glad to be here thank you very much for coming and sharing your story with us it's a very personal story it's wonderful that you agreed to do it are hoping that it helps people we thank you for for coming and you know taking that opportunity to spread the word thank you tell us a little bit about yourself before we get started well i'm fifty six years old i found out well i'm a medium spiritualist medium which means i speak with spirit i run i'm a director at a metaphysical center that's called the little cut center for well being which isn't branzburg new jersey little just a little bit north of here really only about fifteen twenty miles as the crow flies really near somerville i discovered to my call on the colon cancer was found in two thousand and fifteen but i think that's the next question  went to rehab afterwards i had remember what it was two or three emergency surgeries and they sent in they biopsy what they took out but i don't know that they biopsied everything because they didn't find the cancer again that was in two thousand and fourteen of october and then it was two thousand and fifteen of september that they found the cancer now they found the cancer because i had gall bladder my gall bladder was acting up and as they took me into the sonogram fella you know he said you definitely got gallstones he's like turn this way and they would all go to lou stones in a pond but then he moved to another organ and i didn't know what it was and started clicking pictures and i thought this isn't good and it turned out to be cancer on my liver and it took a day or so to find out what type of cancer it was and they found out it was colon cancer that had almost completely destroyed my liver and they found the colon cancer and then i wanted to merge into surgery and i try to connect with sloan through my insurance finally got approved and then there i was working there it was all working really well so i was very very blessed to find dr nancy company who is a colon to liver expert but that's all she does you have to have c cancer that's metastasized to liver it could've gone other places as well but because she gave me a pump it's called the hepatic pump i have a titanium hockey puck if you want to feel it ok now that's what fantastic about sloan is that they have a specialist for every single tiny i mean if you have you know a cancerous tumor that is on your hand that spreads to this finger they have someone just for th someone for the thumb and someone for if it goes to your wrist it's amazing and i tell people that all the time and i say it again that is where you want to go if you want someone who sees nothing but what is wrong with you absent not someone who sees that but then also cancer here and cancer here and cancer here and so they have a very broad based experience and it's sometimes usually when they say well you're treated first mix all the different it absolutely does and you have a very small window to get  cancer you absolutely do have a very small most cancers you know you can't go somewhere and say oh that didn't really work and yeah that whole round treatments and surgery wasn't great right spread let me start over and go to somebody else pick  better doctor and kind of you get that window because now it's spread and there's an area it's funny because i had signed up at my local hospital i won't say what it was and we found out the doctor i was only her third colon patient and she had been trained offshore so i had friends in the medical field who were really looking out for me and said you're not going there then a friend who is like a daughter to me was getting her eyebrows waxed not waxed threaded and she just happened to ask the threat or know anyone with colon cancer and she said why yes i do and her name is blank and she loves to help other people with colon cancer and that's the lady who pointed me in the direction of nancy dr nancy company  when i found out i was just frozen i had no happy no sad no upstart downs my leg wouldn't stop shaking it was it was so hard but i got through it and did what i had to do and will probably get systemic that's not directly to the liver they filled the liver pump and that goes directly to the liver and this is systemic so it kind of sticks out a little bit but who cares i'm well i'm here examine you know the cancer was probably there for a while before they found it and it's at this stage really blessed to still be here here and a half after starting chemo absolutely that's my next question but on that point how do you go into the local person who  very well may not be very well may not be here that's absolutely true because when my surgeon one in october of two thousand and fifteen the sloan surgeon he came back out and he was frightened because of how bad my liver looked he said and i no it's totally it was a miracle after miracle after miracle it just kept happening i mean there was no way you could call it anything else the things that were happening you know and i just constantly prayed and i did pray to get you get when you turned fifty no i did not and that why is that i just i my father had died and then two years after that my sister had died and i was running a business and working working constantly working i just didn't take care of myself now did you go to a doctor regularly who was urging you to go and you just go you can never went to the doctor i did but at the time i didn't have insurance and once i got the insurance  was almost like about six months before the diverticulitis so i was super blessed to have done that so insurance that was definitely a big part of what prevents people from getting care i would apps definitely was because i looked up how much it was and let me tell you it's not cheap to get a call and ask the right or an  that's about all i can say about that right now but i knew i was really tired and i knew i had pain in my lower belly but i didn't know that it wasn't me just getting better you know and i mean you know i wasn't exactly sure who would who