[00:00:00] Adam Walker: From Susan G Komen, this is Real Pink, A podcast exploring real stories, struggles, and triumphs related to breast cancer. We’re taking the conversation from the doctor’s office to your living room.
[00:00:17] On today’s episode of Real Pink, I’m joined by Naomi Lariviere, Chief Product Officer and Vice President at ADP. Naomi’s story is a powerful reminder of how something as simple as a routine mammogram and even a scheduling mix up can change the course of your life. In this conversation we’re going to talk about her breast cancer journey, the impact it’s had on her career, her family, her outlook on life, and why she’s passionate about encouraging others to take that potentially lifesaving
[00:00:44] 15 minutes to go get screened. Naomi, I’m so excited to talk to you. Thank you for joining me on the show today.
[00:00:52] Naomi Lariviere: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to have this conversation.
[00:00:55] Adam Walker: Yeah. Well let’s start with you like tell us who you are, like personally, professionally, who is Naomi?
[00:01:03] Naomi Lariviere: Yeah.
[00:01:04] Well, I mean, you did a great job of highlighting my professional accolades. But Naomi Lariviere, I’m 47. I have, I’m a mom. I’m a wife. I’ve got three strapping young men that I’m raising and hopefully raising them right. I work in the technology field so I’m one of. Hopefully a growing number of women that are attaining leadership roles within the tech space.
[00:01:36] Passionate advocate for women in tech. And now I’m becoming a pretty passionate supporter of women with breast cancer in tech.
[00:01:46] Adam Walker: All right. I love that. I love, and we’re going to talk more about that, but first, let’s talk about your breast cancer experience. So, I know from your LinkedIn post.
[00:01:54] That you sort of had an unexpected thing that led to a mammogram that saved your life. Like, tell me that story. That sounds amazing.
[00:02:03] Naomi Lariviere: Yeah. So I should probably preface this. During the pandemic years in 2020, my older sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and thankfully they caught it early. But you know, as we got into 2021, I was like, I need to get my mammogram.
[00:02:20] I haven’t, since I turned 40, I haven’t missed a mammogram appointment. So it was getting to October. I’m like, I’ve gotta get in, I gotta get this done. It’s breast cancer awareness month. I have to show up for my sister. It was very like, I wanna make sure that I don’t miss out and I don’t do something.
[00:02:40] So called the office up, got an appointment, I put the appointment down as October 25th for me is the anniversary of when I had a first date with my husband. So like 10 25. Easy to remember. I use that number all the time. Like it was great. So I put the appointment down, I’m going to get it done.
[00:03:05] And I go to Northside Hospital here in Atlanta, and I show up for the appointment and I answer all the little questions that they take as you intake it. And they’re like Naomi, we don’t have you on the schedule. And I was like, oh. But I’m pretty sure I wrote it. Like I even joked with the lady when I was making the appointment that it, that was my dating anniversary.
[00:03:30] Right? Yeah. And she’s like, well, give me a second. She looks in the computer. It’s actually scheduled for two days later, but because I was already there, she’s like, I’m not going to make you come back in two days. Why don’t we just get it done now? Like, are you okay with waiting? And I was like, sure it saves me another trip.
[00:03:46] I’m good with that. So go in good mammogram as far as I’m concerned because I don’t do these on a daily basis. It was a normal experience. Just go in 15 minutes and out. You’re done. Move on. Didn’t think about it. I’m kind of was expecting the letter, saying like, you’re all clear and go from there.
[00:04:08] Well, two weeks later I got a letter in the mail and it says, Hey, we found something you should come back for another screening. So call the office up again. And I’m like, okay, I’ll go and get that screening. So it was right before Thanksgiving when I went in and I literally for about an hour they were taking
[00:04:37] pictures of all different angles in, out, like oh, we gotta take another picture. Gotta take another picture, gotta take another picture. That was kind of like the experience. And then they’re like, we’re still not sure, maybe we should do an ultrasound. So they started ultrasounding my left side.
