The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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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.

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You Good morning, Las Vegas. It's a pleasure to once again. Welcome you to another edition of the scoop with me. Tonya Flanagan, it's always nice to be here on 91.5k U N, V Public Radio. It is a wonderful service, what they do for our community, and I am grateful to be a part of the recording family. It is the month of October, and I introduced you in our show last week that to judge Belinda T Harris and let you know that for the month, as a breast cancer survivor, one of my great joys is being able to put some focus on a horrible disease, but grateful for the progress we're making in this area, and this week, I'm delighted to welcome another person to the show. Delighted because my welcoming her means she's a survivor. It means she's survived breast cancer, and she's still here with us and has had more time in life to share her story or testimony, just to do great things, whatever that may be. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce my friend and girlfriend, Marguerite Jones. Marguerite, thank you for joining me this morning,

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and thank you for having me. Tanya, I

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am delighted to have you. I basically want you to share with us what breast cancer was like when you had it, who you are now, who you were, then how it impacted your life. So paint a picture and draw us in so that we know what it was like for you.

Unknown Speaker 2:09
Okay, so first of all, first of all, I am so very grateful to be here to share this information. I am a two time breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed in 2004 with stage two triple negative breast cancer, and my cancer was discovered through a routine mammogram. I felt great. I didn't think anything was wrong. It was just routine. But my doctor told me, called me to tell me that my mammogram came back and looked suspicious. I was really nervous about what the final prognosis would be, because she said she had to run some more tests, have it viewed by a specialist, then she ordered a biopsy, and of course, when the biopsy came back and the doctor told me the two words that I never wanted to hear, and it was its cancer, I immediately did what I now refer to as three Ds. The first D, I'll be honest, I was devastated. I always lived my life sunny side up. I had a wonderful life, but the news turned my world upside down. Secondly, my second D was denial. I felt great. I always ate healthy, I exercise, and I didn't have any history of breast cancer in my family. So of course, I'm wondering how, how could this be happening? But the last D was determination. I was determined to get well. But let me go back to when I got this doctor diagnosis from my doctor. I didn't just stop there, because she had started to order a lot of different tests for me, and initially my insurance said I'm not covering this. So again, that was another shock, and the reason they didn't cover it was because I really had not been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was just it looked suspicious. So I became really, really proactive, and I started getting a lot of information from this doctor's office that I didn't feel comfortable with. And of course, I knew this is all new to me. I'm devastated. I'm in denial. So I got a second opinion. I moved to another doctor who I liked better, and was able to explain things to me better, and I felt a little more comfortable with it, but I had to become very proactive about my health. I first I did that by changing doctors. Also when I say I was in denial, i. I didn't share my prognosis with anybody other than my husband, and at the time, I had gone back to work because I had just moved to Las Vegas in 2002 I retired from the company in the Bay Area, and this is 2004 but I was, I guess, I don't want to say I was afraid, but I just didn't want to share the information yet, because I didn't know what to expect, and I kind of wanted to go through it alone.

Unknown Speaker 5:26
That's reasonable. I mean, there's a space where I think, well, I know, in my case, being a three time, the first time, you know, just started a new job, and I'm young, lots of energy. I think there was this feeling I just wanted the doctor to fix it, like, here's your job, you're a doctor. Someone said to me, there's breast cancer. I'm young. I'm barely out of my 20s, so you still feel like you're in your 20s at that point, right? And I just wanted the person, I just wanted the doctor to fix it. And And fast forward to the third time, second time even really, but the third time really became a different type of storm and a different type of responsibility. And so I applaud you for the action you took. It's important to advocate for yourself, and I stress that a lot. I used to work with Coleman as a board member and President, and I can't stress enough when I go out and talk to women in churches, different women's groups, that part of the quality of care that you're going to get. I don't care what you're diagnosed with. You have to check in, and you have to advocate for yourself, because no one knows your body better than you, how you're feeling when your body is changing, when you feel different, really, than you do. And I'm not saying that. You know, Belinda was on judge. Harris was on last week, and she talked about feeling fatigued and thinking that the fatigue she was feeling as her breast wall was caving in was due to the busyness of her lifestyle. So she didn't realize at first that there was a complication dietary breast cancer. But once she checked in, she realized it wasn't just, Oh, I'm tired and fatigued because I'm so busy. She was tired and fatigued because her breast wall was caving in and putting this under pressure. So I think it's just a good point that we make to listeners, to be mindful of your body and to advocate and to be willing to say, I don't like this doctor. I had to do that once with the plastic surgeon in my case, the first one that was recommended to me, just he didn't want to explain anything and the quality of care, it was like I was just someone who was going to go through breast cancer. You take off my breast, you put another one on. Just sit here. Here's what we're going to do. Absolutely not,

