[FOR REVIEW] WWC 111 - FULL AUDIO
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Christa Elza: [00:00:00] It's important to stay healthy. It's important to kind of put into your health bank now because you never know when you've gotta do a big cash out.
You know, you never know if you could experience an accident or experience something like what I did. We have to go through a major surgery. And if you enter into those situations. In the best health that you're capable of achieving by, you know, laying down those strong foundations of nutrition and exercise and hydration and stress management, you just get to the other side easier.
So I hope that my story, has kind of opened your eyes to, of a variety of things, of early screening, of being in touch with your body and then really, really, taking your health, not taking it for granted and taking it seriously and that you do have. The power for that.
Speaker: Welcome to the Wild and Well Collective Podcast where we believe empowered health is your superpower.
Speaker 2: We have combined our expertise in medicine and nutrition to bring you the latest research expert insights and success stories of people on a mission to live a big life.
Speaker: So buckle up and get ready to learn how to live [00:01:00] wildly well.
Christa Elza: Welcome back to another episode of The Wild and Well Collective. And today we're gonna be talking about something that is very personal but I find it really appropriate to share because. Right now we are in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And this is also a story that I've been wanting to share my perspective of my own experience with breast cancer.
So I'll start with the history that my mom had. Breast cancer when she was 55, she was diagnosed with DCIS, which is ductal carcinoma in situ, which means the cancer is present, but it's in the. Ducks still, it's not in the breast tissue. And I know some people argue is this actual cancer because it hasn't moved anywhere.
But it absolutely could eventually move out and become invasive in ductal cancer. And so [00:02:00] that's why you want to take care of this. You have to do something about it. You can't just let it sit there. So when my mom was diagnosed with that, we just kind of thought it was a one off. Nobody in our family had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
So, fast forward to my own experience. I had been, you know, had, had frequent, I was very, you know, every year have my mammogram. I had been diagnosed with dense breast tissue, and of course at the beginning I thought, oh, they're tight, they're dense, they're gonna be perky forever. It turns out dense breast tissue is not what you think it is.
It's actually not something that you want because it's the ratio between. Like fibro, glandular tissue and fat. So someone who does not have dense breasts has mostly fat in, in the breast pocket there. Someone who has very, very dense breasts has more fibro glandular tissue than fat. And that tissue can be more, more, there's more potential for DNA damaging more, more potential for abnormal [00:03:00] cells to grow there. It also makes it more difficult to see on a routine mammogram because it's kind of like trying to find a snowball in a snowstorm because the dense tissue looks very white on a normal mammogram. So we realized that pretty early on.
I ended up typically having. Mammograms that were a diagnostic mammogram, which means they take layers upon layers upon layers, and so it's more of a little slices rather than one big image. And that can help the radiologist kind of see through the snowstorm if there is something in there. And then I would typically have to follow it up with an ultrasound as well.
Because everything in terms of how we view and how we look at images, they all offer something a little bit different so the mammogram can see more calcifications. Ultrasound can sometimes pick up on masses and things like that. And telecons consistency of the mass more than a mammogram.
And then there's MRIs and I [00:04:00] ended up having an MRI. About a year ago, almost to the day it was last September, I had, I ended up doing a MRI because I really wanted to slow down how often I was getting radiation exposure. I know it's small amount, but it's concentrated, and that was kind of bothering me that I was getting mammograms so often.
And so I ended up doing an MRI, which the MRI came back and there was nothing. Nobody said anything to me that there was anything to be afraid of. Nothing that stood out to them. So that was last September. And then fast forward to this past year in December, maybe early January, I had just noticed something on my left breast, on the skin.
It almost looked like a bruise to me. And I'm pretty in tuned with my body and I thought, I literally thought it was a bruise and three weeks passed by, four weeks passed by. It's still kind of there. And that concerned me. It didn't stand out to me as something, you know, [00:05:00] really like red and inflamed, but it does, did concern me.
