Dorothy: [00:00:00] During the month of august we’re celebrating The Rose’s 38th birthday. 38 years of serving this community. Today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts, Dr. Dixie Melillo and I talk about those early years. We share some of the excitement of that time, and the challenges of starting a non-profit in the 80s—during the worst economic time in Texas history. It’s always fun to revisit those early years, but as I think about it, there are two things that haven’t changed in all these years. One thing is our mission. It is the same. We don’t want any woman or man to die of breast cancer because they couldn’t afford a mammogram. And the second thing that hasn’t changed is the support of our community. That has been so important. Since the beginning it has been the people who have believed in us. Who were ready to help, who did everything they could to make sure The Rose succeeded. Many gave donations. Others gave time as volunteers. Many became our patients. And all cared. The way you, our listeners, have cared about The Rose and the women we serve is the best birthday gift we could ever receive. Thank you for joining us today. And please, share this episode with friends and don’t forget to subscribe.
Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. A different kind of podcast presented to you by The Rose, the 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. Join us as we hear another story and we answer those tough questions that you may have.
I’m Dorothy Gibbons, and I’m the CEO and co founder of The Rose, and I am here today with Dr. Dixie Melillo, world [00:01:00] famous surgeon and the other co founder of The Rose, and we’re here to talk about those early days. Today and all the things that we learned trying to set up a non profit, but most of all what we learned about Women and breast cancer and the importance of really being sure that women know about prevention.
So Dixie. Your story is so incredible. I mean, a high school dropout ends up in medical school, ends up as a second general surgeon to, resident to get out of UTMB— as a female, first female that ever came into Bayshore Medical Center. And I remember those days, you know, you were just raring to go, there was nothing you couldn’t do. You used to say the sky is the limit. So, tell us, tell us about your story, tell us about you as a younger girl, you, [00:02:00] how you got to medical school.
Dr. Dixie: Okay, well, basically I was kicked out of high school when I was 16 because I was pregnant and unmarried. And back then, you could not go to school if you were pregnant or had children. And now, we’re talking about the 1960s, so this was the flower child era. But, um, I, I tried to get a, a job at a department store and they wouldn’t hire me because I didn’t have a high school education. So, that made me mad. My, I, you know, I am German, and Germans, you know. Anyway, I, I, uh, went back to high school and graduated. I could not talk to any of the children, and I could not go to any of the assemblies or anything because I was a pariah. I was something that was just, uh, looked upon as a scarlet woman. But I finished, and I loved to learn. Made my mind happy. So I decided to go to school, and, and God bless my mom and dad.
You know, uh, my husband [00:03:00] and I lived with them, and they helped me take care of the kids, and. Well, by that time, um, My mother in law told me that if I would breastfeed, I wouldn’t get pregnant again. Well, four months later, I was pregnant with my second child. So, by the time my parents came to rescue me, we, uh, I had two kids and, uh, the kids were like starting kindergarten when I went back to high school.
So, but anyway, I, my dad encouraged education. So I worked all night at the post office and I went to school all day at West Texas State. And I loved it. I just loved it. And my mom just virtually took care of the kids. Uh, I wanted to be a med tech. I wanted to do blood tests and, and run laboratory tests. And, and cause I was always just fascinated by biology. And by my thir— by my junior year, uh, I had straight A’s in college. This is with working from 11 to 7 at the post office at night. But I had straight A one B. I got in track and field ’cause I couldn’t get my big butt out of the starting blocks, [00:04:00] but I had a 3.9 and I was just all gung ho about being a lab tech.
And, uh, I , you know, god works in mysterious ways. I went to my OBGYN for a checkup. And, uh, Dr. George Wyatt of Amarillo, Texas. God bless him. He intervened and changed my entire life. But, while I was having the, the, you know, the exam, they like to make chit chat with you, you know. And he said, Well, how are you doing in school, Dixie?
And I said, Oh, I’m good, Dr. Wyatt. I’ve got a 3.9. He said, what are you going to do with it? And I said, I’m going to be a lab tech. And he said, what the hell? And I thought he’d seen something wrong down there or something. What, what? And he said, no, he said, why don’t you go to medical school? I said, Dr. Wyatt, I don’t even know anybody who’s a doctor. I said, there’s no way I can go to medical school. He said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can, you can. And I said, well, um, and I had been working, you know, I took the same classes as the pre med [00:05:00] student, the three that got into medical school from West Texas State. And, uh, I said, you know, they had to pay $25 to take the, the MedCat. I don’t have $25. And Dr. Wyatt says, I’ll give you the 25. You don’t have to pay for the visit, but you go take that MedCat. And so that’s, that’s how I became a doctor.
Dorothy: Wow. Wow. What a story. So then, being in med school and a female, I love the story about when you showed up and in your Kmart slacks.
Dr. Dixie: Oh, you know, that was, that was surgical. Actually, the funnier part is getting into medical school.
Dorothy: Oh, that’s right. Yes.
Dr. Dixie: In 74.
Dorothy: Yes.
