46: A Journey of Cancer, Advocacy, and Gratitude with Heather Craig Alonge

Hello and welcome to the Kenya Breast podcast with Dr. Jen. The show dedicated to empowering women through knowledge, tools and resources to take control of your breast health journey. I'm your host, Dr. Jen Simmons, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this insightful and inspiring journey. As a breast cancer surgeon turned functional medicine physician, I'm on a mission to empower women to live their breasts and need best lives. This podcast dives deep into all topics related to breast health, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and holistic approaches to support overall well being.

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Hi there, it's Dr. Jen. And welcome back to another episode of the Keeping a Breast podcast. I am delighted to bring you an amazing story of survival today. You know, every now and again, I like to feature people who have braved this horrible world of cancer and we all do it unintentionally. And occasionally your diagnosis can bring something really meaningful into your life and change the direction that you're on, change the way you serve the people you serve and how you serve and give your life great purpose. And I think today's story will shine a light on one of those scenarios and one of those situations. And I know we're all meant to learn something from our diagnoses and, you know, it's not a willing ride that we all go on. I mean, we all go on unwillingly. But if we can find some deeper meaning in the diagnosis, if we can find, I don't want to call it a silver lining because that's not what it is. But if we can find new direction that takes us to a beautiful place, then there's gratitude there without question. So I want to welcome Heather Alonghi to the show. Heather, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Dr. Jen, for having me here this morning.

It's really, it's my pleasure. And you had, you actually had a very unusual cancer. You had a rare uterine sarcoma. And I think I read somewhere that you were the youngest person in the country to ever get this diagnosis.

I am one of the youngest individuals or women in the country to be diagnosed with low grade endometrial stromal sarcoma. This is a uterine cancer that generally is seen in women in their 50s to 60s. So at the time of my diagnosis, I was 38 years old. And it was quite a shocking discovery.

Yeah, so that's very young. And also you don't fit the profile. So before we get into that, because we end up in the breast cancer world talking a lot about uterine cancer because they have a lot of commonalities and I think that that's a little bit how you found me in my community. But I want to back up and take us back to that place where you were 30 something years old. What was happening? What made you seek medical attention? Like, I would love to hear your story and how, and how this even came about for you.

So I was about 34 years old. I had just had my third daughter. I have three little girls. All three girls were delivered via C section. And when my youngest was about eight, nine months old, I started having these really bad symptoms. Severe pain under my rib cage, so severe GI issues, GERD acid reflux. When my menstrual cycles returned, they were really, really bad. And I would go to provider after provider explaining these symptoms. And each provider would diagnose and treat the symptom individually and they would explain it to, to be a contributing factor to xyz. So the horrible menstrual cycles, oh well, that was a result of having three cesarean sections. That was normal. The acid reflux, well, that occurred because of the pregnancies pushing up on my esophagus. My esophagus just wasn't what it used to be. The pain under my rib cage, well, that was because of the scar tissue from the cesarean sections. And this went on for several years. And it was actually visiting a hematologist for an unrelated issue. I have factor V Leiden, never had a blood clot, but I stay established with a hematologist for preventive measures. And I was in his office and he was reviewing my most recent lab work and he started to notice that the labs were extremely off. And he started asking me why, what's.

Happening, what kinds of things that he noticed were off? Because, you know, in my experience, most of the time the lab work that hematologists do, the like, the routine lab work is pretty routine. So they're not, they're not digging too deep usually. So what was off?

My CBC was very bad. I was severely anemic. My white blood cell count was off, my platelet counts, my hemoglobin significantly off. And so I was telling him about my symptoms and he said, well, this, this lab work, the results can be possibly a result of the severe bleeding. And so that's when he reached out to the OB GYN that I was seeing who did, didn't want to take me seriously again. So did you, did you just have.

Heavy periods or did you have bleeding in between too?

It was non stop. So we're talking about three and a half weeks of severe bleeding. I would get about a five day reprieve from it. And then here the bleeding was again.