thought who would ever think you'd be grateful for weighing well over two hundred pounds and having a gall bladder attack because that was how they found it so i'm grateful for gall stones and i'm grateful for weighing two hundred plus i'm not going to say what pounds at the time because i thin down so fast it wasn't even funny i mean the w came off it was well over one hundred pounds came off that just came off and i've gained forty of it back for forty or fifty back so i look healthy now i look puffy on my face you can see my hands are slender  but this is from the steroids and if you are if you have cancer and if you're going through treatment that's what you expect and this is a chemo rash but you get you get  inside of three days from seeing the surgeon she recommended inside of three days of seeing her i saw the surgeon and the surgery put the surgeon put me in the hospital less than forty eight hours later so once i got to them they were very much pushing me like now because i guess they'd seen the pictures and they knew what the little looked like i didn't really know you know which was good i think at the time that i didn't know because it would have made me even more frightened i think it's scary you know you have first thing you have to admit is how frickin scary it is because it's really scary you know even for somebody who's spiritual i'm a minister i minister to people i do grief counseling i do spiritual counseling but it was still very very frightening for me where type of surgery did you have well i got a skull or that goes from here to here and i don't have a belly button and he i had surgery first that removed the gallbladder and put in the titanium pump and fixed a hernia he could not get to the mass that was over my signal oid from where they had sloan search surgeries and then the second surgery which was last june and july he was able to get the main mass he got it took my ovaries top of the bladder and some other stuff and y the fall i was feeling much better and i had a wonderful holiday season this year and now i'm at the gym i'm even at the gym now all i'm doing is the bike in the elliptical and i go very slowly but it's working because i feel the tension my muscles are healing even more so more depth deeper healing and my box stamina is getting much better which i really needed my stamina to be a lot you i have a good friend margaux him on who is who want to go to the gym too and it's directly between our houses so there's no excuse even if it's right now what type of additional treatments did you need side all the surgery just just the chemo chemo every two weeks i was still am on chemo but i can tell you that this woman's doctor kemeny survival rate is seventy six percent five plus years that's awesome and the woman that i speak to i guess i could say our name kathy bear i could even have probably have her come down and talked about it as well she's been around ten years oh i know other people who've been and she is also and which is a very happy  h that called when you have it means no evidence of disease and she has no evidence of disease now and i know they took report out and everything and i found out about three or four other people that were ten plus years that were doctor come in these patients as well so that's fantastic just it's mind blowing to think that people have access to a doctor like that very close by and they don't think to research or to try to take that right to have an extra drive or inconvenience and will go to the person around the corner who most did that but my two friends were like don't you dare go to that for us treatment the insurance will not cover you if you want to go to the other doctor don't you dare go i was on the phone only you know because i so grateful to have i just it's your life and yes you don't like to drive and where they train sometimes or all of the things because i know it's tough to get in and out of the city and it's just but it's your life they put them all the on the other end they don't they're not down by aren't they put the slow but that's ok i'm not complaining i'm here and i probably will be for quite some time and that's the whole point how are you feeling now i'm feeling pretty good my stamina isn't one hundred percent yet which i would expect still getting chemo but it's much much better than it has been over the over the years that i've been going through all of scans good you look good or so you're still too fat lose weight get back to the gym stop eating bread first to tell me to gain the weight then they told me that but i all i do is say ok because she's the boss  that's good news congratulations and so what do you think the future holds for you i mean as far as treatment as far as just life in general have you seen another vision of a plane the center is expanding because of this because i like dropped off the face of the earth i just started sending out my newsletters again you can find me a trish woods dot com if you're looking for someone like me tricia you can e mail me at trish woods at trish woods dot com that's easy enough nine eight five two six one three five eight is my home business number if you're looking for something like that but to continue in what i what my life's work is which is to help others through grief with mediumship spiritual counseling  o intuitive counseling we have all kinds of classes of courses right now we have a yoga class my mentor of twenty years is coming to work with us at the end of may we have a psychic and spiritual development course the runs every wednesday we have other classes and stuff all the time they're all different times and each reiki they're well enough and you participate in almost all of it i participate probably about fifty percent right now  pushing more you know i want my stamina back i didn't like when and have and the other thing i wanted to talk about very quickly if there is time is i also got on a depressant for the first time in my life so sometimes in long term care and in order to come