The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

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Tanya Flanagan 0:19
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya Flanagan, I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started. You

Tanya Flanagan 0:47
Good morning Las Vegas, and thank you for waking up to tune into another edition of the scoop with me. Tanya Flanagan, right here on 91.5k U, N, V, jazz and more. I am always pleased to be able to have this opportunity to say welcome and to talk with you about a number of different things, but we are still in the month of October, and the month of October, as you know, for me, is always dedicated to breast cancer awareness, and this is our final Sunday in this fabulous month. And I'm excited and delighted, really, to close it out on a slightly different note and have a panel discussion, which I've never done before, but I'm welcoming several women to the studio today to talk about their cancer, breast cancer journey, and just to share insight, and hopefully leave those of you who might be moving through the experience in your own personal space right now, have a loved one, have a friend and just trying to understand the different ways that breast cancer affects women. The women in the studio are black women, and as a black woman, I'm what to come from this perspective. And even though our conversation won't be unique to us, it will be the difference the way we've shared our different experiences. So without further ado, I am welcoming to the studio this morning. Nourse, Las Vegas, justice. Judge Belinda T Harris. Bo tough and honest, and I love her dearly. So good morning. Judge here. Good morning, good morning. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for taking some time. She's always smiling, folks, and just always full of positivity. And this is a big weekend in town, like there's so much going on this weekend with the Las Vegas classic game and just other stuff. So we'll get into we may go on a little some tangents here and there, but for the most part, we'll stay focused. And another wonderful guest I have with me that I'm also having the pleasure of getting to know as well as you guys are going to get to know her. Jacoby Clark, who is a young breast cancer survivor.

Jacobi Clarke 2:33
Hi, thank you for having me as well. I'm so excited to be here.

Tanya Flanagan 2:36
Thank you for taking some time to be here, and we'll talk with another guest later on in the show. So we're going to mix it up a little bit today. Bit today. Each of you one time a three time breast cancer survivor. So is anyone a more than once or just multiple? I know Belinda, you've had multiple we both have multiple chapters.

Belinda T. Harris 2:53
Yeah, I call myself the million dollar woman because of all of the different procedures and things that I've been through as a result of getting such diagnosis. I call myself the million dollar woman. So I, you know, I think once you have it, you have it. Unfortunately, it's kind of how I look at it. Because, you know, everybody has certain cancer cells. It's just who's gets active and who's doesn't. So only been diagnosed once, but have had numerous trials and tribulations and things directly as a result of having such diagnosis.

Tanya Flanagan 3:28
So let's put people on the page of what types, what type of breast cancer did you

Belinda T. Harris 3:32
have? I had er, PR, positive, H, H, E, r2, negative. Okay, so mine was all hormonal, crazy story. Now, looking back, I had been on birth control since I was about 14 or 15, even though I was not sexually active due to my administration. When my administration started, I was a dancer. I still dance, but I was a trained dancer, went to a performing arts high school, majored in, you know, just a dancer. And as a result of my physical activity, my menstrual cycle, I would be hemorrhaging, and so it would put me down for about 10 to 12 days out of the month, which, you know, being a young person, I can't be down for half the month every month. So the solution was to be on birth control, which definitely assisted a lot. And then I became sexually active and did not want to have children, and so I remained on the birth control. I'm not saying that's what caused it, or anything like that, but it was all hormones, my diagnosis, and I got diagnosed when I was 36 years old, which is another story, because, as you know, in societal norms, they tell you you don't need to get a mammogram and or the insurance doesn't like to approve it until you're like, 40, unless you have some type of history. Well, I had no history. Clearly I wasn't 40. But the thing about me, while I'm all. Always smiling, as my big sister said, I'm definitely do not like to be told no, and so if you tell me no, that guarantees a yes in the end. And so you know, when they told me, Oh, you're not getting a mammogram, we don't, you don't, you know, I was like, Oh, is that right? And here we go on this journey. So another funny joke about me as I say, I've only had one and done. I got one mammogram. I got diagnosed. I cut both of my breasts off so I never get another one.