Dr. Dixie: They didn’t want women, period. And they dang sure didn’t want a 29 year old with a 9 and a 10 year old hanging on them. And everywhere I went to interview, the guy at Southwestern Medical School, now this is 1974, 73, 74, when I got in. And, uh, [00:06:00] he was so rude to me. And you know, I’m not used to people being rude to me. I’m a nice person. And, and he said, he said, If you were my wife, I’d kick your a**. You need to be home raising those two boys. You’re just going to go to medical school, marry a doctor, and drop out and waste the taxpayer’s money.
And I went, Oh. Okay. And I just walked out, because what, what can you say, you know, I mean, he’s, he’s an authority figure. Well, I went to a couple other schools, and they pretty much told me, no, you know, they really didn’t need me. And so, I went to Galveston, and it was after they’d already made their first round.
They did their picks January the 15th, I went January 29th. And this little bitty pediatrician, Dr. Lorenz, And I walked in and I, and I was just loaded for bear. I said, listen, I said, I am not here to have you tell me why I cannot go to medical school with these children. I went to high school with these children. I went to college [00:07:00] with these children. And I can dang sure go to medical school with these children. And if you don’t let me in, I will go back and get a master’s degree and I will reapply. And if you don’t let me in, I will get a PhD. I said, but I’m going to medical school. He said, Whoa, lady, I didn’t even say hello.
I mean, we got to talking and, you know, honestly, in retrospect, I think they wanted to see if I was really determined. I think they wanted to, because, you know, going to medical school is hard. Going with children is a challenge. And I think they wanted to see if I had some gumption, you know.
Dorothy: Oh yeah.
Dr. Dixie: They didn’t, they, uh, not just a bored house wife who decided she might do this, you know. And, when I look back, that’s probably, and I gave Dr. Lorenz the gumption, but I gave it to him. So, that’s how I got into medical school. Oh, now the surgery residency was another, that was crazy. I, I just wanted to be a surgeon, you know. I mean, to me, to cut [00:08:00] things open and sew them back up, my mom had taught me to sew when I was little and I loved to sew and I thought, you know, it was just interesting.
And besides, if I’m going to call myself a doctor, I wanted to be able to take care of any situation. If I came on a car wreck down there, I didn’t want to be the kind of doctor that wrote a prescription out. I wanted to put my hand to stop the bleeding and, you know, do it. So, surgery just appealed to me.
And, um, The first, and they had to accept me because, you know, my grades were too good for them to say anything else and I’d gone to medical school there, they couldn’t find anything wrong with me. And, uh, the big guy, it was so funny, I was so proud, I had gone to Kmart, I got myself little slacks and matching blouses and some earth shoes wearing, in style back then, you know, these comfortable shoes.
And, uh, I was called into his office and he said, Oh, Dr. Melillo. So you want to be a lady surgeon? And I said, Oh, yes, sir. And I was all excited, you know. And he said, [00:09:00] Well, perhaps you ought to look like a lady. Perhaps you ought to wear dresses, skirts, and high heels. And perhaps didn’t mean if you want to. Perhaps means you’ll do it or find someplace else to be.
Dorothy: Right.
Dr. Dixie: So, um. Back to Kmart. And I got little skirts that matched my blouses. And I spent five years tromping around in high heels. And as a result, I have neuromas and heel spurs and and plantar fasciitis and, you know, neuropathies in my feet. I can only wear these funny Jesus sandals that have a hole in the toe with my flagship.
But anyway. Hey, listen, though. It was good. Because, number one, I was older than all the other residents. So everybody thought that I was the chief doctor. I was dressed up. I had my white coat. I had [00:10:00] my high heels. And they would tell me stuff that they would never tell the boys. They just wouldn’t, you know, because they thought, oh, those are just little worker bees.
But, but she’s the doctor. So I always had, you know, the skinny on everybody and people loved to talk to me. And so, and in a way, I think it’s It, it was a really good thing because it taught me that, you know, doctors need to be someone you can trust, not someone that runs around in blue jeans and, and a wrinkled shirt. But you know, I mean, it, it, uh, it set the whole tone for how to treat patients and how they’ll treat you if you, if you do. So it was an interesting part, but it was good.
Dorothy: I know that you were very involved with the Breast Center there and UTMB at that time, Galveston, was, uh, the place if you didn’t have insurance that you went. It was that for the entire state. So, [00:11:00] as you got into that breast cancer, uh, area in that center, what, what was it that impacted you the most to want to make this a lifelong career?
Dr. Dixie: Well, I think the fact that you could see it before you could feel it. You know, the mentality, well in Pasadena when I came here, and the mentality before that had been if you feel it, you cut it out, and if it’s cancer, you take the breast off.
But they had a machine dedicated for the breast and it was blue pictures. Oh, it was lovely blue pictures. And you could see the ribs and you could see everything. And you could see a little cancer. And I was so excited that, that, because most of the people came in with big cancers and all we did was, it was just mastectomy, mastectomy.
