Hello. Hello. Welcome to episode 10 of the Cancer Sisters podcast. I'm Nicole. And I'm
Amanda. And this is Instant Friends Just Add Water. Such a perfect title. Yes. We're going
to have such a fun and interesting conversation with our new friend who lives in Eastern Washington.
Yeah. So we had to do a little bit of a different recording. We did it over the phone and with
different time zones. Really excited for you guys to hear from her and hear her story. And we'd laugh
a lot too, of course. So with that, let's get started. Okay. Hello. Hi. Hi. How's it going? Oh,
life is good. Oh, good. We like that. Yeah, my, well, my urologist called today to say that I
don't have cancer in my bladder. So it's a good day. That's amazing. That is a good day. I recently
found out I have a cleanness. Stop saying it like that. I like, I like how those words just roll
together. It's a cleanness. And you have a club ladder. It's fabulous. We like that. Well, in my
oncologist today said that I was in the green. That's a new like phrase that I learned. In the
green. It sounds better than saying stable. Yeah. Green is like all systems go. Congratulations.
Thanks. I like my new favorite color. We like good news. Well, thanks for joining us. This has been a
few weeks in the making and we're very excited to have you on. And I think what is so exciting is
how, you know, first of all, how you connected with Amanda and how, you know, we ended up having so
much in common with our, well, with our clean body parts. I mean, who, I mean, podcasts everywhere. We
don't have to talk about anything else. It is, it's amazing. This little club that nobody wants to
belong to, how many connections you find out there are when you join in. Absolutely. Yeah. The club
that nobody wants to belong to. I think that should be the title of this episode. Yeah, exactly.
Well, it just, to remind our listeners, speaking of club, you know, we're in a club that is,
uh, women swim coaches. And that's how I found you. Um, after you posted your blog in our Facebook
group. So I think that's really cool. I took a chance just to reach out and in, and in our last
conversation, it was just so much fun. Even though we're talking about such a blah, such an unfun
topic. Yeah. Yeah. And I really, you know, one of the first blogs I wrote in my little sub stack
account was about how swimmers are my people. And I just feel like you start talking to somebody else
who gets swimming and like, you could just, you know, finish that conversation and keep going on
to lunch. And then suddenly it's afternoon and then there you are, you know, eating dinner together.
Absolutely. Yeah. The swimmers are our people. We're, we're a strange group. So we get each other.
Well, Leslie, we are so, um, we are so interested in, uh, in your story where, you know, where it
began and then how you ended up blogging and swimming and coaching and all of that. So
do you want to, you want to tell us a little bit about, um, tell us a little bit about your diagnosis
and, and, you know, you jumped right to the healthy bladder. So what's in between? Sure.
You know, I really, I started thinking about this and I realized I need to actually lay a little
groundwork. So in my work, uh, I did crisis management and pretty heavy duty crisis,
like where people die from the product that my company sells and, wow. Yeah. And there was a
series of really bad, uh, Northern California wildfires in October of 20. And I became the
person at my company to answer all of the discovery and data requests questions. And, you know,
I had a team of about 70 or 80 people working for me on it, but, um, it was really high stakes and,
and it was really sad because in some cases we were responsible and many we weren't, but, um,
people died as a direct result of, um, our product. And then in November of 2018,
another fire happened in a place that I had actually worked in paradise, California,
ironically named, and it was called the campfire and it burned down the entire town.
85 or so people lost their lives. Like it was bad. And I went into the end of that year telling
myself, if I can make it through next year, I don't have to work the whole year. I will take,
I had lots of vacations. I will take six weeks of vacation off at the end of 2019.
