[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.
A breast cancer diagnosis is shocking for young women. At a time in life, most often focused on family and career issues of treatment, recovery, and survivorship suddenly take top priority. And this can bring a wide range of emotions. Today’s guest was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at the age of 34.
By taking things one day at a time, she was able to mentally keep it together through diagnosis and treatment. But when her treatment was complete and she was faced with navigating life with her new normal, that was when the weight of what she had been through. caught up to her and she found herself struggling.
Cecilia Salvans is here today to share what she’s learned through her experience and how sharing her story to be able to help others has been the best medicine. Cecilia, welcome to the show.
[00:01:05] Cecilia Salvans: Hi, thank you. I’m excited to be here.
[00:01:08] Adam Walker: I love, the premise of this conversation that sharing your story has been the best medicine.
So I’m hoping this conversation is good medicine for you and for our whole community. I really, so I do know it’s not easy to share these things, but I really, I genuinely appreciate it. So let’s, start with your story, the story of your diagnosis, to help set the stage.
Can you share a little bit about what was going on in your life at the time and if you had a history of breast cancer in your family?
[00:01:35] Cecilia Salvans: Yeah. I have had an aunt, so my dad’s sister did pass away of breast cancer. However, I’d caveat that with the fact that my, both of my parents, immigrants, so I’m first generation born in the U.S., and they were born and raised in a very rural part of Mexico, so access to doctors and medicine was just not an option. Not there for them. And so from what I’ve been told, my aunt knew she had something going on with her breast, but she wasn’t able to go to the doctor and by the time she did, it was just pretty aggressive and there was no solution to it.
So for me growing up, it was, the only person that I knew that had, in our family had breast cancer, but it wasn’t significant enough in my eyes. I was like, just
get taken care of at the time that she should have. So with that, 2020 was the year of COVID, right? And so everything was in lockdown.
I remember, October I was on a zoom call with my, I’m part of this leadership group within our company and we were having our normal Monday calls, leadership calls, and we always start off our calls with a, safety moment. And the person at the time, our leader, I remember vividly he, and again, the meeting was predominantly men.
He paused and said, everyone here knows a woman, your mom, you have a sister, a friend, a wife. I know it’s COVID year, but please make sure that everyone encourages their significant others or their women figure, or even friends to go get their mammogram. No, we’ve seen a decline in women over 40 to go get their, just general checkup because of COVID.
And then he actually opened up saying that his wife was turned, had just turned 40 the year before, but because of COVID, she hadn’t, Done her scheduling and when she finally did, she had gotten diagnosed with breast cancer. So for him, it was more of a safety, but also very intimate moment. And I remember he closed and he said, I’m probably going to get in a lot of trouble by my wife because I’m telling her story, but I can’t miss opportunity.
And I remember emailing him and saying, thank you for just acknowledging that. I know it’s breast cancer awareness and there’s 20 people on it, only two people are women, but it was very humbling, to be able to acknowledge the, issues that women face. And my oldest sister, what turned 40 in 2020 as well.
And so I immediately called her and I was like, Hey, Liz, did you do your mammogram? And she’s actually I have everything back on. I was like, okay, great. I just realized that, it’s, COVID and people aren’t doing it. and so I told my neighbors, whoever I knew that was over the age of or close to 40 without asking them their age, of course, was like, hey, don’t forget to go get your mammogram.
That night, after that Monday meeting, I decided to do a self examination, which I never did. I had, at the time, a three year old and a one and three fourths of a child, right? And didn’t have much of breasts anymore, except for nursing, so they were like pancakes. There’s no way there’s anything going to be happening there.
But I decided to do a self exam check and on my left, closer to my armpit, I felt the smallest little grain of salt, of like sand, I would say. And, I knew it hadn’t been there the month before because I had gone in a lymphatic drainage
massage. And it’s all about lymph nodes, so it was not there, not the MSU suite that told me.
