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You Will Not Treat Me Like I'm Dying With Brandy Verdin
4 Plays11 months ago
Grab your kleenex and get ready for the most heart touching podcast episode you'll ever listen to! It is HIGHLY recommended to watch this episode on YouTube rather than just listening. Brandy's unshakeable faith in the power of prayer and that she will see healing on this side of Heaven is incredibly inspirational. Please help Brandy by sharing her episode and asking everyone you know to lift her up in prayer for full healing and restoration.
To follow Brandy's journey you can find her on Facebook and Instagram:
https://www.facebook.com/undisturbablethepodcast?mibextid=ZbWKwL
https://www.facebook.com/brandy.verdin
And as always, remember:
YOU ARE STRONG.
YOU ARE CAPABLE.
YOU ARE WORTHY.
I love you and I’m ENDLESSLY rooting for you!
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Transcript
Opening Gratitude and 2023 Reflections
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi there. I want to start off this episode a little differently. Normally they start off with a little teaser from inside the interview. Um, but I wanted to chat first. I am so blessed and so grateful for the opportunity to get to interview Brandy today.
00:00:27
Speaker
If you're watching on YouTube, you can see I am a hot mess because I just finished ugly crying, rewatching my interview with her today. And I couldn't be more thankful. My word for this year was align. And my prayer was that God continue to align me with the right people in the right places.
00:00:56
Speaker
at the right time. And he has continued to do that more times than I can count in just the first 31 days of this year. So my ask to you is that if you were on a platform where you're just listening
00:01:21
Speaker
is to stop the video or stop the recording and pull it up on YouTube, finding my best self on YouTube so you can watch. Because this episode is so powerful. And I think if you can see this woman when she speaks, that it'll touch your heart that much more.
00:01:51
Speaker
So without further ado, here is the interview with the most incredible woman who is so strong, Brady Verdun.
Introduction of 'Finding My Best Self'
00:02:07
Speaker
Welcome to Finding My Best Self, the podcast that celebrates the extraordinary in every woman. Each week, your host Pam Rivett will share practical how-to advice, empowering you with strategies and insights to navigate life's complexities. We'll welcome inspiring guests, women who have defied the odds, transformed obstacles into opportunities,
00:02:26
Speaker
and are redefining what success truly means. From navigating personal and professional challenges to celebrating triumphs in fitness, self-care, and beyond, we explore it all. Whether you're seeking motivation or a spark of inspiration, this is your sanctuary for empowerment. Authentic conversations.
00:02:43
Speaker
and a whole lot of real talk. So, lace up your sneakers, grab that cup of coffee, and let's embark on this journey together, exploring the lives of women who are making it happen, sharing both the struggles and the victories. Welcome to Finding My Best Self, where every episode is a step towards becoming the hero of your own story.
00:03:03
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Finding My Best Self. Today I have with me Brandi Verdon.
Connection with Brandy and Shared Interests
00:03:12
Speaker
Brandi and I connected on Facebook last year sometime after I helped her son purchase a home and I've been following her in her story and she has inspired me and many, many others.
00:03:28
Speaker
in a lot of ways. And before, whenever I asked her to interview and be on the podcast, she accepted immediately. And I wanted to do just like a little pre-interview with her and just kind of chat with her a little bit more and get to know her. And in that I learned that we have a lot in common when it comes to the fitness business and podcasting and things like that.
00:03:56
Speaker
So it was even more exciting that we got to share some of that and she was able to help me and i don't want to give too much information about who she is and what she's been through i want her to share those things but i hope that from this interview you are able to take away.
00:04:17
Speaker
a lot in faith and be inspired on how to be strong and how to go through life with a mindset that God's always got you. And I'll just leave it at that.
Brandy's Personal and Professional Background
00:04:42
Speaker
Brandy, I'll let you take over and I guess start off with talking about your previous fitness business and podcasting and all of that. And we can just kind of go from there because that is what I love about you, all of the great things that you did and how much fitness means to you because we definitely have that in common. So first and foremost, I want to thank you for having me. It's kind of weird being in the interview seat instead of interviewer on the interviewee.
00:05:13
Speaker
My name is Brandi Verdian. I would like to say a few things about myself that I've been married to my husband. We've been together for 31 years, married for 29. I have two children. Both are married. Luke is married to Jenny and Brittany is married to Timmy. And Brittany and Timmy birthed my first granddaughter last April 25th. So her one-year birthday is coming up.
00:05:40
Speaker
And she is so cute. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. I'm a retired personal trainer. I love all things fitness and wellness. I fell in love with fitness my freshman year of high school when our softball coach took us into the girls weight room. And I just, I fell in love with the weights. I fell in love with the endorphins that I experienced while weightlifting and
00:06:10
Speaker
I've been into different levels of fitness throughout my life. Sometimes it was periods of where I would just go for walks. At one point I became a runner, but there's nothing like weightlifting. It brings out, I'm going to say, the savage in me. I've had a hard life. So I had a lot of rage built up in me.
00:06:39
Speaker
And I found that lifting weights was an outlet for some of that pent-up range. Yes. I also fell in love with helping other people fall in love with themselves through weightlifting. So I became a certified personal trainer and I opened the gym, 3125 Fitness. It was named after Proverbs 3125, she has clothed with strength and dignity.
00:07:12
Speaker
and she will laugh without fear of the future. And that scripture means so much to me and the walk I'm walking today. I retired as a trainer because I was in a boating accident and my shoulder was destroyed in the boating accident and I had reconstructive surgery for my shoulder.
00:07:40
Speaker
About a year after the surgery, I decided to try to return back to personal training, but it was a lot of hard work. You know, I'm a hands-on trainer, so I'll spot you, I'll show you reps. And so I ended up working out throughout the day and it was hard. It was hard on my body. It was hard to walk away from being a trainer.
00:08:05
Speaker
And I knew that I wasn't done with the fitness world. I just didn't know what to do next. So I decided, well, let me give something that's free.
Career Transition: Personal Training to Podcasting
00:08:16
Speaker
Everybody loves free. And podcasting is free. And you can help to share knowledge, the knowledge that you have and the knowledge that your guest has. So I started a podcast named Undeservable, the podcast.
00:08:33
Speaker
The basis of that podcast was on health and fitness and wellness. And I had a lot of holistic and functional medicine professionals on my show. I had a saints player on my show. That was probably the most exciting thing for me because I love football. I live for football. I love football. So yeah, Delvin Bro.
00:08:59
Speaker
Delvin Bro was on my show and I was so excited to have him and he has a very inspirational story. As he recovered from a broken neck. And from college and then played in the NFL. So for the Saints and. So interviewing people was fun for me because I felt like. It was like making friends.
00:09:28
Speaker
who love the things you love. And because I was so interested in what makes the human body tick, what can we do to manipulate our bodies to make them stronger, to make them healthier, to make them better, especially coming from a background of eating well and trying to fuel my body naturally with nourishing foods.
00:09:57
Speaker
but knowing that I didn't know it all. So I had to seek the intelligence of the other people in the industry because if you think you know it all, then that's a problem. You know, you can always learn more, which led to why my podcast ended because I wanted to know more.
Later Life Education and Overcoming Challenges
00:10:22
Speaker
So at 47 years old, I enrolled in college.
00:10:26
Speaker
And that was the craziest thing because I had graduated 30 years before from high school and college was. So it was the experience of a lifetime. Trying to learn. Math again, algebra, trigonometry, statistics. Oh yeah, and. I think college was
00:10:56
Speaker
more rewarding to me than being a trainer and doing the podcast because through my education, I was able to really learn who I was as a person. When I was in high school, I was the class clown. I didn't sit still in my desk. And so I had to learn to sit for three hours in a math class.
00:11:24
Speaker
And you still don't sit still. I still don't see me wiggling in my chair, but I did it. I did it. And I finished my first year of college with a 4.0. So yeah, I was very proud of myself because having to get in a class with all these kids fresh out of high school, I mean, I'm 47 and I think the next, the closest person in age to me was in their early twenties.
00:11:53
Speaker
in one class. And then when I moved to my algebra class, they had a girl that was probably about six or eight years younger than me, but the median age of the class was in their 20s. So I was like the old lady of the class. But even though I'm retired, I still love all things wellness and fitness. I just can't get enough.
00:12:23
Speaker
I love to know what makes the human body tick. I love all of that. And I love hearing how much fitness means to meant to you then and how much it still means to you today. And that even though all what you're currently going through, you have not stopped your path to fitness. So for the last, I think it's been nine months, nine or 10 months, and I know you'll explain
00:12:54
Speaker
but last year you received some very unexpected news.
Cancer Diagnosis and Family Reactions
00:12:58
Speaker
And that is what I'm referring to whenever I say that you have inspired me so much and just following your journey. So can you share with our listeners what exactly that news was that you received last year? So on April 25th of last year, my granddaughter was born and a few weeks prior to her being born I had
00:13:22
Speaker
made an appointment with my general practitioner because I felt like I couldn't recover from my workouts. I was struggling to recover now. I had a personal trainer because again, you don't know it all. So even though I'm a retired trainer, I said, well, let me have someone over me. Let me have someone dictate to me what to do. Let me push this body and see what it could, this 47 year old body could do. So, um,
00:13:52
Speaker
I kept telling my trainer, God, you're killing me like I can't recover. You know, I'm having trouble recovering. And then at some point I was having trouble catching my breath in between sets. And that was uncommon for me. Even my trainer said, you know, I don't know what's going on, but I'm not used to you needing a break. And so I went to the doctor and she told me I was anemic and she said, look, if you're
00:14:20
Speaker
arm doesn't go up after you take these arm peels. I'm going to have to send you to a specialist or we're going to do an arm transfusion. So I said, okay. And because of how I care for my body, I refuse to have an arm transfusion, little that I know I would have several eventually. So I took arm peels for a few days and I started
00:14:50
Speaker
not because of the arm peels, but I started noticing blood in my urine. And I couldn't tell if it was coming through the urine or it was in the toilet. And I couldn't tell if it was coming from the urethra or the vagina. So at first I thought it was, you know, okay, I'm 47. Maybe this is menopause. Like started asking a few friends who went through menopause and they were like, no, I never had anything like that happen.