And then in January of 2019, when I went back full throttle here, I mean, I still haven't taken the
six week vacation, right? But now we're like campfire, October, 2017 fires, you know, we're
just working, working, working. My mom gets diagnosed with breast cancer. And I went through
treatment with her and her oncologist was very uncurious as was her surgeon. And it actually may
have been stage four when they caught it. It could have just been stage three, but ultimately she
ended up dying in July of 2021. And yeah. So in January of 2020, my mom thought she was in the
clear. She was done with treatment. I had gone up and done all her treatments with her. And
I found a lump in my breast, just almost like exactly a year later. And it was huge. It was
like a big lump. It was somewhere between five or six centimeters, which I never really tuned
into what a centimeter was until they said that to me. And then I got the ruler out and I went,
Oh, that's kind of a lot. Yes. And you figure it out. Yeah. So it was there probably. And you were
you were not getting mammograms or you were not doing self exams. Oh, absolutely not. I was
way too important and busy. You know, I had all this, I had all this important stuff I had to do
and all these people that needed help to get it done right. And, and also interestingly,
and I haven't written about this yet in my blog, but my grandmother was raised as a Christian
scientist. Her mother had left the Catholic church because it was too firing brimstone for her.
And in the Christian science religion, you don't talk about health elements. And, you know,
if you're connected with God, then life is good. You know, like you can leave your body and just
have a spiritual, you can live on the spiritual plane. And in theory, that may be true. And
I don't know, I haven't practiced it, but in reality, you know, some things happen and you
really need to deal with them. And so I think part of it was I came from this long line of
healthy people. Like my grandmother was a hundred at the time that I was going through breast
cancer treatment with my mom. Oh my goodness. Right. And a Christian scientist. So like,
wow. So I'm like, okay, you know, this, this mom getting cancer was a total fluke. Like this would
never happen to me. Right. I don't know. Did you ever have that idea? Like that cancer is for other
people? Oh, a hundred percent. And I mean, we didn't, I never gave it a thought. I don't know.
Did you before having cancer? No. And that, you know, one of the things that I, that I often
think about is if I, you know, in telling my own story and telling people about the, my incidences
of cancer and the kind of treatment I've had and what I've endured, I like, I don't, I know,
I still don't think of myself as the sick person who's had cancer three different times. You know,
I like, I still have this strange sense of, of invincibility and it's not healthy, but no, I mean,
no, never thought we were, never thought we were, we were sick. Yeah. But that it was coming for us.
And our dad even had kidney cancer, but he had, you know, he had one kidney removed and then went
on to be very, you know, very active and healthy for quite a, for quite a while. And played golf
every day. I mean, he just, yeah. And so our experiences were, and when, you know, and with
mom's cancer and they got it and she, she moved on, right. And we, and everybody was fine. So you
just, you don't have to think about it again. And that's what we want because nobody wants to spend
time thinking of. Right. It was kind of what could happen. Right. And with our dad, it was kind of,
oh, someday maybe I should have an ultrasound of my kidneys. Just. Right. Maybe. Yeah. A baseline
someday, but it wasn't urgent. Right. And the same thing happened with my mom. You know, she got the
breast cancer and I was like, Oh yeah, I had a mammogram five years ago. I'm good.
Right now I'm here. If there's anybody listening to this podcast who has not gone in to have a
mammogram, do not take my approach with your mammograms and, and do the self, oh my gosh,
how easy is a self inspection? Yeah. A self exam. I wasn't even doing that. Like so stupid, but,
but I'm here now, you know, and I, yeah. So anyway, you can recommend people to do those self exams
and to go to your mammogram. Yeah. So you thought you found the very, the rather large lump. Who did
you, who did you go to first? Or did you, did they send you to get a mammogram right away? Or what
was the, yeah. So the first thing I did was I went downstairs and I said to my husband, I need, I need
you to, to come and, and feel my breasts for me. And he goes, Oh, okay. Not that kind of party, hun.
No. And he felt it. And immediately he got this look on his face and he said, I think you need to
go get that checked out. Like he, he was scared and that scared me. So, you know, I went to Kaiser
in Oakland, which is where we were living. We were living in Berkeley at the time. And I,
I went in and I said, I need a mammogram. And I think I have, you know, I have a lump in my breast.
And so I think, you know, we need to figure out what it is. And they're like, well, you can't get
the diagnostic mammogram until you get the regular mammogram. And we can't do, we can't do it for
another day or two. We're booked. And, you know, I'm freaking out. And so that was my first introduction
to the medical community moves at a different pace than your desire or need for them to move.
