How This Plant-based Physician Survived Stage 4 Cancer & Heart Transplant | A PLANTSTRONG Episode

hello everyone today we're doing something just a little bit different we're bringing you a podcast episode from plant strong hosted by our friend rip esselstyn whom we interviewed on the switch for good podcast back on episode 133. Dotsy and I want to share this with you because there's so many inspiring and informative resources out there and rips podcast plant strong is one of them I really love this episode because in it his guest Don you Salem talks about the incredible challenges she's faced and how she's come out on the other side and she does it all with such positivity it's a perfect story as we think about how we want to tackle the adversities in our own life in 2023 I hope they're not as Grave as Dawn's but wouldn't it be wonderful if we had the resilience and bright Outlook that she has if you like this episode please check out the plant strong podcast on any podcatcher or at plantstrong.com we love rip and we want to support all the great work that he does enjoy the show so I woke up and my whole body was just like beating against the bed and I had never felt this before I was like oh my gosh like what is going on like everything's been and I heard this like whistling sound and it was my hair that was like like just brushing ever so subtly like I don't know if anyone else would ever have heard anything I mean it probably happens to anyone with a little bit of long hair but they probably aren't aware of it but I just had such full awareness of everything this is the gift of everything I've been through and it was like singing and it was just like this harmonious sound and my whole body was warm for the first time in so many years that it was just like this immense sense of being Fully Alive I describe it as like my cells were oscillating at this higher frequency and I think this is very cool and there's something with this that has to do with Whole Food plant-based nutrition I think too which this may sound a little weird to people but it was the coolest thing ever like just I was alive and More Alive than anyone has ever experienced and I haven't lost that I'm rep russellston and welcome to the plan strong podcast the mission at plant strong is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based Movement we advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands promotes and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health enhancing your performance restoring the environment and becoming better Guardians to the animals we share this planet with we welcome you wherever you are on your planned strong journey and I hope that you enjoy the show [Music] all right my plan strong brothers and sisters cousins one and all I know that you're going to thoroughly enjoy today's conversation with literally one of the most positive inspiring and uplifting people that I have ever met and I am not talking about my mother Anne and I know that it sounds like I must be exaggerating but I am not Dr Don moose Salem is a board-certified lifestyle medicine physician she works at the Mayo Clinic Jacoby Center for breast health where she works hand in hand with breast cancer patients and their oncologists and other Specialists to heal and Thrive using the pillars of Lifestyle medicine Don has so many remarkable stories of patient recovery but the biggest recovery story of them all is her own one where she herself time and again has had to put her own medicine in motion and practice what she preaches it's a journey with so many twists and turns you'll have to hear it to believe it and some would say her life so far is a marathon of sorts and you'll understand what I mean when we start to dig in so let's meet a real life Wonder Woman Dr Don moose Salem all right Don I am there is no place I would rather be right now than here talking to you and I want you to know that in in researching your story and the absolute harrowing and I mean harrowing roller coaster ride that you have been on in the second half of your life uh I want to hear all about it and I can't believe that you are still smiling and you have this insane love of life and I think it's a testament to just your your spirit uh that I just wanna I wanna understand it and I want to tackle it so thank you for being with me today thank you rip I am extremely excited to be here for so many reasons and you are right I have just this immense level of love and energy for life that I've always had that so that's what we're going to talk about yes we are uh so what time did you wake up this morning 3 54. 6 354 but what time do you usually set the alarm clock for seven seven so you were you were you were officially if I could do the math on that about 13 minutes so so excited that you know that's how much earlier you got up uh wow so why why in the world are you getting up at 407. what do you you have to run or what's up I have always gotten up at four in the morning my entire life even as a young girl probably not quite that early but even as a young girl I would often wake up at 5am my family we were all morning people we were the people that would drive everyone else nuts but yeah our our lights were on and our house super bright and early so that is just how I have been since day one and I love it I love the morning so I try to get my workouts in in the morning but I usually wake up and I get work done you know I have a lot of different projects that I that I love and so it's quiet time I review my patience for the morning and then I usually work out like about an hour or two before I need to see patients man and so what time are you usually like in the hospital seeing patients you know it's different for me now so my meta meta percent virtual oh my goodness gracious do you like that it's so love it so 100 listen in the cancer center working with breast cancer patients and so they're not just local patients most of my patients actually are from out of town out of state and a lot of them are even from out of the country and so it works out wonderful not just for me but for the patients so oftentimes I'm seeing patients I have on my running shorts I still have my running shoes and I may have changed my top or I may just have wore a colorful top to work out in and it works out good because they understand it's the lifestyle and that's what we're going to be talking about so it's been great or you know I can have a patient if someone cancels I can go get on the bike or do whatever it is or if I want to go get my sweet potato I can go downstairs and get my sweet potato so I can kind of just really live a healthy life and work virtual and it's wonderful so I enjoy it wow um now when did this this whole like telemedicine take over for you is it like during covid that you transitioned to this like has it been two three years very interesting well it has a lot to do with my story how I actually transitioned but covet for me was actually a silver lining because we were trying to figure out capabilities for me to do virtual work but the billing was very complicated until covet and so now with covet it has been seamless with my ability to do virtual work and build insurance companies like I always have with complete reimbursement it's been amazing and even though I work in that lifestyle medicine arena for cancer patients I have knock on wood not had any issues with insurance reimbursement which has been really rewarding to get these patients the help they are Desiring and they're seeking out they're thirsty for this sort of discussion with a medical professional to learn more there's so much out there for them there's so many great books now but it really helps them to have it individualized when we get to meet one-on-one especially with their particular disease or the treatment that they're going to be receiving since it is in the breast cancer center yeah so how do these patients find you is it I mean is it through the Mayo Clinic that it is and they refer these patients to you yeah it's interesting so early on in my career I was actually a hospital physician I love that and in 2015 the director of the breast center had approached me and asked me if I would be interested in transitioning over to the breast center to kind of help to kind of reorganize the program and at that time I also had asked if I could potentially create an integrative medicine and health program within the breast center and it was built on a foundation of Lifestyle medicine and so that's exactly what I did so since 2015 2016 in the breast center I was doing a little bit of Lifestyle medicine but at that time you know it just it there really wasn't the um Staffing for me to do it a hundred percent and the patients just weren't quite as aware of it at that time and so I would say from 2015 2016 up until about 2018 it was like slowly the demand started getting bigger and bigger and bigger and my confidence in the practice and how it would kind of flow also grew and it was around that time that I also got board certified in lifestyle medicine even though I had always practiced this sort of medicine um in my career it just the American College of Lifestyle medicine really didn't afford me a little bit more of a formal approach to the patient I always prior to that was a little bit hesitant honestly to go Whole Food plant-based with my patients I would go almost there but I would be too scared to push too hard on it but following my board certification I became very encouraging for my patients to go in that direction if they were willing to and so there are just so many Amazing Stories every day I mean honestly I wake up four in the morning super excited to start my work day because my patients give me so much energy I think I give them a lot of energy but they give me back so much energy these individuals are so incredibly inspiring a lot of them are coming in already doing a lot of things pretty you know correct but one thing that I do see in my practice is some people have such turbulence about eating healthy they just don't have a healthy relationship about it and so it's really exciting to be able to be there with them and teach them kind of the love and harmony and how they can kind of really use that food as a springboard to ignite that vitality and it's so hopeful for them because in that same department where they're seeing their breast surgeon their breast radiation oncologist their medical oncologist um they're able to meet with me and we're able to talk about how they live and how they can live and flourish both during chemotherapy and after and that's what's just been so incredibly exciting and I have some flourish stories oh I can't wait to hear about some of them what's interesting to me is that I don't think it was too long ago that the Mayo Clinic was not pointing patients to a whole food plant-based diet because and this may sound not correct but what I