00:15:19
Speaker
Well, I started passing bloody tissue and I called my gynecologist and should I come in early? I'm due to come in late April. Should I come now? She said, no, don't worry about it. Just come for your regular appointment. Well, when I went back for the follow up with the general practitioner, she, I told her, I thought I had a parasite.
00:15:45
Speaker
And she said, no, I don't think you have a parasite. I think you may have kidney or bladder cancer. And I was like, yeah, whatever. There's no way. Cancer doesn't run in my family. My grandpa had lymphoma, which is not hereditary. No one in my family ever had kidney or bladder cancer. So I was like, OK, whatever. And she was like, I'm going to refer you to a urologist.
00:16:14
Speaker
So when May, well, when May 1st, I had a CT scan because I went to the urologist a couple of days before that. And he said, I'm going to order a CT scan. But he said, look, I think you have bladder or kidney cancer. I'm going to be honest. He said, there's a one in five chance that that's what it is. And he said, I think it's probably that. He said, but let me explain to you. This is treatable.
00:16:44
Speaker
You have nothing to worry about. It's absolutely treatable. So I said, okay, well, I wasn't even worried about it because I didn't think I had that. Like in my head, I don't have the answer. So when this is where my mind was at, my grandbaby is born, I'm going to my daughter's house as often as possible to see my grandbaby. And I have a facial scheduled on May 1st. And so I'm not canceling that.
00:17:14
Speaker
I'm going to my facial. So I got up on the morning of May 1st and I went to typical regional wellness to have a CT scan. I had 12 tubes of blood drawn because in the middle of all that, I had hired a functional medicine practitioner to see what was wrong with me. Like what is going on with this body?
00:17:40
Speaker
So I was checking it on all points, but it took a while to get in with her. So she ordered 10 tubes of blood and the urologist ordered two. So I had that done. I left. I came home at eight. I went to the gym. I trained. I
00:18:00
Speaker
ate some lunch went to the massage that well the facial but the massage was like the best massage ever after the facial she did a shoulder massage and it was fabulous so i was so relaxed and i came home and i logged into my computer it was a little after five and i
00:18:23
Speaker
I saw that my portal had had an update, so I got on my phone, logged into my typical regional portal, and I saw that I had a 14 by 12 by 10 centimeter tumor on my kidney that had metastasized to my lungs, both right and left. I had left nodes that were inflamed. My spleen was inflamed.
00:18:54
Speaker
And I said, wow, so this is 47 years old. This is, this is where we at. And my husband had been at work for a few months. He had, he was asked to ride over. And so I called him and I said, Hey, it's cancer and you're going to have to come home because I can't put this on our kids. And he said, okay, you know, I'm coming.
00:19:24
Speaker
And so I hate to cut you off. Can you tell, cause you told me on our call, can you tell the listeners how big that is actually in size? So my tumor is the size of a football. It's, it's the size of a football. Actually I have a story of my, my children came with me to meet with the surgeon and the surgeon brought a resident in and I was sitting
00:19:54
Speaker
And the resident, he kept looking at me and I was like, okay, he's making me feel weird because like I couldn't tell if he was lusting or if he was just like, like if there, if I had a booger, like I didn't know what was going on. I was like, why are you looking at me? Why are you looking at me? And he was making me feel really uncomfortable for a minute. And when the surgeon pulled up my CT scan,
00:20:20
Speaker
And he said, look, this is a resident and I'm going to do a little bit of teaching when you visit. I hope you don't mind. And he said, this is her CT scan and this is the tumor. And he said, I've been staring at her since we've been in here trying to figure out how that tumor fits in her little body.
00:20:41
Speaker
You're so tiny. But I was like, oh my God, OK, he's not lost in here. That was making me so uncomfortable. But he was creeping me out. He was really looking, though, at where my kidney would be like. He wasn't looking me in the face. He was looking in the area there. And so I believe he was being truthful. But. So my husband came home and. I told my kids and I said,
00:21:12
Speaker
I just, my son and his wife came over and I said, I don't want to be controlling in this situation, but I just asked that y'all don't cry in front of me. We have to be strong. There can't be no crying, right? We gonna attack this the only way we know how and that's through faith.
00:21:42
Speaker
And I said, I understand y'all have feelings, but we can't have this dirge like atmosphere. We have to be strong in our faith. So I pick up my husband from the airport and I had to go in to the urologist office and he was doing a scope and assist the scope and we were going to go over the results.
00:22:12
Speaker
So my niece had had a cystoscope and she said they put her to sleep for it. Well, mine, I did not get put to sleep because when you have kidney cancer, you can't just be put to sleep all the time. So I had mine with no anesthesia. I was up having him navigate through my bladder. And he said, I want y'all to come in the room and I'm going to talk to y'all. And I told him, I said, I saw.
00:22:40
Speaker
I saw the CT scan report, so I know. And he said, okay. And he had tears. My husband was sitting in the corner. He was crying. I thought I told him not to cry in front of me, but he was crying. I told him not to do that. And the urologist had tears in his eyes and he said, I'm so sorry. He said, I'm going to have to send you.
00:23:08
Speaker
to a specialist in New Orleans and he said I sat under this doctor and he said he's the best and he said I can't there's no way I could get that thing out of you and I said can I still go to the gym and he said
00:23:31
Speaker
If you feel good, go to the gym. All I was worried about was, am I going to have to miss the gym over this? I don't even think I realized that I was dying. I didn't realize I was dying. And so everything happened quick. The surgeon in Wallian's called and I will tell you it was God's favor immediately. Immediately it was God's favor.
Faith and Medical Journey
00:24:00
Speaker
He called, he said, I don't have an appointment on the book, but I'm telling the girls to make you an appointment. I'm going to see you tomorrow. So we went in and he talked to me and he said, I want to have all these tests done, MRI, CT scan, nuclear bone scan. We're going to have all these tests done. So I said, okay. So he said, someone's going to call you.
00:24:28
Speaker
The next morning, his nurse called from home. She was on her day off and she said, there's no appointments available for weeks, but this is unacceptable. The surgeon is making some phone calls and I will be in touch with you. So I'm thinking like it's going to be in a few days. She called me about 20 minutes later. She said, can you get in the car right now?
00:24:57
Speaker
They will see you now. Come to Jefferson Highway to our main campus emerging center. Oh, wow. So I told my husband, I said, let's go. Let's go. So we had there and I had so much dye and all these things injected to me and another slew of scans.
00:25:22
Speaker
And that was on May 5th. So I had was diagnosed on May 1st, on May 5th. I had blood work. I had scans. And what I didn't tell y'all was on April of 22nd, I think it was of 2021, I went for my annual checkup and I had blood work done with my annual checkup with my gynecologist.
00:25:50
Speaker
and they called and said all of my blood work was fine. Well, because I'm all in on fitness and what makes the body tick, I get a copy of my blood work and I always looked over it. And I noticed that I was anemic. I noticed that I had stage two kidney failure. So I called the nurse and they said it was nothing to worry about. They kind of said it was the natural aging process or whatever, that you lose kidney function as you age.
00:26:20
Speaker
So I was like, but stage two kidney failure. And she said, yeah, everything's good. The doctor said, you're good. So the following year, when I went back, I had stage two kidney failure, but it had got worse. But in the meantime, I started researching what could have caused my kidney failure. And I realized,
00:26:51
Speaker
I had 10 year old breast implants. And so I scheduled to get my breast implants removed. I had an X plant and I did notice a lot of things in my body improve after having the implants out. Like I had an eye that was drooping and when they will me out of surgery, my husband said, Oh, y'all is not drooping anymore. So they were definitely causing harm to my body. So
00:27:19
Speaker
On May 1st of 2023, when Thibodaux Regional did my blood work, I still had stage two kidney failure. Now, you know, a lot of people are like, I don't go to Facebook with my problems. Well, I went to Facebook and I said, please pray for me because I have cancer. And I want everybody that can pray for me to pray for me.
00:27:48
Speaker
And I will tell you, I had not one treatment, not, nothing was done to me except those dyes for those scans, more blood drawn. And when they did the blood work on May 5th, I was going to say, Brandy, when did you ask Facebook for prayers? When you got your diagnosis? Yes. Yes. And on May 5th, when they drew my blood.
00:28:21
Speaker
I had 100% kidney function. And today, I still have 100% kidney function. And God restored, even with that massive tumor, He restored my kidney function. And so I knew. And look, I didn't ask, show me a sign.
00:28:52
Speaker
I didn't ask show me a sign, but I knew. I also, most people get upset about cancer and they use these explicit words about cancer. And I told my children, I said, please, I don't know what's going to happen with this, but don't use curse words. And then the word cancer behind my name, because I'm not mad that I have this.