Tanya Flanagan 5:31
That is the one and done approach to the journey it

Jacobi Clarke 5:34
is that's funny, because I'm the same, but I've never thought of it like that. You

Tanya Flanagan 5:39
have to laugh sometimes not to cry, right, right? I mean, you do, yeah. What's your story?

Jacobi Clarke 5:44
So, I am 29 years old. I was diagnosed when I was 27 I my cancer was a stage 3b invasive ductal carcinoma, which means that the lymph nodes were involved.

Belinda T. Harris 5:57
That was mine, too. Stage 3b is, yeah,

Tanya Flanagan 6:02
the technical diagnosis for yours. Belinda,

Belinda T. Harris 6:05
the same. What she said, Okay, so,

Jacobi Clarke 6:06
stage three, invasive ductal carcinoma. Okay, I had lymph node, lymph node involvement, which means they took, I think, like six or eight when they when I had my surgery. I am not the same that I am a triple positive. I'm her two positive, er, positive, PR, positive, which is apparently not. I mean, it's rare, not positive, triple positive. Most people

Belinda T. Harris 6:29
are triple negative. I'm triple

Belinda T. Harris 6:30
positive. No, I was positive, positive, negative. Okay, so, yeah, okay. And I had 28 lymph nodes taken out. Oh, my on my right side. I had, I had 28 lymph nodes taken out on my right side and six on my left side. Do you ever have any lymphedema? So, funny story again, I wear a sleeve. Okay, so I'm a judge now, but before that, I was a career public defender. I was a litigator, so I thought it was kind of cool, right? Because people would come in, they like, well, what's that on your arm? I'm like, I'm about to ball you up, like AI, because he that's who I don't really know sports, but I know Allen Iverson, right? So he wears a sleeve. So I'm like, Yeah, I'm out here, like, my sleeve on so I wear sleeve a lot of times, and I definitely travel with a sleeve, like when I take fights and things like that. But as you know, I'm a gym rat.

Tanya Flanagan 7:24
So she's a gym rat, folks, I feel inspired every time I see her fitness. I feel

Jacobi Clarke 7:31
inspired. I need some of that inspiration.

Tanya Flanagan 7:35
Okay, so Jacoby, I gotta, I gotta learn more about you. Yes. So back to 3b diagnosis,

