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Hello. Hello. Welcome to episode 10 of the Cancer Sisters podcast. I'm Nicole. And I'm

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Amanda. And this is Instant Friends Just Add Water. Such a perfect title. Yes. We're going

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to have such a fun and interesting conversation with our new friend who lives in Eastern Washington.

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Yeah. So we had to do a little bit of a different recording. We did it over the phone and with

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different time zones. Really excited for you guys to hear from her and hear her story. And we'd laugh

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a lot too, of course. So with that, let's get started. Okay. Hello. Hi. Hi. How's it going? Oh,

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life is good. Oh, good. We like that. Yeah, my, well, my urologist called today to say that I

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don't have cancer in my bladder. So it's a good day. That's amazing. That is a good day. I recently

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found out I have a cleanness. Stop saying it like that. I like, I like how those words just roll

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together. It's a cleanness. And you have a club ladder. It's fabulous. We like that. Well, in my

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oncologist today said that I was in the green. That's a new like phrase that I learned. In the

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green. It sounds better than saying stable. Yeah. Green is like all systems go. Congratulations.

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Thanks. I like my new favorite color. We like good news. Well, thanks for joining us. This has been a

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few weeks in the making and we're very excited to have you on. And I think what is so exciting is

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how, you know, first of all, how you connected with Amanda and how, you know, we ended up having so

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much in common with our, well, with our clean body parts. I mean, who, I mean, podcasts everywhere. We

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don't have to talk about anything else. It is, it's amazing. This little club that nobody wants to

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belong to, how many connections you find out there are when you join in. Absolutely. Yeah. The club

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that nobody wants to belong to. I think that should be the title of this episode. Yeah, exactly.

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Well, it just, to remind our listeners, speaking of club, you know, we're in a club that is,

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uh, women swim coaches. And that's how I found you. Um, after you posted your blog in our Facebook

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group. So I think that's really cool. I took a chance just to reach out and in, and in our last

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conversation, it was just so much fun. Even though we're talking about such a blah, such an unfun

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topic. Yeah. Yeah. And I really, you know, one of the first blogs I wrote in my little sub stack

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account was about how swimmers are my people. And I just feel like you start talking to somebody else

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who gets swimming and like, you could just, you know, finish that conversation and keep going on

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to lunch. And then suddenly it's afternoon and then there you are, you know, eating dinner together.

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Absolutely. Yeah. The swimmers are our people. We're, we're a strange group. So we get each other.

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Well, Leslie, we are so, um, we are so interested in, uh, in your story where, you know, where it

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began and then how you ended up blogging and swimming and coaching and all of that. So

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do you want to, you want to tell us a little bit about, um, tell us a little bit about your diagnosis

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and, and, you know, you jumped right to the healthy bladder. So what's in between? Sure.

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You know, I really, I started thinking about this and I realized I need to actually lay a little

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groundwork. So in my work, uh, I did crisis management and pretty heavy duty crisis,

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like where people die from the product that my company sells and, wow. Yeah. And there was a

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series of really bad, uh, Northern California wildfires in October of 20. And I became the

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person at my company to answer all of the discovery and data requests questions. And, you know,

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I had a team of about 70 or 80 people working for me on it, but, um, it was really high stakes and,

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and it was really sad because in some cases we were responsible and many we weren't, but, um,

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people died as a direct result of, um, our product. And then in November of 2018,

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another fire happened in a place that I had actually worked in paradise, California,

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ironically named, and it was called the campfire and it burned down the entire town.

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85 or so people lost their lives. Like it was bad. And I went into the end of that year telling

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myself, if I can make it through next year, I don't have to work the whole year. I will take,

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I had lots of vacations. I will take six weeks of vacation off at the end of 2019.