And so luckily, I’m not afraid of going to see the doctor. So I called my primary physician. I was like, Hey, can you see me? It’s, I just feel something weird. They’re like, great. We’ll see you next week. I went at this point, it was the first week of November that I was able to go get seen the doctor, did her just with the hand herself check.
She actually didn’t feel the grain of salt or brain of sand that I did. But I was like, no, it’s a little further up. And she’s oh yeah, that doesn’t feel right. Let’s go get you a ultrasound and they may, don’t be afraid if they have you do a mammogram. It’s totally normal. And I was like, okay, so then I went to do the ultrasound.
After the ultrasound, they’re like, let us read the results. They’re like, nope, we want you to a mammogram. So they had me do a mammogram, which. At the time I was what, 34? Then after the mammogram, they did another ultrasound and they concluded saying, it’s abnormal. We need to do a biopsy.
They did a biopsy. It was the weirdest. It felt like, you’re they were cutting a chicken breast, but it was mine and it just felt weird and awkward, but it was all numb. I was a little sore, but not much. And then, so that was the ninth, that was a Wednesday. And then on the Friday, so December 11th of 2020, I remember getting a call and I was on a zoom call with a colleague talking about a workshop we had just done.
And I was like, Hey, I need to get this call. It was my primary doctor, but it was the nurse. And she’s Ms. Sullivan, the doctor wants to see you Monday morning. Can you come in at seven in the morning? I’m like, why? This has to do with the biopsy. I was like, no, tell the doctor I’m not available. It’s bad. I can tell it’s bad. I want to know the truth now. And she was like, the doctor really, let me see what I can do. And I was like, tell the doctor I’m leaving on a trip. I can’t do it next week. I can only do it today. So luckily the doctor got on the call and she was just like, I don’t know why, but your results came back and it was a triple negative invasive ductal carcinoma breast cancer. Here are some surgeons that I found that are within your network. Give them a call. And at this point, it was Friday at 3 p. m. I gave everyone a call. Everything’s closed. That first weekend was a very dark weekend.
My head was going in all directions. I saw my husband for a thing, like every time he looked at me, he thought I was going to fall over and die. You just hear the word cancer and, it just seems like the world’s ending. And I had these two little kids, my youngest, was barely sleeping through the night.
And so I was like, okay, what are we doing? Luckily, I was able to see a surgeon, that following week, she was like, she laid it all out for me. She had this graphical, very 1990s PowerPoint, game planner, they’re like, if you have this, you go to this, and then there’s this action.
And then at the very end, she’s so knowing that you’re young and it looks like the, by the biopsy, the cancer is very small. She gave me the options of either doing just the removal or doing the whole mastectomy and at that point I lost it because I was just like, why are you giving me the toys?
I don’t know. And the only question I had for her was like, what stage am I in? Am I in stage one? And she’s actually, breast cancer has advanced so much that you really don’t know the stage of your breast cancer till after your surgery. So it’s really based on the size of the cancer tumor and you don’t know the size until you actually get in there.
So like the biopsy is just measurement, but it’s not actual. And the fact, you really don’t want to do a double mastectomy because it’s pretty aggressive. Recovery is pretty long. You have two little kids. You know what, actually, you’re pretty young. I’m going to recommend you do genetic testing and based on that, let’s do, we can decide what we want to do moving forward.
That was fine. I actually got blood drawn that day on the 15th. I remember I got the news from my genetic testing on December 23rd. The day before Christmas Eve, we celebrate Christmas. that’s when the nurse practitioner called and was like, you’re BRCA1 positive, the doctor has said we’re going to move forward with a double mastectomy.
It also means that you’re going to have a higher chance of ovarian cancer in your life. She’s actually recommending that you also get your ovaries removed. And she wants to do this all as soon as possible, and so I hung up the phone and I called my husband, I was like, so this is the plan, what we’re doing.
And he’s like, what? And I was like, he said, did you have any questions? I was like, no, it just seems very straightforward. I don’t have to do the choice. She made it for me, wasn’t that what I was asking for? And so one thing that they followed up with me was a number of plastic surgeons that my surgeon worked well with, right? And that he felt would be able to, get me in soon. I called the plastic surgeon and because I was referred by my surgeon, I was actually able to be seen on the morning of New Year’s Eve. So December 31st, I went in and, he was like, okay, this is what we’re going to be doing in terms of reconstruction.