Jacobi Clarke 7:41
yes, so stage 3b diagnosis I ended up doing. So let me tell you how I found out. So I'm 27 all of my friends are probably between 25 and 35 nobody's getting mammograms, nobody's, you know, aware of what things look like though we should, you know. And in retrospect, I'm like, I should have been a little bit more aware. But my friend, you know, that's not just what we're thinking of right now, you know. And so my tumor was 13 centimeters, and when I say that, people was like, Oh my God, when I experienced it, mind you, I had, I was, like, a 3642 Triple D. So for me, I was like, Oh, this is just normal, you know? I would, I had my tumor, though, and I would go around, and I'd ask women, and I'd be like, Hey, can you feel this is this weird? Is this normal? You know? And so my doctor, my primary care, is a nurse practitioner. Black woman. Love her to death. Ashley Smith, she's amazing. And so when I went to go see her, this was September or October of 2023, I had a lump then. And obviously, just because of my age, she was like, hmm, you have dense breasts. I breastfed my son for three and a half years. So she was like, you know, it could be a block dog or something of that effect. It was only maybe a year and a half after I stopped breastfeeding. So it was just, you know, maybe, so don't know what it is. Keep looking at. Let's just keep an eye on it. Then in December, I have asked many women, I don't know what made me inclined me to just be like, hey, you know what? Actually, let's just take a step forward. Let's just go for it. But I messaged her through the parent through the patient portal, and I was like, Hey, I'm ready. Can you please send it through? She didn't make me come see her. She didn't. She was sent it through, and the next day it was there. So they sent me to imaging and good old system that we have. They called me the day before and said, Hey, actually, and I had already waited six weeks, five or six weeks to get to that appointment. They called me the day before and said. Said, actually you're contracted at a different imaging, so you need to call them to do your mammogram. So I had to wait an extra four or five weeks. So from I was supposed to get it in the middle of January, I didn't get it until March. I didn't get my mammogram until March 18. Sounds about right around there, and so I went in for my mammogram after waiting all this time for the insurance, and because the tumor was so big and they had the mammogram, the provider there was like, um, come back tomorrow. We're gonna do your biopsy. And that's when I knew. I was like, okay, something's not right. I already had the discernment that this probably is not normal. I don't know if I thought it was cancer right away, but the way that she was acting, obviously the way that everyone was acting, you know, and just like I said that that lump in my breast was getting bigger and bigger, so I did the biopsy, and I did that on a Friday, and I'm not a person who waits or likes to be told no or, you know, I'm just, I'm a Virgo. I'm from New York, very go getter, very just do it. And I got an email on that Sunday that my results were back in and so, of course, I went and looked like, you know, someone shouldn't, but, you know, I should have waited till I got the call. I feel like, but you know what? I was in the middle of a gig. It was, was it Super Bowl? No, it wasn't Super Bowl weekend, but it was another big I'm a events. I do event staffing. And I was at a gig, I was event lead, you know, I had 20 something of my staff there, and this was a very high end event, and I am in the back room looking at my email, and I'm like, oh, and I'm just like, Okay, I gotta, I gotta, I It shook me. It shook me for real. I never thought at 27 that I would have breast cancer. So called my dad. I, you know, I went to the back room. I called my dad, I let him know, cooled my cousin, and then I was like, All right, gotta shake it off. I gotta, I'm at work. I gotta keep going, you know, I need the money. I need to be there. I need to, you know, make things happen.

Tanya Flanagan 12:09
Isn't that crazy, how in the moment you have to find the resiliency always, I mean, Belinda, where were you when you first got when you first found out I'm just, I don't know if I remember, if you've ever really

Belinda T. Harris 12:19
had to do the same thing. You got the emails. Yeah. So what happened? My story is kind of the same. Whenever I would be in court, on long days, I would come back and change into something comfortable, to do desk work from actually being litigating. And my social worker at the time, who was also my good friend, who's still my good friend, her mother had had breast cancer, and, you know, I'm a gym rat, and there are times when I'm trying to be skinny and lean, and there are times when I'm trying to bulk up, right? So in this particular time, it was in my bulky stage, and so when I was changing my clothes, and I've always had, I'm a very petite individual by nature. I have small hands, small feet. I'm small frame. I'm just a petite person, and I always had small breasts as well. So she I'm changing out while she's telling me something about one of my clients, and she says to me, what is that on the side of your chest? And I said, Girl, I'm in the gym. This my muscle. Like, I'm, you know, I'm bulking up. This is what it looks like. And she said, that does not look right. She was like, so as I'm getting dressed, she's like, we're leaving. And I'm like, Well, where are we going? She's like, to the ER, so you can get this check, because I know you, you will not stop, and you be like, not doing anything. So that moment, I was like, you know, I'm like, bro, we don't got time for this. Like, I just got out of court. I got to crank this motion out. She's like, well, we're leaving. So we go and we go down to the ER and they basically fill around and do some testing. And the physician there told me, I don't think it's anything, you know, it's probably from the way you wear your bras, and you can't get a mammogram anyway, so we'll just have to wait. And I was like, wrong. You know what I mean, like Dave, he would have said something a little different. Don't tell me what I'm doing. Who are you? Right? Some other choice words understanding me on Public Radio. But So after that, it was full on, like, well, and I'm like, and I want it stat. And I ended up getting it within a week or two, and I got it stat, what?

Tanya Flanagan 14:28
No, I can't have something. This is what you're gonna do, run me in order.

