20. How Coaching Helps You Handle Anything
If it weren't for coaching, we wouldn't be where we are today, and the conversation we're bringing you today is an amazing illustration of the power of coaching. After surgery early this year, Kelle has been undergoing treatment for cancer. This would bring up mind drama for most people, but not for Kelle.
Life throws all kinds of challenges our way, and how we approach these challenges really does matter. When we can remain neutral and clean in our thoughts, even the most devastating news becomes easier to process, and Kelle is generously sharing her experience of her diagnosis, and how she's considering this circumstance an invitation to explore more deeply how she wants to live her life from here.
Today, we're pulling back the curtain on some behind-the-scenes here at Kelle & Nina Coaching, so tune in this week to discover how to ask yourself the difficult questions during challenging circumstances. We discuss how to think about adversity as an invitation, and we dive deep into how we can create safety and empowerment, even when we're dealing with something serious.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Kelle's story of being diagnosed with cancer.
How the somatic practices we use in coaching helped Kelle realize something wasn't right in her body.
Kelle's thought process after her diagnosis and the thoughts that helped her stay drama-free.
The value of staying factual and clean when discussing and thinking about a circumstance like illness.
How Kelle is thinking about her diagnosis as an invitation.
3 powerful questions Kelle is working on answering after her diagnosis.
How we can create safety and feel empowered, regardless of our circumstances.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Nina: Hey, Ambitious-Ish listeners, today we’re pulling back the curtain on some real world life happening behind the scenes here at Kelle and Nina Coaching.
Kelle: Yeah, we just needed to hit record on this conversation and share it with you all, because if I’m being real, I wouldn’t be where I am today without coaching and the work that we do and talk about here on the show.
Nina: I’m pumped to get rolling today. Here we go.
Kelle: Let’s jump in. This is Ambitious-Ish. Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Nina: Okay, I’m Nina.
Kelle: Hey, I’m Kelle.
Nina: Kel, tell us, how has your week been?
Kelle: Well, it has been a really interesting week. I started treatment on Tuesday and it has just been really interesting.
Nina: Talk to us about treatment. What kind of treatment?
Kelle: I have cancer. I was diagnosed in April and had surgery in May and now I started my first treatment. It’s two chemo’s and one immunotherapy and yeah, it’s so interesting.
Nina: So interesting. So how did Tuesday go? How was treatment? What was that like?
Kelle: It was so interesting. I’ve only seen it happen in the movies. I didn’t even see the infusion room before, they didn’t give me a tour or anything. So, I’m like, “Where’s my tour?” It was supposed to be a nine hour infusion. It ended up being six, so that was already some amazing news there. My brother flew in with a day’s notice to come hang out with me. I had heard from a friend that it’s nice to have someone go with you, so that was really lovely. It’s been fun to have him there, we visited, and this is at Huntsman Cancer Institute, by the way.
Nina: We’re so lucky, it’s 20 minutes away.
Kelle: Oh, my gosh, it’s amazing.
Nina: It’s an amazing cancer hospital.
Kelle: Yeah, right here. And this woman next to me, she traveled from Idaho. And it really services the Intermountain West, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho. And people come from really far to come to the Cancer Institute here. So, we are so lucky that it’s right here. Anyway, we got there and I had to get some bloodwork done. And then we went to the infusion room and I got this killer space, they call them pods. I got this space right next to the window so, I had a nice view and I got hooked up. And they do the medicines one by one. They do a bunch of pre medicines. They give you potassium and magnesium and then some anti-nausea medicine. And then everything started going and I thought I was going to be so productive. And I was visiting with my brother and writing a little bit in my journal. I did a tiny bit of work, but we chatted with the nurses. The woman next to me was also getting treatment, so we talked to her. A social worker came in talking about the hospital amenities, which is amazing. My oncologist came in to talk about what to expect and answer any questions. And before we knew it, we were done. I didn’t have any reactions to the treatment. We end up leaving the hospital, hanging out for a little bit at home, and then going to some pre 4th of July festivities at the Canyons Ski Resort. There was a band and we walked around with the kids and then we went to dinner at Waldorf and just had an amazing time.
Nina: It’s so cool. I have to back up because I think it was Sunday when you called me and just said, “We got the pre authorization. We can get treatment. I’m going to start on Tuesday.” And you and I were just like, “Oh, my God. Let’s go. Sweet. Here we go.” There wasn’t any mind drama. Am I wrong in saying that? That was my brain at least. Tell me about yours.
Kelle: No, I was just so ready to get rolling on this. And I had a friend here in town that kind of walked me through the process and gave me tips and an electric blanket because she said it’s cold in the room and all the things. And I just felt so ready to get going and really get this treatment started. And I want 2024 to be the year of cancer for me and then hopefully just move on from here.
Nine: Yeah, and I think even to back up further, there are two big C words here that, I hate to use the word ‘trigger’, but trigger people and that’s cancer and chemo. I think both of those C words, I just got some chills, can be a lot for someone to take in. Tell us more about that for you.
Kelle: So, the way I found out that I had cancer is I had been sick all winter.
Nina: It was a rough winter.
Kelle: Yeah, it was a rough winter. So, we were at a ski race in Jackson for my daughter. She was on the race team this last year and I felt totally fine there. Came home from that race and it was January 15th and I just kind of felt crummy and I thought I just kind of overdid it. I went out with friends there and we had a great time and nothing crazy, but you’re standing out in the cold days on end and I just thought that I overdid it.
Nina: Yeah, it was such a cold race too.
Kelle: Yeah, it was, yeah.
Nina: I remember that one.
Kelle: Yes, cold standing at Snow King when there’s no sun. And so, I just felt rundown and then my stomach hurt too. I had a big stomach ache and I wasn’t sure what was going on. My husband’s a doctor and he gave me some acid pills and he said, “Yeah, you’ll have to take these for 30 days in order to fix your stomach.” And I just felt like that was not it. It felt like there was a hole in my stomach. It didn’t feel like acid to me. And I’m really in tune with my body from being a yoga teacher for so long and doing all the somatic practices that we do in coaching. And I was just like, “That’s not it.” And I didn’t have my own doctor at the time because she had retired. And then I was waiting for my MDVIP doctor, this new membership based doctor that I am getting into her practice, but I wasn’t, she didn’t have room for me yet so I was having him treat me. And it was kind of this kitchen medicine treatment, which it’s not like you sitting down with your doctor. It’s just him being like, “Oh here, this is what it is.”
Nina: And Mike’s a brilliant, brilliant doctor.
Kelle: And he is so brilliant. He actually does not like to treat medicine that way at the kitchen table. He does not like friends calling him to be like, “Hey, what is this? I need something.” Because he really wants to practice really, really good medicine. So, to his credit, he didn’t really want to, but he kind of was being forced to in that moment because I didn’t have a doctor. So anyway, the acid pills didn’t work. My stomach was still bothering me a week later, and he’s like, “Well, it takes time.” But then I started getting other symptoms and the symptoms added up to hepatitis A, which I’d had before. And Mike decided he just wanted to do an MRI just to check everything out and they found a block in my bile duct through the MRI. So, I end up having surgery, endoscopy surgery where they go down your throat and into your lower intestine and all that and try to figure out what’s going on. I had a blocked bile duct, they thought it was maybe gallstones or something. And so, they went to Dr. Weaver, I should say, went to go check it out and he didn’t like what he saw. He took some brushings, and had those sent off to the lab and then put a stent in to at least open up the bile duct so that it would allow me to digest food and not have such a bad stomach ache. So, from that surgery, I could eat again, but I still had stomach aches and still didn’t feel good. But all of my hepatitis A symptoms were going away. From the brushings that he got from the lab, he sent them to a third party and they came back as atypical but not anything too exciting. So, he wanted me to go to a different doctor, there’s only two here in Utah, and have a surgery to specifically look for cancer. He had a hunch that it was cancer. He did not tell me that. He told my husband that, doctor to doctor because my husband asked him, but he did not say anything to me, probably because he didn’t want to freak me out or whatever.
Nina: Because that’s what he’s used to seeing probably.
Kelle: Yeah, probably. And I had the second surgery. From the second surgery it came back that I was 99% cancer free. So that was really interesting because I felt validated, I knew I didn’t have cancer.
Nina: Yeah, this was right before spring break, right?
Kelle: Yeah. And I was kind of annoyed at Dr. Weaver, he wouldn’t let it go. And then a week later, my stent got infected. I got a fever. I wasn’t feeling well and called Dr. Weaver. And he decided to go in and take the stent back out. He went in to take the stent out and took some more brushings because he just was following his gut and wanted to make sure that what he was seeing wasn’t what he thought he was seeing. And I didn’t really think anything of it so I just went along with my life. All the symptoms started to go away and I felt better. And I was like, “Okay, we’re done with that for now. I don’t know what that was all about, but okay.” And then we were packing for spring break in April. And I was just upstairs by myself, packing away, and it was the night before we were leaving. We were catching a flight early the next morning and I was on my phone for a sec and I saw something come across the portal from my chart or whatever, and I pulled it up and on it, it said malignancy, adenocarcinoma. I don’t even know what that word is because we haven’t really used that word again, but that’s literally how I found out I had cancer from an email on a Friday night before spring break.
Nina: Okay, and then what happened? What, seriously knee jerk, where did your brain go?
Kelle: I was like, “Wow, that’s interesting.” I didn’t really freak out or anything. I took a screenshot, texted it to my sister, and then called my sister. You all know that my sister, my twin sister, is my bestie, and I called her. And I couldn’t even say the words. I just said, “Look at your phone. I just sent you a screenshot.” And she looked at it and she was just like, “Okay, wow, what’s going on?” And we just talked it through. I was like, “I’m not going to get all worked up about it. I just wanted to show you and talk to you for a sec and get a game plan together.” And it was Friday night. I knew that nothing was going to happen over the weekend and decided that the best thing to do would be to go to Hawaii anyway. It was such a long winter.
Nina: To get on the plane.
Kelle: Yes, to get on the plane. It was such a long winter, you all. I was so isolated just by myself because I didn’t feel good. I was so tired all winter and I really needed the sunshine and break.
Nina: And Hawaii is a special place for your family, I mean this is like a second home.
Kelle: Yeah. I didn’t really have a lot of mind drama about it, partly because this cancer did not show up on any scans. It didn’t show up in any of the blood tests or biomarkers. I mean, even the surgeon told me, the second surgeon told me I was 99% cancer free. So, I was like, “Okay, we’re catching this pretty early.” So, I wasn’t totally freaked out. And I was just really managing my mind around, what are the facts here? Instead of going straight to holy shit, I have cancer.
Nina: Catastrophizing.
Kelle: Yeah. It was really just, okay, logically, what can we do here? How can I manage my mind around this? How can I think about this? And so, some of the thoughts I landed on was, we’re catching this early.
Nina: I remember when you called me, it must have been that Saturday or Sunday because we were on spring break, so, all the days kind of mushed together. But you called me and I was on break and I think you were with the kids and you just said, “I have, blah, blah, carcinoma.” And I was walking in a labyrinth in Southern Utah with one of my kids at the time. And I was like, “Okay, Kel, I have some questions.” I went to, “Are the kids around because I have some questions. Can you share with me the facts?” I feel like we both went kind of factual. And maybe that was me going into, maybe I was buffering. I’m looking back and reflecting on my reaction. I think I just needed to understand really what the facts were before I let my brain create stories, start storytelling. And so, I was like, “Do the kids know? Can we have a conversation right now? What are the facts? Where is this? What is this? Do I Google it?” No. All the things. What’s the plan? What’s the plan of care? What does treatment look like? And we didn’t have those answers at that point either because like you said, it was a weekend and what was cool for me was how Huntsman handled this, how you had this, I called it a project manager, a caseworker who actually picked up the phone. So, you’re like, “I can call Nancy anytime and she picks up the phone and she answers all my questions.” And so, I think that was [crosstalk].
Kelle: And if she doesn’t know, yeah, she could find the answer, yeah.
Nina: That was something I thought was killer because medicine, Kelle and I have both navigated the bowels of medicine and healthcare and it sucks. I’m not going to lie, it can really suck. You have to do a lot of this on your own and advocate for yourself. And that was really awesome that the Huntsman had this person for you. And I don’t know what the experience was like, but I was like, “Okay, cool. Let’s just call Nancy.” And that’s really where I stayed. That’s where I kept my brain, too, was just, okay, let’s talk to Nancy. Let’s talk to the doctors. I just stayed pretty factual too.
Kelle: Yeah. So, the cancer that I have is actually cholangiocarcinoma. It’s bile duct cancer. I didn't even know what a bile duct was before this. So, it’s in your liver, you all, with the pancreas and the gallbladder and all that stuff and it just helps you digest your food.
Nina: So, there’s been a lot of downtime, I mean, physical downtime, but not a lot of mental and emotional downtime by any means. I mean, there’s been a lot of, I don’t want to call it restraint, but managing where you let your thoughts go and me too, as your partner and really good friend and I love you to death. We both have to keep our heads thinking really clean. So, what might the circumstance be? How might this be an invitation? Do you see it that way?
Kelle: Absolutely. And I had a talk with that friend that had been before me and was giving me all the details of what to expect when I go in for chemotherapy. And she really posed that question to me on how this was an invitation. Do I want to continue doing life the way that I’ve been doing it or is this something that I can use to look at my life and how can I change it to be even better, to be even more for me, who future Kelle is. So that’s what I’m working on right now. That’s what I’m doing a lot of writing on. We do this with clients all the time where we’re kind of like, “What is this emotion trying to tell you?” So, for me, why is this coming to me and what do I want to get out of this?
Nina: Yeah, and sometimes, I think about six months ago you is so fucking proud of you, keep going. And what do we want to create here? It’s kind of a cool time to just evaluate or check-in and question some things, ask the difficult questions, the useful questions.
Kelle: Yeah, I have some of those written down actually that I’m working on. I don’t have full answers yet because I’m just kind of letting it come to me.
Nina: This is going to be in your book, Kel, the book you’re writing.
Kelle: Some of them are, okay, why are you here? What’s the one thing that if it were to change in my life would change everything for the better? And what do my body, mind and soul need in order to get well again? So those are just three that I’m kind of working on.
Nina: And how is this not a problem? Can we look at it that way? Can this not be a problem? Can this be an invitation? That’s an interesting one, right?
Kelle: Absolutely. And not saying that this whole thing doesn’t suck. It totally sucks.
Nina: Let’s be real.
Kelle: Yeah. I would rather not be doing all this, but since I am, since I have this diagnosis and I am going through this, I can think it sucks and be a victim and wonder why this is happening to me or I can be like, okay, let’s do this.
Nina: Yeah. And what I’m seeing is that you’re able to create some sense of safety for yourself now and not wait until there’s a you’ll be happy when, you know what I’m saying? Of course we want clean scans. Of course, we want all that, but we can also create safety and feel empowered now. Does that land?
Kelle: Yes, absolutely.
Nina: That’s what I see anyway.
Kelle: Yeah. And that’s part of me really going back to what we talked about. The first thing that we do when we get bad news is be like, “Okay, what are the facts?” Right now, I feel good. Up until I had surgery, the fourth surgery, that was a really big surgery, it’s called the whipple surgery and it was super rough. But before I had that, I was mountain biking. I went to Moab with my friends because I couldn’t get a surgery date. And I had the most magical weekend and I felt totally fine. I could eat whatever I wanted for the first time in months. And I just got to this place where I was like, “This is amazing.” And I just took it all in.
Nina: And then I wonder too, when we just accept reality instead of wishing it was different or go into victim mentality, which is of course, where we’re going to go and I’m sure that happens. But when we can manage our mind around that, we can kind of ask the question, “How is this all in service of what’s next? How is this what’s best for me and my family a year from now? How can I create that?” How do I want this to feel? Who do I want to be?
Kelle: 100%, yes. I don’t want to be the same person that I started being. I’m always into growth and really bettering myself. So yeah, I love this is an invitation for what’s next for me and just being better and being that favorite version of me, whatever that looks like. And what has really surprised me the most is the bright spot of all this, the rainbow of this is taking all that loving and all that support and the high vibes everyone is sending me, the people close to me, friends and family.
Nina: And not so close.
Kelle: Totally. People I haven’t talked to in a really long time, random acquaintances, people I don’t know well at all, or I don’t even know.
Nina: I’m hearing from people that I don’t know well and I feel loved too.
Kelle: Yeah, I love that. So, the outpouring of support has been so surprising, the flowers and the gifts and the healing modalities and the energy and the offers to bring food and mow our lawn and run the kids wherever they need to go and go to my treatments with me and sit with me and take walks with me. It’s just blown me away. There’s so much love. People are so good and that’s what I’ve seen through this.
Nina: Yeah. I think it’s interesting too, when I went for a walk with you after the last surgery. What you start to notice when you can’t do the things you’re used to doing. So, Kelle and I went for a walk around her neighborhood and she was like, “Nina, we have to go”, I think we went clockwise instead of counterclockwise, you’re like, “Because I want to go up first.” And Kelle lives in a flat neighborhood. But I was like, “Wait, this is uphill. I never noticed.” She’s like, “I know.” Do you remember, Kel? You were like, “This is actually up.” And so, we started walking, I was like, “This is uphill.” And it’s just when you have to take things slowly, when you force yourself, in caring for yourself to slow down you start to notice these interesting parts of life and your neighborhood, and I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget that walk and who we bumped into, and that you actually do live on an incline.
Kelle: Yeah. And it’s especially interesting for someone like us who go for miles and miles at a time, a normal walk is probably five or six or seven miles.
Nina: Totally, up a hill.
Kelle: Yeah, up a hill. We live in Park City, everything is a hill, everything is a mountain. And then to come out of the surgery and not be able to walk around my entire block without sitting down and taking a break in someone’s yard was really, really just twilight zone-ish for me.
Nina: Yeah. And we talk about this a lot with clients, accepting yourself and then this concept of practicing humility. Giving yourself a break and being proud of really small wins and appreciating things through a different lens, I guess.
Kelle: Yeah, I had to give myself so much more grace than just my body.
Nina: Oh my God, put the ego down. And I mean we all have egos. I don’t mean your ego.
Kelle: Absolutely. It was very humbling.
Nina: Yeah. Okay, and so now what’s our plan, what’s next right now this summer at least, what does treatment look like?
Kelle: I have my next chemotherapy next week. And it’s two weeks on, one week off, so the rounds are three weeks long. And then I start again and I’m doing three rounds and then we’ll figure out what we’re doing from there.
Nina: We’ll check-in.
Kelle: Probably do a scan and nothing showed up on a scan. So, I’m a little bit questioning how we know. So yeah, that’s some of the questions that I have for my oncologist the next time. It was supposed to be six months originally. Now, they say, “Let’s do three rounds and see what’s going on.”
Nina: So, tell us what feelings you’re trying to practice right now, when you can be intentional, what do you try to bring in?
Kelle: I’m trying to really notice the good feelings. There’s so much love. There’s so much support. When I’m feeling good, I am feeling good, the chemo feeling bad part hasn’t set in for me yet. I mean, I’m a little bit tired but other than that.
Nina: And so am I.
Kelle: Yeah, exactly, who isn’t? Who isn’t? Come on. And we’re going to go to the pool this afternoon and hang out. And we’ll probably take a walk to the beaver pond this morning, that’s a three mile walk. So, the feelings that I’m trying to bring in are just feeling joy and contentment with where I am right now. And I mean just watching my kids and being happy and just feeling good in my body, which I actually do feel right now. I feel pretty good in my body, which is surprising to me because they said that on the third day of chemo, I probably would not feel very good and I woke up feeling pretty good this morning.
Nina: Nice. Yeah.
Kelle: And it’s probably coming, but I’m just noticing how I feel in my own body.
Nina: Yeah. And Kelle, we have to remind listeners or they might smile knowing now that episode 11 was all about this.
Kelle: Yeah, it was four ways to feel better after bad news and that was really me. And I wrote that for me on how I was getting through all this. And of course, I also use client stories because our clients go through this kind of stuff too. And you’ve got to check out that episode, it’s so good, so episode number 11.
Nina: Yeah, it is really good. Knowing what we have shared today it’s a very authentic, very real example of how we work this work.
Kelle: And I just have to say, this rock star surgeon, Dr. Weaver, that just would not let it go, I have so much to thank him for and I haven’t even done that yet. So that’s definitely on the list of things that I want to do is just tell him how grateful I am. I was so annoyed with him because he just had this hunch. And I was just like, “Dude, I don’t have cancer. I feel totally fine.” I would have symptoms. Once the stent was taken out, I was feeling good. So, when I got the news, I was just like, “Oh my God, he totally saved my life just because he had a hunch and stuck with it.”
Nina: Yeah, that intuition.
Nina: Yeah. So, it’s interesting because I know my body and even trust my body. And they did temporarily fix the problem because the bile duct opened back up again because of the stent. They had sent a balloon up there and so it was kind of all like, you know when a balloon deflates, it’s kind of all not the right shape? So, my bile duct was no longer the right shape. So, it was able to let stuff through without the stent. So, I mean, there is a reason why I felt fine and didn’t have any symptoms.
Nina: And why you were pissed at him.
Kelle: Yeah, and why I was pissed at him.
Nina: You were annoyed with him. Okay, well, we are always on a journey. There’s always something over here. Kel, thanks for talking about this in a very vulnerable, real and empowering way. You’re a rock star.
Kelle: Yeah, one more thing that I just want to say is this is all part of being human. We all have stuff we’re going through, we all do. And so just that sense of community, you have something going on too and we’re all here for you. We’re all part of your community. And that’s what I want to let you know and create, any time reach out to your people, use your resources.
Nina: Yeah, we’re all wounded ducks, whether it’s happening right now or it happened 15 years ago, yeah. And we’ve got to do it together. We’ve gotta get through it together. We love collaboration, as you know.
Kelle: Yeah, people are so good. Totally, love it.
Nina: Okay, thanks, Kel.
Kelle: Alright, thank you.
Nina: That’s it for today. Thanks everyone.
Kelle: Bye for now.
Nina: Hi everyone, if you want more live access to me and Kelle, you have to join our email list.
Kelle: Yes, we'll come to your email box every Tuesday and Thursday. Nina: You can ask us questions, get clarity, and get coached.
Kelle: We offer monthly, free email coaching when you're on our list. You're the first to know about trainings, events, and other free coaching opportunities. Just go to KelleandNina.com to sign up.
Kelle: Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit https://www.kelleandnina.com/ for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
Kelle: Yeah, we just needed to hit record on this conversation and share it with you all, because if I’m being real, I wouldn’t be where I am today without coaching and the work that we do and talk about here on the show.
Nina: I’m pumped to get rolling today. Here we go.
Kelle: Let’s jump in. This is Ambitious-Ish. Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Nina: Okay, I’m Nina.
Kelle: Hey, I’m Kelle.
Nina: Kel, tell us, how has your week been?
Kelle: Well, it has been a really interesting week. I started treatment on Tuesday and it has just been really interesting.
Nina: Talk to us about treatment. What kind of treatment?
Kelle: I have cancer. I was diagnosed in April and had surgery in May and now I started my first treatment. It’s two chemo’s and one immunotherapy and yeah, it’s so interesting.
Nina: So interesting. So how did Tuesday go? How was treatment? What was that like?
Kelle: It was so interesting. I’ve only seen it happen in the movies. I didn’t even see the infusion room before, they didn’t give me a tour or anything. So, I’m like, “Where’s my tour?” It was supposed to be a nine hour infusion. It ended up being six, so that was already some amazing news there. My brother flew in with a day’s notice to come hang out with me. I had heard from a friend that it’s nice to have someone go with you, so that was really lovely. It’s been fun to have him there, we visited, and this is at Huntsman Cancer Institute, by the way.
Nina: We’re so lucky, it’s 20 minutes away.
Kelle: Oh, my gosh, it’s amazing.
Nina: It’s an amazing cancer hospital.
Kelle: Yeah, right here. And this woman next to me, she traveled from Idaho. And it really services the Intermountain West, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho. And people come from really far to come to the Cancer Institute here. So, we are so lucky that it’s right here. Anyway, we got there and I had to get some bloodwork done. And then we went to the infusion room and I got this killer space, they call them pods. I got this space right next to the window so, I had a nice view and I got hooked up. And they do the medicines one by one. They do a bunch of pre medicines. They give you potassium and magnesium and then some anti-nausea medicine. And then everything started going and I thought I was going to be so productive. And I was visiting with my brother and writing a little bit in my journal. I did a tiny bit of work, but we chatted with the nurses. The woman next to me was also getting treatment, so we talked to her. A social worker came in talking about the hospital amenities, which is amazing. My oncologist came in to talk about what to expect and answer any questions. And before we knew it, we were done. I didn’t have any reactions to the treatment. We end up leaving the hospital, hanging out for a little bit at home, and then going to some pre 4th of July festivities at the Canyons Ski Resort. There was a band and we walked around with the kids and then we went to dinner at Waldorf and just had an amazing time.
Nina: It’s so cool. I have to back up because I think it was Sunday when you called me and just said, “We got the pre authorization. We can get treatment. I’m going to start on Tuesday.” And you and I were just like, “Oh, my God. Let’s go. Sweet. Here we go.” There wasn’t any mind drama. Am I wrong in saying that? That was my brain at least. Tell me about yours.
Kelle: No, I was just so ready to get rolling on this. And I had a friend here in town that kind of walked me through the process and gave me tips and an electric blanket because she said it’s cold in the room and all the things. And I just felt so ready to get going and really get this treatment started. And I want 2024 to be the year of cancer for me and then hopefully just move on from here.
Nine: Yeah, and I think even to back up further, there are two big C words here that, I hate to use the word ‘trigger’, but trigger people and that’s cancer and chemo. I think both of those C words, I just got some chills, can be a lot for someone to take in. Tell us more about that for you.
Kelle: So, the way I found out that I had cancer is I had been sick all winter.
Nina: It was a rough winter.
Kelle: Yeah, it was a rough winter. So, we were at a ski race in Jackson for my daughter. She was on the race team this last year and I felt totally fine there. Came home from that race and it was January 15th and I just kind of felt crummy and I thought I just kind of overdid it. I went out with friends there and we had a great time and nothing crazy, but you’re standing out in the cold days on end and I just thought that I overdid it.
Nina: Yeah, it was such a cold race too.
Kelle: Yeah, it was, yeah.
Nina: I remember that one.
Kelle: Yes, cold standing at Snow King when there’s no sun. And so, I just felt rundown and then my stomach hurt too. I had a big stomach ache and I wasn’t sure what was going on. My husband’s a doctor and he gave me some acid pills and he said, “Yeah, you’ll have to take these for 30 days in order to fix your stomach.” And I just felt like that was not it. It felt like there was a hole in my stomach. It didn’t feel like acid to me. And I’m really in tune with my body from being a yoga teacher for so long and doing all the somatic practices that we do in coaching. And I was just like, “That’s not it.” And I didn’t have my own doctor at the time because she had retired. And then I was waiting for my MDVIP doctor, this new membership based doctor that I am getting into her practice, but I wasn’t, she didn’t have room for me yet so I was having him treat me. And it was kind of this kitchen medicine treatment, which it’s not like you sitting down with your doctor. It’s just him being like, “Oh here, this is what it is.”
Nina: And Mike’s a brilliant, brilliant doctor.
Kelle: And he is so brilliant. He actually does not like to treat medicine that way at the kitchen table. He does not like friends calling him to be like, “Hey, what is this? I need something.” Because he really wants to practice really, really good medicine. So, to his credit, he didn’t really want to, but he kind of was being forced to in that moment because I didn’t have a doctor. So anyway, the acid pills didn’t work. My stomach was still bothering me a week later, and he’s like, “Well, it takes time.” But then I started getting other symptoms and the symptoms added up to hepatitis A, which I’d had before. And Mike decided he just wanted to do an MRI just to check everything out and they found a block in my bile duct through the MRI. So, I end up having surgery, endoscopy surgery where they go down your throat and into your lower intestine and all that and try to figure out what’s going on. I had a blocked bile duct, they thought it was maybe gallstones or something. And so, they went to Dr. Weaver, I should say, went to go check it out and he didn’t like what he saw. He took some brushings, and had those sent off to the lab and then put a stent in to at least open up the bile duct so that it would allow me to digest food and not have such a bad stomach ache. So, from that surgery, I could eat again, but I still had stomach aches and still didn’t feel good. But all of my hepatitis A symptoms were going away. From the brushings that he got from the lab, he sent them to a third party and they came back as atypical but not anything too exciting. So, he wanted me to go to a different doctor, there’s only two here in Utah, and have a surgery to specifically look for cancer. He had a hunch that it was cancer. He did not tell me that. He told my husband that, doctor to doctor because my husband asked him, but he did not say anything to me, probably because he didn’t want to freak me out or whatever.
Nina: Because that’s what he’s used to seeing probably.
Kelle: Yeah, probably. And I had the second surgery. From the second surgery it came back that I was 99% cancer free. So that was really interesting because I felt validated, I knew I didn’t have cancer.
Nina: Yeah, this was right before spring break, right?
Kelle: Yeah. And I was kind of annoyed at Dr. Weaver, he wouldn’t let it go. And then a week later, my stent got infected. I got a fever. I wasn’t feeling well and called Dr. Weaver. And he decided to go in and take the stent back out. He went in to take the stent out and took some more brushings because he just was following his gut and wanted to make sure that what he was seeing wasn’t what he thought he was seeing. And I didn’t really think anything of it so I just went along with my life. All the symptoms started to go away and I felt better. And I was like, “Okay, we’re done with that for now. I don’t know what that was all about, but okay.” And then we were packing for spring break in April. And I was just upstairs by myself, packing away, and it was the night before we were leaving. We were catching a flight early the next morning and I was on my phone for a sec and I saw something come across the portal from my chart or whatever, and I pulled it up and on it, it said malignancy, adenocarcinoma. I don’t even know what that word is because we haven’t really used that word again, but that’s literally how I found out I had cancer from an email on a Friday night before spring break.
Nina: Okay, and then what happened? What, seriously knee jerk, where did your brain go?
Kelle: I was like, “Wow, that’s interesting.” I didn’t really freak out or anything. I took a screenshot, texted it to my sister, and then called my sister. You all know that my sister, my twin sister, is my bestie, and I called her. And I couldn’t even say the words. I just said, “Look at your phone. I just sent you a screenshot.” And she looked at it and she was just like, “Okay, wow, what’s going on?” And we just talked it through. I was like, “I’m not going to get all worked up about it. I just wanted to show you and talk to you for a sec and get a game plan together.” And it was Friday night. I knew that nothing was going to happen over the weekend and decided that the best thing to do would be to go to Hawaii anyway. It was such a long winter.
Nina: To get on the plane.
Kelle: Yes, to get on the plane. It was such a long winter, you all. I was so isolated just by myself because I didn’t feel good. I was so tired all winter and I really needed the sunshine and break.
Nina: And Hawaii is a special place for your family, I mean this is like a second home.
Kelle: Yeah. I didn’t really have a lot of mind drama about it, partly because this cancer did not show up on any scans. It didn’t show up in any of the blood tests or biomarkers. I mean, even the surgeon told me, the second surgeon told me I was 99% cancer free. So, I was like, “Okay, we’re catching this pretty early.” So, I wasn’t totally freaked out. And I was just really managing my mind around, what are the facts here? Instead of going straight to holy shit, I have cancer.
Nina: Catastrophizing.
Kelle: Yeah. It was really just, okay, logically, what can we do here? How can I manage my mind around this? How can I think about this? And so, some of the thoughts I landed on was, we’re catching this early.
Nina: I remember when you called me, it must have been that Saturday or Sunday because we were on spring break, so, all the days kind of mushed together. But you called me and I was on break and I think you were with the kids and you just said, “I have, blah, blah, carcinoma.” And I was walking in a labyrinth in Southern Utah with one of my kids at the time. And I was like, “Okay, Kel, I have some questions.” I went to, “Are the kids around because I have some questions. Can you share with me the facts?” I feel like we both went kind of factual. And maybe that was me going into, maybe I was buffering. I’m looking back and reflecting on my reaction. I think I just needed to understand really what the facts were before I let my brain create stories, start storytelling. And so, I was like, “Do the kids know? Can we have a conversation right now? What are the facts? Where is this? What is this? Do I Google it?” No. All the things. What’s the plan? What’s the plan of care? What does treatment look like? And we didn’t have those answers at that point either because like you said, it was a weekend and what was cool for me was how Huntsman handled this, how you had this, I called it a project manager, a caseworker who actually picked up the phone. So, you’re like, “I can call Nancy anytime and she picks up the phone and she answers all my questions.” And so, I think that was [crosstalk].
Kelle: And if she doesn’t know, yeah, she could find the answer, yeah.
Nina: That was something I thought was killer because medicine, Kelle and I have both navigated the bowels of medicine and healthcare and it sucks. I’m not going to lie, it can really suck. You have to do a lot of this on your own and advocate for yourself. And that was really awesome that the Huntsman had this person for you. And I don’t know what the experience was like, but I was like, “Okay, cool. Let’s just call Nancy.” And that’s really where I stayed. That’s where I kept my brain, too, was just, okay, let’s talk to Nancy. Let’s talk to the doctors. I just stayed pretty factual too.
Kelle: Yeah. So, the cancer that I have is actually cholangiocarcinoma. It’s bile duct cancer. I didn't even know what a bile duct was before this. So, it’s in your liver, you all, with the pancreas and the gallbladder and all that stuff and it just helps you digest your food.
Nina: So, there’s been a lot of downtime, I mean, physical downtime, but not a lot of mental and emotional downtime by any means. I mean, there’s been a lot of, I don’t want to call it restraint, but managing where you let your thoughts go and me too, as your partner and really good friend and I love you to death. We both have to keep our heads thinking really clean. So, what might the circumstance be? How might this be an invitation? Do you see it that way?
Kelle: Absolutely. And I had a talk with that friend that had been before me and was giving me all the details of what to expect when I go in for chemotherapy. And she really posed that question to me on how this was an invitation. Do I want to continue doing life the way that I’ve been doing it or is this something that I can use to look at my life and how can I change it to be even better, to be even more for me, who future Kelle is. So that’s what I’m working on right now. That’s what I’m doing a lot of writing on. We do this with clients all the time where we’re kind of like, “What is this emotion trying to tell you?” So, for me, why is this coming to me and what do I want to get out of this?
Nina: Yeah, and sometimes, I think about six months ago you is so fucking proud of you, keep going. And what do we want to create here? It’s kind of a cool time to just evaluate or check-in and question some things, ask the difficult questions, the useful questions.
Kelle: Yeah, I have some of those written down actually that I’m working on. I don’t have full answers yet because I’m just kind of letting it come to me.
Nina: This is going to be in your book, Kel, the book you’re writing.
Kelle: Some of them are, okay, why are you here? What’s the one thing that if it were to change in my life would change everything for the better? And what do my body, mind and soul need in order to get well again? So those are just three that I’m kind of working on.
Nina: And how is this not a problem? Can we look at it that way? Can this not be a problem? Can this be an invitation? That’s an interesting one, right?
Kelle: Absolutely. And not saying that this whole thing doesn’t suck. It totally sucks.
Nina: Let’s be real.
Kelle: Yeah. I would rather not be doing all this, but since I am, since I have this diagnosis and I am going through this, I can think it sucks and be a victim and wonder why this is happening to me or I can be like, okay, let’s do this.
Nina: Yeah. And what I’m seeing is that you’re able to create some sense of safety for yourself now and not wait until there’s a you’ll be happy when, you know what I’m saying? Of course we want clean scans. Of course, we want all that, but we can also create safety and feel empowered now. Does that land?
Kelle: Yes, absolutely.
Nina: That’s what I see anyway.
Kelle: Yeah. And that’s part of me really going back to what we talked about. The first thing that we do when we get bad news is be like, “Okay, what are the facts?” Right now, I feel good. Up until I had surgery, the fourth surgery, that was a really big surgery, it’s called the whipple surgery and it was super rough. But before I had that, I was mountain biking. I went to Moab with my friends because I couldn’t get a surgery date. And I had the most magical weekend and I felt totally fine. I could eat whatever I wanted for the first time in months. And I just got to this place where I was like, “This is amazing.” And I just took it all in.
Nina: And then I wonder too, when we just accept reality instead of wishing it was different or go into victim mentality, which is of course, where we’re going to go and I’m sure that happens. But when we can manage our mind around that, we can kind of ask the question, “How is this all in service of what’s next? How is this what’s best for me and my family a year from now? How can I create that?” How do I want this to feel? Who do I want to be?
Kelle: 100%, yes. I don’t want to be the same person that I started being. I’m always into growth and really bettering myself. So yeah, I love this is an invitation for what’s next for me and just being better and being that favorite version of me, whatever that looks like. And what has really surprised me the most is the bright spot of all this, the rainbow of this is taking all that loving and all that support and the high vibes everyone is sending me, the people close to me, friends and family.
Nina: And not so close.
Kelle: Totally. People I haven’t talked to in a really long time, random acquaintances, people I don’t know well at all, or I don’t even know.
Nina: I’m hearing from people that I don’t know well and I feel loved too.
Kelle: Yeah, I love that. So, the outpouring of support has been so surprising, the flowers and the gifts and the healing modalities and the energy and the offers to bring food and mow our lawn and run the kids wherever they need to go and go to my treatments with me and sit with me and take walks with me. It’s just blown me away. There’s so much love. People are so good and that’s what I’ve seen through this.
Nina: Yeah. I think it’s interesting too, when I went for a walk with you after the last surgery. What you start to notice when you can’t do the things you’re used to doing. So, Kelle and I went for a walk around her neighborhood and she was like, “Nina, we have to go”, I think we went clockwise instead of counterclockwise, you’re like, “Because I want to go up first.” And Kelle lives in a flat neighborhood. But I was like, “Wait, this is uphill. I never noticed.” She’s like, “I know.” Do you remember, Kel? You were like, “This is actually up.” And so, we started walking, I was like, “This is uphill.” And it’s just when you have to take things slowly, when you force yourself, in caring for yourself to slow down you start to notice these interesting parts of life and your neighborhood, and I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget that walk and who we bumped into, and that you actually do live on an incline.
Kelle: Yeah. And it’s especially interesting for someone like us who go for miles and miles at a time, a normal walk is probably five or six or seven miles.
Nina: Totally, up a hill.
Kelle: Yeah, up a hill. We live in Park City, everything is a hill, everything is a mountain. And then to come out of the surgery and not be able to walk around my entire block without sitting down and taking a break in someone’s yard was really, really just twilight zone-ish for me.
Nina: Yeah. And we talk about this a lot with clients, accepting yourself and then this concept of practicing humility. Giving yourself a break and being proud of really small wins and appreciating things through a different lens, I guess.
Kelle: Yeah, I had to give myself so much more grace than just my body.
Nina: Oh my God, put the ego down. And I mean we all have egos. I don’t mean your ego.
Kelle: Absolutely. It was very humbling.
Nina: Yeah. Okay, and so now what’s our plan, what’s next right now this summer at least, what does treatment look like?
Kelle: I have my next chemotherapy next week. And it’s two weeks on, one week off, so the rounds are three weeks long. And then I start again and I’m doing three rounds and then we’ll figure out what we’re doing from there.
Nina: We’ll check-in.
Kelle: Probably do a scan and nothing showed up on a scan. So, I’m a little bit questioning how we know. So yeah, that’s some of the questions that I have for my oncologist the next time. It was supposed to be six months originally. Now, they say, “Let’s do three rounds and see what’s going on.”
Nina: So, tell us what feelings you’re trying to practice right now, when you can be intentional, what do you try to bring in?
Kelle: I’m trying to really notice the good feelings. There’s so much love. There’s so much support. When I’m feeling good, I am feeling good, the chemo feeling bad part hasn’t set in for me yet. I mean, I’m a little bit tired but other than that.
Nina: And so am I.
Kelle: Yeah, exactly, who isn’t? Who isn’t? Come on. And we’re going to go to the pool this afternoon and hang out. And we’ll probably take a walk to the beaver pond this morning, that’s a three mile walk. So, the feelings that I’m trying to bring in are just feeling joy and contentment with where I am right now. And I mean just watching my kids and being happy and just feeling good in my body, which I actually do feel right now. I feel pretty good in my body, which is surprising to me because they said that on the third day of chemo, I probably would not feel very good and I woke up feeling pretty good this morning.
Nina: Nice. Yeah.
Kelle: And it’s probably coming, but I’m just noticing how I feel in my own body.
Nina: Yeah. And Kelle, we have to remind listeners or they might smile knowing now that episode 11 was all about this.
Kelle: Yeah, it was four ways to feel better after bad news and that was really me. And I wrote that for me on how I was getting through all this. And of course, I also use client stories because our clients go through this kind of stuff too. And you’ve got to check out that episode, it’s so good, so episode number 11.
Nina: Yeah, it is really good. Knowing what we have shared today it’s a very authentic, very real example of how we work this work.
Kelle: And I just have to say, this rock star surgeon, Dr. Weaver, that just would not let it go, I have so much to thank him for and I haven’t even done that yet. So that’s definitely on the list of things that I want to do is just tell him how grateful I am. I was so annoyed with him because he just had this hunch. And I was just like, “Dude, I don’t have cancer. I feel totally fine.” I would have symptoms. Once the stent was taken out, I was feeling good. So, when I got the news, I was just like, “Oh my God, he totally saved my life just because he had a hunch and stuck with it.”
Nina: Yeah, that intuition.
Nina: Yeah. So, it’s interesting because I know my body and even trust my body. And they did temporarily fix the problem because the bile duct opened back up again because of the stent. They had sent a balloon up there and so it was kind of all like, you know when a balloon deflates, it’s kind of all not the right shape? So, my bile duct was no longer the right shape. So, it was able to let stuff through without the stent. So, I mean, there is a reason why I felt fine and didn’t have any symptoms.
Nina: And why you were pissed at him.
Kelle: Yeah, and why I was pissed at him.
Nina: You were annoyed with him. Okay, well, we are always on a journey. There’s always something over here. Kel, thanks for talking about this in a very vulnerable, real and empowering way. You’re a rock star.
Kelle: Yeah, one more thing that I just want to say is this is all part of being human. We all have stuff we’re going through, we all do. And so just that sense of community, you have something going on too and we’re all here for you. We’re all part of your community. And that’s what I want to let you know and create, any time reach out to your people, use your resources.
Nina: Yeah, we’re all wounded ducks, whether it’s happening right now or it happened 15 years ago, yeah. And we’ve got to do it together. We’ve gotta get through it together. We love collaboration, as you know.
Kelle: Yeah, people are so good. Totally, love it.
Nina: Okay, thanks, Kel.
Kelle: Alright, thank you.
Nina: That’s it for today. Thanks everyone.
Kelle: Bye for now.
Nina: Hi everyone, if you want more live access to me and Kelle, you have to join our email list.
Kelle: Yes, we'll come to your email box every Tuesday and Thursday. Nina: You can ask us questions, get clarity, and get coached.
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Kelle: Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit https://www.kelleandnina.com/ for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
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