of 2023 I had one of my routine CAT scans.
They found a tumor in my abdomen had surgery to remove it did three months of chemo was back in remission if you want to call it that so summer of 2023 I was good I was fine September I had my next CAT scan.

(49:45):
Okay well now they found a tumor on my bladder. Okay so now I had to have another large surgery to remove that and this is more complicated because it was on my bladder they had to remove half of my bladder just so you know the bladder is a very resilient organ it bounces back so like the first few weeks I had to pee a lot but then now I'm totally fine.

(50:06):
Yeah I was gonna ask how often are you peeing but if the bladder stretches I only know bladder stretch because after having four kids I can go all day without being it's not good for me I know this everybody I get it but I can still I was like growing up I'm always you see me on me she's like go to the
I know I do the pee pee dance and I'm like I'm like just go I'm so like lazy slash really busy.

(50:37):
I was sick again last September is when they found the one on my bladder we thought it was going to be pretty routine, go in have the surgery this time to remove the tumor part of the bladder. When they got in there, they found that it had spread all over the
stomach and they came again to my colon and to some lymph nodes which was really bad and really scary. So they had to remove multiple things and that being like a 10 hour surgery again when we thought it was only going to be an hour or two.

(51:05):
So I was in the hospital again last September or October for 15 days.
I was like okay well you know this was intense. You have a lot of tumors we have to do chemo again so that's when I mean like I got sick again had to do another scent of chemo. This time they hit me harder than ever.
That was when I was saying like I couldn't open my eyes for the first five days. And the worst part about all of it is after that 10 hour surgery.

(51:33):
I had an infection in the hospital. My wound didn't heal properly, which they say also happens like one in every 10 surgeries you can get an infection. They literally had to like pop my wound in the hospital.
It was the most disgusting thing I've ever experienced in my life. I hope this never happens to anybody. And then I had a hole into my stomach in like in my abdomen like it was it was I don't know how to explain that I'm like showing

(52:02):
my collar.
Okay yes there we go. And it was literally into my abdomen and without getting too graphic like it was open there were you know juices and stuff and we couldn't get it to close.
And well you were not on chemo at the time because you just had the surgery.
I had to start the chemo because I had an open wound. And you have to heal. And yeah so anytime I have a major surgery they always say okay in four to six weeks you'll start chemo once you're healed.

(52:32):
The wound wouldn't heal and they can't just like sew you back up after they've popped an infection. They have to let it heal from the bottom up.
Because if they just sew the top over then you have this like open cavity underneath and that could just refill up with the infection so they literally just have to like pack it with gauze and stuff and let it heal on its own.

(52:54):
Oh my goodness.
Three months didn't heal. We're like okay something is going on I went to like five different doctors. Nobody could figure what was happening I was seeing a wound specialist.
It was in so much pain it was so disgusting we literally had to pack this wound twice a day.
What were your totally cancer related question because I know from experience what was your platelet count and like your ANC at that time.

(53:20):
You know funny enough I it like high I guess but it wasn't crazy high.
So nobody really thought that it was like still infected. I kept trying to tell them like like something's happening like there's there's goo like this is infected and nobody would take me seriously until I went to this one doctor at University of Miami and she is like.

(53:43):
You have a pocket of infection still underneath that is why this wound will not close as well you have this go we need to bring you into surgery again I'm going to open you back up I'm sorry and I'm going to clean it out properly this time I cannot believe they didn't do it in your
your previous two surgeries and she did and once that happened I then had to let it heal properly because she finally got the infection fully out and I had that wound for nine months overall.

(54:11):
It took that long for it to heal.
Yes, it finally closed in June from my first surgery being like October 6.
So, and I couldn't swim I couldn't, you know I had to take showers with it covered it was so bad and my poor husband I was like I'm going to get you like a cute little nurse outfit because you just have to like keep fixing me twice a day for nine months sorry.

(54:33):
He hated it obviously so in 2023 I had four surgeries overall and the wound and two sessions of chemo. Yeah, so that's what I because I mean by like getting sick again is the surgery is in the chemo and.
And that was that was your last.
That was the last thing that happened.

