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Lets Just Talk About It Podcast with Chuck
This Podcast is geared toward giving people a platform to share their personal story because so many people have a story, but they have nowhere to share it, but they do now, it's called Let's just talk about it Podcast because I believe every voice matters!
Lets Just Talk About It Podcast with Chuck
A Cancer Survivor's Story with Guest Tamra Robinson
Imagine preparing for an online Zoom class during the COVID-19 pandemic and receiving a devastating phone call with biopsy results. Tamra, a seasoned cosmetologist, recounts this very experience and the overwhelming emotions that followed. From the immediate impact on her professional life to the broader implications for her family, Tamra’s narrative offers a raw and honest look at the complexities of navigating the healthcare system. She shares the proactive steps she took, including switching hospitals and researching specialists, illustrating the resilience required to face such a sudden, life-threatening diagnosis.
In another powerful segment, Tamra delves into the world of chemotherapy, explaining advancements in cancer treatment like the use of ports and markers such as the SAVI. She sheds light on the meticulous process of custom-making chemotherapy for each patient and the emotional and spiritual impact it has on families. Tamra’s journey through treatment is a testament to the fear, support, and unwavering faith involved in battling cancer. Wrapping up, we explore how her resilience and determination were crucial in overcoming the disease, offering hope and motivation to anyone facing similar challenges. Don’t forget to subscribe for more inspiring stories and join our community on Facebook under Chuck L-J-T-A-I.
Hey, welcome back to another episode of Lets Just Talk About it podcast. I'm your host, chuck, and if you're here for the first time, this platform was created to give genuine people just like you an opportunity to share a portion of your life's journey. So, with that being said, today I wanted to replay this episode with my guest, miss Tamra Robinson, where she shares her experience with her battle with cancer and how she was able to navigate through it all with God, family and friends. So, hey, you don't want to miss this inspiring and amazing conversation today. As a matter of fact, do me a favor Go and grab your husband, your wife, your children, or even call a friend and gather around to listen to my conversation with Tamara on let's Just Talk About it podcast. Hey, let's jump right in Today. I have Miss Tamra Robinson on with me today, um. So first of all, thank you so much for being a part of this episode on let's just talk about it podcast.
Tamra Robinson:I really appreciate you thank you so much, chuck, for having me. I am so excited to get ready to let's talk about it my story. Such an honor.
Chuck:You're welcome. As always, I love to jump right into my interviews To have those genuine conversations With genuine people just like yourself, tamara, to share a portion of your life's journey. So, with that being said, where you from?
Tamra Robinson:I'm actually from Jacksonville, north Carolina, but I was raised in California Because my father Was military. Being a Marine Served in the United States, jacksonville, north Carolina. But I was raised in California because my father was military being a Marine, served in the United States Marine Corps and met my mother in North Carolina and, at the age of five, moved us out to the West Coast.
Chuck:Wow, wow. Tammy, I believe everybody, all of us, have our own unique, you know, experience growing up. Some are good and some are not so good, but every everybody has their own story. So what was yours like growing up?
Tamra Robinson:it's been actually actually rewarding, and when I say that because, being raised on the west coast and moving to the east coast later on in my um, when I was about 18, it gave me the best of both worlds. So my early childhood was done in californ, california, and it exposed me to the diversity of culture and people, and then later, moving to the East Coast, I experienced the segregation which I was not used to, the segregation which I was not used to, and it just gave me a very open mind how people are, how we are in this world, and I just think I've had the best of both worlds East Coast, west Coast, east Coast West.
Chuck:Coast Got you, so you shared with me that you are a cancer survivor right. So explain that experience, because you never know who's listening, who may have a family member or maybe even dealing with cancer themselves. Would you mind sharing that experience?
Tamra Robinson:Yes, in October 2020, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and invasive ductal carcinoma, breast cancer, triple negative. And what happened is prior to October, I would say about five months. I was in the shower and noticed there was a knot, a lump, on my right side of my breast and being attentive to my own body I said, hmm, what's that? I knew that in my own thoughts, cancer wasn't a known factor within my family, so it never crossed my mind. I just knew whatever that was. It was never there before. So I kept on in my mental. I would shower again and again and finally I said you gotta get this checked out.
Tamra Robinson:And when I say again and again, I'm saying within the month right and after calling a clinic, it was told to me yes, come in for a mammogram. After I went to go for the checkup to get a mammogram, they basically did not return my phone call to schedule the mammogram. So now you're looking at chuck.
Tamra Robinson:Probably about two months I haven't heard anything right and so I see this pink paper that the receptionist had given me, and so I called the number and they tell me that, because I felt something, I have to have what you call a 3D imaging.
