- I had a 26% chance of living five years, and I'm here.
And every year that I live without progression of my disease
I have a better chance of surviving longer.
But unless I am hit by that proverbial bus,
I'm going to die from cancer.
- Can you talk about what your
style says about you?
- Before I was diagnosed, I was 5'10", 125 pounds,
long blonde hair, double D boobs.
People wanted to be around me because I was pretty.
And then I started getting the tattoos
and a little bit of that went away.
Then cancer came and I was emaciated.
I was bald.
I had my breasts removed.
And I realized that I was enough the whole time.
And it wasn't until I was stripped of all those things
that I thought made me Me, did I realize
that none of that shit ever mattered.
- Can you take off your green bag?
- Sure.
- So can you tell us a little bit more
about assumptions that people have about you?
- I think when I first got sick,
people assumed that I didn't take care of myself.
You know, cancer is something caused by smoking,
or caused because you didn't go to the doctor
and they didn't catch it in time, right?
And my mom was diagnosed at 44, and she was fine.
And so I thought that that's what I would do.
And then that wasn't the case.
It's not how it happened.
I was asked to leave an early stage
breast cancer support group because I was dying
of breast cancer and they all thought that they weren't
going to die from breast cancer.
I was their biggest fear.
So I found an online support group of women who are
40 and under, diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.
That became my life line.
Even thought my family was supportive,
until you've heard those words,
you can not understand what it feels like to be told
"You have a terminal illness
"and you have two years to live."
So now, I preface my conversations when I meet people,
"Hey I have a terminal illness,
"and this is what my life is like
"and if that's not for you,
"then we probably shouldn't be friends."
I talk about death and dying and planning my funeral
like you talk about walking your dog
or getting a cup of coffee.
I'm grieving the loss of this life I thought I would have.
- Take us on the journey, beginning with the
diagnosis, I guess that moment.
What happened after that.
- I was a foster parent and had an infant baby.
- This is an addition to your two daughters?
- Yes. - Okay.
- So I wasn't sleeping a lot and I started feeling
really tired all the time,
and then my belly started bloating.
I was going to the doctor, my GP,
and saying like, "Something is wrong with me.
"Something's not right."
And she's like, " Oh, you're just stressed.
You know, you have this baby.
You're in your 30's,
intestinal symptoms are just normal."
So for about five months, I went back and forth.
Then, I finally convinced them to do an ultrasound.
They did a ultrasound of my pelvis,
and found out that my ovaries were enlarged.
And she said, "It's probably just
"because of your menstrual cycle.
"Let's wait a couple of weeks and do it again."
So we waited a couple of weeks and they were even larger.
I was then sent to a gynecologist,
who did an internal ultrasound.
My ovaries had gotten even larger.
So then he did an MRI.
The results came back as a mottled appearance
of the bone.
Which is the first time anyone
suggested that I see an oncologist.
My dad's mom had died of cancer at 33 years old.
I told this doctor that I wanted her to take every
single thing out that she could take out because I never
wanted to be worried about a gynecological cancer again.
She finally agreed to give me a complete hysterectomy.
Once she had me in the OR, she opened me up
from my belly button to my pubis and saw that my
entire pelvis was fused together with cancer.
She removed one ovary and came out of the OR and asked
my husband if she could close me up,
send that to pathology and see what came back.
He said, "Absolutely not, you go back in that OR and you
"take everything out like she asked you to."
I really think that is a big part of why I'm still here,
because had she left all that cancer inside of me,
I don't know what would have happened.
So everything that she could scrape out,
she scraped out.
My ovaries, my tubes, my uterus, my cervix,
and the top portion of my vagina, which basically left me
with a two inch vaginal opening.
She closed me up, sent me upstairs,
and two days later a nurse practitioner
came around to tell me that the
pathology came back and I had breast cancer cells
in my reproductive organs.
And that while they could offer treatments,
that there was no cure, it was stage four.
After that, a breast oncologist told me
I had two years to live and that I should go home
and get my affairs in order.
It was hard when I went home because my daughters
were finishing their end of year testing.
They were fourteen, in the ninth grade.
I didn't want to tell them that I had cancer,
because I didn't want them to be upset.
So for a week, I just sat in a chair and just smiled.
Every morning.
And then every night when they came home,
it was really hard.
It wass really hard to pretend like I wasn't sick.
I mean, they saw me.
The last day of school for my girls, I went to their rooms
one by one to tell them what my diagnosis was.
I didn't tell them that they gave me two years to live.
I just told them that I had this cancer,
and they couldn't fix it, and that I was going to do
everything that I could to be around.
- How many years ago was this?
- Five.
Way before my surgery, we had bought a Disney vacation
for my daughters fifteenth birthday.
My doctors were like, "Don't go.
"Don't go.
"Don't go."
And I said, "I'm taking my daughter."
You know, cancer can take a lot of things from me,
but it's not going to steal her birthday.
I went back to see my oncologist right when I got back
and I said, "I don't want to die in this wheelchair."
He said, "Beth, you're not going to.
"You're going to get strong,
"again, and you're going to have a normal life,
"Until you don't."
- [Interviewer] Can you take something off?
- Okay.
- What was your state of mind then?
- If I only have two years to live,
I better make the most out of it.
With my husband, he was much older than me.
Although that had never been a problem before,
all of a sudden I wanted things
out of life that he didn't want.
I wanted to travel, I wanted to experience things,
and he was just content to be home.
Unfortunately that ended, I chose to leave.