(54:55):
Yeah, last year.
Yeah, so I finished chemo this year, March.
Okay.
My hair was still falling out though for a couple of months so by like May June is when it started growing back.
Well it looks great.
Thank you.
You're cute.
It's very cute.
It's so dark. I used to be like way more blonde and so thick and so curly which is like very different. So but it's cute it has like this like 1920s wave for sure. Absolutely.

(55:24):
I mean thank you I also hate it and miss my long beautiful blonde mermaid hair but you know, I know whatever short.
It'll grow back.
But maybe you'll have like this beautiful curly mane.
Yeah, it used to be like very wavy and now I'm thinking it's gonna be like super wrinklets.
Yeah, but it's so pretty and then you can kind of like fluff it so it's like that big 80s hair.

(55:45):
Oh yeah.
You know that's like really coming back.
Not like the.
I'm gonna be so stylish.
I'm like the dome of like where it's hard like a helmet you know what I'm talking about how they would do this but that really beautiful like Mariah Carey in the 90s that hair gorgeous.
For sure.
Okay.
Let's go with that.
It's gonna happen.

(56:06):
I can feel it.
It's good to me.
I will say though like summer in Florida.
This is fabulous.
Oh, I bet.
Yeah.
It's so easy and so cool and just I'm like, oh yeah, whatever I can literally just be in a shower for three seconds get out and I'm ready to go.
That's awesome.
That is nice.
What's next for you going forward.

(56:29):
Living living every day like it's my last as cliche as that sounds I am like packed to the brand with my social calendar.
It is the busy season for photography as you know so I'm working like a mad woman.
I am exhausted and I'm loving it.

(56:50):
Like this is when I thrive when things are crazy when it's, you know, all these school events and volunteering and working out finally again for the first time in almost six years and and just being with friends and doing things that I basically spent the last five years not being able to do.
I'm not taking anything for granted anymore.

(57:11):
Every, every day is a blessing.
And you seem like you're pretty extroverted.
So you would you thrive being busy.
I do.
I really do.
I hate being bored, which was another reason why like having cancer was so just like annoying.
Because I'm like, I'm like, I'm busy.
I'm too busy to have cancer.
Like I can't like be sitting in bed for a week.

(57:32):
What am I doing?
No.
As a very busy person who likes to be busy and thrives in chaos.
When I'm bored, I am so lazy.
Oh my God, right.
I can get real lazy.
It's like one or the other.
Absolutely.
If I like a Saturday morning, if I sit my ass on that couch and I turn the TV on when I first wake up before anybody else is awake.

(57:57):
Forget it.
That is it for me.
Good luck getting my ass peeled off that couch.
Because I'm busy so much.
I have so much going on.
You know, when you crash, you crash hard.
Yeah.
And it happens maybe twice a year.
I'll be on the couch watching TV all day.
Like I don't talk to anybody.
I don't look at anybody.
And it's like trash TV too.

(58:18):
Totally.
It's like reality TV.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
But I love his mind and you're good.
I love that show.
The only reality show I want.
Same.
The only one I will allow myself to watch, but I love it.
But it's such a good show.
There's lots of sex, lots of drama, you know, all the good stuff.
So hold.

(58:40):
We can leave all this back.
Whatever.
Listen, I'll figure it out.
Make it make it make sense.
Maybe it's getting to some people.
Maybe it's some people like these shows.
Stephanie.
Yeah, Stephanie.
I'm still I still got the office in Seinfeld and Parks and Rec on repeat every night.
I do that too.

(59:01):
I have it on and Schitt's Creek.
I watched that show all the time.
Just that's always on in the background.
I never finished it.
I've watched the series like three times start to finish.
Yeah, it's the best.
And now it's just on random episodes.
I've watched Family Guy before bed every single night for over 21 years.

(59:24):
That's great.
What is wrong with me?
And my husband loves it.
Like he does the same thing.
Like this is what we do.
We can like, you know, quote everything verbatim.
It's terrifying.
Just like 21 years.
I switch.
I'll go for like, like I try to watch shows that I can fall asleep to.
Exactly.
Something that it's not a big deal if I fall asleep.