00:29:21
Speaker
I understood day one that this cancer is not about me. Like I had that assurance in my heart that the diagnosis wasn't about me. I didn't know what was about to happen to everybody around me, but I just knew, like, this ain't about you, Brandy. This is so much bigger than you.
00:29:50
Speaker
I said, Lord, two years ago, I fully surrendered my life to you. And I'm going to trust you. I'm going to trust you. And so what I did was I took Ephesians 6, 10 through 13 literal. I thought back to when I was a little girl and
00:30:18
Speaker
my mom would buy me the Wonder Woman under roots. And I thought I was Wonder Woman and I was so strong and mighty and those under roots. And I said, you know, she had that shield and that rope. And I said, I am going to hide behind the word of God. I'm going to put on the full warm of God and I'm going to fight this. But digging deeper into the word,
00:30:45
Speaker
and trusting God and trusting what he has for me in this. And I knew that something good was going to come of it, even when everything looked grim. And so I mentioned that I thought I had a parasite. And lo and behold, the functional medicine doctor determined I indeed had a parasite. Not only did I have a parasite, but
00:31:15
Speaker
My vitamin C levels were at zero and I have taken vitamin C for years every day. I eat a vitamin C-rich diet. The parasite depleted me of all my vitamins. It depleted my iron. That's why I was anemic.
00:31:36
Speaker
It wreaked havoc on my body and it is believed that it's probably what caused the cancer. It left my body vulnerable with no nutrients to fight. And I do believe I contracted that parasite in the Dominican Republic. If you do the research and you do the timeline, I've been having this cancer for about 4.6 years. Kidney cancer grows on average about three centimeters a year.
00:32:05
Speaker
and mine was 14 centimeters. So when you look at the timeline and so, you know, I think about it and I'm like, you know, thank God he gave me a strong body because I was doing all that working out, doing all of that, living my best life with cancer and didn't even know it. Didn't even know it. And today I feel like nothing's wrong
00:32:35
Speaker
but I'm not going to downplay. So in May, right after they took the 12 tubes of blood and some more blood, I think I counted, I had 20 something tubes of blood taken in like three weeks and I was already anemic. Well, it put me to near, I was on my death bed. So I went in to see the medical oncologist
00:33:01
Speaker
And she did more blood work. And she told me, she said, I'm going to have to put you in the hospital. And she said, you in grave condition. She said, if you make it out the hospital, we're going to start immunotherapy. She said, in a few weeks. And she said, I'm waiting for them to have a bed for you.
00:33:30
Speaker
And so I told my husband, I said, well, can we go eat? So we went and fought for orchid in New Orleans. And we went to CVS and I said, well, it's like we go into the beach. So I said, let's get some, cause we were there with nothing. I mean, I had no clothes, no nothing. I didn't know I was spending the night, well, a little, a day and a night in the hospital. And so, um,
00:34:01
Speaker
they started blood transfusion. And while I was in there, different people were coming in and seeing me and they were drawing my blood almost every two hours. And I didn't know I was dying. I had no idea. And so probably I think it was four oncologists came in. They were all in white coats and they laid it out for me. And they said, you know, you,
00:34:33
Speaker
you know, you in grave condition and, um, it's not good. And I was eating a dots diner hamburger and I just kept taking bites off of the hamburger. And I was letting what they said in one ear and I was thinking to myself, y'all don't know me. You don't know me. And I hear what you say. And then I understand that you have to say that to me, but I'm going to fight. And so
00:35:03
Speaker
the next day they were wanting to keep me and I said, listen, my son's wedding shower is tomorrow and I need to be home for that because I'm hosting this wedding shower and I can't post if I'm not there. And they were like, okay, well, when someone's in a,
00:35:30
Speaker
terminal situation like you we usually honor it because it could be one of the last moments you have with your family and I'm like okay
Emotional and Family Challenges
00:35:41
Speaker
so I'm gonna get to go home tomorrow right I'm gonna be good and they just looking at me like you weird so I came home and I don't even know how I made it through the night I was it was rough and I got up and I went
00:36:00
Speaker
So my son's wedding shower and I hosted it. And then I came home and I crashed out. I was so weak that those next weeks after that, I could barely walk. I had trouble breathing. If I got up from the couch and went to the kitchen, I had to hold on to the counter. I couldn't just stand on my own free will.
00:36:30
Speaker
I was experiencing death and it was one of the most peaceful times of my life. And I wasn't afraid. And the most important thing to me at that time was my soul.
00:36:55
Speaker
So I reached out to some of the elders of my church and had them come over and just make sure that my soul was, I believed in my soul was well, but I had had some things, so many things happen to me over my life. And I had a lot of unforgiveness that I thought I had forgiven. And so I needed
00:37:23
Speaker
biblical counsel on how to approach the people who I had been harboring unforgiveness towards, even though I felt like, so I felt like I forgave them, but I wasn't sure. Like at that point, when you're facing death, like you want all your eyes dotted in your team's cross, because like, this is it. Like, you know, this could be it.
00:37:50
Speaker
And so they counseled me and I listened to every word they said and I said, okay. So I told my husband, I said, I'm going to pray about this because I'm not just going to contact people and be like, oh, hey, you know, I forgive you. And they could be like, yeah, she's saying this because she's going to die.
00:38:15
Speaker
Like one by one, when I eventually did do what I had to say, look, I'm not telling you this because I think I'm going to die. I'm telling you this because I'm going to live. And I just want you to know that whatever I did in my part, I'm sorry. And as a matter of fact, that happened today before this podcast interview.
00:38:44
Speaker
at Rouse's Antipodo and I'll explain in a minute. So, you know, I went over all the spiritual stuff and, you know, making sure my soul was well. I had a will drawn about a year before I was diagnosed, so all of that was taken care of. And so then I'm starting to go through the processes of biopsies and biopsies and different
00:39:14
Speaker
things that goes into the procession of, you know, my new diagnosis, my new life, you know, what my new life for temporary life is going to be. And when I would get upset, I would blood would come out. I would go to the toilet and it was nothing but blood. There was no urine. It was blood.
00:39:40
Speaker
And so I talked to the surgeon and I talked to the doctor who did the, was going to be doing the biopsy. And they both told me, they said, Brandy, you have an emotional tumor. And I said, an emotional tumor. And they said that tumor is emotionally driven. You cannot have any stress in your life. And of course, unfortunately,
00:40:07
Speaker
In times of crisis, there are going to be situations and people who are around that instead of lifting you up, they'll bring you down. And I had people messaging me saying, you know, the hardest thing you're going to have to go through is that you all have peace and you're going to struggle in your faith. And I wanted to lash out because I'm like, you don't even know me.
00:40:37
Speaker
You might be my relative, but you don't know me because I am not struggling in my faith and I have peace. And I've learned that through this, that I think sometimes we just really need to be quiet when somebody's going through something because even with the best of intentions, we'll say things that
00:41:04
Speaker
can destroy upset people. And it eventually got to the point to where my husband took my phone away. So no one had access to me. And I was proud of him because probably for one of the first times in our marriage, he stood up and was the man at his house and he protected my life. And he limited the outside access to me and
00:41:34
Speaker
I believe that that is part of what saved my life because I couldn't handle the strife and you know the even people people were that were close to me were arguing with each other and then coming to me with their problems and I'm like oh no this could be my last mother's day with my children I can't
00:42:02
Speaker
fix your quarrel anymore. I can't come in between. So we had a lot of kinks behind the scenes. We had a lot of things going on, not just fighting cancer.
Immunotherapy and Surgery Outcomes
00:42:16
Speaker
We had a lot of emotional things going on. And so as a family, we decided to stick together and that we would stand in faith.
00:42:31
Speaker
And Psalm 118-17 says, I will live and not die. And I will live to declare to work so Lord. And that stayed on me knowing that this illness was again, not about me. And then I thought about Lazarus and Mary and Martha whenever in
00:43:02
Speaker
John 11 when they called for Jesus to come because Lazarus was dying and they called themselves friends of Jesus. And I said, you know, I'm a friend of Jesus. He is my friend. He's, you know, he's, I consider, I talk when I pray, I talk to him like he's my friend. And so I thought about Lazarus and I thought about how long would this be?
00:43:30
Speaker
And I said, you know, God, please don't let this last forever. I really want to see my healing on this side of heaven. But I also wanted to come quick and I realized very quickly that it wasn't coming quickly. Quick was not in his vocabulary because there was a lot of things that still needed to be worked out in me and the people around me. And so I,
00:44:01
Speaker
continued to pray and stand in faith. And so I had started immunotherapy. And when the doctor scheduled my immunotherapy, she said that I would not get a port because she didn't believe that I would have a significant amount of treatments because I was in such grave condition.
00:44:30
Speaker
She explained to me what palliative care was and I let her explain it to me and that's when they basically just keeping you alive. And it's to extend your life to whatever degree. And I looked at her and I said, I will not die of this. I will live and you're going to see. And
00:44:57
Speaker
Eventually that doctor and I had a yelling screaming match because for a while I was feeble. I didn't have any strength. And I was treated for the parasite on June 1st. I had to go through three rounds of treatment. Medical treatment, not these cleanses. It was flaggled for 10 days. Then I had ivermectin.