And I think for anyone listening to this, you have to start to hear what Heather is saying in that when you have all of these symptoms, we have to stop normalizing them. And there is no scenario where it's normal to be bleeding all the time. And if you are having these symptoms, because these symptoms are always due to something and a precursor to something, so explaining them away by oh, it just happens or oh, this is normal, or oh, let's just follow this should never be an acceptable explanation because there is something happening and we all need to get to the root cause. So you had weeks and weeks on end of bleeding. You were severely anemic. And so what happened next?

So I saw this hematologist and he said the lab results were more than likely a result of the severe bleeding. And I said, well, I had just seen an OB GYN prior to seeing the hematologist. And she said, oh, this probably was a result of the cesarean sections, perhaps had some issues regarding recovery from the C sections. Let's try a multitude of other options in lieu of a hysterectomy. That I was Too young at 37, 38 years old, I was too young for a hysterectomy. And the hematologist said the options that the OB GYN were proposing. These options were, were not viable options for the severe bleeding that I was occurring. That a hysterectomy would be the proper course of treatment. And not only that, but having factor V Leiden and a history of preeclampsia. Providing a hormonal treatment for this issue was not in my best interest.

So you did have a pregnancy with preeclampsia?

I did. My very first pregnancy. I delivered my daughter at 29 weeks due to severe preeclampsia.

I want to get back to how that's related, so we'll come back to that later. Did they make a connection between your preeclampsia and what ended up happening with you? Did they ever make any connection?

No. And I've asked, I've asked if there could be a correlation or a causation Again, getting to that, as you say, Dr. Jen, the why behind it, and every time, it's basically no connection. Not going to investigate that. Stop asking your why. Stop living in the past. Yeah, yeah.

And unfortunately, and this is a major problem in the conventional medical model, it's that they confuse I don't know with no. Right. So instead of saying I don't know, which is what they should have said, they said, no, it's not related. No, it's not. There's no correlation. It's simply not true. And we know that, but preeclampsia and eclampsia and toxemia of pregnancy, these are all signs of major systemic inflammation. And this is the manifestation in pregnancy of major systemic inflammation. And systemic inflammation, when it goes unrecognized and unaddressed, manifests into situations and scenarios like yours?

Yes, absolutely.

Okay, so you're severely anemic. They're recommending hysterectomy. You're 38 years old. How did you feel about that?

Relieved. I felt very relieved. I had been in agony for years. You know, I had no energy. I didn't feel well. I was in pain. I have these three young children, you know, I'm married, wanting to live my life at the peak of my career, and. And I felt.

Were you. Were you done having children?

I was, Yes, I was done. After I had my third daughter, we knew our family was complete, so there was no, for me situation of preserving fertility. Okay. I just. I wanted to feel better. And so the ob GYN that I was seeing did some diagnostic imaging and said, yes, you definitely need a hysterectomy. There were masses in my uterus, two masses the size of grapefruits, and they were diagnosed as fibroids. So she said, given the size of those masses, given the compromised integrity of my uterus from having three cesarean sections, she wanted me to actually go to a high risk gynecological surgeon to have the hysterectomy done.

At the time of your last pregnancy because you had a C section. Right. You had C sections each time at the time of your last delivery. Did they mention any uterine fibroids?

No, they did not.

So were these all interval developments from the time that you delivered your last child?

I am not sure about that. I will say that one of the things that made me suspect that they perhaps were there are. I was at the start of developing uterine sarcoma at the time of my third delivery was that my recovery postpartum was severe. With my third pregnancy, my other Two, even having the severe preeclampsia with the first, the recovery was relatively easy. With this third recovery, I was in very severe pain, severe uterine contractions, very bad bleeding, very hard for me to even walk. And again, when I spoke to my doctor regarding this, it was, oh, that's, that's typical with the third cesarean section. For some reason, baby number three is always the hardest to recover from.

Mm.

Yeah.

Again, normalizing, explaining away. I actually think that the subsequent pregnancies are easier to recover from. So it's just like another example of how we explain away the things that we don't know how to deal with, you know, and, and doctors tend to be pretty uncomfortable, especially surgeons and obgyns or surgeons before they're anything else. Surgeons tend to be very uncomfortable when confronted with what is perceived as complications of their procedure. Right. So they would far rather say it's you than it's them.