Turns out, you know, that actually was nothing. It was just kind of the signal to me to like, hey. I wanna get checked out again. And what I ended up doing is instead of going to my GYNI found a local breast specialist just because of my history and my mom's history and having dense breast tissue and just kind of feeling at my ropes end with like, man, I'm always a little bit afraid of what we're gonna find on a mammogram.
And I had very like I said, dense breast. And so my. My self exams would be very lumpy and bumpy, and it was just really hard to kind of differentiate. And of course around my period when hormones would increase and shift and change, things would become more tender and lumpy and bumpy. And so there's just it, it nothing.
It always felt a little off. I ended up going to see the breast specialist and she didn't know what the discoloration on my breast was either on the skin, but she said, in any case, let's just repeat a mammogram. [00:06:00] So mind you, six months prior it had an MRI. Well, I go to have a diagnostic mammogram and that led me down a long trail of, we found.
A large area on your right breast, actually not your left of calcifications. And calcifications can be an early sign of cancer, of cellular changes going on. And when I looked at it, I could see it, it almost looked like the milky Way and just looked very speckly and you could see it. And so I was scheduled for a biopsy.
The biopsy is not comfortable by the way. They kind of do a mammogram and press your boob almost like a pancake, numb it, and then they put a very large born needle into that area and it had three areas of concern. So it was not pleasant. It was scary. I think in my mind at this point, I had already come to think.
I just feel in my gut that. I'm considering a double mastectomy [00:07:00] prophylactically because of how often we have scares and I am done breastfeeding. It was in the back of my mind. It took about a week of torturously waiting for my biopsy results to come back and I was literally in the car headed to Miami to see a girlfriend and.
I get a call from the radiologist and she said, I'm sorry to tell you this, but the biopsy came back as DCIS. So you have al carcinoma in situ. As far as we can tell, we don't know for sure if it's outside of the ducts at this point, but is showing that in your biopsy. And of course it's just a shock.
You just think, oh my gosh, there's an abnormal cell growing in my body, and here it is, like I'm face to face with this diagnosis. And I turned the car around. I canceled the flight. I just was in no state to leave. I knew I needed to just be at home with my family to kind of navigate this, I immediately followed up with my [00:08:00] breast specialist who scheduled another MRI now, now it had been six months between MRIs and so they scheduled another MRI with contrast to make sure.
To the best of their ability. What are we looking at? Are we looking at something that has been invasive into the breast tissue or is it still in the ducks? The good news with that was it showed that it was, they believed to be still in the ducks, but I chose. To be pretty aggressive about this. I had already been a little bit on edge about how abnormal, you know, my test results kept coming back as so when you have DCIS and breast cancers are very different, and that's the other thing, when you dive into this world, you realize, oh, there's estrogen receptive cancers.
There's cancer cells that have morphed so differently from normal breast tissue that they can be, estrogen and progesterone negative or triple negative is what a lot of people say. Those can actually be harder to treat because they're not receptive to regular therapy of kind of cutting off hormones.
[00:09:00] Mine luckily was estrogen and progesterone positive and it was HER two negative, which HER two is another receptor site that we can have on breast tissue and we always have that HER two protein. But those who are upregulated would be HER two positive, which can also be a little bit more dynamic to work with.
But they did a biopsy. They told me what type it was and we did the MRI and kind of figured out what it was and like what do I do next?
Sheree Beaumont: Yeah. Well, first of all, I really appreciate you sharing it. Know this is like, it can be really challenging and the worry people listening might have gone through either something similar or had someone they know go through something similar.
Breast cancer is, I think, the most common cancer amongst females, so it's really, really. A challenging thing to think about. And I just wanna address one of the things that I take my hat off to you. 'cause a lot of people don't go for mammograms, you know, and the fact that you were going so regularly, yes, you had your mom with the history, but that's not always enough to motivate people.
And we can wait till it's quite late in life. Like I think in New Zealand, the [00:10:00] earliest stage you can get a me mammogram covered by medical insurance is F 45. You know, the screening, like it's, you know, in terms of like. How the system works. And so you can be going through a whole lot of things that are undiagnosed.
