Unstoppable Elfie: Overcoming Life's Challenges with Courage and Resilience

Yaya Diamond TV

https://a.co/d/aS6nOGd Elfie is a spirited and adventurous human with a passion for bringing people together. As an independent and multilingual licensed New York City tour guide, she creates unforgettable experiences for visitors from around the globe.  Known for her sassy demeanor, warm smile, and boundless energy, she thrives on connection—whether hosting lively house parties or guiding groups through the vibrant streets of New York City.  Elfie finds joy in playing the piano and accordion, and she dances as a way to express her love for movement and life.  Elfie's journey has been shaped by two life-altering experiences: one traumatic, the other unforeseen and devastating. Both brought her to the brink of death. Elfie's resilience, perseverance, connection to others and compassion for herself were pivotal to her healing process.  Now she celebrates life with laughter, music, and adventure, sharing her indomitable spirit and zest with everyone she meets. Joy is her essence. Fun is her mantra. Profound gratitude is her song. https://podopshost.com/yayadiamond   ⚡ VidChapter AI generated these chapters, try it out https://vidchapter.com/?affiliate=yayadiamond Recommended podcast platform get 10% off: https://podopshost.com/register/?ref=yaya   Tools and Services I use: Appsumo has the best lifetime deals ever!!! I love this site.  appsumo.8odi.net/yayadiamond The easiest way to make your graphics: https://buff.ly/2RTQLn0 Best website for musicians. Try it for free on me: https://buff.ly/2GMYugG Make money with Fiverr.com: https://buff.ly/2KjTVvV   Our Amazon store: https://buff.ly/34RYNlm DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. My affiliate links usually provide either a free trial or discount so go try them out on me! Thank you for supporting DreamChasersRadio.com  so I can continue to provide you with free content each week! Privacy Policy: https://buff.ly/2XSrflS ™Yaya Diamond Red Hot Reality Ent. LLC

Transcript

00:00hey guys it's me yaya diamond what's up people's how you doing it is great day and i'm so very

00:20excited to be here and i know i said that a hundred thousand times i don't even know how

00:24many times i've said that but i'm so used to saying it because it is the truth i am very very

00:28excited to be here very very excited to have my next author on the show and she has this she has

00:35i know her i know her and it's it's just it's a pleasure to bring people on the show that i know

00:42because when i know a person i can actually vouch for their character i can vouch for a whole bunch

00:48of things and i can vouch for her elfie thank you so much for joining me today i'm so happy for you

00:53thanks so you know i wanted to go into like who are you like what is it that makes your your journey

01:04so special and a lot of people don't realize it but i do but for the people who don't know you

01:10please tell us

01:13so i'm i'm healthy i've been on the planet for six decades now and i i am a lover of life and a

01:26student of life actually when people say what did you study it's i study life

01:31and one of the important things one of the ways that i'm able to do that is um i i was a new york

01:40city tour guide and that's an amazing and wonderful way to study myself and others um using you know

01:48my german my english my spanish my my multilingual and my communication status i also well i escaped

01:57the corporate world to become a tour guide so that i could um have different have different experiences

02:04and inside of that i had some more pleasant some less pleasant experiences meaning specifically

02:12personal experiences those um i don't know if you wanted to talk about that now no not yet not yet

02:20i mean okay so elfie you are a dancer you get on that dance floor and you shake your tail feather

02:26like there's no tomorrow and i absolutely love it but i mean a lot of people don't realize that

02:31you're a double amputee what happened actually single you're single okay i'm sorry i have injury to

02:38i have severe injury to my second leg okay so your second okay so tell me about that tell me what

02:43happened well that that was 40 years ago um i had was involved in a traumatic accident which resulted

02:52in in the amputation of my um of my left leg so i i was hit by a car and the result of that was

03:01obviously years of physical therapy years of relearning how to walk to move to adapt to you know

03:07things that you had done before besides walking and one of is swimming um for example or riding a bike

03:14those were things that were important to me the the dancing part came later that's when i found

03:21the joy part that's when i decided to um expand well i like to listen to music but then i thought well

03:31i can dance and so i hear ya-ya and well it's all over makes me wonder

03:37it's good sorry i i i i miss i miswrote this that you were double but you're single but

03:43i mean i you know i don't even pay attention to these things because all i pay attention to is

03:48your joy and how happy you are when you go out and you and you always bring somebody with you always

03:53have a friend and it's just such a pleasure to see you i'm just so happy for you you know you've

03:58gone through a lot of stuff in your life so you've had you've been raised in a harsh uh fundamentalist

