I Choose...To Take Care of Myself with Sasha Pieterse, Samantha Harris, and Dr. Michelle Kittleson

You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone, welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about the choices we make and where they lead us. As women. One of the most important things we can do is advocate for ourselves, and it is not always easy, you guys, which is why I wanted to dedicate the entire panel at the event about health and this is wild. Someone at our event ended up going home after hearing this discussion and decided to listen to her body instead of

Let's get started with our choose to take care of Myself panel, So please welcome.

First up, an actor known for her role on Pretty Little Liars.

She's the CEO of Hippie Water and the host of her podcast.

Women in the Nude. Please welcome show Peterson.

I mean I told you.

All right.

Next up, we have the professor of medicine at Smittheart Institute, Cedar Side, and the author of Mastering the Art of Patient Care, doctor Michelle Ketelson.

All right, and Jenny, Oh that's me.

Wait.

I want you to join us because you are a badass and I need you. You have so much to say about taking care of yourself. Join this panel. Okay, we need.

You so now. I prefer organic coffee. We'll get into that later.

Why okay, Okay, I'm going to start with you, my lovely friends, Sasha. It's so good to see It's so nice to see you two.

It's been a minute. A thank you for having me.

Yes, yes, okay, So you were on pretty Little Liars for those of you. The Job an amazing show that basically broke the Twitter, right it did.

Yeah, we were really lucky. We were, you know, premiering when Twitter was starting to get really popular, and we were kind of the first show to incorporate it into you know, live television. That was a thing we had to wait for an episode.

Right those days.

So live tweeting was a thing for us, and that was that was lucky. I don't know if we would have had the same success without those two things coming together.

But the interesting thing about that you were so young, I was you started that show when you were twelve.

I did the pilot when I was twelve, that I did the first season when I was thirteen.

Yeah, how old was your character that you were playing?

She was about fifteen sixteen.

Oh my goodness, such a baby. You were struggling, though you were silently struggling.

I was not quite a twelve.

So the show ran for about seven seasons, but it was over twenty episodes a season, so as you can relate to this, it actually felt like fourteen seasons. And you know, I grew up over the course of seven years.

I became a woman. In the course of seven years.

I graduated high school, I started driving, met the man that was going to be my husband. I did a lot of life in those seven years. And while all of that was happening, my body was changing, not just because women's bodies naturally changed in those seven years, as they do, but also because I was having some severe health issues that I couldn't figure out. It took me seventeen kind of call egists and about five years to figure out that I have pc US.

And so can you explain about for those of you that don't know.

Yeah, absolutely so.

A lot of the signs are we gain hormonal fluctuations, lack of a period.

Or too long of a period. A lot of people have cysts in their ovaries.

It can be a lot of different things, but it can also be misdiagnosed a lot. And what ends happening to women, which I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this. You go to the doctor and you say I'm stressed, my period isn't regular, I'm gaining weight, I have anxiety. I think I might be a little depressed. And they say, here's some birth control, or you're too young, it'll regulate eventually, or are you eating things that you shouldn't be. You know, we get I feel like we

I could not figure it out.

Oh wait, wait, go back. You just said you gained seventy pounds in one year, and.

I also want to just sorry. All of a sudden, my journalists have back on.

But PCOS stands for polystytistic ovary syndrome, just in case anyone doesn't know.

It's very common and a lot of people are misdiagnosed.

A lot of people are misdiagnosed. And what's really sad about that is that it can turn into other things. If you have PCOS, it can turn into ovarian cancer, it can turn into nymetriosis, It can turn into type two diabetes. It might not be you know, it might not happen to you, but if you don't catch it in time, those things, when they're uncontrolled can develop into things that are not.

And also it can make it challenging for some to get pregnant.

You have infertility issues or yes, infertility issues are a big sign. And I think you know, we were told this.

Is how you lose weight. You have to do a lot of cardio.

You can only eat vegetables, don't eat any fats, don't eat any you know our snow carbs.

Yeah, exactly.

So you get told, Okay, well I'm gonna not I'm going to hardly eat anything. I can barely eat an almond. I'm gonna, you know, have a salad, and I'm going to run my entire life. And that doesn't work for most women. Everybody's body is different. It might work for some, but you know, low carb, high protein diet is what worked for me, and that took me years upon years to figure out. Pilates is better for me than running on the treadmill. And every single body is different. There

Twelve year old.