(59:45):
If I'm really in the middle of something that's not the show I'm watching before
bed.
Right.
You know, so Schitt's Creek is a good one, except the beginning and the ending,
those horns are so fucking loud.
And it wakes you up if you start like kind of nodding off.
So that's annoying.
Like the intro, the intro music.
It's annoying.
But you know, I've watched the office.
The music wakes me up every time.

(01:00:07):
When this changes episodes, I'm like,
she's never gotten into the office.
I know you said that.
That's a similar to the office and the way that it's recorded.
The vibe is very similar.
Like that documentary style.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like a mockumentary.
Yeah.

(01:00:35):
I don't know if it's TMI, but I had an IUD for like 15 years before I got sick.
I, well, I did like, I guess I took it out, had my daughter and put it back in.
And what's funny is I, in some ways,
I actually think that that's how I kind of found out that I was sick is I had
my IUD put back in after my daughter.

(01:00:56):
And it never really took properly.
And I guess it's, I don't know if it's because the cancer was in my fallopian
tube where the IUD was, but I was in pain.
So I went to my doctor and had him take it out.
And then four days later is when everything happened.
Oh, interesting.
I don't know if I was like removing the IUD then, you know, cause the pain to flare

(01:01:18):
or like somehow is connected because.
Maybe the pain was from the cancer and you distributed it to the IUD.
It's somehow connected somewhere.
I'll never know.
Yeah.
And I'm like, did the IUD cause it?
Right.
I had a friend of mine who she got breast cancer at 42.
She had had a hysterectomy, but then she had to go in hormone therapy because of

(01:01:40):
the age to avoid menopause or something.
And that just fed this breast cancer hardcore.
They warned me.
They're like, Hey, if you want to do this, you can, but one of the side effects is
breast cancer.
I'm like, uh, yeah.
No, no, no.
I'd rather go through menopause.
Exactly.
I'm like, I can handle night sweats and stuff.
Right.

(01:02:01):
I mean, there's an end in sight with that, you know, and you know, that's like,
although it's not natural at the, your age and why you're going through menopause,
but it's a natural progression of a female's body to go through menopause as
bad as it sucks.
Your boyfriend, that's awful.
I know.
She's doing really good though.
You know, she did the chemo and every, lost her hair and everything, but her
hair too came back totally different.

(01:02:23):
Yeah.
It's incredible.
How does that happen to my son too?
But the weird part about it is that after his regrowth, which was super cute, it
was like this beachy wave, like light blonde cause he's a straight brown haired
boy.
And it got really kind of out of control.
We got his first haircut.
He was so handsome.
And then it grew back out eventually back to straight and brown.

(01:02:44):
I was like, oh man.
Really?
I was like, I kind of wanted this like dirty blonde, like shaggy wave hair to
stay, but it was so cute when he was like five, five or six years old at the time.
Now he's 11.
It's so fun.
I didn't realize that it could like revert back to.
See, I had never heard of it going back.
I've always known about like my breast cancer survivors who have their hair

(01:03:08):
completely changed.
And so I just didn't know what to expect, but then I went right back.
It's weird, right?
It is weird.
So I was like a ghost.
No, I was crossing our window and that's a dead end.
Just like a figure go across the stream.
It is Halloween in a couple of days.
Right.
I know.
But this is a dead end of a, like the sidewalk ends right here.

(01:03:29):
So why anybody's walking?
I don't know.
Stop being a creep, bro.
I don't know.
I'm like, hope you don't get murdered.
Yeah.
We're in a commercial office space.
So it's not like my house.
It's just some random person walking by my window.
A little better on us.
So this is totally, it was just kind of related to right now, but obviously

(01:03:54):
we can cut it out.
You could use it for blooper footage or something later.
Maybe a Halloween clip.
I don't know.
But last night, last night, my husband went out with a friend to a cigar
bar because this guy, for some reason, that's like the only time to hang out.
They go to a cigar bar together.
So they were in downtown.
He probably smelled bad.
I always make him jump right in the shower.
So soon as he comes home.
Yeah.
So he goes out to the cigar bar with him.

