Dorothy: [00:00:00] If you’ve ever been to another country and know what happens when all of a sudden you realize everyone is speaking another language and no one is speaking English, then you know how many of our Spanish speaking patients feel. That is one of the reasons why we are launching in October a whole new podcast that is totally done in Spanish.
We will be covering all the subjects that we normally do on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts and more. We’re doing this because we know how important it is to understand all the nuances of breast cancer and why we need to continue to be conscious of our health and that goes for any woman. So stay tuned. I know you’re going to love this episode and you’re going to learn more. Especially if you speak Spanish.
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Let’s Talk About Your Breast, a different kind of podcast presented to you by The Rose Breast Center of Excellence, and a Texas treasure. You’re going to hear frank discussions about tough topics, and you’re going to learn why knowing about your breast could save your life.
Elda: Hi, I’m Elda Gavidia, the communications manager here at The Rose, and I’m sitting here with our CEO, Dorothy Gibbons. And uh, we have a new offering uh, that is coming to Let’s Talk About Your Breast Podcast with The Rose. And that is that we are introducing the Spanish version of this podcast. We are going to be titling it “Hablemos de Nuestros Senos”.
And that is, this is a new offering that we will be giving and we will be interviewing a lot of Spanish speaking guests. And we are [00:02:00] so excited about diving into this new opportunity, knowing that it will reach so many women and men with a new language. And so thank you so much for this opportunity. It really was, it really did all come from you, Dorothy. And so thank you so much for this opportunity.
Dorothy: We can’t do these kinds of things without your expertise. And. You know, one of the things I think is so wonderful about your team is that every single person speaks Spanish.
Elda: Yes.
Dorothy: And so I’m anxious to get some of the others on and just to talk about how, how important it is that we be able to speak in a language someone understands.
I mean, it would be, I’ve spent many years overseas and I know how it feels. When you’re in a country and all of a sudden no one speaks English, you know, it’s, it’s something sometimes I think we forget.
Elda: We forget. And yeah, we have our, uh, project coordinator, her name is Roxann, and we have our marketing assistant, Karina [00:03:00] Tsai Yun, and they are phenomenal parts of our marketing team and they all speak Spanish in their own way. Some of them a little bit less than others, but entering into this new facet, I’ve noticed how they’ve all put together their part and we’re able to do what, what we’ve been, what we’ve been wanting to bring to life, which is the Spanish podcast.
Dorothy: So, Elda, I know that in all the years that you’ve been here, you’ve seen our population and you’ve many, many times interviewed, uh, some of our Spanish speaking patients. The Rose has a long history with our community. And when I say that, it was like back in 1999 when we started the Hispanic Outreach Program.
Elda: Right. I’ve heard of that.
Dorothy: And I remember that so many people said, huh, what, why are you doing that? We were already seeing a large population of, uh, you know, women whose Spanish was their first language, and we needed something that said, we’re here for you. We understand there’s [00:04:00] a difference in, in what you know about breast cancer and in the myths you’ve heard maybe.
And believe me, every community has their own myth. And the, the other thing I remember thinking was, how, not unfortunate, but what a disadvantage because people would always say to me, well, just put out another brochure, and then I’d have someone who speaks Spanish say to me, that’s not what you meant to say, because it was just being—
Elda: Not necessarily—
Dorothy: Yes.
Elda: Mm-Hmm.
Dorothy: Transcribed into another language. So I am so excited about this. Now, you’re going to have to say it for me again, and I’m probably going to have to practice with it. Say the name of it again.
Elda: Hablemos de Nuestros Senos. And literally says, let’s talk about our breasts. That’s how we’re going to be saying it in Spanish. And I think that it’s really important what you mention about our history, because this isn’t something that we’re just stumbling into and saying, you know what, let’s offer some [00:05:00] resources in Spanish. This, this goes along the trajectory of our proven trajectory with the Rose that we started off with these groups, support groups, and then a large part of our population that comes through these doors are Spanish speaking.