Belinda T. Harris 14:34
It is gonna be stat, and I'm gonna go now. And I was coming out the courthouse, and results came up. And you know, that's what we do. Anyways, I always am checking my email, looking at the phone, and I started reading it, and it said that, and I didn't know the terminology, but I know it didn't say benign, that it was three more words, the one. Right? And it was IDC instead of the just the B. So I was like, Whoa, that's wild. And then, yeah, had to start on the process. Had to start kind of clearing out my docket, you know? And I had to be very transparent and vulnerable, because I was a litigator, and some of my clients, their their liberty is at interest. They're in custody, and I'm going through a process of, I don't know. I mean, I ended up getting a double mastectomy, had to be out of work for a minimum of six weeks, and I had trials on the book. And I remember I had one client where the judge told him, like, well, she's not going to be here. And this is an open court now, public courtroom, and he's like, record, yeah. And she's like, the judge is like, Oh, I don't think you understand. She's not gonna be here. I have to get he was like, no, she told me she got cancer, and I'm just gonna wait till she get back. She ain't gonna die. Like, this is all in open court.

Belinda T. Harris 15:56
So then other attorneys are looking the DA is looking at me. My other clients,

Tanya Flanagan 16:02
the pity, right? Everybody asked for but you get the pity. The pity. Look like. Everybody is like, how do you decide to tell my entire story? Right to somebody?

Belinda T. Harris 16:16
This is open courtroom, though, so there's not there's people in there, I know, and there's people in there I do not know, but they all know your business. Now, he's like, Yeah, I know she got cancer, and she ain't gonna die, so I'm gonna be in custody. I don't want her removed from my case. And the judge is looking at me, and I'm looking at him, he's like, what? I can't go with another attorney. I'm like, Well, Judge, he's gonna sit I guess, but and so then after that, you know, working downtown, I call it the 13th grade, you know, it just spread like a wildfire. And then, you know, there's rumors that go with it. When you get start getting work done on your body. It was, it was definitely a journey,

Tanya Flanagan 16:56
a lot. And with that, I am very excited about welcoming one more person to our conversation, and that is Selena. Hi, hi. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the invitation. Tell us a little bit about your breast cancer.

Selena Love 17:12
My journey started. I felt I did a self exam, and that's how I found it, and it was about the size of a raisin when I found it, or maybe you could say maybe a Black Eyed Pea. It was small, was hard, and I know what it was, and I've had like a little cyst before, from pre menstrual sis, way before menopause. And so I was like, I'd give it a little while, maybe it'll move or something. So I think was maybe I waited maybe a month or so before I notified my doctor, and this was right after, it was like post covid, so she was still doing phone video, phone interviews, so I was trying to show her on camera this lump, and kind of show her, but she referred me to OBGYN, you know, a guy, any doctor. And so it took a minute to get an appointment for that. That was July of 2022, and by the time I got that appointment, and they give me ultrasounds in the lower region. And I'm like, You do notice about my breast, right? And so that time we got all that straight and the biopsies, it was October before I actually got diagnosed, October 5, and by that time, it was the size of, like a medium egg, egg, or plum, small plums. Yeah, it was growing aggressively. So they had to treat me aggressively. And so that's how I find my doing a self exam. So it's very important, ladies and gentlemen, to do self exams. Exactly what type were you diagnosed with? I was diagnosed triple negative. They say that is the worst one triple negative. And there's some other technical terms, but that one is the one I most commonly can remember. And so they told me the treatment plan was going to be to have, you know, chemo, then surgery, then radiation, and then immunotherapy. And I had just that within those two years.

