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Ep. 95 (Part 2): What Happens When The Treatment Ends But The Journey Doesn't?

• Jamie Vaughn • Season 5 • Episode 95

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Jamie and Luan Lawrenson-Woods explore the long-term effects of breast cancer treatment and the importance of self-advocacy in healthcare settings. They dive into personal experiences with cognitive challenges, identity shifts, and finding purpose after diagnosis.

• Luan shares how her podcast "Rewritten Me" emerged from the information gap about reconstruction options in Australia
• Both discuss experiencing "chemo brain" and cognitive difficulties post-treatment, including word-finding problems and anxiety
• Trauma from diagnosis creates lasting PTSD symptoms that aren't always recognized by others who expect survivors to "get back to normal"
• Luann's new podcast "Regarding Me" teaches cancer survivors self-advocacy skills for healthcare settings. Check it out for more on how to speak up, be heard, and put yourself at the center of your care.
• The Six Self-Advocacy Steps (SSAS) framework helps patients communicate effectively with medical providers
• Early detection saves lives – know your body, track unusual symptoms, and never delay getting concerns checked
• Resources like "Know Your Lemons" provide accessible education about proper breast examination techniques

📞 Contact Luan Lawrenson-Woods

📚 Resources




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I am not a doctor and not all information in this podcast comes from qualified healthcare providers, therefore may not constitute medical advice. For personalized medical advice, you should reach out to one of the qualified healthcare providers interviewed on this podcast and/or seek medical advice from your own providers .


Speaker 1:

Hello friends, welcome back to the Test those Breasts podcast. I am your host, jamie Vaughn. I'm a retired teacher of 20 years and a breast cancer thriver turned staunch, unapologetic, loud supporter and advocate for others, bringing education and awareness through a myriad of medical experts, therapists, caregivers and other survivors. A breast cancer diagnosis is incredibly overwhelming, with the mounds of information out there, and other survivors A breast cancer diagnosis is incredibly overwhelming, with the mounds of information out there, especially on Dr Google. I get it. I'm not a doctor and I know how important it is to uncover accurate information, which is my ongoing mission through my nonprofit. The podcast includes personal stories and opinions from breast cancer survivors and professional physicians, providing the most up-to-date information. At the time of recording Evidence, research and practices are always changing, so please check the date of the recording and always refer to your medical professionals for the most up-to-date information. I hope you find this podcast a source of inspiration and support from my guests. Their contact information is in the show notes, so please feel free to reach out to them. We have an enormous breast cancer community ready to support you in so many ways.

Speaker 1:

Now let's listen to the next episode of Test those Breasts. Hey friends, welcome back to part two of my conversation with Luann Lawrence and Woods, where we dive deeper into important topics about breast cancer and its far reaching impact. Well, I want to kind of switch gears here and talk about what you're doing in your survivorship. I want to start with your podcast Rewritten Me. That is when I originally started following you and becoming intrigued with you and eventually, from afar, fell in love with you and we message each other. Tell us about that, because I know actually you're the one who really inspired me to start really reaching out to microsurgeons, and that's where Dr Crisopolo came in for me. I had seen him on your podcast and heard him, because you do that on video as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, the rewritten me came about for a few reasons really. But when I was diagnosed and was looking at my reconstruction options, when I heard about DF flap or DF flap, it blew my mind that you could use your body right to reconstructa breast. I'd never heard of this. I was like, wow, you can upcycle, right. And it just blew. It blew my mind and you know that was the right surgery for me. I was really fortunate with my breast surgeon that we talked about all three options staying flat, implants and get flat. So I had a really great conversation around that.

Speaker 2:

But in Australia at the time it was recognized that was a gap in information. It was barriers to access to information about all reconstruction options and also the surgeries as well. But the information that some people weren't necessarily told all their options and also the surgeries as well. But the information that some people weren't necessarily told all their options or they weren't told necessarily what it would be like to actually physically live in or what the you know, what the risk or benefits were or what the side effects were or things like that about those surgeries. Some women not offered breast reconstruction at all. So my plastic surgeon had said to me at the time look, there's really good information in America, look to America for information about this surgery. Because he could see that I wanted to know things right. I had my spreadsheets, lots of questions he answered. He was great. But also he's like go and research in America.