out of that fear you need to get on in a depressant and to help yourself to help yourself find yourself again and i'm still on that it didn't i was i didn't expect that it would be so normal it's just feel so normal it doesn't feel like you know like facts and things were no no and it took a little while to find the right one but once i did it worked instantly pretty much been a couple of weeks and just very grateful very grateful for that and don't be afraid to do that please don't be afraid to do that to help yourself you know what helps you get through this daily struggle prayer prayer absolute prayer constant prayer and i don't mean i'm sitting there with beads on my knees you know i just the first thing i do in the morning is take a prayer and light some sage i'm not a traditional religious person at all i'm not ordained in any familiar religious community and my friends you need a great network of friends around you as you know corey and probably as you know well when you go through a crisis like this and i was so glad because they all just came running you know and i have my friend margo takes me to new york once a month and my friend tanya takes me to basking ridge once a month and before tanya elouise took me to busking ridge once a month and now i can drive myself or my detached on wednesdays with a detaches after two days which i couldn't do before because i was just you know i couldn't write to even i was going to treatment and wheelchair in the beginning that's how bad it was i was wheelchair bound completely and my walking was you know shuffling i felt like and i was i was so hard to even just sit up straight you know and here's where i am now so really grateful grateful but it's amazing when you go through something like that you know something we've all been through it comes out of nowhere you know  have sent cards to reach out yeah over with food yes send you presents and you think my goodness how nice that you just sometimes forget you know you overlook people and it's a good surprise yeah my first round of of hospital stays was because the diverticulitis and i had friends coming in my friend sarah the one that's like a daughter to me she's the i'm the godmother of her baby she of her daughter who's now like five and thank you five she was there almost every day she came so much and my friend maureen and my best friend samantha and her daughter my other god daughter tabitha and just so many other people swooped right in and let me know that i wasn't alone and kept pushing me to do more than what i was doing because at the time i couldn't push myself well you know what that's like that's what they're there for  what message would you like to give the viewers what do you think it's important for them to know about your experience or to help them they're going through something like this first of all if you're if fifty and older get a call and ask a p c police if you are  forty five and have a history of colon cancer in your family get a colonoscopy if they can if it can work if they can't go around the first corner again and discuss the that's the other one to get that's what they finally did on me diverticulitis and once we found the spots on the liver that's what i finally got done by another doctor by another and so until the results to sloan find a good doctor shop around once you get cancer you're going to it once you find that you have an illness whether it's cancer or stroke you're going to be in shock so rely on friends in the medical field find friends in the medical field to find the best doctor for you second opinion absolutely every absolutely say that also my second opinion doctor gave me a year and a half and all i can say to him is well i can't say that but what i can say is i'm still here and you have to find the right fit for you you have to hear what  your hear and you have to try to get the best doctor for your disease or illness at that time absalom times it's not going to be the first person on the list that you pick up your insurance correctly you have to do the work you have to do research should value your so she's a very tough woman but it doesn't bother me at all i'm glad she's tough she said mart when she walked into the room spiritually all i heard was like brain it was like the room was filled with her mind and her intellect and her ability she's been she invented the pump that i wear that i have inside of me now she invented that with a team of and told the people who built it what she wanted and kept going with it until and now people are surviving and they told me to look at it not like i have a death date because we all have nobody gets out of this off this earth a live but she told me to look at it like a chronic condition it's just a chronic condition that we're going to treat and i said ok that was a much better way to look at that whole idea and the philosophy to start putting in the front of your mind instead that fear you've got to push that fear out of the way whether you do it through prayer whether you do it through meditation whether you're agnostic or atheist and do it with your friends and family and keep talking about it you know surround yourself so that's probably i could talk forever on that but all clam up so what has been your cancer patient point you about actually shut my mouth and open my ears a lot brings you to a deeper level of emotion of humanity yeah you just everything that you've ever felt before whether it's said this or have happiness anger what is i think i feel it on a whole different level i would agree with that but i think that's any critical illness that's your yes same thing you've been through too yeah i think yeah yeah it really teaches you what's important like i have a one hundred year old ring here from my grandmother that i never knew but this is going to be around long after she's gone and it's going to be around long after i'm gone so the stuff that we have is really just stuff it is no yeah it is and that's what you need to remember what's important in life