[00:04:56] And 15 minutes later a radiologist walks in and goes I’m sorry to inform you, but we found something. We think it might be cancer, but we don’t know. We’d like to do a biopsy and, I burst out into tears. Like, like I was not expecting anything. I really wasn’t. And I was like oh my God, this is now serious.
[00:05:22] Like this isn’t Now I understood why they were taking so many pictures. They were concerned about something. I was like, okay, wait. It doesn’t mean that it’s breast cancer. Doesn’t mean it’s breast cancer. It could just be something. I mean they find things in breast all of all the time that aren’t breast cancer.
[00:05:42] So and also the area that they were concerned about, it wasn’t lumpy. I didn’t have a lump, I couldn’t feel anything. There wasn’t something that I noticeably, physically could feel. So I was like, okay. So we set up the biopsy appointment for the day after Thanksgiving, went in, had the biopsy, which by the way is not a very pleasant experience.
[00:06:04] And actually a lot of the journey is not a pleasant experience. So went in, had the biopsy. I remember talking with my sister-in-law and I said to her at Thanksgiving, I said, I think it’s cancer. I really do think it’s cancer. So I, I don’t know I like, I just kind of actually had peace about it because I was like what are the odds of it it’s probably breast cancer.
[00:06:33] It’s just how bad is it? So, they turned the results from the biopsy around pretty quickly, and it was the following Monday in the afternoon. And of course, while you’re waiting for that phone call, any phone call, you’re just like glued to that phone and waiting for it. And I went, I bet I’m going to get on a call and like it will be with my boss or with something like somebody else that I can’t really hang up and they’re going to call right during that time.
[00:07:02] So of course that is what happened. But I actually, I was onboarding, two new hires. And I said, Hey guys, can you hold on a second? I’ve been waiting for a call from my doctor to get some results back and I need to take that call. So I kind of scooted off camera, took the phone, put myself on mute, took the phone call, and the lovely doctor goes I’m sorry to inform you, but you have in invasive lobular carcinoma.
[00:07:32] And I’m like I understand carcinoma, don’t understand the rest of what you just said, right? Yeah. Can you please explain that? Right. Because I mean I don’t know. And and she’s like, you have breast cancer. And I said, okay but invasive lobular what does that
[00:07:48] Adam Walker: mean?
[00:07:49] Naomi Lariviere: So and I think it’s important to note, like there’s two generic, two types of breast cancer, but then there’s obviously subtypes that there’s lots in both.
[00:07:59] Veins. One is ductal the , the other is lobular. And with a lobular breast cancer diagnosis, generally not found until women are in their mid sixties. I was in my early forties and it is a flat breast cancer and it grows like a spiderweb across your breast. And from my, generally they’re slow. It’s a slower growing breast cancer.
[00:08:25] But from 2020 to 2021 when I had this mammogram. It had spread across my entire left breast. So what I would say to a lot of people now is I didn’t know that breast cancer wasn’t something that you couldn’t feel, and that, and like I, I kind of beat myself up about that. Like, why didn’t I notice something?
[00:08:47] Why didn’t, like my skin hadn’t changed, it hadn’t puckered or any of the kind of other signs that you can see. Nothing looked unusual. So but once she explained, well, it’s a flat cancer and it grows like a spider web I kind of was like, okay. Even though I was doing my monthly breast self exams, I was doing the mammograms, the only way that I would’ve discovered this was getting that mammogram.
[00:09:16] So just because you don’t feel something doesn’t mean you should still skip your mammogram. You should go every single year.
[00:09:24] Adam Walker: That’s right. Absolutely.
[00:09:25] Naomi Lariviere: So, yeah, it was here I was thinking I was it was going to be a memorable 10 25 would be a memorable date because of meeting my husband, but no, it’s meeting my husband, but also the day of the test that actually led me to my breast cancer diagnosis.
[00:09:44] Adam Walker: Yeah. Wow. Wow. So double significance in both ends of the spectrum, I guess, unfortunately. Yeah.
[00:09:49] Naomi Lariviere: Both ends of the spectrum.