And this really made a difference. And so when I, when I came here, in, to Pasadena in 83, the mentality was the same, you know. Um, they [00:12:00] were doing mammograms on, on a machine that you, you know, that you, x ray your broken leg with. You know, they were giving like 40 something rads and, and uh, I said, that can’t be good, you know.
And, uh, I knew there was a better way. And I wanted one of those blue machines so bad. So bad I wanted it because, you know, you don’t just cut somebody’s breast off, you know? And by then, we were just starting into, to, you know, with Rose Kushner, we were starting to get into maybe you don’t have to cut the breast off in certain cases.
Dorothy: But that was the standard of treatment.
Dr. Dixie: Yes, it was. Oh, it was.
Dorothy: It didn’t matter. And I remember some story you told me about, you know, that was among the first organs that, as a general surgeon, you would be working on. And if the standard was just to cut it off, then that was what doctors did.
Dr. Dixie: Oh, absolutely. They didn’t know any better.
Dorothy: Mm mm.
Dr. Dixie: I mean, that was the way they’d always been taught.
Dorothy: Oh, and that was years before we had conservation.
Dr. Dixie: Oh, yeah.
Dorothy: Uh, [00:13:00] surgery years, but, but still, you saw a different way even then.
Dr. Dixie: Yeah, I knew that, I just knew that if you found it small enough, there was no reason that you’d have to take the whole breast off. And, I wanted to find it small because, you remember when I came here and, and, uh, You were assigned to me. You gotta make somebody like her and use her in the community.
Dorothy: No, I was the PR person there and my job was to get our doctors out in the community, to advertise for them, to market them. This was, I was the first PR person they ever had. So this is back in the days when PR was not even heard of in the hospital. But I will tell you. When Dixie came in, oh my gosh, I had something to market. I mean, you know, before there had been baby, uh, seats for the car, but now I had a real doctor that was willing to go out in the community, [00:14:00] talk to the women, and had this passion.
And, you know, Dixie, I want to go back to your, your days there at, at Galveston, but you kept that look for as long as I remember you at, at Bayshore. Before you had your heels. Your, your dress was always perfect. You know, when you walk down the hall with those blue eyes gleaming, you had people turning their heads just to look at you.
And, and I, I think that was part of your authority, part of your, you just had that, you know, when you come into a room, you have a presence. And I can remember that, uh, all of the people that we’d go talk to, we talked to a lot of people back then, all the groups.
Dr. Dixie: Anybody that would listen.
Dorothy: Anybody. Remember the time we went and you had, uh, there was two people there. One of them was you and the other one was the speaker.
Dr. Dixie: I don’t care.
Dorothy: I mean, yeah.
Dr. Dixie: They’re gonna hear it.
Dorothy: We went everywhere. But the women were so curious and had so many [00:15:00] questions. And you were willing to really answer him, to give him some straight talk. Now, go back with me for just a minute to Galvesto—.
Dr. Dixie: Let me tell you one thing. Let me tell you one thing too. I said, I’ve got to talk to the community. And then I said, I can’t give a speech. I don’t know how to do that. I can’t remember what I’m going to say. I always get nervous. And you said, now just tell me what you want to say. I will put it on a slide and you can read it and you will remember.
And I went, Oh, wow! I slide! And then we got stuck hauling around that humongous— that slide projector and that big screen.
Dorothy: Right, right.
Dr. Dixie: We were like, oh, it was like a, it was like, you know, Laurel and Hardy. But, but no, we did, we talked.
Dorothy: We did, and I didn’t, yeah.
Dr. Dixie: And the pictures helped, the pictures helped.
Dorothy: I didn’t know it then, but I, I soon learned Dixie hates to go anywhere alone. And, and she’d say, you, you have to go with me. And I, I went. I went, pretty everywhere right at first, but then I remember this [00:16:00] time when you had to give a talk down on Spencer, which is same street that the hospital is on. And I said, Well, Dixie is just down here. It’s not even two miles away. And you know that church and you said, oh, You’re not going with me?
And I said, no Dixie, it’s right down the street. And you said, oh there won’t be a friendly face in the whole crowd. And I said, Dixie! I said, you charm the people, they love you. And, and, but you were so adamant. And, talk about what you appreciate later. I think if I hadn’t gone and sat with you, watching you, hearing you, I would have been lost.
I, I’m not a, I’m not a medical person. But, what I learned then, just because you wanted me there, was, uh, priceless. You know, when we opened The Rose, I could actually talk to other doctors with some kind of knowledge. And, and that, that carried us a long ways.
Dr. Dixie: But you [00:17:00] were always my strength. I was the, I gotta do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I didn’t, you know, I’d still be sitting in my office wishing I could take care of somebody if you hadn’t come along. You organized me. You know, you were like my peripheral brain. Now, Dixie, let’s see, you know, and then she found a way. She made a 501C3 or 3C or whatever that stuff is. And, and, and, uh, I’m just not a, I’m not a business person. I’m not a, I have all these ideas, but I, I never know how to implement them.
Dorothy: But that was it.