Yeah, and so it's naturally confusing for everybody, to be honest, Fans all across the world were seeing this character that they love to hate not look like the character that they initially loved to hate.

And I couldn't give them an answer.

Not that I necessarily owed anybody one, but I couldn't even figure it out.

And as Twitter.

And Instagram we're turning into what we turned to on a daily basis.

It gave people a.

Platform to talk to us across the world, which is amazing, but also a double edged sword, and so I was I felt very trapped I bet and I had an amazing support system, thank goodness at home, But because of that, I don't I don't think that I would be where I am now. So I'm actually very thankful for it, and because of that, I've been able to help so many other women just advocate for themselves. They might not have PCUS, but they might have something else.

Go for it. I was going to ask you, being in that environment on the set of Pretty Little Liars with a lot of young women around you, how did that feel like? Did you feel seen and heard? Did you feel misunderstood?

We have We had a great cast and a great crew, and you know, we were very lucky, especially considering how many how much estrogen was on set.

You know, there's a lot of estrogen there.

We were very lucky. Everybody became like a family. Our crew was incredible. But I was also the youngest, so you know, I was twelve when I started, but the rest of our cast was I think Lucy was turning nineteen as the youngest, so I was very we were all playing the same age, but I was very much in a different part of my life now. I've always felt like I was older. I always had older friends. You know I connected with adultsmore than I did people my own age, but there are certain things that are

And they were so kind.

And so lovely, and as I got older, obviously that that gap just becomes smaller. But I felt supportive, but at the same time I knew that it was an It was a very frustrating situation, I think for for everybody.

But you had the support of your handsome husband. I did, and I do.

Yes.

I have known my husband for for so long, way before we started dating, and so we had a level of friendship that was so supportive beforehand, and so when it turned into something romantic, it not only felt natural, but it was also the sense of I see you, I know what you've gone through, I know what you can be and that's really cool.

Yeah, that's support is so important. How do you think people should show up for other people that are suffering with pcos? Like, how can they support young women?

I think ultimately it's.

It's ultimately about being heard, because we can't fix something overnight. It's a journey for everybody, specifically with pcos. You know, I feel like I'm in a good path right now, but my body might change in a little bit, my hormones might fluctuate, and I might have to figure out a different solution. Again, it is a constant journey. There is no cure, and it's all about balance. And as a woman, we know that that's not easy. We feel

Again.

I was really lucky that when I had my son, I was in a very very very small percentage of women where it actually almost resets your hormones.

Hendrick saved you, Hendrick.

Saved me in so many ways, but that was something that I was totally shocked by. So for the first time in my life, I've had a regular period after having him, and that has been life changing in itself because now my body clock is more centered and I can really navigate my health much better.

But often that's.

The opposite when you have a baby, you know, because those hormone fluctuations happen. You could go the other way and you could, you know, be dealing with.

The plethora of other issues. You're talking about that fluctuation. I mean, we all have experienced that. I know I have an on camera. It's always fun. The criticism is hard. How did you handle that? I know how I deal with it, but how did you internalizing.

That's not the right way? You know, a couple of different ways. I think for a while I hid. I got to the point where, you know, where I should have been, what should have been the greatest platform, became really scary, and I started having designers say that they can't dress me, and so it was like, well, what's the point? And so I hibernated for a while and that helped because I had a strong support system, but it wasn't really solving the issue.

And so that it takes work. It takes work on yourself.

You have to be you have to choose yourself before any of that can really develop on like a confidence side when it comes to like facing the world publicly or not.

Right, we're gonna we're gonna talk a lot later about menopause, But do you feel like PCOS needs to be talked about more openly?

Absolutely? I mean all of our health issues do.

We're so understudied, and PCUS is one of those things where because it affects women in so many different ways. Long term being proactive about your hormones and your insulin resistance and everything that comes along with it. It's a it's a lifetime journey. It's something that you can to keep working on. And so the sooner we catch it, the faster we catch it, the better our chances are going to be. And so ultimately, yes, it's about awareness.

Just got a food panel for all time.

Seventeen gynecologists told me that I was too young, lying flat out somebody flat out told me that I must be lying about what I'm eating, that I must just be eating terribly.

Yeah.

I mean I got everything and nothing from gynecologists, and I had a friend recommend going to an endocrinologist. I sat down with an endochronologist.