Absolutely.

And I'm sure your surgeon did a perfectly good job closing the uterus and closing your skin and, you know, whatever, whatever they, they do in there in the course of a C section, but that we can do everything right. And if there's something going on with the patient, they may not have the perfect post operative course, but it still makes the surgeon feel really uncomfortable. And I think that that's why you got all that normalization. It's normal to, it's normal to. It's normal too, but it's simply not true. And you were going to, in very short order learn that, as I did.

Yeah.

So the decision to have a hysterectomy was kind of an easy one for you because you were really suffering and you thought that this was the answer to your suffering.

It was. So I went to the subspecialist, the high risk gynecological surgeon saw him, no questions asked. He agreed a hysterectomy was in order. And I remember specifically asking him, you know, I have this intuition, this feeling something is not right. How do we know this is not cancer? And he said to me, he says, your chances of having cancer are less than 1%. And I question, because my hysterectomy was done laparoscopically, do we think that this is the best practice for my case, that pursuing a hysterectomy laparoscopically, given the imaging that, that we have, the size of these said fibroids, the measurements of my uterus, that this would be a safe protocol for my case? And his response is, absolutely, I do this every day in my career. You know, I'VE performed hundreds upon hundreds of laparoscopic hysterectomies. It's the best for you. It will be better for your recovery. You'll feel better. This is how we will do it. So, you know, I agreed to it. He's. He's the expert. Who am I to question? So we moved forward with the laparoscopic hysterectomy.

And so what period of time is this? How long? How long between when your hematologist found you to be severely anemic to the time when you're having your surgery?

Four months.

Four months.

Four months.

Okay. And then so you go and have this laparoscopic procedure. How did it go?

It went well. I felt wonderful. I woke up in the recovery room feeling really great after not feeling so well for so many years. I came home, you know, took all the precautions recommended to have a safe and speedy recovery, and I was very optimistic. You know, my life was going to return to a very healthy, normal state, and I was going to conquer the world.

And then what?

I noticed that it was taking quite some time to get my pathology report back, and I had had friends and family members who had had hysterectomies. So I knew that it's certainly a relatively short turnaround to receive the pathology, which is just a standard procedure. So I reach out to the doctor's office. Oh, we don't have them yet. Once we receive them, we most certainly will let you know. So about two and a half weeks pass by, and I get an email saying that I had results in my patient portal and that it had been released from the pathology department, from the hospital in which I had received the surgery. And I open up the pathology report, and right on the COVID page of the pathology report is, see section three, cancer findings.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I have chills. Your doctor didn't call you?

No, no, because the. From my understanding, the pathology department just pushed those forward into my portal before he had a chance to review them.

Wow. So at what point did you get to talk to your doctor?

About 45 minutes after I received the results, my doctor, the surgeon who did the hysterectomy, called me. And, I mean, I had read the report at that point, and I kept telling myself, perhaps I'm misinterpreting it. I'm not a practicing physician. Yes, I do have a healthcare background, but I'm not a doctor. You know, maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but I knew. I knew in my heart it was indeed correct. And so he calls me about 45 minutes later and he says, heather, we received your pathology. I am afraid to tell you that it's cancer.

Can you still feel that moment?

I can. It's so funny. I feel like everything surrounding me just went into a void. But I vividly recalled being right there and just knowing that my life was never going to be the same after that.

And I may be having a little bit of Internet connectivity issues, so we'll see. I can't even imagine that moment that you read that pathology for yourself. I mean, you said you have some healthcare background, but you're not a physician. Tell us about what is your healthcare background.

So I have a PhD in Health Services. I am a healthcare researcher. I've seen. But before entering, I'm in academia now, but prior to working in academia, I worked for a state health department in maternal and child health of all fields. And then I entered into academia where I teach nurses, physicians and PA students healthcare research methods.

So you teach them how to read studies or you teach, is that what you do?

I do. I teach them how to conduct their own research, how to read studies, how to conduct meta analysis, how to evaluate their data. And so to come from, from that side to now being on this side, it is truly full circle.

