Tami Lysher on Surviving and Thriving

Tami Lysher is a cancer survivor and thriver. It’s been 15 years since the Grand Blanc, Michigan business owner learned of her breast cancer diagnosis. Through her journey, and with the help of Comprehensive Breast Care Surgeon Linsey Gold, DO, FACOS, FACS, Tami has plenty of advice to share with other breast cancer patients – those newly-diagnosed, those undergoing treatment, and those who are trying to resume a normal life again. During The Breast of Everything podcast, she talks about the value of a second opinion – which changed her life drastically, the importance of yoga in maintaining physical and emotional health, and how a traumatic event such as a cancer diagnosis can affect a person’s entire wellbeing.

At the time of her diagnosis, Tami was a divorced mother of two teenagers, a full-time early childhood educator and the owner of a yoga and pilates studio. She found exercise kept her grounded through her cancer ordeal, and practicing yoga regularly really helped her through some tough days. Keep moving; the recovery process will be faster and easier, she recommends.

Through her experience, she also learned a great deal about trauma, which can be an overlooked and very critical part of a cancer journey. That’s why she started “Trauma-Informed Movement,” a program designed to help people successfully manage the affects of a traumatic event on their life.  

People tend to compartmentalize their feelings, but they have to take the lid off before it blows off. Don’t bury your feelings; eventually they will resurface and in ways that can be harmful emotionally and physically.

Transcript

00:01

Welcome to the breast of everything podcast your trusted resource for breast health information support and encouragement. Your host today is Dr. Lindsay gold of comprehensive breast care. Welcome.

00:16

Welcome to the breast of everything podcast. I'm Dr. Lindsay gold of comprehensive breast care. Today, I will be talking with breast cancer survivor and thriver Tammy lasher. She knows firsthand the value of a second opinion, and she knows firsthand the benefits of yoga for cancer patients and good self care. Tammy is a 15 year breast cancer survivor and early childhood educator and the owner of studio t Pilates since COVID. She has dedicated her career full time to her studio in Grand Blanc, Michigan, where she teaches yoga and pilates. On our podcast today, Tammy will share more about her personal experience as a breast cancer patient and survivor, why she decided to seek a second opinion after her diagnosis, and what she is doing currently to help other breast cancer survivors. Welcome, Tammy. So good to have you.

01:18

So excited to hear so thank you so much Dr. Gold. Um, so my reasoning for seeking because Dr. Gold was my second opinion. And I'm so grateful that I found her but my first a doctor's appointment. I was a stage one very small. Like I was just in the beginning of stage one. And that doctor said, Oh, mastectomy because I was pre menopausal. And when I went to see Dr. Gold, and she spent like three hours with me, there was one of her. And she did breast conservation breast conservation is that what Yeah, exacerbation, you got it. And so through that, and then I also she advocated for me to be my own what I'm going to say advocate. So I chose to have lumpectomy and radiation, but no chemo. And I was probably the best decision I ever made for myself. So I would say that during that time during treatment, I always was really I was I've always exercised in some form or fashion, but yoga and cardio were really like my mainstays to keep me what I'm just gonna say grounded during that time, because I had two daughters, and they were 16 and 19 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and yes, so recently divorced. And so it was just a really, it was a hard. It was a challenging, challenging period for me in my life, but

03:03

never a good time to get diagnosed with breast cancer, as it were, no, it's not so. But you looked for the silver lining. And I think you've been incredibly productive and influential to other women since then, which, of course, is why we have the advances that we do in breast care is just because of like super amazing. Ladies like you. So I do want to talk about your yoga studio, what you're doing now. But really, there is data, like actual, you know, studies on how yoga benefits, breast cancer patients. If you could tell us firsthand, that would be great.

03:51

I would say that for me during a dream, my treatment time specifically yoga kept me grounded, even if it was just to get on my mat and just breathe. Um, I think that being mindful of movement is just so critically important even during treatment. And I think that a lot of times, women don't realize that moving your body and you're going to recover a whole lot quicker. So it for me personally, it was a journey that opened a lot of different doors through like I started journaling, Mm hmm. During that phase in my life, and I still journal today, which is I wish everybody journaling is not for everybody. But um, you know, it's just something that was really grounding for me at that point. But as far as yoga like the postures and movement, the breath specifically, is just really, really important if even if it's just to sit and breathe. So then later, I began to incorporate Pilates, which has been really strengthening. And I actually went through a program probably about three or four years ago, and it's called pink ribbon. And so it's using Pilates postures to begin to get clients to begin to open up off the sides using your and I, I honestly use a combination of both yoga and pilates, when I do work with the breast cancer clients that I have.

05:26

Excellent. So what I'm hearing is that both during and after treatment, it's imperative to take care of not only your physical body, but also your mental health. Absolutely. Tell me about your new program.