Dr. Dixie: And you always, you structured me, you, you. And it was like you were my magic genie or something. I’d say, oh, oh, gotta have a mammogram machine. Oh, oh, gotta have a, boom. And you would find out some way to get it. And with these buses, these big buses we have are like magic to me. I don’t know how you manifested them, but I think it’s the coolest thing in the world.
Dorothy: Yeah, they truly are.
Dr. Dixie: I mean, they’re going to places that were needed.
Dorothy: And if ever there was [00:18:00] one way we’re doing our mission, it’s through those coaches. We are covering 43 counties right now in some of those counties. A woman would have to drive an hour and a half just to get a mammogram. Who’s going to do that? But when that coach is right there at your local community center, then you’ll show up. So I am so grateful for all the people that came forward and helped us get those, those coaches.
Dr. Dixie: It’s like a miracle. The whole thing has been like a miracle, you know.
Dorothy: Well, I’m going to tell the story of Rose.
Dr. Dixie: Yes!
Dorothy: Oh, yeah. So, here Dixie has taken me everywhere. And, uh, I had read a book that Rose Kushner wrote, and it was called Alternatives. And she was a journalist for the Baltimore Sun. She was the first woman to ever cover Vietnam as a, as a journalist. She stood about five feet tall, was very proud of her Jewish heritage, and had a mouth on her that would embarrass anyone.
And so, I’m reading this [00:19:00] book, and then Dixie wants me to go to this conference with her. And, and, you know, listen, I never went any more fancy in my life. And here we are going to these fancy hotels and all of that. But on the, on the program, Rose Kushner was speaking as the token patient. And I thought, oh my gosh, I’ll get to meet her, maybe I’ll, I’ll get to, talk to her.
And so I sent her a letter, this is way before emails. I sent her a letter and said, Dr. Melillo and I are going to be in, at the conference, and is there any way that you could just spare time for coffee just to talk to us? And then she wrote back and said, I have an evening free if you’d like to have dinner.
And I went, Oh my gosh, dinner with Rose Kushner. Oh my gosh. So we, we get to dinner and again, Dixie back then, everything matched on you. You know, you had this red suit on, your earrings matched your necklace. [00:20:00] You know, you were just, just class. And we go to that dinner and there’s Rose and her husband Harvey. And of course, Rose got interested in breast cancer because when she found a lump in her breast, her doctor said, Oh, it’s not going to be anything. These are always benign. We’ll just do your biopsy. But on the slight chance that it might be malignant, we’ll come out and tell Harvey and give you a mastectomy.
And she said, What are you telling Harvey for? They’re my boobs. You know, it was like, and, and I can’t imagine that now. I can’t even imagine it. But. Back then, she had to go to 16 different surgeons before someone would let her wake up, and make that decision on her own. Well, of course it was breast cancer. And from there, she started advocating for that two stage biopsy, uh, procedure. She started advocating. Back then, Medicare did not cover screening. Remember that? [00:21:00] So, here we were at that table. Linen, tablecloth, and napkins. It was so pretty. And then, Dixie’s telling her all about what we’re doing in Houston.
And Dixie was as excited then as she is now. And she was saying, we’re talking to all these women, we’re educating them. And I remember, after a little bit, Rose kind of leaned into her space, and said, well Dixie, what are you doing to all those women after you educate them? Where are they going to get a mammogram?
Oh, well, you know, Dixie, well that’s the whole problem, you know, they’re so expensive. I’ve got the hospital to give us a little break, but they’re so expensive. And there’s no way that the working woman can afford them. And at that time is mid 80s, you know, we were going through the oil, uh, bust and, and I, and we, you were seeing a lot of uninsured people.
And so you were going on and on and on and on and Rose leaned again into your space and said, Dixie, why don’t you stop your pissin and moanin [00:22:00] and go get yourself a non profit and take—
Dr. Dixie: Get off your a**. Get off your a**.
Dorothy: Yes, yes. We say duff in public, Dixie.
Dr. Dixie: Oh, I’m sorry.
Dorothy: Get off your duff and, and go start yourself a non profit. You know, I remember us coming back. We barely talked at all. I think, I think we were like, did we get chastised or something, you know? Rose called me every Friday after that. And she’d say, what have you done about your non profit? And I’d say, nothing. And then when she was trying to get the bill through, through the congress, she said, what congressman are you talking to about this bill?
And I said, I don’t even know a congressman. I mean, come on. But she hammered at me and then you were on the other side of it going, we just gotta do something, we just gotta do something.
Dr. Dixie: And she volunteered me to go to Washington.
Dorothy: I did, I did. To, to testify.
Dr. Dixie: I was so scared. And she wouldn’t go with me.
Dorothy: No. So, and I want you to go back to that one. But, uh, So, we [00:23:00] filed a non profit. It was done, it was approved in seven days. That is a record. No non profit’s ever been approved that fast. And I sent Rose another letter saying, we got our non profit and we decided to call this place The Rose. As a living tribute to you.