I told her what I.

Was experiencing, and she was like, well, I mean it sounds like you pcus. I can't be sure until we take a blood panel, but let's figure it out.

But that was what you're saying, It's this is what it sounds.

Like as simple as that.

Well, will you just again for everybody, hammer it down? What were your symptoms? And was it the blood test? And can you just say to.

An undercanologist or a gynocologist, I.

Want you to test me for pcos and is it that definitive?

Yes, I mean you The answers are yeah, all the above. So most commonly, which was what happened with me? I had a severe vitamin ded efficiency. I my testosterone was through the roof way higher than normal, and I was obviously gaining weight. I had a really inconsistent period. I would go six months, nine months without having a period, and so I wasn't sure if I was even ovulating. Uh, that's a really big sign. A lot of women have.

A lot of gastro issues.

And you know, struggling to lose weight even though you're gaining weight, struggling not being able to to lose any weight. A lot of women have depression and brain fog and fatigue, and they don't realize that it's also connected. So if you have any of those things, a combination of those things,

She had infertility.

Issues, and she always thought that her gas or issues were like you know, sense reality, he's allergic, yeah, gluten free. She was always changing her diet. Can never figure it out, and it was actually PCOS. And so she went in for a blood test and that was how it was diagnosed.

And so a full.

Blood panel, just a blood test.

Your cholesterol is a huge trigger if you've got high cholesterol, and so yeah, your main ones are your estrogen, your testosterone. A full blood panel, you will see all of these things.

So it's not like, hey, here's the it's not here's the PCOS test. It's let's look at your cholesterol, your vitamin D, you look at your testosterol, or look at your different estrogens and other hormones, and then paint the picture from that.

Yes, and if you are experiencing any pain in your ovaries yet, good job.

Thank you.

If you're experiencing any like pain in your ovaries, something that seems maybe abnormal, or stomach pains, if you think you have PCOS, you should also ask for an ultrasound. Now, I actually don't have any system my ovaries, So honestly, it's kind of a silly name for the for the disease because you might not have.

Any system your ovaries.

But most women who have pcos have system they're ovaries, and a lot of women find out they have pcos when a cyst ruptures, which is not fun. And so just because you don't have cysts doesn't mean you don't have it. And it's kind of a game of like what on the list do I have? What don't I have? But the fixes aren't simple, but they are easy to implement,

That you can do.

Medication might be something it doesn't It could be I always try and not get on medication, but it but it's always something that I look to, which is Western and Eastern medicine together. I think they always go together, and I don't think we should hide from either one. I think they need to support each other. And so, yes, it's a mixed bag, right.

It's like, what's going to work for you?

You're going to have to go on that journey and find out for yourself.

But it is rewarding to know what's wrong with you.

I love it that you've been so open about it and such a great voice for the condition, and so many young girls are aware of it because of you sharing your story. So thank you, Hi, thank you, so brave, Samantha. I want to talk to you because people have loved watching you throughout your career. I'm one of me big fans. Big We're big fans up here, Samantha Harris. Thanks and now your podcast and your book, Your Healthiest Healthy.

Which you all have in your gift bag. By the way, thank you to iHeartRadio. iHeartRadio got happy.

Yes, but if we could just go back to the beginning for you, Does breast cancer run in your family?

No?

The biggest shock that I had, because I was looking for answers at forty, being as fit and healthy as I had ever been, Right, was okay?

My dad died of colon cancer when he was fifty.

His mom and there's a breast colon connection hereditarily.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah, you can test for that for the genetic link. His mom my grandmother was a breast cancer survivor postman apostles diagnosis, so they don't connect that. To mind, this was just premaopausal but lived to ninety five, God bless her. But I was certain I.

Must have a genetic link.

And I did the battery one hundred and eighty different or maybe more than that. Now genetic tests for breast cancer and no genetic link. And so I'm a national ambassador for Susan g Coman an American cancer Society, And the biggest mind blowing stat to me was that for breast cancer, now one in eight women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime, and yet only five to ten percent of those breast cancers are actually genetic. And here I was, I had

I was disappointed because then I thought, well, what the heck, why me?

Why am I eating egg white onlets, skinless, boneless.

Chicken dresss.

Why am I eating jeesus freaking pizza?

All right? Now?

Of course here I was, you know, growing up in the eighties and nineties and early two thousands with the fat free, low fat generation, eating my rows of those sandwich cookies I won't name my name, you know, the ones that are white with the white cream in the middle.