05:44

Um, so I recently wrote a program called trauma informed movement, which looks at because even though we don't want to think necessarily about our bodies going through trauma, but when you're, and I can say this firsthand, you know, going through breast cancer, you know, I look back on it now. And yes, it was a very traumatic time for me in my life. And I think that when people are encouraged to work through some of that trauma, both emotionally and physically, it really, it puts them further ahead. So trauma informed movement looks at where you store trauma and your body and how it affects your mobility or lack of mobility. It also looks at other health risks that go along with it. So if people have had, you know, like that, let's just say they don't take care of their diet, and they do other things. So it increases the chances of, you know, your other outcomes in your life if you don't take care of yourself. And that's why I guess I'm just such a huge advocate for it. So the course actually is designed. It can be either for movement educators, that would be yoga, Pilates, or fitness instructors, or people who just are coming out of breast cancer or other people who maybe have had some other kinds of trauma that they are just really curious, because there's lots of different kinds of trauma. So I think it's important to talk about, especially with COVID, the mental health of the world of the world right now. And it just really, it's very, very scary. When you think about, you know, the young children all the way up to you know, and I we're in quite frankly, I worry about the teens. Oh, yes. I worry about that. I feel it's it's really it's just really important. And so trauma informed movement, because when you think about trauma that's affected, like families. So it's not just specific to breast cancer. it's specific to a lot of different things. But it's understanding, as I teach, I needed to have an understanding of where my trauma life first before I could work with other people. And so that's how it started, because a lot of the programs that are out there, they don't address like, like the teachers or the instructors trauma first, before they begin to work with other clients.

08:17

Yes, that makes perfect, perfect sense. That sounds wonderful. So this is online. And where can Where can we find it? How How does one get involved?

08:29

So they can find it? On my website and at Studio t pilates.com. And I also am on Facebook, on under Tammy lasher. And I also am on Instagram at leisure, Tammy. So all of those, both of those, I mean any one of those things, and then I also My phone number is 810-241-2858. So any of those

09:03

Yeah, you guys have to all the listeners need to go on your Instagram and your Facebook page and your website. Because you would not believe how this is for the listeners. how young and beautiful Tammy is but yet she is a brand new grandma Just saying. She's the probably the hottest grandma ever. I'm just I'm just gonna put that out there. So I want everybody to get online and look seriously, but you really are beautiful inside out. Thank you. I appreciate that and they're young, and how you know being being teenagers at the time you were a single mom and be diagnosed. I mean, not only like you say trauma for you, but being a teen in general is traumatizing. Being a teen with a divorced parent is traumatizing. Being a teen with a divorce parent who also has cancer. I cannot I mean, is there only so much trauma a person can take? Right and yet your girls are, you know, thriving? Yeah,

10:07

there's they're both doing actually exceptionally well. And then I think it's also what there was one day when my daughter, my younger daughter said to me, she's like, Mom, how did you do it? Because I taught classes, I worked full time I taught college classes, and you just do what you do. I mean, I just did what I it was just natural for me. However, knowing what I know now about trauma, and I would have to say that I was always on. I was always high strung, so to speak, and I never wanted to have help. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of risk factors. Also, I'm a big, big, big fan of the polyvagal theory, and how you have to really look at and that's just it's looking at our nervous system. And when people are always on high alert, it just has a whole different impact on your whole body as a as a very big hole. So yes. So when you when you work with me, but yeah, I we do i do nervous I you do nervous work, we do muscle work, we do. Breath work, I think it's it's just I don't get I don't dive too deeply into nutrition or anything like that only because I'm not a nutritionist, but I really advocate for people that keep themselves hydrated and eat as healthy as they can show during treatment as well as after treatment.

11:37

So, and I mean, just just surgical procedures that we do on ladies, even from you know, breast conserving surgery, sentinel node biopsy, you know, all the way to bilateral mastectomy, axillary node dissection, reconstruction, right, those are sort of the two ends of the spectrum. Regardless of what we do it, it changes you in some way, it has the potential to really, I think, you know, impact the quality of your life going forward, if you should get restricted range of motion and not be able to do what you want to do. And I think, at the time of trauma, people aren't always thinking about the next two decades and the consequences that there, there might be,

12:25

no, and I think that, you know, based on my incision, because I had a very small incision, however, I can tell you that it truly impacted like my range of motion, my breast cancer was on my left side. And so just like even opening, when I say opening, like lifting your arm up and rotating it, so you're moving it backwards, it's probably three years to break through the scar tissue to get full range of motion. And I mean, I'm fine. Now I've not no side effects at all. No lymphedema, or anything at all like that. So I've been very fortunate. But

13:02

yeah, but it's good to know that if somebody works at it, they can. Oh, yeah, their full range of motion back. Absolutely.

13:09

And I think it's really important that, um, you know, even if people are not what I'm going to just say there, then they don't typically exercise or do things like that. Just even getting up and walking from the house to the mailbox and putting a little bit of movement into their body, it's going to help their recovery. A whole lot. And I know, and I've and I've talked to other people, and it's like, I don't want to do that. But I know you don't want to do it. But when the long run, it really does help you. Right? Yeah.

13:45

So were you did you participate in any support groups? Was that a thing you found?