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And then in January of 2019, when I went back full throttle here, I mean, I still haven't taken the

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six week vacation, right? But now we're like campfire, October, 2017 fires, you know, we're

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just working, working, working. My mom gets diagnosed with breast cancer. And I went through

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treatment with her and her oncologist was very uncurious as was her surgeon. And it actually may

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have been stage four when they caught it. It could have just been stage three, but ultimately she

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ended up dying in July of 2021. And yeah. So in January of 2020, my mom thought she was in the

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clear. She was done with treatment. I had gone up and done all her treatments with her. And

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I found a lump in my breast, just almost like exactly a year later. And it was huge. It was

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like a big lump. It was somewhere between five or six centimeters, which I never really tuned

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into what a centimeter was until they said that to me. And then I got the ruler out and I went,

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Oh, that's kind of a lot. Yes. And you figure it out. Yeah. So it was there probably. And you were

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you were not getting mammograms or you were not doing self exams. Oh, absolutely not. I was

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way too important and busy. You know, I had all this, I had all this important stuff I had to do

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and all these people that needed help to get it done right. And, and also interestingly,

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and I haven't written about this yet in my blog, but my grandmother was raised as a Christian

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scientist. Her mother had left the Catholic church because it was too firing brimstone for her.

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And in the Christian science religion, you don't talk about health elements. And, you know,

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if you're connected with God, then life is good. You know, like you can leave your body and just

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have a spiritual, you can live on the spiritual plane. And in theory, that may be true. And

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I don't know, I haven't practiced it, but in reality, you know, some things happen and you

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really need to deal with them. And so I think part of it was I came from this long line of

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healthy people. Like my grandmother was a hundred at the time that I was going through breast

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cancer treatment with my mom. Oh my goodness. Right. And a Christian scientist. So like,

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wow. So I'm like, okay, you know, this, this mom getting cancer was a total fluke. Like this would

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never happen to me. Right. I don't know. Did you ever have that idea? Like that cancer is for other

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people? Oh, a hundred percent. And I mean, we didn't, I never gave it a thought. I don't know.

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Did you before having cancer? No. And that, you know, one of the things that I, that I often

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think about is if I, you know, in telling my own story and telling people about the, my incidences

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of cancer and the kind of treatment I've had and what I've endured, I like, I don't, I know,

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I still don't think of myself as the sick person who's had cancer three different times. You know,

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I like, I still have this strange sense of, of invincibility and it's not healthy, but no, I mean,

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no, never thought we were, never thought we were, we were sick. Yeah. But that it was coming for us.

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And our dad even had kidney cancer, but he had, you know, he had one kidney removed and then went

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on to be very, you know, very active and healthy for quite a, for quite a while. And played golf

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every day. I mean, he just, yeah. And so our experiences were, and when, you know, and with

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mom's cancer and they got it and she, she moved on, right. And we, and everybody was fine. So you

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just, you don't have to think about it again. And that's what we want because nobody wants to spend

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time thinking of. Right. It was kind of what could happen. Right. And with our dad, it was kind of,

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oh, someday maybe I should have an ultrasound of my kidneys. Just. Right. Maybe. Yeah. A baseline

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someday, but it wasn't urgent. Right. And the same thing happened with my mom. You know, she got the

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breast cancer and I was like, Oh yeah, I had a mammogram five years ago. I'm good.

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Right now I'm here. If there's anybody listening to this podcast who has not gone in to have a

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mammogram, do not take my approach with your mammograms and, and do the self, oh my gosh,

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how easy is a self inspection? Yeah. A self exam. I wasn't even doing that. Like so stupid, but,

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but I'm here now, you know, and I, yeah. So anyway, you can recommend people to do those self exams

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and to go to your mammogram. Yeah. So you thought you found the very, the rather large lump. Who did

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you, who did you go to first? Or did you, did they send you to get a mammogram right away? Or what

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was the, yeah. So the first thing I did was I went downstairs and I said to my husband, I need, I need

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you to, to come and, and feel my breasts for me. And he goes, Oh, okay. Not that kind of party, hun.

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No. And he felt it. And immediately he got this look on his face and he said, I think you need to

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go get that checked out. Like he, he was scared and that scared me. So, you know, I went to Kaiser

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in Oakland, which is where we were living. We were living in Berkeley at the time. And I,

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I went in and I said, I need a mammogram. And I think I have, you know, I have a lump in my breast.

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And so I think, you know, we need to figure out what it is. And they're like, well, you can't get

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the diagnostic mammogram until you get the regular mammogram. And we can't do, we can't do it for

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another day or two. We're booked. And, you know, I'm freaking out. And so that was my first introduction

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to the medical community moves at a different pace than your desire or need for them to move.