heard from a person that went to the Mayo Clinic was that he asked his doctor you know I've heard that a whole food plant-based diet is the best thing for what I'm recovering for I think it was heart surgery and the doctor said yes it is but that is not the protocol that we're pushing at the Mayo Clinic and this is probably back in 2012-13 yeah right they saw it as a little bit too preventative a little bit too extreme so I'm really glad to hear that that the tides are changing uh when it comes to that yeah you're exactly right and I remember going to the American Institute for cancer research a meeting this was probably I think it was around 2018 and that was exactly one greeting I got is I'm surprised you're here Mayo Clinic doesn't seem like the type that's as interested in you know prevention and lifestyle it seems like they're really just doing these really Advanced therapies and we we are very motivated to have that different image and the integrative medicine program has been a part of Mayo Clinic for over 20 years so it's always been there it's just you know a lot of patients come they receive that world-class Curative therapy that wasn't offered anywhere else in the world and they go back home without realizing we do have these Services when patients ask however the doctors have to have awareness and the doctors have to have some invested interest and belief in this too so what I am super excited about is I am currently starting in August of this year starting a lifestyle Medicine Residency curriculum across the Enterprise so we have three residency located we have three clinics you know we have Mayo Clinic Rochester Mayo Clinic Jacksonville Florida Mayo Clinic Arizona so we are going to offer as an elective opportunity for all of our residents to have the opportunity to learn this curriculum which will go deep into Whole Food plant-based nutrition exercise Social connection Stress Management so excited but the residents are excited so it's really amazing to see the enthusiasm and the interest that the residents have so I'm really blessed to be able to be a part of starting that program and working directly with these young doctors to kind of change that foundational thought process oh that that is that that is so heartwarming to hear that um that these residents are learning about about this it sounds like maybe they're embracing it I know Dr Clapper you know Dr Michael Clapper at all yes who's you know his he is involved with a non-profit not called moving medicine forward and all he does is go out and visit medical schools and talk to the medical students so to hear about that to hear about this with the residents it is absolutely heartwarming I love it done let me I need we need to get to your story because we could just talk about this forever but you know um when in your life did you know that Don moose Salem wants to be a doctor I love this question so okay I I was like four or five years old and I when people say what do you want to be when you grow up I would say I want to live to be a hundred and I want to be a doctor because I you know I knew I would have to like kind of learn something I loved helping people helping animals you know the whole nine yards so it was you know a few years after that that I just became enamored with Willard Scott on The Today Show 100th birthday celebration I mean I would sit there Indian style my little night nightgown just watching these vital 100 year old people so at an early age my family was actually really healthy you know the the family that wakes up early we ate healthy food really early too that's probably we had so much energy all of us I have the best family no you weren't but you weren't eating plants back then were you you were when you were four five and six oh yeah my family was super healthy at a young age I would say one of my favorite childhood memories was going to the health food store and going into the refrigeration section where you would open it and you would smell like the oatmeal and the greens and so yes so we were not Whole Food plant only at the time but we were Whole Food Whole Food plant um predominant but we would have some fish and we would have some chicken but we had her like our own uh butcher you know we had someone where we got that meat fresh if we ever ate it but then I was vegetarian in high school I would have some yogurt and then I was vegan in college for some points of that um and then as I was going through college I got active in Fitness contests and then a personal trainer kind of corrupted my brain it's like you need more protein you're never gonna put on muscle you're never gonna win contests if you don't get more muscle so guess what this girl started to eat a lot of chicken and I started to eat beef and stuff like that okay and so so that's what kind of happened so I had these little short window time when I didn't eat as healthy yeah let me so let me ask you this you mentioned Willard Scott uh and how you wanted to live to be a hundred um and so were you a fan of the Smucker's jar and the the so that was your goal right to be somebody's jar yeah so don't you think looking back at it because I I used to love that segment too uh that that was the most brilliant marketing campaign ever by Smuckers I mean who doesn't want to have some Smuckers after seeing uh somebody that's 100 on the jar it's like oh yeah you associate living lung with Smuckers it was great marketing and just so and I love that you remember it too because I share that story and so many people they kind of look at me like I don't know what she's talking about like how do you not know this it was so impressionable totally you know and when I was young I I would read all about Linus Pauling I had that book Life Extensions that is like a junior high high school I was reading this stuff I was a big runner back then and you know I joke when when my friends were eating like bread of Wonder you know what I mean I wasn't even like you know food for life like sprouted bread and I just I love this stuff it was just right up my alley it energized me and so it was always something I was just really um interested in so I studied nutrition and exercise physiology and undergrad and when I went to medical school you know I first went to naturopathic school with the intention on doing very very holistic care but it turned out to be a little bit more of an alternative Focus than I really wanted so I transitioned to osteopathic medical school where I really had a strong Foundation of nutrition education in my medical school I was very fortunate to have that um so that's you know how I ended up becoming a doctor I ended up going through to osteopathic school and I did my clinical trainings at Mayo Clinic as part of the osteopathic School in Arizona and then eventually transitioned to to Mayo Clinic Florida yeah so now at the age of 26. you got diagnosed with stage four cancer if I'm not mistaken right and so and and you were you were in medical school at the time is that correct I was so you know a few weeks into medical school and you know again I was running I was climbing mountains every day very very fit and I was I was eating my healthy diet at that time I was away from the Fitness competitions and I noticed that I just couldn't perform the way I used to so I would get a little shortness of breath a little cough what is going on saw a doctor he said it's nothing it's asthma it's all another doctor's symptoms getting worse same thing nothing it's asthma finally saw another doctor and that doctor is like it's in your head this happens to all medical students and it just a few days later I'm walking up the stairs after class going to my apartment and I collapsed I went to the emergency room they did a chest x-ray and there was a huge mass in my chest enormous Mass and it had collapsed my left lung it was pushing on my major vessels and so they had to take me to Urgent surgery they did the preliminary pathology and I'll never forget it because I woke up and one of the medical students who was in my medical school was there crying like over me just sobbing I'm thinking ugh this is not a good sign and then the doctor came in the room and this was actually Thanksgiving Day November 23 2000. so the doctor came in the room and he was on call and he was kind of a grumpy doctor he wasn't he wasn't very nice and I remember him just kind of like throwing this diagnosis out there I'm like how is this possible like I have really like lived out in my my parent my dad's next to me who here he's like always giving me this like path of hell for life and his 26 year old daughter who's in a few months into medical school gets diagnosed with cancer and they go on and they say you know this is stage four cancer based on the Imaging and the size of the tumor and the extension and the other places that it was showing its involvement and so it just took us back you know and and you know I remember them saying that if I wasn't going to receive treatment that I would have months to live like I needed treatment and they needed to start it immediately and then the next thing out of his mouth was I needed to quit medical school and I'm like well he obviously does not know me so you know that really like triggered this autonomous motivation to steer my own but I was like thank goodness he was on call and my real oncologist came in you know the following day and and then we got a really good treatment plan he was really optimistic and upbeat but I started chemo just a few short days thereafter there wasn't time for fertility preservation there wasn't really time to think about it you know it was just like okay this is what we have to do I want to live I'm going to stay in medical school we're going to do part of this my way we'll do part of it your way and so start a treatment wow so you came up with a plan and then you also in addition to the chemo did you also have anything else like uh radiation or bone marrow transplant or stuff like that yeah great question so so they did four months four cycles of what's called chopped chemotherapy which is very high intensity chemotherapy the first cycle was in the hospital the remaining ones I was able to do in the outpatient setting after that they had talked with me and my family letting us know that because of the stage of the cancer and how advanced it was because it had gone on for those several months that people just weren't really paying attention to it the doctors that I was saying that I would need a bone marrow transplant so that meant more chemotherapy that was very high dose that was given to you in the hospital so I was in the hospital for a month and then that's followed by a bone marrow transplant where they pull your immune cells all the way down to zero and then they give you back cells to give you back a healthy immune system and then that was followed by radiation therapy for two months but what was fascinating