 Thank you for joining me on Think Takawaii. I am Shayna Park, your host for Money Talks. Every October for the last 90 years, breast cancer awareness man called Pink October has been celebrated as people all over the world wear pink and also display a pink ribbon to raise awareness about the importance of prevention and routine screening for early diagnosis of rents to cancer. Globally, this is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer. Today, my guest is Helen Chen, a breast cancer survivor. She is here today to share her journey with you. Hi, Helen. Welcome to the show. Hi, Shayna. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being on. Please tell us a little more about yourself. Let's see. I was diagnosed with breast cancer almost like 13 years ago. And currently, I live in San Francisco. I have lots of roots in Hawaii. For my job, I live and I'm a teacher. So I teach puberty and sex ed to kids. And I also teach about breast and ovarian cancer health to college kids, to moms, basically anyone who will listen. And I would say that education is primarily my passion. So I'm grateful to be able to, especially this month, to be able to talk to you about something I'm really passionate about. And I'm grateful for you to be on the show and educate me and myself and the viewers because, personally, I don't know much about preventing breast cancer and all the steps to take. So I'm very grateful that you're here to share your story and what we can do to routine visits. So what are your ties to Hawaii? I know you said that you have a lot of ties here. And I know you're here for long periods of time. So what are your ties? Yeah. Well, I think in college, I met one of my dear friends and she is from Hawaii. And so I've been coming to Hawaii ever since I was 20. And then since then, I've met partners. I've met like dear, dear friends. And since then, it's become kind of like my family or my home away from home. So every chance I get, I come out to Hawaii and I stay with my friends for months on end. Luckily during COVID, I was able to actually live in Hawaii for quite some time and teach and just live the Aloha dream. And I loved every minute of it. And I'm always like, when can I go back? So it feels just like the islands have welcomed me and I'm very grateful for that. Yes. And do you plan on returning anytime soon? I always have tickets to Hawaii on my Google flights watch. So I'm not sure. Maybe in March. Okay. I'm so excited to see you again. I hope you come sooner than that. But going back to this month and the importance of October, can you tell us when you were diagnosed with breast cancer and what stage were you? Yeah. I was living in Beijing at the time I was diagnosed. I was working for an international nonprofit and I felt a lump and I don't have any cancer in my family. And this lump, I thought was nothing and I was just going to do nothing about it. But my mom actually made me go and get it checked out. And just on a 10 day visit back to California, I discovered that it actually, this lump that had felt different than the other lumps in my breast was actually breast cancer. And since then I had to kind of change my whole life. I was diagnosed at stage one. I did a lot. I was 27 and so they thought it was serious because oftentimes breast cancer is more aggressive in young women. And so they got me in pretty quickly. I was able to do an ultrasound and a mammogram followed up with the MRI and a biopsy. And after all of that testing, that generally takes months to kind of unpeel. It actually was pretty quick because they knew I wanted to go back to China where I had my job, my apartment, and my whole community, family, friends, like partner at the time. And so I was diagnosed kind of within a week. And again, it was stage one. They called it a slow moving cancer. But again, the treatment protocols vary depending on age, family history, kind of pathology. And all of that stuff took kind of months to uncover. Wow. So you were very young when you were diagnosed. And with your whole entire process when you first went to the doctors and first being diagnosed, what were your thoughts? How did you... It was one of those things where you kind of like, because I had a flight out on Wednesday and I went to the doctors on Tuesday. And I thought it was just going to be like, check the box and then go take my flight because I had to go back to work. In China. And it was not that way. And I remember the doctor calling me. And everything at that moment goes quiet. And you just kind of sound like, it was like, Helen, you have breast cancer. And again, everything just kind of quieted. And I just like, I remember I was in a parking lot after lunch with my friend. And I just kind of crumbled to the floor. And I didn't know what to do or where to go. And it, and again, just kind of moving forward took a lot of strength. And I, you know, at that moment, I definitely didn't actually feel like I had any strength. So. Wow. I can't even imagine because you were going home for a seven day vacation, you said? Yeah, 10 day vacation. Yeah, for a wedding. And your whole life changed within those 10 days? Yes. And I was never able to go back to China. I had to go into treatment right away, which