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Sometimes. Oh yes. That was a big aha. And all the gatekeepers at the front desks, you know,

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their job is just to manage the schedule. Like they don't really, they're not hearing

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the desperation in people's voices. They're just like, Oh, well, we don't have any openings until

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Thursday, you know. So anyway, I finally got the diagnostic mammogram and I was putting my clothes

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on and the woman who had the technician who had done it said, Oh, I'd like to take you down the

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hall. And that, you know, I only had that one other mammogram five years before and nobody had

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taken me down the hall. And I still, still was not connecting the dots. Right. Yeah.

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And I get into, I mean, I'm thinking something's really wrong, but I'm not thinking, Oh, they're

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going to tell me right now that I have cancer. So office, it's a windowless office. It has a round

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table and a little desk and there's a nice nurse in there with this really cushy, beautiful bosom.

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I found that was cushy and beautiful because I cried into it for 10 minutes after she told me that,

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while they didn't know what definitely had breast cancer and I shouldn't, I shouldn't have,

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I shouldn't leave there with any false. Dinner ready. I apologize for that.

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That's awesome. We have a paging system in our house. Well, part of the, yes, live recording,

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sorry, dinner. It's a good dinner too. But dinner time everybody. Anyway, she said, don't think

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that this isn't cancer. We're going to, we'll figure out what's going on, but I want you to

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leave here knowing that you have cancer. And then she just promptly handed me the box of tissue and

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let me cry all over her, which was the sweetest thing, honestly, that happened to me probably in

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my entire treatment. Like she just, she was right there and I was like, do you do this all the time?

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And she said, yes. You got to be thankful for a person like that. Love the compassion though.

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Yeah. Who can, who can bring that same level of compassion to work every day? You know?

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Wow. I mean, that's hard. I can't even imagine having that job. And, you know, and from there,

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they sent me to the surgeon and the surgeon, I love the cancer board or the tumor board, they call it.

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Oh yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty kick-ass concept. And I was a little bit familiar with it from my

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mom, but not really. And so, you know, they all talked about my case and they looked at my scan,

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we were doing all this scanning and stuff. And, and they said, well, we really think you should

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do chemo first and we should see if we can shrink the tumor. And so that's what we did, which I think

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was a really good call, but in retrospect, here are two things that are kind of like, oh, good to

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know. One, the NIH, the National Institute of Health is now, some of their researchers are now

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thinking that if you do chemo before surgery, that increases your chances of getting lymphedema,

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which I have in my left arm. No kidding. Isn't that interesting? And we shrunk the tumor so

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effectively that there was nothing left for them when they got to surgery. And so now that they have

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this better way of typing the cancer and you can tell just how estrogen expressive it is versus

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just how HER2 positive it is. I'm what's called triple positive in the breast cancer parlance.

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And now they can, they can really see what's going on and they can target the drugs.

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And because there was nothing left and there wasn't enough tissue in the biopsy, I don't get to know

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just how HER2 positive I was versus estrogen positive. And so I'm on two long-term pretty

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heavy duty drugs, one that deals with estrogen and one that deals with HER2. So, you know, there's

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just a lot you don't know when you go in. Exactly. It's like that is the, it is the good and the bad

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because the tumor shrunk so they couldn't accurately diagnose, but now you're left with those, with

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two medicines. Yeah. That's. Yeah. Yeah. And they both cause hot flashes. It's a tamoxifen and

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something called Herceptin. And the Herceptin, they inject into my leg every three weeks and it

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kind of feels like somebody has an icy dagger that's jagged and they shove it into your leg.

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And how pleasant for you. And my infusion center is this long row of chairs. You know, it's just

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one room and there's no like really private infusion rooms. And so I try to sit like as far

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away from people as I can, but basically like, I am really trying hard not to just scream. Just wail.

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And when I do. They're stabbing me. We all laugh about it. And I just apologize to the poor people

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who are trying to do their chemo in peace, you know. Right. Yeah. Anyway, they're, they're kind

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of tough drugs. I have, I have a slightly suppressed immune system, so I don't have my full

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complete compliment of red blood cells, platelets, white blood cells, but I'm pretty close. Like I'm

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close enough that I can, you know, live a fairly normal life, but like I, it's hard to be an

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endurance athlete, you know. Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. So what are that, like what's the immediate,

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besides the ice, he's stabbing pain. What's, what's the immediate side effect from that every few

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weeks injection? Well, you know, I think, because I'm talking to you guys, it's very appropriate

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that I go back to the butt. It gives you, it constipates you and gives you hemorrhoids.