and you know I'm sure a lot of listeners are like okay maybe this isn't the best person to have on here she lives healthy her whole life and she ends up with cancer but I'll tell you I've had people say how do you think you got cancer and I think I know how I got cancer as a little girl you know no maybe not little but you know when I was in elementary school there was a creek behind her house that I would play in all the time like hours I would be in this Creek and it was a runoff from corn there was probably pesticides you know and we don't know in life I mean things happen I I mean quite frankly for me cancer was the biggest teacher of life I mean the post-traumatic growth I experienced or this was immense it was it was it's phenomenal I would never trade in what I went through so it's all okay but what I will say is this during my chemotherapy I would see other patients you know sit in these big chairs there's other people around you they were so sick I was not sick I was still running I was still mountain climbing I was climbing Camelback Mountain twice a day with hemoglobins of like five I felt great I my senses were heightened you know when someone would see a green tree no my green tree was like vibrant like it was just wow so my life experience was so heightened during that window of time it really taught me how to live and that's where I think we can take adversity and when we you know read about post-traumatic growth people may or may not really understand what that means but there is such opportunity to learn from adversity and we just have to accept that we can't run from it we need to truly accept that and so that was really um like I said such a teacher well you've had many teachers uh because of all the experiences you've been through and we're going to get to all those now for what what what type of cancer was it that you were diagnosed with yeah it was a diffuse b-cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma okay and like do you know like what were the statistics like it's stage four with this what are the chances uh that you're going to be alive in you know two years yeah so one of my one of my friends who actually ended up being my husband who was at my bedside asked that question I was like um you know I didn't want numbers because I really didn't want to hear that and I think to this day I think you know a lot of patients that I see get frustrated when they hear numbers and so I actually talk to patients I say you know if you don't want to hear those numbers just let your doctor know you know sometimes the doctors feel obligated to give you numbers they don't have to give you those numbers if the numbers are going to help you then great but the numbers are going to frustrate you then why even hear it but this particular doctor said I would have three months um three months so to live but that was without treatment you know and so I of course was going to do the treatment but the problem was is this particular Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has a very high chance of coming back very quickly and when it comes back they cannot cure it they cannot effectively treat it they're kind of out of options at least back then I had my treatment before they had the rituximab which is something that's really been groundbreaking for many Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients but that wasn't an available treatment for me at the time so I was kind of stuck with just a traditional chemotherapy that just didn't do a really good job at treating this cancer so the mortality rate was actually quite high at the five-year Mark following a diagnosis like this when you say quite High what's that mean I honestly don't remember and remembering correctly it was like 50 to 60 percent yeah survival rate so pretty pretty okay so this happened all this took place in 2000 is that correct yeah two thousand two thousand I had my Boomer Council in 2001. okay um and you pulled through it and like two years later you're you're like is this in the rear view window a rear view mirror for you now completely so you know after I was done with treatment I was cured I mean it felt amazing for me to get that pet scan or you know as gallium scans and it was eventually pet scans negative negative negative everything was great cured so it was like miracles happen this cancer is gone I was vital I felt great I stayed in medical school didn't miss a day incredible and and and then what happens in roughly June of 2003. yeah so my husband and I that you know does she have he felt so bad about the three months he got married to me of course right so we we got married and was the opposition no he was not okay okay so in 2003 I started not to feel good and thought for sure the cancer was bad because I was kind of nauseated I was losing weight so did some tests turns out I'm pregnant so the doctor was wrong so I was actually able to take a pregnancy because my husband's like what how is this possible they're like oh I don't think he was planning on that he was actually older than me so I think he definitely was not planning on that but it was amazing we were just so blessed yeah so I gave birth to my daughter in May of 2003. what was her name Sophia oh my goodness gracious that's my daughter's name yeah yeah it was my grandmother's name too so we named her after my [Music] after my that name it was such a miracle and I remember the childbirth was extremely hard and I thought this is weird I'm like in shape women don't really complain about this so much women are my hero they were my new superhero no more Smuckers jars Vitality here these women that give babies these are my heroes right so difficult the childbirth so a few weeks go by after after I delivered my daughter and I couldn't even hold her my mom was in town she would have to bathe her for me I could do nothing so I was actually quite worried cancer was back and you know that kind of always hangs over your shoulder like could this cancer come back so I went to the emergency room and the doctor came in the room and he he was he looked he looked more sick than I think I actually felt and he told me that they needed to do additional testing but that my lung was filled with fluid and so it automatically think that it was going to be cancer again so they continued to do additional testing they did an ultrasound of the heart and they told me that the heart was only pumping at eight percent oh and so I was diagnosed I was in cardiogenic shock I was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy thought from a few things you know this did develop right after I had childbirth so there was a small possibility that maybe it was from postpartum cardiomyopathy but the more likely thing was the fact that I had radiation right to my chest and that heart was really wrapped around all my great vessels so when I had radiation they knew it was going to go to the chest but again they're treating stage four cancer it's almost like we just want to get this girl to live you know three years maybe five years I mean that was kind of their goal I don't know that you know you don't worry about the late stream effects when you're trying to save a life and so to look back I would never have not had chemotherapy I would never have not had that radiation because that really is what cured the lymphoma but unfortunately I was one of the few that did end up with this cardiomyopathy from the treatments that I received and you know maybe the childbirth also continue to push that forward a little bit more it may have been a lot of strain in the heart so close to that time when I had had um the chemotherapy so I'm diagnosed with heart failure and the doctor came in the room and this is my biggest nightmare right because actually it was so interesting when I was diagnosed with cancer I thought oh thank God I don't have asthma I could not live with a chronic disease and I could get back and you know once I had my first chemo I could start running it I felt great because I got my life back now I'm being diagnosed with heart failure I'm like this very bad this is this is very so how do you how do you recover from cardiomyopathy what right so the doctor at this particular hospital because I didn't go to Mayo I just went to a hospital very close to my house because I I wasn't feeling good you know he had said this heart's not going to last you more than a year they had me in the hospital for about two weeks to try to stabilize me and so I went to Mayo Clinic and ironically I was getting ready to start my clinicals at Mayo Clinic like within a few weeks so went to Mayo Clinic saw the doctors there and they just build my heart with hope they said no you may one day need a transplant but we're going to start with medications when the medications don't work there will be various procedures we can consider and that's exactly what we did so that was 2003 so they started me on medications and cardiac rehab so guess who was super excited about that I was like yes sign me up you know so really loved cardiac rehab got stronger the medications helped the heart so the heart function increased to about 16 to 18 not great it was still super low but because I was fit and I took such good care of my body for so many years I felt pretty good I was able to go back to I was able to start my residency and it worked out for about two years that the demands of residency became pretty challenging so in you know two thousand four five I guess it was about 2006 I took I took a few years off and then in 2008 really probably the most significant hardship in my life happened and I my husband slept in and that was unlike him because he too was a morning person like me yeah and so when did you get married what's his name what was his name Charles Charles okay yeah and so when did when did you get married to Charles was it so that would have been around 2006. okay okay okay and then okay so we're now in two years no I have to track back my ears so that would have been around two before I meters around 2002. yeah okay okay so Charles slept in and uh what happened so that was in 2008 and so slept in and you know you automatically get like that feeling like this just seems very unusual for him but you know I I always try to like go towards that place of optimism like being the eternal optimist but I had this very bad feeling and I remember the night before he told me because we had gone out to dinner as a family and he had told me you know go go sleep with the baby just be down with there with her tonight and I was like okay you know that's fine I'll go down and be with her because our bedrooms were kind of separated from from Sophia and she was still so young at the time and so I went in to check them in the bedroom and I just saw him you know face down and I called his name out and there was no response and I you know I just knew and it's like Your Existence just you know and