Wow. So what did you do with that information? I mean, where do you go from there? You're 38 years old and you're told that you have, I mean, I hate to call it this and as I get more and more north of 50, but when I was training, I mean, we thought of uterine sarcoma as an old lady cancer.

Oh, it is historically, it is a cancer that appears later in life for women. Women who are postmenopausal. Yeah.

And not just like recently postmenopausal. Like we see it in the 60s, 70s. This is not, this is not a young woman's cancer. Mostly because, you know, when we think about the endometrial lining and we think about toxin exposure, people who shed their lining every month, they're getting rid of those toxins. And if we're getting rid of the toxins, they tend to not have the opportunity to have much effect on us and do much damage. That's why people who are on birth control methods that prevent them from bleeding, this is very dangerous because we are supposed to bleed every month. We are supposed to get rid of those toxins every month. And we're supposed to get rid of the estrogens and progesterone that we have already utilized, that are, that are in the breakdown products. We're supposed to shed them and get rid of them. So for people who have only light periods and then later on in life, certainly, you know, it's prolonged exposure. It's that you're no longer bleeding and no longer shedding that lining. It's that you're storing toxins in that area. And if you are overweight, you're making more of those estrogens and you have a greater toxic burden as anyone who is overweight or obese. There's something else we're supposed to call it these days, but I'm not politically correct enough to know if you are in those disease states, that is an inflammatory state. And when we are inflamed, it's usually due to toxic overload. And so, you know, uterus, like the breast is another place that we store the toxins. But as a young woman, you're getting rid of those toxins every month. That's why it's so unusual in someone of your age group. So, I mean, you probably didn't know what to do, but quite frankly, your doctor probably didn't know what to do either.

No. So the surgeon who did my hysterectomy, he was very adamant. He wanted me to go to a specific gynecological oncology specialist in the Washington, D.C. metro. I live in Northern Virginia. And so, you know, I trusted him. I knew that it would be in my best interest to go to whom this doctor is telling me to go. So it took about again, another two and a half weeks for me to be able to get in to this oncologist. And during that time, I do what I am trained to do. I go to the literature. I start pulling out what I can find regarding uterine sarcoma, understanding the etiology of it, understanding the treatment of it. And as I'm going through the literature, I realize I don't fit the description of women diagnosed with this. I'm not within those characteristics. I don't carry any of the risk factors for it. I'm not, you know, postmenopausal. I do not smoke. I have not had breast cancer treatment with tamoxifen. I've not had prior pelvic floor radiation. I'm not African American. It was perplexing to me that I had this diagnosis, but I couldn't figure out the why behind it.

Yeah, well, it wasn't, you know, it. You didn't fit any of the risk factors. So. And when was this? How long ago was it?

It would have been August of 2022. So just shy of two years ago.

Yeah. And while there are plenty of outside of the box thinkers, and you know, unfortunately, while you are one of the youngest people to have received this diagnosis, we are seeing cancers across the board in young women. As you know, cancers that we didn't see when I did my training. In young women, we're seeing late teens and 20 year olds with colon cancer. Colon cancer is another one of those cancers that we don't expect to see until later on because it, it has to do with prolonged toxin exposure. We don't expect to see uterine cancers until later on because of prolonged toxin exposure. Same thing with breast. The breast is the canary in the coal mine. We don't expect to see breast cancer until later on because of toxin exposure. Exposure. But because we live in this increasingly more toxic world, we're seeing these cancers younger and younger. So you're about two years out. What has happened to you over the last two years and what have you learned?

So the first thing that has happened is I have become very aware that in healthcare, specifically in the oncology world, you have to be your own advocate as the patient. Yeah, it is very easy for, I feel patients to be categorized, put into a box and kept in that box. And for me, I remember the first oncologist that I saw, it was an ultimatum given to me that I was going to receive treatment X, I was going to do Y, and that I was not to question it. And that if I did question it, then he was going to hold me responsible to get a second opinion. And I said, well, you made that choice very easy for me. I will receive a second opinion. And as I've gone through this, I've realized that, you know, it's not just asking the question of why did I receive this diagnosis, how did this cancer occur, but it's also asking the whys behind the logic. Why are we going to have surveillance scans at this cadence? You know, that's a lot for my particular cancer. It's recommended in the first five years, anywhere between three to six months of routine CT scan surveillance. My question is why, if I don't have an active or metastatic tumor, why are we radiating at this severity? What are the risks versus benefits for doing this?