(01:04:16):
It has a cigar, has a couple of glasses of whiskey and he's walking back to his
car and he felt like something hit him like in the shoulder.
Like, like it was almost like a person like, you know, when they hit
shoulders, walking by a little too close.
Checked him.
Yeah.
And he turned around expecting somebody to be there and nobody was there.
He got home and he goes to get in the shower and he's got a red mark on his

(01:04:39):
shoulder where he got hit.
No.
And he's like, the guy who does not celebrate Halloween.
Yeah.
That has a red mark on his shoulder.
And he's like, he's like, he's like, this is, he's like, this is where I felt
like I got hit.
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
And he's like, because at first I thought he was, what he was saying it like it
happened at home in our house.
And I was going to, I was going to bring in something.

(01:05:00):
I was kind of like, skived out for a second and he's looking at me.
He's like, are you like freaked out?
And I'm like, let me look.
I'm like, what does it look like?
Does it have a handprint?
And I'm like going over and like checking it out and stuff.
And then he retold it and he said something about being downtown.
I was like, oh, he's like, yeah, when I was crossing the street and I'm like,
yeah, it's not like he hit a light pole or something with his shoulder.
He's in the middle of the street.
He felt like something hit and he's like, it's just weird that it's in the same

(01:05:23):
it's in the same spot.
Well, he might be a Halloween believer now.
He believes he believes in aliens.
He believes in paranormal.
He believes in ghosts.
He believes in he believes in all this stuff.
I do too.
I've had an experience as well.
So yeah, I'm going to that.
But yeah, I've never had an experience, but I'm not closed minded to it.
Right.

(01:05:44):
You know, like I don't invite like bringing on ghosts.
I'm not inviting any of that shit.
Were you into my life?
Were you a part of our like Ouija board experiences?
Fuck no.
You were with us.
No.
I would never be on board with that.
Fuck that.
That just opens up like a portal.
Oh, it was awful.
No.
Yeah.

(01:06:05):
Yeah.
I dabbled in that stuff.
I dabbled in that stuff with our mutual friend, Mary and early days of college.
We had that thing in the dorm.
I was, oh no.
Did you have any?
Oh yeah.
Like that thing went off of the board and went across the room.
Like out the door.
And we were like, just had our fingertips on it and it just, it was the same.

(01:06:28):
Get the fuck out of here.
And then probably at work.
And then we were making money.
Mary, Mary, Mary was communicating.
She was communicating with something and I can't remember the name.
It started with an A.
I remember the story.
And we asked it.
We asked the Ouija board, what is your name?
And it followed it and spelled out the name.
And I later told my husband who was dating at the time about it, who was,

(01:06:49):
has grown up devout Christian, you know, and he was probably pissed.
He was pissed.
He was like that.
He named it.
He's like, that is an angel of death that is in the Bible.
You need to stay the fuck away.
Was this before Mary's car accident?
I don't remember.
I think it, no, it was after.

(01:07:10):
Okay.
Our friend was in a really bad car accident where she was like at the,
we were 18 or something.
I think she went to the children's college.
Cause we were in college that happened in high school.
Oh,
Oh,
You're going to have to text Mary.
I know.
This is before after her accident.
She died in this accident, like straight up,
like car and everything.
Yeah.
Similar to my daughter's accident.
Yeah.

(01:07:31):
It was wrapped wrapped her out of tree.
And we're all the story was done.
Don't fuck with Ouija boards, man.
No, he was like, stay the fuck away from that.
She needs to throw that thing away.
She needs to burn it.
Whatever.
And she would like, she had it for a long time in the trunk of her car.
I know she would tell me about it.
I don't think so.
How would you drive around with that and you know,
like invite it with you?
No,
I remember we were in fifth grade with my friend Jenna and we had like,

(01:07:53):
we were trying to do like a seance in her driveway.
We were doing like trying to talk to Thomas Edison.
And I remember an airplane had gone over our head.
We're all the lights.
It's a sign that he's here.
So ridiculous.
We were in fifth grade.
Light as a feather.
We definitely did light as a feather stiff as a board.
Oh yeah, we did.
I love the movie, the craft.
I quote that thing from start to finish.