Sometimes. Oh yes. That was a big aha. And all the gatekeepers at the front desks, you know,
their job is just to manage the schedule. Like they don't really, they're not hearing
the desperation in people's voices. They're just like, Oh, well, we don't have any openings until
Thursday, you know. So anyway, I finally got the diagnostic mammogram and I was putting my clothes
on and the woman who had the technician who had done it said, Oh, I'd like to take you down the
hall. And that, you know, I only had that one other mammogram five years before and nobody had
taken me down the hall. And I still, still was not connecting the dots. Right. Yeah.
And I get into, I mean, I'm thinking something's really wrong, but I'm not thinking, Oh, they're
going to tell me right now that I have cancer. So office, it's a windowless office. It has a round
table and a little desk and there's a nice nurse in there with this really cushy, beautiful bosom.
I found that was cushy and beautiful because I cried into it for 10 minutes after she told me that,
while they didn't know what definitely had breast cancer and I shouldn't, I shouldn't have,
I shouldn't leave there with any false. Dinner ready. I apologize for that.
That's awesome. We have a paging system in our house. Well, part of the, yes, live recording,
sorry, dinner. It's a good dinner too. But dinner time everybody. Anyway, she said, don't think
that this isn't cancer. We're going to, we'll figure out what's going on, but I want you to
leave here knowing that you have cancer. And then she just promptly handed me the box of tissue and
let me cry all over her, which was the sweetest thing, honestly, that happened to me probably in
my entire treatment. Like she just, she was right there and I was like, do you do this all the time?
And she said, yes. You got to be thankful for a person like that. Love the compassion though.
Yeah. Who can, who can bring that same level of compassion to work every day? You know?
Wow. I mean, that's hard. I can't even imagine having that job. And, you know, and from there,
they sent me to the surgeon and the surgeon, I love the cancer board or the tumor board, they call it.
Oh yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty kick-ass concept. And I was a little bit familiar with it from my
mom, but not really. And so, you know, they all talked about my case and they looked at my scan,
we were doing all this scanning and stuff. And, and they said, well, we really think you should
do chemo first and we should see if we can shrink the tumor. And so that's what we did, which I think
was a really good call, but in retrospect, here are two things that are kind of like, oh, good to
know. One, the NIH, the National Institute of Health is now, some of their researchers are now
thinking that if you do chemo before surgery, that increases your chances of getting lymphedema,
which I have in my left arm. No kidding. Isn't that interesting? And we shrunk the tumor so
effectively that there was nothing left for them when they got to surgery. And so now that they have
this better way of typing the cancer and you can tell just how estrogen expressive it is versus
just how HER2 positive it is. I'm what's called triple positive in the breast cancer parlance.
And now they can, they can really see what's going on and they can target the drugs.
And because there was nothing left and there wasn't enough tissue in the biopsy, I don't get to know
just how HER2 positive I was versus estrogen positive. And so I'm on two long-term pretty
heavy duty drugs, one that deals with estrogen and one that deals with HER2. So, you know, there's
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
because the tumor shrunk so they couldn't accurately diagnose, but now you're left with those, with
two medicines. Yeah. That's. Yeah. Yeah. And they both cause hot flashes. It's a tamoxifen and
something called Herceptin. And the Herceptin, they inject into my leg every three weeks and it
kind of feels like somebody has an icy dagger that's jagged and they shove it into your leg.
And how pleasant for you. And my infusion center is this long row of chairs. You know, it's just
one room and there's no like really private infusion rooms. And so I try to sit like as far
away from people as I can, but basically like, I am really trying hard not to just scream. Just wail.
And when I do. They're stabbing me. We all laugh about it. And I just apologize to the poor people
who are trying to do their chemo in peace, you know. Right. Yeah. Anyway, they're, they're kind
of tough drugs. I have, I have a slightly suppressed immune system, so I don't have my full
complete compliment of red blood cells, platelets, white blood cells, but I'm pretty close. Like I'm
close enough that I can, you know, live a fairly normal life, but like I, it's hard to be an
endurance athlete, you know. Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. So what are that, like what's the immediate,
besides the ice, he's stabbing pain. What's, what's the immediate side effect from that every few
weeks injection? Well, you know, I think, because I'm talking to you guys, it's very appropriate
that I go back to the butt. It gives you, it constipates you and gives you hemorrhoids.