When you do your surgery, imagine a pumpkin, we’re going to carve everything out. That’s what the surgeon’s going to do. The breast surgeon’s going to do. So she’s going to do that. In your breath, even though you say you have no breasts, you have breast tissue. She’s going to go in and scrape everything out like a pumpkin.
And then I’ll come in and I’m going to put in these imagine Ziploc bags under your muscle. And then, I’m going to close it up. You’re going to have some like tubes that are going to be hanging out. They’re all drained and it’s going to be collecting all the water that your body’s going to be eliminating.
Once the surgery is done, you’ll be seeing me. So at that point, the surgeon’s kind of out of the picture, and I’ll be your quarterback until I hand you off to your oncologist. So we decided on what we were thinking, but he said, honestly, I’m just giving you these options and giving you some material to think about, read.
We’re going to meet again probably a week before your actual surgery. And that’s when we will make the final decisions. I’ll order your infills and I’ll get everything prepared and then we’ll move forward. It was supposed to be an in out surgery day of surgery. Because I think I was just so emotionally and just exhausted, some of the reaction, it had a little bit of medical reaction.
So they kept me overnight. But they let me go the next day and then, I was supposed to see my breast surgeon two weeks after that as, oh no, one week. So post op, the week following.
[00:13:08] Adam Walker: Wow. That is quite the journey.
[00:13:11] Cecilia Salvans: Yes, it was quite the experience ending 2020.
[00:13:15] Adam Walker: In a very different way.
That’s a wild time, to have to go through all of that. And it just, it sounds like you made some good decisions though. So I’m glad for that. One of the decisions I know you made too, I want to talk about is, I understand you immediately underwent genetic testing after this.
So what was, what were the results of that? And how did that affect the rest of your family?
[00:13:41] Cecilia Salvans: Yes, because once I got the genetic testing, the great thing that, or my insurance did, or my breast surgeon, I don’t really know
who did it, but they connected me with a genetic counselor, and she was so nice, out of all the doctors I spoke to, she was the most human to human.
The one thing, because I had the BRCA marker, it meant that I definitely got it from one of my parents. All of my sisters had a 50/50 chance of having that marker as well. And that’s when I, genetic counselor, she made us actually, she made me and my husband, he was helping me look at my family tree.
And so she made me go back all the way to my great grandmother. So that’s when we were able to pinpoint that. It was my dad on my dad’s side because my aunt had the breast cancer so young that would have automatically triggered a doctor to think it was genetic because usually breast cancer, if you don’t have the marker, it doesn’t affect you unless you’re over the age of 50 or 60.
Because I had the marker, insurance was now able to cover my sister’s genetic testing. And so out of my three sisters, two of them had a marker as well. And so my sister that turned 40, that year before she actually had the marker as well. Based on what the genetic counselor said, the older you get, the higher the chance.
So if anything, she should have gone to the breast cancer, not me, but yeah, she was actually able to do her preventative double mastectomy, and just eliminate the chance of ever getting breast cancer. And then my younger sister that also got it, she’s still in the family making business, and so she’s waiting to be done with having all her kids and then she’ll go to the first preventative.
[00:15:38] Adam Walker: It sounds like, you having that testing done, has had positive effects on the rest of your family in terms of helping them take preventative steps. And that’s the point of genetic testing. So that’s great. Now, obviously, you mentioned you were young, you’re a young mother at the time.
You had to make some unique decisions quickly. Can you tell our listeners about the circumstances surrounding the round of IVF that you did during this and what that was like for you?
[00:16:06] Cecilia Salvans: Yeah. So when I originally got diagnosed with, breast cancer, my husband and myself had been seeing oncologists for issues, just not even addressing cancer.