Speaker 2:

And as I started to share my story of my DEP, so I micro-blogged on Instagram 100 days DEP For 100 days after my DEP, I just posted up and it was really self-serving. It was more about me being able to look back at like a little journal and see what I'd done. But people started to talk to me on Instagram about about DF. They didn't know about it or, yeah, they hadn't been offered it or whatever. And I just started to connect with people and hear people's stories.

Speaker 2:

And then one day I was watching an Instagram live and I saw a Sydney breast surgeon, a microsurgeon, reconstructive plastic surgeon, talking about DF Flapp and we connected and he asked me did I want to do an Instagram Live for Australia? Right, because he'd been doing this for an American audience. And when he asked me, I just thought, no, I don't want to. No, I don't like being on video, I didn't want to talk about it. I had originally been really private about my diagnosis and I was like, no, I don't really want to. No, no, thanks. That's what I thought.

Speaker 2:

But then I realized that, well, there is this gap. We've got social media. You know, whether you like it or not, it is here to stay right and it can be used for good. There's lots of misinformation, but we need to try and wrangle that and get good information out. So nobody in Australia the organizations where you would hope that information would be coming from it wasn't forthcoming. So I thought about it and I was like you know, just like I did with my diagnosis so what am I going to do about it? I want to help others. People are telling me that there are challenges for their reconstruction.

Speaker 2:

So I did an Instagram Live with this plastic surgeon. The audience could ask him anything about reconstruction, and it went on for over an hour. We had to shut it down because it was just like you know, we needed to finish and he needed to go home. And then what I did is I launched a series of breast recon 101. And then, from that, people were saying they loved them, but they wanted to listen to that information at any time, any place. So I launched Rewritten Me, I think at the end of 2022 now and I just quietly did a couple of little episodes. I recorded the first one on my iPhone and I didn't know what I was doing. Like you, you know, you've learned how to produce, you've learned the tech, haven't you All that stuff? Yeah, and I launched, did a hard launch in in 2023, and it's Australia's only podcast dedicated to reconstruction after mastectomy.

Speaker 1:

Very cool and you know, it's really funny when you listen to your ones like way, at the very beginning I just listened, I just started listening to my episode 10. Because I was going to share it with someone, because she was a lymphedema therapist, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I interviewed this gal. And so I went back and I started listening to it. I thought, yeah, I interviewed this gal. And so I went back and I started listening to it and I thought, wow, you are very new.

Speaker 2:

I mean I'm not a pro by any means, but it's just so funny. I mean that first, instagram live, that I did with Dr Joe Dusseldorp, who's Sydney-based reconstructive plastic surgeon. I prepared for it. So so much um, like for days, you know. And the same with the podcasts. It's um, because I do have challenges from my surgery, but also from being in surgical menopause, like I have cognitive challenges, I can struggle with words, I have to manage my fatigue, although all that kind of thing. So I function, I work, I can all those things, but I have to be mindful of it. And, yeah, I would prepare so much, really overwhelming. And you know, you've got these guests and they're amazing, they're giving their time and whether that's a healthcare professional or you know, for me it's more important when it's like somebody with lived experience. I want them to feel safe, I want them to be comfortable with what's happening. So, yeah, it was a learning.

Speaker 1:

You know, Luann, I'm really glad that you said that about being mindful, about being able to, you know, say things, have a conversation and those cognitive issues, because I have noticed that when I was in the classroom and all the years prior to that, I was a very I would consider myself a pretty articulate person and since my diagnosis and going through chemo and and going through three major surgeries because I had a thymoma tumor removed as well, they found a tumor sitting up against my heart. Like I wouldn't have known about that, by the way, had it not been for breast cancer. So I was um, but I had three major surgeries and the chemo and then, of course, the medication that I had to have for the rest of the year the Herceptin and Progetta. And I went to the doctor recently and I didn't even tell my husband this because I have been concerned about me that lately I would say in the last six months, maybe not that long I have really noticed this difference in my cognitive abilities.

Speaker 1:

I'm smart in my head, I know what I'm talking about, I know all of the things inside my head, but when it comes to speaking it, I lose words, simple words, simple words. I see things a little bit differently, or I think things a little bit differently, and it takes me a minute sometimes, and so it really has been concerning me. I thought, Jesus, am I getting dementia? Like, is this, you know? Is that?