Now, Dixie’s married name at that time was Rose. My maiden name was Rose. We’d met Rose Kushner. What were we going to call this place? And so, Rose, in her normal way, picked up the phone, called me as soon as she got that letter, and she said, What the hell do I need a living tribute for? And I said, I don’t know, but we’ve already named it, so, you know, it’s done.
Well, Rose never got to see the sinners. Uh, she died from a reoccurrence. But she certainly was part of the catalyst to get us going and, uh, opened some doors for us I don’t think we would have had open. So, we’re always grateful to her. And everybody should have a Rose in their life. [00:24:00] Everybody should, or be a Rose.
I don’t, you know, I just think, I, I look back and think, why did she even make that effort? What, what was she hoping to do. And I guess, you know, her, her, uh, the mission at that time was to get people to take it and have it in mammograms. Alright, so, we get you to Washington, and you’re there testifying for the importance of mammography and getting it approved by Medicare for payment for screening. Now that’s the first step in any, any commercial insurance covering these procedures. So, you are there.
Dr. Dixie: Oh, I could have killed you for it. Oh, Dixie will go. She’ll testify. We took, I took the slides. We had taken pictures. And this one particular one, I think that really kind of set us off to begin with. Was that 32 year old?
Dorothy: Yes.
Dr. Dixie: Whose breast looked like a big white bloody cauliflower. And there was a hole in it down to the chest wall. You could see the ribs. [00:25:00] And, and she died a couple weeks after we took that picture. But that’s when both of us said, no way. People just can’t die because they can’t afford care. You know, and, and, uh, and you and I had both been through the system of charity systems, and, and, you know, we, we knew that this was unacceptable.
So, you made me my little slides, and I went to Washington, D. C., and I sat in the big Senate chambers. And, oh my God, there’s all these Senators in there. They’re sitting up on these things, like, and they’re looking down at you. And my heart was beating so hard, I couldn’t sit back in my chair, because the whole chair would rock if I even tried to sit back.
And so, I was sitting up, and And I was just praying. I said, God, give me the right things to say to make these people. Yeah. And I said, this is going to happen to your mother if you don’t pass this back. I don’t know if they thought it was very funny or not, but.
Dorothy: Oh no, no. You, you got their attention.
Dr. Dixie: They passed it, they passed it.
Dorothy: They did, they did. You certainly got their attention.
Dr. Dixie: I don’t know how [00:26:00] that came out, that was so unprofessional.
Dorothy: Oh, Dixie, again. You always knew how to talk to people at a level that people could understand. And I think that was part of your, your magic, part of your— How you could influence other people to do things that they really needed to do for themselves. And, and you weren’t doing it for any other reason except to get people to do it for themselves. So, now we have our center. And, we had a very special person donated a machine to us. Ron Smith.
Dr. Dixie: Oh, Ron Smith. Oh my gosh.
Dorothy: And, uh, it was, talk about coming out of the blue. So there we were. We didn’t have, we had a machine. We had our non profit. But we didn’t have any money.
Dr. Dixie: We were like dogs that caught the Greyhound bus. What are you going to do with it? You
know? And, uh, go ahead.
Dorothy: Well, and then the group that [00:27:00] became the Soroptimists came to us and said, we’ll have a bachelor’s auction. Now, you could no more auction off men today than, but back then, oh my gosh, it was such a big thing. And you convinced your ex to come and be, be auctioned off.
Dr. Dixie: He’s a wonderful guy. We’re still good friends, but he came and, even after I divorced him, came and got, got auctioned off. And he brought a good price too. All my ex husbands are really nice. I, I get along good with them.
Dorothy: I know. Yes. Uh, so that raised us $7,000, and with that, we opened our first center. Had two volunteers to man the desk, one paid employee, which was our mammographer, and And—
Dr. Dixie: Then we had this one person that was working 50 hours at the Bayshore and would come and volunteer all her time in the evenings and the weekends to keep that going and that was you, my dear.
Dorothy: No.
Dr. Dixie: That was you.
Dorothy: Well, okay.
Dr. Dixie: Yes, ma’am.
Dorothy: And I think I always thought, well, Dixie will just take this on. Well, and if you think about it, Dixie, you [00:28:00] were a general surgeon then. You had not specialized yet. You were building your practice?
Dr. Dixie: Yeah, I was doing gall busy and hernias.
Dorothy: You were busy as I was.
Dr. Dixie: Car wrecks and—
Dorothy: And, and I, I was part of that faculty for HCAI always thought I was gonna grow in that way, so I don’t, you know, Rose did do us an incredible favor. ’cause ne— neither one of us could see that nonprofit. You know, everybody always asks me what inspired me. I said, besides Dixie. Well, you know, this was not our first choice, but my gosh, we were certainly given a gift with this.
Dr. Dixie: God works in mysterious ways. Everything has happened so many times when we thought, oh, we’re going under. This is it. This is it. It’s all over. And someone comes along and saves us.
Dorothy: Yep.