00:45:26
Speaker
And then 14 days later, I had another dose of ivermectin. And let me tell you what a parasite does. Parasites do not like to be tampered with and they do not like to be expelled from your body. So what they do is when they recognize that you're being treated, they unleash thousands of eggs and hatch eggs in your body. I was in
00:45:56
Speaker
so much torment and pain that I told my husband I was not getting treatment for the cancer, that I was just gonna die because I couldn't go through what the parasite was doing to me. And he was so nervous because he knows when I say I'm gonna do something that I usually mean it. But I started expelling the worms.
00:46:22
Speaker
For six weeks, I expelled worms in my poop. The grossest thing ever, but I will tell you after six weeks, when that thing was gone, I felt so alive. On July 10th, I walked into the Wellness Center and reactivated my membership. I had nearly crawled in.
00:46:46
Speaker
in June, I couldn't even walk from the parking lot into the building to put my account on hold. And so on July 10th, I said, I am fighting. I am going to fight every way I know how, and I am going to live. So I started- That's what goes into the whole body. I don't know about anybody else that's listening, but-
00:47:15
Speaker
And let me not cut you off again, but I want to backtrack just for a second. Cause there's something that you said on our call that we had that I really liked. And it made me smile when that doctor told you that she wasn't putting that port in you. What did you tell her? I don't want one anyway. A person that talks back probably got my butt wet so many times since growing up for talking back. I,
00:47:42
Speaker
I mean, and so she was like, you know, you're not going to get one. And I'm like, well, I don't want one anyway. I mean, and literally I really didn't want one anyway, but I didn't understand. I didn't understand the magnitude of why I wasn't getting it. So the consequence was the consequence was that I had to get an IV every three weeks, but I mean, so.
00:48:09
Speaker
we start training, I'm training and I see the doctor and I specifically, actually I wore this black tank top with a black headband, black shoes and black shorts. And I said, I'm going to that appointment and I'm going prepared for combat. So when I went to the lab to have my blood drawn, the lab tech said, you look so intimidating. And I said,
00:48:38
Speaker
Really? Cause that's the look I was going for today. And she said, what? And I said, yeah, I'm seeing mom colleges. I'm seeing her and I'm about to have a word with her and I'm about to let her know. So when she walked in the room, she said, Oh, I didn't know you had tattoos. And I said, well, it's time for me to reintroduce myself to you. And I'm letting you know today.
00:49:04
Speaker
that you are not gonna treat me like I am gonna die. You are gonna treat me like I am gonna live. Amen. And she lost her mind. When I say she lost her mind, she started yelling, all you do is talk about healing. You don't listen to nothing we say. You don't hear us. We short staff.
00:49:30
Speaker
The nurse that came in, this is her second occupation. I mean, she was just popping up. I got in her head so bad. It was terrible. And at some point when she finished screaming, she said, can we just go over this blood work so that we can move on with disappointment? And I said, if you're done, I'm done. So she sat down and we acted like it never happened.
00:49:58
Speaker
We went over the blood work and she said, I know that Dr. Orcott talked to you about having surgery. And she said, I want you to know that if your scans come back clean, I'm not going to interfere in surgery this time. Because in May, they were scheduling me for surgery and she interrupted and said, no.
00:50:25
Speaker
And I will tell you as much as I was upset with her, she saved my life. She saved my life. I was in no condition to have surgery at all. Not a one hour surgery or a almost side having the biopsy done. I was so feeble. And so that started the healing process between
00:50:50
Speaker
that oncologist and I, and I will mention I have 12 oncologists. I have a 12 man oncology team and now I'll call them my 12 disciples because I know that God's going to give them the wisdom and the innovative creativity on how to treat me properly. And I've, I've always been a difficult person. I'm unusual. I'm rare. I'm all those things. And so I expected,
00:51:18
Speaker
cancer to be like why would I expect anything different than my cancer to be unusual rare never seen you know all the words that they use and so the scans came back and she said let's go a little bit longer and I said okay well behind the scenes the surgeon called and he said come in I want to see
00:51:46
Speaker
So he scheduled surgery for October 25th behind her back. And so I was like, well, I mean, she can't stop him. I mean, she can technically, but so let's go with this. So he orders a MRI, a CT scan and a PET scan. And so I started bleeding.
00:52:16
Speaker
And I didn't know where it was coming from. And a week before I was getting cleared to have surgery, we found that the cancer spread through my urinary tract. I was the 60th person in the world to have that kind of metastasis. 16th. So don't talk to me about statistics.
00:52:46
Speaker
don't because if it's one in a million, I could beat out one in a million. When they was going to do my surgery on October 25th, I did have surgery on October 25th, but it was to remove the metastasis. They were telling me, you know, sign this paper, if we have to do a blood transfusion, there's a risk and the risk is one in however many million. And I said, ma'am,
00:53:13
Speaker
The tumor they about to remove is only the 60th one in the world like it. I said, don't talk to me about statistics. We're going to leave that to God. It's up to him. And so I did not get cleared to have my tumor removed because this cancer had spread. So I did have surgery on October 25th, but it was to remove the metastasis. And, um,
00:53:43
Speaker
I cried because I felt like God had abandoned me. How cruel could you take me up to one week before surgery? And the answer's no. And I'll elaborate on that when I get a little further into the interview.
00:54:09
Speaker
But I felt weak when I cried and I had to remind myself about the story of Lazarus. When Jesus went back, he wept at Lazarus's tomb. And so weeping is okay. It's okay to cry. And you know, I had to learn that.
00:54:35
Speaker
You know, if I never had the meltdown, I never had a like, oh my God, this is happening to me. And I felt so abandoned and I felt abandoned by God. And I do have a fear of abandonment. I've been working on that for years. And I realized though, eventually that he didn't abandon me.
00:55:04
Speaker
but that's what it felt like. And that's why we can't go about feelings because feelings or they come and go. You know, you might feel good today, bad tomorrow. And so you can't make decisions on feelings. And so I said, you know what? I have to dig deep in my faith because the surgeon who was doing that surgery, she told me that she couldn't guarantee she would be able to remove that tumor.
00:55:34
Speaker
She was going to, her last words to me as they were willing me to the back was I'm going to try. And so my mother, my father-in-law, my husband, my son, my daughter, and my grandbaby were at the hospital with me that day to have that surgery. And I felt bad because they took me to surgery late and you
00:56:00
Speaker
the hospital staff kept apologizing and I said, don't be sorry. I feel sorry for, there was a person that was in surgery that when they opened them up, the cancer was far worse than they thought. So I was laying in my bed praying for that person because their case was far worse than they had anticipated. So their surgery went over two hours longer than it was supposed to. So finally,
00:56:28
Speaker
The surgeon came in and she's the sweetest thing. And she says, how are you? And I said, you know, I'm good. I just, you know, I'm ready. And she said, OK, I just want to remind you that I can't promise you that I'm going to be able to take this out. And I said, OK. I said, let's just go. So they injected my with the sedative. And every other time I've had surgery, I just like I'm rolling down.
00:56:57
Speaker
You know, you're rolling down the hallway and you like you out. Well, this time they rolled me down the hallway and I was up. They put me on the surgery table and I was up and I'm watching all these people in this room and the doctors on the computer and she's typing stuff. And I'm like, Oh my God, what if I don't go out? So they kept injecting me with stuff. And finally they came with a mask and they said, okay,
00:57:26
Speaker
breathe in 10 times. And after about the fifth breath, I went out. The next thing I remember, I was in recovery. And so my husband is standing there and he's looking at me. And I said, what? And he said, oh my God. And I said, what? Did they get it out? I mean, what? And he said, Brandy.
00:57:57
Speaker
The doctor texted me that she was beginning surgery and it was going to be two hours. So we left to go in the hospital to get food. And he said, it lasted 11 minutes. I said, what? He said, you had surgery and a cystoscope all in 11 minutes. And I said, how?
00:58:25
Speaker
He said when they went to remove it, it broke apart. It was dead and it fell apart. And I said, oh my God, I see you. So a month later, I went to my post-op and I said, I want to talk to you about the surgery. And the surgeon said, well, what do you want to talk about? And I said, well,
00:58:54
Speaker
Have you ever seen a tumor just, I mean, the report says that it's self, like it's self decapitated, like it just fell off. And I said, have you ever seen that? And she said, no. And to be honest, I really wasn't skilled to do that surgery. She said, but I offered to do it. I figured I'd try. It was the literal,
00:59:22
Speaker
Jesus said, move out of the way. I'm going to take the wheel. The hand of God. Yes, ma'am. And so I knew, I knew that God has a purpose through this. My husband, my friends, my family, my children, building their faith and
00:59:51
Speaker
So I said, okay, what's next? I mean, what's next? Like, because now it's spread, like it changed everything. So everything changed. And I go to the surgeon and he says, they're not going to tell you, but I'm going to tell you, you have really, really bad cancer and you're probably not going to have surgery.
01:00:19
Speaker
the medicine they're putting you on is not going to work. And I know nobody wants to tell you, I don't know why they afraid to tell you now, but they are. And I said, but I don't understand why I can't just have something like, can you just tell me? Well, like, I don't understand why you can't just cut me open and take it out. And he said, Brandy, you would die. He said, we would,
01:00:47
Speaker
you know, cause they would have to cut me from a sternum to my pubic bone. And he said, you would die. He said, you might make it out of surgery maybe, but you probably wouldn't recover. And I said, okay, now the surgeon, he's been team brandy, rah, rah, rah, team brandy. So that day he's,
01:01:14
Speaker
like all defeated and, you know, sorry to tell me. And he put his hand on my shoulder and I was like, no, like I moved my shoulder away. Like, I don't need no body shot baby in me. Like if it is what it is, but I'm going home and pray about it. So we were on our way home and my husband was crying. My children were crying. I felt so bad for them. And I'm just like, we fight some more. Like we just fight more.