And, but he, we’ve known him for a couple of years now. And so I called him and I was like, I made an appointment. I saw him and I was like, look at, I have breast cancer, I want you to be my oncologist. and he’s and his first question was. Do you want any more kids? And I was like, I don’t know.
Like my youngest is just turning two, like barely sleeping through the night. Like I have no clue. And all I can tell you is if you think you want another child, then I highly suggest you going through IVF because after your rounds of chemo, because you’re triple negative, we’re going to go with the most aggressive treatment out there.
One, I’m not going to even know if your ovaries are still going to be functional. And then two, I’m just putting it out there. There’s nothing to say one or the other, but would you want to have a child? if your ovaries come back to life, would you want to have a child from those eggs that you don’t know if what has happened because of all the toxins from the chemotherapy?
And so it was a very, torturous week and I had a week to make the decision. but my husband stepped in and he said, look it, breast cancer is going to take so much from you and our family already. Don’t let it take this decision. We’re fortunate enough to, have the means to do it. So let’s just do the round of IVF and we’ll see how it goes.
So two weeks after my surgery, I started doing those shots of whatever they give you to start the whole ovulation class.
[00:17:59] Adam Walker: Yeah.
[00:18:00] Cecilia Salvans: And then once you get to a certain point, you have to go see the IVF doctor every other day to see if your eggs are growing. I remember going to all those doctor visits with my drains because I was still having my fillers.
And so that was, at the moment I didn’t realize, but now looking back, like I put my body through so much, right?
[00:18:21] Adam Walker: Yeah, that’s a lot all at once.
So yeah, we made the decision and we were able to free some embryos there. We also knew consciously that, just because I was having the IVF doesn’t mean that I for sure was going to have another baby, but I wanted that choice.
[00:18:39] Cecilia Salvans: And so my husband and I also had to have a conversation about, If we don’t use the embryos, what would we do with them? Because, I’m a cancer survivor, they can’t really do anything with my eggs or the embryos. So even if I would want it to donate it to science, they wouldn’t accept it.
But we knew that, the only reason we were doing IVF was to see if we wanted to grow our family. And that was a decision we would make later in life. And yeah, we were able to freeze it. And it was, it was something, it was quite the burden right just financially and emotionally and physically.
[00:19:19] Adam Walker: Yeah, it’s a lot all at once.
[00:19:21] Cecilia Salvans: Yeah, I remember being like what about kids, women that get this younger like how do they pay for IVF?
I started doing research and actually if you don’t have kids, there’s actually a lot of grants out there to do IVF and it’s paid, because I already had kids, obviously I didn’t go through that grant process, but, it was something that when I’ve talked to other friends that have gone through breast cancer no one had ever asked them that question, right?
So I felt very fortunate that my oncologist asked me that at the moment.
[00:19:53] Adam Walker: All right. So you just mentioned, man, you went through a lot, like you put your body through a lot, but, mentally, right? Like you also went through a lot, but, I want to, fast forward afterward for a minute.
Take me there. You’re, post all of this, you’re done with treatment. What were you feeling? How were you doing and what helped you get through that time?
[00:20:27] Cecilia Salvans: Post-treatment, I was July, so it was 26 weeks of treatment and I remember doing my reconstruction on my 35th birthday.
And for me that was my new chapter. I wanted my 35th birthday year to be my year that I just focus on myself, right? And I did reconstruction and then they just let you go after that. Little did I know that it was going to be such an emotional roller coaster just because you’re expected to go back to living normal.
And here I was, growing out my eyebrows and my eyelashes. My head was looking like a Chia pet, like every week it was growing a little bit more. And people were thinking like, okay, you’re over it, not that they were being pitiful for me. But they knew I had already survived.
And no one knew this whole like, emotion of being able to move forward with what I used to be doing. So I really do think that I struggled with imposter syndrome, lot of PTSD as well in my chemo days. I felt that I was starting to look like myself, but when I would see myself in the mirror, I didn’t.