Unknown Speaker 7:53
right? Yeah, you have to be proactive. And that's learned, not. The other thing is the reason I kept it just to myself, and it wasn't just myself. I had just started a new job, too, and I had to let my HR department know my boss, and I didn't even let my staff know, because I guess they didn't want people to feel sorry for me to a certain extent, but I didn't know what to expect, and when I did finally start to tell my family, of course, my husband knew he was my best advocate, and i Everybody wanted to give me advice when I let my best friend even Know who lives in the Bay Area, everybody had advice. And then, you know, they wanted people to call me, and I know they meant well, but for me, I just didn't want that at the time. And you know, the number one advice that everybody gave me, quit your job. Well, for me, oh, my goodness, really, yes, they said You need rest. And that told me they didn't know how they really didn't know what I was going through. But you know what I did, that job helped me to get through my treatments, because I didn't think about it, because I have to say, during the whole time I went through my treatments, and I went through six treatments of chemotherapy and 12 treatments of radiation, I never got sick one day. Even my oncologist said, Have you started your treatment? Wow, I see. I said, Yeah. And he said, Really, I need to check some things. And I'm thinking, this better be breast cancer, you know, but I say that to say this, you have to use your own judgment a lot of times, and you can't. I know my friends meant well, my family meant but everybody's case is different. It's it's different exactly alike. I

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think people don't realize that with breast cancer, you can get dia. Knows the people ask you for advice, because people do it with me. But no, every case is not it's not the same. To your point, I didn't get sick either. In I remember going to my first chemo appointment, because I did the really tough chemo for four months. It started in October, 2008 and I remember going in, and the lady there's there was a another patient there. She says, Oh, you're gonna feel this, this and this. And I just refused to receive that bad. I just didn't want to receive that. It was her journey. But I only got sick the first time from trying to manage all of the meds, not so much the cancer treatment itself or the cancer. And I wasn't sick anymore. For the entire year that I did the really hard chemo and then kept going through the intravenous treatment that they do for a year, I was never sick,

Unknown Speaker 10:52
yeah, and that's, you know, because the same thing I heard is, you're going to be really sick. You're not going to be able to eat. Well, it was just reversed for me. I was eating so much my husband, were you my husband? And he asked my oncologist. He said, I'm really worried about her. She's eating twice as much. And he looked at him, and he said, let her eat.

Unknown Speaker 11:15
Let her eat. I ate around the clock. Every three hours I was hungry. Marguerite, every three I was, look, wait everybody in the house. My dad would come and stay with me and help me. Everybody would be in the bed. He would be in the bed sleep. The dog would be chilling. I was up trying to find in my kitchen, trying to find something to eat at three o'clock in the morning because I was hungry. I was hungry every three hours. I ate every three hours around the clock. And the craziest thing that I craved in my brother, when he came to stay with me one time, to just, you know, put in his shift of, how's my baby sister doing? And says, Is there anything you want? I said, Don't be surprised. I said, you surprised. But can we go? Can we go to McDonald's? Because I want cheeseburger, and he was like, what? Because I always ate, you know, really tried to eat healthy and stuff, and at that point in life, no, you know, not knocking McDonald's, just I had reached the age of my life where you can't just eat McDonald's. It's like when you're young, you can eat McDonald's, right? And so I had reached a point in my life where I couldn't quite do that. But he was like, you want to go to McDonald's? I said, Yes, this thing with chemo, I seem to have this craving for McDonald's, just the little cheeseburgers. And we went and we got a cheeseburger for me. And then he says, you good? I said, Nah, I should have got two. Only got one, and now I still want another one. And he was looking at me like, Oh, my goodness, what is going on with you? But I did. I had these, you know, I wanted cheeseburgers to hear