Dr. Dixie: Someone. It’s been a wonderful, wonderful journey. It has. But there’s still the need, you know, I mean. Back then, I think we got started because people were poor, and there wasn’t [00:29:00] access to care. Um, and I remember thinking one in eleven women was an epidemic. Uh, well, now, I mean, it’s, it’s 20 and 30 year olds getting breast cancer.
Dorothy: Right.
Dr. Dixie: And I’ve never seen so many. Our numbers this year have got to be astronomical.
Dorothy: They are.
Dr. Dixie: Because I’m, I’m, usually I do like six ultrasound biopsies a week. And like last week, I did like 14 biopsies. I mean, it was just cat fives, cat fives, cat fives. Kids in their 20s, kids in their 30s. Today, I had a 32 year old walk in. And it’s.
Dorothy: And we’re not screening the younger woman. They’re walking in with a lump.
Dr. Dixie: No, no, they feel something. They all wait until they can feel something. And, and, you know, I, I know that all the standard is to not screen until you’re 50, but a whole lot of our people would be dead by 50.
Dorothy: That’s true.
Dr. Dixie: So I really think they need to rethink that. You know, we need to rethink that because, uh, It’s gone crazy. And I know that we see an unbalanced [00:30:00] population because we do take care of the people at insurance. So I know we probably see a lot more cancer than, than other centers do. But, You know, they say, well, the death rate from cancer is going down. There was a big deal on. Well, yeah, but the numbers of people getting it are going up.
Dorothy: Right.
Dr. Dixie: The reason it’s going down is because of early detection. Because they can afford to get a mammogram and they can afford to get the biopsy. Well, the people we see, you know, and, and, and it’s not that the charity system is, is bad. The charity system in Houston is overwhelmed. You know, they can only, there are only humans that can do so many things a day. And the need is so great, you know, that these people have to wait for six months, a year to even get in to get a baseline mammogram. Well, by then it could be too late. Whereas we’re, oh my gosh, I don’t know how many people we’re seeing a day, but I know myself, I see 20 to 30 people a day.
Dorothy: Now, this center here has about [00:31:00] 110— of women coming through every day.
Dr. Dixie: Yeah.
Dorothy: Yeah. And, and what was interesting during COVID, yes, we had to close down for a few weeks, but boy, once we opened up, they were right there coming back. They weren’t going to put it off. So that was, that was, uh, heartwarming to me. And I think a lot of that was because of you Dixie and the reputation you had in the community for taking care of women. I, I so remember that back in the. 80s, early 90s, you could speak Spanish.
Dr. Dixie: Ah, that was a god shot.
Dorothy: Yeah, and, uh, that meant that the Hispanic woman, the woman who spoke Spanish, had a doctor she could talk to. And that, that built a lot of trust in that community.
Dr. Dixie: You know, it’s so neat about that. The good thing about being elderly, I don’t mind being elderly. I enjoy elderly, because I play that card whenever I need it. I’m not feeble. I will never be feeble. Don’t call me [00:32:00] feeble. But elderly I like. But the good thing about being elderly is you look back, and you see all the God shots in your life.
You know, and um, I come from a family, my dad had a high school education, he was in the Air Force, my mom dropped out of school in the 8th grade to take care of her sister and brother because her mother was sick. So I didn’t, you know, I wasn’t from a gifted family that would get to do things like this, but my dad was stationed in Spain, Valencia, Spain in 1956 to 59.
And there were no other Americans there. And so, you know, a nine year old kid’s gonna go out on the street and, and I looked at them and they looked at me and, you know, we went puerta, ventana, y así inglés, you know, I learned Spanish from people who couldn’t even talk English. And I now see that was a God shot.
God knew. He, he’s playing, oh he’s playing my life real. I just try to show up and do what he wants anymore, but [00:33:00] uh, he knew I was going to have patients that couldn’t speak English. And so he said, well, I’ll just send her to Spain and, you know, she can learn Spanish and that way she’ll be more useful to me when we go down the road.
But, I mean, it’s just so neat. And even, you know, even getting pregnant, you know. He likes to use the foolish to confound the wise. And he says, look what I can do with this stupid little old girl if they kick out of high school. I can make a doctor out of her. Wow! And I think that’s the neatest thing when you look back on your life is you realize, and you lose that sense of, oh, I’m so important, I’ve done these things.
No, no, you didn’t do anything. God gave them to you. He put you in that situation. So that, you know, and if it hadn’t been me, he’d have picked somebody else. You know, there would have been a Rose. There would have been a Rose. If I hadn’t done it, you know, if you hadn’t done it, there would be other people doing this. I’m just so grateful and thankful that he picked us.
Dorothy: Oh, me too, me too. It has been.
Dr. Dixie: I mean, that he let us do this.
Dorothy: Yeah, yeah. People, [00:34:00] I get up every day ready to go to work.
Dr. Dixie: Oh, me too.
Dorothy: You know, after all these years, 36 years, we’ve been doing this.
Dr. Dixie: Yeah.
Dorothy: It’s just, it never.
Dr. Dixie: I did surgery for 40 years.