Speaker 1:

And so I went to the doctor just recently, like maybe a week and a half ago, and I told her what I was concerned about, and she says it doesn't seem that you have anything to be concerned about as far as, like dementia or whatever she says, but let's do some blood work. So I did some blood work and everything seems to be in the normal range. I do have hypothyroidism and that is in the. My thyroid is in the normal range, so I don't know what it is and all I can think of is that it's this lingering chemo brain and it's embarrassing, you know. Sometimes you know I'll be out, you know doing important work, and I will get anxious and feel like, did I say something wrong? You know what I mean and this is not normal for me. And so I'm glad that you said that, because I felt like you know I really yeah, I'm sorry that you've got and I understand your distress.

Speaker 2:

What you're saying is familiar to me. I completely relate to that. I've had that. Similarly, you know I'm a trained trainer. I used to train.

Speaker 2:

I you know speaking was part of my weight and um, and people will say now, yeah, but you do the podcast and it's great and the lives I'm like, yeah, but the work that goes behind that to make sure that I'm good as well as my guests being good.

Speaker 2:

There is a lot, a lot of work, but I think we really need to be talking about these late or long-term effects of um, of of cancer treatment. This is wonderful word, I think, like I might get it wrong now. We're talking about words, but sequela it means these long-term effects and and I think we really need to be talking about it, and a lot of the work that I'm now doing relates to that, because you know we need support around this. We need to be talking about it, to identifying it. I'm a big fan of putting a spotlight on things that need addressing in some way, and we're not going to address those issues unless there's a spotlight on it. Right, and I think I I really struggle with language, you know using the wrong word. You know, sometimes I might want to say the fridge and I'll say the cooker or something like that, the oven or something. You know that there's always a bit of a it's like word association, where I'll know the word that I want to say and I'm like it starts with a t and I almost get into like kind of that kind of play it, you know, like I'm going to do an interpretive dance to show you the word I kind of go

Speaker 2:

through the alphabet and you're like I just know it and, yeah, it has been a struggle for me, the anxiety as well. Um, I, I really started to look at tracking this for me. I've got a tracker that I'm going to use to start to track these symptoms. I think for me it is the fact that I'm in surgical, I'm in menopause and possibly some of the drugs that I've had. But I think also yeah, you know it's hard right trying to work out, is it that or is it the chemo brain or the brain fog?

Speaker 2:

I find brain fog really interesting to talk about because when I was going through treatment and I was looking at it and I'd never heard of brain fog as part of like cancer treatment.

Speaker 2:

You know, we hear about hair loss, nausea, weight loss or maybe weight gain or, you know, fatigue, brain fog I'd never heard of it being associated with cancer treatment.

Speaker 2:

And I find it fascinating that from what I've read and, um, please do do fact check me as well but from what I read, I understand that initially, the cognitive impairment from cancer or cancer treatment, initially, when patients were reporting it, there was a view well, this can't be happening because the drugs don't pass the, the, the blood brain barrier or whatever, and this is not a side effect that we'd expect with patients and it wasn't necessarily taken seriously. But it is now and it was the fact that patients were speaking up, as I understand it that it was looked into and from some of the reading that I've done around it as well, there's a belief that it's not necessarily just associated with chemotherapy. It's thought that it might happen as soon as you get the cancer diagnosis and it might be part of the overwhelm of the diagnosis. So that then makes sense if you're thinking about PTSD or the long-going kind of mental or emotional trauma. But it would still be resonating now, right?

Speaker 1:

You know, a little while back you had said that, when you were home and you were talking to your husband, vinny, about your diagnosis, and you fell to the floor and were crying, and that happened to me as well. And I think that that trauma I think you're right, I think it does go back to that, because I do get a little PTSD, not only around the diagnosis time but also, you know, I get PTSD around the time when my mom died. I get PTSD when I had surgery, all of the surgeries, and so I I do think that there is something to it, because I refuse to think that I'm just all of a sudden not articulate and because I used to speak all the time in front of teachers. I used to speak, you know, do presentations, and it just seems different to me. Now, in fact, I don't know if you feel this way I get very, very severe anxiety at times.

Speaker 1:

It just sort of hits me all of a sudden and I cannot function around people, and so it's very difficult. Anyway, I force myself, but I sometimes feel like I am sort of levitating outside of my body at times, like who is that person and who is the person I am now? It's very strange, and everybody around us expects you to just be normal now, right? So you know, you've gone through the through the cancer, you went through the surgeries, you went through all this stuff. Get your shit together, lady, you know. I mean, come on, you should be back to your normal self. And it just doesn't work that way.