13:54

valuable? So I participated in a small I did, I did for a short time. And for me personally, I think if I didn't have all of the knowledge that I had going into it, it would have been for somebody who's, who didn't have the yoga background, like I did, because I went to a yoga class, and it was a chair yoga class, which I think is, um, it's really good for people to have that support. But what I sought out was is there were other women in the gym where I belonged, who had breast cancer, and I reached out to other women. And consequently, those relationships have still like, even to this day, I still talk to some of them, because I want to like to just know other people who've gone through the same thing and it doesn't. To me, honestly, it doesn't really matter. The stage of cancer, it's just the idea that it was cancer, and that we're all connected by that little pink ribbon.

15:00

Right, which some people love, and some people don't, but neither here nor there connected, connected regardless. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. So I think a lot of I observed that, um, you know, a lot of ladies do exactly what you described, they, you know, they do what they have to do to get through the process. You do it with a smile, you do it without asking for help, you know, you basically are truly Superwoman. But my observation is that people can only do that by compartmentalizing their, you know, their trauma, if you will, away from what you need to do to get through, you know, your day, the thing of it is you that comes back, like you can only ignore it or close it off in a box. So long, it will come out. Yeah, yeah.

15:55

And that's what this whole course that's what the my whole course is about, it's going to come back, it's going to, you can put the you can put them a little like you compartmentalize that you can put a lid on it, but someday it's going to be reoccurring, and it's going to come back out in other ways in behaviors and

16:12

right, and I suspect, you know, addressing something early, you know, saves you a lot of, you know, mental pain and suffering, but from what you're saying, also, you know, physical pain and suffering that you maybe really don't even realize is part and parcel of your Yes, not dealing with it, if you will.

16:33

And I think too, that when you like when you talk about, and I think it's really important, and you just kind of touched on it, but like the trauma, that we don't think about it, but it's traumatic for the family as well. And it's when can I think about how my daughter's reacted. I was not married, I was engaged at the time and how he's my husband now. So we've been married for almost 14 years. And how he reacted to it. And it was like, it was scary. And so, you know, he acted in a way that I think that, you know, you know, everybody, everybody's coping mechanism is going to be different and how they respond to it. Because, you know, you even though it was only stage one, you know, people don't necessarily, you know, you want to believe everything that the doctors tell you. I mean, I wholeheartedly believed you and I knew everything was going to be okay. But I'm just saying, I don't feel that, you know, I feel you gave me I was very well educated going into the surgery, because you know, I was diagnosed on Halloween and didn't have surgery until December. So I had time to, you know, understand what I was up against and what my what my treatment options were because I think that's really important to you in being empowered by the yourself along with the decisions makings where the kids, it's joint, it's not just the doctor telling you, but it's joint like you have a say in your treatment. And I think that, yeah, well, you

18:06

know, we have equivalent treatments, right. So there's more than one treatment that gets you to excellent overall survival. So, you know, I've said this probably in a number of podcasts, but you know, ladies will say, what would you do? What would you tell your mother to do? And I tell them, there's no way for me to answer that. Right, because everybody is different, and you have multiple options I can't choose for you. So, you know,

18:32

I'm just gonna say that, you know, going back to the very first question about why I sought out a second opinion was because the first doctor that I went to didn't even have my full diagnosis. And he's telling me, you need to have a mastectomy. And had I not been the stubborn person that I am. I'm like, Oh, hell no, I, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be swearing. That's okay. So anyways, I just really think that it's, um, it's just really important, because, you know, and I look at the kinds of treatments now of like, what, what, how much has changed in the 15 years since I had breast cancer, but I also had, is it helped me out here, Lindsay, I think it's breast augmentation. Did I not say it right. Went to Dr. Paul, and she do Yeah.

19:26

Is that what notation? Yeah, yeah. reconstruction. It's considered reconstructive in your case, but yes, augmentation.

19:35

I did. And I had that problem. Ah, probably now about five years ago. Excellent. That's excellent. Oh,

19:45

yeah. So

19:47

thank you, Tammy, for joining me today. You're talking about the importance of taking care of your body, your physical health, as well as addressing your own mental health needs. Finding a purpose behind your breast cancer diagnosis. Are there any messages you want to share with our listeners before we sign off

20:11

other than if they're interested in my trauma informed movement course they can find me all of those ways that we talked about it, but even if they're just even if they just want a listening ear, I'm always willing to listen.

20:22

So you are amazing and I am certainly blessed to know you and call you a friend. And she never calls me Dr. Gold just by the way she calls me, Lindsay. So well to our listeners. Thank you so much for listening to the breast of everything. I'm your host, Dr. Lindsay gold of comprehensive breast care. We want to hear from you. If you have a topic you would like us to talk about. We always welcome your suggestions. You can send them to CE o mp BREAST ca r e, that that's comp breast care.com. Till next time,

21:05

you've been listening to the breast of everything podcast with your host and board certified breast surgeon, Dr. Lindsay gold of comprehensive breast care. If you have a subject you would like the surgeons to discuss, please email your suggestions online at comp breast care.com. That's compbreastcare.com the doctors want to hear from you. The views thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are intended for general education and informational purposes only and should not be substituted for medical advice, treatment or care from your physician or healthcare provider. Always consult your healthcare provider first.