comprised of a lumpectomy, which is where they remove the tumor, they spare your breast. And then, and then followed up seven weeks of radiation. And then five years of hormone treatment where I took a pill every day and I had to go into the doctors and get a shot in my stomach every month, which would bruise me. So my whole stomach was bruised. And that basically put me into chemically induced menopause. So I had all the menopausal symptoms of someone that was 58 plus, which included hot flashes, vaginal dryness, kind of mood shifts. I gained like 20 pounds. It was quite a big shift for someone, you know, at the time, just in my 20s. Yeah. Wow. And I know there's some photos that popped up. And I want you to, you know, tell me about those pictures. Because it appears that you're about to have a CT or MRI. And you have a smile on your face. So do you remember what you're thinking at the time? How you're feeling? Yeah. So I have to do MRIs. That's that machine on the left is the one of the machines I have to do every year, actually, as routine screening. MRIs are a lot more sensitive than mammograms. And because I'm at high risk, once you have cancer, it's kind of likely to get it again. And so MRI turns out to be the most sensitive for young, young people over a mammogram and ultrasound. It's quite costly. And so you kind of have to prove to insurance that you need it because I'm high risk. I get that every year. But then I also have a twin sister who then also qualifies to get high risk screening. And so that's actually key why education is so important. Because if you don't know your family history, you don't know what people have, then you just kind of go in the normal protocols. But because my twin sister, you know, we were both 27 when I was diagnosed, well, now she doesn't have to wait 13 years to get a mammogram as routine. Everyone gets a mammogram at 40, but she gets to be screened more closely with annual MRI starting at the age of 27. So those are the little pieces of information that are really, really helpful. And we're just kind of understanding education, understanding advocacy and what you have to do for your own health really helps. But that, yeah, so that machine, you know, is really, really loud. It's kind of can feel really claustrophobic. And they basically like look at, they look at your breasts from different angles. And I, you know, and then the picture to the right is, you know, when you get, when you go through surgery, you basically get all kind of covered up and they only like want to operate on the surgical site. So that's just kind of a surgery picture. But that was during my lumpectomy. And how did you feel? I mean, it's a little scary kind of going into one of those things, right? And every, even after 10 years of getting MRIs, I still hate them, you know? And I always, you know, dress kind of in a way that makes me feel good about myself. And then I also always have a plan afterwards of like going to a fun lunch spot with my friend or something so I can like have a reason to like something to look forward to to celebrate because your body and your mind goes through this like an hour long procedure where it's just like, can feel claustrophobic that it's in your ears and it's really loud. And they just, you know, you have to stay super still. You can't move. And then, you know, your mind can kind of freak out. So you're trying to do everything to kind of like calm your system down. They give you aromatherapy. They try to put on music that you like to hear. But it's also just a practice for me of like, I have to go into kind of a meditative state to kind of endure the process. So it can be challenging, but there's tools and things that you can utilize as well. Wow. It seems very extensive and I can understand why. And I know you mentioned earlier about the types of treatments you did, but could you go further into that and how long were you receiving treatments? Yeah, sure. So right after I was diagnosed, you know, they send your sample, kind of they do a biopsy. They take your tumor sample and they test it. And depending on how the testing goes, they determine whether or not you need chemo. I had four oncologists look at my tissue and then they basically can do some testing to see whether or not your tumor's going to actually respond to chemo or not. And so I had two oncologists say yes to chemo, two oncologists say no, but then finally I did what's called an oncotype test which determines that like the likelihood of chemo actually helping me have a, you know, better chances is actually slam and kind of some of the after effects can be worse. And so my oncologist that I ended up choosing said, you don't need to do chemo. It looks like you're not going to benefit that much and you're going to put your body through a lot, you know, and like you lose hair and different, and you can actually be at risk for different complications. So I chose to do a lumpectomy. They remove your tumor, they spare your breast. And that choice is also one where, you know, some people choose to have, you know, what's called a mastectomy where they just remove the entire breast and or a double mastectomy where they remove both breasts. But because my tumor was small and operable, I was able