[00:09:51] Adam Walker: So walk me back through you, you said the words twice in, in that, because you said the words, we found something and I think the first was on a phone call. After your first mammogram, we found something, come back in and the second was the doctor coming in, we found something.
[00:10:07] It’s, we think it’s this. Yeah. Walk me through the emotions of that statement for you.
[00:10:15] Naomi Lariviere: The first time I didn’t really think much about it. I really didn’t. Okay. I was I was like, they I literally had it, I’m pretty optimistic person. Yeah. I was kind of thinking it could be anything.
[00:10:32] Right, right, right. Right. It could be anything because there, there are a lots, there are lots of, there are lots of things that happen in breasts, like dense tissue, that kind of stuff. Like, I didn’t really think much about it the first time. The second time. That, that was like, oh my God, that was an oh my god moment. Like, what am I going to do? At the time my kids were 10 se 10, eight and six, right? So like real little and I wanna be around for them. I want to live my life. I want to see my kids. And one of the things too is when they call you and they tell you that you have cancer, they don’t tell you like how far along you are.
[00:11:28] That requires additional testing. So for several weeks I was going like. Like, am I stage one? Am I stage four? Like where on the spectrum am I? Because that’s going to dictate how bad this process is going to be. And I’m a planner. Like part of what my job is today is to take dates, work backwards, structure everything, operationalize things.
[00:11:52] And that’s with this particular phone call. All that control, that planning, that structure that I genuinely appreciate and love about my life went right out the door. And I’ll tell you I got off the phone with the doctor. I jumped back on that onboarding call. Finish the onboarding call.
[00:12:18] And then I was like I said to my assistant who knew that I was waiting for a phone call. I’m like I need to go home. And I need to go talk to my husband. And she like, she started crying. I’m like, don’t cry, because if you cry, I’m going to cry. So I got home, yeah. To my husband. I walked into his office and I said, Hey, I’ve got some news for you.
[00:12:42] I’m getting a new pair of breasts. It wasn’t, I have breast cancer. It’s, I’m getting a new pair of breasts. Like something I never, ever thought that I would do. I was just like you know what, like you have to take it. You, I, even then, and as I’ve gone through this journey, I’ve had to have some lighthearted moments in the entire process because there are a lot of points in the journey that are very dark.
[00:13:13] I remember sitting at the dinner table that first week after I found out, and we decided originally. It didn’t last very long that I wasn’t going to tell my children. I didn’t want them worrying about me. I but I would sit there at the table and just bawl my eyes out, like there was no way I could control my feelings for this whole situation.
[00:13:36] And we basically decided. After three nights of me bawling my eyes out and at the dinner table and my kids looking at me like, what is wrong with you lady? And that we would tell them, but we had to really think about how do you tell children that mommy or daddy has cancer? And really had to think about what were the words that we were going to use so that they didn’t get that they knew it was serious, but
[00:14:05] they didn’t get concerned because we didn’t know what the forecast or the journey was going to be. And then the other thing that happened within that first 24 hours of being diagnosed is my mother-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. So while my children knew and my most of my siblings knew that I had cancer, we decided not to tell either of our parents.
[00:14:32] One, when my sister went through breast cancer, my mother seemed to take it very hard. She fell into a depression and she had just had a heart attack. I didn’t want really to kind of add more firewood to the flame. And then with my mother-in-law going through an Alzheimer’s diagnosis she had some, she had her own emotions that she was dealing with.
[00:14:58] So we, we kept it rather quiet and private while we were in it. While I was going through, like figuring out like what was the process going to be like?
[00:15:10] Adam Walker: Yeah. And how long were you able to keep it? Private from the parental units and then how did they respond afterwards?
[00:15:18] Naomi Lariviere: So I actually, so my in-laws still don’t know to this day and mainly because at the moment my mother-in-law’s Alzheimer’s has progressed to the point where she really can’t remember things
[00:15:33] much. Right. So we ne we just decided it wasn’t going to be useful there to kindness. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was a burden I didn’t need to give them. Yeah. And then I actually told my mom, I think I was six months post mastectomy. That’s when I told her, and I only told her because my other sister had decided that she was going to take preventative action and she needed to understand.