In the beginning
I met a lot of people,
they're like, "Oh, I handled this with grace
"and I never said WHY ME?"
Well, I "Why me'd" the shit out of-- what the fuck!
Like, never drink, never smoke, I worked out, I ate healthy.
What is happening.
I never had a lump in my breast.
Ever.
And if anyone was ever not going to have cancer
because they had a healthy lifestyle, it was me.
I thought, "What am I going to do?"
"How can I do this?"
You know, "I can't live this way."
But then you do.
I have no control over my cancer.
I have no control over what it's going to do to my body.
But what I do have control over is how I live my life
and what I do right now in this moment.
So that just became my focus.
A lot of friends who have the same diagnosis as me,
who have metastatic breast cancer,
I watch their decline on Facebook posts
and then they'll stop posting,
and then their husband or their mom or their kids
will say, "She passed away."
You know, one of my friends, Brianna,
just died a couple of days ago.
It happened really fast.
It's hard not to internalize that,
and think about my own mortality.
"Is that how I'm going to die?"
"Is that what's going to happen to me?"
I have this beautiful relationship with David,
with my partner, and when we're together he makes me
forget that I have cancer.
And then,
Brianna dies, and all of these feelings come up.
I'm just like, "I don't want this to happen.
I just want to have a life.
I want to have a beautiful life where I never have to
think about cancer and I never have to think about
treatment, and scans, and my lungs filling full of fluid,
and not being able to breathe.
I want to have days where I don't have to think about that.
I have a lot of them, but the days that I'm faced with it
are really hard and I don't think that I feel sorry
for myself, I just get so frustrated
that it doesn't have to be this way.
Metastatic breast cancer has a two percent survival rate.
People who live beyond 10 years.
I had a 26% chance of living 5 years, and I'm here.
And every year that I live without progression of my disease
I have a better chance of surviving longer.
But unless I am hit with that proverbial bus,
I'm going to die from cancer.
I know that.
But I think through research and science and advancements
in medicine, we can make a big difference.
Just like rendered diabetes and HIV chronic illnesses,
we can do that with cancer.
If they direct the funds to the appropriate places.
They're not doing that.
And so watching friend after friend after friend die,
when I know that there are potential solutions
out there waiting for funding,
we're not moving fast enough.
I want to be 70.
I think that it's possible.
And so in my advocacy work, it's fuel for my fire.
You know, every time somebody dies and I get really
pissed off, I just want to go and do more.
I want to go harder, I want to work harder, I want to meet
more people, I want to protest more events,
and I didn't know before cancer but I know now
that I'm really fucking good at it.
- You didn't know that you had this in you,
you know, to be this voice.
What else didn't you know that you know now about yourself?
- I'm probably one of the strongest people that I know.
I just felt like I was this little broken thing,
that needed protecting, and I'm not that.
- Shoes.
When do you feel the most vulnerable?
- I think I'm the most vulnerable when I'm with David,
because I can be.
I remember one date, he was at my house,
we were on the swing on my back porch and my head
was on his lap and I just started crying,
because it was a beautiful moment.
Then I started thinking how short lived our relationship
would probably be, and how he would react if I got sick.
And the tears came, and we had a conversation about it,
but he takes care of me, he takes care of my heart.
Not me, he takes care of my heart,
and my soul, and I feel like I can
just let it all out and just be totally exposed.
- What's amazing is that had you not gotten
cancer, you may not have met him.
- I wouldn't have met him.
He lives in Newark, and I live in North Carolina.
I was doing a fashion show for cancer patients,
he volunteered to be the medic on set.
I was dressed up in these high heel boots,
and I'm not a high heel person, so I was standing there
waiting to go out and my heel wobbled,
and I just put my arm out for stability
and the first thing that I grabbed was David's arm.
I looked into his eyes and that very moment,
I just knew, "This is your person."
Something that is not talked about
is sex and intimacy after cancer.
Especially breast cancer.
It's a real physical issue.
Not only did I not have estrogen,
but after my surgery I barely had a vaginal opening.
I couldn't even accommodate a man's penis.
Like it's real, and I was you know, in my 30's.
He didn't fit inside me.
But he listened to me,
and he understood,
and he was patient.
We just kept trying.
I mean, I'm 40 years old and have terminal cancer.
I'm having the best sex I've ever had in my entire life.
- Oh shirt, shirt, shirt.
Why in your body, in your journey,
why is it a good place to be?
- It's a good day to be alive.
Every day's a good day.
Even the bad days, because if you're feeling joy
or happiness,
or amusement,
or even when you're sad and frightened
those are all feelings,
and they're all things that
you should find gratitude
for experiencing.
Even on the days that I hurt,
I just am full of gratitude that I'm still here
to experience it, 'cause it's life and it goes by so fast.
- I'm Lily.
- And I'm Elisa.
- And we're the mother daughter co-founders of StyleLikeU.
Thank you for tuning into this weeks episode of
The What's Underneath Project brought to you by ThirdLove.
- ThirdLove is a lingerie company that is dedicated
to offering bras for every body,
no matter size, shape, or age.
- ThirdLove offers 78 sizes including
exclusive half cup sizes.
We are so grateful to ThirdLove for supporting us in
bringing this new season of
The What's Underneath Project to life.
If you agree that facades separate us, and being
radically honest brings us together,
help spread the movement for self-acceptance
by sharing this episode,
and subscribing to our YouTube channel.
- And don't forget to click the bell so you're aware
of every time we drop a new episode.