I would eat an.

Entire row, or or the licorice that I also won't name that's full of red dye forty and high fructose scorns. But nobody'm looking at all of that. So that was the biggest shock, and that's what sent me on my journey. I thought I was my health you know, I was thought I was healthy, but I realized I needed to be my healthiest healthy, which is why the book is called Your Healthiest Healthy?

Can you?

Okay?

So when you first got your first diagnosis, was that something that you discovered or was did a doctor discover it?

The biggest lesson I learned is we have to be our own health advocate. And you guys are all here live or listening to this, and you know you have to choose yourself.

I choose me. So I didn't realize how much I had to.

So the fast answer to that was I had my fortieth birthday a month in the future, and I thought I should get a mammogram, because that's what you do at forty. Had them squished and pushed an ouch and it was clear.

I mean it should be clear.

I'm so healthy and eleven Jenny, eleven days after clear mammogram results, I was changing after a workout and you know how tight those sports bras are, so I'm like moving them to the left, moving them to the right, little rotation going on. I called the soft tissoe tango and uh the ten ten yes.

And there it was.

There was a slump and I mean it was sizey. Like I said to my husband, Am I crazy? Like do you feel this?

Yeah?

I feel it. Do you see it? Yeah? No, I can see it. And I'm thinking, how did they miss that on the mammogram.

I could have stuck my head in the sand and I could have just said, you know what, I just had clear results.

I'm good.

But I thought, you know, I'll call the doctor who's the only doctor who ever does a breast exam when I'm in the you know, And that's of course the guy I know. So there I was at my obigu i N. I trusted her more than any doctor. She delivered both my kids. I mean I was seeing her before I'd.

Even had sex.

Okay, I was like, and I was really old when that happened. So tmi, Oh, my kids aren't listening to this. Actually hopefully they are, so they wait, any teenage girls, it's fun, okay.

So anyhow, so there I was. I went to see my obig i N.

She did a quick clinical exam and Jenny's same thing. It's like, nope, it's nothing, don't worry about it, and sent me on my way. Months later, lump's still there. I thought, yeah, I should probably get a second opinion. So then I well, again, not cancer because I just had that clear mammogram.

I've Ghino said it's nothing.

So I saw my internest he did a quick feel, said it was nothing. Four months later, lumps still there. Now that inner voice and this is where we have to get quiet. Sometimes we really have to listen to that inner voice. And it was screaming at me, Antha, you need to see an expert who looks at breasts every day as a specialty. Little did I know there's only one specialty that does that. Now, that's a breastoncologist. So here I was in a cancer center and she did two ultrasounds, a needle biopsy.

We did a subsequent MRI, not one.

And this is not to scare you, but this is just to again implore you to be your own best health advocate and push for answers. I didn't think it was cancer, but I pushed for answers. Not one diagnostic test showed that it was cancer, to the point that she came back in with the results after the needle biopsy. Pathology came back and she said, Samantha, I have good news and bad news. The good news is it's not cancer.

But the bad news is.

I don't know what it is. Let me do a lump back to me. I'll just take the lump out. Figured, okay, look, the moves did what they had to do. They got me, my husband, they fed my kids.

I'll have a scar now.

And so a month after a week after that, pathology for the lumpeck to me came back.

I told my husband, it's a beautiful day, go golf. Why don't you, honey, go golf?

So nice enough you Sasha's like, yeah, we both had golf widows, so we understand the golf thing.

And so he was, which I sent him on his way.

The three and six year old are playing at home, and I sat in the dark, dank doctor's office as she's feverishly drawing diagrams of boobs and dots of cancer. And you have ductal carconoma insight too, and it's invasive.

Wow, that's that is a crazy story. And if it wasn't for your persistence, your tenacity in wanting to know about your body, you would have never known, and who knows where you would be.

And that's, you know, that's.

The scary thing I think about is if I had taken the doctor's advice, or had I stuck my head in the sand and not. And again, I really didn't think I had cancer, you guys, I did not think.

I had cancer.

So it was really shocking when I had that diagnosis. And then that just you know, started my cancer journey and cancer versity. As you're having like you know, trying to take a sip from the fire hose and all the information's coming and you're collecting information and you know, multiple opinions. I always encourage with any type of health diagnosis, if you have the opportunity, if your.