Yeah. Were you able to get answers to questions like that?

I've noticed that. Again, going back to what you were saying, I don't know versus no. So it's simply because that's how it is and you have a cancer that has a high reoccurrence rate. But my response or question back is but if I do the CT scan at month three and we find a tumor, what are we going to do then? Well, we'll just watch it and surveil it for another three months. So then what's the difference between doing it every six months versus doing it every three months? Except for limiting my radiation exposure? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, what you said is so true. And I was interviewing someone recently who said you have to be the CEO of your own health. Absolutely. And it's not a job that everyone wants. Right. And I totally get it. I mean, there are some people that just are not up to the challenge and don't feel like it's their responsibility to take it all on. And it's a lot. It's a lot. I mean, you've, you've been through it. You can attest it's a lot to own this.

It's a lot and it's overwhelming and it's emotional. And I remember after my first visit with the oncologist, two weeks after my diagnosis, I'm given a sheet of paper with a bunch of codes on it and some scribble and told you need to go make your own CT scan appointments. I'm like, I don't, I don't know what I'm asking for. I don't understand what's written on this sheet. And so I called to make the appointment and of course there's a litany of questions. Is it supposed to be a fasting ct? Is it contrast? Is it oral, IV or both? You know, what facility are you supposed to be getting this? All these questions, and I had no idea yet this ownership was given to me. But what I find to be such a contradiction is that those pieces of ownership are given to the patient. But when it comes to time for a patient to actually advocate for their own choices, that's taken away by their providers.

Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's completely true. So what has helped you? Where have you found strength? Where have you found guidance? And, and what, what has changed for you in the course of this journey?

So after I received my diagnosis, I felt so isolated and so alone. You know, I have this, this rare diagnosis. Not only is it rare, but I'm, I'm not in the same characteristic categories as my fellow diagnosed.

Yeah, like, it's not like you're going to go to a uterine survivors group with a bunch of 70 year olds. Right, right.

And so I, I again, I, I began digging and digging and digging and I stumbled upon Dr. Kelly Turner's book, Radical Remission one of my favorites.

It's up right there on my bookshelf right now.

Right behind me.

Yeah.

And it was, it was life changing to understand that, you know, there are other avenues for healing and well being and getting past the cancer diagnosis that are not within the conventional medicine realm. Then as I began to dig further, as we said earlier, there's a lot of similarities between uterine sarcoma and breast cancer. I realized if I can't find a place in my own community, I can join a different community. I started really digging into the breast cancer community, breast cancer survivorship support groups, and that's actually how I stumbled upon your Instagram page. Dr. Jen is through some breast cancer support groups. So for me, it was realizing I'm not alone. There's other women and families out there going through this. And also I think for me, having young children, having a husband, making sure that their emotional needs, their fears, their struggles through this diagnosis were addressed and that we're going through this as a family and not just me as the cancer patient and them taking a backseat to it.

Yeah. I'm curious. All those symptoms that you had, the reflux, the subcostal pain, the pain beneath your ribs, what has happened with all of that?

It's all gone away. Yeah.