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Like, really it's like, but there's this point on the top of your head, you know, that the soft,

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the soft point in the back of your head, you know, where there's like a little indentation almost,

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before the curve, but at the back in the middle. Yeah. That point is, I think, called dew point 20

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in acupuncture. And if you get somebody to put a needle at the top of that point for, I don't know,

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20 minutes every 10 days or so, no hemorrhoids and no constipation. Well, that is fascinating.

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So I imagine that's your path then after the injection, you do see an acupuncturist.

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Is that what you're telling us? I love my acupuncturist. And the other thing that she does

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to get rid of the heat, because really, you know, in Western medicine, the way,

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this is the way the Chinese medicine people will talk about it and the Japanese medicine people too.

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In Western medicine, we fight fire with fire. So cancer is inflammation. And then when you

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inject you with fire to fight the fire. And in Chinese medicine or Japanese medicine and

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traditional acupuncture, they like to dampen the fire. They like to put water on the fire.

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And I'm a water person, right? Like, right. I mean, right. Water person. So I really like

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this idea of dampening and cooling toxic heat. I think that works for me. So I'm a water person.

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Works for me. So I eat a lot of watermelon, which is also a Chinese thing. And my acupuncturist

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does this little scoring on my back with some tool that opens up the skin, but not like so that I

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have a skin. And then she puts these cups on the back, which we, or so we saw all the Olympic

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athletes at Rio with those. Right? It's that cupping bruises. Yeah. It's that cupping. And then

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we pull, we literally pull out blood. It's like having like leeches, except it's more modern.

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And it works. It really works. It really helps to reduce the toxic heat. So, you know.

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Did someone suggest that to you or were you already into acupuncture or, and you were already

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working with somebody before the diagnosis or did somebody suggest it to you after?

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As a swimmer, I had been doing acupuncture and massage with this amazing person for,

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I don't know, maybe like seven years. And I'd go in and she'd just, you know, get me all fixed up.

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And then of course there was the pandemic. And right before I got diagnosed, she left her

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acupuncture practice to go to medical school in the Bahamas or something like Trinidad and Tobago

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or somewhere really far away. And so I finally worked up the courage. I didn't want to tell her

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that I had cancer. I finally worked up the courage to tell her that I had it. And she sent me to her

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mentor who specializes in acupuncture for women with breast cancer. How lucky is that? No kidding.

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I mean, yeah, that's an interesting, that's an interesting connection. I think that's quite lovely.

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Yeah. It really, it really has worked out well for me. And, you know, and then part of it is

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just really having super clean diet and getting a lot of naps and sleeping and I'm not working.

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And so in one of my blogs recently, I wrote about this concept of making room.

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So the idea is that you don't fit it in, but you actually assess what you need to get rid of.

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And so in my case, it was work. I got rid of work and replaced it with naps and acupuncture.

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I like that for you. Well, it sounds like, I mean, in charge of 70 or so people and

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people and you were doing, you were doing the damage control and the writing and the communication

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for really disastrous and intense things. I can imagine that that was a really high stress

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position for you. Yeah. It was really, and I, and I realized, you know, I had,

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I had re, I guess redesigned our emergency management program and modernized it. And I built

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an emergency operation center for our company. And this was a, and in 2010, it was put to the test

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when we had a pipeline explosion in the city of San Bruno and 153 houses were damaged and eight

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people died. And I realized going into 2019 after the campfire happened in November of 2018,

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in a town that I loved and had worked in, that I was still carrying the dead people,

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the people who had died in the San Bruno pipeline explosion on my back. And yeah,

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yeah, it was pretty intense. And I, I remember I got to that six week, you know, break. Finally,

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my mom was cured from cancer. I'm taking my six weeks off work. I'm going to really be all about

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myself and do things for myself. And I remember telling my husband, I just feel so guilty. And

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there are two have worked on all of those horrible events and we have similar feelings. And my husband

