00:00My name is Trish Michelle. Born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. I am a single mom
00:16of two amazing boys, twins. I'm a child of immigrants, so I'm a first generation. My
00:22parents are from Haiti. They're Haitian. I speak the language. I eat the food. I don't
00:27really know how to cook it as well, but I'm getting there. It was interesting growing
00:31up in the suburbs of Long Island in many spaces where I was the only Black girl trying to figure
00:37out my identity. I feel like it primed me for some of the challenges I went through. Growing
00:42up, no one in our family had cancer until my son, one of the twins, was diagnosed with
00:48a rare leukemia in 2014. That was the first experience with cancer, being his caregiver
00:54at the time. My son was just out of active treatment, right? Like just finished coming
01:00out of the hospital and kind of resuming his life or trying to rebuild his life. I had a
01:05physical and the doctor said, you're great. Maybe a low iron, low vitamin D, but for the
01:10most part, you're good to go. But I had some sort of feeling that something was off and I
01:16couldn't put my finger on it, like I like to say, until I literally put my finger on it
01:20and felt the lump. And so I circled back to my doctor and I was met with such resistance
01:28that it was shocking to me and alarming that you can come to your doctor and voice a concern
01:34and be told it's not a big deal. Or like you were just here. I said, I understand I was
01:39just there. However, I felt the lump. And they said, well, maybe it's your menstrual cycle.
01:44How about you just like come back in a month or two and see? And so I insisted on going
01:49back in and he gave me a breast exam, which now I know better that it wasn't even a real
01:56breast exam. It was kind of like, all right, let me just do this thing because since she's
02:00here and he said, see, I told you nothing. And so I put my hand over his and I said, well,
02:07what about this? And he said, I mean, I guess, but again, how old are you? 36? I don't think
02:16you need anything. I think you're fine. And I insisted on a mammogram, my first mammogram.
02:20I remember sitting in that waiting room for that final diagnosis was so scary, was so isolating.
02:28I'm looking around and I'm like, is this going to be my life now?
02:33I wasn't told that day. I ended up having to get biopsies and what have you. And I was
02:37told by a tech that called me, it wasn't even my, my doctor. Oh, you know, you need to circle
02:43back. We think it's cancer. It was so hard. I'm fortunate and was fortunate that I had a great
02:49nuclear family, but I really didn't know how to share it with friends and other people because
02:57some folks can't handle the heavy stuff and they just either shut down or disappear. They ghost.
03:03But just recognizing that like cancer can change your life in such a way. And I just wanted to get
03:09rid of it. So I chose an aggressive surgery for my double mastectomy. I chose a deep flap on the
03:16operating table. They found out that it was a bigger cancer than they thought. And there was a second
03:21cancer that didn't come up in any imaging. So I was indeed stage three, not stage one. That really
03:28threw me for a loop. Cancer is very isolating. However, it's a very shared experience. So I had
03:35cancer, sure. But I had an oncologist. I had a primary care doctor. I had my parents. I had my
03:41kids. I had my network. I had my friends. So there's a level of performance. I need to let the
03:47folks that care about me know that I'm okay, even though if I'm not okay. Because they need to know
03:54that I'm improving. I'm feeling better. To keep them engaged. They want to have hope. Everyone
03:59needs support. That's what gets you through. I mean, after surgery, I literally could not stand
04:04straight. For like three weeks time, I couldn't even button my buttons of my shirt. When you're
04:09in active treatment, getting to the end is like the goal, right? And so when I got through chemo and
04:15then radiation and got to ring that bell, it was like the night before the first day of school. I had
04:20my clothes laid out on the bed. I knew what I was going to wear that next day. I dressed to the
04:25nines. I rang that gong. My mama was there. The nurses, we all clapped. It was a glorious feeling.
04:31I felt like now I've had my near-death experience. It's my opportunity to live my best and most
04:37authentic life. And what I learned by going through it was honestly that I needed to take up space and use
04:44my voice. Like I didn't go through all that just to live a humdrum, normal, quiet life and be a foot
04:50soldier. No. It was like, okay, now I'm living for me. When I was looking to see what would life as a
04:56cancer patient and a cancer survivor look like, I was not seeing representation. I was not seeing
05:01Black people, period, much less Black people in my age group. And so if I couldn't find representation,
05:08then maybe that was my opportunity to become the representation that I so needed. Again, when you
05:15think about like the darker moments or like the questions, this is where you need not just a
05:20network, but you need a community. And finding my breasties both during that time and now so many
05:27years later has, yeah, changed my life. I found the community when I was trying to navigate active
05:34treatment and post-active treatment. And I was putting myself out there on social media, building
05:39my own community, my own network within this larger breastie space, and then was invited to join
05:45leadership. And I am the chief community officer for the Breasties, a nonprofit that serves breast
05:52and gynecologic people impacted by cancer. We call it the worst club with the best members. I'm not
05:57looking to have the group grow, right? I want it to be like done with me. However, it's nice to know
06:03that this exists should anyone get a diagnosis so that they don't feel alone like I did in those
06:09early days. So it is difficult work, but I stay tapped in because there's such beauty in the sharing
06:16of the stories. The old school may think it's taboo to talk about that, but we should know better and
06:22not just talk about like, what was the recipe in grandma's pie, but also like when grandma died,
06:28what did she die of? It's important to have those honest conversations and not treat it as taboo
06:34because that will arm future generations to know their genetic history, not just their family tree.
06:50I'm Trish Michelle, a breast cancer survivor, and I'm out here thriving.
06:54And I have seen it all the same.
06:55So, we're going to have a solution.
Comments