And this is just a really beautiful reflection of, even though your test came back normal, the fact that you felt something was off and you felt that you wanted to push further, this is, you know, you really did advocate for your health. And I think that that's a really clear message. We wanna drive home here because.
Otherwise, you know, it may have eventuated or progressed a little bit too far, too fast, and we wanna catch these things early. And you were fortunate enough that you did. I'm really wondering how you decided what the course of action was for you, because you talked about just before how maybe that double mastectomy was an option, but now you've got this new information and you're going, okay, this is my body.
What do I wanna do? We have found that there is this
diagnosis that I'm having to deal with.
Christa Elza: yeah, and I
think,
you know, when you're faced with something like this, [00:11:00] there are different options. You could have in my certain, in my case, you could do a lumpectomy which the DCIS in my case was pretty widespread, so a lumpectomy would've really.
Change the shape of the breast because there was just so much tissue they would've had to take out. And then you have to typically follow that up with radiation. So that was my case. I was that option. Sometimes you can also, in my case, I had the option to do it. I didn't have to, but you could also go on hormone.
Blockers, which essentially put you in chemical menopause straight away so that there's no estrogen and progesterone, well, it's estrogen, so they'll kind of block that estrogen. I didn't want that. I didn't want to block estrogen in my body if I didn't have to. I didn't want to go through radiation. I opted to go a bit more of, I don't even wanna say extreme.
It just felt really right for me. To go ahead with a double mastectomy because I didn't want to personally live in [00:12:00] fear. I also did genetic testing. So when you are, when you test positive for breast cancer, they'll always run genetics to see what's there, and that's important for yourself in treatment as well as your family members.
Interestingly, I tested positive for a genetic malformation in it's called check two, and that can put you up to 40% higher risk for developing breast cancer in your lifetime. I did. Retest my mom because I thought, well, you know, you tested negative for BRCA gene, which puts you at 80% chance. But she tested negative for that and I thought, well, let's retest you.
And she actually was negative for check two. So this came from my dad's side. My sister also tested, and she also is positive for this Check two gene. So now she knows, okay, I'm at higher risk up to 40% now of developing breast cancer, which is higher than the 12 to 13% that the average woman has for developing breast cancer.
So knowing that too from me. I didn't want to live year after [00:13:00] year knowing I still have a 40% chance in my left breast for developing breast cancer. I wanted to be done with it. So I did my research. I actually had a couple of girlfriends who had prophylactic mastectomies because they were BRCA gene positive, and them knowing that they had 80% chance of developing breast cancer.
In their lifetime they chose to do a double mastectomy prophylactically, so I found an amazing surgeon. They're out of, based out of New Orleans. And they do immediate reconstruction. And so I called, I got in the books with them and I ended up choosing that route. And what they do is they take a fat graft from either your belly or behind, like right above your.
Your butt, a love handle area. They take out an entire breast amount amazingly and transfer that with direct blood flow. They transfer a blood vessel as well, and so essentially they kind of scoop out all of the breast tissue on both sides and then [00:14:00] they insert this fat graft with blood flow. And it's pretty amazing.
It's also a very big surgery, so I had to kind of weigh all of that, and in the end, that is what I chose to do. I felt like you know, I'd rather walk around with 2% breast tissue rather than a hundred percent. And I did not feel comfortable from me personally to keep breast tissue on the left side.
So, in preparation for that, of course, you know, you've got about a month or so to kind of deal with this, and it really is. It's emotionally exhausting. You start to face the reality of like, oh my gosh, you know, these abnormal cells are growing and I think for me as a practitioner, one that's really trying to promote health and optimization, there was a few, you know, weeks where I just felt this like overwhelming.
I almost wanna say disappointment and distrust in my body. And I had not experienced that before. You know, in my pregnancies. I thought, oh, I've got this. This is amazing. My body's showing up for me. [00:15:00] This is so great. And even postpartum, I thought, okay, I'm gonna ride this way. But I know this is a natural thing.