[00:16:07] With one sibling with breast cancer, sometimes they won’t approve a preventative mastectomy. With two siblings it was a sure deal, so she kind of needed to explain why. So I was helping my other sister out by telling my mom, and she actually, we talked about it a little bit. She was, she goes
[00:16:34] oh, that makes sense. Like she knew something was go, I guess she had sense something.
[00:16:38] Adam Walker: She had a sense going on. Right. Yeah.
[00:16:40] Naomi Lariviere: But I, when I explained like, listen, I didn’t want you to go through what you went through before and right. Like I felt like it I had the support system down here to, to deal with it.
[00:16:51] And she’s I probably would’ve liked to have known when you were going through it, but it’s very brave of you to have gone through it by yourself and just know I’m almost there for you. And my mom’s been good with it. It’s maybe saving her a little bit of trauma in her life, so, yeah. Yeah. That’s, like I said, that’s a kindness. Yeah. And it’s, yeah, it’s honorable to do that.
[00:17:17] It’s a burden going through breast cancer is, it’s not just the individual who goes through it, the entire family goes through it. Yeah. And I, I didn’t understand that. It’s everything that you’re
[00:17:31] going through from the doctor’s appointments, to the surgeries, to the treatments, it takes commitment. It’s a lot of work. Everybody’s life is essentially blown up at that point in time. That’s right. That’s you have no control because you’re at the control of the doctors when they’re available, their schedules so as much as you kind of wanna progress it and go fast you can’t, you have to kind of just
[00:17:59] embrace that it, other people are controlling your life for you at that point in time. Yeah.
[00:18:03] Adam Walker: Yeah. That’s right. So, so let’s shift for a minute. Let’s talk a little bit about your career. You mean, you mentioned you’re a woman in technology. You’re a big advocate of women in technology.
[00:18:13] Technology. We met at a Women in Technology event where you mentioned having cancer and I was, and you were been kind enough to accept my request for an interview on this podcast after that. So I appreciate that. And I’m a big fan of Women in Technology as well and the work that you’re doing you’re a senior leader at a very large organization. Yep. Which carries with it a lot of pressure in a lot of responsibilities. How did this affect that?
[00:18:43] Naomi Lariviere: Yeah. What I’ll say is. I, before I had cancer and I talked about this with the women in technology group, is I was a workaholic. I love my job.
[00:19:00] I love what I do. I love building like idea generation and building products and getting things out that our clients find useful. That is my passion and that’s what I love to do with my job and really love spending a lot of time with my team and figuring out how they’re progressing on what they’re building.
[00:19:21] And so, but I wasn’t very good about setting boundaries for myself. So I at one point in my career I worked for one of the big consulting companies and when you work for the big consulting companies, you work nights, you work weekends, you work early morning and that was kind of, I came into the company I work for today and I continued on with that work habits of just always working, always being available, all of that stuff.
[00:19:51] And at the time I was reporting to a man and trying to tell your boss you have breast cancer as a woman is kind of a interesting and very delicate conversation to have. Yeah, but he, I will say. My boss at the time was so supportive of me. My HR business partner, who was also a male, was very supportive of me.
[00:20:19] And they were like, whatever you need whatever you wanna disclose. You know, we’re You know, whether you wanna disclose it or not, it’s all up to you. Whatever you wanna do we’ll right. Be there for you throughout this journey. So as I was going through all the treatments and stuff like that I actually didn’t tell people at work.
[00:20:36] I just said, Hey, I have to take some time off and go from there. Because I wasn’t ready to talk about it. But what I will say is when I came back to work. No one was going to die over anything that I was working on. Right? The work became something that I could compartmentalize a little bit better than I did before.
[00:21:03] So I’m much more intentional about how I spend my time now. I don’t have to work early mornings, late nights or weekends to still be a high performing individual to be able to run the type of business that I run or to succeed. And what it really has given me, or what my cancer diagnosis has given me is perspective.