01:01:43
Speaker
because I had a vision of myself walking down the hallway after having surgery. And I refuse to not accept that this thing is gonna come out of me. I saw myself walking down that hallway. I also had a vision of my granddaughter hiding behind my love seat, saying, Dee Dee, you can't find me. And when I look behind the love seat,
01:02:12
Speaker
She had piggy tails. Well, she's a bald-headed baby right now. I hold on to that knowing that God is answering the prayers that I prayed to him for extension of my life. And so where we at now is so that was November 7th when the surgeon says,
01:02:40
Speaker
You know, they don't want to tell you, but you're never going to have surgery. So we ride home. My husband's crying. The phone rings and it's the medical oncologist who I had to scream and match with the one who told me, all you talk about is healing. So she says, Hey, how are you doing? I'm sorry. I missed you. She said the surgeon told me that you just left and she's all giddy. And I'm like, well, he just broke my heart.
01:03:09
Speaker
And she said, why? What did he say? I said, well, he told me that I'm probably never going to have surgery. And she said, why would he say that? And I said, I don't know. And she said, don't you give up on me. She said, do not give up on me. She said, you can have surgery. She said, you're going to take this medicine. And she said, we're going to give the medicine a chance to work. And so I said, OK.
01:03:38
Speaker
So it's funny, negative Nancy ended up being my encourager that day. So my husband wiped his tears and I know he went in the room and cried some more because he went quite his PlayStation five and I know he was crying in there. But I just was sitting on the couch and I was like, well, this is where we are and this is how it's gonna be. And so I started the medicine and I had a scan on January 4th.
01:04:09
Speaker
And I was laying on the couch and my sister texted me and she said, did you get any results yet? And I said, I don't know. Let me go look. I saw the words decreased and resolved. And so my word for this year is resolved because some of the tumors on my lungs resolved themselves. They're gone. And.
01:04:37
Speaker
The big tumor shrunk 2.4 centimeters, which is a lot in 45 days. And the doctor called me, the medical oncologist, she called that afternoon and she was screaming. She said, I'm so excited for you. And I told her, I said, I told y'all, don't count me and don't count God out because I'm gonna live.
01:05:07
Speaker
So a week later the surgeon calls and he's like this ex-boyfriend that keeps like, keeping in every now and then. So what's up? So he calls me on Friday afternoon at five o'clock and he's like, hey. And I'm like, hey. And he says, he starts small talking and I said, you saw my scans, huh? And he said, I did. And, um,
01:05:34
Speaker
He said, you know, I'm surprised. I'm surprised to see that. And so he kept talking. And I said, what do you want? Like, what do you want? What do you want to see? What do you need to see? And he said, well, no more metastasis. And he said that Yatsuma doesn't grow. And I said, OK. I said, they are now.
01:06:03
Speaker
I said, well, you know, I'm going to have scans again in April and we'll get back to you in April. And he said, please keep me updated because he has this court. He and my medical oncologist do not get along. So. He said, please keep me updated on your case. And I'm thinking why you were digging in my chart on Friday at five o'clock? Because God will not let you forget me.
01:06:32
Speaker
And I pray every day for that team, those 12 people, that God not only gives them innovative creativity on how to treat me, but He puts on their hearts compassion for me. I pray for every lab tech, every CT tech, every radiation tech, that they have compassion for me because most people don't know, but I was scared to death and needles.
01:06:57
Speaker
and you can't be that's the one thing with cancer you can't be afraid of needles and I will tell you when I walk into that lab I sit down with peace but there's scriptures taped all over the wall in that lab and I feel God's presence everywhere I go in that building and you know I used to be a person that
01:07:24
Speaker
They say, you know, when you're growing up and you're a little girl, don't touch nothing. Don't touch that. Don't touch it. And I always, I touch everything on my hands on one. I got to touch. And I said, I will put my hands and I will leave my mark on every place that I step foot for as long as I live and people will not forget. And
01:07:53
Speaker
when I walk into that cancer center, that big old cancer center, I walk in and they look at me and they like, Ms. Brandy, you all checked in and I'm like, how y'all know me? Like, either I'm here too much or you just not forgetting me. And my medical oncologist, her nurse, she told me the other day, she said, I'm about to go get your best friend. And I said, oh, she was being sarcastic. I said, oh, no, no, I like her now. I said, we friends now.
01:08:22
Speaker
Listen, I'm a passionate person and I don't hide my feelings. And when me and that medical oncologist wasn't getting along, everybody on that floor knew we were not getting along. I didn't hide. They probably heard us. But, you know, when I actually told her the other day, I said, you know, I spent the night to come to disappointment. I almost brought my suitcase in.
01:08:49
Speaker
So that when you asked where I was going, I was going to tell you I was coming home with you. And she's like, you so hilarious. And I say, you know, it's good to have peace with her because peace is so important, but also I will fight. That's one thing I will always fight. I will fight for my will to live. I will fight for my soul to be right with God. I will fight for my family.
01:09:20
Speaker
I fought for my family for so long that I'm not about to give up now. Yeah. Talk about, because I don't want you to leave this part out, what it was that you posted when I reached out to you on Facebook that your most recent test and the level that went down, did you mention that?
01:09:47
Speaker
You had the recent test results that the level that had dropped and I don't, and I don't remember the word and I had that written down that you said normally the level is between 14 and 16 and a normal person or maybe an increase. It went up. I'm sorry. I'm sitting down. The, the anemia, my anemia. So yeah, yeah. Like I have my body's functioning like a normal person. Now my, my, yeah.
01:10:16
Speaker
So my hemoglobin is now 14.5 and my albumin level was like 1.7 and that's grade condition like normals like 3.2, 3.5 and my albumin level was now normal again, which is helping me to maintain some muscle mass and some body mass. And the people that are close to me
01:10:45
Speaker
know that I have a sense of humor and I've tried to make humor out of there's things I can't say on here that I've made humorous remarks about that I've gone through with this because I've been through a lot but I said the other day I said you know I didn't know that chemo gives you a free dbl because my glutes for as long as I've been working so hard to train my glutes and all of a sudden now like I have my leg masses
01:11:15
Speaker
I mean, my body looks right now like it did when I was at my peak. And I'm so thankful to God for that. Like all my levels, I had a slightly elevated liver level and it wasn't even anything to be alarmed about. And that's just because of it. I told you that you look great. You look great. So
01:11:44
Speaker
Let's talk about, I guess we're going to go back a little bit and then come forward just cause you mentioned to me about your marriage.
Marriage Transformation and Faith
01:11:53
Speaker
Um, you talked a little bit about your husband, but when we did our, our pre-interview, you spoke about your husband and about your marriage early on and comparison to where it's at now. So can you share with us how it's progressed? So our relationship sorted out.
01:12:14
Speaker
very toxic. I had a rough childhood and I had a lot of anger and aggression in me. And so you can't love yourself if you're angry and you can't love anybody else if you're angry. And I met him. We grew up together. We grew up together. But we actually I went on a date
01:12:43
Speaker
with another guy and we went to a wedding and we were both so severely intoxicated that he had to get courted off home and my now husband got left to tend to me. And so he literally picked me up like a sack of potatoes, carried me over his shoulder and took me to his sister's house to sober up because
01:13:12
Speaker
He cannot bring me home like that. And we started dating after that. And the first time we slept together, I got pregnant for some loop. We were dating four months. Four months, slept together one time and I was pregnant. And I was not in a position to be a mom. He was a senior in high school and I had just graduated.
01:13:43
Speaker
And so it was a rough start. I mean, it was rough. And so Luke was born. And we kept trying to make it work. I mean, we broke up, got back together. It was just a toxic cycle. And then finally, when Luke was six months old, we broke up for good. It was done. And sometime around Luke's first birthday, we got back together.
01:14:10
Speaker
And I told him, I said, look, I'm not playing the game that we're playing. If we're going to be together, we're going to get married. And he said, OK. And I said, oh, wow, it was that easy. So we got married, but there was nothing easy about it. It was lost. And oh, so much strife, so much tension in our marriage. He was unfaithful when I was pregnant for our daughter. And I found out when she was six months old,
01:14:41
Speaker
and like I looked back and I was so weak minded then I was so weak and but of course God's gonna orchestrate your life the way he wants it to be you know he lays out your life and it's gonna play out the way he wants it to and for whatever reason we kept hanging in there and hanging in there but the toxic cycle just even though there was
01:15:10
Speaker
the infidelity didn't continue, I didn't trust him. And so he kept feeling like, well, if you're not going to trust me, you know, this is never going to work. And in 2010, we separated, but in the same home. So we like the marriage was just, it was falling apart. And
01:15:38
Speaker
I thought maybe, you know, he was at work a lot. So like, if we could just, I don't know, act like a married couple, but not a married couple and just see where it went. But finally, in 2011, I told him, I said, I can't do that. I can't. My body can't take this anymore. I can't do this. And I filed for a divorce. And I'll never forget that day we rode together to the attorney's office and
01:16:09
Speaker
The most important thing to me was that in that paperwork that we couldn't talk bad about each other to our children, us or anyone else that was around our children. So we were on our way home and he was just so distraught. He did not want to divorce and he was in turmoil and I just felt like
01:16:36
Speaker
letting go of him would give me freedom because I just felt like it was so stressful and I was, it was making me angry. And so we filed for divorce and he got an apartment and I stayed in the family home and I just worked six days a week to be able to be sure
01:17:04
Speaker
that between child support and our son was in high school, he was driving. Our kids were in everything. Luke had a personal trainer for football. Brittany was in cheer and dance competition and school cheer. So child support went to that. And so my children were so broken. They wanted to be a family.