When you're diagnosed with something like cancer, it can feel very much like your body has turned its back on you. And that can feel really scary and isolating. Angering. Why is this person walking down the street who clearly looks unhealthy and they haven't been diagnosed with this, but I'm over here.
I work out. I eat pretty well. You know, I'm not perfect by any means, but overall I live a pretty healthy lifestyle and this is happening to me, right? But it was also this beautiful opportunity for me to say. Great. It's okay that I feel that way and I'm gonna trust that this entire experience is gonna work in my favor because if I allow it to, it absolutely will.
And I did find that throughout those ups and downs emotionally, I really did have people come out of the woodwork to support me, and it really showed me how. I am valuable to the world and to [00:16:00] people because sometimes when you're just living day to day and people are busy and nothing's going on, you don't realize like you do matter to other people.
And
of course, we matter. We matter because we matter. But it sh life showed me a lot of ways that this was a positive experience for me as well.
Sheree Beaumont: What a beautiful reframe. You know, I think so often ends. You see this happen in lots of medical cases where literally the mindset of the patient that's being diagnosed with something will determine the outcome.
Like there have been studies that have shown time and time and time again, and this isn't to go down the rabbit hole of how much your mindset can change your outcomes, but I just wanna reflect like you had a choice in that moment to be the victim to the situation. Or to go, I am choosing me and I'm choosing that I'm gonna overcome this.
And to receive the support and to receive the love, and to receive the care, [00:17:00] and to also receive the fact that like, yeah, it sucked. It sucks to go through this and like you said, to be someone that does take so much pride in their health and prioritize it. Literally moving a living, breathing embodiment of what it is to be healthy.
It can be so confronting. And also really scary for your family. I imagine like you've got three beautiful boys, a loving husband, like to have to go through that and to navigate this, and then also to go through the surgery you went through. Like I know, and also for you guys that are listening, Krista was on here like I think two weeks after surgery.
She couldn't actually live. Her like on the podcast recording, she couldn't lift her arms over her head, but she is showing up 'cause this is how much you guys matter to her and how much the work she does matters. And you know, I just want to like say how beautiful it's to, to witness that and also like, if you don't mind sharing a little bit about what that was like.
'cause that would've been so challenging.
Christa Elza: Yeah. It was challenging, I think coming out of that surgery and realizing like the weight [00:18:00] of, holy moly, I just got. Two surgeries, essentially like a surgery in the front to remove all the breast tissue and then a surgery in the back to remove and harvest that graft to then transplant in.
So it was kind of a double recovery. Very challenging to sleep comfortably because you're sleeping on kind of an a, like a donut pillow because you've got this huge incision in the back and then having to sleep kind of propped up because you've got this massive surgery in the front. And then just, you know, I really hope that these blood vessels and this fat graft takes because this is a major surgery and I think, you know, for me it was mentally challenging.
It was physically challenging. What I took away from it was. We've got to stay on top of our health because you never know when you could be diagnosed with something, when you need an emergency surgery, when you experience some kind of a physical trauma where your body is all of a sudden all the construction workers are out and Ravi, you know, RLY trying to heal and repair.
You want your body to be able to [00:19:00] respond to these things and heal appropriately, and you really can't do that effectively. If you're not healthy from the get go. And so that really stood out to me of like, cool, this showed up. You know, my body, my immune system did not recognize these cells Soon enough, some cells ran away from it.
Good thing I caught this early and now I'm gonna start, I'm gonna let those feelings go that my body is turning its back on me because it's really not. And I'm just gonna embrace that my body is gonna heal. And so I was determined to be, act like, walk respect my body and it's need to heal, but also just taking little walks.
I did my research on what kind of supplementation would help support healing. So I came up with some protocols before my surgery as well as after to really help support appropriate levels of inflammation. Obviously we don't wanna suppress it completely, but like we, we don't want it to get out of control either.
