Housewife of Miami Guerdy Abraira hosts this episode of 'Let's Be Clear' with her husband Russell right by her side.The high school sweethearts talk candidly about her breast cancer diagnosis, his role as caretaker, and the toll cancer took on their marriage. Plus, Guerdy offers words of wisdom to her fellow 'Breasties' and details the empowering moment she decided to take control and say 'No Hair, Don't Care!"
This is Let's be clear with Shannon Doherty. Hello, let's be clear, family. This is your girl, Gertia Brera and you may know me from the Real Housewives of Miami. But today I am honored to be hosting an episode on behalf of Shannon Dougherty's podcast. And I'm joined by somebody very very amazing and super quiet, so people think, and that is my husband, Russell. Hey boy, hey, hello, hello, hello. Oh so one word wonder sometimes Anyway, before Shannon passed away, I was in talks with her team actually to be on her show to share my journey and experience with my breast cancer. And what happened was you know, obviously you know I wasn't able to and although I wish I could have spoken to her directly, I'm here today to honor her memory and just to continue her mission by guest hosting Let's be clear, So don't be too harsh on me. This is my first time hosting actual podcast. I'm a little nervous, but my major was communication arts in college, so I think I could handle this a little bit. Babe, what do you think you'll do?
Fine? Know how to speak?
Yeah, I'm very very worthy, but anyway, we're young, young, we've been together for a very long time, and I think that you know, he's not only just my husband, obviously, he's the father of my amazing two boys, and he also took a very very big role in my cancer journey recovery. People like to say caretaker, I call him a care viver, And he really has a completely different perspective than me, specifically as he was trying to hold it down for me to be the strong one on behalf of us. And I think a lot of our viewers, those who have gone through such medical you know, traumas I'm gonna call it, you know how it is when that person trying is trying to hold you down, but are they okay? So today we're going to just open up that conversation just to you know, put it out there and see, you know, people can resonate with this dynamic as a couple to a caregiver you know, slash patient and how do you come back from that into what you used to were, what you used to be? And we all know this is now called the new normal. We're not living in the past. We're now, you know, people living in the future and trying to make it, you know, make it work. So Russell my darling, Yes, why don't you tell the viewers a little synopsis on how we met so that they can get a sense of our dynamic.
It's a long time ago, very long time ago, nineteen nineties. We've been together a long time. High school. We met first time in tenth grade. You played obviously volleyball, not obviously, but you played volleyball. I was playing basketball. Your coach.
Was recruiting, recruiting me.
To play on the volleyball team. So that's how we met in the gym at North Miami Senior High playing You.
Gotta gave him the high school now, come on, now would be digging up our pioneers, our yearbooks.
So, yeah, we we met there. We caught each other's.
Eye to the point, boy, have we met? Okay, So we were looking at each other. I thought you were cute. You thought I was cute. And then the hallway encounter.
Go ahead, well that fast forward to our senior year, the beginning of our senior year, and yeah, you you started saying hi to me in the hallways, and I was like, oh, this is interesting.
Because I was being classy, classy.
I said Okay, well you said hi. I you know, I'm polite. I say hi too, and you you have a different story about that.
But because you're so shy, because Russell is so quiet and calm, and because I'm so loud, I'm like, Hi, Russell, and literally I hear nothing. He claims that he was like hi, but I literally heard nothing. So what was my thought. I'm like, Okay, this this little whiteboard right here, it is cute and all, but he's either rude or he's a freaking racist. We're gonna get to the bottom of this real quick. So strike one, Hi Russell Gurdy. Okay, Wow, this guy's rude.
The hallways are loud.
Uh huh right, excues Strike two, Hi Russell, yeah gerdy, oh wow.
Okay.
And then next time I said, excuse me, sir, come over here. Okay, here, we got a situation. Humans. When you say hi, what do we do? We say Hi back? So next time I see you, I will hope that you will recognize this fine, pretty brown thing.
So after she stopped me that time, then yes, I said, okay, I'm I'm gonna make this count. And the next day, you know, I had it planned out. When she says, Hi, you know I was going to just give her a big hug and shocker. So that's what I did, and she couldn't get away from me ever since.
Oh boy, illusions and delusions of it all. But no, yes, I it was love honestly for me. I was like at first sight, I had a boyfriend when we first met back in tenth grade. Then I broke up with him, so then became this whole you know, hallway encounter, and then we've been together ever since. So I'm not good at math. But how many years, mister Obrera? Has it been that we've been together in totality.
Since ninety five? So it's twenty nine.
Oh my god, I can't believe it. It still feels like yesterday in a way. In a way, I don't remember all the details back in high school, but I just I just knew it felt right. My best friend ever that is, Oh my god, Oh what are you trying to get something? Anyway? We'll do that anyway. So I mean, listen, what was your first thought? I guess when you actually got to know me, were you like afraid? And are you traumatized today because of it? And you just can't leave it's like, you know, winking for help, like please help me. I'm I'm stuck in this marriage or were married. I know. I'm just saying, what did you think when you first met this loud j de viv woman.