See myself, I saw that old person that was on the floor crying in pain. But, when other people saw me, they’d be like, wow, you look great, your hair’s looking good. And I’m just like, thanks. And I also wasn’t going to open up, because just move on forward.
The more and more that I didn’t talk about it and I didn’t seek help from someone, the worse it got. And so finally got to the point where I really just started to become hermit. I thought that my friendships were over. That were evolving or starting, ending was my fault.
I would double question everything I would do. If I said something wrong, I would think Oh my goodness, it’s because of my chemo brain. I would be having conversations with girlfriends around my same age and I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the conversation by the time I wanted to say something they were on another topic
And so I remember having quite a number of meltdowns of just like I can’t go into society anymore , I don’t know what i’m going to do.
I can’t go back to work. I can’t even can’t do spreadsheets. I can’t do anything. And how am I supposed to go back? Like I feel bad going back to my work getting the salary and doing my projects when I know I’m not what I used to be. And if I were to get interviewed right now, I probably wouldn’t get the job because I’m not what I used to be.
And I was just so stuck on this. Who am I? But it wasn’t until I think middle of 2022 that I had a six month post op with my oncologist and he was like, Cecilia, I think you’re going through a really, bad depression right now. Like you need, and you’re at the point where you just don’t need to see a therapist. You need to see a Psychiatrist.
[00:23:56] Adam Walker: Gotcha.
[00:23:56] Cecilia Salvans: He was like a therapist, but they specialize on the medicine side. I was very fortunate to get an amazing psychiatrist that worked with me to get on the right medicines, put me in contact with this amazing therapist that helped me do, EMDR, which is eye movement.
Detection or something.
[00:24:20] Adam Walker: Okay. Okay.
[00:24:22] Cecilia Salvans: And so it’s basically to help retrain my brain to not question who I was because you need to appreciate who you were but you need to embrace who you are now. Because you’ll never be the old you’ve been through too much and you, I need to stop comparing myself to others.
No one will know what I’m going through. So I just need to love who I was at the moment. For almost a year, I was working with them, meeting with the psychiatrist on a basic monthly basis and my therapist on a weekly, then bi weekly basis until I got to the point that I felt like I knew who I was. And when I saw myself in the mirror, I was happy with who I was at the moment, and I wasn’t comparing myself to that old person. And I was making decisions based on what was best for my family and me, and not based on what others thought I should be doing. And so that was very pivotal moment for me, that I was able to go and, look, I am very spiritual as well, and for a moment, I was very mad at God.
I believe in God and I was very mad, like, why would you punish me? And I realized that almost a year and a half later that it wasn’t a punishment, it was, there’s a reason why everything happens. And that’s when, at that moment, I was able to turn the tables and be grateful for what I went through and gratefulness that I had access to the doctors I had.
And then I had, this amazing family. My husband that was there. And at the end of the day, that’s all I needed to worry about. It was, yeah, it was a rollercoaster for sure.
[00:26:18] Adam Walker: Sounds like you’ve got a great support system that was able to really support you. And I know also part of your story is that you like to share your story and that sort of helped you this, tell me more about that.
[00:26:30] Cecilia Salvans: Gosh, I, so one, I’m very an extrovert. You would say, I love to talk to everyone. I’m going in the airport and I will talk to everyone. I love your shirt, anything. Yes, quietness makes me feel awkward.
And for the while, when I had really short hair, it was very easy for the topic of breast cancer to come up, but when my hair started really growing back, I, one thing that I didn’t mention was during that, 2021, had to get off social media because they just were doing so negative to me. And so the only thing I kept was my Facebook and on there, I really, the only thing I really would share or say was anything regarding my treatment and, telling people that I wanted to be there, if they had any friends or family that are going through the same thing, I would love to be a, just a resource, a crayon in the crayon box. Because it is a very scary journey to go through. And before I got diagnosed, the only person that I knew was a colleague of mine who was celebrating their 50th birthday that year. And other than that, I knew no one, didn’t know what chemo meant, when I was in the therapy and it was during COVID, no one can come with me.