Making sure that I was eating enough protein, not. You know, suppressing any of my nutrition, like really [00:20:00] focusing on nutrition. Not trying to diet or feel like, oh my gosh, I'm not working out. And you know, all of those things run through your head and it's like, no, I've gotta give my body nutrition.
I need to rest when I'm resting. I'm gonna trust this process. My body feels inflamed and crazy and I don't look right and everything's wonky and I've got bruises and swelling everywhere. But also trying to stay positive and I think. You know, not pushing it in terms of like going back to work too fast, but knowing like, Hey, it's actually gonna be good for me mentally to map out what you know, the podcast and come and have a conversation even though physically I'm not feeling amazing I'm going to sit here and do something that kind of gets me thinking ahead and not kind of wallowing in.
Woe is me, right? That was
a big thing for me.
Sheree Beaumont: So. You know, just again, like showing up and doing the things be, and you know, again, taking my hat off to you because you can, I remember the first time I had, and there's nothing in comparison to what you had to go through, but the first time I had knee surgery, I just like sat in my little [00:21:00] bubble.
I was allowed to walk literally that day. But do you think I did that? No. I used it as every excuse under the sun to sit and eat m and ms and be like the little, like everyone weighed on me hand and foot because it's nice to be taken care of. Right. Like the second time I did it, I was like, oh yeah, you gained like.
Three, three pounds. And that was not a fun experience. And like you felt like crap. And so just showing up for yourself and making your health a priority is so important. I'm pleased. I'm in a very different mindset and it was fantastic that you were able to go into it with that mindset and also the knowledge that you have.
And so I know when we were talking about this prior to jumping on a recording, you and you have mentioned a couple protocols. There were some really key things that played a role for you in supporting your recovery, not just. Post op, but also like now to really optimize your detoxification pathways and make sure that your body is staying in tip top shape as you move forward.
So are you able to share a little bit about what that looks like?
Christa Elza: Yes. So I think, you know, seeing genetically running [00:22:00] that test, I ended up creating a partnership with the. Company that ran my cancer screening and it's a pretty cool company. It's called Myriad and they will run it through your insurance and you'll qualify.
Even if you don't qualify, the cash pay is capped at $240. So it's not really over the top expensive. But it's great because it tests for quite a few cancer genetics, not just breast cancer genetics either. So it can just really open your eyes to like any risk factors that you have. So that was eye-opening to me to share with my.
Family members check to you can have a slight higher risk in colorectal cancers as well. So that's bringing my awareness around, okay, great. I get to do the fun colonoscopies more often. But I mean, once you know it, then you know how to support your body differently. Maybe you need to be a shorter period of time between.
Screenings. Those are just guidelines that are kind of set up by insurance because insurance is only willing to pay so much. Let's be real. So it's a combination of a little bit of research, well of research, but [00:23:00] as well as money. And so when you know that you're an outlier and you're not the general population, you can be more proactive in screenings.
So that was really helpful. The other thing was. I ran health DNA on myself as well, and my health. DNA shows that my detoxification pathways are not super great and that also can put you at higher risk for taking hormones, let's say estrogen and detoxifying them appropriately. And because I have sluggish pathways, I know that alcohol is gonna back that up.
It's gonna put me at higher risk. I know that I need to support my estrogen pathways through supplements like dim magnesium. B vitamins, like those are important because my body struggles a bit with detoxification. I take NAC every day now religiously because that helps support liver. So I know those kinds of things.
I'm also. Aware that I need to check other testing. So I do functional testing as well. The Dutch test is really [00:24:00] interesting. It's a test where you collect urine and saliva, and I like to do this about once every year. I'm actually due this year to do it again. But it tests the levels of hormones that you have, but then also how well are you detoxifying it, like what's your body actually doing with it because it tests phase one and phase two detoxification. So you can really kind of see how efficient your body is in that moment. And that can fluctuate with stress levels, with levels of hormones. It can fluctuate with a lot of things, and so checking that yearly is also really important. So I would say what I learned is that I've gotta support my body for future risks.