Well, obviously I'm still with you, so I thought very highly of everything. You know, it was love at first sight.
Yeah, but really, like, don't do the little you know spiel here. Okay, The question is like, you're so different from me, Like we're so different. How the hell were you like, oh, that's my girl when we're completely different people. I dance. I was going to actually pursue dancing before I even met you, and then I stayed because of you. I was going to pursue my ballroom dancing career in you know, New York, and then you had me at Hello and I'm like, damn, I'm screwed, but I kind of like it. This is the one, so I stayed. So what made you say that crazy girl over there is my girl? Because you're so opposite for me.
It's hard to say. I mean, I've told you this before, and you know I feed off of you, your energy. You know you you give me strength in other ways. You know that I don't have, so you know, obviously you're very beautiful. That was you know, that's that's the start things. But you know, we became best friends, and I mean we spent every day together.
Every day together, you come, and then we live so close to each other that literally we just walked back and forth to each other's houses. It was just a bounce back and forth. And my parents loved him from the beginning. They knew he was a good guy. I mean, you give off actually a very angelic aura. And the angelic may not be the word, but it's a special aura that when you walk in the room and you know this from way back, when everyone just fluctuates and people want to know you. And that's actually the reason why I even said, well, who's this guy not talking to anybody? He's going to talk to me because of the fact that your mystery in the best way, you keep to yourself. You speak when you have to or need to. But other than that, that mystery is it's definitely very demure and very very mindful and very sexy. Thank you. My name is Gerty and I approved this message. Listen, you know, we've gone through a whole lot of stuff and we're not going to get through all my traumas and all that stuff. But you know, I was raised in Paris. I was one of seven children, and we left Haiti for political turmoil, lived in Paris for nine years, and then came to the US. I was nine, and you know, that transition for me was obviously very traumatic in a way because I was so young, and I didn't speak the language, and it was just a whole lot. So for me, we come up from and you were raised, born and raised in Miami proper, so we have we had completely different mindsets and views of everything until we were able to share with each other and help each other become better people.
For that.
So I feel like we're full body of full body bottle of wine because of the fact that we you know, we compliment each other. So that Yang Yang is a real thing. People definitely would you agree yes? On so okay, so that we're gonna get a little bit, uh you know, how should I call it gossip? Like on the show The Real House of Miami that we're on. You you, I'm sure you heard it a lot or maybe not, but people say, like you come off as very tough and straight face and very tell it like it is, but you know, obviously they don't know who you are and behind the scenes, meaning like at home when it's just the four of us, and especially through my journey, you hit a lot of your emotions towards me. I feel like and I think that, and you can answer this, but it was probably because you thought, Okay, I got to be the tough one because she's literally physically and mentally breaking down here with this can or thing. So how how do you think you know the emotional toll of having to deal with my cancer was on you.
I mean, you know how I am. I just I don't dwell on if I if I have something to do, if there's a task at hand, I don't dwell in the thinking about it. If I know something has to be done, it has to be done, I'll I'll deal with the rest later. And that's kind of how it was with I mean, there was you know, we couldn't I couldn't sit there and you know, cry and be emotional. You know, I couldn't let you see anything like that because you needed strength.
I think, are you saying that you cried on your no, because I was going to say, you.
Know, if if if it was in me, you know, if I was feeling down or you know, bad or whatever. You know, I'm not going to show you that while you're going through you know, a whole lot more.
Did you have some form of depression while I was, you know, going through my my actual treatments, like would you go in another room and just kind of like be down? Because you let me make it clear what ended up happening is that you know, I was, I had four rounds of chemo. Let me let me give you my my actual diagnosis. So I was stage one B with an invasive you know, tumor. Okay, I'm an estrogen receptor. And then I also had a d C I S, which is considered stage zero, a tumor none invasive. So I had an invasive stage one B and a non invasive stage zero which were removed. So the first step was for me to get the surgery and I got a lumpect to me on my left breast, which was the cancer breast. Then after that we ended up having to do way more treatments than I thought, only because there's that thing called the uncle type score that I don't know if I can curse, but that bitch. And it was because I scored high on my uncle type score that I ended up having to need additional treatment because the Uncote type score tells you the percentage of the potential reoccurrence of your cancer coming back. So once we took the tests and I'm told you're going to be fine, it's going to be just a surgery, okay, great, Then next thing you know, oh, your uncle type scare score came back, and I scored higher than the medium, which was, you know, the rat in which you were going to be okay and not need any further treatment. I scored higher, So I ended up then being told you need chemo therapy and radiation so that your score goes from a thirty six percent chance of getting cancer again to down to about nine percent ish of reoccurrence. So naturally I'm like one plus when it goes too. So we're getting radiation and we're getting chemo because this girl right here needs to survive for her children and her family. And so I did those things. So I literally went from a little procedure lumpectomy to having the full range and I'm stage one B. And that's that's where the emotional rollercoaster of having to always find out what's next. Wait, I didn't get this, Oh I need to do this. All of a sudden, I'm getting the full treatment. And I didn't want to hear the word cancer in my house while I was being diagnosed until chemo came in place. So the double c's chemo and cancer, I did not want to hear at all until the reality of it. And when I shaved my head and you everyone saw this on the Real House of Miami, that was the defining moment of me saying this is real. And the shaving of your hair head for most people, is voluntarily because you don't want the cancer to have any more control of you. So you decide to say, you know what if that's the one thing that I can do to have some control left. And by the way, I'm a party planner, extraordinary. You better believe I wanted that control. So I had my husband shake my hair, and that day I looked in the mirror and I just kept saying, you have cancer. You have cancer, your breast cancer patient, Now, this is real. It's getting We did that.