(01:08:16):
But even in my atheist days,
I haven't watched that in a long time either,
but even in my atheist days,
I knew Ouija boards were nothing to fuck with.
Don't fuck with this shit.
Yeah.
Well, Mary's,
she's an interesting character in our lives because she has lost a
lot of people close to her to really close friends,
to suicide, her dad to suicide, her brother to overdose.

(01:08:40):
Just a lot of people are really close to her in her life and she's
turned out insanely normal.
Yeah.
Despite weird despite all of it.
Yeah.
But I think like the Ouija board thing was like a way for her to
like what maybe she wanted to communicate.
Oh, for some, I don't know.
Makes sense.
I just go to a psychic at that point.
Yeah.
Exactly.

(01:09:01):
Right.
No, I'm not.
But I've had,
I had an experience at the house,
one of the houses that my parents lived in after I left.
For college because they, my mom, after her divorce,
they had to rent and they went from my like basically house to house
in the same neighborhood.
And on one of the streets that I never lived in,
but my brother and my sister did,
and I was just over there visiting.
I was talking to my stepdad in the kitchen and there was a glass on

(01:09:22):
the table, a good like foot, you know, into the table.
And it like flew off the table when I was standing there talking to
him.
It was like something had whacked it off the table.
And there was no,
wetness underneath. There was no condensation.
It wasn't like it's like it's lit off.
Right.
And we just kind of looked at each other and we're like, well,
that's weird.

(01:09:43):
Okay.
And then another time,
I don't know if it was the same day or we were talking.
And the, the big round clock that was up on the wall.
Came out from the wall and then dropped down.
Like something from behind it had smacked it and pushed it out and
then down.
And then I tell this to my mom,
and then she tells me how my then three year old brother was seeing

(01:10:05):
a naked woman in his closet.
The fuck. How did I not know any of this?
Okay.
And then she tells me that at night she would hear somebody whispering
in her ear, mom, mom, mom.
And she would open her,
she would open her eyes thinking that my brother or sister would be
there needing her.
Cause my sister, I think was like eight at the time.
My brother was like,

(01:10:26):
three, I was out of the house so much younger than me.
And nobody would be there when she would wake up.
And I'm like, how did you continue to live there?
I would have been out like in an instant.
I would have been out that day.
I've heard that, that the ghosts that emulate children are like
demons.
Yeah.
And that house now I live right down the road.

(01:10:47):
Old paranormal shows I used to.
I live right down the road from that same house.
Oh, the Palmella one. Yes.
I'm going to have a nightmare tonight.
I literally had a nightmare last night.
So thanks to happy Halloween.
Have you ever had your kid wake up in the middle of the night and
like stand over you and stare at you until you wake up and like
their hair is in their face and they look like from the grudge.

(01:11:10):
Yeah.
The fuck.
And then to top that she did that.
And then it was like,
mommy, there's a glowing,
glowing, glowing, glowing, glowing, glowing, glowing.
And then to top that she did that.
And then it was like, mommy,
there's a glowing man in my room.
Stop.
I was like, okay.
Like now I'm freaking out.
I'm like, okay, like, is she imagining this?

(01:11:31):
Is it a ghost?
Is there like a real guy in there?
What do I do?
So they go in there and I like lay down.
I don't see anything.
And I'm like, can you like describe him?
Where was he?
And she was like just standing right there.
Just a glowing man.
That's so creepy.
I'm like, what did you do?
I'm like, what did you do?
Did you move or burn the house down?
Like what did you do?

(01:11:52):
I should have.
I should have this house is like,
this house is one of those words.
Like I'm sure it was like built on like an Indian burial ground or
something.
We've had the worst luck in this house.
Oh my God.
But yeah, she,
it happened one other time after that,
like a couple of weeks later,
she told me the glowing man was back.
And then that was it.
And that was like a year or two ago.
I asked her about it recently, funny enough.