Speaker 2:

I have found. Yeah, it doesn't, and I think you know going back to your first question about what was I doing before my cancer diagnosis, even without a diagnosis for you or anyone who's listening who hasn't had a diagnosis, you are not the same as what you were that five, ten years ago, but I think for us it is rooted in the treatments that we've had and the trauma that we've had the mental trauma, the physical trauma and that we need to be talking about this more because you know it's almost as if well, you need to just be grateful that you've made it through your treatment and we're like you know what? We are grateful, but we can also be struggling and we can also be a bit miffed that we're actually having to deal with this. You know, let's use some polite language, it can be a bit stronger sometimes, but you know we are like okay, and nobody told us about it, right? Nobody who told us about this long. You know effects. You know I was told I'll probably go into menopause and I think that was pretty much it for a long-term um effect, um, and I think it's really this is, you know, I know we're going to talk about that, the work that I'm now doing, but this is really one of the reasons that I launched regarding me, which is the, the new podcast to support women who've had any cancer diagnosis.

Speaker 2:

You know it is there for women who have recently had a diagnosis but, to be honest, it's probably more applicable and more relevant to those that have come through an active treatment or are going through a longer term treatment, because some people don't come out of active treatment, they remain in treatment, especially specifically if they've got a stage four diagnosis for breast cancer or other cancers that there are ongoing effects that we need to be able to support ourselves with. And I think the work as a patient advocate that you're doing, you know, makes that support more complex in a way, because you're hearing lots of stories, you're working in this space, you're talking about your experience and you're talking to others about their experience as well, and that's emotional work. You know. That takes you back to those times sometimes and, yeah, the latest podcast that's going to come out in a week or so um, for national patient advocates day, on the 19th of august, I think it is is is with somebody talking about that how you can look after yourself as a patient advocate or, excuse me how you can look after yourself.

Speaker 2:

If you're doing peer support, you know whether you're you're offering support in a local community group for people who've had a cancer diagnosis, or you're on social media and you're supporting people who've newly been diagnosed. We still need to look after ourselves because that's emotional work and then it's tied into our ongoing side effects or long-term effects that are tricky to navigate and the tricky, like you said, to work out. What's what? Is it this or is it that?

Speaker 1:

Right. Well, you know, I mean, I think it was February of 2023 when I really started realizing that okay, I'm retired. This was my first year of retirement. When I got diagnosed, I didn't feel significant anymore. I wasn't Mrs Vaughn in the classroom anymore, I had gone through this cancer and I didn't feel that significance anymore. And so I do this work so that I can feel like I am helping in the breast cancer space, because I know how much I appreciated the advocacy work, the people who were there for me, and so doing this work helps me mentally and it makes sense to me that I put it on hold last February 2025, and I have really struggled since then mentally because of that, because I wasn't doing that on a constant basis, and so it makes sense that I have gone through and plus, of course, all the things that are happening in our country right now. That is very understandable that depression, anxiety and that's going to affect your, your brain, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think that I was talking to somebody the other day and I was saying you know the, the podcasts and the lives, you know that I do, they are for our community, but they have also acted as a form of therapy for me because it's speech-based, um, and, yeah, you, you know, I think it is so good that you, you recognize that, that for you, for yourself, and that you are, uh, giving back or I call it sharing forward.

Speaker 2:

I feel like it's like you know, we're sharing it forward and, similarly to you, my, my treatment path, my pathway and my experience was made easier because of others that had done that, who so generously, generously shared. But it completely makes sense what's happening in your country, particularly around health care, because you know, I think that, as people who've been through a health challenge particularly when it's been an existential one, that you know a life-threatening one is that our response to when we see those systems, um, those services, being dismantled, has more fire behind it. I think and that's not saying that you can't have that fire if you haven't had a diagnosis but what I'm saying is there's more of an urgency, it's more personal, it's deeply personal to us, because we know what it's not what it's like to not have access to, to you know, one part of that service. So, um, it makes sense that it would have triggered and let you open that way.