We did that literally the day before you had your first chemo. So that's why I think you were saying that because up until that point, you know, everything was happening so fast. You know, like you said, you went from the initial diagnosis, which was stage zero d cis yeah, we're just you know, cut this, cut this out, do a little radiation, and then you're good too. After an MRI, they find, you know, two tumors, and then you do a biopsy and then they say, okay, this is uh know, this is more aggressive. You know obviously it's it's invasive now and it's a it's actually an aggressive you know, tumor that we're dealing with. And so that's that's what led to all the rest of the things. So up until that point, we did we didn't really know what was going on, and then the reality hit Okay, tomorrow you got we actually have to go do chemo.
And at a variable we're filming, Hello, Bravo. The decision to film, that's another question I think people really want to know because they, you know, compliment my bravery and so forth. And I've never been one to run away from anything in life, you know, obviously, all these adverse adversities that I went through, from not speaking the language to being here and being bullied in school, and the whole thing. I just didn't know how not how to say. I couldn't see myself not filming that reality because if we're really going to be real real on a reality show, and we know a lot of people stage, you know, script things and so forth, I'm sure, but on this reality show, I was not going to be that girl that says, thank you, Brav, I'm going to need a year off to you know, you know, to handle my cancer. Because I feel in my in my heart that I signed up for the good, the bad, the ugly and and the and and the happy. So yeah, I signed up with no problem when it was time to show off my you know, wedding planning career and my life and my family and the whole thing. And now I felt I would feel like a hypocrite if I would just say, oh, give me one second, I'd be back when I'm perfect, because that's that was that was not gonna happen number one. So I realized that this is going to change my life forever. And then I realized also when I was doing my own research on like, okay, so how does your skin look black? Black skin radiation? What does that mean? When they say you're gonna get burns. I'm like, what does it look like, you know, sunburn or actual like loo burn, oil burn? What was it gonna look like? And when I realized that there was hardly any images of people of my color which are being affected by breast cancer the most, because forty two percent are actually dying, you know, from from breast cancer and it affects one in a woman in general. But the black population really has a hard time you know, uh, getting checked and getting the resources and so forth. And that's a whole other topic. But I just felt like I had to. I just had to. It was right.
I mean it was literally you literally found out initially it was the week before filming was supposed to start, so you know, we were you had to make a quick decision, and it was like, just just.
Go with it absolutely. And you know, about the children, you don't see them often on screen because we were definitely protective of them, and only on the moments where we felt like it was you know, it was okay, you know, with rewarning to them so that they can get their head straight. Then we went ahead and filmed a very important and powerful scene where we go bowling and it's before. It's before I go to my first treatment. Right when was that?
What was that? Yeah, I don't even remember.
No, that was after you told them that I had cancer.
Yeah that was yeah, or maybe before the first surgery, Yeah.
I think so. I can't remember specifically, but when I found out, when we were you know, literally waiting for on all the resorts of biopsies and so forth, et cetera. Like you know, we obviously ended up having to tell the kids. I could not tell them, to tell the kids myself. I was an absolute wreck. I couldn't do it, and you know called me. I don't know, I just called me chicken. But I just said, you know what, for that situation for me and my family, I had to rely on Russol to tell the boys. He has the best relationship with them. They look up to him so much, and it just felt right for us. I feel like, right, that's what you know.
Being part of a marriage is you you work off each other. So obviously, when you told me that you wouldn't be able to do that, I was like, Okay, I'll let him know. I know you couldn't tell your parents, I'll let them know.