Tanya Flanagan 18:55
It's quite the journey. We've all talked about the positive negative factor. I was a triple positive breast cancer, and this is really a significant piece of the conversation, because it's black women. And I told a share with you listening audience at the beginning of the show that this was a conversation across African American women and how breast cancer has affected the lives of different these different women here in the studio with me this morning, and the triple negative component is so important, because oftentimes black women are diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. I had a triple positive. Jacoby did as well. Belinda had a combo. I don't know that I've actually ever met a person who had a combination of two positive factors and one negative factor. That's what my doctor said. And the reason why this is a significant piece of the conversation is because, like Selena's triple negative breast cancer, most of the time black women are diagnosed triple negative. And what that means is the medications commonly prescribed to treat breast cancer are not known to work for us if diagnosed triple negative. Right? Hmm, I want to take a moment to shout out the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, because they have a study for black women, and they're asking women age 25 to 55 who've never been diagnosed with any cancer to participate in the study. And you can find the information on the cancer.org website, I believe it is and you can participate in the study, and what they'll do is contact you, if you sign up and follow you for about a year, and it looks at your life journey, environmental factors, economic factors, family health history, socioeconomic it's just all kinds of stress factors, different things that may contribute to how black women develop cancer, how we respond to cancer, how we treat it, how we survive it, or don't survive it. And so I encourage you, if you're listening, or you know someone between the age of 25 and 55 who's a black woman, to encourage them to participate in the study. And a lot of times, the reason why the triple negative breast cancer has been something that's been it's gotten better, but it's been so challenging to treat for such a long time, I think is the limited knowledge that the medical community has about us to begin with in order to craft a solution. You know, some of that is, you know, and we've made great stress because my I lost my mother at 29 to breast cancer. She was 58 I don't know what type of breast cancer my mom had. I assume she was triple negative. And I assume that because five years after remission of taking tamoxifen every day, her side was hurting, and the side pain turned out to be a tumor in her liver. And as we know, breast cancer spreads from the breast, liver, bones, lungs and now the brain. So I assumed that that five year remission mark that we were so happy to reach 30 days later. Oh, My side hurts. The minute she quit that medication. I don't feel good. Wow. Turned out there was a tumor in her liver, and you just don't beat the liver. So she didn't beat she she outran it as long as she could, but she didn't beat it. So I don't know one of the things we just are sharing about this, um, I would say, What would you say to people about what you think was the most significant thing you did in your journey to respond to this punch in life? It's

Belinda T. Harris 22:13
a fight. You know? What you do to win? Squabble up. I always say it ain't no winning or no losing, because you ain't so not pushing religion, but I believe in God, come on, and so you ain't the maker or the taker. When your numbers up, your numbers up. Now, some of us don't like the way our number ends, but at the end of the day, the day gotta end, and we don't make that decision. So, you know, I always said it's a scrap, right? And although I'm a judge and I believe in justice and the law, you know when you having a street fight, there's no rules in the fight unless the ref calls it. And we know when you having a brawl, there's no referee, so you just got to do what you have to do, what fight to win. You got to fight the win. And so that's what I did. And with that being said, I just did not leave no stone unturned, right? Whether it was on the medical part with doctors, whether it was some elders praying, whether it was so and so up the street that said they believe that these type of greens help prevent Okay, well, I'm gonna eat them. Bring them down here, like, right? We're gonna do it all. I'm not going to leave any stone unturned, and life is for the living. So what I what I will say that I know that I did that has helped me on the journey. I always felt like I was living. But it wasn't until after my diagnosis, and I kind of got my quote, unquote clean bill of health, that I started maxing it out, because we can get in that routine where we're not taking care of ourselves, claiming we don't have time, blah, blah, blah, and so I really just started to live, and I'm going to live every day max it out, you know? I'm preparing for the future, but at the end of the day, I'm not as

Tanya Flanagan 24:02
well. I understand that because this one, because you she does not sleep. Jacoby, I want to what piece of advice in life would you give to say you use this tool to respond.