[00:21:30] Because I loved I do love working and I do love my job, but there are three little boys that need me. My husband needs me. My, my puppy dogs need me, my friends need me. I don’t need to constantly place work above everything else. And I don’t know that I would’ve had that perspective
[00:21:56] If I hadn’t have gone through that journey, so to a certain extent, it made me take a pause to actually think about what are the things that are important to me? Yes, work is important to me, but my friends, my family, my dogs the things that I do supporting other women, those things are important.
[00:22:17] And I will say like I didn’t talk about it at work for a very long time. The post that you’re, that you referenced at the start of the recording that was still a good time after I had been diagnosed. I held that in quietly for a long time, but I will say. The reason why I now am more ready to talk about it is there are a lot of women in technology that are being diagnosed with breast cancer.
[00:22:49] And most often than not, we all report to some male or our team is full of men. It’s becomes a very uncomfortable diagnosis to have when you’re literally in, in a pool of men. And I started talking about it within a week of me posting that somebody was knocking on my door in tears, going, I’ve just been diagnosed.
[00:23:16] What do I do? Right? So now at ADP, since most people do know that I’ve had breast cancer and I do talk about it. People when they’ve just been. Diagnosed or they’re going through treatment I’ll drop anything for them. If they just wanna have a coffee and talk and sometimes it’s just, they just wanna sit with somebody and breathe.
[00:23:42] I will do that. I will drop everything to do that because, it’s not easy when you have you don’t see a lot of people that look like you or in your team. So I, I try to give people space so that they can go through the process, go through the grieving, go through that the anger, the frustration, all of that.
[00:24:09] And I’ll hold space for them because we don’t often get time to do that. And actually after the Women in Technology thing a woman actually pulled me aside and said I was just diagnosed on Friday. What do I do next? So like, just by saying something it opens up a door and allows us to have space in a space where it’s often something that would be very uncomfortable to discuss.
[00:24:38] Adam Walker: Yeah. So in, in going back to the Women in Technology event for a moment I feel like you said something there and you alluded to it here as well, and I just wanna, I’d love to expound on it for a moment. I think you I believe I remember you saying at work, if you are not there.
[00:24:54] Things get covered. Like, like everything continues to happen. Even though we wa we want to believe that nothing happens without us. It, it work marches on essentially. But if you’re not there for your family, it’s a gap that no one else can fill. Right. Is that is that what you said and can you elaborate more on that?
[00:25:12]
[00:25:12] Naomi Lariviere: Yeah, so I do say like, no one’s going to die over anything that I’m doing at work. They, they may get angry because they got, they didn’t get a paycheck, but no one’s going to, no one’s going to die over the fact that I didn’t attend a meeting or submit a requirements document.
[00:25:32] No, like, it’s just not that important. But my family will miss me if I’m not there. If I don’t show up for myself and my health journey and it goes wonky or sideways, I’m still in that fi first five year period. So I have to be very conscious of my health and the things that I’m doing and the stress.
[00:25:54] So if I’m not there for them w work wasn’t worth it. It really wasn’t worth it. So if my kid needs to get to golf lessons or to their trumpet lesson or whatever it is I’m much more intentional about making time and space for those things because if I’m not there and I didn’t have the positive outcome that I have, then it just isn’t worth it.
[00:26:26] Adam Walker: Yeah.
[00:26:27] Naomi Lariviere: It just isn’t worth it.
[00:26:28] Adam Walker: That’s right. That’s right. Well, let’s talk a little bit about your advocacy. You’re you mentioned you’re a big adv advocate for women in tech. because you’re, you are a woman in tech. You’re doing great work there, but you’re also an advocate for breast cancer and specifically for taking that 15 minutes of discomfort that could save your life.
[00:26:47] So I mean I think the answers obvious, but I wonder if you like, tell me, give me more, like why is that so important to you? I assume it’s because of your experience but elaborate on that for us a bit.
[00:26:58] Naomi Lariviere: Yeah. So listen, I think there’s a lot of women, and I actually have friends they will put off taking that mammogram for as long as humanly possible.