Insurance allows or your own finances.

Allowed, get a second opinion, get.

A third opinion, and then make your decision. But gather the information and don't always, as I'm sitting next to an incredible cardiologist right now, don't always take the first bit of advice that comes. And a good doctor, and I know doctor Kilson will second.

This will not be offended if you get a second opinion.

Right They want you to Okay, So talk to us about the moment you found out that your cancer had returned. What was going through your mind then?

So in the in.

Between, by the way, So twenty fourteen was when I was dyingnosed. After lots of information gathering, I opted for a double.

Mestectomy with two stage reconstruction.

I was on an endocrine therapy so at estrogen blocker for seven and a half years. Celebrated my tenure cancer versary and my twentieth wedding anniversary with an amazing trip.

With the family, and then came back to knowing.

That I needed to have a biopsy because about a year before my second diagnosis, I again found a little lump and I went to Now I have my doc squad stacked, so I was going to the right experts. But even they said this tiny little it was like smaller than the size of a pe. But it was in the same exact location of my original tumor, so that gave me pause.

But they all said it's not anything. We're not worried about it. We had an ultrasound, but ultrasound came back looked great.

But finally, my stepfather is a retired surgeon, not he's a pediatric surgeon, but he kept saying, you need to get a surgeon's hands on this. So I went back to my best ectomy surgeon. They did another ultrasound, still said it was fine, so I want to see you in six months.

We'll check it out. Then I said, no, I'm not comfortable with that. How about in a month?

They said a month, we're not going to notice any difference, but well how about this three months?

Like, oh deal, I'll see you in three months.

So every three months I was looking at that ultrasound result again and it was staying the same until it changed shape, to.

Which we then needed that biopsy.

So I returned from this amazing celebration of twenty years married, ten years cancerversary cancer free and got those results, and I remember the nurse practitioner called and she.

Said, Samantha, I cannot believe it. It's cancer again.

Believable And your family was there for you through this whole journey. And you know, you have two beautiful daughters. How do you guide them moving forward early detection in tests? What do you tell your daughters in such.

A different conversation than when I was diagnosed and they were three and six now they were thirteen and sixteen. And the hardest part of this journey, besides, of course, waiting to make sure after the bone scans and the CT scans that it hadn't metastasized, with thank goodness it did not, was having to sit across for my daughters with my husband and tell them that mommy has cancer again again.

They were very well versed.

In the fact that I had cancer, but they saw me as the survivor who was thriving and doing an amazing you know, I was killing it in the workouts and the hikes, and I was, you know, running them, and I'm eating healthily, and I changed up all my makeup, my skin.

Garrett got all the talks I've amid.

All these sweeping changes to be my healthiest healthy, and I share and guide others to do that. I went back to school to become a certified health coach. I've been a certified trainer for like forever. And so this is the line I walk, this is the world I live in, and here I was with this diagnosis. So explain to them that this is what was happening, and they just of course wanted to know, Mommy, are you going to be okay?

That was crushing. Yeah, but yes, I'm going to be okay, and I have to believe that.

So that is a wild story. And it's so valuable that you're sharing that with all of us because sometimes we don't want to know the truth, and I think in your situation, you kept fighting for the truth because you knew instinctually and that's just so inspiring.

Thank you.

And to answer your question in a short form because I know I like to talk, sorry, is that if you have a cancer diagnosis in your family with a first degree relative. So, for instance, my dad was diagnosed at forty eight died at fifty of colon cancer. I've been getting colonoscopy since thirty five every three years, not every five.

I push for every little.

And I had followed out that I actually even had some of those times and didn't realize that I would have had them so important. So for my daughters, they will also start about ten years before with their breast detection.

Only those screenings get further and further apart as I've gotten older. It used to be the four years, Now it's six years. And for the you know the check thank you insurance. Yeah, I guess so. So your persistence really paid off and you're able to teach your daughters that which is going to keep them healthy. Yes, it's incredible. I hope you were talking about your dad. My father suffered from a massive heart attack when he was thirty seven. I think, is that right?

Mom?