01:17:31
Speaker
I felt bad for them, but I was like, I can't, I can't do this because y'all gonna grow up and y'all gonna leave me. And then I'm like, then what? You know, cause y'all gonna move out of this house eventually. And I can't do this anymore. Not even for y'all. And my children and my husband kept praying and believing that we would be reunited as a family.
01:17:57
Speaker
And in April of 2012, we were reunited as a family and we remarried. And it's been great. The only thing was I adapted to this party lifestyle while a single. So I continued in that, even though I still went to church, because this is the one thing I believed. My children need to grow up in church.
01:18:26
Speaker
They need to grow up in church, so at least I'm there for them. This ain't for me, this is for them. So we consistently went to church every Sunday. But me and alcohol, that's not a good thing. Alcohol is not good for me at all. I become a person that is not indicative
01:18:53
Speaker
of a person that claims to be a woman of Christ is the most polite way to put it. If I say I'm an ambassador for Christ, alcohol does not fit into that equation. And so our marriage has been good, and then death came up. And through this diagnosis, I found out
01:19:22
Speaker
how much my husband really genuinely loves me. And I've seen him weep more through this than I've ever seen. I think anybody weep. He is my best friend. And I told him earlier, I said, you know, I mean, I mess around with him a lot. I said,
01:19:50
Speaker
You know, if God comes to take me, I'm gonna tell him he got to take you too, because I don't go nowhere without my husband. And he started laughing. And I just, you know, I think about how close he's drawn to God to wake up in the morning and see him reading his Bible.
01:20:14
Speaker
And instead of watching TV, like normally I get up and he'd be watching TV and he's reading his Bible and seeing the beauty of his relationship with God growing and his faith growing. And I realized how can I be mad about stage four cancer when it's the very thing that drew my husband closer to God? And so, so what if I live to be 90 years old?
01:20:44
Speaker
If my husband would lose his soul, what good would that do? If I'm the sacrifice that drew him to God, then so be it. I'll take it. I love him that much. And so the one thing I've struggled with is worrying about him and my children.
01:21:13
Speaker
because you know if I die, I know I'm going on to be with the Lord. And that's, I think about that often what it would be like, but I think about the grief, the grief that they would have if they had to mourn me and that breaks my heart. Thinking about my daughter having to live without a mother. Thinking about my husband,
01:21:43
Speaker
you know, having to grieve me and eventually move on and then what my children would feel like through that. And, but I remind myself that we all will point at a time. I do not believe that God is ready for me. I do not believe that I will die of this cancer. I know that I'm going to die.
01:22:11
Speaker
But I don't believe it's going to be a cancer, not not this cancer. It's not going to be it. I just I hold fast to his promise that he says what you ask in my name. You know, and I plead the blood of Jesus over my body. First Peter two twenty four says that by his stripes I am healed. And.
01:22:37
Speaker
I petition him and I plead and beg to him daily. Lord, give me extension of my life. As I battle for my life, like, you know, 1 Chronicles 5 and 20, my former pastor, Pastor Renee Monet, his wife, Vicki, went through stage 3 lymphoma and she gave me the scripture that they cried out to God in their battles and he answered their prayers because they trusted him.
01:23:05
Speaker
That script is talking about the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh. And those people, they cried out to God when they were in battle. And he answered because they trusted. And I continually tell him, I trust you, Lord, because every night when I go to bed at 10 o'clock, I take a pill. It's called kabametics. One of the side effects of it is sudden death.
01:23:35
Speaker
Oh wow. And I lay my head on that pillow and I go to sleep and I sleep the best sleep I've ever slept in my life with cancer because my relationship with God is so intense. And I think about, I think about it like what if, what if it never goes away?
01:24:03
Speaker
What if I live, though, for 20, 30 more years? Because it has the relationship that I have with God through it, it's like no other. When you say you're going to trust God with something, a lot of times we're hoping. When your life is in jeopardy, you know, I've had a couple of people who mentored me spiritually, actually,
01:24:34
Speaker
I kind of had to regress from them because they, you know, kind of mentioned that what if I didn't see my healing on this side of heaven and, you know, what if, and I don't, what if it's not in my vocabulary? Like, is that your way of appeasing yourself? Because is that the explanation of why some people get healed and some people don't? I believe. And
01:25:03
Speaker
When I listen, when I party, I party the hardest and I believe in that partying. And when I believe in Christ, I believe what my whole heart and I believe that I will see healing on this side of heaven.
Spiritual Guidance from Grandfather
01:25:22
Speaker
And and I know one of the questions you wanted to talk to me about. Is who inspired me through this? Yeah.
01:25:32
Speaker
Yep. Other than God. Other than God. And so I had to think about it. My grandfather, he's 88 years old. He's almost 89 years old. He's a retired pastor. And he got saved when I was a little girl and he lived next door to us. And when he got saved, he took me to church with him and I got saved.
01:26:02
Speaker
And so I was probably four or five years old. And. I watched my grandpa live throughout his life and he's he is a retired pastor. But you knew who he was like he didn't have to tell you. You knew what he stood for. Anne. The.
01:26:30
Speaker
first person outside of my son to come visit me when I was diagnosed was my grandfather. And he said, I want you to know that you are going to die one day, but it's not going to be of this disease. And he said, cancer is not going to take your life. And he told me, he said, here's two books. He said, these are healing scriptures. He said, this is your medicine. I want you to take it in the morning.
01:27:01
Speaker
In the afternoon, in the evening, he said two to three times a day, he said, read these scriptures over your life. And he said, stand strong in faith and believe. And so you ask, well, what credentials does he have outside of being a pastor, which is, you know, a retired pastor? And so go back and I think to the story of Lazarus.
01:27:30
Speaker
In John 11 16. Doubting Thomas. So when Jesus, when Mary and Martha called for Jesus to go back and see to pray for Lazarus, they had just tried to stone Jesus. And in Judea. And he would have had to pass back through there to get to go pray for Lazarus. And Jesus waited two days.
01:27:59
Speaker
before he left to go back, and it took him four days to get there. So you hear what I'm saying? Sometimes it takes time. That's six days. My six days is coming. For Lazarus, it was six days, but I don't know what my number is. But I think about, when I think of my grandpa, I think about Thomas. Not because my grandpa was a doubter like Thomas,
01:28:29
Speaker
When Jesus said that they were gonna go and pray for Lazarus, he said, okay, well, Thomas looked at other disciples and he said, let's go die with Jesus. He was being sarcastic because he was saying, if we go with him, they're gonna stone us. And that's the life my grandpa lived. He followed Jesus even if he thought he was gonna die to follow Jesus. My grandpa,
01:28:58
Speaker
had lymphoma 17 years ago. We were standing in his hospital room at Terrebonne General Medical Center when his oncologist said, in the morning, y'all can go make the funeral arrangements because he will not make it through tonight. My grandpa is still here today because he laid in that bed and he said, I will live and I will not die.
01:29:27
Speaker
Psalm 118 17. He has street credibility. He has, I could look to my Bible and I could look to Lazarus, but I could look to my grandfather and I see what God has done in him. And that tells me that God heals today. He was the healer then, he is the healer now.
01:29:56
Speaker
And so going back to October 25th, when I was told that I couldn't get the kidney out and I was so distraught. And my grandpa called me and I said, how could he take me this far and then abandon me? How could that happen? And he said, oh honey, there's one thing that I want you to know. He said, God will never.
01:30:25
Speaker
Abandon you. And neither will I. And I will tell you, I felt. As much as I felt abandoned. I look back. And I think I think about Mary and Martha when they had to wait, because Jesus didn't come running. Like I said, he waited two days and it took him four days to get there.
01:30:57
Speaker
And so that was my waiting. When I was denied, I had to wait. But little did I know that Jesus didn't abandon me that day. He saved my life because had they opened me, I would have died. I would have died. And so sometimes what feels like abandonment is protection.
01:31:24
Speaker
You can't go by those feelings because what it feels is not always what it is. And so my grandpa, he calls me and he's been through this with me from day one. And, you know, with the summer, I wasn't going to the gym. I could barely get my head up and I would lay on the floor. There was a day my son came in and
01:31:53
Speaker
He, I couldn't even get my head up and my son put his hands on me and laid his hands on me. And he prayed for me and that was, that in that moment, I said, God, look at what you're doing to my family. You're building their faith. And I thank you, even though I can't get my head up off this pillow,
01:32:23
Speaker
even though I can't get up to fix me something to eat. That's why he was here. He was here because I couldn't get up to fix myself food. I had a day when my daughter was here and I laid on the floor and I was just an excruciating kidney pain and I couldn't get up. And she was laying on the couch and she fell asleep. And when I woke up, I saw tears running down her eyes and said, Lord, have mercy on my children.
01:32:53
Speaker
give them the strength to help them to watch me go through this. And so my grandfather, one day he called and I said, I was going to call you yesterday, but I couldn't get up. I was in so much pain. And he said, you listen to me. He said, if that happens again, you call me. And he said, just do one grunt.