(01:12:14):
I was like, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't remember.
I was like, yeah, it's interesting how kids don't remember,
but I think that kids are more of like a.
A conduit to.
The spirit.
They can see things that adults can't.
We're too, we're too like consumed with our like everyday life that
we can't.
We're not open to it or something. I don't know.

(01:12:35):
Yeah.
That's what I've heard stuff about that.
I'm not a big like, like I said,
I've never really had any experiences or things that I could
have done.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know if it's going to happen.
Please.
Never.
In college, I had,
I was with my boyfriend at the time and we were laying in bed.
And.

(01:12:56):
Like no joke.
There was this like black clouded entity.
I guess over us.
And we both saw it.
And it was like,
one of those like shared experiences and it was angry.
And we both knew it was angry.
Did you have like paralysis where you couldn't move?
Yes, literally.
I was like, do you see that?
He was like, yes.
We like didn't know how to handle it.

(01:13:17):
And he's like, okay,
we're just going to tell it to go away.
Yeah.
And so we just like kept saying, like, go away, go away, go away.
Like we don't want you here.
And it left.
And my husband had a situation like that.
I'm telling you, like we're not, we weren't drunk.
We weren't on drugs.
Like nothing like that.
Just like a normal Tuesday night laying in bed.
But it happened.
My husband stayed at a guy's house.

(01:13:38):
I think this was back in high school.
He was sleeping at a friend's house.
It was like a friend of a friend.
He was sleeping at this.
The guy was older than them.
He and his friend were sleeping over at some other guy's house.
And he's sleeping in this room that was like a guest room.
And he had this, he woke up and he was like, he could not move.
He couldn't talk.
He couldn't do anything.

(01:13:59):
And there was like this black.
Something over him.
It was like sleep paralysis to a point where he, he's like,
I was fully aware of it.
I just couldn't move.
You know, hard to breathe.
It was such a weird situation.
And when he woke up the next morning and he told him about that,
the guy that lived there was like, Oh yeah,
my roommate just died in there from an OD.
The fuck.

(01:14:20):
Interesting.
Just, yeah.
How did we get here? You guys, I don't know.
Oh, the guy behind us at the window.
Oh, okay.
Normal.
How did we get here?
This got really, really dark, really fast.
Demons.
Have you met anybody that has gone through?

(01:14:43):
I know you said that your cancer is very rare,
but have you met anybody that's gone through that cancer or similar?
At all.
No, I did a support group.
Once it was like a zoom support thing.
And I hated it.
Honestly.
It was way too depressing.

(01:15:04):
Everyone was much older than me and was talking.
About their stories, which is, you know, beautiful and great and good.
But it was also like, I'm trying to like be positive here.
And I don't want to hear about it.
Like you're on death's door right now. Like I'm so sorry for you, of course,
but this isn't doing anything for my mental health.
You need to have an uplift.
You need to be like uplifted.

(01:15:26):
Exactly.
And so I was like, hmm, I, this is not for me.
Like if this helps you great, go for it, but not for me.
So those were the only people that I've like,
I guess technically met with my type of cancer.
Otherwise.
Do you have anything that you would say or any advice if you,
if you have any advice or if you have any advice or if you have any
advice, if you have anybody that's out there that listens to the podcast,

(01:15:49):
has a diagnosis like this or know somebody that does that you can pass along.
Absolutely.
So my biggest thing is I'm such an advocate now for if something hurts you,
get it checked out.
The amount of people that I know that have, oh, well this hurts.
And then, you know, a couple months later, well, now look at what's happening.
You know, if you had only gone to the doctor when you should have type of thing.

(01:16:10):
So that's my biggest piece of advice, you know,
go to the doctor if you're able to get things checked out for appendiceal
cancer specific.
You need a specialist because it is so rare.
They treat it mostly like it's colorectal, but it's not.
You need to find a specialist in one of the biggest hospitals in the country.

(01:16:34):
A lot of the time is like when I, so like my main hospital is University of Miami,
but I also see doctors in MD Anderson at Texas and it's Sloan Kettering in New York.
Sloan Kettering is where I do my big surgeries because they have a specialist there.
The first time I went, I didn't have to pay for a single thing.
They got us room and board.