I live at this like really high level of just like you know I love your mom by the way and I I think your mom's like like I live I live like up there and she's the same way like I just love like in in a matter of it was like a second it's just like everything free fell and it's so hard to describe that experience and it's like it's so flat you're almost emotionless like you're so numb to everything and you know I knew that I wouldn't be able to resuscitate him because time had gone by it probably happened many hours earlier but you know in retrospect it's just one of those really um terrible things it's just it changed my life for uh for a good year or so um I was not able to get back to that happy I never got depressed which was interesting but I could never get happy but I wasn't clinically depressed I I have a very strong faith in God I really relied on that but it was difficult and I had to stay strong for Sophia yeah how and so how old was Sophia so she was five at the time yeah yeah so she was five and it was really difficult for her because she was different than her friends and you know death it's so difficult and in life you know as humans we really run away from Death or pain you know any sort of grief experience and and I don't know you know I think running away from it sometimes makes it worse you sometimes have to just go head on into it and when you go head on into it and face it is when you really start to be able to process these things in a way that you can cultivate renewal and acceptance and that's what it takes but for me it was really my faith in God that brought me through because there had to be a deeper meaning to death and where your loved one goes and so those fundamental belief systems that I had from a very young child with you know being raised Christian or whatever your belief system is but I was Roman Catholic and that really helped me through this very very very difficult time um and so I got better you know the hardest thing was my heart because this was when I was still off of work and what was really crazy during this time is I was actually listed for heart trans transplant during this time and I've actually never told this part of the story but in 2007 like about a year before my husband was had passed away I was listed for transplant because I was not doing well and so this happens and you're just like oh my gosh what what do you do you know and we'd never really talked about this I mean I was the one that was sick he wasn't sick you know we didn't think he would necessarily die but I was the one that was supposed to die not him and so I was like this whole role reversal and just trying to to get through it and I did you know I have such a loving supportive family they were so there for me I did things very different than what they tell you to do I mean I did a lot of things within that first year I moved out of our house I went to go just kind of rent a house in the ocean just to get away from what I had found I couldn't be near that bedroom and I bought a dog and I eventually bought a different house and so I did all these major changes but that helped me yeah that helped me like re-identify Dawn and what the new normal was going to be and then after about a year I started dating again and I was judged but that helped too yeah yeah before you before you go on can I I just want to ask you a couple questions so your husband um how old was he when he he was older than me yeah so he was 54. okay and and he did heart you know did heart disease uh run in his family it did heart disease did run in his family and he had had many years prior to meeting me that he did not take as good of care of himself and then when he met me of course you know that was part of the attraction is the fact that you know he had already changed his life and he was taking good care of himself he was a brilliant man just with such wisdom and love for life and love for Humanity and just a really deep rich person in terms of his belief systems and and faith in God himself and so it was really a beautiful relationship we shared and you know we had never thought I'd be able to have a child yeah and so that also worked that he was a little bit older because it was really difficult when after I went through cancer and I was dating young men I was kind of like oh I don't know like I can't really have kids and I had this totally like very different view on life and so when I would date 26 year old man I just didn't really yeah get why they wanted to go out and do these you know things that I just didn't want to do drink and all these I just really wanted to talk about life you know there's like higher higher important topics and Charles loved doing that with me so we had a beautiful relationship and that's what I learned from this is that time on Earth you have to cherish yeah okay so you rebounded you got the house by the water the dog you're you're there for Sophia and now you go out and you start dating again yeah and you know it was interesting because around that time when they enlisted me for transplant they put this device in my chest and around 2000 um nine I started feeling better like a lot better you know it was almost a miracle and so that is when you know I started dating I started having happiness again and so it's like everything started working and in fact I started feeling better than I had ever with heart failure I haven't tried to start jogging again a little bit which I really couldn't do too much of that but life was back you know I met an amazing man who is actually my husband now Brandon so I did get remarried and older again or younger same age no he's just a few years older than me so okay okay yeah he's just a few years older than me um but I was all I was older at this time so everyone around my age that had was more wisdom than a 26 year old right so but that's was a really important lesson for me is you know I had at that time despite going through cancer you would think I wouldn't worry about what people thought about me but I did and a lot of people judged and they thought how could she get married so quick maybe you know and they especially since he was and that couldn't have been farther from the truth for me I was so in love with my husband Charles when he died I wanted love immediately the next like I wanted it in my life again and it was really hard dating because I went from Love and I wanted to go to love so dating other men that were divorced before and so it just didn't work because they kind of had this like hate for their experts how did you end up um meeting and uh falling in love with Brandon so a friend introduced me and he was at a restaurant she happened to know kind of this weird how we met sort of a thing but it was kind of meant to be he had never been married had an amazing has an amazing family and so I was just really blessed and did you know did you know that first night in that restaurant did you sense it or no was a really strong attraction on many levels and so I wasn't sure you know it just I I stay really in the present so I didn't I didn't think too far in the future but it felt right it felt safe and it hadn't felt that way before and he had really good virtues and that was important to me especially having a daughter and he respected that he respected the fact that I wouldn't be able to do a lot of the things that many women he would date would do right I mean you know I wanted to be proper and do the right things around my daughter and make sure that she was you know comfortable with things and and so yeah we didn't date that long we dated for probably a little less than a year and we eventually got married because it was hard to date having a young child who was you know I guess she was seven at the time and and then we have this beautiful family unit and everything was wonderful um until about 2015. and then I was with Sophia I was in Cleveland I was doing a presentation at Cleveland Clinic and I happened to bring her with me she sat in the back of the room and I was driving home and you know how there's some certain parts of town that are maybe not even totally you know a little more difficult to drive through and I passed I passed out I was losing Consciousness and I had been having these dizzy spells and I just kept and you know I told my doctor I feel weird it's just something's not quite right the ejection fraction started creeping down a little bit again so I went to Cleveland Clinic I was really fortunate actually to be there you know to be with good doctors when I wasn't near my own and what they have found is that device they put in my chest was causing an occlusion in my neck so blood flow wasn't draining from my brain properly and anytime I would drive with my arms up it would cause some complications in that area so in 2015 there started to become more and more resistance you know all those interventions over the years they had done to kind of give me some quality of life or starting to kind of wear out their welcome at that point in my body and so fast forward to 2016. that was kind of really when symptoms plummeted at that point um I was super excited this again you know we kind of started off with some of the story how I went from hospital medicine to the outpatient side to work in the cancer center and around that time my symptoms were starting to get worse so it was like divine intervention you know is it what as it would be because I really couldn't keep up the hospital practice um that pace of that practice and the call schedule at night and weekends and holidays so I was invited to go to that outpatient Cancer Center to start that integrative program in the right time and so then in 2016 it was September 22nd 2016. I was supposed to present to the executive team about the success of that integrative program so I could get expansion throughout the institution yeah and I finished my morning patients and I love I mean I just I adore my patience I love each and every one I could just kiss them I love them and so you know I finished but I'm always late because I just could be with them for all day you know I always go over I'm always running late they're always okay with it though so I get to the stairs to go downstairs and my knees were like quivering like I remember I was like what on Earth is going on and I'm like I'm not nervous I love talking like you can see it's nothing so I get to the bottom of the stairs I'm like oh my gosh legs feel so weak and I got to the bottom of the stairs and I just felt totally off so I got to the boardroom and I just paused I remember kind of just shutting my eyes and just like giving gratitude just doing a deep breath like being so grateful for being able to have this opportunity so they invite me in and there's you know everyone's in suits dark suits everyone's serious and usually I would like say something really light-hearted kind of break the mood but I was like not