Dorothy: [00:00:00] When Kendall Sandlin’s mother Michelle was diagnosed with cancer and discovered that she had the BRCA1 gene mutation, Kendall opted to have genetic testing of her own. The results showed that she too had the mutation. Her family history plus the confirmed mutation met Kendall’s chances of developing breast cancer.
And other types of cancers, like ovarian cancer, were significantly higher than the average woman. She had seen what it took for her mother to survive. And as the mother of her own three boys, she knew she had to do everything possible to stay well for them. Kendall made the difficult and life changing decision to have a double mastectomy, and then a few months later, she also had a full hysterectomy.
But her decision wasn’t enough. There are lots of steps in between her making that decision and actually undergoing both surgeries, steps most people never know about. Listen to what she had to do to have these surgeries, and how she believes there is simply not [00:01:00] enough information about the body and how it changes once they happen. A cancer diagnosis seems less likely for her now, but it wasn’t easy. She has a message for any young woman facing this decision, and how she is convinced it was the right decision for her and her family.
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Let’s Talk About Your Breasts, 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.
So, Michelle, thank you so much for bringing [00:02:00] daughter Kendall and today to talk to us about you’re breast cancer experience and what you had to decide. Thank you so much for being with us.
Kendall: Yes. Thank you.
Dorothy: So have y’all done a joint podcast before?
Michelle: This is our first.
Dorothy: Oh, good. Because we’re still learning about this too. But I know now you’ve had your, your breast cancer diagnosis was in 21?
Michelle: Right. June of 21.
Dorothy: And now you are three years out.
Michelle: I’ll be three years out.
Dorothy: Yes.
Michelle: Oh, yeah.
Dorothy: Yes. You had a very difficult diagnosis. Yes.
Michelle: Yeah.
Dorothy: So share with us just a little bit about that.
Michelle: It was an aggressive tumor. I was diagnosed at stage 2B. Um, it was invasive ductal carcinoma. And, uh, the type of cancer that it is, is triple negative. Um, meaning that there is a high likelihood of a genetic mutation of the BRCA1 gene.. Which, Was the case. [00:03:00]
Dorothy: Could lead to so many other things.
Michelle: Could lead to so many things. It means that, I mean, your, your chances of developing breast cancer are anywhere from like 55 to 70 odd percent. So it’s considerably higher than, you know, the average woman. And of course, as a woman, you’re already one in eight. In, as, as, as your chance of getting breast cancer.
Dorothy: And so after you had that testing, then Kendall, you had—
Michelle: Yes.
Dorothy: —testing also. So I understand that you are your mother’s, uh, number one fan. You’re her support. You’re her assistant.
Kendall: Yes.
Dorothy: Her, helps you, helps her with all of the things that she’s doing. But you’re also the mother of three boys?
Kendall: Yes. I have three sons. Yes.
Dorothy: So, you know, that’s a lot to handle.
Kendall: Yes.
Dorothy: What was going on in your mind when you learned your mother had breast cancer?
Kendall: Well, I think it’s very natural to think, you know, nothing like that will ever happen to your family. So immediately it just hit me [00:04:00] and she had told me that they found something but wasn’t sure. I think initially if it was cancer or not but as soon as she told me that yes, it was I mean, I I was very upset. I was crying. I mean, it’s It just hit me hard because like she had mentioned my grandmother had just passed away not that long.
I mean, you know Not that long ago before she got sick. So it was a lot at once for me to have to kind of like deal with and think like, okay, well, like you hear that word and you don’t think like it could be okay. You just I my mind went very just I guess negative.
Dorothy: I’ve heard you mother talk about your grandmother.
Kendall: Mm hmm.
Dorothy: And obviously, this was a woman who had a huge influence on both of your lives.
Kendall: Yes.
Dorothy: And so it had to be hard just to have gone through her, her death.
Kendall: Definitely.
Dorothy: And, and just be getting over it.
Kendall: Yeah.
Dorothy: So when, when she was doing her, her, your mother was doing her treatment, were you with [00:05:00] her most of the time? Were you able to be there? But I understand we’re post COVID.