Thirty seven? And so I got curious when I hit my thirties and I thought, I I want to get a cardiologist. Is this crazy? And one day I was on Larry King Live speaking on behalf of the American Heart Association, on behalf of my father and I. After we quit, I went to doctor P. K. Shaw and I said, please, will you be my cardiologist? He looked at me so oddly, and he's like, you're so young. But Okay, come and see me. And everybody thought I was crazy. They thought I was being dramatic by getting

There's no question there are these very disturbing sex related trends and outcomes for heart disease, and I just want to echo it's such a gift for me sits on the other side most of the time as the physician and not the patient, to hear these such powerful stories.

One of the things I do is medical.

Education, trying to teach trainees how to listen the art of diagnosis, and so much of that on the physician end is embracing the uncertainty, understanding the uncertainty, not feeling confident you always have the right answer.

So I want to thank you both for those stories, and.

I would yes, please clap because they're amazing.

And then I also want.

To make it actionable.

Not something I'll take back to my medical students, but something you and the audience can also take back. How can you prevent perhaps these episodes of misdiagnosis or not being heard? And I think there's two very important, three very important things. Number one, go in with your agenda. When do you ever go to a meeting and not have an agenda with your action items and priorities. Women always have a list, So have a list of the

It?

You don't have to know what wires rsay is there something outside of the box we're not thinking of? And number three, never be afraid to get a second opinion. If your doctor is one hundred percent confident, but you're not buying what they're selling because there's always some uncertainty involved in and I think a good physician will recognize that uncertainty and make a plan to deal with it.

Our heart attack symptoms the same for men and women.

It's the short answer is no. This is the general teaching is this. Any symptom between your nose and your navel could be your heart. It's not always going to be the classic crushing chest discomfort. It's not going to be on the left side of your chest because the heart's on the left side of your chest. For me, the huge red flag is going to be not necessarily how you describe it, but often when it happens. The heart is a muscle. It's going to get into trouble

Right, and the numbers are rising, isn't that correct?

You know?

I think it's a blessing and a curse that we all live longer. And if you live longer, you're more likely today something's going to happen to you, and it might as well be heart disease. And I think the other epidemic we're dealing with, of course, is overweight and that is a risk factor. So I think we have to all recognize no one wants to happen, but if it's going to be there, you'd rather know about it than not know about it.

Absolutely. Do you think that stress, because we all have that thing called stress, does that play into our risks for heart disease?

You know, I'm a big believer in we don't worry, we make a plan. Okay, So we're never going to get rid of stress, right, And there's no scientific study where you can dose humans with stress like you dose a lab rat and actually sees what happens. So yes, probably stress isn't good for you, but we're never going to get rid of it, so we have to figure out better ways to.

Deal with it.

And conferences like this that give you so many amazing tools through all these sessions are going to be huge. But if there's one thing that we can all do that's going to help, it's going to be exercise. Whether you're running up and down the stairs at the CBS studios or wherever you make it work. That will be a one two punch win win of stress relief and good for your heart.

Do you think that a diet plays a factor.

You know. I love so much, Sasha, I love so much about what you said. It resonates with me one thousand percent when you talked about there is no one right diet. Every book will tell you that their diet is the right diet, but you can't really dose humans with diets and do scientific studies the same where you can dose labrats. So honestly, one hundred percent, the right

And I try to.

And then patients will often come to me and say, well, should I become a vegan? I've heard the vegan diet's the best, and I say nothing against the vegan diet, but are you going to live longer or just feel like you're living longer because it's so unsustainable? So really you have to pick what makes sense. It's healthy, but it's sustainable for you.

Did you guys, know that heart disease is the number one killer of American women. I didn't know that. I thought for sure it was cancer, but it over. If you combine all the cancers, heart disease is still the number one killer of American women. Just so you know, just do take it seriously, not to scare you, just to give you the knowledge so you can take care of yourself better. I want to open it up to

I'll go first, I guess.

Yes, go.

I mean I was really I am really close with my mom, so yes, I mean I was an only child, so I didn't have a sister or an older sister to maybe talk to about that. I feel like I was really open with my mom. I do remember when I got my period, which was when I was like I think I was either just turning ten or right before I turned ten, which is also very early early bloomer.

Yes I was.

In anyways, I remember that was the only time.

I feel like she didn't know what to do.

I think she was so taken off guard that it had happened so quickly, and she just she gave me a tampon and.

She closed the door and I was like, I don't know what to do. She's like, you'll figure it out. We all do.

And I think that's about as closed off as she's ever been. She definitely got more open after that when I had more questions, but he had to work. I did.