Our bodies are smart. It sends us signals. It says, pay attention to me. It says, this isn't working. And when we don't listen to the whispers, we get screams. And unfortunately, you, you were listening. I mean, you were out there seeking help and you just couldn't get acknowledged. And you're a perfect example of the fact that we can't accept it's normal because it's not. It's normal to feel good. And we have to stop normalizing feeling badly. We can't explain fatigue by the fact that we have three children. There are people with 10 children who don't have fatigue. Right. Fatigue means you don't have enough energy. Your mitochondria aren't working. Those are the energy producing units of the cell. If your mitochondria aren't working, there's a reason why. Right. And it's not normal to be in pain. If you're in pain, there's some inflammation there that is driving that pain, that is stimulating your pain sensors. We got to figure out why that is. But we cannot normalize these symptoms. And until the medical establishment as a whole becomes more enlightened and learns I don't know, as opposed to know, and embraces curiosity in the same way that we were curious when we started and, you know, for my part, that was one of the biggest game changers in the way that I practice medicine is to learn, to embrace, I don't know, and to treat everything with curiosity. And had your doctors done that, I mean, I don't know if you would have gotten to the point where you had developed the sarcoma in that you could have maybe found it before those, those changes had happened. But I'm so glad to hear that you're feeling well. I'm so glad to hear that you found our community and you've become involved in our community. So how has that been for you?

It's been really empowering and healing, especially since I have made the decision that I really want to focus on functional medicine as part of my health and healing and wellness journey. And so being part of your community. So seeing the testimonies, hearing women share their stories of utilizing functional medicine, to hear the survivor stories of women who were given very grave diagnoses, and here they are, 10, 15, 20 years later, thriving and living a wonderful life and giving back to their community is for me, very positive, very healing, and very hopeful.

Yeah. Yeah. How has this changed how you practice what you practice? How has this changed how you live your life? And how has this changed how you do your job?

So as far as how I practice, you know, I have an incredible fortune of teaching the next generation of practitioners, and so I use my own story as a case study. You do?

You share it with them?

I do. I mean, that's the thing is that instead of saying that, oh, why me? I've actually embraced the thought process of why not me? I am positioned in a very unique place professionally to make change through my diagnosis and my treatment. And so I use my story as a case study for my students. You know, if you have a patient that's presenting in your clinic, you have a patient at your bedside, you're working on healthcare policy and this is happening, how would you treat this differently? What would you do? How do we stop isolating symptoms and conditions into a silo and look at it from a whole patient centered care model?

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. So you're really paying it forward and you're allowing people to see a different perspective. And that is a huge gift to the world. And again, we don't go on these journeys willingly or wantingly, but we have the opportunity to say that there is some value here, value that you would have never gotten without that diagnosis. For my part, it completely changed the way that I practice medicine. It completely changed the way that I Live life. And I know that the world is a better place because I had to go through a very, very, very difficult personal experience. I don't know if you're there yet. I don't know if that's how you feel, but I hope that you can find some gratitude in the tremendous enlightenment that you have really had.

It took me a while to get to the gratitude aspect of this journey. You know, I lived the first several months in denial, and then the anger hit, and then the fear. Yeah, the fear of, you know, this. This is a cancer that has a high reoccurrence rate. And when it does come back, oftentimes it comes back with a vengeance. And so getting past that point and entering into the realm of gratitude and positivity has been, for me, very healing. I have the mindset of, if I focus on my health, I focus on positivity. I focus on making choices that maintain a, well, state of health, I can beat the odds of reoccurrence. And so now that is my mission, is not to be another statistic where, oh, it came back and now you have six months to live. It's, wow, she was an oddity to begin with. And look at her 20 years later with no reoccurrence and no metastatic disease. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's what I say all the time, is that, you know, the people that I work with, the people that are in my community, the people that are buying into what I talk about, these are the exceptional people. And I expect them all to be the exception. And they are. And, you know, I have women who have been in my practice for five years since I left surgery with metastatic disease. Well, a diagnosis of metastatic disease, but no evidence of disease, no disease progression. And it's because we do have the opportunity to be healthy at any age and at any stage. But health is an active process, and health requires your own personal investment. Right. You have to, first of all, completely believe and know that you can be healthy. And then you got to do the things that drive the health. And it's not for everyone. Like we said in the beginning, some people just want the drug. Some people just want the pill. Some people just want to blame the system for not working. And that's fine because that's everyone's personal choice. Right. That's why those choices are out there. But if you can own it, if you can take the reins and say, you know, I'm driving, there's often something so wonderful and amazing on the other side, because when people finally get Healthy and realize that life can be lived without depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue, all these things that are so often normalized, then there is another side to it, and it's pretty great. Is there anything else that you feel that you want to share with people who are maybe, you know, hearing those words for the first time you have cancer or feeling uncomfortable because, you know, you mentioned first you were scared or first you were shocked, numb, confused, angry, scared. And I want to say it's very important to feel all of those things, right? That's the thing. That's normal. It's normal to maybe feel numb at first because you don't even know what to do with these, with these feelings and with this information. It's normal to feel angry. Your body has betrayed you, right? All of these things are normal. It's normal to feel scared. We're all scared because the future is uncertain, it's unwritten. But at the same time, you do have the opportunity to be the author of your story rather than just a character in it. So what would you like to leave the listeners with?