04:05family and you kind of gained your independence at 18 years old you moved you you know you moved

04:11on you got your attitude you got your resilience going on and you got like okay so you've done

04:16activities like the trapeze skydiving yeah yeah those were part of my part of my journey to healing

04:26after the amputation once i was able to um you know once i was able to do the basic things i wanted

04:34to do and get back into my life get back to work get back to uh well yeah get back to life how i

04:42defined it one of the things that i was able to do that was important to me that's the thing was to

04:49try activities to do adventure that's that's kind of where i'm interested so flying trapeze was actually

04:55an interesting um experience because it had to be i had to adjust between having my prosthesis on

05:03between having my prosthesis off how that felt um how to educate other people on how to accommodate

05:10what i needed um which is you know climbing up steps a rope ladder basically and then the other

05:18pieces once i got up there i needed to take off my prosthesis i'm a below the knee amputee so i have my

05:24knee and that is how i was able to hook to hook around the ropes to do the flying trapeze um the skydiving

05:35gust that was a okay you okay i don't know i can i don't think i can ever jump out of a perfectly fine

05:42plane

05:43i mean if it's falling then we might consider it you know well the thing is

05:50tell me about this yeah there's parasailing which is you're in you know you're under the

05:56parachute in effect the reason for skydiving and the reason i wanted to do it was because

06:03for the free fall you're free falling for 2 000 feet and the exhilaration that one feels with that

06:11is just it's it's two minutes of your life that just zip by you're going you're at 125 miles

06:18actually yeah about 120 miles an hour the thing that was important for me about the

06:24the skydiving that i enjoy the reason to do it i had to attach my to be sure that my prosthesis wasn't

06:32going to be disconnected or fall off mid-air so i taped it on tightly to my body

06:39um i did not want to lose it over the skies of you know wherever i was was skydiving and that

06:46that was that was part of the reason how to adapt for me how to have fun adventure it was part of my

06:54healing process it was wow so it's you know you're ready set and then go and i i i did i did jump

07:03with a tandem instructor it was instructor attached but that feeling of just being free

07:10is why i did it no no i know i i feel free without jumping off a perfectly good plane i just i feel

07:20i feel real free i'm free i'm free i feel free

07:24i hope y'all don't know about you girl you went rock climbing come on well this the thing is that

07:33there was a series of orthopedic um experiences i had adventures i had which included like i said

07:39the swimming the you know the parasailing the skydiving the um i forgot skydiving anyway

07:47um you got adventure girl you you you got i like i like air adventure that's kind of what it boils

07:56down to don't not scuba diving can't do that but air adventure is what i enjoy and the thing that

08:03happened that got me to the rock climbing which is which is part of a subsequent chapter actually in

08:10my life many years after the amputation that is when i noticed that i had a um a canker sore on my

08:19tongue and there's a you know there's i guess we can fast forward the the the synopsized version is

08:29that i was diagnosed with tongue cancer back in 2020 and needed to have several um surgeries several

08:37tongue cancer surgeries to remove the cancer that was on my on my tongue and you know also um go

08:45through radiation neck dissection just to be sure to clear it from my system that was that is the goal

08:52and i i wasn't feeling powerful i wasn't well i wasn't feeling like myself for a while and once once i

09:03one of the things i started thinking about was how when i regained my strength because i was the energy

09:11and stamina that i was missing missing during that period of time one that started coming back for me

09:18in my mind i thought i really would love to go rock climbing because that would be the ultimate test

09:24not not post-amputation that would be the ultimate test for me to see if this my strength had returned

09:31you know after my cancer surgeries wow and so that that was a big challenge that was a big challenge of

09:40strength it was also just a very um it was a symbolic climb it was indoor climbing i did not go and scale

09:48boulders i'm not interested in that but the inside climb really really showed me on like on a level of

09:57the physical having the physical strength to climb to move to the next level but there's no plan involved

10:04you cannot plan it i'm a planner by nature right i'm a tour guide we plan things into the minute

10:10things have to go smoothly or we need a backup plan and with rock climbing you do not have that

10:15you move two four steps forward but realizing you can't get to the next one you can't get to the next

10:21step so sometimes it's actually one step forward two steps back and that is just really a um

10:31it's just an image for life i for my life anyway where you're you're plotting forward and you're

10:37plotting your path but you can't necessarily follow the way that you thought that you thought you wanted

10:43to go so rock climbing did challenge me as an amputee you know with with my um with my prosthesis placing

10:51it you know appropriately so that i don't fall but also it challenged that the upper body strength and

10:59the way that i thought i would do it is not the way i did it it was really interesting um i thought