Tamra Robinson:So for the audience it's very important that we understand you have mammograms, but mammograms have gotten so sophisticated where they want to look at ourselves a lot more closer and so that 3D gives them more of a better image of what's going on. And so we proceeded and found out that I did not have insurance, which was one of the reasons that I had not moved so quickly, reasons that I had not moved so quickly because in my mind I'm thinking I don't have insurance or do I still have insurance? Because you know we can have insurance and someone like me, I was on Medicaid, so I didn't know if Medicaid had ran out because I had moved to a new area in North Carolina and the dynamics of my finances had changed, so I wasn't on Medicaid any longer. Well, I go to my appointment for a mammogram and here comes the red flag she does not have insurance everything is, and here comes the red flag.
Tamra Robinson:She does not have insurance. Everything is, you know, being spoken within the office. Well, let's just go ahead and have her do the mammogram and we'll worry about this later.
Tamra Robinson:I was going to Duke Medical Center and after getting the appointment, I am, you know, having the procedure done and I wait for them to call me and, like we've heard time and time over radios, shows and talk shows on television and now social media, it is very true, you will never forget this day, wow, okay, so here I am going to the appointment, where the image is getting ready to be revealed to you, and it's just like a woman that is having an ultrasound. Chuck, what they do. They take and they put the jelly on you and they're basically taking that same. They're taking a probe and they're running it up and down around the breast area, the breast area, and the doctor then shows you this area looks suspicious wow a sentence that you never will forget, forget it.
Tamra Robinson:And he's explaining to me what a circle looks like in a certain area. And then he goes onto the x-ray after the um mammogram and he shows me on the x-ray what that egg looks like, with sharp edges coming out of it and the circle like an oval look is the bad, with the edges, with sharp edges. A nice circle is a good thing, but if you have anything shaped like an egg with some lines outside of it, that's the suspicious part, excuse me. And so I Say to the doctor doctor, you're saying suspicious, I'm not 15 years old. Are you saying cancer? And he says yes, it looks suspicious to be cancer. Deep breath, she rubs my shoulder, do you have time to do a biopsy? And all I could think of.
Tamra Robinson:My reply yes, I have all the time in the world for Tamara. He says Come back Within the hour. Time in the World for Tamara. He says come back within the hour. And then he goes into explaining what is going to take place and where it will take place at Within three to four days. We will call you with the results. Wow.
Tamra Robinson:And yes, chuck, it was a wow. It was just me and God, and all I could think of was God. You heard him. You knew this was going to happen before I did, and so I stepped out the room, I went to a convenience store. I came back this was during COVID, and so I'm properly getting things together. I go into the patient room that they have for me and all I'm thinking is these three white people and I'm a black person. I'm like, oh my goodness, and I know let's talk about, let's just talk about it, but I'm being very sincere. Some people don't like to keep it real.
Chuck:I'm keeping it real, let's talk about it okay, it's me and I just start praying.
Tamra Robinson:Lord, god, don't let anyone be prejudiced in here.
Tamra Robinson:Don't let anyone get ready to snip something that don't need to be snipped, and that's just the truth. And they took care of me. They wiped my tears because as they snipped, you could just hear the clicking that was the cutting of the device that was being used for the biopsy, and the tears just rolled down my face. I wasn't really emotional, I was just calm as I could be and gathered my items later. It probably took maybe about 30 minutes for everything and the doctor assured me that they would be calling me as soon as the results were in.
Tamra Robinson:And I'm a cosmetologist, so I've been a cosmetologist for about 25 years and I teach cosmetology. So at the time of COVID cosmetology we had to teach online through Zoom and it was a Monday morning, class was getting ready to start at nine and I get a phone call and it's the doctor with the results and I recognize the number Deep breath results and I recognized the number deep breath. And he says hello, ms Robinson, this is Dr um such and such. And I'm like okay, and he says I would like to give you your biopsy results. And I say to him Chuck, right now. And he says unfortunately, people travel throughout the world to come here and we can't always tell people in person, and so I said, okay, and it's just me in the house. And he says, unfortunately you have invasive ductal carcinoma wow.
Chuck:So at that point, so at that point, what was going on in your mind? You, you have children, right, so did they cross your mind. You know was it was your mind all over the place, because I know you say you was calm, but you know, hearing that, that, um, that result, it'll kind of shake you. You know what I mean, because you think not only about yourself but you, you think about your family, you know.