I would think for anyone who is just receiving a cancer diagnosis or has had their cancer diagnosis for a while, but going through those stages of grief, anger, denial, acceptance that you have a say in what happens, you are your own advocate. Do your research. If you don't feel comfortable with your provider, search for a new provider that your comfort level is so important because you're going to have a long term established relationship with your oncologist. Make sure that you bring your other providers into your care model, your general practitioner, or any of your subspecialists if you are seeking mental health care. Also making sure that your mental health provider is part of that care model, because it truly takes a team to prosper and to get on the other side of good health. I also think, as you were saying, Dr. Jin, allowing yourself to feel those emotions, there's no feeling ashamed about it. You're entitled to feel those. And if someone perhaps is trying to encourage you not to dwell on the negative or to give you what I call toxic positivity, you know, understand that they're coming from a good place, but you don't have to stand there and accept it. You can gracefully move on and allow yourself that time and space to feel what you need to feel, because otherwise you're not going to heal.

Yeah, that's so true. You cannot swallow it down. You can't. You can't hide from it. You have to feel it so that you can move on from it. And toxic positivity does not help. Right? But it does. There is some element of looking for things to be grateful for every day that even when you're in the throes of treatment and things don't feel so great. Although there are lots of things that you can do even in treatment, even when getting chemotherapy, that make huge differences, like doing fasting while you are getting treated. Right. If you're, if you're doing the fasting mimicking diet, it's a 72 hour fast in and around chemotherapy, like taking melatonin, because that will help with a lot and combat a lot of the negative side effects of chemotherapy. There are other supplements that help. Exercising every day while you're in treatment makes a huge difference. Sweating, getting rid of many of those toxins. So there are lots and lots of things that you can do even while in treatment to make you feel physically better. So while I don't subscribe to just telling yourself that everything's great when clearly it isn't, I do believe that we can still appreciate things that are wonderful even in the depths of treatment. I have people that love me and support me. I have a beautiful family. The sun is shining, spring is coming, flowers are blooming. I mean, there are wonders of nature around us all the time that we can always breathe in and appreciate. So I thank you so much for being here, for being vulnerable, for sharing your story, for adding a beautiful element to our community. Because we always welcome brave people like you who can come in and be so vulnerable and not only take what the community has to give, but give to the community and share what you've been through so that you can pave an easier road for others. Thank you so much, Heather.

Thank you, Dr. Jen. And thank you for allowing me to be part of your community.

Of course, it's my pleasure. And for all you listeners out there, thank you for listening. If you want to send a comment, we'll be sure to pass it along to Heather. And if you know someone who is going through a diagnosis and needs to hear this, please share this podcast with them because we are all here to lift each other up. As my friend JJ Virgin says, a rising tide lifts all boats and we are here to do it together. So I'm sure I will be back next week with another great podcast. Until then, it's Dr. Jen. Bye for now.

Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Keeping abreast podcast with Dr. Jen. I. I hope you found the discussion informative and empowering. Remember, rest, health is health. So by staying informed and taking proactive steps, you have the power to optimize your well being. My team and I encourage you to apply the knowledge gained from today's episode to make positive changes in your life and share what you've learned with others. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Your feedback and support mean the world to us and help us to reach more people who can benefit from these conversations. Stay connected with me on social media where I share additional resources, advice, updates and announcements related to breast health. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Dr. Jensimmons and remember, my Jen has two N's, so until next time, remember to stay proactive, informed and confident in your breast cancer health journey. The key to your health is you.