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said, honey, you're not the one who's responsible for that pipeline explosion. I wasn't operating

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the pipeline. There was, it turned out that there was an overpressure that somebody had done. And I

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didn't do that. It wasn't me. And then he took this bag of grated Parmesan cheese that was on the

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table that night for dinner. And he threw it from our dining room into the kitchen and it landed on

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the floor with it burst open. And I looked at him, I said, what are you doing? And he goes,

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you didn't throw the parm, did you? And I said, no, I didn't throw the parm. I didn't. Yeah. And

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he goes, exactly. Exactly. Oh my goodness. And so that was the beginning of my healing journey. And

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I really am feeling now much less emotionally involved and engaged and overwhelmed by all that

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tragedy. I do feel like it's more in the rear view mirror now than it ever has been, which is good

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and healthy, I think. Yes. That sounds good and healthy because for your, of course, for your

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mental wellbeing, but for your physical health, you can't hang on to guilt of any kind, really,

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even especially when it's not yours. And yeah, I have to imagine that was quite a turning point

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and it's really a lighter moment for you. Did you start writing about the same time?

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Writing for yourself, I mean. Yeah. The best thing I ever wrote was in, I want to say like 2013,

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I wrote, I wrote for SVPs on best practices in the, how best practices work, what one is,

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and how to implement them. And it was literally something that I just, it just flew out of me.

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And it was the first time at work, honestly, that something had just come out almost perfect,

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the way it was written. And it was just because it was something I knew so much about. And I

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realized like, I really like writing. I like writing when it's me. And this just happened to

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be an assignment. Writing about- That was yours.

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Mm-hmm. Writing about wind velocity in a canyon is not my subject matter expertise. And so you have

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to learn a lot before you can write. And then even then you have to really choose your words

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carefully. So I didn't write until I got the diagnosis and then I was not working. And every

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time they would give you what I called mega meta death, which is dexamethasone, right? That's the

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steroid before chemo. Have you guys had that? Amanda had to have it because I had chemotherapy,

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but it was a pill form. And so after her metastasis, she did, she had just the pills and

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the infusions and all this stuff to help bolster you up so you could handle the

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infusion of the actual chemotherapy. The onslaught. And so-

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The onslaught, yes. Yeah. Amanda, were you like, did you have a lot of energy on those nights that

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you had to take the pills? Absolutely. It's such a strange reality to have all that energy. I felt

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so strong. Like I could start lifting weights. Totally. So that's what happened to me. And I had

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seen my mom go through this. We came back from chemotherapy and they had a new neighbor and the

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new neighbor hadn't seen her place. They lived in a retirement community. And she was like,

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come on in, let me give you a tour. Like we just have ended six hours of infusions. I'm like, mom,

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I really think we should relax. So I knew what I was headed into. And that's when I started writing.

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And the first thing I wrote was a perspective. My local radio station, my local NPR station,

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KQED, had this thing called With a Perspective. And you could record, I think it was like a two

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minute piece. And they would play it on the radio. And that's unfortunately how many of my friends

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found out that I had cancer. No kidding. But I wrote this piece about the will to live and wanting

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to live and being in such a strange time with the pandemic and all my neighbors asking if there was

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anything they could do. And the only thing I wanted was my life. But I took the masks and I took the

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food help and I took the groceries. But what I really wanted was to live. That was a tough time.

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And that was the first piece I wrote. And it was good. It was really good. And that's when I

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realized I have stories. And so every time I got Dexamethadone, Dexamegadeth or whatever.

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Dexamegadeth. And the energy to sit down and tell a story.

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Yep. Yep. And that's when I started writing. And then I stopped. We moved. I tried to go back to

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work. Things happened. I have a teenager, you know, and then all of a sudden near like October of

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last year, I realized, oh my gosh, I have space on Friday afternoons, just completely wide open

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space. And I have taken enough naps and I have done enough meditation and I have lied on the floor

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for long enough. And, you know, I just have more energy. I think I could fill that space with

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writing. And I really want to share with people what I have learned. And so I met with a girlfriend

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of mine who has a master's degree in creative nonfiction. And I said, tell me a little bit about

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this writing thing. And then I talked to a few different people about where to publish. And she

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was the one actually who had said you should publish on Substack. It's ad free. It's an easy

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format. And so I decided, okay. Oh, cool. At the beginning of the year, that's what I'm going to do.