Tamra Robinson:Yes, and even during our podcast right now, I know that the audience probably can even hear my voice, because it's a emotion. It's a emotion, it's a feeling that's all combobulated in and it's as if I'm talking about it and it makes your mind go to when, when you first heard you, you're thinking of you. It's you, it's, then it's I got you. I mean, it's just me. That's who I thought of. I didn't think of anyone, I just immediately I thought of me like cancer, and I knew I had students that I had to be on that zoom class call at nine o'clock. What do I do? So it was that, and it was the director. It was the boss. It was the director, it was the boss, it was the students. Then came my parents, my children. It was like that type of processing.
Chuck:Got you.
Tamra Robinson:But you didn't have time to stop. You had to get to that call. So I'm thinking okay. I called my director and I told her what was going on. She was the first one to know and she said oh, tamara, I'm so sorry. And so she said can you do your class? I said yes, I can do it.
Tamra Robinson:So I thought Chuck, and she said we're going to talk after class. I said we sure will, and got on and I broke down. I couldn't hold it together and I broke down within it's like just tears, like like flooded. And they said, miss robinson, what's wrong? Are you okay? And I said I've just been told that I have breast cancer. Wow, and I'm sorry, as much as I would love to be strong right now, I can't, I can't do it. And so they were like, oh, ms Robinson. So then I called her and I just told her I couldn't do it. I had to have my moment. And the next day, of course, I went into teaching Zoom call, but I had to listen to the doctor, wait for my next appointment. And who do you tell? Like you have to think because you don't want, you don't have all your information. What is invasive ductal carcinoma?
Tamra Robinson:yeah you, I don't even know what's going on, like, oh my goodness, you just told me something over the phone, so what I'm told is what I just said. So, after I just take a deep breath, I don't tell anyone yet I have to get everything in order. So when my next call comes in, it is going to be with a gynecologist and you have to get so many tests, because what they want to do, chuck, they want to find out where did this cancer come from. They want to find out where is it, how large is it? How long has it been there approximately? What is going to be the cure? Is it curable? What's going on? So it doesn't run in her family, on mommy's side, daddy's side?
Tamra Robinson:All this is going on and you feel like you're on a beginner rollercoaster and you're in the cart and it just starts to go, go, go. And for my job, I just simply said I won't be able to do this. I want to take all this time for me, and so that's the way it was. It was a roller coaster going up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up up, and it just seemed like it was going up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up up and it just seemed like it was going up, up, up, up, up, up, up up, and then it eventually comes down, down, down, down, down down so you, you, you, you're at this.
Chuck:How was that part for you at that time?
Tamra Robinson:I'm going to say fast forward where fast forward means you would. It's so many in between testing that you have to do before you even get to the chemo. Okay, so we fast forward. It's surgeries you have to get before you even start chemo. I mean the way chemo is administrated. This word that we hear about, chuck, we have no idea. Unless you've had the experience with a loved one or have had cancer, you have no idea. So here it is. I ended up switching hospitals. I ended up researching a triple negative specialist oncologist. We don't even know what an oncologist is.
Tamra Robinson:So it's all these new words like gone to colleges we know that's for, you know the women and we already know you're gonna have a baby. Just what. This is the person he goes with. So if you have cancer, you need an oncologist and and I had to learn and a really good friend of mine said me being a cosmetologist said you've always done your best. Now it's time for you to have the best. You've done your best to women. You gave them the best hairstyles. You need the best oncologist. You need the best hospital. What I did? I started researching and I found this doctor that is in North Carolina, at UNC that's where I end up getting my treatment and she specialized in triple negative.
Tamra Robinson:Triple negative is a breast cancer that is in black women. It's aggressive. Black women is aggressive and when you listen to me, get to the chemo that you're talking about. It was her plan. I want the audience to imagine a basketball team. Every basketball team has a coach, has an assistant coach right, and the game plan is to what Win? Well, imagine yourself you're one player and the other players around you are your support team. So let's visualize it like that. Okay, so your oncologist is the captain.
Tamra Robinson:So for triple negative, I needed a oncologist which is my captain, right of the team. I needed a radiologist doctor and I needed a surgeon. That's the plan. Because you have to go with this cancer, you have to be very aggressive with it, with the treatment. And so she let me know what the plan was chemo she wanted to do it every other week. My friend who's a surgeon told me we're not going to play with cancer, let's be aggressive. So when she asked me, was I fine with every two weeks? I said I want to take the aggressive approach and she said, well, let's do it every week then. Wow.