(01:16:55):
They took care of our ubers, you know, food for my father who came with me at the time.
So when people say, oh, well, like, you know, I can't go to New York and go to this hospital.
Like I can't do that.
They will work with you, like find, find options, get two or three doctors working together on different things.
It is such a specific cancer and there are so many things that they even just the last few years that they've had breakthroughs with.

(01:17:21):
Don't settle for the, I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to treat you.
My first doctor in Miami, I wasn't at UM.
I was at a different hospital like when I first got diagnosed.
And that's how they were.
They were like, we don't know what to do.
And I was like, okay, well, that's not going to work for me.
Like they're like, what do you want to do?

(01:17:43):
And I was like, I don't know.
Yeah.
I was like, I don't know.
Do I do this chemo?
Do I not?
Like should I?
So you have to advocate for yourself because no one's going to advocate for you.
Go find those specialists.
Go find, you know, the second and third opinions if you can, like do what you have to do.
Do not give up.

(01:18:04):
Have you done anything outside of allopathic care that you feel maybe has benefited you?
Do you ever dabble in like holistic or alternative medicine?
I do.
A friend sent me up with a holistic doctor, doctor Mary, funny enough.
She does acupuncture.
She does craniocacral and like reiki and like all of that stuff.
And so I've been seeing her the last few years.

(01:18:26):
And it's, you know, it's one of those things where in many ways you never know really if it's working or not.
if it's working or not, but I always leave their feeling better, feeling like it's working.
Like, you know, she gives me affirmations to work on and she does the craniosacral where,

(01:18:46):
you know, we're telling my body to heal itself and to be better and all of that.
And I like to practice those things as often as I'm able to.
I see her about once a month now.
I'm still going, you know, after a few years because to me it can't hurt, that's for sure.
And I, you know, you never know.
Like what we were just talking about, like with the whole Halloween thing, there are

(01:19:07):
things that are bigger than us.
So might as well try it all.
Yeah, yeah.
It certainly doesn't work for me, it seems.
So might as well.
Yeah, if it works for your mental health, if I mean, if anything, if it's working when
you leave there and you're feeling better and it's giving you a positive attitude, because
I think a lot of times your attitude has everything to do with how well you're going to get through

(01:19:33):
what you're going through.
And you've got a great attitude.
So if somebody's just like, oh, this sucks and I'm never going to make it and all this,
I feel like, well, then you won't.
You know, okay.
Well, then that's it.
The whole time over matter exists for a reason.
Right.
And I know that there's science behind that too.

(01:19:54):
There is.
Oh, yeah.
If you think that you're doomed, you are doomed.
That's right.
If the world is ending, your world is ending.
Yep.
Yeah.
I mean, to get that really good positive note for us to end on too, we really admire
your bravery.
Number one, we admire your spirit and your positivity and your outlook on it.

(01:20:15):
And yeah, I'm looking forward to, you know, see where you go on this journey and I hope
that we can stay connected and maybe down the road.
Maybe sometime next year we can reconnect and get an update from you and bring you back
on.
Thank you guys.
I really enjoy this.
I'm like, all right, when are we going out for drinks next?
I know, I know, because you'll be part of our friend group now.

(01:20:38):
So come on in.
Come on in.
Real quick, I really want to give you this little opportunity at the end here.
Feel free to plug your business for anybody in Florida looking for a family photographer.
So how can people find you?
Thank you.
Um, yeah, so my business name is Lindsay and photography Lindsay with an A.
And what is your website?

(01:20:58):
Throw that out there too.
Lindsay and photo.com.
All right.
Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your story and laughing
with us and crying with us too.
Thank you guys so much.
This was wonderful.
I really appreciate it.
We appreciate you too.
Thank you for listening.
You can find us at our brand new website, www.icanteeonimagine.com and find us on our

(01:21:20):
socials at Instagram at I see I underscore podcast or on Facebook at I can't even imagine
dash a podcast for moms.
Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye-bye.

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