Speaker 1:

Well, yes, and also, when you have had cancer, there's always this risk of getting it again. And so it's like I think to myself, my God, what am I going to do if, you know, my insurance is pulled or you know, I mean, and I get cancer again? I mean there's no way that I'd be able to pay for anything because it's so gosh darn expensive, you know. So, anyway, it just yeah, it's, it's, it's a terrible situation over here. So, regarding me, when did you?

Speaker 2:

launch that. So I launched regarding me at the beginning of 2025 and regarding me and you know, now I question whether I should have called it regarding me as rewritten me and regarding me. I always fear that I'm going to call them the wrong things. But yeah, regarding me, I launched at the beginning of 2025 and that really came around from the stories that I heard from women who were podcast guests, but also in our community, about advocating for themselves. So women would share with me that they needed to advocate for themselves. But it was always kind of positioned in a way that I had to advocate for myself because I disagreed with my surgeon or I disagreed with my healthcare professional, or they weren't doing what I wanted, or I had some care that wasn't optimal and something didn't go to plan. And one of my guests she called it balls to the wall self-advocacy, which I think is an amazing term. She's an Aussie.

Speaker 1:

Love it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can tell it's quite an Aussie thing, I think and it really started me thinking about the work that I was doing and what women were saying, and really it was like actually self-advocacy sits below all my experience. I advocated for myself in the very first appointment that I had with the breast surgeon. When they said something to me that really shouldn't have been said to me and my husband was in that appointment he was really surprised. He was like I don't know where you got that from. I respectfully challenged them over something, um, and then when I thought about my experience and what, the stories that I'd heard and all the work that I was doing, what was always sitting under there was that I was supporting people to make informed decisions about their health, to encourage them to ask questions. You know the Instagram live Q&As with a healthcare professional whilst it was imparting information. It also showed that you could have a dialogue with this surgeon. You know that you can do that. You can be part of your shared informed decision making. It's you know, and actually in australia I'm sure you've got something similar.

Speaker 2:

In the states we have something called informed consent for surgery and part of that is that you need to have had the opportunity to ask questions. You need to know what the risks are and what the benefits are of a surgery. You need to be able to say actually decline and that's not what I want. You might be recommending it, but that's not what I want. For that to happen, you have to have a dialogue. You need to understand everything. So when I looked back I was like actually self-advocacy underpins everything that I've done. And we tell patients you need to advocate for yourself, right, but nobody's shown anyone else how to do it.

Speaker 2:

So, regarding Me, is about giving women who've had a cancer diagnosis any cancer the skills, or offering them the skills, should they wish, to take them up.

Speaker 2:

Offering them the skills to give them the confidence to speak up for themselves in a healthcare setting, make informed decisions and be able to effectively communicate with their healthcare team.

Speaker 2:

So I call it a self-health advocacy and for me that is to know you know what's important to you, know your rights, know your wants, needs, your values and your preferences and to be able to effectively and respectfully communicate that to your team. Now, I'm not saying that's going to guarantee what you want for treatment, but it's about you being able to advocate for yourself, to say this is what I would like to get and that's it. So it's, although we, we you know I talk to, so I, I talk to, um, people who've had a cancer diagnosis. It's not specifically about understanding treatment types for cancer, because that's the challenge. You know in our, in our world now, the way that treatments are evolving, that if I did a podcast about the treatment for a type of breast cancer today, next year, that might be a little bit out of date. So the podcast is about sharing the skills that you can use for yourself to find out what the latest treatment is.

Speaker 1:

I love that. That's so great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and and uh, it definitely is really important.

Speaker 2:

like I always tell my audience hey, make sure that you check the date on this episode, because things may have changed, um, and things could be updated, and when in doubt, make sure that you talk to your health care providers yeah, and I and you are just one sort resource right and one source of information and know I do research the guests that I have on, the healthcare professionals, the subject matter experts that I have on, and now on Regarding Me, I speak to life coaches or communication specialists, you know, to help with that as well as healthcare professionals.

Speaker 2:

But you know, and I research them, but still you need to be discerning Listeners need to be discerning listeners need to be discerning about what we're saying and I'm saying you know we're sharing our lived experience but, yeah, definitely checking the dates. You know, when I was, when I was diagnosed with invasive pleomorphic globular breast cancer, I, I couldn't find much information about it. There was some research stuff but it was quite old but also it wasn't really accessible. I, I really didn't understand it and I found a website that talked about that subtype and it was dire, the prognosis was dire, it was really awful, I know. But then, right at the bottom of this website and it was one of those where it didn't have different pages, just the information scrolled on forever and ever.