I had to ease her.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think ultimately, my mom had a lot of her own health issues. She was a dancer and so when she was growing up, her mom was kind of emotionally abusive and she ended up becoming bolliemic because of it, and then she got hyper thyritism, so her body was working over time. She was losing a ton of weight and could not figure out why. She had seen every single specialist you could think of, and it was a nose and foot doctor that figured out that she had

Now, this was before I was born.

She was losing weight rapidly to the point where she was really really sick.

She was losing her hair. They could not figure it out.

They had a dance contract in America that they had already agreed to. My parents were a speciality act, and so they got on the plane and you know, this was before we all had cell phones, and my grandma knew where she was, where they were staying, and she just kept getting all of like, she just kept calling and they weren't there yet. By the time she finally got my mom on the phone, she was like, you have hyperthyroidism and you need to get to a doctor immediately otherwise.

You could literally die any second.

And so she had to take the radiation pill. Now she's, you know, on a lifelong thyroid pill medication for it, and so, you know, I think, I think with all of my issues, it was like, well, we've got diabetes in the family on both sides, both type one and type two. We have thyroid issues on my mom's side, we have random cancers on both sides. And I think it was like I was determined to find what was wrong with me because I knew that there were lots

But I think it was also.

It's also one of those things where and I would never blame this on her. I think it's one of those things where her and I were both in an industry where what you looked like mattered. Yeah, and so it's like, I don't think there being an actual issue or disease was her first thought.

For me.

I think it was like, well, we got to just figure out what's happening with your weight, and it wasn't the connection because that wasn't something that had happened to her. And so I think ultimately it's knowledge, right, Knowledge is power, And like you had said before, which is a real real thing.

Sometimes we just don't want to know what it is.

We put it off because that's very scarier. Yeah, but at the end of the day, you need to know, you need to make what's happening to you. It's not worth living with that, it's not worth that you know, it could it literally could be life and death. And so that mother relationship that I had with her definitely definitely made it easier. But I think we are all ill equipped in some way. We don't always have all

You know, it's not you.

There's no like age that you get to where it's like, okay, well now I've been safe for it or from it up until now. That doesn't really exist anymore. Tell me if I'm wrong.

I have a daughter who thinks she's eighteen. Now you know who you are over there, She is eighteen, but she thinks that she should just go to the doctor by herself. I'm like, I know you don't want to hang out with me, but I'm gonna go with you because I know a thing or two about a thing or two, and I want to make sure that we're getting all of our questions answered. So that's really important too. Did you who is it in your life that taught you to choose yourself?

I think it definitely comes back to the moms. You know, we hope we do for our kids. And my mom's always in my ear, I mean with both of my you know, now I'm fifty one and she's still in my ear.

You know, I'll forget.

I'll literally go to an appointment now as active and this is my whole jam, right, I'm all about wellness and all of the things that I'm talking and I'm sharing with other people. And yet she'll be like, hey, by the way, did you ever get results for that.

MRI you had or did you get oh?

Not about for guys?

Should check up on that.

Are so important? So important? I love you mom, So you guys, this has been such a valuable conversation. I think that I feel like I've learned a lot and I feel validated by you, doctor Kittelsen, to know that I have the option to go out there and find the help that I need. Ask the questions that I have on my list. It's so important also just listening to your instincts, Sasha, and for you persistence in knowing and listening to your body and not taking oh everything's fine.

I'm the fifth generation of doctors in my family, an only child and the child of Indian immigrants, so it's pretty incis then that I would be a doctor. But it's the greatest privileged job in the world. I became a cardiologist for three reasons. Number one, talking to a patient actually matters when you're a cardiologist. You can't diagnose everything with a blood test. I enjoy that interaction. Number two, there's a beautiful pathophysiology about how the heart works, and

I love your enthusiasm. It's so great to meet a doctor like this. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your stories.

Before we get this is such a fun lot. We need to do a photo.

Oh my god.

Okay, you guys can get on your phones first, and.

If you want to. You don't have to, I mean, but if you want all right? Ready, all right?

Yeah? Nice?

One?

Two three?

Good? We got it, We got it. Thank you so much, ladies, I love you. Thank you so much. It was so great to meet you. I'll be calling you though.

I can't wait.

You guys them a round of a past Thank you everybody.

Sasha and doctor Kennelson. Thank you very very much, and thank you Jenny for let me be part of the conversation.

Is so fun.