11:07what you have to be flushed up against the wall to get the ultimate power from your arms and

11:15well i how did i learn this i had an amazing instructor who worked with me during those um

11:21during that time i think i went twice and he was just amazing uh it was adaptive you know it was

11:28adaptive in nature and he adapted in other words for amputees he was there to assist nice i think that's

11:36kind of cool to do stuff like that that maybe challenges you i like to be challenged i don't

11:41like to be crazy but i do like to be challenged and i think that that is really cool i think what

11:44you've done is really really amazing what was it like for you though once you got your cancer diagnosis

11:50and you saw this little bump on your tongue and you're like huh um what made you go and get that checked

11:56out well i had delayed reaction and i was in big denial i went to the dentist i went to the oral

12:05medical surgeons in my life and they all just thought that the tooth needed to be filed down

12:10so i did that and the the sword did not go away and then that's some and you know over time and

12:18and so i was diagnosed in 2020 but this had been going on prior to 2020 um probably for several years

12:27and what ultimately happened is that the top of my tongue look the the top of the left side of my tongue

12:33looked like it had been razored like the razor had been sliced across so i started having difficulty

12:38eating um textured foods flavored foods and then i got to the point where i could only ingest um liquid

12:46foods with a straw and like i said the denial then the denial hit me square on the forehead and i needed

12:55i needed to see um an ent surgeon that's what prompted that necessity yeah you gotta eat you gotta eat

13:06my gosh and so like how did this i mean when this happened to you and you kind of went in and you got

13:12everything and and you got the diagnosis and everything could you talk i was able to speak during

13:19you know up until i got the diagnosis one of my major um one of the major actually probably the major

13:29question that i asked my surgeon the the first surgery i thought was my get out of jail free card i

13:36thought the cancer was gone and i went on my merry way you know hopping and skipping the cancer was not

13:42eradicated with that first surgery so that's when i had to go back um and have a conversation with

13:49another another another world renowned surgeon and the thing uh the thing about that was

13:58what was your question again could you could you talk could you i mean what was it like i mean

14:05you know i can imagine i mean the the implications of you not being able to eat the razor-like feel on

14:13your tongue the scraping i mean did it make it difficult for you to talk i mean and you

14:19were saying like what you could but what happened well it was difficult and that that kind of you know

14:27that kind of um but by default i had to do that first surgery and finally like i said the denial piece

14:36the second surgery the question at that point it was harder to talk after the first surgery but with the

14:43second surgery the surgeon was going to take um a series of lymph nodes and they i was also at a

14:50different stage i was stage two um for tongue cancer and what what i asked him was specifically will i have

14:59comprehensible verbal speech that that was key for me because the line of i'm a talker anyway by nature the line of work i was doing is you know is communication and right

15:13you know when i socialize when when you socialize you're always talking so that that was important

15:20he said yes um comprehensible that was the key word i did a lot of work with the speech pathologist to

15:28with my different syllables sounds and with the food the food was its own challenge because

15:35the barometer for the speech pathologist and the the medical personnel was different than my own barometer

15:42and they had said you know you because i lost my taste buds and i've only regained a portion of the

15:50taste buds and that's only on the right side of my mouth right the left side is is the radiation killed

15:58that so one one of the things initially clearly i only was um ingesting literally you know liquid foods

16:05and then i began to do soft solids that was after a period of several months after after radiation

16:12and then i in my mind because i'm a foodie i love food i love gourmet food i love cooking

16:19i love bringing community together right we get together we talk we eat and so i decided that i was

16:27going to i don't know basically i i think i think i assaulted my tongue i ate and tried as much of

16:35everything as i could again this was maybe nine months after my radiation i concluded where i just

16:42you know tried to see what was palatable what was doable because there's also an issue with the tongue

16:49cancer and with any of the mouth and oral cancers there's an issue with swallowing and swallowing becomes

16:56difficult um the passageways are narrowed it's it's different for everyone but but the dysphagia which is

17:04is the difficulty swallowing is an issue one of the other issues that comes up after radiation is

17:10eurostomia which is you know your dryness in your mouth you have no saliva or you're too much saliva

17:17so i always walk around with a water bottle so that i can always masticate either my food or if i'm

17:24speaking and feeling like i'm choking that i you know that i have something to address that with so

17:31those are those are issues around food um initially i couldn't i couldn't uh go out to a restaurant

17:38well i i also didn't want to go out to a restaurant because i didn't want to make the decision of speaking

17:44or eating initially you know you can't do both there's there's nothing really i really had to focus