today I am gonna stay focused because I do not feel too hot so I sit down and you know when you're holding the mouse and you're trying to control it with the cursor oh yeah coordinate it and then as time goes by the mouse goes further and further and further away and I look down at the keyboard and as I'm looking down at the keyboard everyone gets fuzzy and then that's the last thing I remember and then the next moments were the most it was the most amazing experience a human being can never have there was just this complete silence peace it was cool feeling in terms of the temperature and I remember there being almost like a slight breeze and the breeze you know I I remember almost just like feeling the hair like sticking on my cheek so it was like there was still this like subtle level of awareness but it was a place of like complete innocence an acceptance of what was the total unknowing but I was in no hurry to get out of where I was at there was also no Bright Light which a lot of people say was very bright light but there was no bright light but it just felt like I was being suspended like I felt like I was being held and I described this before it was like God was holding me like I had so much warmth and comfort and then the next thing you know there's like this immense level of like energy that just like goes through my body and I've described like a tsunami like just this like you know Dawn's energy is coming back her life force is coming back and then it comes back it's a lot so here it comes it says energy like goes through my body it like pops me up on my bottom like I literally pop up and you know it was preceded by this huge thump which was by defibrillator and so basically though my defibrillator was going shock After Shock After Shock after shock and it wasn't shocking me back to life because is that is epic you didn't have a shackable rhythm that's exactly right it was completely it was essentially a flat line it was very fine v-fib so it was ventricular fibrillation and it was essentially just like this so the the defibrillator just couldn't shock it my electrophysiologist was at Mayo Clinic Rochester and when he reviewed the Rhythm he said it basically just like give chills up his spine he's like he doesn't even know if he believes that the defibrillator really pulled me out of the Rhythm he thinks I really just came back to life I mean we will never know it doesn't matter but guess what Don's awake and you know what the first thing out of my mouth was I finished presenting you're like yeah let's pass on that Don that's exactly what they said they're like tapping I mean I was just like I don't and I didn't know I was really down that long I actually not too long to look back at the medical notes because I'm like everyone keeps asking me how long I was down I don't know is it just a few seconds that no it actually said four minutes wow I don't know but it was crazy what was really terrible so so so wait you're in that room you flat you Flatline you're down for roughly four minutes were there other Physicians there I mean did that then did they not try and like basically you know give you CPR no one knew my story and so you know here's dawn like everyone sees there's like this picture of Health right you know a few people some people knew my story but people didn't see me as sick you know I really you know that's a pro hard thing with heart failure is you don't really look sick and that's the most invalidating thing people are like oh you don't look sick I'm like but I feel terrible you know you and I never really would tell many people that but boy heart failure was just awful it was like I was Shackled with it you know I couldn't do anything I was so limited and so I basically would invest all my energy into my time with my patients and my work because it gave me back so much meaning and you know the things I do with my daughter I give her all the energy but at the end of the day I was Miss Donna was really like totally depleted um but no one did CPR I had one colleague of mine actually that I guess just wasn't aware my sheets thought I was having a seizure which maybe I was because I didn't have any blood flow going to my brain so I guess that could have been a possibility but no one thought about it and then a few out of the other colleagues like did you just not eat breakfast I'm like no clue they still at that point had no real clue what happened until someone had said uh yeah here's her Rhythm strip because they were able to pull it right away and everyone was like oh gosh are you supposed to wear a bracelet when you have that just like a diabetic does yeah I was told actually you are but I did not that probably would have been really smart actually yeah after that I had a few people someone even bought me one I didn't wear it um yeah so after that 2016 issue there was more procedures more it was just this back and forth in fact they even did another device because they were really worried since that one didn't shock me and I was at more of a risk of this happening again they switched out that device they tried to pull out those old leads they couldn't so they left them in so they actually added another lead to that occlusion which caused more symptoms so you know in 2000 um 19 I was driving with my daughter and I passed out again and that was it so I had to stop driving in 2019 and that's ultimately when they listed me for transplant so it was in 2019 December so they listed you for transplants for so you need a heart transplant and um do you know are you high on the list low on the list yeah uh and what I mean and typically yeah yeah and typically um my understanding is that there's lots of people that are in need of heart transplants and that you have to have what the right ma a lot of things have to come together to make that happen is that right that's exactly right rip you know when you're listed for transplant or even before your list of returns but they do this expansive panel of tests and for me it was like a whole week long because with the history of cancer and all these other things they had to do even more tests to make sure there's no cancer so you get so exhausted from that evaluation and there's over 106 000 people on the transplant list today as we talk and about almost 20 people die a day waiting and what's really difficult is you know not we all believe in organ donation right 95 of Americans believe in organ donation they think it's a good thing but only 58 actually check that box to be an organ donor and you know what's ironic you know what I did this morning at eight o'clock I actually had the the privilege of going and talking to high school students that were in their driver's ed classes to talk about organ donation it was so cool and they were so interested it was the neatest thing and so the organ donation um Life Source they did a PowerPoint presentation and these young men and women they were so interested and they paid such sincere attention to my story and it was such a lovely exchange so it's really neat to see what this whole journey brings to to life and you know I think that's why I'm so open with my story is because if this can help to encourage others to be organ donors and and we'll keep on talking about this yeah but you know when someone dies why would you vary your organs like if you're gonna die anyways if you're brain dead and you have no quality of life and they're going to remove you from life support and you're going to die why would you not give your organs one person who dies has the potential to save eight lives eight organs and then well beyond that we use tissue for other various things up to 75 lives can be you know helped with those various tissues for other other procedures but I don't think that's I don't think that like I didn't know all that I think there's a lot of people that don't realize how if you if you check that box to be an organ donor how many potential lives you can help and potentially save and it doesn't matter how old you were you know because there's older people there was a gentleman I believe he was in his 100s that donated his corneas to help someone see and then there was another person who was in his 90s who was able to donate part of his liver to another person after he died and so it's just really incredible the stories that you hear and so when I was listed for transplant in 2019 you know it's so hopeful like it's like oh my gosh it's like I'm gonna finally get my life back but I'll tell you it was really challenging was the years leading up to that like you know 18 years I lived with heart failure and I was a young person you know so you think of heartfelt you think of an older person maybe that didn't take care of their body and maybe smoked and didn't those people people still deserve their lives to be you know you know given back by organ donation if they need it but it's hard to realize that there's congenital heart disease there's some babies think about all the babies that die that need heart transplants because of being born with heart defects and then you have young adults that end up with some of those congenital issues that need a second transplant and then you have individuals like myself that end up with some of these issues or infiltrative diseases so there's a lot of young folks that end up needing heart transplant you just would never think it they're people that you may see at the store that look totally normal but inside it's really difficult I remember my doctor asked me towards the end you know you probably should get a handicap sticker because that way you could spend your energy doing things you enjoy rather than walking and I was like I'm not going to do it I never got one so and to this day when I see him I'm like yeah I'm so happy I never did that I'm so happy oh I always made myself exercise and I'll tell you I the value of taking care of your life of your body eating Health eating good your whole life and exercising no one ever would have known I was sick and in fact I worked all the way up until the day of transplant you had asked me this so I was doing all video stuff and I was in the hospital so I guess I should back up so in 2019 they listed me listed me for transplant I got no call for 13 months did you how frustrating was that yesterday was just really scary part of that time it was just gonna die because you know that was Delta that's before we had any vaccines any treatment this is like first wave and I got covered my daughter got it you know life happens but guess who didn't have to go to the hospital and if you really look at that research you know we see that folks who are on Whole Food plant-based diets typically just don't succumb to covet they seem to just do better and and I you know I I really did believe that but I did okay during covid Mayo Clinic has this awesome Telehealth program so they're able to keep me at home and monitor me with a