Dorothy: Yeah. It just does not. It doesn’t change with what we’re doing. It’s it’s still so needed like you said Uh, we see a we see over 7,000 uninsured women every year and another 3,000 that come in paying cash. Because a lot of times they don’t know how to take charity ask for charity or ask for sponsorship and then when we get to a biopsy we find out they’ve exhausted all of their money and they could have qualified from the get go.
So, you know, so many of the women that come to us really are stretched financially or just don’t have that health care insurance. I think, I think that’s a huge difference. And we both know that that woman has a 60 percent [00:35:00] chance of dying from breast cancer, more so than the other women who are getting screened every year and having their regular mammograms.
I, I liked what you said about their baseline. You know, we see about a third of our cancers in our uninsured people. It is their first mammogram ever, ever. So, uh, that’s significant. I, I just, uh, I’m kind of like Rose. Well, you know, don’t we need, you still need to be out there doing awareness. You still need to be doing everything that you can to make sure women know that there is an option.
And that was the other thing you always told me. You can do anything as long as you believe you have an option. It’s when you get to the end of the road and you don’t think there’s any options, there’s no doors open, there’s nothing gonna happen, that you lose that hope in life. And I’ve heard you say that to women. I’ve heard, I’ve heard you tell a woman that she has breast cancer. That’s got to [00:36:00] be, I bet that never gets easier.
Dr. Dixie: No it doesn’t, but I tell you what. I always have hope. I have this, uh, picture of this lady. She came to us, oh, 15 years ago. Huge fungating cancer. And, uh, she had let it go because her husband wasn’t treating her right, and her son wasn’t, her son was, uh, special needs or something like that. I don’t remember. And, um, she did everything I told her to. She went through all the surgery, the chemo, the radiation. She decided, she turned it around, decided she wanted to live. And, uh, I mean, it just, it was so amazing to me. You know, she still comes and sees me every six months. And sometimes the people will tell her, Oh, you don’t need to come every six months.
And she says, oh no, you don’t understand. Dr. Melillo loves to see me. I just come for her. And as long as she’s still alive and cancer free and I mean she went back to school [00:37:00] even and did some substitute teaching and stuff and as long as she comes to see me, I can sit there with an honest face and say, you know, look, and I have a picture and she said I can use it.
But I have a picture of this thing sticking out on the side of her chest that, that’s awful. And I said, listen, this lady still comes to see me. What you have is nothing compared to this. You know? And I said, and this was back when we didn’t even really have all the good medicines and surgeries and things like we have now. But, you know, I know I probably shouldn’t do that, but—
Dorothy: No, no.
Dr. Dixie: There is always hope, you know, there’s hope.
Dorothy: It just reminds me of, you used to tell me, I love my patients, I just want to sit there and gossip with them, and hear about their life, and, you know, I’m not doing any medicine, I’m just talking to them.
Dr. Dixie: Can you believe you get paid for this?
Dorothy: Right, right.
Dr. Dixie: But I love my people, and that’s why, even here, people that are not my private patients, I put things in the little [00:38:00] notes about if they’re having problems with their children or something. Because people want to be real, they want to be humans.
Dorothy: And heard.
Dr. Dixie: They don’t want to be a number, you know? And so many things that happen with the immune system and everything has to do with the stress that they’re in and, you know, the kind of lives they live in. If they’re not people to you, if they’re just an image, I mean, what’s the use, you know? What’s the use?
Dorothy: Right, right.
Dr. Dixie: Every one of these people are humans. I love them, I hug them. You know, I tell them I love them. I don’t have a problem telling people I love them, because I really love them.
Dorothy: Oh, I know, Dixie.
Dr. Dixie: I love these people.
Dorothy: That is so uplifting when I, when I see you do that. But, you know, this isn’t new. At the very beginning, you were giving patients your cell phone number, and telling them they could call you at home anytime. And, you know, that didn’t become, very common for many, many years and, and I always thought that’s, that’s pretty brave. And I made house calls.
Dr. Dixie: Yes, you made house calls. When the grains or something would [00:39:00] plug up, I’d go to their house.
Dorothy: Yeah.
Dr. Dixie: I always say I watched too much Marcus Willoughby when I was a kid. But you know, I mean, to me, medicine is a privilege. It’s an honor to get to do this, you know? I mean, it, it just, uh, I don’t know.
Dorothy: So from those old xerography machines, those old blue, films to, uh, screen, to film screen and now to digital. What, you’ve seen it all. So, what do you think the next step is?
Dr. Dixie: Well, this is something I know. I know that I know that I know. We can prevent this cancer epidemic. And I think it’s wonderful to detect it. And it’s wonderful to have treatment. But we don’t have to have all of this cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune. We do not have to have this. If there’s one thing, you know, [00:40:00] when the pandemic struck I had a lot of time to, in my mind always, I want to find out something.