You know, you mentioned 70 percent of our diagnosed patients are Hispanic. And so that just continues to add to the number. And so I really felt like the more we looked into doing this Spanish portion of the podcast, it was very natural. It was just the next step as it is what we should be doing.
Dorothy: And what type of guests are we going to have? And you will be the moderator if, and I’m sure some of your other teammates will want to join in there, but you will. And thank you for doing that. That’s like one more hat you’re wearing these days.
Elda: Well. And I’ve actually enjoyed, so we are on our season two, right, of this podcast. We started it last year and standing behind the cameras has been a joy of mine. [00:06:00] I love being behind the scenes. And for about a year and a bit more, I have watched you moderate with different guests without knowing that I was learning how to do what I’m going to eventually do. And so I was able to see a lot of what you did and see the guests that you brought in. And now it’s exciting.
I get to sit down and really the guests that we’re trying to bring in first and foremost are going to be breast cancer survivors. We want to be able to have them tell their story. We want them to be able to speak to, uh, how it was that they found their breast cancer and what it was that they did. And then definitely try and help them advocate, um, for others.
But with that same, in that same vein, we want to bring other advocates, right? If there’s someone in our communities, in our Hispanic community that is standing up and that is speaking out and that is trying to bring awareness to breast cancer, we want to bring them on the show. We want to be able to have them speak about what they’re doing and how the community can become involved. We also want to bring, now I don’t know if I’m going to pull this off Dorothy, but we would love to have Dr. Dixie [00:07:00] Melillo on because some people don’t know that she is fluent in Spanish. And, um, I think it would be great to have also medical professionals that come on and speak to our community about the advantages that we have here at The Rose, how we are a center of excellence.
And although we see the uninsured, we see the insured as well in the same care, the insured get the uninsured get. And so more than anything, guests that will educate our population.
Dorothy: Right. And I have, I think there’ll be no problem in getting our medical community to come and talk. I do want to make a distinction. You don’t have to be in, diagnosed at The Rose.
Elda: No.
Dorothy: To tell your story because we know every woman’s story is important. And every woman’s story is different. You know, I, I’ve had so many of our patients say, Oh, I’m, I just had the regular breast cancer. There’s no regular breast cancer. You know, it’s like, It happened to you. Tell us what went through your mind, which would be very different than the next person. So I think, I think that’s important. We want everyone’s story.
Elda: Everyone’s story. And for instance, [00:08:00] we’re already preparing, so we’ve already interviewed a few guests. I’m not going to give away any surprises, but we just recently had a breast cancer survivor that came in and when she shared her story, she said, Elda, I spoke for the first time on your podcast, on this podcast, things that I had never said outside of here, but I felt like it was time to open up and speak and it was almost healing for me. And so, you know, I, I want to say that this place, what, what are we calling it now? This podcast, uh, studio. We’re calling it The Living Room.
Dorothy: Oh, the living Room. Yes.
Elda: Right. It’s the room where we speak about our lives and how we’ve triumphed. And it’s beautiful to be able to get the story regardless of whether they were diagnosed with The Rose to be able to speak about their journey and how they’re alive. Like when we took pictures together after the podcast, she raised one of her arms and in in victory and she mentioned that she was going to give me pictures that she had never before shown to anyone because she felt like it was time. And so giving women a voice. [00:09:00] So we’ve been giving them the opportunity to, to live and now we’re giving them a voice in this living room.
Dorothy: And it is so important that, that everyone’s voice be heard.
Elda: Correct.
Dorothy: It’s been one of our blessings, one of our privileges to be able to be in such a diverse community. I think, uh, As we move forward, we hope to have other communities represented, but we know this one is going to be incredibly important.
Elda: We had to start here.
Dorothy: We have to start here.
Elda: And you know how our minds work, especially mine. We’re already thinking of what the next step would be in terms of what would the next language be, but we want to do this one and we want to do it right, but definitely opens the doors to see where this is going.
