FEAR: Getting the Call

Dina Legland: 00:00:00

Is that initial fear deep down truly what we fear the most? Or is it something more? Learn exactly what Maggie and I had as initial fears when we got the call

Maggie Judge: 00:00:23

Hi, I'm Maggie.

Dina Legland: 00:00:24

And I'm Dina. And this is the show where we get real and raw about breast cancer, the fear, the love, the changes, the surprising gifts, and the celebrations in it all.

Maggie Judge: 00:00:39

At the end of the episode, we will be asking you to share your real and raw insight from this conversation.

Dina Legland: 00:00:46

Are you ready to dive into today's episode?

Maggie Judge: 00:00:54

Hi, welcome back to heal inside and out. Today, Dina and I are going to talk about fear. But before we get too far, we want to do a little trigger warning because with these conversations, we can get pretty real and rise we share our own experiences about breast cancer. So this is not for you today, my friend, please take care of you. And just come back another time when you feel more up to it. So to begin our conversation about fear, Deena, let's dive in to those initial feelings of fear the ones that come with that diagnosis of breast cancer. So when you first got the call, Deena, about your breast cancer diagnosis, what did you fear? Most?

Dina Legland: 00:01:49

That's an amazing question to ask, when you get that phone call. What came to mind for me was, I was actually driving home from work when I got that phone call. And I had to pull over the side of the road. And at that moment, I didn't feel anything. There was no fear at all at that moment. But I also had a drive home, which was an hour long. So what happened to me was, is that I had this little tiny movie going across my forehead. And it was like, Okay, how do I tell my husband? How do I tell my daughters? How do I tell my father, and the family and friends, and coworkers? And what ended up happening was, the fear that really took over was, what do I do to survive? Well, how do I live and beat this? And as I was driving home, of course, the tears were rolling down my face. And I said, I am not going to let this beat me. But what definitely came to mind, which actually happened throughout my my journey, but that initial fear was, oh my gosh, I am not going to be loved. I might be judged. Because I had to take care of myself first. And that was one of the hardest things for me to do.

Maggie Judge: 00:03:37

Wow. Well, and in those are such big things to fear, right? And they're, they're overwhelming. Oh, absolutely. When you think about what all of those things meant to you and how that felt? How did you approach navigating or solving for that? Like, how did you get work yourself through that?

Dina Legland: 00:04:03

Another amazing question. And when you sit here and think about it and look back on it. At first, I didn't know how to navigate it. All I kept saying is I gotta get through this. I gotta find out what this truly is, what the treatment plan is, what's the surgical plan? How am I going to navigate this in a way that is comfortable and not so stressful for myself? And a lot of people thought I was crazy because I kept my life as normal as possible. And I don't like sometimes saying the word normal. And what normal was for me was going to work. Still working out. Still laughing about things enjoying life and That's how I started to navigate this. And as we go through some more episodes, and we talk more and more about fear, and how we really use certain tools and strategies to navigate it, that's when I started to figure it out.

Maggie Judge: 00:05:17

I love that too. Because to your point, you didn't, it's so much to navigate. There's so much unknown. And then, to your point, you didn't know how to navigate it. So you just did something upfront to figure out okay, to me, normalcy is what I need. I just love her. I love how you approach that.

Dina Legland: 00:05:39

Thank you. So now, Maggie, how about when you first got that call about your breast cancer diagnosis? What were some of those fears, big or small? That you ended up having to deal with figure out and navigate?

Maggie Judge: 00:06:03

Boy, I literally can put myself back in my chair that I was sitting in when the nurse told me she called told me to sit down. And I remember hearing the words you have cancer and not hearing much

Dina Legland: 00:06:24

else that she was saying? Absolutely. We tend to do that a lot. Yeah.

Maggie Judge: 00:06:29

And so I heard that, like the Charlie Brown won't won't walk in the background. And I I remember, my first thought was, what if I'm not here for my daughter? What if I don't get to see her get married? And have children? And what about my son's and my grandkids? And it was just like, but that I've been? I was a single mom for 10 years before I got married to my now husband. And we were so close we have we are so close. Right? That was where my thought went is what is it going to look like for her to live without me? And what am I going to miss out by leaving her this early? That was like my first overwhelming fear. So when then, oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Dina Legland: 00:07:22

No, I don't mean to interrupt you. But while I do that, well, we will I'm sure. I get so excited for the next question or the next thought. All right. So with that, how did you begin to navigate the fears of if I am not here, for my daughter, my son's and my grandchildren? And my husband? How did you navigate that?