to kind of spare my breast with no compromise to kind of reoccurrence and risk. So I did a lumpectomy and then you heal from that and then you do seven weeks of radiation. So it's going in for appointments Monday through Friday. And you're sitting under that kind of machine and they're basically radiating your, kind of like this part right here of your breast. And that is kind of, you know, it's kind of just, it basically helps prevent cancer from coming back. And then because the way that tumors work and the way that my tumor, not to get too much in the weeds, but my tumors ERP are positive. And that means that my tumor is actually fed by hormones that my body naturally creates for my ovaries and my uterus. So that's estrogen. So my pill that I have to take every day and the shots in my stomach that I had to do was to suppress the estrogen. And so it's essentially when a woman is going into menopause, their slow, their body slowly has a chance to kind of deeply estrogen. And that's the natural process. But when you have something that feeds off of the estrogen, they want to actually do everything they can to remove all the estrogen in your body. And they do it for a certain amount of time until they think that there's no more benefit. And so that's what they did. And so essentially puts me into chemically induced menopause, meaning it's not natural, but by the medicine I'm taking, I'm depleting my body of estrogen, therefore going into menopause. So I didn't get my periods for five years, which is probably the added benefit of this treatment. But it was a long time, it was five years. Yeah. And it sounds like very extensive treatment. You mentioning the shots as well as the pill daily that you had to take. So I can imagine you had a lot of financial responsibilities. So what were some of your financial responsibilities and what were some of your financial burdens? Well, insurance is a huge thing. My insurance actually denied my coverage because I had international health insurance. And in small print, they basically said, well, because your cancer, your cancer actually must have been growing before you bought the insurance, even though I had this insurance for eight months, they essentially found a way out to not pay for any of my treatment. But I didn't know that at the time. And when I went to the doctor's, I would give my insurance card and I got all the treatment I wanted. But then I got stuck with these bills that were actually way more stressful to think about because I didn't have a job in the U.S. My job was in China. And so when you get a bill for $250,000 from your hospital that says you owe this money for radiation, you're like, well, I guess I need to stop radiation because I can't afford this. And of course my parents were like, no way, you have to kind of continue on. And so I wrote financial applications and essentially I had one hospital, the main one kind of right off my cost because I have zero income and I can prove that in the States. But I had other hospitals actually say, no, you still owe this money. And I actually had to... It doesn't ruin your credit. At least it didn't ruin mine for medical. But I had to actually... I had collection people call me and try to get the thousands of dollars it takes to get diagnosed and MRIs and all that kind of stuff. And eventually it kind of got cleared, but involved kind of getting a lawyer to help me understand like how can my insurance didn't pay for it? Like do I owe this money? Is it going to affect my credit? And I would say it was the financial burden of cancer is so... is extraordinary. And it's really something that people don't talk about or even think about. And we shouldn't have to think about it really if we're just trying to take care of our body. But unfortunately the system in America is such that it's hard not to. Wow. I had no idea that not only did you go through your whole entire experience with breast cancer, but the financial aspect was very, very, very overwhelming. Very overwhelming. And I know you just mentioned too that you were unable to work during the course of your cancer and loss of income of course because your job was in China. You're going from being employed, having a constant paycheck to now having cancer and no income at all. Yep. I wouldn't... I wouldn't... I would be homeless if I didn't have my parents to help me. I didn't have a car. I didn't have any income. I didn't have anything. Wow. And I know when we had a conversation earlier you mentioned that not only is it medical costs but there's a lot of other things that come along with having cancer such as buying wigs or other things that'll make you look and feel good. So could you mention some of those other costs that no one takes into account? Yeah, people have to change, right? Like they, you know, their bodies change and so they have to adapt to it. They might have to buy new clothes. They might have to, you know, buy wigs. They might, you know, their hair is different after chemo. And so, you know, and actually, you know, different treatments can actually cause you to have different, you know, like you can't eat the same things. And so your diet also has to change. You have to learn how to kind of cook differently. You might be, you