It's also helped bring more awareness. For my patients who are doing hormone replacement therapy, if they've never done any kind of genetic testing, we don't know. And sometimes you can be the very first person to carry a certain gene, or even if your genes don't show that you have a higher risk of say, check two or BRCA gene.
There's environmental, you know, exposures that if you just have sluggish [00:25:00] detox pathways. That can put you at higher risk for developing hormonal cancers. And so it's just good to know. And so raise the awareness within my own body of how I get to show up better, be more precise in what supplements I choose, but then also passing that information along to my patients and offering the appropriate testing so that everyone can be aware of their own risks and and hopefully avoid it or if you don't avoid it, catching things early.
Sheree Beaumont: Yeah. I really appreciate you sharing that. And I think it's so important to mention like the, the testing and the genetic testing and, and the fact there are a lot of environmental factors. 'cause a lot of the times we can think it is purely genetic or like you say, you could be the first one that it shows up in.
And that's because when we look at epigenetics. Some genes can just be turned on that were never turned on in our parents because they didn't, or grandparents because they didn't have the same levels of stress or whatever that they were exposed to. So I think this is a really beautiful story around like awareness around shifting your mindset around being an advocate for your own health.
There are so many key takeaways from. You know, [00:26:00] what you've just shared with everyone and like in light of breast Cancer Awareness month, I think we are just, you know, really trying to promote that. You guys do take a look. There are online like little field kind of tests that like get to know your breasts, essentially get to know your body as well.
Because if we're not paying attention, we are not gonna notice when something feels awful, when something feels wrong. It's not about being this hyper aware or hypersensitive or even hypochondriac to our bodies. It's really just about. Noticing what feels good for you, and going down the deeper pathways of understanding what's going on and doing it before you hit 60, 70, 80, you know, and go, okay, I wonder why this is happening to me, doing it in your earlier years and earlier decades, so that you can prep your body for, you know, either catching something early or supporting yourself so that it doesn't eventuate into anything.
So I just really appreciate you sharing your story, Krista.
Christa Elza: Yeah, thanks. I think, you know, looking back on this crazy past six months I know I had my surgery [00:27:00] about five and a half months ago and learned a lot. You put life in perspective. You realize, wow, we, you have to be your your own best advocate.
And my advice to you would be to, yes, stay on top of self-exams, be in tune with your body, advocate for yourself. I found a surgeon, you know, I just kind of did my research. Don't, you don't have to listen to one person with options whatever health crisis you're facing. If you don't feel good about it, if you think, is this the only option, make sure that you're reaching out to other practitioners, to friends who may have experienced the same thing.
Don't pigeonhole yourself into one person's opinion of what you should do. I think, you know, to my advantage, I'm in the healthcare system, I understand medicine, you know, obviously that gives me a little bit of an advantage here. But if you feel like there is a different option for me, I'm not gonna just do a lumpectomy and radiation.
I want to go this route. That's what I felt. And so I just looked for resources. So. You know, not [00:28:00] only is it that, but it's also no matter what comes your way, be your best advocate and then also realize that your body is capable of healing. It's important to stay healthy. It's important to kind of put into your health bank now because you never know when you've gotta do a big cash out.
You know, you never know if you could experience an accident or experience something like what I did. We have to go through a major surgery. And if you enter into those situations. In the best health that you're capable of achieving by, you know, laying down those strong foundations of nutrition and exercise and hydration and stress management, you just get to the other side easier.
So I hope that my story has kind of opened your eyes to, of a variety of things, of early screening, of being in touch with your body and then really, really taking your health, not taking it for granted and taking it seriously and that you do have. The power for that. So thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3: If you love this episode, be sure to leave us a review, download, and subscribe. If you [00:29:00] know someone that could also benefit from this conversation, please share. That's how we Spread Empowered Health. We'll see you again for another episode of the Wild and Wild Collective.