Yeah, you told my parents you're to my siblings, you told everyone, because I couldn't even utter the word cancer. I couldn't. I couldn't do it. So every time I started, I just started physically just shaking and breaking down. And he wasn't going to be helpful for no one. And I also felt that I didn't want to take on any additional emotional burden on top of my own and that of my family. So for me, I was like, I have to protect my quote unquote peace or control. You know. I had to control and protect myself from myself and my own you know situation. It's something that maybe not everyone can understand, but I'm telling you right now, you can't just say hey, I have cancer. Oh, I have cancer. Oh, and then they cried. Then you have to do, you know, make sure they're okay. And then it becomes about everything else but the but the core issue at hand, which is me trying to mentally prepare myself for the battle, the battle of chemo, the battle of you know, radiation, the battle of my mind and my soul and everything. My womanhood is as steak here because you know, being estrogen receptor. I'm not even gonna get into every single detail, but like you know, I ended up getting medical minopause. They had to put me on minopause to take away as much estrogen you know, production as possible. So imagine I'm just kind of like, wait, what am I even still a woman? You know? So that is something I'm still dealing with right now, is to feel this the sense of self empowerment of like, you know, I could look at myself in the mirror, but again I'm that bit yes honey, yes slay and look amazing, but it's what's on the inside that's a more effective effective of what I you know, bring out to the world. So I'm still dealing with that, and we're going to there because of the fact that, you know, we need to reconnect in so many different ways before cancer. But before we get into all that, I really want to talk about you being the strong one, you surprised, your feeling for me, and now that we came out on top, we beat cancer. Yeah yeah, yeah, rang the last bell. Then we look at each other and we're like, wait, what do we do now? Like right, it was kind of like, hey, okay, I'm your wife. And one thing about you, Russell, is that you're a captain in a fire department. You come from a long line of firefighters, and you are your father's son through and through in a sense of your number one, you were both scorpios, and number two you're very good at tackling issues matter of factly, not emotionally, and get it done, which is great for your career. But I kind of felt a certain way where you were treating me and take take care of me. I felt like, I'm your wife, like can you you know, can you be more emotional? Can you be more like you know? Soothing? And he reminded me when we had our first son, Miles, remember when I was in labor, you were just like, you know, hands on the hip, like okay, girl, let's go, let's do this. And I'm like, excuse me, I am not one of your patients, sir. And so we had that conversation many times when I felt like you needed to be more soft. It should have been your soft boy era. So so tell me how you were, why you cope that way, and would you have would you have done anything different where you were taking care of me?
Why I coped that? I wasn't thinking of that I was that way. Honestly, I thought I was you know, doing good too, you know.
And I'm grateful by the way. No, this is not reproaching you at all.
Be gentle and you know, caring and loving. So I think I did my best. Yes you did, you know, yes, when it when it's all said and done. You know, I've been asked a couple of times afterwards, different places, Oh, what was the hardest part? And I always it seems to get to me. So I got ahead of the curve here and I asked myself here.
So let me explain what that means. So we've been doing a few interviews and when the question is asked to Russell, like, you know, what was the hardest part of treating her? And for him obviously, the answer is usually like, you know, seeing her in this week week state, because she's not a weak person. So he felt helpless when he saw me, like during my chemo, specifically when my bone the bone spas on all that stuff started coming in and he gets choked up, so he posts, you know, cancer journey, like after I'm done, I was done with all my treatments and so forth, and I was back on my feet. We would do some podcasts and so forth, and TV interviews and when that question is asked, he gets emotional, and so that's when I knew he's been bottling it all down and pushing it down, you know, and now it's coming out and this is on your normal and we're trying to take away all this PTSD that cancer has left us.
So so I don't I don't consider myself that I was, you know, bottling it down or suppressing it. I didn't know. But when I you know, when I was posed this question, and I, you know, I start thinking about it. Yeah, it was a long you know, a many months that we were going through this, and it was you know, thinking back on the whole process, how it started happening, and you know, the speed of everything, you know, and then seeing you get knocked down and in pain, and there's not really anything I could do to help that in me just trying to reassure you, hey, we got to go through this, we finish it, and then you know, you get through it and we'll be on the other side and you know, hopefully things will be better. And that's pretty much all I can do. And then support you know however, I however I can with whatever I can, you know, thinking back on it and you know, the main thing is seeing the person you love in pain and suffering, and that's the hardest part. Yeah, for me at least it was.