Tamra Robinson:And that's what we did, and I thank God for him, because I did not know what this all meant, but I did not question him. All meant, but I did not question him. He's a great surgeon and I said okay, and so I received chemo for five weeks and it was. I'm going to share this with you about chemo. You um I'm sure people have heard you receive chemo in your veins. Well, it's become cancer. It's so much research for cancer that is so advanced than what it was 20 years ago. You want to receive the chemo either in your veins or a port. Veins are actually very small, so you don't want to take it in your veins. Some people do, but they've come up with a port a port. You must have surgery and it's placed on the opposite side of the tumor.
Chuck:So that's how you receive chemo wow so it's a lot, and that is when you, when you say I'm sorry when you say on the other side of the port that's to shrink it yes okay see, your chemo is.
Tamra Robinson:What is your chemo? Is the medicine that is supposed to shrink the tumor. It's supposed to. You want to kill it.
Tamra Robinson:You want to kill it wow um, that's why a lot of people say it's poison, it's deadly, it kills your good cells as well, attacks your good cells, your white blood cells. And it's to me finding out. You have something that you've never researched Right and when it happens, you have to find the time, make that time and research it. And it's got to be done so quickly because they're asking you questions do you want to port? Do you not want to port? They're looking at you like ma'am, come on, what's? What's the factor?
Chuck:like you should know, have a savvy.
Tamra Robinson:What is a savvy? Oh, my goodness. A savvy is another surgery that has to be done where they put a marker. The savvy is a marker that's put placed in surgery so that when the chemo targets the tumor, a lot of times the chemo makes the tumor go away and the doctor cannot find the tumor. So the savvy, which is spelled s-A-V-I, it is placed inside you and you're. You know it's really small, probably about the size of a grain of rice, and so that's a surgery and you go in.
Tamra Robinson:You cannot, oh, my goodness, everyone, listen to me very well you cannot receive chemo if you have high blood pressure. If you have, if your blood count is off, you are checked. Every time you go in to get chemo. You have to go to triage and triage has to check you. Wow, if your blood pressure is high, if you're savvy I mean I'm sorry, chuck If your port is clogged, not working properly, you cannot even receive chemo. Wow, moving forward, every person that gets chemoo. It is not like penicillin, it is not like any medicine tramadol, it's not medicine already made. They make your chemo just for you. It's custom designed. After you are checked out by your triage, they send your work upstairs to the lab pharmacist and it says Tamara Robinson, everything is clear. You can make her chemo it's made on the spot. Can make her chemo, it's made on the spot.
Tamra Robinson:And then you go to where we call a treatment room. You're in a chair, you have your nurse and you sit there and there oh, my goodness, I know it was at least 40 rooms in that hospital and it's all an open day and people are just sitting there. People are laying there, laying back, sitting up, some people have their cell phones, some people are just knocked out, some people are doing whatever they have to do sleeping to receive their treatment. And it is, it's eerie. No one's talking, some are crying, some are. It's just. Everyone is doing different things and for me, I found myself praying for other people. That's what I found myself doing because everything's open. You have a curtain that might separate you. If you want to close it, you don't have to, and so you might hear someone say oh, you can't get your chemo, um, your device is um not working.
Tamra Robinson:Oh you're. You're waiting for your high blood pressure to come down. You saw men in there, women in there. You saw elderly in there. You saw people on their canes and their moving carts. I mean, oh my goodness, it was all walks of life. Yeah.
Tamra Robinson:So all walks of life. And it was just I found myself praying for other people, because Every time I was there, I just Because every time I was there, I just prayed for myself. Let everything go as planned. And being a believer, chemo is red and I called it the blood of Jesus.
Chuck:That's what I named it. Wow, that's what I named it. Wow. So how, so how has Cancer affected your, you know, the family and so forth? How did it impact your family?
Tamra Robinson:It? Has it impacted my family? I'm the oldest child and excuse my emotions. It's all right Because it's your story.
Tamra Robinson:We never had cancer in our family and it was new. And I have a sister who is familiar with working in an oncology department, being a phlebotomist, and so she was very scared. She lost the best friend to cancer and, being a naturalist, you have her and her husband trying to get you into alkaline water and everyone is your brother, your sisters, everyone's trying to. What do you need? Trying to just figure out what do we do? Oh my goodness, what the doctors say everyone's like what stage is it? Oh my goodness, that, if I had to say the number one question was what stage is it? And it was just support my soccer moms because my son, being the youngest at the time, plays soccer for Chapel Hill High and immediately where I live, didn't have no family up here, so they immediately came over camera. My mother's an oncologist. What did they say? I need your report, I mean, I mean it was just. It was so much support and love that it was. They were scared. They were scared.