17:50and a lot of us with oral cancers have to focus on you know how to make sure we don't choke with the food

17:58that we're eating wow wow i i never i i never you know as like someone who's never gone through it

18:08would not understand it unless you were to explain it like that because we don't know what to i mean

18:13you know we don't know what it is i am i am so happy for you and so proud of you and so happy to say that

18:19that you are my friend thank you so much oh thank you thank you and so what inspired you to uh start

18:29that amputee group that support group that you had well the amputee support group is is that was um that

18:38was back before my cancer diagnosis actually many years before that yeah there's a really solid um

18:45um informational and educational basis that one gets in a support group and i had when with my

18:55amputation which happened which was so long ago there was only one support group that i knew of

19:00and then there you know subsequently i found more support support and finding other people who

19:07who share a similar not necessarily a left leg amputation or a right leg amputation right or you

19:16know amputation but just who share a similar struggle who share a similar similar challenge um that i find

19:24that to be i find support to be essential i find support to be necessary and so there wasn't at that time

19:34there were not enough groups there were a few but not enough in my opinion and so our friend uh fellow

19:43you know fellow amputee and i just offered the opportunity to meet once a month with like-minded

19:49people to support each other to share information and it was a powerful time it was a really powerful time

19:56to you know to explore with others and to also explore being on the other side um being a facilitator

20:05through group rather than just participating yeah i mean you've gone through so much you know and and

20:12you have so much to offer and you have so much experience to offer too because you know like we say

20:18you know if if you're gonna if you're going through a situation find someone who's already been there

20:23done that to help you through it um the the amputation that's right the being an amputee

20:31what advice okay so i'm going to ask you on two parts being an amputee the advice that you would

20:35give a person who's going through that right now and also a person who's going through tongue cancer

20:39specifically that because i don't see a lot of people go through that and i know that there's

20:43more people out there that do it i know there's breast cancer and there's colon cancer but tongue

20:48cancer i haven't seen so i i just want to niche down and make sure people know that that is

20:54something that you've gone through what kind of advice on both ends can you give someone if they're

20:58getting ready to face what you've already faced well for one thing ask the questions that you need to

21:07ask of your medical team and of the social worker component in other words so you get the logistical

21:15the factual as well as that you address the emotional components so that would be before and and as

21:22well as after there are lots of especially now there's lots of zoom groups available um groups don't

21:29meet as much in person sometimes it's difficult with the amputee component um for people who adjust

21:36you know who do not have a leg yet who do not have a prosthesis yet to get physically um to physically get

21:42to a group but support for me support for me is essential it's it's the lifeline so i would say

21:50find yourself others that you can ask questions to that you can be informed by that you can like i said

21:58blink hands with for the amputee component and then you know live your life do what it is you need to do

22:05find the accommodations the you know americans with disabilities act um allows for and dictates you

22:13know legally what it is that you have the right to be offered to accommodate whether it's a work

22:21situation or whether it's a travel situation um as you know as an amputee there's also the amputee

22:28coalition of america and that's the national group so if you go to the amputee things amputee underscore

22:36coalition dot org that's a powerful resource there's information there there's peer support

22:43um that that was one of the things i did before i um started the group i would i was on a list of

22:50people to visit others in hospitals that were amputees or newly amputated that wanted to

22:57talk to someone and ask questions and that was something i did before that which was also very

23:03powerful because because when i first became the amputee that didn't exist 40 years ago i knew one

23:10amputee and that was the physical therapist and it wasn't the same so so that's from the amputation

23:17perspective seeking support and you can find it online and you can also find it with the amputee coalition dot

23:24org um with respect for the cancer there's there's global cancer groups um which which are important

23:32to me as well as specific mouth cancer head and neck cancer groups that are available and and i i really

23:40focus on on the um support group components a lot because what the medical team does is what they're

23:48supposed to do what the surgical team does is what they're supposed to do but the really really the

23:56there's a you know there's a psychological there's a psychic there's a psychosocial psychosexual i mean

24:03there's so many aspects to and social aspects to the the mouth and mouth and and the mouth cancers the

24:13head and neck cancers and then specifically the tongue cancer so i would say with that there are you know

24:20there are real there's a there's a group there's a tongue cancer group it's the young tongues wow you know

24:26cancer group that's a specific specific group for people like me that i is invaluable that i you know

24:34searched for found and it's you know the the statistics are on the rise even though i never knew of tongue

24:43cancer or cancer before i was diagnosed did not know but the statistics are on the rise and we're unclear as

24:51to why and what it is um you know the surgeons will say uh tobacco and you know alcohol those are those