[00:27:10] Because they’re like, oh, it’s uncomfortable. I don’t wanna do it. It is it’s it hurts, it’s whatever. I would rather you go through 15 minutes of something being uncomfortable, which really at the end of the day. It’s just a little bit of pressure. Yeah. It’s not I think a lot of people have made it to be such a big thing in their head.
[00:27:32] But go through that 15 minutes. Make, just make the appointment. Yeah. Just make the appointment. Yeah. Nine times out of 10 you will come back and you’re, you’ll be fine. You like no worries, no issues. Yep. I would rather have the peace of mind from something that took me 15 minutes to do. That came back and said, you’re akay, because nine times outta 10 it will say you’re akay.
[00:27:57] It’s it’s. It’s not every day that you’re going to come back and have that diagnosis. Right? But it gives you the peace of mind. And before I was diagnosed, that’s what it gave me. It gave me the peace of mind. Like I went, I did my duty and that’s kind of how I viewed it.
[00:28:20] I did my duty. I did my 15 minutes and I got a positive result. Fine. Not everybody’s going to be like me where they got a cancer diagnosis out of it, cancer diagnosis out of it. But what I will say is they caught it early for me. Yeah. I was stage one A right. And that meant my treatment options and the course that I had to take was a lot simpler. If I had kept putting that off
[00:28:53] and that cancer continued to grow, my outcome wouldn’t have had been as good or and it would’ve probably been a lot more brutal than it, it actually was. Yeah. So 15 minutes to nine times outta 10 get an answer that you’re okay or catch it early and be able to do something more proactive about it versus later on.
[00:29:20] So that’s right. It really isn’t a lot of time. So make the appointment, go through it, get it done. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to your husband, your partner, your kids, your family and you, and most importantly, you owe it to yourself.
[00:29:38] Adam Walker: That’s right. You do. You do. Well, Naomi I’ve got one more question for you and then I’ll wrap us up.
[00:29:44] If you could give one piece of advice to a listener, maybe one that has been recently diagnosed, what advice would you give?
[00:29:53] Naomi Lariviere: Breathe. Breathe. I found especially as I was navigating the early parts of the diagnosis is that I would get very anxious and I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t calm down.
[00:30:11] It was because I am a person who is always having to like, get things done. It was very frustrating for me and that caused my anxiety. So really thinking about breath work and learning how to just kind of take a moment and be okay with not being okay. I like. There’s times where I went to the bathroom at the office and bawled my eyes out and then just put the face back on and walk back into the room.
[00:30:40] But it’s just breathe. Give yourself the space. You will go through all of the stages of grief in this process that I didn’t really, I mean I joked with my husband about about getting a new set of boobs. But you don’t really realize. When you’re taking pieces of your body away that are so visible to you how you’re going to feel about all of those things, and just being able to sit in calm and silence was really important.
[00:31:16] So breathing is, and actually that was the piece of advice I gave to the lovely young lady who ha communicated that she had breast cancer to me at that event is just breathe. It’s a very, it’s very overwhelming, the process. The people that you talk to the appointments and you have to hold space for yourself to feel the feels and and
[00:31:46] be able to breathing took for me the, it gave me the ability to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And it’s actually probably the same advice I give myself on regular basis is just breathe. It’s going to work out. And having a positive mindset really helped me through my own journey.
[00:32:08] Yeah. So.
[00:32:10] Adam Walker: That’s fantastic. Well, Naomi your story is powerful. I appreciate that you, you did choose to share it, that on the LinkedIn post now here and really appreciate you joining us on the show today.
[00:32:23] Naomi Lariviere: Thank you for having me.
[00:32:29] Adam Walker: Thanks for listening to Real Pink, a weekly podcast by Susan G Komen. For more episodes, visit real pink.komen.org. And for more on breast cancer, visit komen.org. Make sure to check out at Susan G Komen on social media. I’m your host, Adam. You can find me on Twitter at AJ Walker or on my blog adam j walker.com.