Tamra Robinson:Their faith definitely was shaken and I can say some of them probably didn't, maybe they thought the worst, but I didn't let no one's faith bother my faith and what I had to do when someone was trying to give me advice. I had to. I had not disrespected the the advice, but I would take my phone off speaker so I would not let that go in my spirit. Okay, so they never knew it. So all of their ideas, all of their suggestions, I didn't let it get in my spirit. I took them off the speaker phone and then I would come back. They might still be talking and I would get back off the phone, things like that, and then I would say, ok, well, we'll talk soon. And my family would come up. My father was very concerned about the Camp Lejeune water toxins. My father is 81 years old so he was very upset. He was concerned, where did this come from? And so he was doing other things to try to give me advice and get help as well. And today I can honestly say that I went through this for eight months. I'm very, very blessed, very fortunate I, everything went as planned.
Tamra Robinson:My captain of the team, the oncologist, what she said. I never missed an appointment, I never missed an infusion. All my infusions were given to me. And that's another thing. Chuck, when you're receiving chemo, it's a process. The first one is like they, they go in very aggressive and eventually it levels out like, say, you might be getting chemo for four hours, you're in a chair for four hours and then it goes down maybe three weeks later to two hours, then eventually maybe to one hour, like that. Wow, so it's, and I want your audience to know that cancer is a word, but what people don't tell you? It's many cancers with an S, there's many names, wow. And it is not prejudice. It attacks from children to the elderly and anyone in between, male or female.
Chuck:So what would you say to individuals who who has a family member or or a friend going through it? How, how could we support the person who's going through the bout or battle with cancer? What's the best way to support a person?
Tamra Robinson:love is a strong word, but it's needed faith. Whatever your faith is, have that faith. Research is a must. Knowledge Research is a must. Knowledge is power. You cannot go in not knowing. You have to research, know what it is. If you are a person that might be emotional, let's say you're the patient, you're the one that has been diagnosed. I would highly recommend please have someone that's not emotional, that can write down information that this oncologist will tell you. Okay, another thing have another person that can video the entire conversation, just in case if the lady or male that is writing misses something. Because it was a time we all were grabbing tissues, but I had me a soccer mom and my daughter. Those were the three at the very first. This is what it is. This is what we're facing wow, so.
Chuck:So what would you say to an individual right now? Who's who's dealing with that? Hadn't been through the process yet, just found out what it, what, what, what are some encouraging words you would give them right now, male or female?
Tamra Robinson:You can beat it. You got this and you can beat it. You can win. You can win this fight against cancer. You're bigger than cancer. You're bigger than cancer. Believe it. Believe it and go through the process, but believe it and do everything you have to do to learn about it and you're going to come out on top. You will. You will, Because it's you over cancer. I want you to put the U, Y-O-U capital letters, draw a line under it and I want cancer under it. Little letters, C-A-N-C-E-R, no matter what cancer it is because you're on top.
Chuck:Wow. So if somebody wants to reach out to you just to talk to you, you know to find somebody that they can, you know lean on how can they reach you? Do you have any social media that people can contact you just to talk to you? You know to find somebody that they can you know lean on, how can they reach you? Do you have any social media that people can contact you just to talk to, or you know social media?
Tamra Robinson:social media. I do have facebook and it is my name tamra robinson, and I also have my number, which is 252-369-2979. You can call me, text me anytime. I have an email which is TamaraRobinson65 at gmailcom and the way you spell my name is T A M R A Robinson R O B I N S O? N. I like to be clear on that, because a lot of people spell my name with three A's versus two. Right. I'm definitely available.
Chuck:Yeah, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story, your journey, because, as I always say, you never know who's listening. Journey because, as I always state, you never know who's listening. Um, this podcast is created to give genuine people just like yourself an opportunity to share a portion of your life's journey, to talk about it. You know what I mean, so I really appreciate you coming on today.
Tamra Robinson:I really appreciate you, chuck, and it has been very real. Let let's just talk about it has given me the opportunity to tell people my story. Right. And I really appreciate you so much for the platform.
Chuck:Absolutely, absolutely. You're a survivor. Shout out to you Wow, what an amazing conversation. So once again, shout out to you, tamara, for having this dialogue with me. You may have a family member or friend who's dealing with the dis-ease of cancer, so I hope that this conversation will be an inspiration for someone to know that cancer can be beaten and you can make it. So thanks again, tamara, for sharing your journey. Again, thank you so much for always tuning in to let's Just Talk About it podcast, and please check out my website. Just Google let's Just Talk About it podcastcom and then hit that subscribe button to receive all the new episodes every Friday. You can also find me on Facebook. Just type in Chuck L-J-T-A-I, which means let's Just Talk About it. So, as always, until next time, don't hold it in, but let's just talk about it. Talk to you soon, thank you.