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And so this year I started and I've been publishing once a week. And just today, this was like the high

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point of my publishing career. Are you ready? Yes. I got a comment from a woman who is a breast

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cancer survivor and has had lymphedema for the last two years and thanked me for sharing what I

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have learned. That's amazing. That is, I mean, that's amazing because you have, you know, there

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has to be plenty of people interacting and reading. And I have to tell you, I think you are just a

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beautiful writer. I mean, creative nonfiction is its own unique genre. But as an English teacher,

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it's so ridiculous. I think I could, it's just a human being, you know, but as an English teacher,

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I just appreciate your language, just your such specific word choice and your comparisons,

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your analogies. I'm like, yes, it just, it speaks to me. It makes so much sense. It's,

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wow. I was like, I'm such a dork. I'm like, I'm like, this writing is so good.

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Well, you know, it's really funny because in my last blog, I thanked Mrs. Dix who,

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and well, Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Phillips, I should have thanked them too. But Mrs. Dix was my debate

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coach. She was an English teacher at my high school and she's gone now, but she really taught

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me how to do research. And she was formative in helping me to think about structuring my writing,

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more than actual writing itself, but structuring it. And I know that, you know, those English

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Mrs. Cox in sixth grade taught me how to write a paragraph. Mrs. Phillips taught me how to write a

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five paragraph essay and Mrs. Dix taught me how to write stuff that was supported in real life with

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real world evidence. And I'm just really grateful for my English teachers and I'm grateful for you.

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Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm teaching, I'm teaching my students to write in a different way

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in these last few weeks. And I kind of want to hit my head against the wall. So that's a nice...

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You just don't know, you know, it's like the work that you do as an English teacher,

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it is like seed sowing, you know, and some seeds take 10 years to germinate and some take 15 and

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some, you know, don't germinate for 200 years. Like it's crazy, right? There has to be a fire

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and a certain amount of rain at the right time. And, you know, it's like you're out there sowing

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all these seeds and it, that must be a little bit of a hard job because, you know, all you see is

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the frustration in the moment, but you don't see that light bulb that goes off when that 27 year old

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says, oh, you know, this is what she meant. It'll be important sometime. I know that. It'll be

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important sometime, more than, you know, more than just this essay, but I do actually love teaching

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writing. I don't, I don't very much enjoy grading it, but I do love the writing process. So

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that's great. So you're, so Cancer and Swimming, the name of your podcast. Let's, well, I want to

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hear, I do want to, I do want to talk about swimming. I know Amanda especially wants you to

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talk about swimming, but can we go back a little bit from, from chemo first? Then you said you were,

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you were moving, you tried to work again. What happened then that sort of put you where you were?

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What happened then that sort of put you where you are now, not working with acupuncture and meditation and naps?

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And now it sounds like such an ideal life. It does. I love it. Yes. If it weren't for the cancer,

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it would be an ideal life. So yeah. Oh my gosh. So in August of 2020, I was just, I had finished my

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mastectomy. I was recovering from my mastectomy and I was going to go into radiation and California

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had another series of wildfires come through. It was more in Northern California and maybe even

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Oregon. And there was a 30 day period in Berkeley, which has really usually very lovely air and,

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and it was a heat wave and none of the houses have air conditioning. Right. So you're, you're in this

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86 degrees and you're on fire because you're taking these post chemo drugs, but chemo also made you on

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fire. So you're just hot all the time. The house is hot. And then these fires came through and there

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were 30 days in between September and October and August where you couldn't go to the hospital.

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Where you couldn't go outside without wearing an N95 mask and inside was inhospitable

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because it was 86 degrees that in the house never really cooled off.

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Maybe it took like three weeks in the house finally cooled off.

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And so there I was stuck in this sardine tin in Berkeley. Inferno. Yeah. No, I mean, it was just,

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you know, and the one respite that you had from this constant N95 wearing was going outside and

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going for walks with friends. I had been using a friend's swimming pool. I drove 25 minutes to her

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house and to swim in it because the public pools were closed and neighbor cut a hole in the fence

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to the local swimming pool and took me on a midnight swim one night in her. That's fantastic.