Kendall: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, they, um. required vaccinations of the covid vaccine to for me to go into the hospital with her to be with her. I mean, there’s other patients that are immunocompromised. I mean, just even more sick and things like that. And I was against the vaccine at the time. I didn’t get vaccinated, so I wasn’t able to be with her to do that, which was very hard decision for me to make. I went back and forth a lot. Um, just wanting to be there for her, but also just, you know, I needed to be there for my kids as well. So it was just very difficult to not be able to see her as much. And when I did, we had to be very far apart. So it was hard and sad. And, um, yeah, it was really difficult.
Dorothy: So that wasn’t the only difficult decision you had to make during that time. Talk to us about once you were tested, you had the genetic testing. What, what happened then?
Kendall: Yeah. So, you know, they tell you the options you have, of [00:06:00] course, like the best route.
Dorothy: And you’re positive for it.
Kendall: Yes, I am positive. So, you know, they go down a very short list kind of, of like your options, either you can just live with it and take the chances as it is, or you can, um, be proactive and, uh, get a double mastectomy, which I did. I had the double mastectomy. And then, um, as well, even lowering my chances by getting a full hysterectomy, which I had done, um, after the fact of the mastectomy, I didn’t have them at the same time.
Um, but I didn’t want to have surgery at all in the beginning when I learned I was diagnosed. And my mom was just like, look, you know, you don’t like her telling me, you don’t want to be sick. You don’t want to ever have cancer, you know, like, You don’t want to have those conversations with your kids and, you know, things like that.
And that really just like pushed me. And if she didn’t push me, I never would have had surgery for sure. So even if it was annoying in the beginning or it felt invasive, it was, it was the best thing for me, for her to push me because now I’m on the other side and you know, my, my chances of [00:07:00] my risk of getting cancers is so much lower, so I’m very thankful.
Michelle: Well, not only that, but when she, um, had her hysterectomy, which was, uh, just in February, they found precancerous cells in her uterine lining.
Dorothy: Oh my goodness.
Michelle: And so the doctor said to her, You know bullet dodged. I mean we did the right thing at the right time. So we are so thankful, right?
Dorothy: So is your mother normally annoying?
Kendall: I wouldn’t say I shouldn’t have said annoying. I don’t mean that way just in like the pushy sense of like just wanting she wants the best for me at the end of the day. That’s what it’s for. It’s for a good reason. So if it wasn’t for her, which i’m so thankful for because I never If I was left alone with the decision myself, I mean, I never would have had surgery. I was terrified. I still am terrified if I ever, God forbid, have to have surgery again, so I mean, yeah, if it wasn’t for her pushing, I would, who knows, just be stuck with my risks as they are.
Dorothy: So, how did you say goodbye to your breast?
Kendall: [00:08:00] For me, I feel like it was harder to accept some appearances that I wouldn’t have post surgery. So, I don’t know how detailed. You know, just, I guess the loss of like the actual look of them and the nipples were hard to deal with. I know that sounds so weird to say, but I don’t think they do as good of a job and I don’t want to not blaming the doctors, but just for them to explain to you, there is reconstruction.
There is like so much we can do to have you whole again. And I think, you know, my mom went through the same thing. So me being able to see her before and after it was a lot easier for me, but I feel like even at my age, I mean, there’s so many people, you know, the doctors tell me there’s so many people my age that don’t do this. They’re against it. They don’t want to not have it, but they don’t tell you there’s a possibility they could look better after. I mean, they can even lift us, you know, so it wasn’t hard for me to really say goodbye after you know, hearing that and seeing my mom’s results.
Dorothy: Now, how far apart were you two when [00:09:00] you had the mastectomies?
Michelle: Well, so mine was February of 2022 and hers was October of 2023. And I think the reason it took that long in between is there’s a lot of red tape you have to go through when it is not a diagnosis. It is um, a choice. And um, you know.
Dorothy: Share that with us. What, what happens?