nurse multiple times a day at home so they didn't have to bring me in the hospital but that's what really pushed me down so that was December of 2020. and then come January of 2021 I just was no longer safe to be at home anymore and they did further testing to show that my heart just wasn't getting adequate blood flow and oxygen to the vital organs and so at that point they admitted me to the hospital for supportive therapies so I wasn't a candidate for the heart pump I wasn't a candidate for one of the balloon pumps because of the prior radiation and because I'm small in body size so the only thing they could use to support my life was IV medications to help my heart pump and if I continue to get more sick they were going to have to put me on basically life support like something called ECMO which you know we've heard a lot of coveted patients go on but um yeah I remember in the hospital I'm getting those IV medications and I was doing a webinar this is an international webinar no one would know so I'm talking I'm presenting about breast cancer and eating healthy I'm talking about nutrition so I love this stuff right and my heart goes like it starts like going into a very dangerous arrhythmia and all the nurses come in the room I'm like it's gonna be really embarrassing in a minute I'm like we're gonna go to questions so I put the camera off like oh this is not good timing I'm like I told you guys not to run this medicine when I was doing this presentation so it was the next day February 5th it was yeah my doctor comes in the room and he's like Don we have a heart and and and do you know where that heart came from I don't okay okay I don't know much about it it's really interesting though when the doctor tells you that after waiting all these years you know you figure I was actually listed temporarily in 2007 to about 2009 getting off the list because of the circumstances I ended up getting a little bit better and then getting listed again when I was actually extremely sick in 2019 waiting all that time you would think after all those years I'd be like I'm ready you're not I mean my heart dropped you automatically have such sadness for this family that's going through this and that someone has to die so that you can live so it's a very difficult emotion to process but yet you're so hopeful and so happy that you're going to be there for your family again like I'm going to be able to have energy and do stuff with my family I've held them back for all these years you know we couldn't hardly ever do anything because of me I'm the one holding my poor family back and so the next thing out of his what he shared with me is like Bud and I was like oh this isn't good she is an IV drug user and she has hepatitis C and so that was like oh how is this possible this isn't good because you know I really it's interesting because you've you asked me one question earlier I don't always I didn't really read a lot about heart failure are you asked about the lymphoma statistics I never read about what I had because I didn't want to know I don't want to know numbers and so I kept myself away from those things and I trusted my doctors you know I hired doctors who I trusted that I could say You're Gonna cure me of what's going on so I could do what matters to me you're hired you know you're my caretaker you're gonna fix me and so that worked for me and I and I love that when I see that in patients too that they can be informed I was informed and I listened but yet I didn't want to get so into the details I was trying to be my own doctor but with the hepatitis C I actually did research that and you know some of the data suggests you know the things you can die from after a heart transplant are you know if you get rejection of course and if you get infection but you also get vasculopathy or like an arterial disease of the arteries of that transplanted heart and there that was one of my concerns is can that hep C cause inflammation in the body that can then cause this complication in my heart in the future which I'm back on track to live to be at least 100 and now that I have a young heart maybe I'll be 128 is my hope but in all seriousness this was a really hard thing for me to process yeah and that Smucker's jar I'm gonna do it I promise so it was difficult though then it was really amazing so a few hours went by you know I just had to think about it he he wanted me to think about it because he had known that I had said no to this when they had originally listed me so a few hours went by and I just had this complete knowing that that this heart is for me and it was I was probably like 80 in agreement with my decision like you know deep down I still had some doubts so you know the next day is when they took me to the operating room because it takes time to bring that organ to Mayo Clinic and set all that stuff up because a person's on life support and then they do the process and the Mayo Clinic doctors go and they get that heart they bring it to Mayo Clinic and then you're ready and so they take you down to the operating room while they're doing that process of getting that organ it's really amazing the timing of it I had no idea how this all works and so they're taking me down the operator and prepping me and they're on the phone the whole time with the procurement team who's getting the heart from the donor who is actually many states away um because I was listed as a status too because I had gotten relatively sick they were able to go more States over so my heart was actually coming from a further distance away I don't know for sure I kind of I always joke like in the operating room there was this nurse that had this posted on our thing and it said Kentucky so I don't know maybe Kentucky was her password but I'm like maybe my organ came from Kentucky I'm not sure but maybe one day I'll find out I hope I find out so I just remember going down into the operating room and seeing my surgeon Dr sarri upper glue and I had eye contact with him and I had no fear none like every other surgery I've ever had in my life I like I think anyone's scared before you go under anesthesia I had none I had total knowing that this was for me this is the right thing I am ready and as I went under anesthesia I just prayed for my donor I thanked my donor I prayed for her family and that they were okay and comforted in this time and that was it went under anesthesia there were some complications I actually had to go back to the operating room because of the prior radiation I had some bleeding so they had to reopen me up again I woke up a few days after transplant and that that is my most incredible experience in life is when I woke up wait wait wait wait wait wait wait oh okay okay wait wait wait wait that was as incredible as when you like almost saw the white light and you felt like God was holding you and all that this is right up there this is better I think okay go ahead I'm sorry to interrupt yeah no I'm happy you did that because you're right because that was pretty cool but I think that prepared me for this that prepared me you know that taught me to just Embrace every moment like in its ultimate Essence like that's just what I would say and so I woke up and my whole body was just like beating against the bed and I had never felt this before I was like oh my gosh like what is going on like everything's been and I heard this like whistling sound and it was my hair that was like like just brushing ever so subtly like I don't know if anyone else would ever have heard anything I mean it probably happens to anyone with a little bit of long hair but they probably aren't aware of it but I just had such full awareness of everything this is the gift of everything I've been through and it was like singing and it was just like this harmonious sound and my whole body was warm for the first time in so many years that it was just like this immense sense of being Fully Alive I describe it as like my cells were oscillating at this higher frequency and I think this is very cool and there's something with us that has to do with Whole Food plant-based nutrition I think too which this may sound a little weird to people but it was the coolest thing ever like just I was alive and More Alive than anyone has ever experienced and I haven't lost that wow so cool well what it is it is so cool and it sounds like you started having issues with your heart like back in what 2000 and uh 2003 is when you first had that cardio cardio cardiomyopathy right yeah and so for almost 18 years you've you just kind of weren't able to live at that higher frequency that you probably were so like used to and now all of a sudden because of this gift The Ultimate Gift right I mean a new heart you're now able to oscillate at this frequency that you haven't experienced in 18 years wow yeah that was exactly that I mean so it was just amazing you know and so I remember before I went you're recharged you're perfect don't go in that room she will not let you out she's going to be talking and she is like energized I'm so energized but you know there's it wasn't it wasn't that easy I was just like so in love with the fact that I was alive and I was gonna get on that Smucker's jar but you know in all seriousness when I tried to take those first steps I had asked them who was the first to ever walk once they were extubated so I wanted to try to hit that you know I just tried I think they tried to make me feel good I was probably like the last person to walk because I had had a few of those complications but that first step was so challenging um I was so weak I was so deconditioned so despite feeling so fully alive when I try to take that full first step with a walker I mean like not even like a true Walker it's like a walk or all your body weight is on it I I could barely do it you know I mean but didn't you say didn't you say that you you were out for like days a couple days is that right it was a few days before I was extubated yeah that was hard that part was that actually was really really difficult that whole I don't remember being intubated I don't I remember part of being extubated where you know they're talking to you and that part was actually scary to me what was going to happen because you know I remember you know as a hospital is working with patients who were kind of in those situations and uh yeah that was that was very challenging um you know um if if I can say so in doing my research for this Don you before before we move on too much too much farther I just want to say I came across something that you said and I want to read it for everybody and you say that the true essence of our existence should be less about what we want and more about what we give and how there's no greater gift than organ donation and it's just it's it is so incredible to see you so alive so vibrant so happy that um you're just you just light me on fire it's incredible oh thank you I just feel