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that, because my daughter in law was pregnant, and she wanted In and Out Burger. And Joe was going to get the In and Out Burger. Joe's my husband and I said, Get me two and two bags of fries. He looked at me like, What?

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What is going on?

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I don't even eat that. Yes, it took me no time to eat it, in a way,

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in the car, in the car on the way home, because some people can it was I gained. I gained about six pounds when I was going through chemo. I did. I got on that scale. I started at one level. When I started, by the time it was over, I was like, Oh, am I wait what? And, yeah, Sydney had a whole my friend, Sydney. You remember Sydney sales? I know Sydney had a song for me, Miss New. I said, forget you. You know that, Miss New, you fill in the blank. I said, shut up, Sydney. She changed my call, my call song. When I her phone would ring, and I was like, you were so out of line, so Well, you know, chemo has done some things. I was

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like, whatever. But you know, when you look back at it,

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it was a blessing, because when I would

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go get treatments, I tell you, some of the patients were just they couldn't eat. They couldn't eat, and it was sad. And here I am. I I'm eating like a, you know, just crazy. But anyway, I say that to say this, everybody is different. And I talked to a lot of women. You know that now? Know that I got breast cancer, and I listen to them, because the treatments they get are different than what I had. I don't, you know, I don't try to say you shouldn't get that you shouldn't do that everybody's body is different, and they have really newer treatments now, different than what I had first time. Yeah, and then my breast cancer did come back a second time. It decided to visit me again in 2016 which was 12 years after the first bout. And this time it wasn't triple negative, because what I didn't say about triple and

Unknown Speaker 14:40
I was going to touch on that. I'm so glad you're going here, because last week when Judge Harris was on and we talked, she was a triple positive and I was a triple positive diagnosis as well. But we we touched on what it means, and I disclose it. She's African American. You're African American. I am as well. The difference. And breast cancers in black women versus women of other color, and how black women are usually predisposed to develop triple negative breast cancers that don't respond to the traditional course of treatment, which is the taxoteric carboplate and Herceptin triple positive treatment that triple negatives don't respond to that. So you mentioning that you were a triple negative diagnosis, I thought was very important, and that we should talk about it. So you were about to share your second diagnosis was not triple negative.

Unknown Speaker 15:33
Yeah, my second diagnosis was not triple negative. It was in the same breast, and my oncologist said that's the good thing. It's an it was considered a new cancer, and that time I had, you know, estrogen, and I could be treated with some with a medication, however, triple negative, like you said, there's no, you really can't take any medication to treat it, and when I say treat it, it's really to prolong your life, if you will. Yeah, and I was concerned about that because I knew a lot about it, because my sister in law was diagnosed with breast cancer a year before me, and she was triple negative, so I did a little research just for her, and we, when I got it, we were both concerned that, why can't we take medication? Everybody else is taking it. But really it was, it worked for us, you know, we didn't take medication. And some doctors had said

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I went to so when you say you didn't take medication, what did they do? Like, because I was a triple positive, and so I received the Met, the T, C, H medicine. I

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received nothing, nothing. I just couldn't take anything afterwards. And, yeah, but

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you said you went through chemo and you went through radiation, right? Yeah,

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I went through, but the treatment after you finish that, you know, usually they'll put you on Tamoxifen, or I couldn't take any of the after drugs because they they don't respond. And so there. Now I understand there is something new out there. I see it advertised on TV. But in a way, many doctors have said, because I went to quite a few seminars, that maybe it's a good thing that you don't have to take anything now, the second time I did, because I had harm, I had estrogen. You know, you

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had estrogen components, so you had a hormone positive right?

