Best Life After Cancer

Whether it is a death in the family, a cancer diagnosis or another trauma, what well-meaning family and friends say can be challenging.  Today, I talk about both my experience with this, and share a letter from a follower of the podcast.  Keep sending my messages about what you all want to hear about!

Michelle went through mastectomies with implant reconstruction, and developed a significant capsular contraction, in part from radiation.  She went on to have a latissimus flap reconstruction to repair this, and is now feeling great and enjoying life.  This podcast was recorded the week before I lost Miles, and it is nice to hear me sounding happy, relaxed and care free.

The news is buzzing with all sorts of speculation on the Delta Variant, and social media is abuzz with both those pushing others to get the vaccine and those trumpeting vaccine horror stories.  Who to believe?  In this podcast, I summarize the two things I read and heard lately that I found most useful.  The first is a NYT podcast by Ezra Klein, interviewing NYU medical school epidemiologist Dr. Celine Gounder (listen here:https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-celine-gounder.html) and the other is a CNN article by Peter Bregman and Howard Jacobson (read here:https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/opinions/how-to-move-people-from-hesitant-to-vaccinated-bregman-jacobson/index.html)

Meredith got triple negative breast cancer in her 30's, when her daughter was 19 months old.  She had a goal of seeing her daughter go to kindergarten.  Now, she is 15 years out, and watched her daughter strike out the top softball recruit in the US!  She tells us her 2 week rule, and why she thinks you need to balance quality of life in treatment decisions.

This episode goes through options for many of the side effects of perimenopause: hot flashes, vaginal dryness, sexual changes, and more. If post cancer, you have been thrust into menopause, help is here!

Shannon, a long time nurse, was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, was planning for a clinical trial, then also found to have thyroid cancer.  She took all of this in stride, had chemotherapy with a pathologic complete response, mastectomies and thyroid surgery.  She shares her tips for feeling good at the end of treatment, and some of the insights from a healthcare worker turned patient!

This is part of one of the classes in my Best Life After Cancer's Weight Loss program.  It helps you to really dig into why you want to lose weight or decrease alcohol, and leverage those reasons to help follow your plan.  This work is so important if you want to permanently change habits and create new, healthy ones!

Our brains have so much wisdom.  We can ask ourselves who we would be if we were at our goals, and then make decisions from that place.  I call this "living as your ideal self" but a client calls it "fake it til you make it".  Either way, it is a technique in your toolkit to help you follow your plans and achieve your goals.