so blessed and it's absolutely true you know organ donation is just like it shifts that permanence of death into this vital existence and purpose like you know and so it was an it was so interesting so you're on so many medications post-transplant and you're on a lot of Prednisone and I was a little upset four days after transplant like I started thinking what it was it was very weird it was very unlike me but I was in my mind it was late at night I couldn't fall asleep and I was thinking why did I get this hepatitis C Heart Like and why is she an IV drug user and man if this is going to mess up this heart you know it's weird thinking right so I went to bed and I had this dream I had this powerful dream and I woke up and I was like in this Dwelling Place it was this concrete square room there was a window and I remember running to that window to look out to see if my car was there there was no car I remember looking behind me to see if I had my purse there there was no purse the only thing I saw was a door and I remember in the dream crawling out of the door and outside the door was this really tall grass and as I'm crawling through the grass like the blades of grass were like sticking to my leg like you know grass has like that little stickiness to it yeah it cuts your leg I feel like when I discuss when I describe this like I can feel how that dream was it was it was really amazing and I remember in the dream flipping over and there's these clouds like these big cumulus clouds in the sky and then in the distance there were these people this families and kids playing like in Harmony and like Blissful existence it was beautiful and then there was this mad like this message like this word that came over me that said Grace I thought okay so I woke up and I was really comforted I was like okay I'm gonna name my heart Grace and I happened to look at my phone because I would always sleep to very relaxing music and the song that was playing on my phone at that moment and I screenshotted it was Grace but it gets better so I opened my email because I wasn't sleeping and I you know I'd like to work and the email waiting for me says full of grace so it's powerful so at that moment I had complete knowing that this is the right heart for me I named her grace as you would imagine and from that moment forward I have had just full Embrace of the heart I received and in fact it's so meaningful to me that I actually got her heart because I don't know what her circumstances were and all I know is that her and I live in such Harmony together we have so much fun together that if this can be an example for someone who is even on the brink of questioning being an organ donor I am here to say the person that gets your or your loved one's organs God forbid anything ever had to happen and it did like this I am just one person out of all those other organ donation recipients that are the same exact way they are in the same way you know that gift is something that just transforms everyone's life I think I lived like this before but this has raised me to a different level of existence and purpose and meaning you know I get up at 3 54 in the morning and I am ready to go because I have so much to do and so much to give back for what I receive that truly is that Ultimate Gift of Life so do you feel like do you feel like you do you feel like you are at all a different Dawn or do you feel like you're just more of more of Don I feel both I am different in a way that I feel that I am um I'm more connected to people in humanity you know I've always loved people but I love people with about zero Judgment at this point like I don't pass judgment you know that's what this taught me you know because going into this transplant and getting that organ you know I was still having a little judgment even post-op day four I was having some judgment until I had that dream and you know when you look at like the Divine meaning of Grace it's really you know a gift from God it's a virtue and I feel that I receive this gift so that I can help to radically change certain things you know and like there's no better time now and you know part of this is you know what you are so passionate about with Whole Food plant-based nutrition and just living healthy and exercise and in sleep and social connections and deep meaning and purpose and and I love everything that you and your family stands for and and I'm the same way you know there's just so much that we can give back to others and I love that how how have Brandon and Sophia embraced use you know post um heart transplant surgery yeah it was so amazing so you know because I had the transplant and the timing I did I was able to be at her High School graduation which was awesome I was able to help her move in to college because she just started her fresh last year was her first year of college so I was able to do that I was able to go to some football games which is so so college kids I'm like oh you're so full of energy and stuff no nothing like it yeah it's amazing and we're so excited because this summer we get to really go on our first family vacation because last year we really couldn't go on a vacation because I was still so close to the transplant period we really couldn't travel but you know it was interesting last year my doctors did let me travel to Arizona they felt that that was okay since there was a Mayo Clinic Arizona and you know what on my four-month transplant anniversary I climbed Camelback Mountain oh amazing so that was one of okay so when I woke up that was powerful right that beating of the heart well guess what happened so I that connection that happened when I woke up from transplant happened again when I was ascending Camelback Mountain my heart was just beating so forcibly and I just felt such a direct connection with my donor at that time and the beauty of like the Mountain Vista and the sunrise it was just a very much like a spiritual connection in an opportunity that was just really amazing it meant a lot to me because it was something I had done for so many years of my life that I hadn't been able to do for 18 years I actually didn't set out to climb Camelback Mountain but I had been actually exercising really hard after transplant um and I was running and I had run a few 5Ks prior to that time so I was like maybe I could do half of it but once I got to the halfway mark my husband was behind me by the way he's like slowed down you need to be safe I'm like I think you need to be safe I'm like I'm going I'm fine now so that was did you say that was four months after surgery yeah that was in June of last year wow and so and then what did you do I read about you doing something else less than a year after your surgery that no other transplant that that I'm aware of has ever done and what was that yeah so I I ran a marathon and I I wanted so bad to do it because you know yeah you know it was like transplant for me was like my second wind you know and a marathon teaches you a lot about life right and so I was so committed and I really felt it was gonna be possible I trained very very smart I really feel the fundamental reason I was able to run the transplant is I do think my grittiness helped but it was in plant-based nutrition that let me do it because there are so many medications you take in fact there was one point post-transplant that I was taking at least 45 different pills a day oh wow like it's crazy and the side effects from the transplant medications are immense and so you know going through my transplant Rehabilitation it was kind of like when I went through cancer everyone around you was sick except for you it was kind of again that same exact thing I just had this you know just felt great how could I run a marathon the only difference really was the fact that I was eating this whole food plant-based nutrition and very few transplant patients do if any I mean I haven't really met any that committed and so I was very specific more than I had ever been about my diet and very particular about how I balanced everything and that's what got me to that point and Jeff Galloway also helped me with my training so I did do a little bit of a run walk so I was very smart with my heart you know a lot of people don't realize after you have a transplanted heart they cut the nerves to the heart so there's nothing that could speed up the heart or slow down the heart it's you that has to do it especially early on so it's very hard to run after transplant so when you run your muscles tell you know your heart you need to speed up you know your body gets that signal but through the nervous system but when they cut the nerves when they put the new heart in yeah you don't have that signal so you rely on your circulating catecholamines that's why my gift because I have no problem generating energy and so so does nerves grow back though there is they suspect they do but they suspect that that's usually a delayed response but I'll tell you this is my theory and this is why you know they're going to do some further testing but I was able to run I started running about six weeks after transplant I started very early after transplant running and I was running 5Ks by three months after transplant which was also very early and so I think my my desire and my support and my medical team to start this very early is potentially allowed me to have this re-innervation of my sympathetic nervous system that's allowing me to engage my heart in a way that really matters and it helps me in terms of my running versus I'm just using my catecholamines but I I don't know if I'm that good at it but yes I've been I've been really lucky so I think that that early on exercise and I was really dedicated to it has immensely helped me with the training for the marathon now you also did you also compete in the world transplant games I did so and what does that mean like do you have to have a a transplant of heart or any part of your body do you know how that works yeah so it's really such a beautiful supportive event so any person who has undergone organ donation or bone marrow transplant is eligible for the world transplant games or transplant games in America actually we have that as well it's coming up actually in July um in San Diego and they even have different categories for family members to run or even living donors to be a part of it or there's many many events part of this so last year because of covet it had to be virtual and so I wanted to start running so I could do the virtual event which was three and a half months after transplant so that was my motivation to start running at six weeks was so I could do this and initially the world transplant game said sorry you have to be it's like nine months out or a year out and so they originally said I couldn't do it but then I submitted my numbers and so they let me do it but I actually did decent and so what was that like meeting all those uh all those