And so now it was funny because of my eagerness to just spread the word I’ve actually been contacted, like whether it’s second degree or even to the fourth degree, been put in contact with young women that have been diagnosed with breast cancer. The youngest being 28, a college friend’s sister, was diagnosed.
And so even though I know we all had different stories, we all have different diagnoses. Just knowing that I could talk to them and say, Hey, it’s going to be okay. Look at me now and I’ve survived. It is going to be okay. And to just be there for them and, be that comfort or that shoulder, that I didn’t have, which kind of like motherhood, when your kids are, teething or waking up in the night, you don’t understand that, like pain or that suffering that parents go through, it’s like, Oh, why won’t the teachers come through?
It’s the same thing you go through, the journey of breast cancer, chemo, just like you don’t understand the like reactions or, Hey, did this happen to you? Is this normal? Are you having the version that I’m having? And yeah, I would want to just help fill the void that I felt when I was going through life.
[00:29:18] Adam Walker: I’m so glad you’re doing that, I’m sure that’s such a blessing to so many people and and you’re supporting the community here, too. So yeah, so speaking of supporting the community, I also know that you’ve done several Komen three days, talk to me about why you love that and how you describe your experience doing the Komen three day.
[00:29:40] Cecilia Salvans: Yeah. So I mentioned my colleague that was celebrating her 50th birthday, that’s also breast cancer survivor. So the year that I got was going through my treatment was her 30th year celebrating being. So when she was like, Cecilia, you should join with us. And I was like, I just finished cancer. I’m not going to go walk 60 miles.
But then on my 35th birthday, when I did the reconstruction, I was talking to my husband who goes, maybe we should let’s bookend it. And because of COVID, the only walk that Susan G Komen, the only three day walk that they were going to be doing in person was San Diego.
And for me, growing up in Southern California and actually going to UCSD in San Diego, for me, it was
very timely and it just connected the dots. A lot of my friends that were supporting us with meal train and all that. We’re from California, right? Because I had only moved to Texas and 2017. So all of my family, my friends, they’re all in California. So they, would send me all these goody bags and meals.
And so for the three day to be in San Diego for the year for it took her after my recovery, I was like, I got to do it. So my husband and I did it, and he was an angel to do it with me. I, didn’t do any training because of recovery. But he, with his help, I walked every mile of those 60 miles.
The team I was on, I remember my colleagues, she was everyone at the end of the three day was like, I’m one and done. And I was hooked by the end, they call it the, you get into this pink bubble. And for me, it was more than a pink bubble. It was like being emerged in this family of the sisterhood of everyone, they’re male and female that just want to love on each other.
Tell you that you are amazing and you’re going to be okay and that we’re in it together.
[00:31:45] Adam Walker: Yeah
[00:31:46] Cecilia Salvans: And for me being out of cancer and you know going through that like imposter syndrome of what am I doing? Like i’m a survivor. Everyone’s calling me this warrior. What am I doing? For me to be around so many women, and I remember, this one person, Mary, she turned 89 this year, and I was blessed to be able to walk with her one portion of the walk, and she’s 80, at the moment she was 85, she was wearing these, what looked like 20 pound combo boots.
She’s bald, she had a double mastectomy, never did reconstruction and she’s there with her walking pole. And she was, everyone’s just talking to each other. And she’s like Cecilia, tell me your story in her like East Coast voice, which I did a really good translation of, and I was like, I just finished.
And I just was like, I started crying with her. And I was like, honestly, Mary, I don’t know what I’m doing. I came here and now I just feel like I need to do something with my life. I need to spread the word. And I remember she stopped and she grabbed my face and she said, Cecilia, you are doing everything you are meant to be doing. You did everything you were supposed to do. You did the most aggressive cancer. You came to this three day walk and I know that you’re not going to stop spreading the word. And that is the only thing as women we can do moving forward so that everyone opens their eyes and make sure that they go get their diagnosis.
And for me, Mary’s my three day and so I was hooked and since then I’ve been able to do one three day every year, with the exception of last year I was supposed to do both Denver and San Diego. I did Denver and that was amazing. Such a beautiful way to see a city and to not worry about logistics and to just meet so many people.