Michelle: Yeah, so, um. Um, first of all, there’s, you know, insurance issues that you have to navigate. And then there’s the healthcare system you have to navigate. And uh, her referring physician was her OBGYN, got her into MD Anderson. And um, it takes a while when you’re not diagnosed to get on their schedule because you’re, you know, a lower priority obviously. And so it was several months, um, before her first appointment.
Even the first appointment was a baseline mammogram and ultrasound [00:10:00] and then they, they did an MRI. I mean, there are some, so there’s like a long span of time in between because they kind of treat it like they have all the time in the world because it’s not immediate, right? So um, had there been a diagnosis, I think it would have been a lot faster.I mean, obviously, um, but yeah, there’s a lot of, of hurdles, you know, you have to clear.
Dorothy: I haven’t heard anyone really talk about that before.
Michelle: Yeah.
Dorothy: And I think that’s an important thing.
Michelle: It is important.
Dorothy: Because you made the decision.
Michelle: Right.
Dorothy: You’re living with this, you know, genetic issue going on.
Michelle: Mm hmm.
Dorothy: And then it takes months to—
Michelle: Right.
Dorothy: —finally get there. That had to be besides worrying about your (Kendall’s) mom, and I know, she, she’s very positive and she has her way of getting through all this, but you had to be worried.
Kendall: I was worried, um, mostly because I knew what was coming, like I knew I would need the surgeries and things, and I had never had surgery, so I was, I have like a medical anxiety that made it really difficult for [00:11:00] me to have like the scans done. And that was, What was mostly scary for me was just the anxiety I deal with just with you know needles and feeling different because they’re injecting you with this and that and you know, just to get the scans done So I wasn’t really as terrified that it was taking as long just so you had stuff.
Dorothy: What— tell me the scans again? You had a mammogram. We heard that.
Michelle: I had a mammogram. She had an MRI of her breasts. Um, I guess that, that, that’s really it.
Kendall: They had an ultrasound. Oh, yeah.
Dorothy: Oh, right.
Kendall: And then, um, I did have to do, um, before the biopsy, there was a, a, a CT.
Michelle: Oh, there were a CT scan. So I mean, they do their due diligence, right? And, you know, one of the things that she was touching on about how they don’t do a very good job explaining things, this harkens back to even my diagnosis and this would be something that I would recommend to everybody. When you get a [00:12:00] diagnosis, or you decide, you know, you’re, you’re contemplating a medical procedure that’s so gigantic like this, you are so overwhelmed, you do not know the, the questions you should be asking, that my advice would be now, in hindsight, would be to ask, your medical team, what should I be asking you? Because I don’t know. And I think there’s a lot of things that they assume you know and understand and they’re going so fast and they’re checking things off of their list and everything and then you leave and you go home and you’re like. What was that? You know, tell me again. And so, um, I think that, you know, she had the ability to, to lean on my experience because I was able to tell her, you know, this is, you know, what you’ll experience. This is what the drains are like, you know, all that kind of stuff. But for me, when I went through it, I didn’t know what I didn’t know and, uh, I think it’s important to not just ask questions but know the right ones to be [00:13:00] asking.
Dorothy: And we seldom do.
Michelle: Exactly.
Dorothy: You’re right. You’re right. And sometimes our, our physicians won’t really take that time and say, oh, well, you’ll, you’ll know what to ask later. So that, that is good. Go, go in with them if at all possible. Which surgery was more difficult, the hysterectomy, the mastectomy?
Kendall: The mastectomy. I had the mastectomy with the reconstruction. So I had drains. I had to be, you know, in the hospital for a couple days. There was a long healing process. It was hard to walk. I mean, it was really difficult. I would say for sure. Um, yeah, for sure. The hysterectomy was laparoscopic and there was very minimal pain, just some cramping. And I was able to go home that day. So that was a lot easier for me.
Dorothy: So you, you were talking about your diagnosis, Michelle. So did, did cancer ever identify you, or was it going to be what Michelle was for the rest of her life?