Speaker 2:

You got to the bottom of the page and then it said oh, this information is now out of date. There is more recent research around this, Do not? I know you're like, yeah, but why did you put that at the bottom of the page? You can put it at the top, so um, yeah. In big red letters or take the website down if you're saying that yeah right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that is a big part of what I'll be moving on to in regarding me and self-advocacy or self-health advocacy. It's not just me that's saying that it's important and that you're making informed decisions about, with evidence-based information. There's actually a paper that was published in 2021 and that offers a conceptual framework for self-advocacy for women who've had a cancer diagnosis. So it's research-based, academic paper that says there are benefits from advocating for yourself after you've had a cancer diagnosis and you are most likely to have better outcomes if you advocate for your health.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that's very good advice. I know that. You know, before cancer I knew that I needed to advocate for myself in different realms of my life, but that really forced me to have those hard conversations with my healthcare providers, so like I was able to talk to my oncologist when I knew what she was telling me was wrong. There were a few things that happened where I was like, no, because my husband and we took good notes, I paid attention and I had to call her on a couple of things like really important things.

Speaker 1:

Luanne, I was pretty surprised and she was kind of, you know, taken, taken aback I think a few times when I would tell her things. But I had to do that because otherwise it could have gone in a different direction, including a very rare anemia that I had developed because of the thymoma tumor. I had developed this really rare anemia and she thought it was a different kind of anemia than what it really was and I had to get a couple of opinions outside of her and so I just think it's so important, but it can be really scary to tell your healthcare provider you're wrong.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, because there's a complete imbalance. Right, there's a power imbalance. There's a knowledge imbalance. You might be, if you're being examined, you might be, or you're in hospital, you might not be fully clothed or and you're scared right, you're scared about it and it is really tricky to do that and actually what I found when I launched the podcast, I had a view of what the topics might be. You know what it's like and you're planning and things, and actually what it's come down to really for the first couple of seasons, is confidence building.

Speaker 2:

It's confidence building and knowing that you have the right to be a proactive participant in your care and to respectfully and effectively ask those questions right yeah, and to and to check, to check in, and you have a right to a second opinion and that doesn't need to be seen as being a confrontational or thing that's disagreeing with your health care professional. It might be that you're doing that to confirm what they're telling you and that you make sure you've got confidence in your choices.

Speaker 1:

Right, and that was what Dr Crisopolo talks about. He encourages his patients to go out and get a second or third opinion so that when you do come back you'll feel more confident in your decision on what you're doing. So I think that's great.

Speaker 2:

On a side note, just for Dr C, I don't know whether you'll keep this in, but you can if you want. But when I interviewed him it was really early in the morning in Australia because it fitted with his time and I'd been practicing and practicing and straight out the gate I mispronounced both his first name and his second name and I was mortified and I knew because I'd spoke like I knew I'd been on a podcast before with him as a guest. I knew how to say his name. Straight out the gate I pronounced both his first and his second name wrong and I was like and I'd been up since 430 because I was worried about missing my alarm and stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, a similar story. When I was talking to Dr Cabling, my surgeon, I interviewed him, I was pronouncing it. You know it's autologous surgery, but I was calling it autologous surgery and and so I was saying, oh, okay, and so autologous, and blah, blah, blah, you know, and and at one point, a little bit down the road, the way in the interview, he says an autologous surgery. And after that I'm like, oh, I guess, thanks for telling me how to actually pronounce yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think I did as well. I always get confused whether it's autologist or autologous and I'm just like people know what I mean and like yeah, let's, we're all different and we all have different accents and the way to say things. So as long as we can communicate, that's good.

Speaker 1:

Well, I know that. Um well, first of all, I will let my audience know that I've got all of your contact information. That will be in the show notes. I've got you're on Instagram, linkedin. You have your website Also. You have some resources. What is SSAS?