01:33:19
Speaker
and I'm going to know to pray for you. You don't have to talk just one time and I'm going to know. He said, I'm going to know to pray for you. And he told me, he said, Brandy, he said, God showed me that when I pray for you, that I will pray for you like you were that little girl. And I went, I gasped and I said, Oh my God, because over the summer,
01:33:48
Speaker
It was my 48th birthday. And instead of celebrating my birthday, I went away to Airbnb to go seek God. And before I left, he put on my heart to seek him like that little girl who first found him. And I never told anyone that. And when my grandfather said that, I knew God spoke back to him.
01:34:17
Speaker
And I said, God, you in control. So I sit here today knowing that every minute that I have left on this earth is only for the glory of God, only. There's no going back to my old life is over. That's over.
01:34:46
Speaker
The cancer is going. There's no going back. That every minute and I'm not foolish enough to think that if. I didn't walk in the walk that I'm walking that my life wouldn't be taken from me. Even if I were healed. Yeah. Brady, you.
01:35:14
Speaker
Exude strength, right? You are so strong. But the Bible says that I cannot boast about that because it's only. Yeah.
Daily Spiritual Practices and Self-Reflection
01:35:33
Speaker
And you have been through so much, not even just now, just through your life, right? So what do you do?
01:35:42
Speaker
every day to have and because you still, even though you're going through so much, you still have such a positive attitude and a positive outlook.
01:35:53
Speaker
And I know that that comes from God and your faith, but what are some, or if there is anything, any advice for listeners that may be going through something, whether it is cancer or just something tough in life, what little daily practices do you have to keep your spirits up through something so difficult? So the Bible assures us all that we're going to have trials. Like it's a promise.
01:36:23
Speaker
So if you want, if you live in your best life right now, I mean, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's inevitable. You know, we're going to have trials. And so my best advice is to develop a personal relationship with God. Because I can honestly say that my well was filled up. So I tapped into what was already put in you. If I would have had to put it in,
01:36:53
Speaker
I would have been a basket case. I don't think I ever could have, I don't, I don't, I can't, I mean, it would have been ultimately up to God, but I know that I had to tap into what was in there. Like I had to dig and start pulling out the word that was in me and the faith that I had built up. And I know that if your life is peachy, go to God now.
01:37:20
Speaker
and start building that relationship. And that's through prayer, that's meditation, that's reading scriptures, that's listening to podcasts that's on the Word, listening to preaching that's on the Word. And so what I do every day is I get up in the morning and I pray and I read my healing scriptures, my papa gave me. And then I listen to a preaching podcast while at the gym.
01:37:51
Speaker
And I come home and read my Bible. I do a Bible study. I'm doing a Bible study with my husband on the Book of Romans right now. And at night I pray again and then I read more healing scriptures and
01:38:19
Speaker
I just try to say as much in the word throughout the day as possible to remain fueled up. And everybody's different. How much I pray and how much somebody else prays, it's going to be different. How much you read and how much another person reads. But find what gets you. Because everybody's soul is going to require a different amount. I know that because of my nature,
01:38:50
Speaker
I require to be in the word a lot. And so it's throughout the day and I just, it speaks life to me. I mean, until you waking up in the middle of the night, feeling yourself drifting off to where you literally dying, I've had to get out the bed and put my hand on my body and pray over my body and say, I speak life to this body in Jesus name. Because a few times I could feel myself slipping off.
01:39:19
Speaker
And I'm not ready. I'm not ready. And I've got teachers in heaven that I gave hell to in high school and they not ready for me either. It's probably the prayers of those teachers that are saying, Lord, give us a little bit more peace before she comes up here. Let us enjoy our peace. I love you so much. You have so courageously accepted my invitation to speak about something so personal.
01:39:50
Speaker
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01:40:12
Speaker
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01:40:32
Speaker
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Authenticity and Resilience
01:40:45
Speaker
All right, now let's dive back into this episode. So what is it if you had to say one thing?
01:40:56
Speaker
when you said that you would do this interview with me, what is it that you want listeners to take away from this interview? So who I am when no one else is around, when no one else is watching, when the cape comes off, you know, that determines your true identity because I could get on here and I could say a bunch of things, but
01:41:26
Speaker
I'm living it. So when I walk into the bank and they see me alive, you know, living when I walk into the gym and they see me doing sets. And when I get on the football field at the Wellness Center and for the first time in nine months this week, I did sprints. That's a reflection of who I am when no one else is watching because
01:41:54
Speaker
You could fake it till you can make it, but eventually you get exposed. And so you have to be in touch with who your true identity is when no one's watching. You have to know how to be alone and you have to like who you are when you are alone. And I will tell you today, I had a lot of self hate. And today when I look in the mirror, I love her.
01:42:29
Speaker
I love who I've become. I love all that God has done in me and I look forward to what he has in store for me. And I'm
Hope and Future Plans
01:42:44
Speaker
talking years down the road because one of the things when I petition him every day, I ask him, Lord, please extend my life.
01:42:53
Speaker
so that I could be here to watch my granddaughter grow up and guide her in the ways of the Word. And I believe that I will see that happen. Yeah. And you will. So besides your visions and all of the answered prayers that you've already had. Yeah. So? Yeah.
01:43:19
Speaker
What's the last thing I want to say on air. I want to say on air. I am reserving my right to come back on this show when I'm cancer free. Yes. We've all went. That's already it. We are already going to put that on the books instead is already scheduled out for the future. When that day comes, you will be back on one. So what is the first thing you're going to do when you're told that you're cancer free? So the first thing I'm going to do is call Ms. Sarah at
01:43:50
Speaker
she's bakery and tell her to fire up the oven and she knows what I mean because my favorite thing in the whole world is cake and her cake so the first thing I'm gonna do is call her and tell her to fire up the oven and knowing me I'm gonna FaceTime all kinds of people and I'm gonna be crying and I need to make a sign that says nothing's wrong because I FaceTimed
01:44:19
Speaker
all kind of people from my recovery room when I had surgery and I was crying and crying and they couldn't understand what I was saying. So I probably need an interpreter so that the person can, and then I think I'm going to plan a fancy party. Like a, I don't know, not even a Sunday best. Like I think a black tie affair. Oh yeah.
Celebrating the Journey and Staying True
01:44:45
Speaker
We're going to celebrate. We're going to celebrate God because
01:44:49
Speaker
The doctors have said and it's clearly documented that I have palliative care and this is non-curative. And I said, okay, that's your opinion. God has the final say. Correct. Amen. So we're going to celebrate all that God has done for me. You said it earlier, you mentioned the words, but I'll ask you again,
01:45:17
Speaker
what does finding myself, best self, the woman beyond the cape mean to you? Yeah. And that is, that is being who you are when no one else is watching. Be I am who I say I am. And so, cause you know, a lot of people are pretenders and look, I've been a pretender in my life, like where,
01:45:45
Speaker
And not even in a malicious way, like in the way where you think you believe what you're saying until it gets put to the test, until you get put under the fire. And when that fire's burning, who are you? Who are you? And you have to be able to be true to yourself
01:46:15
Speaker
and understand who you are. Yeah. I hate when I make people cry. No, no, no, no. I need a sign. I need a sign. I'm okay because we're ready. You have said,
01:46:43
Speaker
so many things and I'm right there with you and wanting people to take from this interview with you that the faith and having faith in God because I in my own time as well as you in the last several months
01:47:12
Speaker
have really seen my relationship with God has just been, it has grown so much.
Visions, Faith, and Community Support
01:47:23
Speaker
And I go in through my own personal things and you've said so many things, you know, like your visions that you saw that are so real and that there is no one that can ever tell you any different about those visions. Cause when you see those things,
01:47:42
Speaker
And you know how real they are that no one can take that from you. When you said, you know, that you needed that sign to say like, I'm okay, because you've had those experiences and those moments where you knew God was there and that you, you know, and you're crying and you're like, but I'm okay. These are happy tears because I know.
01:48:13
Speaker
God is here. At church this past Sunday, the pastor got up and he said that we started a new three-part series. And that series this Sunday that started was called During the Storm. And he spoke about, you know, what to do to prepare yourself for the storm, what to do during the storm and what to do after. And you said,
01:48:45
Speaker
about praying to God and being with God and surrounding yourself with God's people. And that is the one thing that he said, that during the storm, a lot of times when people are having hard times or going through hard things, because we are going to have struggles, that it's bound to happen. Everyone is going to have things that come up in life. And he said, but when those things happen, people tend to retreat.
01:49:11
Speaker
And we shell up and we stop praying. We stop going to church. We stop. We don't want to talk about it. And I'll, you know, I'm going to get closed off from people until it passes. And then I'll come back. And he said, and that is a such the wrong thing to do. He said that when you're going through the storm, he was like, that is when you should surround yourself with God's people more than anything.
01:49:38
Speaker
There's just been so much that you've said today that has resonated with me. And so, and just leaning into those visions and those signs and those synchronicities and having every ounce of faith in God that you possibly can, because if you, when you believe
01:50:09
Speaker
and you pray and you, God will answer. God does answer. Even if it's not the answer you want. Even if it's not the answer you want. Yes. I have seen and witnessed
01:50:35
Speaker
that in my life more than I ever have in the last four months of my life and especially in the last week. And so when you say those things, I've just, I mean, it's all, you know, so I am 100% with you. And that is what people should take from, from this interview is to have faith in God. And remember when I said something happened like right before
01:51:06
Speaker
I, we did this interview, I went to Rouse's. And so there was, God had put on my heart, there were several people, and this is over the nine months that like, you know, to make amends with.