And I was supposed to do San Diego again, but I got unfortunately COVID. So I wasn’t able to do that, but this year I’m going to be walking in the San Diego walk and I will be cheering on my team in the Dallas walk. But the support system that has evolved and the team that I’m a part of, TeamSTEPPS, is led by this amazing doctor, Dr. Cheryl, that was there for me, even when we’re not training, like I had an appendicitis and I was supposed to go train with them and I thought I was having stomach problems because I cook the night before and the doc, Dr. Cheryl was like, Cecilia, you didn’t show up here walking. Like we were just going to practice walking, like on a walking training walk.
And I was like, I have a really bad stomach ache. And I was like, I’ve been in bed for five hours now. She FaceTimed me and she’s no, you need to go to the hospital.
I could get apendicitus. And so our team, they’re just, everyone has this amazing story and I’ve just never been so felt so supported in my life because of that. If I can encourage anyone to do it, I would do definitely want them to feel the love.
[00:34:44] Adam Walker: I love that. Cecilia, last question for you. What final advice would you give to someone that’s in the midst of treatment? Maybe something you wish that you would have known when you were in that place.
[00:34:59] Cecilia Salvans: I think I have two advices, pieces of advice. One is take pictures, even if you look the ugliest, even if you don’t feel like yourself. I remember I took pictures when I was just having the G.I. Jane look, but I still had my eyebrows and my eyelashes. But as soon as those fell off, and I was in the remaining of the three months of my treatment, I probably took you three or four pictures because I just, I didn’t like myself.
And now looking back, I wish I had more pictures so that I could help tell my story and show my kids, what it is to take one foot in front of the other and just survive and do everything you have to do. And at some point, whether you like it or not, you’re going to want to see those memories, right?
If you go on a vacation, you take pictures because you want to keep the memories. Going through chemotherapy and your journey is worth celebrating and it’s worth taking pictures of. And then secondly is don’t be afraid of asking
for help or telling someone that you have breast cancer. And if they say, oh my goodness, you’re going to be fine.
I knew a friend, ask them, Hey, can you put me in contact with that person? Because unless you know someone that you can get in contact, it’s a very lonely journey and it doesn’t have to be lonely. I promise every survivor would drop what they’re doing to have that phone call with you. I call it where it’s in this rusty sisterhood.
And they just want to be your friend. And I’m fortunate that I could be a friend to a friend that is going through cancer right now. But, for everyone that doesn’t have that person, it’s okay to say, I’m going through breast cancer. And if you know anyone, send them my way. So I can just know that it’s going to be okay.
[00:37:04] Adam Walker: That’s right. Awesome. That’s great advice. I’ve never really thought about the like documenting the photos along the way either, but I think that’s, I think there’s a lot of value in that. Wow. Cecilia, again, thank you for the work that you’re doing for the three days.
But mostly for sharing your story with us. I know it’s not easy, but it’s so valuable and we really appreciate you today.
[00:37:28] Cecilia Salvans: No, it’s a pleasure. I would like to give thanks to, it’s funny how I got invited to this podcast. A friend, I guess I say friend loosely, I go to Orange Theory and she found out I was a breast cancer survivor.
And she was like, hi, you’re a breast cancer survivor? And I was like, yeah, she’s oh my goodness. I have a, my sister works at Susan G Komen. Can you tell your story? I was like, this is what I’m born for.
[00:37:55] Adam Walker: Love it. I love it. There’s a lot of value to meeting people. That’s for sure.
[00:38:00] Cecilia Salvans: Yeah. Thank you.
[00:38:06] Adam Walker: Thanks for listening to Real Pink, a weekly podcast by Susan G. Komen. For more episodes, visit realpink.komen.org and for more on breast cancer, visit komen.org. Make sure to check out @SusanGkomen on social media. I’m your host, Adam. You can find me on Twitter @AJWalker or on my blog, adamjwalker.com.