Michelle: No, um, it’s definitely [00:14:00] part of the conversation. It’s definitely part of who I am. It’s, um, It’s in my bio. It’s in my book. It’s on my website, and I have no doubt it’ll be in my obituary one day. But for me, my defining moment, I think, was the day I lost my mom. That’s when life really changed, and that overshadowed the cancer diagnosis. You can’t bring someone back, but you can fight for your own life and hopefully have a different outcome.
Dorothy: And Kendall, for you, do you see yourself as the daughter of a cancer survivor? I mean, is that going to be your dominant description as you move forward.
Kendall: I think it’s like such a powerful part of her story because she was diagnosed. She went through all that. And for me I feel like what I would like my story to be is like advocating and just trying to help girls my age. Women my age. I say girls— women my age [00:15:00] just to be like educated and know, you know at this stage we’re not thinking about mammograms. We don’t even have these yet. And I think just trying to spread the word and try to help, you know, women my age just know what to look for, what they, you know, should be getting tested for, and just trying to help.
Dorothy: Now, we haven’t mentioned yet, how old were you during all this time?
Kendall: I’m only 33, so, so I wouldn’t have normally had a mammogram at all yet. I mean, like my mom was stating, just getting through, like, the red tape and having them coat it just right, so that, my insurance would see it as something necessary and yeah, so I I never would have had any of these scans done. I mean At all.
Dorothy: You know, that’s another thing because genetic testing is still rather new. I mean, it’s been around for a while, but it’s still just now able to afford insurance is covering, but here we have this incredible tool. And then when you know you have it, not only [00:16:00] are you faced with the psychological, you know, issues of, Oh my gosh, I have this.
And we don’t have something that’s going to give you a pill and say, no, you’ll never get cancer. I mean, that does not exist, but we can’t even use that great tool to go forward and do what we can do. And. I mean, this is, that’s just a huge decision. I, I’m always amazed at, at, first of all, amazed at the courage of women, period.
But, you know, it’s just, to be young like, like you are, and, and to have done that. Do you think it has, somehow made you, I don’t want to say older, but more mature, more reflective, more—
Kendall: I definitely see myself as like before my surgeries and after my surgeries. There’s definitely, um, you know, a, a line in between. There’s, you know, the before and after. I feel like, you know, for me, it was a lot easier to make this decision because I’d already had children. I was done having kids. [00:17:00] Um, so that, you know, personally made it easier for me, but, um. Yeah, there’s definitely a part of me that I feel more mature. I feel more like educated.
Uh, just to like know my own body and know what, you know, the anatomy behind it, the, you know, just all the things that I never would have known maybe for the next 10 years or you know, and that’s why I would love to help or talk to whoever, you know, is going through this at my age because it’s very hard, you know, to be young and think, you know, your body’s going to change your, you know, have to deal with this for the rest of your life. But I think it made it great because now I know, you know, for my children, they have to be tested at a certain age. So just like you were saying, the genetic testing is, I mean, it’s a great thing because I can try my best, you know, be proactive about it.
Dorothy: And. Have you found yourself talking to young women who are facing this?
Kendall: I haven’t. I mean, I’m just over my surgeries.
Dorothy: But there’s not a lot of women that have made this decision. I mean, quite honestly.
Kendall: But [00:18:00] my gynecologist has said that there’s, I mean, several people she knows, women, you know, that are going through the same thing, and they don’t want to have the surgery or, You know, they want to wait and things like that. And I would just love to explain to them that it’s, you know, like I was saying with the doctors, they make it so clinical that you don’t really like, I never would have thought I would look this way when they were explaining to me what was going to happen to my body. I wasn’t prepared. They didn’t really, I mean, and that’s just like, I didn’t know what to ask.
You know, I didn’t know. What I should be asking, like my mom said, I mean, it’s just very clinical. So I think if like someone that’s been through this at the age I was to explain to them how it’s going to be, or at least, you know, my experience with it would, I think it would help a lot if someone had talked to me, you know, had been gone through it, you know, around my age, I think it would be very helpful.