might not be able to exercise as much as you do or even walk. And so there's just different arrangements that you have to make in order to kind of do a lot of times your daily tasks, showers after surgery, right? Drain, clothes that can actually fit drains and that kind of stuff, bras. Now you have no breasts or maybe your breast is lopsided or you need to find padding or you need to find prosthetics to actually with your body. So there's a lot of these kinds of costs that people don't talk about getting to and from the hospital for treatment. Those, you know, again, if you don't have support and it's hard, it's really hard. And clearly these are all things that health insurance wouldn't cover either. No. That's right, right? Wow. So it's just incredible your entire story and what you're sharing because of your experience and dealing with a terminal illness and conquering it and also dealing with a big financial burden. And I know on one of the slides, it says be brave. You're holding a be brave sign. So can you please share what's going on in that photo? Yeah, so that's at Pride and those are San Francisco Pride and those are my Bay Area Young Survivors sisters, I call them. And we're carrying a be brave sign with our friend Janet who's no longer here with us. And Janet was one of the most brave people that I've ever met. She was a doctor herself. She was diagnosed. And, you know, similar to mine got diagnosed again with reoccurrence. And we were training to actually climb Mount Whitney to celebrate our five-year cancer anniversary. And during the training process, she got sick again and she was never able to kind of climb it with us. But we held and we printed out photos and we actually kind of took her with us on our backpacks with a picture of Janet. And she was, you know, again, she was just one of the most one of the first people I met as a young survivor. And then she, you know, after she passed, we still our community is still just forever touched by her. She would do things like throw. She just looked cancer and death in the face and she would, you know, throw things to celebrate life. Like she knew that she didn't have that much time so she would throw like a half birthday. So she's like, I'm turning 39 and a half. So let's all come together. She threw a big party with DJs and like, you know, rented a warehouse and she just lived to celebrate on each day. And so that's what that story is about or that poster is about. Wow. And that's just a great reminder to you that I feel we take life for granted at times. Just the small things that we don't even realize like the sun rising on time daily. That's something to be grateful for. I mean, can we imagine if the sun didn't rise in the morning? That's, that's something insane. And I love how your friend, you know, has left a huge impact on your life. And even for me, you sharing that story just a constant reminder to lift. Yes. And in the other photo, you know, your smile is contagious. So what was captured in that moment with you and your pink boa feathers? I think it was just like that was my cancer bursary. So that's another reason to celebrate. I was in the hospital for my birthday. And so instead of being able to celebrate my birthday, I've turned all my birthdays now into cancer bursaries because for me, it's a celebration of, yes, one year around the sun again, but another year that I've survived breast cancer. And so that was my friends throwing me a cancer bursary. It was one year past my, you know, being cancer free. And so every year I've celebrated 12 cancer bursaries and I do it to celebrate, again, not all my birthday, but my life because it's like, like you said, it's not guaranteed. And I've lost a lot of friends along the way. So it's a constant reminder to celebrate life. Wow, I love that. I love that whole transition to the birthdays, cancer bursary. That's beautiful. And I know on one of the other photos that we have, you're holding the certificate. So can you share, you know, the certificate that you're holding and who are these three women in these white coats? Oh, those are my radiation therapists. And every day they would see me and they would put me on the table and give me radiation. And by the end of it, you kind of graduate from that treatment and you move on to another one. And so that was the last day of my graduation, basically seven weeks of finishing radiation. And I was able to continue on to go to hormone treatment. How did you feel graduating from your radiation? You know, it kind of feels scary to graduate and you feel like, wait, am I going to be okay? You know, because every day you go in and you have three people looking after you, making sure. And then after you kind of stop, you kind of graduate, which is a great thing. But then you kind of, there can be fear that creeps in. Like, am I going to be okay if I don't see them every day? Because they're used to check, they check up on me. Yeah. That's great. And what is First Descent fundraiser? First Descent is an organization that I got involved in that takes young cancer survivors on adventures to get them in their body. As you can imagine, people kind of feel betrayed by their body. I felt like my boobs are killing me, you know, kind of like