transplant you know athletes was it just incredible you know if it was a shame is it had to be virtual last year yeah I mean you could meet people virtually but how to be virtual so next year it's going to be in Australia so I'm very excited for that you gonna go well yeah so actually I hope to go I think I think I'm gonna go but right now I still I love the marathon running and you know it's a little bit of different training and so I would love to do the Abbott major so I would love to do all six of the major marathons is my goal so this fall I'm doing Chicago and then in the spring I always like to do the Donna marathon for my patients that's the breast cancer Marathon that's in February but I really have my site set on doing London in the fall and I'll just keep on going so every fall and every spring I'll keep on running a different one until I get all six of those Mage one and I hope I can qualify I would like to qualify for Boston but I'm not very fast yet so that's frustrating me and kind of figure out how I can get my Speedy legs back yeah you know what I listen the fact that you're back running is just let's let's call that a huge Victory right there let alone running marathons incredible um so what would you say to people that are listening that that have cancer or have had a brush across the bow with cancer um any any recommendation or advice for them you know I kind of look at it's like what what creates that grittiness you know I love that word and I would say the first thing was never letting go of that goal directed mission of wanting to deliver you know original medicine through the lens of love for Humanity being a doctor and helping people you know at that basic biological level we want to be connected and care for others and you know as part of that it's just life is about something so much bigger than us and in society nowadays you know there's a lot of Need for people want pleasure they want immediate gratification and that's not always what life is about you know it needs to be more about meaning and purpose and the fact that it's not just always about us so that would be the first part of it the next part of it I would say is I really controlled my thoughts you know I flipped the script both times with cancer and chemo and with transplant and I allowed both of those to teach me and guide me and I really tried to keep acceptance at the core of that and never run or or never run from it right and there's that one story I know I've shared it before and it it's with cows and Buffalos it sounds kind of crazy I don't know if you've ever heard this story have you heard this so this is great so when there's a storm coming cows run from it keeping them in the storm longer but a buffalo runs directly into the storm ultimately shortening their time so I love it's just simple you know but it makes sense and so that's kind of you know go after it you're not you're not going to short it so you know I just feel that that is part of why I've attained this life filled with bliss and and you know just really true heightened existence despite adversity and that's what I work with my patients in and I see them doing the same thing you know and it's just that invitation to use that and flip that script I I would say the biggest part of this is gratitude and it sounds crazy but I am so grateful for what I went through and I'm I'm so grateful for the loving support I had from my family from my friends from my colleagues from Mayo Clinic during all this time I'm so grateful that I have this strong like spiritual belief in God and you know when we have gratitude it really takes us from this place of deficit or or nothing to this place of abundance and that is those are really I think the things that helped get me through this incredible um so I I want to go full full swing here so we started this conversation and what an incredible conversation it's been with you waking up at 3 54 because you were so excited right now how many breakfasts did you have this morning I had well they were like not really full breakfast there were three guy can you can you share with our plan strong audience what those were yeah yeah so the first one was a sweet potato because I love sweet potatoes and I alternate them between orange and purple so I love the purple ones those Stokes sweet potatoes are my favorite restaurants yes oh they're so gorgeous that color and I'll just cut them and I steam them because if you steam them the color is even better so so I love sweet potatoes so I did that early in the morning and then after that I had oatmeal and so I did it with they were like organic oil oh it's I put ginger in it I put cinnamon in it I use soy milk I love soy milk um that's unsweetened organic and then um oh I had Ginger cinnamon half a banana and soy milk okay and so can you remember like roughly what time was that it was like an hour after your sweet potato or two hours yeah so I had to go talk to the high school student so I had half of it before I went to talk to the high school student so that was about 7 30. and then the other half when I got back before I had a patient because I had a patient right after so I ate the other half around 8 30. and then after I got done with my first patient I had just I guess it was a little snack so I had some walnuts and I had some apricots okay and then you had then you had this wonderful bowl of oatmeal right and then what's your third breakfast oh yeah my third breakfast was the April apart yeah yeah I'm tracking I'm tracking um now and have you had have you had lunch yet today not yet I will after this probably I love breakfast though breakfast is my favorite meal when it comes to your lunch and dinner I have to kind of make myself eat you know I do but it's hard so tell me somebody that gets up typically at 407 and is living this large and wonderful as you are what time do you typically like what time does the head hit the pillow try to uphold those kind of pillars of Healthy Living myself try I would love to try to get seven hours of sleep but I'm I feel actually really good on six hours of sleep so to answer your question I try to go to bed between nine and ten o'clock on most nights and I'm usually pretty successful about that but it gets a little hard depending on how busy I am with work and if I feel like I'm not going to hit that six hours and I need it I will wake up later I will push it back to five o'clock and I'll miss my morning workout on those days and I'll work out in the evening and I just am I really believe in the importance of sleep and if we don't have time to let our brain nurture itself and and bathe itself to get those adequate hours of sleep then we're not going to be as functional the next day so I really try to get at a minimum six hours but really ideally we should try to hit seven hours if we're yeah no you're you're right there's so much research coming out about the benefit of sleep and uh Matthew Walker's book and others you know why we why we sleep so yeah um well Dawn this has been so fabulous I can't even you know tell you how much I have garnered from our time together today and I know everybody's just gonna like ah literally eat this up eat you up your this incredible journey of uh that you've had uh on your life and and the joy and the smile and the love for life that you now you know exude is just so uh powerful what a gift what a gift you are to to this planet thank you well you're you're very kind I I thank you for those very kind words and I feel like life has just been a gift to me and rip all of your work is a gift to people you have no idea when when Carrie had mentioned that I would get to meet you I was like oh my gosh and I actually got to meet your dad uh not too long ago he did a talk at Mayo Clinic and your mom kind of put her little happy face around the corner to introduce herself and I was just tickled so I just love her energy and but thank you for your kind words and all the amazing work you do to help people stay healthy because it matters and it really matters especially if you ever get a diagnosis something you're not expecting you can flourish during and after that because because you took good care of your life and that matters and oh this is what I was going to say you know I was talking about energy and cells oscillating so the food we eat if you eat food from a factory there is zero vibrational energy from that if you want to kind of get on this like really weird conversation stuff but you get zero energy back if you eat plant food you're getting food from the earth that's why have you ever met someone who eats a plant-based diet who is like you don't they're all happy people so you know if people don't want to eat healthy for any other way everyone wants to be happy you know so try it just to see how good you feel you know I don't believe in making people scared so if people have breast cancer and they're doing it because they're scared of dying I try to quickly get them to the fact that you're going to mainly be doing this because you're gonna feel alive and that's why we're curing you of your cancer so you feel alive so when you eat like this you're gonna feel like me and this is awesome let me tell you it's a great place to be yeah yeah um done I I gotta say goodbye I hate saying goodbye but this is the first goodbye and I'm gonna hopefully have lots of uh you know hellos uh in the future but will you give me a nice plant strong fist bump on the way out here bye all right oh wait wait there we go there we go all right bye Don okay bye Don is all heart literally and figuratively and represents such a shining example of Grace and gratitude if you're as inspired as I am I hope that you'll give her a big kale yeah shout out on the socials we'll have all of her links in the show notes on the episode page at clanstrongpodcast.com thanks so much for listening and keep it planned strong until next time the plantron podcast team includes Carrie Barrett Lori cordovich Amy Mackey Patrick Gavin and Wade Clark this season is dedicated to all of those courageous true Seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with Clear Vision and hold firm to a higher truth most notably my parents Dr Cabo the esselstyn Jr and Ann kriel esselstyn thanks for listening

Channel: Switch4Good

Views: 55,718

Keywords: plant based diet and cancer, plant based diet and heart failure, can a plant-based diet reverse chronic diseases, can a plant-based diet cure disease, whole food plant based, is plant-based better for recovery, do doctors recommend a plant-based diet, how to survive heart failure, how to survive cancer, how to reverse cancer, how to survive cardiomyopathy, how to survive diffuse b cell hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large b cell lymphoma, organ donation process, dr. dawn mussallem

Id: 5LHY6LTugEg

Length: 88min 37sec (5317 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2022