Speaker 2:

So that's SAS. So SAS, yeah, they're the six self-advocacy steps that I put together to help people get it. You know, just start off advocating for themselves and it's a free download on the website and it is just. It's very, just, very simple steps to start off with, but what's going to happen from that? I'm going to develop more in-depth resources to help build out these, and what I'm just doing at the moment is getting feedback from people to know which resources they want.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, six self-advocacy steps and they are just briefly, to breathe, believe in you, develop your iqa, which is something that I call informed question asking, which you'll find out more about on my site and then cut the crap. So cutting the crap, you know being discerning about your information. So crap is an acronym for how you can check whether the information you're looking at is good, speak up and be heard and then, curiously, check in. So check in with yourself. You know, sometimes, are we good, are we safe? But also, why am I making this decision? But curiously, like you did, you know, curiously feel comfortable to challenge your healthcare professional. I love that.

Speaker 1:

We need that. Yeah, yeah, so fabulous.

Speaker 2:

Advocate for yourself with a little bit of sass and free down sass.

Speaker 1:

I need to say it in American accent.

Speaker 1:

I love it so then, and then it looks like you're having some blogs and more stuff coming soon, like your resources, okay, so I know that we've talked about this about. Well, I want to go back to people who've never been diagnosed. My audience knows that one of my biggest audiences that I want to be. I want them to gravitate towards this podcast because I want to try to help people who have never been diagnosed. Before I didn't know a lot about breast cancer. I thought I knew a lot about breast cancer before breast cancer, but gosh, there's so much more that I did not know. And had I known before, I may have caught it earlier. And I always took care of myself. I always got mammograms and ultrasounds every single year. I knew I had dense breast tissue, I had had biopsies, so lots of different things. But I would like to know from you what kind of piece of advice would you give someone who has never been diagnosed?

Speaker 2:

I would say that you know you better than anybody else and believe in that you really do, and listen to your body. If it is giving you any sign that something is not quite right, and get it checked out. I do believe that, whilst I hadn't noticed the dimple in my breast, that just being generally unwell for that year or so, was my body kind of waving at me that something was going on. So, know you, get to know your body. You know, talk about curiously, checking in, curiously, check in with yourself. You know, get to know what your boobs like, what the parts of your body look like, what your skin looks like. If something new appears, something feels off, doesn't feel right, doesn't move right, it's all a little bit different. Go and check, get it checked out.

Speaker 2:

And I thought something that you said earlier was really good as well is that be your own health historian. So you talked about making notes and good notes when you were diagnosed and I talked about how, the challenges that I'm currently having I'm going to start tracking them my cognitive challenges and my mood Be your own health historian, because when you go to your doctor they will ask well, how long has this been happening and this and the other. So make a note of it. It might just be on your phone, it might be in a little notebook, but take note of that unusualness things not quite being right. That's what the doctor will want to hear from you when you go in there and you absolutely have the right to take that to your healthcare professional, and if they do offer something that is different than what you expected or they dismiss you, you have the right to ask them. Could you explain why you're giving me that advice, or could you explain what your rationale is behind that recommendation?

Speaker 1:

I love that Know you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know you better than anybody else. Sometimes, with all the noise in life, it can be difficult to tune into that, um, but you can do that. And actually one of the podcasts I've done with a wonderful psych, uh, susie Redding, and we talk about how to calm yourself, to bring yourself into the presence, um, but I think if get to know you and then get anything unusual checked out, and please, you know, do not, do not live in the fear of that getting it checked out. You know, I do hear still from women like they don't want to go for a mammogram because they're worried if something might be found. It's like an undiagnosed cancer is an untreated cancer.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, that breaks my heart when people say that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is and I know it's scary, but we are here for you. We are here and you know it's still. You'll be a little less alone with us and it can be scary. But yeah, going to an undiagnosed cancer is an untreated cancer and that is a life-threatening disease, you know, if you don't get it treated.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a hundred percent. The earlier the better, and I would highly recommend people going to the Know your Lemons website also because they have this awesome app number one. But they have resources on how to do an actual breast exam, and it's not just feeling your boobs, it's all the way up in into your lymph nodes, up in your neck and under your armpit. Yeah Right, and I never knew that, never even knew that. So they have a free app that makes it more fun and you know like, oh, it's so cute, um, and so you just go around and and uh, but that's that goes right along with get to know your body. So thank you, luann.