Dorothy: Oh, absolutely.
Michelle: You know, I, I think once she turned the corner and made the decision, and as we were going to doctor’s appointments, you could almost see the doctors like, really, you’re ready to do it? [00:19:00] Because they were so used to visiting with patients, you know, who are in their twenties and thirties who go, nope. I’m not doing that. And she was like, yeah, I’m on board. When, when do you want to get this scheduled? And they were like, okay, you know, they really weren’t expecting that.
Dorothy: But you were educated. You had seen it in what had happened with your mom. I mean, all of those things. I think if If a young woman had not experienced it as you did, and of course you two are so close, then it, it may have been something you could push off for the future.
Kendall: I definitely would have pushed it off if it hadn’t been for my mom.
Dorothy: So have you had, I’m sure you have, but your priorities? How have they changed since all of this?
Kendall: I also am looking at my health a lot differently. I definitely want to see all my kids graduate and just be as healthy as I can for them and for myself.
And I’m exercising, which I wasn’t doing before. Right now I’ve had to pause it because I’m [00:20:00] not even six weeks post op for my hysterectomy. So I do have to wait, but just changing my diet and exercising has been great for me and for my kids to see that. And You know, them feed off of that, like, you know, well, my mom is healthy and she feeds us healthy. You know, I do the best I can. So they, hopefully they will see that and try to do that for themselves. I have a five year old, a seven year old and a 12 year old.
Dorothy: Ah, well, they have a long life ahead with you and, you know, you’re not even into the teenage years yet.
Kendall: Right.
Dorothy: Yes. So that, that is such a good way.
Kendall: Right.
Dorothy: To look at it. So how did you worry about her when she was making these decisions?
Michelle: Well, I guess my initial fear would, would be that she didn’t make the decision to do it. And so I think we had the luxury of time because of the fact that it took a while to get through the red tape, as I’ve already talked about, that the seed was planted and she had this opportunity to really think and [00:21:00] consider and, you know, ask me questions and educate herself and, and really try and dig deep and figure out, you know, what was best for her. And so, I think that was the gift of time, is being able to do that. And once she, once she decided, I mean, that, that was it. I mean, there was, there was no looking back.
Dorothy: And so how, how much fun has it been for her to do her book and for you to be part of all that? And—
Kendall: I love that for her. I feel like it’s been a long time coming. She’s wanted to write a book. I don’t think she ever thought this is the book that she would be writing, but here we are. And it’s just been really fun to watch, like that dream of hers come to life. And now she’s, you know, the book is out and she’s done book signings and I think it’s just great.
Dorothy: And are you there with her on most of those things?
Kendall: Yes, I am.
Dorothy: I know you’re proud of Kendall. I know you’re very proud of the way that she’s been there for you. [00:22:00] And made those hard decisions to be sure that she is around.
Michelle: Yes.
Dorothy: Thank you.
Michelle: She’s my right hand.
Dorothy: Oh, I can, I can tell. Anything else that you would want to share with our, with anyone, having to consider what you’ve done and what you’ve been through?
Kendall: I just feel like for women that don’t have a diagnosis or women that are younger and they don’t know where to turn, like, I would never think anyone of my age would be having to go through this and you know, maybe there are I’m sure there’s groups out there that I don’t even know about. But just try to try to find you know someone going through the same thing whether you ask your doctor if there’s groups or you seek out yourself on social media because there’s plenty of us and it’s okay and you know I’m totally happy with my results and you’re doing such a great thing for yourself, so I feel like, you know, if you, if you have the opportunity to save your life, then definitely do it.
Michelle: We’re both very [00:23:00] focused on the advocacy, you know, aspects of, of what we’ve been through and being able to, you know, speak freely and candidly and, and encourage other women, you know, to, to really pay attention.
Dorothy: Well, both of you are going on my list of people that we can call when we get these kind of questions. Thank you so much for everything that you’re doing, for being with us today. Being so open. It’s important. I really appreciate it.
Michelle: We appreciate you having us on.
Kendall: Yes. Thank you.
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