Yeah, And I mean, you know, as bad as think as the journey, the medical journey was for us, something about timing is really honestly crazy to me. Because if we go back to the season before that on the real Housewals in Miami, You'll notice that I've always been a workaholic. I used to do like twenty five thirty events a year, and you know, weddings take about a year and a half two years to plan, so imagine having thirty different clients and not only Mom, not only Dad, but the bride and the groom, so you have that times four, you know, a zoom call for every single little detail. Imagine multitasking and doing that for a living. So that was what I used to do. And then before that, I used to actually own a floral design company, so adding onto the the Sunday and putting a cherry on top, like not only just did I did planning, but I also did my own production literally from the core, you know, flooring everything. So those days are gone. But then I started doing planning only and then that took me into a destination niche market. So I used to go literally to Portugal, Mexico, everywhere, all over the globe to do these amazing destination weddings, which I loved, and I felt like full of life and full of you know, like accomplishment until I looked at that bag, and that's the symbol symbol symbolism, Like you know, it's like a shopping cart, right, so you go, you go and shop. You have one wedding down. Yes I did that one. I did the purple wedding. I did the pink wedding. But oh my god, I'm that bitch. I'm amazing. And then I look at the bag and it's all empty and I'm like, wait, I did all that work and it means nothing. These people don't call you after that. They're like, Okay, thank you, you did an amazing job. And that's it. So that quick, fast paced, you know, instant gratification. When I walked into the room and be like, oh my god, yes I did it. I hung all those flowers on time. Guess arrival doors open, it's literally a second. And then you sit with yourself and then you figure out, like, wait, what did I do all this time, and I did it for twenty two years, and I literally realized that the stress from doing that took a toll for sure on my body, mental, you know, my family, everything. And so was that a contributor to me getting breast cancer? I don't know, but I hear that a lot of A type personalities get breast cancer. So maybe that had a toll, the stress of that. And so I'm trying to bring it full circle because the last season before my cancer you know episode, you know, my cancer season on the Housewives, the season before that, Russell literally has a full like, hey, we need to talk. You're doing too much. He had a whole you know, what is that word in English enter when you intercept intervention? See sometimes my French, you know, mix this in with my English. No speaking English too good sometimes anyway. Yeah, so you had an intervention and you're like, Okay, hey, you need to be there for the family more. Your sons need you, I need you, and you don't need to do this. It wasn't about the money for me. It was more about like challenging and just like the next one, next one, faster, bigger, you know, faster, stronger, you know, bigger. It was all about that stronger. Okay, thank you you see yang yang. But yeah, so I realized that I needed, you know, Russell to kind of like stop me from that. So he stopped me from doing more weddings in a sense of like making me understand that I didn't need to, you know, grind that hard. And I ended up listening to him. I retracted a lot of the stuff that I was doing and and really took on a handful of events. And then I get diagnosed with cancer. So that is when that person next to you, that's that blind spot I call it when I see something that you don't and you're doing something something that you think you love, you think you love, and then somebody's like, I don't know about this one. I don't know. You've taken a toll everywhere else in your life. And for him to see that and to say, chill, you don't need this. You're gonna, you know, kill yourself, and then I get the diagnosis. It was like divine intervention. And then I was actually ready to accept all that stuff that happened to me during my cancer journey because I had put away all the noise in a sense and reorganize my life to be in more present and be more you know ready in a way. So it's weird how everything works, but I feel like that moment helped to shape write us being ready for the big sea.
Come to find out, you know you you made all the cutbacks in productions and when it was time to you know, luckily for us and for you, when it was time to fight that battle, yeah you didn't. You didn't really have many other obligations on the table at that time, so that that worked out perfectly, I know, because if you imagine if you would have had some big weddings in New York or I know it or Mexico, No, I could.
I couldn't. I mean, because I am my brand. I am my brand, and people hire me because they want to be gertified. Hunty. Okay. When I look back at the entire your journey, the most and the most challenging symbolic time for me ended up becoming the most empowering for me. And that was actually shaving my head because first of all, this man right here, right here, okay has been telling me for all those years we've been together, girl, don't you ever do your hair short? Don't ever cut your hair, don't shave your hair because you got a peanut head. We thought this whole time, I had a peanut head, okay, And then it wasn't until the shaving of the head moment. I'm like, and then I have a peanut head. He's like, no, I don't worry, You'll be fine, and then he starts shaving my head. And then we realized that Gertie and got a peanut head. Gertie's got a beautiful head, okay. And that's the first thing you said. What did you say, Russell?
I don't know the exact words, but I say, you have a beautiful head. You're beautiful.
And then I'm like, all these years I could have been rocking this hair style instead of all those damn wigs.
So anyway, just that wasn't that wasn't you at that time.