Like, really it's like, but there's this point on the top of your head, you know, that the soft,
the soft point in the back of your head, you know, where there's like a little indentation almost,
before the curve, but at the back in the middle. Yeah. That point is, I think, called dew point 20
in acupuncture. And if you get somebody to put a needle at the top of that point for, I don't know,
20 minutes every 10 days or so, no hemorrhoids and no constipation. Well, that is fascinating.
So I imagine that's your path then after the injection, you do see an acupuncturist.
Is that what you're telling us? I love my acupuncturist. And the other thing that she does
to get rid of the heat, because really, you know, in Western medicine, the way,
this is the way the Chinese medicine people will talk about it and the Japanese medicine people too.
In Western medicine, we fight fire with fire. So cancer is inflammation. And then when you
inject you with fire to fight the fire. And in Chinese medicine or Japanese medicine and
traditional acupuncture, they like to dampen the fire. They like to put water on the fire.
And I'm a water person, right? Like, right. I mean, right. Water person. So I really like
this idea of dampening and cooling toxic heat. I think that works for me. So I'm a water person.
Works for me. So I eat a lot of watermelon, which is also a Chinese thing. And my acupuncturist
does this little scoring on my back with some tool that opens up the skin, but not like so that I
have a skin. And then she puts these cups on the back, which we, or so we saw all the Olympic
athletes at Rio with those. Right? It's that cupping bruises. Yeah. It's that cupping. And then
we pull, we literally pull out blood. It's like having like leeches, except it's more modern.
And it works. It really works. It really helps to reduce the toxic heat. So, you know.
Did someone suggest that to you or were you already into acupuncture or, and you were already
working with somebody before the diagnosis or did somebody suggest it to you after?
As a swimmer, I had been doing acupuncture and massage with this amazing person for,
I don't know, maybe like seven years. And I'd go in and she'd just, you know, get me all fixed up.
And then of course there was the pandemic. And right before I got diagnosed, she left her
acupuncture practice to go to medical school in the Bahamas or something like Trinidad and Tobago
or somewhere really far away. And so I finally worked up the courage. I didn't want to tell her
that I had cancer. I finally worked up the courage to tell her that I had it. And she sent me to her
mentor who specializes in acupuncture for women with breast cancer. How lucky is that? No kidding.
I mean, yeah, that's an interesting, that's an interesting connection. I think that's quite lovely.
Yeah. It really, it really has worked out well for me. And, you know, and then part of it is
just really having super clean diet and getting a lot of naps and sleeping and I'm not working.
And so in one of my blogs recently, I wrote about this concept of making room.
So the idea is that you don't fit it in, but you actually assess what you need to get rid of.
And so in my case, it was work. I got rid of work and replaced it with naps and acupuncture.
I like that for you. Well, it sounds like, I mean, in charge of 70 or so people and
people and you were doing, you were doing the damage control and the writing and the communication
for really disastrous and intense things. I can imagine that that was a really high stress
position for you. Yeah. It was really, and I, and I realized, you know, I had,
I had re, I guess redesigned our emergency management program and modernized it. And I built
an emergency operation center for our company. And this was a, and in 2010, it was put to the test
when we had a pipeline explosion in the city of San Bruno and 153 houses were damaged and eight
people died. And I realized going into 2019 after the campfire happened in November of 2018,
in a town that I loved and had worked in, that I was still carrying the dead people,
the people who had died in the San Bruno pipeline explosion on my back. And yeah,
yeah, it was pretty intense. And I, I remember I got to that six week, you know, break. Finally,
my mom was cured from cancer. I'm taking my six weeks off work. I'm going to really be all about
myself and do things for myself. And I remember telling my husband, I just feel so guilty. And
there are two have worked on all of those horrible events and we have similar feelings. And my husband
said, honey, you're not the one who's responsible for that pipeline explosion. I wasn't operating
the pipeline. There was, it turned out that there was an overpressure that somebody had done. And I
didn't do that. It wasn't me. And then he took this bag of grated Parmesan cheese that was on the
table that night for dinner. And he threw it from our dining room into the kitchen and it landed on
the floor with it burst open. And I looked at him, I said, what are you doing? And he goes,
you didn't throw the parm, did you? And I said, no, I didn't throw the parm. I didn't. Yeah. And
he goes, exactly. Exactly. Oh my goodness. And so that was the beginning of my healing journey. And
I really am feeling now much less emotionally involved and engaged and overwhelmed by all that
tragedy. I do feel like it's more in the rear view mirror now than it ever has been, which is good
and healthy, I think. Yes. That sounds good and healthy because for your, of course, for your
mental wellbeing, but for your physical health, you can't hang on to guilt of any kind, really,
even especially when it's not yours. And yeah, I have to imagine that was quite a turning point
and it's really a lighter moment for you. Did you start writing about the same time?