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And I did take lectures all for five years, and I can tell you the side effects were. They were there, but not as bad as some people. I talked to a lot of women that were on different medications, and some of them were just having bad side effects. I had them, but I endured. And what I mean by endured, I keep myself busy, I keep my mind off of maybe pain. So for me, that worked, like everybody is different, and after the five years, I had the option to continue taking them for three more years. But my oncologist said, and honesty, probably it's not going to do make any difference. So I said, well, let's just forget it. And so now I'm eight years after the second diagnosis, eight years out. And you know, you just, I just stay great up to be honest with you and but I will say having breast cancer did change my life somewhat. I am more willing to share my walk. I'm more willing to open up about the breast cancer, and I joined a group called Sisters network, which is an African American breast cancer group. They have 25 chapters. We had a chapter here in Las Vegas, and it, I don't want to say, dissolve, but right now it's at a standstill, but it's looking at breast cancer for African American women. And the founder and president of that organization is, I think, a six time breast cancer survivor. And I go to some of the, I mean, I support many organized breast cancer organizations, Susan Coleman, which I knew you were really involved in. I you know, I supported them as well. But it was kind of good to be involved in this group too, because you got to see the treatments and the hear the stories from I'll put it this way, my sisters and some you know, everybody breast cancer. It treats us sometimes, depending on what type it is, a little different, and it was kind of good to attend some of their webinars and just listen to their stories and what they went through. But my message is you got to keep a positive attitude. You just have to be positive regardless to and you can't give up on

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it. You can't give up on yourself. And I think one of the things I want to make sure people who are listening really understand, because by no means we are. You know, Marguerite is talking this morning from the perspective of her journey with breast cancer. And I can share, you know my journey with breast cancer a little bit, but I want to make sure we are clear that by no means are we giving any medical advice or giving anyone any ideas about what what you should do each each journey in breast cancer, each diagnosis is different. It's different across ethnicities. Native American women have a different experience. Asian, Pacific Islander has a different experience. Caucasian, it's different Hispanic, Latino heritage. Women from that background, there's a different experience for each one of us. And the important thing is that doctors and researchers are trying to narrow the scope of treatment and specialize it as much as they can based on maybe some genetic predispositions that you find across the different cultures. And there's a lot of different medical treatment out there, and because each case is unique, how they approach dealing with breast cancer, some women will find that they may go through chemo prior to surgery so that they can shrink the tumor before the tumor is removed, or the cancer cells are removed, some will have a diagnosis and get their treatment after I had a Sentinel, no biopsy, but not until my third diagnosis, and what that is, is where they take and they take a look at the lymph nodes to see if the Breast cancer has spread into the lymphatic system, into the bloodstream, and PET scans are involved to take a look at all of your other organs, to see if any of the organs are involved with if the cancer has spread is metastasized through the body, but everybody's course of treatment And the medications that you may receive are designed to suit you. When on my third diagnosis, the tumor was I had a 2.5 centimeter tumor that was removed from the right breast, and then the pathology team took a look at that to determine the best course of treatment for me. And they do a course of treatment analysis, I believe, with each patient, to figure out what is good for that person. Because you mentioned a medication that I've never heard of, that you took for five years. I was given tamoxifen because I was triple positive on the third diagnosis that became the one of concern. My first two were stage zero cancers, and my third one was the stage two a So in my first two diagnosis, there was no conversation. Well, my first conversation, first diagnosis, did have a conversation about tamoxifen, but because, and I don't know if they knew if it was triple positive or triple negative at that point, because it was stage zero, so that conversation didn't even come up for me, but because I was so young, I hadn't had children, and they didn't have any medical statistics to tell me how it would impact my reproductive system, which is another big conversation right now in our country, just about Women and reproductive rights. But there wasn't any information on how it would impact my reproductive system, and because they couldn't give me that, I opted not to do radiation, because that distance at a well in my spirit, and I opted not to take the Tamoxifen. So I did a lumpectomy, I didn't do radiation, and I didn't do any tamoxifen because I was so young, and there was nothing to tie any information to how it affected your reproductive organs.