Dorothy: And you’re also hoping that besides just being the voice, this is going to be a podcast that’s encouraging, that answers questions, is educational and informative as it is sharing someone’s story. And I think that’s the other part of this. We, [00:10:00] we realize that a lot of people have different ways of healing. And not one way is going to always be the right way.
Elda: Correct.
Dorothy: Our work for her. So I hope that your guest will be open to saying what else they did. Have you noticed that our common theme in almost all of our survivors has been their great faith?
Elda: Yes.
Dorothy: And there’s—
Elda: Time after time.
Dorothy: Time after time, and how they really had to depend on that. They had to fall back on it. They had to use that to get through each of their days and how much stronger they are.
Elda: And, and what I love about this, Dorothy, and they’ll ask, can I speak about it? Yes, you can. That’s one of our core values to speak on your faith, um, um, to stand on that. One of the beautiful things is, um, so recently a sister of mine went through a scare and what do we do? We shouldnt but what do we do? We get on google. Dr. Google. We start looking. We come across some stories. Some are good. Some are bad. And uh, And what she ended up finding was a lot of [00:11:00] scary information out there. And what I think that we provide with The Rose, and now we’re going to be providing it in Spanish, is resources and stories and tips, caregiver tips, stories that come straight from a breast cancer survivor, medical professionals, that if you do go through a scare, you can look through our playlist. You can filter it down to Spanish, or English, or caregiver, or breast cancer survivor, or dense breast. You know, we’ll have different topics, and we hope to build that library as well in Spanish. But if you go through a scare, or if you’ve recently been diagnosed, you will have a library of resources to sit down and just listen to that will give you correct information straight from the source.
Dorothy: And you know, I remember one of our survivors said the most important thing she did was to make sure her doctor knew what her lifestyle was like. I’d never heard that before. And I know you’re going to be hearing it with your guests. But you know, if you have a busy life, if you have children, if you’re working, if you’re [00:12:00] working two jobs, that doctor needs to appreciate that you’re going to have time restraints. You know, take back, take back your own time here. And I thought how brave of her. And what a, what a inspiration.
Elda: Advocacy for themselves, right?
Dorothy: Yes. So that’s just one of the ways that, that we hope to educate.
Elda: And we’re learning from them, right? I mean, I’ve seen so many moments where we’re sitting there saying, well, that’s a new question I’m going to start asking. I never thought I would have heard that.
Dorothy: And there’s nothing wrong in saying, I don’t know, because people don’t know, especially in the medical field. You know, I may hear a lot about breasts. I may know a lot about breasts. When it comes to heart disease, other diseases, absolutely, I don’t know. So, there’s nothing wrong in asking those questions, and we’d also like to hear what our listeners want to know more about.
Elda: Yes, and so I’m glad you bring that up. You know, we do have on our page, [00:13:00] therose.org/podcast, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, there is a form that people can fill out if they either want to share their story or if they want to ask questions. And so if you say, Hey, this is exciting. I want to know as a Hispanic woman or as a Spanish speaking woman or man, um, you know, what, what is it, you know, what are the questions that are brimming and they’re, they’re needing to ask. And so we’d love to bring that on and have like a Q and A with, with you. Um, or I could try to find ways of moderating that in Spanish and translating in that.
Dorothy: So one of the things you mentioned earlier was about our support group. Before COVID, we had six different support groups. Some were small, some were very robust, and it covered a range of age, you know, uh, race, the whole bit. Only the Spanish speaking support group survived. All the others went virtual. And, and I think that is speaking to the need for that connection with another person.
Elda: [00:14:00] So when you say it survived, like they still meet in person because I saw it on the calendar the other day and that’s very important for us.
Dorothy: And they cover a range of topics.