that. And so they overcome that or they help us get more into our body by having our body do things that we didn't think that we could do. So taking people on three either you can choose whitewater kayaking, surfing or rock climbing. And those are pretty extreme sports and they help us celebrate kind of the fact that we can go down that rapid or we can climb that wall or we can catch a wave. And then we, you know, essentially they provide a week long free experience and help us kind of emotionally feel more comfortable back in our body, emotionally feel more brave in our body. If we can go down that rapid, maybe we can face the doctors again and that kind of thing. So First Descent is an organization that's dear to me because I was transformed after a week of whitewater kayaking and now I love whitewater kayaking. And how often are these events with First Descent? So they do a fundraiser every year and then because it's national they have small little fundraisers locally. And so I actually had the privilege of hosting your mom and it was a fundraiser a few years ago. And we raise money to hopefully bring this week to other cancer young cancer survivors. Wow, that's so awesome. So you're heavily involved in that organization. Yes, that's great. And what are some of your feelings about your recovery and being a survivor? You know, I was going to mention another organization I'm really involved in which is the Rivkin Center. And with that, you know, I get to I teach Rivkin Center breast cancer and ovarian cancer educational parties at workplaces, at college sororities, tabling, all sorts of different places just to get the word out. And we do it for free and we educate. And that's kind of how I use my survivorship to actually empower people to understand that if you know your body, then you know when something's different. Because I actually felt that lump, I diagnosed myself essentially. And if I can give the education and knowledge and tools to someone else to understand, okay, where is breast tissue start? How do I know my body? What does cancer feel like? What are the symptoms of ovarian cancer or the symptoms of breast cancer? Then I can, you know, use those tools to actually to educate basically and and maybe get an early detection because because I actually felt my cancer myself and didn't wait for the medical system to diagnose me, it would have been too late. I would have had to wait 13 years to get a mammogram if I didn't actually feel it myself, right? And by that time, I might have gotten stage four and I might not have been here today. And so I think education and using my survivorship to educate people, again, is how I've kind of utilized or embodied being a breast cancer survivor. Wow. And I agree with you because it's not like this is a topic that's talked about often, right? I really don't feel like it is. And with the education that you provide and with your story, you can save many lives. So with everything you know now, you know, if you could go back in time before your diagnosis, is there anything you would do differently, physically, spiritually, and or financially? Oh gosh, physically, I don't think I could have done anything physically or emotionally different. I think you deal with things as they come up. Financially, I guess I would get insurance that and read the fine print, although it also feels like something that's pretty hard to do. I would tell people generally to kind of be honest with yourself and kind of and actually do things that you want to do. There are things that I think personally that would have done differently if I knew that I was going to have a cancer diagnosis where I might not live forever. And so kind of being brave in our life and being diagnosed with something kind of scary makes you live. And that's what I would actually tell people. It's like you don't actually have a diagnosis to live each day boldly and bravely, being honest with who you are. I would just say go for it and do that. Love your life to the fullest. Yeah, exactly. I love that. And I love you. And I'm very grateful for you sharing your story and having this conversation with me being similar to the age that you were diagnosed. I feel like this is a very important topic. Personally, I haven't gotten checked. I don't check myself regularly. And this is just for awareness. And not only that, but bring awareness about living life to the fullest. That's what I got from this whole entire conversation we had today. Yes, that's right, Sheena. For this opportunity to talk and to share with you some of my story. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. And do you have any advice for our viewers today for all viewers, not just women, knowing men can get breast cancer too? I would say be an advocate for yourself. If something doesn't feel right, you are your best intuition. So your wisdom is in being, again, your intuition is going to get you to the doctor. So if something doesn't feel right, go and get it checked out and be an advocate for yourself. All right. Thank you so much, Helen, for being on the show. You're so welcome. And thank you everyone for watching. Hope to see you at the next episode of Money Talks. I'm Sheena Park, a Gen Z inspiring lives of liberties. Thank you.