Now it's you, actually, you know what You're right? And what do we call her? Russell gerty two point oh? And it's a real thing, guys. And only my breast is out there know what I'm talking about. And so all this time I had twenty five wigs, wearing wigs all the time, and thinking hair defined me or was part of my definitions as you know, as a I you know, lived my life and so forth, and then all of a sudden, no hair, don't care. I've realized my power. It's not even about beauty so much of the outside. It's more about that beauty from the inside literally just looking at you and your features and being like wow. It's the most empowering thing literally to date, that I've ever had to do. I guess in a way right, and that is now my new normal and my new self. It's so weird, and now I feel like the way I even carry myself and the way I speak, and the whole thing. The reason why I call it gerty two point zero is because girty is girty is taking no mess. Okay, I take no prisoners, no emotional prisoners. And by that I mean again, I feel like, you know, the stress of like doing a wedding, and obviously I was very PC so like, you know, my clients will come in, okay, we want this, Oh, but I thought we wanted that one, you know, Okay, So that would make the choices always changing things, and I would internalize all the stress. I would internalize all the issues because I was the problem solver. Dirty. So because of all the stress that I piled on on behalf of everyone that I was working with or working for. You know, imagine one wedding is at least thirty vendors plus the family, okay, plus then the guests on the day of the event. It's a lot people. And I did it with such ease. It just came so natural to me. But the stress that piled up on that was not pretty. And so now I say to anyone dealing with anything that has to do with stress, You're only going to make yourself sick. Release what no longer serves you. Release what no longer serves you. What does that mean? You want to cry one day and you're mad about something, You want to cry, cry, You want to tell somebody off because I did you dirty? Tell them off because nothing and again everything is with perspective, and everything obviously has its limits, of course, but meaning speak your mind, speak out, be in your emotions, and act them out accordingly so that they are released from your body. You're happy, laugh, you want to cry, cry, you want to scream, scream, you want to you know you matter something with someone, address it, because nothing good comes from bottling anything in and he does take a toll on your body, and it can get you sick. It can get you sick. So release what no longer serves you is my biggest piece of advice. And also being selfish, and I learned that from Martina Navratilova, who also had cancer. She's married to one of my castmates, Julia, and she I met with her for lunch and I had twenty nine thousand questions and I'm like, oh, my ca, what do I do? I don't know what to do. You had cancer and she had cancer again and she beat it, of course, because she's a warrior, and she said, be selfish. Just like that, I'm gonna imitate her gray be selfish. Just say no. And I'm like, wait, what, I never said no in my life? What does that mean? Like Russell tell them, I mean I hardly say no to things, you know. And I was like, I don't know how to do that. So I literally had to train myself to say no, oh do you want to go to there? No? And when people ask you why, just because it's I just don't. I just don't want to. You gotta be honest with yourselven people. It's fine, it's okay. It's okay because people will respect you, and then you will have boundaries and people and you have to teach people how to treat you. You have to teach people how to treat you. And if you're you're, you're, you fall for any if you're down for anything, you'll fall for anything. So at this point in time, I'm bringing myself to say no, to tell it like it is. So you know, the next season of your House Old Miami is going to be lit. Trust you be that, right, Russell? Yeah, yeah, But I mean the thing about it is that as much as we can say, you know, as a family, like okay, we beat cancer, Yay, where's the medal, there's not really a medal. Why tell us why there's not really a medal? Why is the cancer still in our lives?
Because you have to continuously monitor it, and you know, it's like you said, we did all that to get a nine percent chance that you it won't reoccur. So hopefully that ninety one percent holds strong and it never comes back. So that's that's the hard, hard thing going forward from your.
Mouth to God's ears. Obviously, I mean every you know, I try actively not to think about it and you know, and people like, okay, you know your your cancer for you? Okay good? And you know, people even said, okay that that was your storyline last year, not this year, and it's kind of like storyline no for the show.
What.
No, this is my life and that's as real as it's going to get. And so I do know that a lot of people commended me on saying, wow, you literally put real in reality TV because no one has ever seen this from start to finish. And I do believe that is true. But you know, am I looking for sympathy? Of course not. Am I looking for people to be like, oh Gertie, No, absolutely not a I am good, I'm great, and I'm humble and I'm thankful. But it does play and affect other things in your life. I had breasts and plans for ten years. I had to take them out. Why because after I had radiation on my left breast, my breast has started getting you know, capsular contractor because it was shrinking and the skin and so it started affecting my shoulder on my left breast, so all the trickle down effect. I could do this all day, you know, of the joint pain still that lingers, the brain fog. Sometimes I had a blood club when I did my first chemo because I had a reaction. And so just like all those lingering elements and especially the mental toll that it takes, like you will we will never forget that I had breast cancer. Well, we'll never forget the year it happened. We will never forget any details.
And this and this is all with the knowledge that it started out at stage zero and it was quotations on any stage one B. So there's so many people out there with you know, higher stages. They're going through so much more they have to go through, you know, years of chemotherapy, and that's crazy to think about and people dealing with that. We send our love and our best.