Writing for yourself, I mean. Yeah. The best thing I ever wrote was in, I want to say like 2013,
I wrote, I wrote for SVPs on best practices in the, how best practices work, what one is,
and how to implement them. And it was literally something that I just, it just flew out of me.
And it was the first time at work, honestly, that something had just come out almost perfect,
the way it was written. And it was just because it was something I knew so much about. And I
realized like, I really like writing. I like writing when it's me. And this just happened to
be an assignment. Writing about- That was yours.
Mm-hmm. Writing about wind velocity in a canyon is not my subject matter expertise. And so you have
to learn a lot before you can write. And then even then you have to really choose your words
carefully. So I didn't write until I got the diagnosis and then I was not working. And every
time they would give you what I called mega meta death, which is dexamethasone, right? That's the
steroid before chemo. Have you guys had that? Amanda had to have it because I had chemotherapy,
but it was a pill form. And so after her metastasis, she did, she had just the pills and
the infusions and all this stuff to help bolster you up so you could handle the
infusion of the actual chemotherapy. The onslaught. And so-
The onslaught, yes. Yeah. Amanda, were you like, did you have a lot of energy on those nights that
you had to take the pills? Absolutely. It's such a strange reality to have all that energy. I felt
so strong. Like I could start lifting weights. Totally. So that's what happened to me. And I had
seen my mom go through this. We came back from chemotherapy and they had a new neighbor and the
new neighbor hadn't seen her place. They lived in a retirement community. And she was like,
come on in, let me give you a tour. Like we just have ended six hours of infusions. I'm like, mom,
I really think we should relax. So I knew what I was headed into. And that's when I started writing.
And the first thing I wrote was a perspective. My local radio station, my local NPR station,
KQED, had this thing called With a Perspective. And you could record, I think it was like a two
minute piece. And they would play it on the radio. And that's unfortunately how many of my friends
found out that I had cancer. No kidding. But I wrote this piece about the will to live and wanting
to live and being in such a strange time with the pandemic and all my neighbors asking if there was
anything they could do. And the only thing I wanted was my life. But I took the masks and I took the
food help and I took the groceries. But what I really wanted was to live. That was a tough time.
And that was the first piece I wrote. And it was good. It was really good. And that's when I
realized I have stories. And so every time I got Dexamethadone, Dexamegadeth or whatever.
Dexamegadeth. And the energy to sit down and tell a story.
Yep. Yep. And that's when I started writing. And then I stopped. We moved. I tried to go back to
work. Things happened. I have a teenager, you know, and then all of a sudden near like October of
last year, I realized, oh my gosh, I have space on Friday afternoons, just completely wide open
space. And I have taken enough naps and I have done enough meditation and I have lied on the floor
for long enough. And, you know, I just have more energy. I think I could fill that space with
writing. And I really want to share with people what I have learned. And so I met with a girlfriend
of mine who has a master's degree in creative nonfiction. And I said, tell me a little bit about
this writing thing. And then I talked to a few different people about where to publish. And she
was the one actually who had said you should publish on Substack. It's ad free. It's an easy
format. And so I decided, okay. Oh, cool. At the beginning of the year, that's what I'm going to do.