Unknown Speaker 24:08
And that's good, because that just shows that you were really, you know, proactive. I couldn't take tamoxifen the second with my second breast cancer because of my age. Well, I could, but the doctor didn't recommend it for certain reasons. But really it's democracy of my age had a lot but my age had a lot to do with it. And there are three different medications that I had could have taken, but I stuck with the one that was recommended. And if one doesn't work for you, your doctor just depends on your conversation you have with your oncologist. You can always change. You can always there's always something that will work for you.

Unknown Speaker 24:50
That's what I was told. Or at least we hope there's always they're going to try to see what will work for you, because every case is different, you know, and being triple, no. Negative changes being triple positive cultural backgrounds can impact. I don't know exactly how triple negative and triple positive cancers work for Native American or Asia Pacific Islander or Latino heritage Latina women or I'm not as much of an expert and well versed in that because I'm a black woman going through a breast cancer journey, and so I would say to each one, have those conversations with your physicians, with your oncology team, and understand what's how it affects you. And I teased last week, next week coming up, the conversation will be with a physician from comprehensive cancer centers of Nevada, because I want to make sure this month, as we are having these conversations about breast cancer, I also include in the conversation an expert who can speak as much as possible to us about breast cancer from the scientific space. I was part of a study in my third diagnosis, I signed up through University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA. Was in a partnership. I did my oncology, my chemotherapy, through comprehensive cancer centers of Nevada, and that's part of why I invited them on. But I did a study. I signed up. I ended up with a placebo, which is where you're not getting a medication, but it was during a time that they were trying to figure out how Avastin worked and was it complementing to treating breast cancer. And so I want to say that, because that's a way, if you're willing to help advance the study, you can do that if you're comfortable, it can luckily, I did get the placebo, because in the end of Aston didn't turn out to help anyone, and I don't even know if it turned out to be a good drug in the space of treating breast cancer. So by grace of God, I did get the placebo. So I didn't get anything. But, you know, it's another it's something to consider when you're trying to figure out, how do I contribute to this space if you're diagnosed and sometimes your own journey is heavy enough just figuring out how you feel because you talked about the three Ds at the beginning of our conversation, devastation, denial and then determination. And I want to tip my hat to you for being able to reach a point of processing your journey and being able to apply terms to it, because I say to people, more than anything, it's an emotional time and space. Feel your emotions. People tell you, Oh, you got to fight and you got to do this. No, you have to be human and feel what you're feeling. And if you're angry, be angry, because it's not until you get through the emotion that for me, anyway, it wasn't until I was able, especially on the second diagnosis, because when I got it the second time, I was 37 I was mad, and I had my aunt's Christian woman, and I love her, but she was like, Oh, you don't have time to be mad. You need to read these scriptures. First of all, I need to be mad because I can't receive what's in the Scriptures because I'm too freaking angry to process it, and I'm human, so no, be angry. And then I was able to lock in on I literally played Tupac every day for a while, me against the world, and me against the world. CD was on, on repeat. I was mad, like, didn't we already do this? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 28:23
that's normal. Because I was my thing was, Why me? What if I deserved this? Then I finally, you know, when you kind of put everything in perspective, it's like, why not me? You know. And things happen, you know, for a reason, and that's why I came up with these three Ds. Because I tell you, when I got to denial, I remember calling my husband and saying, You know what, they've made a big mistake. They just want to use me as a guinea pig, and I'm not going through any of this. That was my message. Yeah, he just, he was quiet when I got home. He didn't say anything. He just let me kind of stew in it for

Unknown Speaker 28:58
a while, and here we are today. I mean, I hate to say it, but the time is ticking and our clock is ticking out and our morning is is done, but thank you for spending some time with me. Thank you for going through the D's and having the determination Vegas. Stay tuned till next week. Thanks. Bye, I want to thank you for tuning in to 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 Tanya almonize 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