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That's really fun. You know, I had been doing things like that to just keep my sanity.

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And then suddenly the outdoors was no longer, it's hard to swim with an N95 mask on.

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I think Amanda could validate that. So that was really, you know, it's like no swimming.

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It's horrible. I loved my house, but it felt really small. I was sharing my bathroom with

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my 14 year old. Yeah. And the man next door would visit with my friends on the front porch

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and they would sit on my driveway and his driveway was right next to our driveway and there was no

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like visual buffer between them. And our porches in this 1920s bungalows were eyeball to eyeball.

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And he would sit on his porch in his terry cloth blue man dress that he never changed.

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Oh no. And listen to like fire and brimstone, male religious radio people, you know, talking like,

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I can't, this doesn't sound real. Eating canned peaches, right? So that's my view on my right.

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Then our neighbor's kitty corner behind us, which our lot was 120 feet deep total. So, you know,

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you're like 60 feet away from them. They rebuilt their entire back shed thing. And then some other

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neighbors of ours decided that it was time to redo some retaining walls. So they brought in a crew

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who spent a week and a half doing jackhammering and then pouring concrete for like four days or

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something. And then somebody else added a second story on their house. And then there was constant

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tree trimming because everybody was worried about fires. And then, you know, then there's just the

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usual stuff like the UPS truck. And in our street, the garbage truck came three times. First, there

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was a truck to pick up the garbage. Then there was a truck to pick up the green waste. And then there

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was a truck to pick up the recycling. Oh, the noise. And then we had, and then two of our neighbors,

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one behind us and one, two doors over got pandemic dogs. And I will just say about these dogs that it

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was not their failure to thrive on the farm that sent them to the pound for adoption.

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Enough said. It's just a concordance of.

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It was, it was horrible. Like there was, and we had been looking here in beautiful Eastern Washington

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for seven years, trying to figure out like, should we, should we move? I have family here

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on my husband's side. And after I got the clean pet scan in October, so I went through radiation.

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I was going through radiation on my back, that had been in my back. And this house that had been on

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the market for two years, people here tend to price their houses like way, in a self war in hopes

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that some stupid person from California will come along and buy it. And so this house had been

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sitting and sitting and sitting, and they just sheared off a huge amount of asking on it. They

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were just really finally ready to sell. And I showed it to my husband online. I said, what do

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you think? And he said, I really liked that house. So we sent my sister-in-law who lives here to look

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at it. And I asked her two questions. I said, one, you know, can we make it homey? And two,

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does it smell? And she said, yes, you can make it homey and no, it doesn't smell. And so, okay,

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great. So you saw the house by proxy. That's pretty great. Classic pandemic story, right?

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Yes. And we bought the house. And then I, of course, was just completely gassed. And I think,

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based on the conversation we had before this blog, before this podcast, I think you two have been

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there also, where you just can't move. Can't do anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we're

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doing. Yeah. So that's what we're doing. Yeah. I found a favorite spot on the couch.

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I'd go to radiation. I'd come home. I'd take a nap. Yeah. Oh yeah. Then maybe I'd have something

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to eat and then I'd take a nap. Yeah. Yeah. That's really in the pot, in the blog I wrote about

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making room. I said, during cancer treatment, really, you know, during chemo, there's only one

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room. And during radiation, there's only one room and that's the bedroom in the bed. You're just so

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fricking tired. So my dear husband packed up our entire house in six weeks, 30 years on the same

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street in two different houses, but 30 years, like it was, you know, and got us completely packed up.

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And we moved on December 20th of 2020. And yeah. And then the pool reopened in April of 2021.

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And I thought, there probably aren't a whole lot of people swimming. And even if there are,

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I think it's worth the risk because I need swimming. I cannot live. I had lived for four

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months now with no swimming at all. And it was just killing me. There are no out, you don't want

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to swim in an outdoor pool in Eastern Washington in the wintertime. Right. Yeah. No thanks.

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That was a little bit of a shock. Well,

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we have had such a great conversation, but it is time for us to part.

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Yes, we're going to save the rest for part two so we can make sure you get all the great information

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and all the laughs, all the laughs, all the excellent storytelling. So next week,

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part two of instant friends, just add water until next time. Thanks for listening. Bye.