Jacobi Clarke 24:14
So I do want to just respond real quick for to what you said, because it's funny. Because I don't believe in God. I was raised in the church. My my, I just, I don't believe in religion. I think there's a high, higher power, but I don't think I'm sanctified enough to tell somebody that what they believe in is wrong, and of that, but I still, there were so many people that were sitting there trying to pray for me, and I was like, Okay, I will take it, you know, I will take it. And, you know, maybe there's something to it. I don't know, but again, that's that, that belief of, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. I just don't believe in this. I also am a mom to a seven year old autistic son, and he was five at the time when I was diagnosed, and it was a lot of just looking at my child and saying, Do I want to be here for him? Am, you know, do I want to keep going? But it was also myself too, my best friend. So I was diagnosed in March. My first oncologist told me that I was going to die if I didn't start chemo right away. And I said, Oh, that's nice, okay? And I went on a European cruise with my best friend, because I had to do my fertility treatments, because, again, I'm 29 I was 27 and so if there's a possibility of me having children later on, I had to get that done first. And it was really just the belief and the knowledge that, like I had to do things first, just in case it didn't work out. But once I get those things out of my system, I'm going to fight, I'm going to go through. So I did my fertility treatments, which was a lot, but, and then me and my best friend went on a European cruise for seven days, and then I came home, and the very next day, two days later, I started chemo, and I had six rounds of chemo I was supposed to do, like eight or nine, and I just couldn't do it. And I'm another one. I said, Okay, I'm going to do what I want to do. So my doctor pushed me, and she I got a new doctor, she's amazing, and she a new oncologist, and she pushed me, and she said, Can we do six rounds of chemo? I said, All right, I'll try to do six rounds of chemo. Got to the six. I did the double mastectomy. I too am like, I'd rather just get it done. I don't want to deal with this again. And then I did 20 four out of 25 rounds of radiation, because again, that last one, I was like, Oh, I don't want to do this. You

Selena Love 26:27
are tough. You're like, the rebel. And I mean, the piece I want to take from and then lean. I want to hear what you did to respond, because we're getting to the very, very, very end of the show, and I don't want to run out of time to hear what you did. Is that it's your body, and you always have the right you should participate in your treatment, and you should feel good about what's being decided for you with your doctor and agree to it. And this isn't to say, do this. Don't do this. Do five out of 10. Understand who you are, understand your treatment, research your options, know what's being given to you, and advocate for yourself. Participate in the process. We're down to the last minute. But Selena, what piece of advice? We don't have a lot, so you got to be quick. Would you give to somebody to did you use to fight? I used the different carcinogens we put in our body. I stopped putting them in different like, you know, fragrances and things like that, and I started using more natural things. I think I usually say cancer saved my life, actually, because I started eating differently. I started resting, I started exercising, doing those things that you know I had been avoiding, the you know, because, you know, you think you're infallible, you know, when you're young. And so I stopped eating beef, I stopped eating pork, I stopped eating dairy, I stopped eating sugar, I stopped eating processed foods. And luckily, and I too, believe in God. My cousin, who's a Christian as well, she had, she's a nurse and she's a vegan, but she was preparing me. She did a lot of meal preps for me, and so she did a whole lot of that food for me to and I lost 30 pounds in 30 days.

Tanya Flanagan 27:56
Lena, thank you for bringing attention to how important it is to have a good diet, folks, we are out of time. It has been a great show. It's so much information to give. It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you Jacoby, thank you judge Harris. Thank you Selena for spending time with me on the show today and tuning in. Everyone to the scoop right here on 91.5 KU NV, jazz and more, breast health is so important. Do your self checks? Advocate for yourself. Love on those that you know are going through it and just continue to be a community that supports one another together,

Selena Love 28:30
we can win. That's right, my support

Jacobi Clarke 28:31
system, don't think you're too young. Yes

Tanya Flanagan 28:33
and don't Yes and men get breast cancer too. Hello. We'll see you next time you I want to thank you for tuning into the scoop with me. Tonya Flanagan, and I want to invite you to get social with me. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle, T, a n, y, A F, l, a N, A, G, A N. You can also find me on Instagram at Tonya almond eyes Flanagan, and if you have a thought, an opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tonya.flanagan@unlv.edu Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai