The Squeeze - Madison Baloy: We’re All Terminal

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

When your hosts started this podcast, they never dreamt they would have someone like today’s guest on the show. It is truly a dream come true to offer Madison Baloy a platform to share her story, a story that’s impacted so many through her platforms and beyond. Diagnosed with Stage 4 terminal cancer and having undergone a colostomy, Madison joins the Lautners to discuss her diagnosis and to reveal how she’s navigating life in the aftermath with such positivity, vulnerability, and authenticity. She explains what “terminal” means, talks about getting her awesome head tattoo, and shares her experience of having to engage in end-of-life conversations at only 26 years old. She also expands on her bucket list and the incredible things that have come from it going viral. While she did not choose to be part of medical discourse or the disabled community, she is taking this opportunity to live life on her terms and offer representation to anyone who can relate.   You can follow Madison @fruitsnackmaddy  Thanks to our awesome sponsors for supporting this episode:  Brooklinen — Visit in-store or online at Brooklinen.com and use code thesqueeze for $20 off your order of $100 or more   Squeezed.com — Go to Squeezed.com for same day local delivery or Free Fast delivery nationwide with code THESQUEEZE  Caraway — Visit Carawayhome.com/SQUEEZE to take advantage of this limited-time offer for 10% off your next purchase. Or use code SQUEEZE at checkout  Alo Moves — Go to AloMoves.com now and use code THESQUEEZE30 for an exclusive 30-day free trial and enjoy 20% off an annual membership  Hungryroot — Right now, Hungryroot is offering The Squeeze listeners 40% off your first delivery and free veggies for life. Just go to Hungryroot.com/THESQUEEZE  Calamigos Guest Ranch and Beach Club is a luxury destination resort and private members club located in the Malibu mountains. With a focus on family and fun, the property includes a range of activities like pickle-ball, hiking, paddle-boarding, horseback riding, cooking classes, and relaxing offerings including a full spa, sound baths, and yoga. With over 50 bungalow style rooms and 4 pools, this vast resort offers a private members club with programming for all. There is something for everyone at Calamigos Guest Ranch, so be sure to check out @calamigosguestranch and www.calamigosguestranch.com to book your next romantic retreat, family getaway, or relaxing staycation.  To email us your questions or share your story, you can reach out to [e-mail]. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the podcast so you don't miss an episode! Plus, follow us on Instagram, @thesqueeze and personally @taylautner and @taylorlautner + on TikTok @thesqueezepodcast   To learn more from The Lemons Foundation, follow @lemonsbytay on Instagram and visit lemonsbytay.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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be chaotic. But who zorgloose an auto-hurt says, Uno dos no stress. No own-vervicted costs. Always full-ledged. So, auto-huees-on-sondergare.

Go to your raceadviseur or Sunnycars. There were a lot of people online saying, like, I can't believe the way that she's continuing to live or like being like in the festival crowd, like kind of like grimy and stuff. Like you're going to get an infection. Like if I bubble wrap myself and I become only taking care of my cancer, then it's like Madison already died in that process. I'm like, that's not, I don't want that.

When life gives you lemons, what do you do with them? Over here at the squeeze, we talk about it. Madison, welcome to the squeeze. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Oh my gosh. This is like so fun. We're honored to have you, truly.

So for our lemon drops that are kind of confused what is going on and how this whole situation happened, Madison ended up putting it up this TikTok of a bucket list video of everything she wanted to do. And you guys literally tagged us like it was your job. I was tagged in this video so many times and actually had a lot of friends send it to me. Really? It really popped up, but actually my friend started sending it to me after we had already reached out. The world was making sure that we knew. That's for sure.

Crazy. I don't really know what I had expected, but like it was definitely like just a match made. Like people, the people wanted to see this happen. Oh my gosh. I love that we're giving it to them. I'm curious. We weren't planning us. But what were you expecting when you, like, first put out that video?

Like, anything? Honestly, I, no, I wasn't expecting anything to really come from it. A lot of my TikTok is me just, like, wanting to document things for, like, my family and just, like, for me to look back on. And so I had kind of ran the idea off, like, one of my loved ones. I was like, what if I posted a bucket list? and they had kind of joked like, that'll, like, you'll definitely get some, like, people are good, they'll like that.

Yeah. And it's like, I don't know, we'll see. And so putting it out there, I didn't expect the response that it got, which was so in the best way, amazing and overwhelming and crazy. And, like, it, like, changed my life for the better immensely.

Just insane. So cool. I feel like every time I, like, look back on it, it, like, had another million views. Yeah. The next day I was like, oh, well, let's have three million more. Yeah.

Yeah, just the consistent, like, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and I was like, this is so cool. I mean, honestly, it was an honor for us to be tagged in it that people, you know. Would even think of us. Yeah. Yeah. No, genuinely. And, like, on my end, that felt so comforting and, like, reassuring, knowing that all of your

audience and, like, your supporters were so, like, this is a good person for you to meet. And like, it was just the most heartwarming thing. And that's really what I wanted to happen was to just organically find a podcast that like I felt like really safe and comfortable like sharing my story with. And like, that's you guys. Here we are. Yeah, I know. So honored.

So honored and just so excited. And I think this episode is going to help a lot of our listeners. But also it's honestly probably the most special one that we've done yet. I would say so. Truly. We are very honored to have you here. Okay, so if you guys are watching this episode right now, you may notice we are not in our normal studio. You may.

I would say this is a little nicer than our studio. Yeah, our studio is nice, but this is a pretty special place. We're at Calamigos Ranch. This property is just insane, and they have been so lovely. They put Madison up. How has your stay been here? Oh, shout how Caligas. This place is wild.

It really is. Every single person that we've interacted with has been the nicest, most accommodating individual in the world. Like, everything has been like services to the smile, which like I used to work in customer service. That's hard. Yeah. Just so accommodating, so nice. Like, you're able to just like text people here and be like, I need this. It's like magic.

Yeah. We're at Disney. Yeah. This place is crazy. They do have Disney magic. And the fact that, like, you feel like you're not, like, in L.A. Right now. Oh, we were.

It's hype. That sounds like. Yeah. It's its own little, like, oasis. If you, like, like, because whenever you fly into L.A.X, it's so busy, hectic crazy. And then this is like an oasis. Yeah. It is so, just like in the most beautiful little pocket.

Just a sprawling, gorgeous property. that cares out people. That's cool. Yeah. The team at Kalamigas was so kind. And we told them about this episode and that we were filming it. And they were like, oh my gosh, we'd love to like have her. And they've just been. Because going back to, first of all, thank you for traveling across the country. Oh, yeah. That's true. To be here for people that don't know that, literally from across the country. But when we were talking about like where we wanted you to be when you were here, it was a

very easy answer. We love this place. This is like our second home to us. It's like our family. So we were so excited to be able to have you here. And they were so kind to help facilitate that. But yeah, they were honestly, I was

texting with everybody and they were like, oh, we're so excited to meet her. Yeah, this place feels like home, which is like so weird but it just feels so so cozy. That's so nice. So I figured to be a good place to film our episode too. Just to keep the, keep the

megos magic alive. We'll be here for the day. We will be here on my couch. We start each episode off with a little game called Citrus Got Real. Our jar has made it to Calamigos. Yes. And our sign. Our old sign. Yeah.

Made it sweet. Yes, if you could pull one of those random questions. I'm going to give you a drum roll. This is like also a bucket list thing. This is very exciting. Right. Oh no. What song will always get you out on the dance floor? Oh.

Oh. Anything by Flume. Oh, anything by Flume will, like, get me on the dance floor. But, like, just a basic white woman, also the cha-cha slide. Flume, cha-cha slide. Yeah. Oh, like, crush it. Like my whole heart goes into the Chauthous sides.

Oh my gosh. Well, well, loves a wedding. Mine would be, loves a wedding. Mine would be like Furgy or like at 2000s Disney anything like Camel, like anything like Hannah Montana Cheetah Girl, like any, anything like that. That was very fitting for you. High school musical. You do love your furgalicious.

Yeah. But you do love your like Cheetah Girls and all of those different things. Yeah. You have one? You're not really a dance floor goer. I'm not the biggest. but if it's something, it's probably Backstreet Boys. I was going to say it's probably tequila, but...

It's probably tequila. That's my brother's karaoke song. Oh. And it's four words. It's just tequila, four times. Oh, my gosh. That's like that guy on AGT. Have you seen that video?

Yeah. That's a karaoke. Oh, yes. No, but if like, everybody starts by him, you'll see me on the dance floor. That's beautiful. Obviously, we have a lot of stuff we want to dive into. But I think it would be cool to start. I mean, even for us just to like learn more about you, where you're from, where you're raised, all those details.

All the details for sure. So my name is Madison. I am 26. I was actually, I was born in Cali. Oh. Not really from here, though. My parents were in the military. So I went to 13 schools between like kindergarten and graduating.

So went all over. growing up. And yeah, I guess in my adult life, I attended college in Maryland. I went to grad school for a semester in Florida before I dropped out. And then I became a teacher. And I had to quit teaching due to just getting like a surprise cancer diagnosis, which was crazy. I feel like prior to life on TikTok and cancer, I was a very, very, very.

very, very just like average girlie, like everybody else. And just kind of everything got like rocked and crazy. And so. Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely love this next sponsor. And no, it's not just because of their name, which I mean truly is the perfect sponsor. And I know by now you guys have heard me talk a lot about suez.com,

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Brooklinen.com. That's B-R-O-O-K-L-I-N-E-N dot com and use code to squeeze for $20 off your order of $100 or more. That's B-R-O-O-K-L-I-N-N dot com and use promo code the squeeze for $20 off. I would like to kind of start back to when you kind of had, I guess, your first symptom. Like, when did you, I mean, you probably didn't know something was wrong, but you were experiencing something. Yeah. So I can hold diagnosis story if we want, because it's crazy.

What year was that? So that was, the first symptom was in, I don't know, I think it was, it was Bonneru of 2020. It was 2022. I was at Bonarue. And it was the summer between my first year of teaching and then going back to school. And it was a girl's trip with me and like three of my best girlfriends. We had went to the music festival. And I am an experienced festival girl. Another thing that was on my bucket list was that like I wanted to be a DJ booth. I don't know what to do, but like I'd be a hype woman. Yeah. And it doesn't want. Seems like you had some offers. Oh, we can get into that. Yeah. We could talk about that.

Plenty. Yeah. But, yeah, so we were at Bonnarro, pretty seasoned festival people. Like, we knew the kind of ins and outs of, like, grimy fest going. Like, we know the rules about, like, how to drink water, like, staying hydrated, all that kind of stuff. And Bonaroo had been, we had a run for our money that year. There was, like, a tornado on site. Like, it was a crazy year.

And so our camp had like gotten destroyed by a tornado and stuff. We had went through everything at this festival. And we really just wanted to like chill and like enjoy. And so the girlie's like, it's a girl's trip. We're getting turnt and stuff and drinking and having a good time. So day two or three of the festival, my friends were just, they were all able to, they were still partying and like trucking along and stuff. And normally I'm right there with them.

Like it's very just like fun vibes. and I had the most random stomach pain that I had ever had in my life. I don't know how like TMI we want to get. Get into it. Get into it. It's like so yucky. So sorry. It's like gross.

But like it was like just like a cramp sensation of like, oh, like I like need to go to the bathroom. And it was this recurring cramping sensation that it started happening. And I was just like, okay, it's, we've. We've been like through a tornado. We've been drinking. We've been like doing all this stuff. I'm dehydrated.

Yeah. I was getting sick. I was not on any party favors or anything like that. But I just kept throwing up and I was, my stomach just kept randomly hurting. And I will always remember the first stomach ache because it was at Stevie Nix's set. Stevie Nix was closing up on a row and my best friend and I were in the crowd. And before she had like started this set, she was like, this set. She was like, there is, I can sense some magic in the air tonight.

Because she's totally like cool witchy vibes. Yeah. And she was like, there's magic in the air tonight. Like, we were casting a spell on Tennessee. Like, just using like all of this like very witchy vernacular. And we were like, this girl's cool. Like, she's so cool. She's like, I'm going to put a like, I'm going to enchant the crowd.

And it was like two minutes after she said that she was going to like enchant the crowd that I got that first really bad stomachache that I was like, oh, what is this? So the running joke is that like Stevie Nix texts to me, which is like not true and like no Stevie Slinger, like love her, love the music, Fleetwood Backfan. But yeah, that was

the very first stomachache. And then I went a year with these stomach aches. Whenever I was 25 at the time, I guess I was 24 on the first stomachache. But whenever you're a woman or female bodied at least, I feel like it's so

often our stomach aches and just any pains that women experience are so kind of brushed off as it has to be anything else. Like people told me like maybe you're going through a second puberty. Maybe you're like, oh, you're just, you're ovulating. You're, you know, maybe you are, I don't know. Everybody that I would consult with just said that it was like something else. And I hadn't seen a medical professional because teaching, it's, it's, I was so busy. I was teaching full time. And I was a after school. So I was working from 7 a.m. until like 7 p.m. And I was, I was grinding and I didn't mind it. I was having so much fun. Love the kids. I was nanny. And so I just never really thought to go to the doctor because I thought that it was something I could manage, figure out control. Yeah. There was also at the time of the internet, a lot of, a lot of hot girls have tummy issues. Yeah. Content going around everywhere. It was on Twitter, on. On TikTok, on Instagram, everywhere. Hot girls have stomach tissues.

Hot girls have tummy aches. Hot girls have whatever. IBS. And so I was like, maybe I'm just having a glow up. And so I just didn't think it was anything until I started, I cut out wheat for a while. Like I cut out gluten. I cut out dairy. I cut out red meat.

I incorporated more red meat. I incorporated more fruits and veggies. I went vegan. I tried. everything. Everything. Thinking that's like, yeah.

This was somehow like self-aidable. Like I could help. Yeah. And it just didn't. And I do believe that had I not been so, just so invested in like getting started as like a little career girlie and getting so like, I don't know, just caught up in life and like had paid attention to like how serious this was. And I feel like I gas at myself for a while. symptoms, like into thinking that it was a lot of other stuff. And they kind of reached a peak when we're coming up on the one year anniversary. I was diagnosed stage four metastatic

adenocarsinoma colon primary, really big fancy term for terminal colon cancer on February 24th. Okay. And so it was, like I said, after a year of kind of brushing symptoms aside thinking it was everything else. A different friend group and I were having a beach day. And I remember, you know, I hadn't weighed myself since high school because I don't know. You just don't want to. I just hadn't weighed myself since high school. And I really worked on having a really healthy relationship with food. That was always something really important to me. And so I wanted to have a healthy relationship with my body because I didn't always have that. Yeah. And I remember, because I live in Florida, getting ready for the beach and being like, I have lost some weight. It was

like the first beach day at the year. I was like, I lost some weight. And it was at my friend's house. And I was just curious because they owned a scale. I didn't own a scale. And I stepped on my friend's scale. And the number was like what I weighed in high school. And I was like, I've lost 50 pounds over the course of a year. But whenever it's over the course of a year, 52 weeks, that's less than a pound a week. That's a, like a healthy amount of weight loss. And so I didn't notice it because it was about a pound a week, maybe. It was gradual. Yeah, it was so gradual. But Seeing that number was just like, dude, that's crazy. We went to the beach and I remember just being so unable to, I couldn't drink, I couldn't hang out the way that I wanted to.

I just had so low energy. And this was President's Day weekend and that was on the Sunday. Tuesday, I went to school and it was the hardest day physically of my entire. life because the stomach aches were just consistent and constant. And like, it would ease up for like two seconds and then it would be back full throttle. And I remember my kids getting so excited because when I say my kids in my classroom, getting so excited because I turned off all the lights. And I was like, we have to do a movie today. And they were like, hell yeah. You know, they're eating that up. Best teacher. Yeah. And so just like random movie day. But I remember putting the movie on for them and calling the school nurse. And I remember putting the movie on for them and calling the school nurse. And I was, you know, they're eating that. And nurse, um, nurse Sandy. I need you to come down to my classroom right away.

And she's like, for a kid. And I said, no, it's for me. I can't teach. Um, and so I,

I, I just physically was not able to. And, um, my, my love had kind of been pushing me. Like, hey,

like, babe, we should maybe go get you checked out. Like it started to kind of be more apparent. The stomach aches were consistent. Um, he happened to have that day off. I got home from work or from work.

I left early. And I remember to telling my principal, I was like, I have to leave work early today. And she's like, you don't have a sub. I'm sorry. And it was kind of a thing. So I left work early. We went to urgent care. Again, thinking that it was just like a stomach bug.

Yeah. Go to urgent care. And I told her my symptoms. It's just like consistent cramping. I've lost some weight. I'm having like some light sensitivity. I'm so tired constantly. It wasn't a normal tired either.

It was like just fit like. like you're exhausted. And I remember at urgent care, the nurse told me, yeah, I told her all my symptoms. She was like, I can't see you at urgent care because I think you have cancer. What? Yeah, like at urgent care immediately. That was crazy to hear.

And I was like, okay, not this was not the world's nicest urgent care either. So I was like, this girl like maybe doesn't like, I don't know. I just didn't want to believe her. I think somehow I knew before anything else. But I started to like subliminally joke like this is like morbid and whatever. I was like, what if I have cancer? Like, oh, my God, imagine like if it's that. Oh, wow.

Which isn't a joke. But I mean, I just had kind of started to get like not even. I really did think that I was joking. And then I went in and they were like, this is not a joke. Like this is. Yeah. Wow. I sometimes feel very guilty because I have a lot of women who ask me, you know,

How do I advocate to myself for my doctor? How do I tell my doctor I think that there's something wrong? And I have this guilt that I carry because I didn't advocate for myself. And so I really don't know what to tell people. I'm working on it and trying to like help. But I think the only thing I can do is share my story and let that be like a cautionary tale. Yeah. That that you need to take whatever's going on in your body.

Like you need to take it seriously. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously it's just words. But yeah, you do not hold any of that guilt. you sharing your story and doing this right now is going to help a lot of people. Thank you. For sure, just in that alone.

I hope so. It already has. Yeah. Yeah, already what you've done on social media. It's definitely already affected a lot of people's lives. Makes my heart warm. We all live very busy lives. And I know for me personally, the first thing that kind of goes out the door when I am having a busy week is prioritizing my personal wellness.

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And right now, HungryRoot is offering The Squeeze listeners 40% off your first delivery and free veggies for life. Just go to hungarroot.com slash the squeeze to get 40% off your first delivery and get free veggies for life. That's HungryR.com slash the squeeze. And don't forget to use our link so they know that we sent you. When you go to the ER, they like, like run some tests on you. Dude, the ER was the craziest experience of my entire life. And a little more backstory on me. I'm not a medfield girl.

Like, you're an RN. I have no, no concept of medicine. I had never even like watched Grey's Anatomy or anything. Nothing. So going into the ER, they took some blood work. And then they, I don't know what they were looking for in my, blood work, but they didn't see anything that weird. So whatever comes back in my blood work now, they weren't looking for them. They're like, your blood looks okay. We're going to do a CT scam.

And so I remember, well, there wasn't anything in your blood? So there is, but I don't think that's what they were checking for at the time. They didn't run a tumor marker check. Okay. It was just like a standard blood work procedure. Yeah. And you had to like call in for a tumor marker procedure. Interesting. Now, like in hindsight, we know, I don't want to get it wrong. It was my CA-19-9 marker. That is a tumor marker. Normally a marker for pancreatic cancer, but I don't have that. But so I'm still not a trained medical professional. So do not take this as like hard, fast, true medical advice. But from my understanding, as somebody who, like I said, had no experience in the medical field, your CA-19-9 marker is supposed to be between, zero and 36.9. I don't know what that means at all, but that's what it's supposed to be. At 37, you're supposed to get a cancer screening because that means like you're off. Mine was 214. Holy. Yeah. So we didn't know that because they didn't look for tumors. That's like hindsight. We knew about that. But at the time, they said, you know, your blood work looks standard. We're going to do a CT scan to figure out what the stomachache issue is. And so they took me back. Did the C.E. T-T scan, and they said, there's something compressing your large intestine.

I remember they were just like, they showed me the pictures, and you could just see that, like, my large intestine was squished down. And they described it to me like a garden hose. So your intestine system is just supposed to, like, flow regularly. Yeah. And then you have, like, so gross, but then, like, your output. Yeah. And there was something constricting my large intestine, but they did.

didn't know what it was. So right off the dot, I'm in the ER, like, being told again, this could be cancer. Yeah. And they called my friend, like my best friend, like, girl, who we might have a situation. And we did. So, yeah, going in and I had a million doctors and nurses. It was crazy. I had never even been into a hospital before.

I didn't even realize that until I was in there for the first time. Like, oh, I've never even really been. here. I'd always been healthy and like kind of just like a brush it off person. Yeah. And yeah, there were people doing clinicals and people like

every type of like doctor and like their residency, everybody wanted to know because you look at me like you're seeing this like normal looking 25 year old woman who has something insane going on in her digestive track that we don't know about. Yeah. And so

I remember waiting so long for the GI doctor. I just wanted to talk to the GI because I thought at the time I was following Tesscomen and her story, she's the, she was a writer for Delish. She has Crohn's and she shares publicly her story with Crohn's and how she's married to a GI doctor. And so I was just like, that was like my only hope and like the only bit of medical knowledge I knew was like, be nice to talk to a GI person. Yeah. And he came back and he said, yeah, I see I see the mask too. We're going to do, you know, the proper screenings and stuff. And I was like, do you think it's cancer? And he was like, he looks at me and he goes, could I wake up tomorrow morning? And I will never forget the sentence. He said, could I wake up tomorrow morning and see a zebra in my front yard? Yes. Am I going to? No. And I was like, same page man. Understood. Like this has to be IBS or crumbs or something. And the next day, I, because of how compressed my large intestine was causing my colon to like swell up.

And they're like, you have to have surgery, like immediately for this, basically. Like, I found out the same day that I was going to have to have surgery. We didn't know what we were going to find in surgery, though. They still weren't doing. They still, like I said, they had to treat it like cancer in case it was. But they still didn't know and weren't convinced. And neither was I that it was cancer. Yeah.

And I remember calling all my family and stuff, this is what's going to happen. He, I was lying on my bed and my surgeon came back to the room. Shout out Dr. Pachoka. and sat on the bed with me, going over everything, and he handed me a clipboard, and I had to sign off on a potential colostomy bag. And I was like, I don't want to sign this off. I do not want to do this. And he was like, I realized that, like, it's kind of protocol that, like, it'll, like, this could take your life. And I'm like, I don't know. And so I go in for surgery. I kept getting pushed back. And it was so late. It was like 9 p.m. Finally, I go back for surgery, thinking that, like,

we're going to, I don't know, but they're just going to see some stuff and I'll be okay. I come out of surgery and it is so late. And I'm back in my room. And I remember putting like my hands in my stomach and feeling plastic. I was like, holy, like, oh my gosh. I couldn't look. Like I could not look at my stomach. I didn't want to because I like, I knew.

And I hadn't had any conversations yet with anybody because I was on like, It's on a morphine drip. There was a lot going on in the hospital room. But I guess what had happened, though, and how they ended up finding the cancer was during the surgery. And they didn't think that they were going to find that. I didn't even know that you could see cancer. But basically, like, while they were in operating on my stomach,

trying to figure out what was going on with my intestine, they were just able to see cancer. And turns out that it was a bunch of tumors compressing my large intestine down. And that was what was causing the stomach aches and everything else, because any time I would eat anything, now my large intestine's narrowed, so food's having a hard time passing through. Got it.

And so every time it would pass through, it would cause me to cramp. And so that's what was causing everything. And it's, like, still there. My, like, those tumors are still there. They can't touch them or anything because we could, like, I don't know how cancer works 100%, but they could spread or something crazy could happen.

Still there, my little pet. And it's a gross, sorry. Yeah, that's kind of the dad. diagnosis story and it was it was crazy being told that I had cancer that was insane yeah what was that like yeah that was I was I was in the room still not very convinced I had cancer before I tell this story though I want everybody to know I'm on my family's side in this story I vouched for them and I'm okay with the decisions and choices they made this is oh people get a little finicky on how they feel about this story.

The surgery had just finished, and my partner was in the waiting room, and it was just us because it was just us in Florida. And the doctor came out, told my partner, and he was already on the phone with my mom. My mom made the doctor's promise, because I was still under. She was in, I listed her, my partner both,

as like my, they can have the information. And she immediately, she was like, do not tell her she might, like let her have one more night of just like peaceful sleep. Because it was so late. It was like midnight when I am when I came out. And some people really disagree with that and think that it's like a bad move. I kind of think it was like the episode of New Girl where like everybody knew Cece was pregnant except Cece. But so yeah, so everybody else actually knew before me. And I'm honestly happy it went that way because I never had to have cancer alone, really.

So I remember my mom being like, hey, I'm flying in, you know, and I was just like, that's nice because I had like all this stuff like going on. Mom flew in. Partners parents flew in. All of my friends, like my friend group were just like regularly checking on me. I was actually supposed to go to a music festival like two days later. Didn't end up attending. So I had like all my festival friends that came and see, like, saw me.

And yeah. So the next day goes around and I was chipper. Like I was kind of in a good mood with everybody there. And I'm like, oh, like all my friends and family are here. Like, I'm sick, but it's kind of a party. And so rare that you just like have everybody in the room. And the surgeon came in. And I was just like, I'm a Libra and I was just like being silly.

And like he was dressed to the nines. Like he was not in doctor clothes. And he came in. And I was like, look at this handsome man. And he like, he like, came and, like, sat on the end of my bed. And I just, I don't know, I kind of joke when I'm nervous. And I was like, I literally, I said this to him.

I was like, if you're going to sit in the bed, like, you at least have to buy me dinner. Because, like, I knew he was good. I knew he had bad news, but like, I was just, like, trying to for long and just, like, joking. Yeah. He laughed and stuff. But, um, so funny. I just put his hand on my knee and he was like, um, you have cancer. I was like, no.

And he was like, I looked at my mom. And I was like, I have cancer. And I remember it was, oh, I cry. It was, it was, it was a lot. It was weirdly a feeling of relief to know like, okay, like, this is, this is what life's going to be like now. But it was also a feeling of like, I don't know, I never got doom or like terror or anything. I cried, like, immediately. But it wasn't from a place of like, like fear. It was from a place of just, I think, the discourse that surrounds the word cancer. And like, now that's a sign to me. I was just like, it was almost more of like an overwhelming cry. But I remember asking him, like, what stage?

He was like, four. I was like, dude, there's just no winning. And we still didn't. know what kind it was. And, um, but yeah, he, he was able to say like, it's stage four cancer. We don't know what it is. Um, but it's like all over your stomach. It's everywhere. I remember those words so clear. He was like, it's everywhere. I was like, what the heck? Like, how and I don't know. It was just, it was crazy. I've always been the kind of person, like, when opportunity strikes to, like, grab it.

And so whenever, like, I heard that, I was like, I mean, I can't change the fact that I have cancer. So, like, I'm going to rock this. And, like, I still have hair and everything. I was like, y'all, I cannot wait for this head tattoo. My family's, like, looking at it. Like, you should have diagnosed again. I'm like, I'm going to get the sickest head tattoo. He's telling them all.

I was like, I'm going to do so much cool stuff. The fact that we have you, like, you as a human sitting here. with like, this could, this could happen to anyone. But the fact that it's you and it's the attitude that you have and like your outlook on life and the positivity that you have, it's just like, I feel like, like, we just got like so lucky. It's a little bit delusion on my end. But like, thank you. Thank you. I, yeah, I just like, no, this is not to say that I haven't cried because I stay crying. And like, and I show it on TikTok and stuff. And I know, I know some people kind of like hold the belief like, how can you film crying? Like, you know,

that kind of thing. But like I just, I think honestly kind of growing up with military parents, just like kind of randomly getting told. Like, okay, we have to move to like a new state in two weeks. I've just always had to adapt. Yeah. And it's really crazy the kind of stuff that like a human will adapt to too, too. Like just the amount of like flexibility you don't even know that you have.

I'm like speaking to like both of you directly. It's crazy. Like you have insane untapped potential where it's just like, dang, like, I didn't realize that I was capable of this. Like I didn't realize that I was capable of like all the all of this. I don't know. You really, you surprise yourself a lot. And that's a really cool thing to get to see, like to watch myself do. But like it's also like, it's scary.

And I don't want to come across like, I'm not afraid of anything. But like, because it's terrifying. But like, I can't do anything about it. So why not like, have some fun with it? Yeah. You're controlling the parts of your life that you can control. Yeah, definitely. I'm trying.

At what point, because I know right away they told you stage four. At what point do they use the word terminal and what? does terminal mean because I don't fully understand that. A lot of people don't. So that's, you're good. So when you reach stage four cancer, first off, I didn't know that it had to go through all the other stages first. I thought that it was just like, I didn't really know what it was in reference to, but that it means that you were at one point, stage one. Wow.

Stage two, stage three. You said, no idea. Yeah, no. No, none. Like I said, thought it was warm. So just didn't know. And so learning about the definition of stage four cancer was weird because for stage three and lowered, you can go into remission. And then eventually you can be deemed cancer-free.

When you have stage four cancer, at least this is to my understanding. I get so scared that somebody's going to be like, to my understanding. Well, you're not a doctor. So if anyone gives you an issue. And you haven't seen Grayson. I'm not for me. So you're clear. Yeah.

You're clear. Exactly. So to my understanding, though, stage four, you can't go into our mission. You can go into what's called, it's abbreviated to Ned, but it's no evidence of disease. Which just means that there's no, it means what it sounds like. There's no evidence of like active disease in your body. But because you've reached that stage four point where it's like entered like your lymph nodes, your body, your body is always. is always programmed and will always know how to make cancer.

So once you have a stage four diagnosis, that's the crowd that will always have to be on some kind of maintenance, we'll always have to have an oncologist for the rest of forever. So stage four and for what I have, the idea of terminal, my oncologist kind of explained it best to me, which was that the way my tumors work, they are, it's kind of like whenever you hear a girl be like, yeah, I have really fine hair. She did a lot of it, but like it's so little. That's what mine is. That's what we have going on.

He explained it as like lower grades of your kind of cancer are more like sugar cubes. And if you spill like a cup of sugar cubes, you can pick them up. But if you spill a cup of sugar, you like you can't pick up all the granules. So no matter what, I will always have cancer in my stomach. And so whether I live ideally six, steam more years or my prognosis, which is, I guess I've knocked a year off now, so four years, I will, at one point, I will die with cancer still in my body. It's really hard to talk with doctors and to get a clear answer because whenever you say, like, well, what's my prognosis?

Whenever you're looking at a case study of like a stage four cancer patient or colon cancer patient, it's like older men with bad diets. It's not like young women who like cared about eating healthy and stuff. Yeah. So that's what all the research is on. So that's what they have to look at. Yeah. So like now that you have all these younger people getting late term

colorectal cancer diagnoses, like there's not a lot of information on it. I feel like Terminal is kind of like a buzzword that people hear. And I guess I think like if you just hear Terminal, you're like there's no hope for that person. And I mean, they're, like, not to be bleak, there isn't in the terms of, like, I'll always have it in me. Yeah. But life expectancy-wise, I mean, like, who knows?

I'm chilling, right. I'm on a podcast. Sure on. I'm in Malibu. I'm cool. So, I, yeah. And that's another thing, though, that's been really kind of weird about my kind of cancer is how contained it stayed. And I'm, like, so thankful for that.

But, like, it's not in my heart, not in my brain, not in my lungs. So like my endurance is there. I'm like still active. Wow. I like with the wig, I look like a like a very just like run of the middle like able-bodied woman. Yeah. Like you would have no clue. It's crazy.

Wow. Yeah. So terminal. Can we talk about this head tattoo? Oh, yeah. Is it like a proper look at it? So. Wow.

It's so cool. That's impressive. So I like it's, that was like the first thing I said. I'm getting my head tattooed. That was the first video of mine that kind of popped off on social media. Oh, okay. I thought that was just a given, though. Like, if you have to shave your head, you should get it tattooed.

But my artist who had done my other pieces knew that I wanted to go to him. Shout out visionary tattoos in Tampa. But, no, he was so amazing and so cool. And so I knew from the start that I wanted to get my head tattooed. That was kind of a wild experience, too. It was crazy. Because having hair and knowing that you have cancer, that was a weird thing. And I think that's a very shared experience amongst cancer patients is that like this isn't like this isn't for me.

This is for people of cancer. Like you're because you've never had to identify with that before. Yeah. And there's this like I think before you have cancer, you kind of you when when you hear, you know, the word cancer, you're thinking. of like the St. Jude's commercials, the like breast cancer, like pink boxing gloves and stuff. And I think you as a whole cancer patients, they're just kind of like lumped into like this sort of like different part of society. And then like whenever you, I was a fully able-bodied woman like good to go one day and the next day, 100% disabled and like cancer. It was just, it was finding a sense of belonging was weird and like really hard.

I feel like something that is very like taboo and people definitely don't talk about a lot like in society is like death and dying. And that is something that you have definitely had to face. Yeah, girl. And have been just so open about it. What has like your experience been like having to have those. end-of-life conversations. Great question. So, like, if I'm being fully honest with myself, I mean, it's so weird the way that the emotions kind of, like, come and go. Because sometimes I'm like, oh, I'm going to go into Ned, like, whatever. And then sometimes it's like, dude,

like, I can die of cancer. That's kind of sucks. And honestly, though, I've, Even before cancer, I thought about death, like, all the time before cancer. Just the, like, just the concept. And I, like, that was one of my favorite things to talk to my friends about, like, what do you think happens after we die? Like, what are you, like, just getting everybody's different opinions on that. I was always very interested in, like, other people's religions, that kind of stuff. And I used to have, whenever I had just graduated high school, I was, like, in college,

the summer between high school and college, I had a friend die in a car accident. And it was a very jarring experience for me. I was so scared. And I used to have really bad before cancer or anything, like anxiety surrounding death and losing people. And then this is going to sound like the weirdest connection to make ever. But this girl who I looked up to kind of like as in like,

I just always thought she was cool, kind of like a role model-y figure. She turned 25. and I hadn't turned 25 yet. And I had this, like, weird kind of sense of, like, oh, like, she just turned 25 and, like, she's still okay. And, like, I'm in a turn 25, too, and, like, that'll be okay. And then I was like, everybody, like, sorry, squeeze, sorry to, like, sorry to, like, sorry for the bad news. We're all going to die, though. Like, you not to be, I don't want to, like, mess up the vibe and, like, it'll look dark in stuff.

No. No, like, it's the truth. Yeah, no, literally weird. Yeah, facts of life, we're all terminal right now. Like, we're all on the way out. And so, like, I beat you to it. Like, I'll, like, I'll let you know how it is. You know what I mean?

But so the concept of it, though, and just knowing that it's something that every single person is going to have to go through, honestly, dying of cancer while, like, scary and sad and, like, everything else. I mean, like, end of life hospice care. It's kind of a nice way to go. Yeah. I mean, what you said, it's so true. Like, we literally all are going to die. Like, it's, point blank.

Like, that's, it's so true. And we also have zero idea when. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's, it's really interesting that, you know, we give it such, like, attention, you know,

when cancer comes about or when, like, a diagnosis comes about. But, like, it's so, like, tomorrow's not promised for anyone that's 100% healthy you can you know yeah something can happen for real like anything it's so true it's just hearing you say that i was like wow like that is that's really yeah which is a reminder yeah this is why what you're doing is so powerful which is exactly why it's a reminder to everyone you know to live the way that you are like it's it's just it's a fact like tomorrow isn't guaranteed for anyone no matter what your life looks like. So why not spend every day with the mindset that you have every single day? You are so brutally honest on social media, right? We all know that.

Where, I guess, where does it come from and what allows you to be that honest? And more importantly, what do you get out of it? What does that give you being able to? to express yourself and be like the real frickin' maddy on everything you do. Oh, man. I love that that's how like I'm seen for starters. That that makes me feel good that you are able to look at that and be like, this is an authentic person. I think just for forever, like my favorite trait in anybody is authenticity.

Like I think that that is like the coolest thing in the world if you can just like own what you're about and it's hard. It's a lot easier said than done. But like whenever you meet someone and they are just like unapologetically into whatever they're into, even if it's like something that you would consider like nerdy or dorky or like whatever it is like the concept of like don't like what is it like kill the part of you that cringes, not the part of you that is like is cringy. Honestly, it was it was mostly just like I remember filming the first few TikToks. And that's the platform that I'm mainly on. But I remember thinking I was in the hospital and I was going on TikTok a lot to try to find some representation, some girlies. And there weren't very many.

And especially not very many people that looked like me. Like just like very like women in their 20s. Keeping in mind, I am not the only girl in a hospital bed trying to find representation right now. And knowing that like if I hop on here and I'm just me, that if people don't like it and I don't get an audience or response, then that's like 90% of TikTok. You know, like that's like most people don't get like a big following. But if I get on here and I am myself and I do get a following, then that's like sick. That's cool. And I, from the start, I just wanted to, you know, be as.

open with stuff as I could be. And I'm a hypocrite whenever I say that too because I didn't, I was not open about my colostomy for a really, really long time. But every other aspect of my life I was. And I, yeah, I don't know. I just, the human experience is so cool and so, I mean, like, this is redundant, but like idiosyncratic where it's just like, so your own to do whatever you want with. And so getting to see what other people have done their human experience, being able to take that and be like, I'm going to do this with mine. It's going to like, it's going to be me. Like it just like literally kind of like decided like, okay, like I'm, the author of what's going on here. Liberating such a like freeing feeling. Yeah.

Yeah. Have you ever been terrified to? say something or be as honest as you want to be, you know, being afraid of what people will think, or have you ever... Every day. Every day. But it's at the same time,

it's equally as like, the more that that fear increases, the more that like my knowing of like it needs to be done increases. I've got a lot of backlash for getting my head tattooed. People were like, you know, that's, like, that's so risky. that's so dangerous.

You could risk, like, infection, all this other stuff. I didn't quit anything when I got cancer. That's something that I didn't know about either. And I was really, I wasn't concerned with. We were just, like, really curious about, like, can I still drink? Can I still? What's going to happen if I do these things? Yeah.

And so continuing my lifestyle of being just a girlie in her 20s, I still go to clubs. I still go to festivals. I like, if I'm drunk, like, I'll, like, hit a cigarette. And people think that that is insane. And, like, they're like, what? Like, that's, I mean, like, A, what's going to do? Give me cancer. B.

That's who I was before. And it's, it's kind of interesting because, like, some people, some people, I mean, they. It's just so good. It's so good. I love you so much. It's too good. You also, you need to stand-up comedy.

Like, you would crush. Listen. The way I have, I have, and I have fun with it. I've only done it once. That was a good time.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. No, I, yeah, I just, I don't know, I've always coped with humor. But, like, it's, it's true, though.

And I think, so whenever you get, cancer. I didn't realize this either. The level of like infantilizing that comes with it, everybody's thinking they need to like wear kid gloves around me. And I don't want to speak for like cancer as a whole. And I'm not trying to come across as like I'm not like other cancer patients. I'm a cool cancer patient. But in the same breath, I'm still going to live my life the way like I want to live my life despite the risks. It like ruffles feathers a lot, but also like, what are you going to do about it?

Like, I'm going to, you know, there were a lot of people online on like different social media apps saying like, I can't believe the way that she's continuing to live or like the people that like she associates herself with like being around, you know, being like in the festival crowd, like, kind of, like, grimy and stuff, like, you're going to get an infection. Like, the people who are genuinely worried, but I was just kind of like, you know, if, if I bubble wrap myself and I become only taking care of my cancer, then it's like, Madison already died in that process. I'm like, that's not, I don't want that. Yeah. So, like, I, yeah, I just wanted to continue to do all the stuff that I was going to do.

And that was my mom and I had a really hard time with that for a bit where she had moved in with me at the beginning to kind of help like a mother would. And we had a hard time because she sees me stage four cancer and she just wants to take care of me. and I see me as an at the time like 25 year old who just like wanted to get the most that I cut out of life. Yeah. Yeah. And I realized that like she and I were really big metaphors kind of for like both sides of like how people were viewing me. Yeah. And so kind of like having that relationship dynamic with my mom at the time was kind of even more reassurance for me that I.

that I was doing the right thing, which sounds weird. But knowing that my mom was like a little bit worried about me, I was like, okay, yeah, I'm doing, like, this is what I need to be doing. Yeah. I've always made my parents kind of bite their nails. So I'm good. Okay. No, that makes sense. Okay.

I want to get into the bucket list a little bit. Okay. Got a couple questions that I'm sure people are curious about. Yeah. Okay. First. It's just so funny because I went through and I read, you know, probably, I don't know, a couple hundred of the comments out of the 40,000, but out of the ones I saw just people like really care about each item that you had. People are passionate about different ones in different ways. Yeah. But first question, why should people watch The Secret Life of Walter May? Okay. I would love to answer that. I didn't think you were going to ask about that.

That's so funny. That's my opener. I was like ready to like answer something hard. Honestly, I just want people to hear the quote. I don't want to get the quote wrong. But like the, it's the whole like message of the movie he works at Life magazine and then it's like life's motto

is to see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel that is the purpose of life. And like that just always stuck with me so much. and like how important human connection, human interaction is, and like how important it is to be like so commanding of your own life.

And yeah, I think that if you just need like a movie to like kind of like pick you up and like feel good. Yeah. Yeah. One comment that I, I fan-gurled over, is Gordon. Oh, dude. Oh, y'all have no. Did you freak? Because I would have freaked.

Like, I love him. Taylor freaks when he was scrolling the comments and saw like Gordon commented. Dude. That. It doesn't get better. No. Oh, my gosh. Gordon got me through the pandemic.

What a man. Oh, what a man. For anybody that doesn't know, we're talking about the legend that is Gordon Ramsey. Gordon Ramsey. The, like, most Michelin stars ever like a, like just this beast of a human. being, oh, I can give you the tea on that. So whenever the TikTok got posted and I was getting all the comments, I was like, bang, people are paying attention.

Yeah. And so putting Gordon Ramsey on the bucket list in the first place was just out of my love for food. I love food. And honestly, once I developed a healthier relationship with food and saw it. as like this like beautiful piece of like art that has so much like just like cultural and like lot like so much culture love science goes into food just for something like to consume yeah i i think seeing that and seeing this man with so much passion and so much like willing to just scream in

somebody's face because like they disrespected a piece of food like i just i remember though during the pandemic, like I got really into Master Chef and really into Hell's Kitchen. And just seeing somebody was like so much passion in them was like the coolest thing ever. And like I had developed this like little Gordon crush. And, uh, I get it. Yeah, everybody has. Like, when you're not? And, um, I remember though, whenever I was like kind of coming up with the bucket list, I was like, well, actually, okay, so in my household, be like kind of check in with each other yearly to ask, like, who's your roundtable, which is like you can have dinner with like five people or anybody.

There's not even really a number on it. Just like if you could meet up with like anybody, dream, whatever, what are you going to do? He had always been on there for me. And so when he commented, because I said that like I wanted to meet Gordon. Yeah. It was crazy. And my body like took a screenshot. I was like, oh my God.

Are you serious? So he ended up, he commented and he just said, done. Yeah. And I was like, what does that mean? So I, okay, this is a part of my personality, my identity that I struggle with a little bit, which is that I mean, like, I rock the bald head. If you're just listening and like not looking, I stay bald. I'm not, not a bandana girl. I'm not really like a scarf girl, even though that is like the flag of my head.

people. It's just not for me. Rock the ball. And so I've met some people in the past who during those interactions, it feels very make-a-wishy. And so for, I was just kind of wondering, like, what does Dunn mean? Because you come to Dunn. And then the next day I got an email from like somebody associated with him. And they were like, hey, girl, here's a video message for you. And so I'm thinking, oh, cool. Like, I got, like, kind of like a cameo essentially from him. And that's what I thought it was going to eat. Right.

So I opened the video. I want to, like, show it to you guys. I don't know, like, what will throw off. But, like, this video. So you have to think, I'm, like, just laying in bed, like, waiting for, like, my coffee to kick in. I see this, like, like, email. I was like, whoa. Yeah, you think it's just going to be a shout out.

Just like, yeah, nice to meet you. Thanks for being a fan. For sure. Like, daughter with you. Continue cooking. Yeah, yeah. It's my Gordon. Yeah.

And, oh, I want you guys to see it, too. I don't even want to give it away what it is. I just want you all to get the raw reaction, too, because I was like, this is like, this is beyond your expectations. Yeah. Okay. Let's see this video. Here you go.

You'll just press play. Oh, wow. What a guy. What a guy. The man, the myth. Oh, yeah. Hey, Madison. It's Gordon.

Your favorite chef. Listen, first of all, thank you for that video. And, of course, I'd love to. to see and meet in person. But not just any hello, goodbye. First of all, I'd like to fly you down to Miami, have dinner with you and your girlfriends in Hell's Kitchen. And then the following nights on Friday night,

be our special guests at the opening of a new restaurant, Lucky Cat in South Beach. I'm going to get everything set up for you. Can't wait to meet you. Take care and lots of love. I have chills literally everywhere right now. What did you do? It's literally literal.

I would have passed out And I don't know if I would have come back from it I couldn't watch it first Taylor's like am I gonna invite to the girls weekend He did say you could bring some girlfriends I like no I couldn't even watch it first because like I said I thought that it was just gonna be like a cameo And then I was like in my like wildest dreams

Maybe like we would get to do like a kind of like Make a Wish setup where like I would go in Like it would just be like a very like structure Like I want to get dinner with you you get to know you and your friends. This has been the nicest man on the face of the planet and he's probably gonna kick my butt

when I ask him to call me an idiot sandwich. He's been like just what he has in the works is crazy. But to know that like he sees me as like not just like a make a wish person. Like he sees me as like somebody he wants around like, like around his people.

That's so cool and like so kind. And I can't wait to find out what he smells like. Oh my gosh. I know he smells good. I literally say it. I know he smells good. Oh yeah. He probably smells amazing.

It's just like like aged oak and like, like, oh. Yeah. I'm so excited for you. I'm so excited. I can't wait. It's going to be so fun. All right. We have a segment that we call Lemon 7,

which is just seven random questions. You can rapid fire them, or if you feel like it needs an explanation, it's really just up to you. I'm going to kick it off with number one. What movie or song title best describes your mental health today? Scream. Okay.

That's good. Okay. That's good. Fair enough. Number two is, how open are you with the people in your life when you're struggling? Oh, 10. I, yeah, like, I'll, 10. Zero filter?

Yeah, no. I'll tell people, like, I battled with mental health for a long time before being diagnosed. And so then getting diagnosed, I was like, I knew that no matter how. like raw and loud and annoying I was with like the ones who I loved I lost a lot of people through this a lot of people who like this is too much for them or like X, Y Z. But I, I, the ones who have stayed, yeah, when I'm having a bad day, 10. Like I'll send the. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. That's great. Okay. Number three. If you could only follow three social media accounts. whatever platforms, but only three accounts, what would they be? Okay.

Let me get the names. She's like, Gordon, Gordon and Gordon. Girl, the way I was not to say, Taylor, on her Taylor long as case. Just making sure I was getting your handles right, literally. Three platforms that I could follow. Ooh, you know what, let me give, yeah, hang on. Gotcha. I want to get their handles right too.

Okay. We can link them down below if they're not, if you don't say them right too. Some of them, like, don't even know who I am. And that's fine. Let me give you three TikTok ones because it's just like what's popping up. Perfect. One, Tess Madeline. She's pregnant right now.

She's, like, doing all this like mommy homemaking stuff. Such a cool girl. Kitchen girlie. She's like the human embodiment of IKEA. Like just like a really, that's a fun account. Calming. A cool person. Okay.

So she's at Tess Madeline on TikTok. if there was somebody that if I could get every girl in the world, oh my gosh, to follow this account. Georgie Jones, she's from the UK and she posts poetry. And it's so like the most beautiful spoken poetry that I've like ever heard. And it's so just like about the like female experience. And then last account would probably Hot ones.

Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. You love the hot ones? That's a good account. That's such a good account. So, yeah. Who was on it recently? Sydney Sweeney.

Oh, Sydney did it. That's how we like pre-gamed the squeeze was by drinking champagne and modging this like Hotlands episode. That's so good. Yeah. Yeah, I would say those three. Those are three good accounts.

That's some good ones. We'll have to check out of Jordy Jones. Yeah. She's, you'll, you'll like her a lot. You will do, but you'll definitely like her a lot. Number four, what is your favorite form of self-care? Ooh, my favorite form of self-care is, oh, shadow work. I, like, checking in on your, like, kind of inner demons, that's so scary sounding.

Even before I was diagnosed, I was such a big advocate for. for like everybody should be in therapy. I think everybody has trauma of some extent. And that was something with my diagnosis that was so important to me and that I wanted to hold on to was the fact that everything that like you were experiencing

and you're experiencing and you're experiencing is still so, so, so valid. It is so important to realize that just because like my, the thing that I'm dealing with is like different. And just like once you address the elephant in the room, like I win the tummy ache contest here. Like once you can move past that and realize that like I am still rooting for you, like for the person I am having a conversation with and I still want to hear about your bad days. I still want to know what's going on with your life.

And it's not mundane. And it's not. I never want anybody to feel like they can't be themselves around me just because they perceive what I'm going through as worse when like I said, I'm just still trying to figure out like womanhood and being in my 20s and having, you know, as silly as it sounds like the fake friends stuff

and going through relationship struggles and just like fighting with my mom because, like, that's just what you do. Yeah. Those are all still such valid pieces of me. Yeah. And, like, since those exist in everyone, like, it's equally as valid. So I think my favorite form of self-care is validating however I am feeling and checking in on why I'm feeling that way.

Wow. That was powerful. Yeah. Oh, sorry. No, that was, that was so good. I hope that means that. No, and it gives so much perspective to, I feel like, this age that we're in of mental health and, you know, people having trauma and like, you know, just because one person's, you know, thing they're going through looks like this and this other persons maybe look less than that, it could still affect them. Yeah.

You know, the same way. We got to stop comparing. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And I think working with kids gave me a lot of that perspective because with kids, the reason why a lot of people think kids are, you know, annoying and stuff, they're crying. Everything's a tantrum and stuff. They're experiencing all of these things for the first time. Whenever they spill their juice box, that's one of the first pieces of disappointment that, like, they're ever knowing. So, like, understanding, like, the child is valid in having a meltdown because they've never spilled a cup, they've never broken loss before. They didn't know that's what it was. going to happen and that's scary. Seeing that and knowing like it's just because you don't know that there are other things

and like that the way that other things can affect you, I mean, it's so easy to just slap the word privileged on people and say, well, you know, because you're so privileged, you don't, you don't, you don't know how others are hurting. It's your scope of, your scope of understanding the world is, while yes you have the duty to educate yourself, you don't have the control over like that scope. You're born into what you're born into. And so whenever you break a nail,

if that's genuinely causing you anxiety and pain, like it is. It's valid. Yeah, yeah. That's amazing perspective. Thank you for that. Yeah. Okay, it's me.

Number five. What would you say is the most misunderstood thing about you? I think it's very easy to underestimate me as a person. I present myself very feminine. And I don't outwardly root for myself very loudly. And so I think it's easy for others to look at me and not really, Maybe I'm just projecting an insecurity right now, but I think sometimes other people look at me and they don't see anything other than my cancer. And then it, like this was whenever I was teaching special, I'd like see the able, not the label.

But I think as cancer patients in general, the number of the number of cancer patients that they are and or that there are and the, the, number of things that we're all still doing. And the number of people that like we're not going to get to hear their stories that aren't going to get to be on the squeeze that aren't going to get to have the platform, whether it's because like they're shy or whatever else, we need more people sharing those kinds of stories and these life paths. And so I think to see somebody who like like looks like me and to like, underestimate me. That's probably the most misunderstood.

Yeah. Number six. Is who has that the most positive impact on your mental health? Oh, man. The most positive impact on my mental health? Oh, my partner has been really good to me through all of this. And he takes the, what's that expression, the brunt of it? Yeah, he's a brunt that doesn't feel like a word. I know. Like who uses brunt outside of that one expression?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. For real. He takes the brunt of it. He takes the brunt of a lot of it. And he's never seen me as less. Like he's only seen me more beautiful and is more like confident in I'm who he wants to be with. And seeing somebody else see me like that, like that's been so special. and my dog because like he just doesn't know what's going on he just says he's

mom so I'm a weenie mama oh my gosh his name is Jar Jar Jar Binks no love that guy oh my gosh and my therapist

shout out shout out shout out shout out Dr. Malina Scali because I like she lets me text her that's why

like we do we do this kind of therapy where like if I'm like struggling in the moment with a situation she has a line set up where it's not her phone

but like I just text I'm like, how do I handle this? I'm like, we work through options. So shout out her too. Let me, like, not act like I'm doing it on my own. I have a really good psychologist. So she's impacted the mental health a bit.

Major shout out. That's awesome. Okay. Number seven. If you could go back to one moment in your life, what moment would that be? And what would you say to yourself? I, I'm definitely going to cry. Anytime I think I was actually just having this conversation, my best friends in the room

with us too. And she and I were having this conversation of yesterday about how I do this thing randomly where I, and this could be a load of crap. It could not be real at all. And that's fine. I can just be living in like la la land. But I do this thing where whenever I, when I think about it, whenever it pops into my head, I try to send my past self love and grace and like a hug. I'll like try to, I'm not the best of meditating. I don't really know much about it. I don't even know if I'm doing it right, but I really try to, like, channel my inner child a lot and to just let her know that, like, we, we've made it to here. Like, you're going to be okay. And even now, as I'm going through things, anytime I feel, like, just like a random wave of, like, peace or, like,

clarity or comfortability, I'm like, dang, like, future me is definitely sending me something right now. That sounds insane maybe. But like, so I think if I could go back to like anyone, I would probably go back to middle school, to this girl who, you know, all my friends were still thin. I was like on the heavier side. Acne. Just like in like Bo Burnham's eighth grade, like in the thick of it and I would tell her that like she is so beautiful and she is so strong and she is so funny and she's going to become the older sister that she wanted so badly to have and I think I wouldn't spoil anything about my path either I I feel like the answer to this would maybe be to go back and tell the girl at Bonneroo, hey, go get a, go get a scan, right? But Bethany Hamilton,

whenever she, whenever she lost her arm in the shark attack, one of the things that she was quoteed saying was she was so grateful for that shark attack because she was able to embrace way more people than she ever could have with two arms. And so to know that I did not choose cancer. I didn't choose to be part of medical discourse. I didn't choose. I didn't choose to be part of medical discourse. I didn't choose to enter this world or to take a space in the disabled community. But to know that, like, I am and I'm holding my own, I think I would just like tell myself, like, you're going to get there. Like, you are going to get to the place where you know that you're beautiful. You know that you're cool. You made two really successful podcast hosts laugh.

they think you're funny. Like, you're a cool girl. And that's, like, why my bio on TikTok is stage for a cool girl? Because, like, I just, yeah, give her a hug. Like, how amazing with that beat? Like, give, like, young Taylor a hug. Whenever she was, like, in the trenches of whatever. Yeah.

I hope you know, like, when I'm, like, taken up and I'm putting down. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I don't want to speak for you here, but I think you're going to agree with that. I think this has been truly just, like, the most. special and life-giving and perspective placing and just most amazing, like, episode. We've had.

I don't know. I'm just looking at you. Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah, when we started this podcast and, I mean, we've said this before, but I've never meant it more than I do right now. When we started this podcast, we never dreamed of having. people like you on that make the impact that you do on this planet and to so many different

people. Like this is a dream come true for us to be able to do this and have you sitting across from us. I mean, I just in the last hour and a half that we've spent together, I've learned so much from you and so many things I want to implement into my life. And I know that you do that for many more people than just me. So thank you. That's so kind. That's so nice.

Thank you so much. I like, I don't know. Life's wild. Life's crazy. Like the fact that we're just like all in this room together and now, like we all like made all these like different choices. Now we're in the room together. It's just like such a crazy thing.

And like, yeah. If I could like say one more thing too, I remember the other day, I was so overwhelmed. I was texting my friend, my friend Mike, who just like, he's just like one of those people that seems to have life like figured out. Like he just is always chilling. He's always like so happy. And I was like Mike, how are you just like not overwhelmed with stuff? He was like, dude, like life's supposed to be fun. Lean into it.

And whenever like I started seeing that and like just trying to like lean into everything and leaning into like seeing how people interact and stuff like just being able to witness like the amount of love that like you two have for each other, like watching the two of you and like your physical touch and stuff, And like bearing witness to such beautiful things. And to like being able to like, like, in like my peripheral see like this crew that's like helping you and like have like you've made your life choices to like be here too. Like I think just like noticing all of these different things allows you to to be in these positions where like you do feel good a lot more at the time. And like I think continuing to humanize and to lean into people. That's like what your podcast is doing. Like you're humanizing so many people that that don't, that don't get that a lot. I mean, like, I, like, I had in prep for this, I was listening to, um, the episode that you just did with your sister. And like the, just never even really considering that aspect of life, like what it would be like kind of growing up in the shadow of somebody, maybe. And to the fact that you're giving this, like, light in this platform to people who. who otherwise might not have it.

Like, that's, like, you guys are so full of, like, love and kindness. That's such a cool thing. Like, thank you guys. Like, you're really, really, really cool people. That means more than you know. Yeah. Yeah. We are just honored to be the microphone for you to share your story and to share your wisdom.

So, thanks for joining us on the squeeze. Wow. That's fun. Thank you so much for squeezing us into your day. please be sure to rate, review, and follow our pod and check out full episodes on YouTube. You can follow me at Taylor Lautner, my lovely wife, at Taye Lautner. Check out The Squeeze on Instagram at The Squeeze. And also give a little glance and a follow to Lemons by Tay.

That's at Lemonsbytee on Instagram and lemonsbytea.com. And also be sure to email us, Lautner. the squeeze podcast at gmail.com if you guys have any questions, any guests you'd like to see you. But most importantly, please continue to talk about your journey with those around you and send our show to a friend that you think could use a little extra squeeze in their life. Absolutely. Tudels McGoodles, everyone. This podcast has been brought to you by Podcast Nation.