So I started reading all these books on nutrition. And you know when my, my folks both got Alzheimer’s. At 86. I mean here’s two, wonderful people that had, you know, they never drank, they never smoked, they didn’t do anything wrong. But, every meal was potatoes, corn, Blue Bell ice cream, lots of donuts, they were a little chubby, and they were very metabolically unhealthy.
You know? And my dad had heart disease, and, and, um, when I got to really looking into it, I mean, we discovered in the early 2000s that, um, Alzheimer’s disease is basically just Diabetes of the brain. Your brain gets insulin resistant. And it can’t take up sugar anymore. And when it can’t take up sugar, it just shuts down.
Okay? And if you ever are around these people, [00:41:00] all they want is sugar. Sugar. My mother used to eat a whole box of Butterfinger. I would find all this paper, candy wrappers in her, and she could, they wanted sugar constantly. And the brain is telling them, we gotta have sugar. We gotta have sugar. It’s just insulin resistance, okay?
And like with the rest of the body, a cancer cell is just a regular cell who’s broken. The mitochondria doesn’t work. The only thing a cancer cell can do is eat sugar and divide, eat sugar and divide, you know, because the mitochondria cannot take the pyruvic acid that the cell’s supposed to feed it and make energy.
So the cell has no energy, it has no purpose. When you do a PET scan do you know what they inject in you for a PET scan? Radioactive sugar. And the cancer takes up about 200 times more sugar, and so it lights up like a Christmas tree, and yeah, you can see the outline of it.
Dorothy: Right, right.
Dr. Dixie: Duh.
Dorothy: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dixie: I mean, I, [00:42:00] and, and the thing is, the medical community knows this. They know it. But who doesn’t know it? Is my cleaning lady, my hairdresser, and my, my, you know, factory worker, my, my, my, what I call my normal people. But I’m, I’m on a mission now to get that to them, to get this information. I’ve translated it into Spanish. I give it to everybody. I ask them, please share this, you know, you’re killing yourselves.
And, and, you know, the food manufacturers are making a fortune. Oh, they’re getting rich. You know, the pharmaceutical industry is having a ball treating the symptoms. There is no medicine that will cure Alzheimer’s. There is no medicine that will cure diabetes type 2. Okay? It only treats the symptoms. And they’re making a fortune.
Do you ever see a commercial on TV that says, well, you can really reverse your type 2 diabetes if you just quit [00:43:00] eating sugar and carbs. Do you, have you ever seen one?
Dorothy: Nope.
Dr. Dixie: How, now how can you make money off people doing the right thing? That doesn’t work out.
Dorothy: No.
Dr. Dixie: If there’s no money in it, I mean, they can’t even, like, some of my heroes, Perlmutter and the rest of them are, are, they want so bad to do clinical trials, but nobody will fund it. Because, what are you going to do? You can’t sell these people anything afterwards. Why would we want to know that? I mean, it’s just amazing what’s going on.
Dorothy: Oh, yes.
Dr. Dixie: So that’s my next frontier.
Dorothy: Yes, you are on a mission to make us, I think your next, uh, session with us is called What You’re Eating Could Be Killing You.
Dr. Dixie: And that’s the truth.
Dorothy: And we are so looking forward to that. So, and I know that our listeners would want to hear these things and would love to have that that leaflet that you hand out to everybody. It’s so [00:44:00] informative but now we’re going to close this up and my one question to you is if someone has a dream and they don’t know what to do with it, you know, how would you encourage them? Do you still believe in non profits? Do you still believe we can do?
Dr. Dixie: This ought to be the model for every single disease. It ought to be the model for diabetes. It ought to be the model for Alzheimer’s. It ought to be the model for everything that we take care of ourselves and not just wait in line for the government to take care of us forever. Because, God bless them, I mean, you know, socialized medicine sounds good, but you’re going to sit there until you get cobwebs on you before you get treated. You know, I mean, I’m all for everybody getting treated, but it’s just, it’s physically not possible. So people need to, you know, to get interested in taking charge of their own health and, you know, providing ways to take care of this.
As far as if you have a [00:45:00] dream and you want to do something, number one, one in everything, trust God. He wants you to do it. He will open doors that nobody can shut. He, I mean, the things that he has put in my path and the opportunities he’s given me, which is mind boggling. Oh, you know. And, you know, but you have to do your part, too. You have to show up. You have to smile. Let’s be nice to everybody. You have to work very, very hard. Okay? Do not brag about anything except the goodness of God. And do not complain. If you will do those things, you will be successful at anything you choose.
Dorothy: Wow. Great advice, Dixie. Great. Alright, well it’s been a pleasure having you with us today. And we’re going to have you back. I know, I know we’re going to have you back. And I know [00:46:00] our listeners will have many, many questions for Dr. Melillo. And if you do, send them to our, our website and we will get them in front of her. And that’s therose.org. And stay tuned, we’ve got more to come. Thank you.
Post-Credits: Thank you for joining us today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. This podcast is produced by Freddy Cruz Creative Works 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 #LetsTalkAboutYourBreasts. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Consider supporting The Rose. Your gift can make the difference to a person in need. And remember, self-care is not selfish, it’s essential.