Maggie Judge: 00:07:46

Well, that's a great question too. But what I want, and what I want to add to when I when I had that overwhelming fear about my daughter and not being here, it quickly shifted to these conversations in my head about why me why now. And so I started having those conversations with myself. And all of a sudden, it almost turned into anger. About I have so much going on in my life. How am I going to fit this in? How am I going to make time to go through all the stuff that I know I have to go through? I have I don't have a choice, right? We don't have a choice, we got to know, how am I going to make time? And how am I going to create space? So those were the two big fears. And so to answer your question about how I really navigated that, it took me a while to get through the one about my daughter. But the fear about making the time and creating the space I had to and I was I did this while still sitting in that chair. I took out a piece of paper and I had I created a roadmap. Like I had to have a visual of what was going to happen even though it was going to change as I moved through my journey, right I had to create a visual so that I could see the plan. And I could see the Get it out of me data for you well, which I had no clue I just threw a dart at the wall and made up a date that I wanted. But creating that helped me to at least find some comfort in a finite thing. And it was a visual that I could see what was what treatments would happen when and the whole. When is it? When is it going to be out of me? Because that was my hope and my goal, right? But it also helped me celebrate the wins, which I think you know, as I moved through it, I relied on that roadmap so often that it helped me celebrate the wins when I got through stuff, and then it saved me a ton of time. So speaking of making time for all of this, it's saved me a ton of time and updating people that were checking in on me and wanting to know where things were at, I could just send them a picture of the roadmap. So that was like, my biggest thing that helped me got started in navigating so much of that upfront piece.

Dina Legland: 00:10:16

We're here talking about navigating. And what came up for me was, we didn't have it all figured out. It was an ongoing process of navigating. And even today, being in remission, we're still navigating. Because there are certain fears that still show up.

Maggie Judge: 00:10:43

Right? And and yeah, they're different fears, right. And we're just navigating the new stuff. So it's fear, I think, you and I could talk about fear for hours, and we will given future episodes not in this exactly. But what I would like to it's a great point you make there, Dina, and I'd love to ask you for like, fear is such a big word. It's such an all encompassing word. What is your perspective on fear at a high level? Like? What's your perspective on it as a feeling?

Dina Legland: 00:11:28

Well, I have to admit it, my perspective, is really about a being so personalized. My fear could be different from somebody else's fear, the way that I perceive a certain fear, and not really give it too much attention might be very crucial and upsetting to somebody else. And what really, we need to do is really find out and identify what the fear is at its core. And that is something that we learn as we go through this journey. You just don't turn around and say, Oh, I'm afraid of this without finding out some of the back end history to it, so to speak. So the perspective of fear, to me is different for everybody. Everybody's so different.

Maggie Judge: 00:12:38

Well, and you're making me I'm sorry, you're making me think of that whole concept of peeling back the onion, right? Because exact sometimes the fear might seem like it's this over here. But oh, when we really dive deeper, it's something completely different. So I love that. I love that perspective on it.

Dina Legland: 00:12:55

So Maggie, give us your perspective. It might be similar to mine, it might totally be different. Because like I said, we're so unique.

Maggie Judge: 00:13:05

Yeah, and I do I I love what you said so and I agree. I feel like fear has at times taken over my thought it can be so overwhelming. It can take over our thoughts, right? Yes. But my perspective is, if we let it and we have a choice, and it's not an easy choice, no. And that choice, first of all requires we're aware, sometimes we're not even aware of those thoughts that are the fearful thoughts, right? So. So my perspective is really about that choice. And it does matter what we focus our thoughts and energy around. Because it creates momentum, right? If we're thinking all these fearful thoughts, we're creating momentum behind the fear or a worries. If we shift those things, we can choose to think more hopeful thoughts and create more momentum behind the home. So it's just to me it's it's it's not easy.

Dina Legland: 00:14:20

No, by all means it's not easy at all. But

Maggie Judge: 00:14:23

I have had to recognize that I do have the choice.

Dina Legland: 00:14:30

And that's something that this journey actually helps us discover. Yes, it's, it's something that just says to us that comes to us and says, I have choices. And that's empowering, right? It's an hour an hour. And it's it's amazing because we learn and we grow. And it's like you've just said it. powering to know that I do matter. I do have a choice. And it's mine. And I own it. Yes, great, great conversation. Fabulous conversation.

Maggie Judge: 00:15:11

So and we will continue more on fear but this is probably a good spot to wrap this episode up. And I just always love talking to you about these things. Dana.

Dina Legland: 00:15:24

Thank you. It's it's it's always it's always enlightening. And why I say that is because the mind starts to say, Wow, I got this. I could get through this just by having a conversation. Love that.