Speaker 2:

This has been amazing Thank you. Finally, I always get a little bit nervous about these things, which just sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? Cause I do this as a I'm okay, I'm asking the questions, but as a guest, I get quite nervous. And I said to you I get quite nervous but I'm okay because it's with you. So thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Well, you're very comfortable to talk to and I just think it's great and you have such an important story to tell and I appreciate all the things that you were able to share with us today and I hope that my audience will go to well, both rewritten me and I actually have your rewritten me on my buzz, uh sprout, so that when people actually go to Spotify or Apple, they'll see your podcast on there, and then it just says something like podcasts I recommend or whatever, and it's been on there for a long time. But I would like to put regarding me on there as well, One of the things I wanted to ask you real fast, real quickly. Are you still doing? Bravo, art.

Speaker 2:

Oh right, so I don't know what to do about Bravo art because Bravo art is a lot of work. So, for to explain to listeners, we know you probably all know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but the third Wednesday in October is BRA Day, breast Reconstruction Awareness Day. Now, although it says Breast Reconstruction Awareness, for me that also means you know awareness of flat closure as being a reconstruction option, but not a lot of people know about it. So what I did a couple of years ago I launched BRAVA Arts, which Jamie does, and basically what I ask people to do is when they're exercising running, walking, or look, we've had people rollerblading, cycling and all kinds of things, skiing and boating, yeah, boating, yeah, kayaking Is that when they're exercising, they do it in the shape of a bra and they track it on the exercise app called Strava. So bra day, bra, strava, bravart.

Speaker 2:

So that's what I brought together and there's no fundraising for it. It's just fundraising. It's just a way of raising awareness of reconstruction in a fun way. And, yes, we've had people kayak, ski, rollerblading. I've had somebody did a really tiny little bravura, handstands and cartwheels, like yeah, we've had some boating ones and stuff like that. So it has been fun. I'm hoping I might be able to do it this year. It's just quite a lot of work.

Speaker 1:

I can see that and I've. Actually, when I did it, I was walking my dogs and, yeah, my, my bra did not look good, it was not.

Speaker 2:

All braver art is good braver art right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know, a bra can just be like a sideways three. You know it's easy, but some people get really um competitive about it. So, yeah, there's some epic ones, like the first year we did it. A friend of mine in Liverpool in the UK, he cycled a love heart around Liverpool. It was 60 kilometers, love heart, and the skiing was the reconstructive plastic surgeon, joe Dusseldorf, that I mentioned, that I'd done the first reconstruction live with instagram, live. He skied a heart.

Speaker 2:

But it was all in 3d. It was all very extra, which you'd expect from somebody who's like you know, you know the lead in, they in there and what they do. The kind of it was all. It was all yeah, oh, a plus plus um, right. And and then some people have written the word Dieppe. Some people have written done the word flats, or they've done mastectomy scars and different things, but that's they've freestyled and that's cool. But really I just ask people to do a bra. And a bra is two triangles next to each other, right? Or you can do one triangle, a straight line, if you want to do it for a uni boober.

Speaker 1:

You can walk around your block, one block and then go over to the other block and walk around. Well, and it's just mainly to bring awareness.

Speaker 2:

It's just to bring awareness. I'd love, you know, I would love some support, and this is what I'm not very good at. I'm really great at having the ideas, but then trying to bring it together with lots of different people is sometimes a little bit tricky, especially in October. I'm actually thinking, jamie, we need to do a campaign where we take broad day and we put it in another month, cause I think it just gets lost in October because I try and get people involved for October and some really do get into it, please. You know they do and they're around the world. People in Malaysia do do it, uk, america like you, and um japan. You know they do it all over, but people are very busy with breast cancer awareness. So you know the charities. It's tricky to even get charities involved really. So right, it is busy. I wonder if we need to take it into another month, like they did with triple neg, triple negative breast cancer awareness days, not in October, okay.

Speaker 1:

Well, possibly that could be another month then. Well, okay, Luanne. Well, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. And, again to my audience, thank you for joining me and Luanne on this episode of Test those Breasts and we will see you on the next episode. Bye for now, Friends. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Test those Breasts. I hope you got some great much needed information that will help you with your journey. As always, I am open to guests to add value to my show, and I'm also open to being a guest on other podcasts where I can add value, so please reach out if you'd like to collaborate. My contact information is in the show notes and, as a reminder, rating, reviewing and sharing this podcast will truly help build a bigger audience all over the world. I thank you for your efforts. I look forward to sharing my next episode of Test those Breasts.

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