And so this year I started and I've been publishing once a week. And just today, this was like the high
point of my publishing career. Are you ready? Yes. I got a comment from a woman who is a breast
cancer survivor and has had lymphedema for the last two years and thanked me for sharing what I
have learned. That's amazing. That is, I mean, that's amazing because you have, you know, there
has to be plenty of people interacting and reading. And I have to tell you, I think you are just a
beautiful writer. I mean, creative nonfiction is its own unique genre. But as an English teacher,
it's so ridiculous. I think I could, it's just a human being, you know, but as an English teacher,
I just appreciate your language, just your such specific word choice and your comparisons,
your analogies. I'm like, yes, it just, it speaks to me. It makes so much sense. It's,
wow. I was like, I'm such a dork. I'm like, I'm like, this writing is so good.
Well, you know, it's really funny because in my last blog, I thanked Mrs. Dix who,
and well, Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Phillips, I should have thanked them too. But Mrs. Dix was my debate
coach. She was an English teacher at my high school and she's gone now, but she really taught
me how to do research. And she was formative in helping me to think about structuring my writing,
more than actual writing itself, but structuring it. And I know that, you know, those English
Mrs. Cox in sixth grade taught me how to write a paragraph. Mrs. Phillips taught me how to write a
five paragraph essay and Mrs. Dix taught me how to write stuff that was supported in real life with
real world evidence. And I'm just really grateful for my English teachers and I'm grateful for you.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm teaching, I'm teaching my students to write in a different way
in these last few weeks. And I kind of want to hit my head against the wall. So that's a nice...
You just don't know, you know, it's like the work that you do as an English teacher,
it is like seed sowing, you know, and some seeds take 10 years to germinate and some take 15 and
some, you know, don't germinate for 200 years. Like it's crazy, right? There has to be a fire
and a certain amount of rain at the right time. And, you know, it's like you're out there sowing
all these seeds and it, that must be a little bit of a hard job because, you know, all you see is
the frustration in the moment, but you don't see that light bulb that goes off when that 27 year old
says, oh, you know, this is what she meant. It'll be important sometime. I know that. It'll be
important sometime, more than, you know, more than just this essay, but I do actually love teaching
writing. I don't, I don't very much enjoy grading it, but I do love the writing process. So
that's great. So you're, so Cancer and Swimming, the name of your podcast. Let's, well, I want to
hear, I do want to, I do want to talk about swimming. I know Amanda especially wants you to
talk about swimming, but can we go back a little bit from, from chemo first? Then you said you were,
you were moving, you tried to work again. What happened then that sort of put you where you were?
What happened then that sort of put you where you are now, not working with acupuncture and meditation and naps?
And now it sounds like such an ideal life. It does. I love it. Yes. If it weren't for the cancer,
it would be an ideal life. So yeah. Oh my gosh. So in August of 2020, I was just, I had finished my
mastectomy. I was recovering from my mastectomy and I was going to go into radiation and California
had another series of wildfires come through. It was more in Northern California and maybe even
Oregon. And there was a 30 day period in Berkeley, which has really usually very lovely air and,
and it was a heat wave and none of the houses have air conditioning. Right. So you're, you're in this
86 degrees and you're on fire because you're taking these post chemo drugs, but chemo also made you on
fire. So you're just hot all the time. The house is hot. And then these fires came through and there
were 30 days in between September and October and August where you couldn't go to the hospital.
Where you couldn't go outside without wearing an N95 mask and inside was inhospitable
because it was 86 degrees that in the house never really cooled off.
Maybe it took like three weeks in the house finally cooled off.
And so there I was stuck in this sardine tin in Berkeley. Inferno. Yeah. No, I mean, it was just,
you know, and the one respite that you had from this constant N95 wearing was going outside and
going for walks with friends. I had been using a friend's swimming pool. I drove 25 minutes to her
house and to swim in it because the public pools were closed and neighbor cut a hole in the fence
to the local swimming pool and took me on a midnight swim one night in her. That's fantastic.