So this is why trying to be very proactive in you know, going out getting the mamograms, doing the best that we can. And sometimes we are too late and it is too late, and it's sad. But you know, if you don't have breast cancer, now be thankful and be proactive and go get check early detection matters. And I'm going to say something else that maybe hasn't been spoken on in this podcast, but as a woman of color and an island woman. Okay, so there's a whole variable. Okay, we know forty two percent of black women are going to die from breast cancer because of the fact of different variables, not knowing how to address it, you know, resources and so forth and so forth. But there's another element that people don't talk about, and it's that taboo factor island people. Whether you're from Puerto Rico, Cuba, you know Haiti, you know Trinidad and Tobago, wherever you're from, there's this thing with people from different cultures, is what I'll say, not only island people, on other cultures too. I heard a few friends that were from Africa that also said the same thing that you know, it's taboo. No one wants to hear it, and he's considered, Oh is she cursed? Oh is she not lucky? Oh? And all these superstitions come about to the narrative of having any type of illness, and I think, you know, during this urban you'll be cured. And it's not the way it works. You're gonna have to also add a little science to that little green juice you're making. Okay, Mama, My mother literally is like, if you drink this every day, you're gonna have be cancer free. And I say, well, woman, guess what, you will be a trillionaire if you came up with that little remedy. Okay, So obviously it's a medley of things, and we have to put aside the taboo things we've heard and all that stuff from you know, the generations before us, because it is becoming a generational curse. Okay. So that's the reality of it, and you may not want to hear it, but that is the damn fact. So I need you to really honestly pick up the phone and make the appointment and go see a scientist aka or doctor who studied many years to know what he's talking about, plus all of the testing that's been done and all these different clinics, you know, so you have to test, you know yourself, and put everything aside from what you've heard and just trust science because science is here for a reason and it is also God given. So as great as the air, the plants, everything is good here. God gave us a brain. God gave us science too, so we got to use it rybe yes, I mean I do believe that, I really do, and you know, I'm trying my best to be able to use my platform to bring awareness, to be out there and speak and I know some people are part of your haters and be like, Okay, oh my gosh, she's making everything about cancer. Oh my gosh, she's weaponizing cancer. Well you know what, until it happened to you. And remember, one in eight will get breast cancer and one in three will have another type of cancer. Whether you male or female, one in three will get a type of cancer. And those numbers are only getting worse. So the minute you criticize someone to try to be like they're making it about them and the whole thing, Yeah, you better believe it. Yeah, I'm using my platform and I'm going to keep using it. Get used to it. And it's actually Breast Cancer Awareness month. This is the month of October, and I am doing the most. I rang the bell. Remember we went to New York New York Stock Exchange with American Cancer Society. We're ringing bells and we're ringing your ear so that you are able to be tired and annoyed and hopefully get tested and go get memoground and ultrasound and all the screening possible because the science is there to help you not hurt. You hurt a little bit, though we don't want to talk about chemo. U uh uh. But no, I do think that you know, despite your you know, problem solving, you know mentality, and you took it on as like you know, this is my task. I'm gonna get this girl better, my wife. I do think obviously you came and rubbed my shoulder, you help me to, you know, walking up and down the stairs. You did everything right, Russell. I couldn't. I couldn't have asked for anything else, honestly, because I don't want to get chopped up here. But it's like as quiet and and you know, cool and collected as you are when I got diagnosed. I have never seen more of a planner than you. Okay, so you were like, I got this. When is an extra pointment? You need to do this? We need to leave right now, We need to do this. Take this medicine. I'm gonna get administer a shot, you know, the what is that new last star? Oh the devil, the new last shot. I remember if you don't know when you lasta is sometimes if you're getting chemo, you lose a lot out of blood count, which blood count the white blood cells and so on your last style while you're fighting chemo, I mean, yeah, it helps you to boost that so that you're able to not get ill. And so I had to get a shot every single time. And because Russell obviously is a license you know, paramedic emt DA DA DA, he got clearance to do administered at home for me. So I got lucky with that. I didn't have to go to the hospital for it. But it was the worst of it all that really started, the bone pain and the spasms and all that. So shout out to whoever's going through chemo right now and those who are also, you know, doing the new LASTA and all these different kind of chemo, The Red Devil, all of all of you are such warriors. And the one question I get asked all the time is just kind of like, how do I get through this? How do I do this? And I can't have the perfect answer for you. I can only tell you what I did. You aim small, you miss small? What movie is that?
From The Patriot?
The Patriot aims he's teaching his son how to shoot a gun, and he says, aims small, miss small, And that means that you have to make sure that you count and take your time with everything. One second at a time, one minute, one hour, one day. You will win and you will do the best that you can if you do these steps. You can't solve it all in one second in one day. You can't do it. You got to literally one thing at a time. What's what's in front of me now, Russell? Okay, doctor's appointment, Okay, let's go. I don't want to hear nothing else, but what's in front of me? What do I have to do right now? Live for the now. That is the best way to a piece of advice I can give you. And Russell, if you want to give an advice as a care taker, what would you say?