Elda: And I’m not saying that it’s not important for other cultures, but just speaking from my own experience as a Hispanic woman, um, I have seen what happens around a dinner table, right? And, and what happens when you come as a community and how we thrive in community. And so just seeing that we survive through COVID and through the years and, you know, seeing that they still meet here, um, and that group is available if I’m not mistaken to anyone. So, and I have a feeling it might start growing after we start talking about it.
Dorothy: Yeah, I do too. And, um, many times family members come just to listen, just to listen.
Elda: So I just want to say, I do want to take this moment and just say, thank you for giving us an opportunity to share in Spanish, because regardless of the fact that we have the resources and the people that speak Spanish and the space to do it, it still had to come from you and the fact that you [00:15:00] place value in that, I just want to say thank you. Um, I’m excited to see, um, resources and education be offered to our Spanish speaking community from The Rose. Right. There’s a lot of— not that there aren’t resources out there, but the fact that we get to curate and tell our own stories and give voice to the Spanish speaking community; The fact that we get that from this organization,
it’s just so exciting.
Dorothy: Thank you for that. Now I want to know what has touched your heart the most about our podcast?
Elda: That’s a good question. I think it goes back to I keep seeing women come in a little nervous and a little scared and most of the time they leave empowered. I see them almost get up from the chair like an I did it moment and they feel they were finally able to piece together their story and put it on video.
Some of them mentioned how they’ve never done that before. And when I tell you [00:16:00] seeing the women walk out of here, uh, we give them little gifts and say thank you to them. And I could tell that gift is nice to them, but I think that the bigger gift that they were given was the chance to get, uh, they, they got a moment, they got, they got a stage, right? They got a microphone where they got to share their story and they feel empowered. I mean, that’s the biggest gift I could ever get.
Dorothy: Yeah. Yeah. They were heard.
Elda: They were heard.
Dorothy: And they were seen.
Elda: Yes.
Dorothy: And we need a whole bunch more.
Elda: Yes.
Dorothy: Just in general.
Elda: And the fact that we’re getting to do it for a minority group, which is not very minor.
Dorothy: It’s not.
Elda: Not here in Houston.
Dorothy: No.
Elda: Especially not in Texas, and especially not at The Rose. They are a strong, um, strong group of people that we see. A lot of our staff speak Spanish, a majority, I almost want to say. And so I really feel like this is, um, this is just a, almost like a rite of passage for all the people that are coming through here and for this podcast. Just, it’s, it’s a very big milestone. [00:17:00]
Dorothy: So we’re anticipating once a week, twice a week?
Elda: So right now we are starting with once a week, right? We are hoping that this is a once a week, but we, I really believe that there is a huge treasure trove of patients and resources waiting to share their story. And so we may just be going to twice a week depending and our podcast may turn into a four times a week you know because right now we’re doing twice a week, right? Maybe not this season, but that would definitely be something i’d love to see starting next next season, so.
Dorothy: So thank you Elda for being our moderator for this for shaping it and helping this dream come true. You know, we have to dream big.
Elda: Yeah. And if I could be just a small pebble in the huge mountain that is The Rose, like I’ve always, again, worked in the background behind the scenes. The fact that I get to put my little pebble in the rose in the mountain that is The Rose is just, it’s an honor. And I’m glad. that I got a chance to do it and for [00:18:00] my people.
Dorothy: All right, well, we’ll be seeing you on—
Elda: Los veremos en el podcast de Hablemos de Nuestros Senos. Si usted quiere compartir su historia, por favor, déjenos saber. Búscanos en nuestra página de red, therose.org/podcast, y dejenos saber que quiere ser parte de nuestra historia.
Post-Credits: Thank you for joining us today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. This podcast is produced by Speke Podcasting and brought to you by The Rose. Visit therose.org to learn more about our organization. Subscribe to our podcast. Share episodes with friends, and join the conversation on social media using #Let’sTalkAboutYourBreasts. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Consider supporting The Rose. Your gift can make the difference to a person’s life. And remember, self care is not selfish, it’s essential.