25:01are the things that they offer but i do not believe based on what i'm seeing in the statistics that

25:07that's entirely true because otherwise everyone who drinks and everyone who smokes would have an oral

25:12cancer and they exactly and not everybody drinks and not everybody smokes and also there there's a much

25:20younger demographic you know that of people now that that are being diagnosed with oral cancers so

25:29i mean and you know all kinds of mouth cancers there are myriad which i did not know but you can look

25:36it up and like i said the statistics are on the rise so it's not something that's necessarily going

25:41away it's something that we have to deal with focus on um and invite invite others and by invite others

25:50what i mean is educate others when you meet them you know people who don't know which is why i love to

25:56you know i love to to talk about now that i have a voice that that and my speech is is um comprehensible

26:05as the surgeon said he was right so he did his part i did my part and you know the the i mean there's

26:14there's a daily component to maintaining my ability to speak in other words may i explain it's it's you

26:24know um there are certain foods that don't don't work for me and possibly and probably for others as

26:31well yeah so for me coffee is not a good thing it's very acidic so before i do an interview before i do

26:38a day long of of you know um if i'm meeting friends for lunch or dinner i i don't drink coffee because

26:46it makes it much more difficult to speak when i have coffee that's just me um different you know

26:52different uh survivors will tell you different foods that perhaps affect their ability but for me it's

27:01it's anything acidic tomato sauce chocolate all those things that sometimes i override but

27:08all the good stuff yeah and i have to make every day yeah what what to eat based on

27:18what is required of me um yeah in my life yeah definitely you know what i i think that you're an

27:25amazing person i think you're adventurous definitely more adventurous than i am and i couldn't do it

27:30i couldn't do it won't do it i'm good i can watch you do it though hey you know let's not and say we

27:38did you know what i'm all for that uh definitely all for that the book is called unleashing the

27:47courageous feminine and you have your chapter in that book and i congratulate you so much for

27:54doing that are you considering maybe writing your own book now well interesting the the um connector

28:04the connect the dots to to participating in this project was the precursor was was really the tongue

28:13cancer and the concern that i had that i was not going to be able to speak and so in my mind i had that i

28:21wanted to write my story um i i mean i i write on my own for myself i haven't written to the general

28:29public and shortly after i completed it's probably a few months after i completed radiation i came across

28:38this project which i was invited to participate in which was you know for courageous women let me show you

28:45the uh the book matches what's what's on the screen it's it's unleashing the courageous feminine and

28:51its stories it's searching stories of courageous women all courageous in different ways whether it be

28:57you know cancer or um you know uh domestic violence or incest or amputees and my chapter i'm going to see

29:08my chapter is unstoppable elfie unstoppable elfie a journey of choice and resilience and that that part

29:18the choice piece was because when i had my amputation that that evening of of my surgery i hadn't um i was

29:29in the liminal space i was in this space and i saw a dark room it was closed there was nobody in it

29:37it and then i saw in this i guess out of the body in this liminal space i saw a room with light and and

29:46it was very active and there were people and it was dancing and it was music and it was loud it was

29:51boisterous it was teeming with energy and life and after seeing those in my mind's eye i i clearly heard a

30:01voice that said choose and i chose life you know choose life or choose what life was the bright light

30:11active room yeah so that informed me um that informed me from then to live life fast forward to the

30:21opportunity to participate by writing about my life yeah in this book and so that was it was a six month

30:30project project it was released in april our book was released in april and it gave me the opportunity to

30:36explore book to explore what it was that got me from you know my fundamentalist you know family which

30:44was very repressive and was a very cruel environment that i grew up in to you know taking charge of my life

30:53taking charge of my life period and then taking charge of my life again after the amputation

30:59yeah having my adventures and then being like walking into the the tongue cancer component the which was

31:08absolutely well which was absolutely devastating out of left field unexpected and i didn't know what to do

31:16with that hence the name of the title unstoppable healthy do i write a book i don't know right now i am

31:25marinating i'm marinating in the beauty of of what is and the ability and the gifts that i was given to

31:35you know to share my story in in the book so we'll see i don't know that's amazing well thank you

31:41elfie for being on the show i appreciate it you guys i'm gonna have all that information about the

31:45book in the description so that you guys can go and check it out for yourselves and elfie thank you

31:50thank you thank you thank you yeah yeah don't me don't you see the divine feminism definitely

31:58i'm gonna make sure that that says it what it says all right guys no problem anytime

32:10until next time guys don't forget to dare to be different bye

32:20dadada dadada dadada dadada dadada dadada thank you for watching

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