That's really fun. You know, I had been doing things like that to just keep my sanity.
And then suddenly the outdoors was no longer, it's hard to swim with an N95 mask on.
I think Amanda could validate that. So that was really, you know, it's like no swimming.
It's horrible. I loved my house, but it felt really small. I was sharing my bathroom with
my 14 year old. Yeah. And the man next door would visit with my friends on the front porch
and they would sit on my driveway and his driveway was right next to our driveway and there was no
like visual buffer between them. And our porches in this 1920s bungalows were eyeball to eyeball.
And he would sit on his porch in his terry cloth blue man dress that he never changed.
Oh no. And listen to like fire and brimstone, male religious radio people, you know, talking like,
I can't, this doesn't sound real. Eating canned peaches, right? So that's my view on my right.
Then our neighbor's kitty corner behind us, which our lot was 120 feet deep total. So, you know,
you're like 60 feet away from them. They rebuilt their entire back shed thing. And then some other
neighbors of ours decided that it was time to redo some retaining walls. So they brought in a crew
who spent a week and a half doing jackhammering and then pouring concrete for like four days or
something. And then somebody else added a second story on their house. And then there was constant
tree trimming because everybody was worried about fires. And then, you know, then there's just the
usual stuff like the UPS truck. And in our street, the garbage truck came three times. First, there
was a truck to pick up the garbage. Then there was a truck to pick up the green waste. And then there
was a truck to pick up the recycling. Oh, the noise. And then we had, and then two of our neighbors,
one behind us and one, two doors over got pandemic dogs. And I will just say about these dogs that it
was not their failure to thrive on the farm that sent them to the pound for adoption.
Enough said. It's just a concordance of.
It was, it was horrible. Like there was, and we had been looking here in beautiful Eastern Washington
for seven years, trying to figure out like, should we, should we move? I have family here
on my husband's side. And after I got the clean pet scan in October, so I went through radiation.
I was going through radiation on my back, that had been in my back. And this house that had been on
the market for two years, people here tend to price their houses like way, in a self war in hopes
that some stupid person from California will come along and buy it. And so this house had been
sitting and sitting and sitting, and they just sheared off a huge amount of asking on it. They
were just really finally ready to sell. And I showed it to my husband online. I said, what do
you think? And he said, I really liked that house. So we sent my sister-in-law who lives here to look
at it. And I asked her two questions. I said, one, you know, can we make it homey? And two,
does it smell? And she said, yes, you can make it homey and no, it doesn't smell. And so, okay,
great. So you saw the house by proxy. That's pretty great. Classic pandemic story, right?
Yes. And we bought the house. And then I, of course, was just completely gassed. And I think,
based on the conversation we had before this blog, before this podcast, I think you two have been
there also, where you just can't move. Can't do anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we're
doing. Yeah. So that's what we're doing. Yeah. I found a favorite spot on the couch.
I'd go to radiation. I'd come home. I'd take a nap. Yeah. Oh yeah. Then maybe I'd have something
to eat and then I'd take a nap. Yeah. Yeah. That's really in the pot, in the blog I wrote about
making room. I said, during cancer treatment, really, you know, during chemo, there's only one
room. And during radiation, there's only one room and that's the bedroom in the bed. You're just so
fricking tired. So my dear husband packed up our entire house in six weeks, 30 years on the same
street in two different houses, but 30 years, like it was, you know, and got us completely packed up.
And we moved on December 20th of 2020. And yeah. And then the pool reopened in April of 2021.
And I thought, there probably aren't a whole lot of people swimming. And even if there are,
I think it's worth the risk because I need swimming. I cannot live. I had lived for four
months now with no swimming at all. And it was just killing me. There are no out, you don't want
to swim in an outdoor pool in Eastern Washington in the wintertime. Right. Yeah. No thanks.
That was a little bit of a shock. Well,
we have had such a great conversation, but it is time for us to part.
Yes, we're going to save the rest for part two so we can make sure you get all the great information
and all the laughs, all the laughs, all the excellent storytelling. So next week,
part two of instant friends, just add water until next time. Thanks for listening. Bye.