01:51:23
Speaker
there was a situation with a guy at the gym, an older man, and he made me feel uncomfortable. And it got to a level to where I had to actually yell at him in front of everybody at the gym. And I hated to have to do that. I hated to be in that predicament. Like I hate when those things happen. I'm like, I don't want to do this, but now you put me in a corner and I have to. And God had been putting on my heart
01:51:53
Speaker
to make peace with him. And I'm like, I'm not going to do it at the gym because then what if he's like, you know, I was told to stay away from her and then now she's approaching me and it was so strong on my heart and it's been so strong on my heart for like the last two weeks and he's the last person on the list. Like he's the last person
01:52:19
Speaker
And as I progress through the list of making amends with people, my health is improving and improving and improving and improving. So that the lesson here is if you have unforgiveness or any kind of even hurt with somebody, let it go, like make peace and let it go because it's like a cancer to your body. And so
01:52:44
Speaker
I'm watching Sawyer tomorrow. And I stopped at Rouse's to get her some snacks. And he was by the milk. And I had to get milk. And so I went and I grabbed my milk. And I remember I talked back. So I told God, I ain't talking to him. And so my buggy went. I scourged to the orange juice.
01:53:12
Speaker
And boy, I felt it so strong in my heart and I think my buggy did two wheels. Scourge went right back. I walked up to him and I said, I want to let you know that I want peace with you. And I said, I want you to know that I forgive you. And he looked at me and
01:53:40
Speaker
He's an older gentleman, and he said, I'm so sorry if I said anything to make you feel uncomfortable. And he said, I said, look, I just want you to know I have stage four cancer, but I've been having it since May, because I didn't want him to think, oh, you got cancer, now you're sorry. I wanted him to know this is something I battled with for nine months. And he said, I'm so sorry that you have cancer.
01:54:10
Speaker
And I said, well, look, I, you know, I forgive you and I want peace with you. And he said me too. And, um, as I said, well, look, you have a good day. And he told me, he said, my friend just got diagnosed with prostate cancer. And I said, well, I'm going to pray for your friend. And as I was walking away, he said, so that means I could tell you hi at the show. And I'm like, yeah, it does. But.
01:54:38
Speaker
I walked out the store and it's like something flew from me. Don't hold on to that unforgiveness. Listen, there's justification and hurt. There's justification and being angry, but there is no justification and unforgiveness. Because if it's justified, then God don't have to forgive us. You have to forgive.
01:55:07
Speaker
And he was the last person. And I'm like, like I said, I've progressively seen my body recover through letting those things go. Is there anyone in this world worth losing your life over? No. No. Just because you're mad at somebody? No. Even if they hurt you? No.
01:55:38
Speaker
No, because I promise you, we all hurt God numerous times a day by our behaviors. He forgives us. And I mean, we all do things that are not pleasing to Him. So who do we think we are that we can't? And sometimes, you know, the relationships don't always have to go back to what they were, but
01:56:04
Speaker
You have to do it with a sincere heart. And I couldn't not say that because I think that's so important. Yeah. Forgiveness. So I have something that I would like to share with you.
Empowering Women and Fashion Line Dedication
01:56:22
Speaker
And I guess the listeners as well, because this is something, a secret that I've been keeping for a while since I've started this.
01:56:34
Speaker
And I want to share with you because it goes back to just talking about visions. So when I first started MBS Fitco and the visions that I had for this company, one of the things that I wanted to do was how for active wear, any brand that you look at,
01:56:57
Speaker
when you go on their websites, you know, they all have each piece has a name, you know, like they all have different, like, for example, everyone will know Lulu aligns, like there's a line, they're the line legging. So every piece has a name. And so with my line, because my line is all focused around, you know, being your best self and
01:57:23
Speaker
mind, body, and soul and all of those things, all of my collection will be based on affirmations, I ams. And so when I decided this, I, part of my brand is going to be, and that's where part of the podcast came into play as well, is going to be to
01:57:52
Speaker
open it up to allowing nominations for women to be able to be, I guess, a showcase or not. I don't want to use, that's not a good word, not a showcase, but for women to be able to tell their story and to be able to be recognized for their accomplishments and the things that
01:58:21
Speaker
you know, that they're doing in their life. And so I was like, where do I start or how do I start this? Like, what do I do? And I, I'm in the process over, I think, I don't know if you've been following or no, but I just put my deposit down for my first round of inventory. I've picked my pieces and you know, I was like, I'm going to start my prelaunch in February.
01:58:51
Speaker
And I was, you know, I was in all this month. I'm like, what am I going to do? Like, I don't, I don't know where I'm at. And when I messaged you, Brandy, and you answered me immediately, I immediately knew and God put it on my heart that it is you. So.
01:59:24
Speaker
If you would accept, I want to dedicate my first line to you and I want you to name those pieces. So there will be three. I have three. I have, there's a pair of leggings. There is a sports bra and a jacket.
01:59:48
Speaker
And so not right away, unless you can, if you already have them on your mind, on your heart, and if not, then we can announce them on a different episode. But I would like to dedicate my first round, my first pieces to you and let you name those pieces. So they would be like, I am. Yes. Any I am affirmations. So, and then once I have the line in,
02:00:19
Speaker
part of this as well. Again, if you will accept, I would love to give you a piece of each and whatever size that you need and have a photo shoot done so that I can feature you on my website. Oh, I would love to do that. But I could tell you right now, I could tell you three of them. I am loved. I am wise. And I am strong. I love that.
02:00:50
Speaker
I love lies. Strong, I knew for sure. That was I was hoping that you would pick that one. And then you can decide which pieces they go with. And love and wise, because we got to have wisdom. Yes, I graciously accept. It's an honor. Thank you. I know that you're going to do. Thank you.
02:01:16
Speaker
We need, you know, I told you the other day, we need more of this around here. We need people lifting each other up. We need people educating people. We need locally because our culture is different from elsewhere and you can listen to people from across the country and that's great, but not like here. And the things we battle here, you know,
02:01:45
Speaker
you know, you in the mortgage industry and what people is going through with their mortgages, with insurance. And you know, we have so much, so much conflict and so much strife here and so much hardship, but yet you still see people thriving. People are still shopping. They still watering things. They still go on vacations and we are resilient plants.
02:02:12
Speaker
And as much as I think God is not pleased with a lot of things, I believe that His grace and mercy is upon our area. And a lot of people are just not paying attention to notice it. I know. I used to be one of them. Same. I'm right there. But, but yeah, wise, strong and loved.
02:02:41
Speaker
Because that's all, that's how I would describe myself. Because I am loved and I am getting wise. Wisdom is something that comes over time. Every day, every day. And strong. You are so strong. God made me strong. And you know, people always tell me, you're the strongest person I know in. I used to be like, why did he say that?
02:03:12
Speaker
And I will tell you today, I humbly say I am the strongest person I know. And because I look at all the things that I've gone through, and I haven't given up. And I refuse to give up. And even when you see me in heaven, I still won't be giving up up there.
02:03:41
Speaker
No, never. I am so proud of you for opening up today. I'm proud of you for opening up. I'm proud of you for all that you've done in your faith and your strength and not even just now, but even
02:04:06
Speaker
in the future and how much further you have to go. And it's so inspiring, Brandy. Just know that you have inspired and touched the hearts of so many people. And I hope that you continue to do that. And I, yes, I am so much looking forward to having you back on my podcast when you can say and let the world know that you are cancer free. Yes. Thank you so much for accepting.
02:04:35
Speaker
my invitation to be on the podcast and to be my first person, to name my first pieces. If you're listening and this episode and Brandy's interview has resonated with you, if it has touched you or if you just want to share this episode to let other people know about who Brandy is and to lift her up in prayer,
02:05:07
Speaker
Please share it and let's help to get the word out and whether that would be to encourage other people to have faith or again, to just, like I said, to continue the prayers for Brandy. And again, as always, as always end every episode, you are strong, you are capable and you are worthy.
02:05:35
Speaker
I love you and I am endlessly rooting for you. And we'll talk soon. Thank you. Love you.
Closing Affirmations for Women
02:05:40
Speaker
You have a good day. As we wrap up another episode of Finding My Best Self, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you for joining us today. You being here makes the journey much more meaningful. Remember, every step you take, no matter how small, is a leap towards discovering and nurturing your best self. If you found value in today's episode, please feel free to subscribe to the podcast.
02:06:03
Speaker
Your subscription helps us reach and inspire more amazing women like you. And if you could take a moment to leave us a review, it would mean the world to us. Your feedback not only supports our growth, but also helps other women find this empowering space. Don't forget to share this episode with a friend, family member, or fellow hero in your life. Every share spreads a little more empowerment and inspiration.
02:06:23
Speaker
And for an extra dose of motivation and community support, don't forget to sign up for the VIP list for MBS Fitco. By joining, you get exclusive access to our premium versatile activewear and fitness essentials. Carefully designed to inspire and accompany you on your self-care and fitness journey. Follow us on our social channels too for daily inspiration.
02:06:41
Speaker
and a peek into our latest collections. You'll find all the details and links in the show notes. Joining our VIP list is more than just a subscription. It's your entry into a world where fitness and self-care are celebrated, and every step towards wellness is cheered on.
02:06:55
Speaker
So until next time, keep shining, keep striving, and keep celebrating the extraordinary woman you are. Thank you again for tuning in to the Finding My Best Self podcast, where every story is a step towards finding your hero within. We'll catch you next time.