Just as a caretaker, you're like I said before, there, whoever it is you're you're caring for is has so much going on by themselves, in their body, what they're going through emotionally, physically. So as a caretaker you have to try to alleviate whatever you can to make it however easier it can be, and it may not make it any better, but just do what you can to try to make it better. You know, whether it's cooking or plan you know, taking care of the doctor's appointments and things like that take stuff off their plate so they could focus on on healing.
Yeah, and we're healing still. Like I said before, I'm bringing this full circle. You know, we know that we're not the same people anymore. We're better for it, course of course, but we're just different. And yes, our sex life was amazing back then and now it's just different. I'm min apuzzle, uh, post cancer women with without. I had to take out my implants because of the struggles that I have, which is fine. I went from a double D two now like a big B. I'm going to say, I'm gonna give myself a little credit there, big B. And one of my breasts is not perfect. You know, I just had my last I had a reconstructive surgery, uh, eight weeks ago, and you know it was fat graphing from my waist and my back and putting it on my breast so that we can try to, you know, create fullness. And you know, I'm doing my best, and I know I'm not perfect, you know perfect. I had to had perfect boobs. Back then. I had perfect boops, yes, baby, absolutely, And now they're they're what they are, and you know the right side is getting more love than the left side at this point, because you know, the left side needs to go and time out for now, just needs to heal. Yeah, so it's a different type of you know game. You know, it's a different thing. But think acknowledging. Acknowledging is the number one thing, and not to be in denial about things. You're never going to be who you were, forget it. I look at pictures of myself back then when I was super skinny and with hair. It freaks me out, honestly because I'm like, who is that girl? Like, I don't I don't recognize this person, and and I still have to try to find the exact words of how it makes me feel. It's it doesn't make me feel bad, it doesn't make me feel good. It just makes me feel weird right now is the word that I have. And I don't know what to do with that emotion. So next therapy session will go through that. But it's a weird feeling, like who the hell is that person? It's just the weird the weirdest thing ever. And you know, one thing about minopause is that you get a lot of hot flashes. One thing about post cancer is that I'm taking a pill called an astrosol, and that gives you more you know, hot flashes on top of the minnopause will half flashes. So you know, I'm doing my best, okay, So I take a pill that only lasts about eight hours that helps alleviate some of it. I do want variety and I want to do you know, I want to have the opportunity to choose to maybe wear a wig one day if I feel like it. But I have to figure out what is good for me, and maybe I come up with a wigline that more has more ventilation with an AI element that will make things better for me. But right now, I just look at myself in the mirror and I really have to accept what's in front of me because this is the new normal. It is what it is, right, So how can we how can we do better as a couple to improve intimacy, you know, and just improve communication and just to kind of sit in our new truth. What would you say, I think.
We're doing well? You know along the way it was a matter of you know, you keep going having these surgeries obviously, you know that's an obstacle for intimacy, and uh, let things heal and will be good, and that's proven the case. I think you may have more more surgeries on the horizon, so we may go through it again. But you know, I think I think we're fine in that regard. And you know, we we did start therapy, so I think that helped. I think we're in a good place anyway, because this whole thing I think did make us stronger. And you realize, you know, life is is not guaranteed, and you need to embrace it. And you know, we you get caught up living your everyday life and you don't think about these things. And and even you know myself as a firefighter, we we think we're invincible for most of our careers. You know, you start to get a little bit older and you realize, oh, that's that's not really the case. So it's just a process. And I think we're getting over one hump. And you know, I'm I'm happy with where we are, but you know, we can always do better.
Yeah, And it's so funny that today at five pm, what do we have to do? RUSS and MRI. Every six months we have you know, alternate between the ultra sound and memogram and then once a year's an MRI. So you know, the tests keep coming and I don't complain. I just say, thank you God, it could have been worse. You got to you gotta look things, look at things completely different. Not why me, but you know what, thank you, thank you, and you know it could have been worse, is what I like to say for myself. And I'm not in not everyone is in the same position. I understand that, and sometimes it is worse and we have to acknowledge that. And you know, life is life, and it's good and bad and it's sad and happy, and we're here only for the ride that is given to us, and so we have to just hold on for dear life and ride ride that wave to the best of our ability, as long as we put our best forward. I think that that's the key. And it's all about perspective and leaving legacy whichever way you find that meaningful. So yeah, I want to thank you guys so much to all the let's be clear listeners for joining us today. This has been an honor. Like I'm pinching myself because this is Shannon Dougherty in her memory nine two want to know the most amazing fighter warrior Goddess. I'm so thankful and I hope you rest in peace. It's been an honor, and thank you to my husband. Thank you so much for everything, and I wish everyone well and just make sure that you get checked. It is the most important thing that you can do for yourself and your family. So think of yourself, your family and don't be selfish. Okay, you are loved and we love you and we thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening. Let's be clear