by The Physicians Committee.

My guest today is somebody who has a journey to tell us about.

She is still in the middle of it.

She is a former guest of the show.

And if there was anybody who is prepared to face

this journey, it is Allison Tierney.

She is the founder of Wholesome.

And it is such a privilege to have her back

on The Exam Room with us here today.

Allison, thank you so very much for being here.

Thanks for having me, Chuck.

It's an honor to be here.

The honor is all mine.

And in all honesty, I never thought you and I

would be sitting down to do a show like this.

You have been on the show previously,

but you were talking about your work

as an oncology dietitian.

And then here we are today.

You find yourself in the middle of a breast cancer battle.

Let's talk about this.

You were diagnosed in May of 2022.

When did you first know that something was amiss?

Yeah, that's a great question, man.

So I actually found, I should say my OB-GYN

found a lump

during my annual exam in actually April of this year,

and it was actually only ten days post breast

feeding my second child.

So it was very quickly after finishing breastfeeding with her

and I went for my annual exam and just during the self

breast exam and their breast exam that she does,

we found a lump

and we didn't really think

much of it because it was only ten days

post breastfeeding for many people listening

and they know

that breast feeding can change a lot of things

about the breast.

And we thought

that whatever it might be, we just

didn't really think much of it.

However, I went home and made sure that I could feel

the lump myself and kind of kept an eye on it.

And I really think it was my job,

my the people that I work with, all of the things

that allowed me to go home and just have this intuition

to be able to feel the lump, kind of feel what it feels like

and if it changed

or if it didn't change to kind of keep an eye on it.

So that was in April of 2020 this year,

and we didn't really do much about it.

Now fast forward a few weeks.

I kept feeling it and every time I felt the lump

I felt really anxious.

That's the only way

that I can describe it is that I felt really anxious.

I had had a lump before between my pregnancies

that had been ultrasound.

It went away after a cycle and it just went away.

So kind of part of me thought,

Well, maybe it'll just go away too.

But after it didn't go away, I messaged my doctor mostly

because I was preparing for a conference

where I was the main breast cancer nutrition speaker

and came across

some of the research and studies about breast cancer.

After breastfeeding, I thought, Oh,

I feel like this feels like a really good sign

that I need to have some peace of mind.

So I message my doctor and said, You know, this lump

hasn't changed. I continue to feel it.

And she was very swift to get an ultrasound scheduled.

So I went into the ultrasound,

I think it was about a week after that. So this is

May of this year, very early May.

And I was in the ultrasound

and because of my work in the oncology space,

I felt very familiar with what happened

and it was almost like I could just tell

during the ultrasound that things were not necessarily

looking the way they should look.

And the tech left

the room and I had a ding on my my watch

saying that I was scheduled for a new procedure.

And I thought to myself, Oh,

they just scheduled me for a mammogram.

This really isn't what it's supposed to be.

And I went in for my first mammogram ever

and had the mammogram.

And then

at the facility that I go to, you go into the next room

and thankfully they deliver that day results.

They have the radiologists look at the mammogram right away.

And so I sat in the next room and I was very nervous

and she walked into the room and I could just read her face.

I knew exactly what she was going to tell me.

And she said so.

And I honestly, I just broke down crying.

And the reason for

that was because

I felt like I've seen every scenario play out from here.

I've seen the good cases and I've seen the very severe,

you know, unfortunately, life ending scenarios as well.

And so when there's so much unknown,

that's all you can think of as you go straight to the bad.

So anyways, there

she said the next step was that we needed to get a biopsy.

And I said, Well, how soon can we get a biopsy?

Because I'm supposed

to have a plan on Friday to be the main speaker

on breast cancer nutrition.

And she just kind of looked at me like, what?

And so thankfully they were able

to schedule a biopsy within just a few hours that afternoon.

Got my biopsy.

So this was a Tuesday,

diagnosed on Thursday and boarded a plane on Friday.

And then after the presentation and that weekend, the following

Monday, I met right away with a surgeon

and talked about the next plans.

So that's kind of where it all started.

And there's even more to dove into if you want.

But I want to ask any questions you got from there.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I just I'm trying to put myself in your shoes

and obviously I'll never be able to, but that seems to be such

a jam packed week full of emotions.

Then you've got the kids, then you've got the conference,

the travel that comes with that,

and just the not knowing and the angst and you know,

what are the next steps and man, I just.

Has there ever been such a trying week in your life?

No. I mean, probably those that week

and the week that followed

are probably the most difficult in the entire journey

because it's so much of the unknown, the unknown.

We fear the unknown.

And there's cold out there.

And I don't know it perfectly, but it's really like

when we don't have knowledge

about what's going on, we can lead it to believe

to be so much worse than it actually is.

And I think that's what happens

for most people in that situation, is that you

you fear the worst and you absolutely do.

And the other thing, too, is, you know, I was diagnosed

here in I hopped a plane by myself.

I was leaving my family for the weekend.

And of course, my husband's

going through this emotional experience as well,

although he's not physically going through it,

he's emotionally going through it.

And here I am going to board a plane and leave for a few days.

And everyone told me, my whole family,

I don't really only share it with my family

like you don't have to go, you don't have to do this.

And I thought, I think I do need to do this.

I need to do this for me and I need to have this experience.

It's something that I was looking forward to.

And I only told one person at the conference

that I was going to about my diagnosis because I wasn't.

We may not have a whole ton of information

quite yet, but I also didn't want it to be

this really awkward experience where I was diagnosed and I'm

speaking on the topic without all these questions.

So I think that was really hard as being able

leaving my family for the weekend and being alone.

And of course my husband was worried about me too.

So it was definitely

a trying weekend,

but I'm actually really glad that I did it.

And it was a plant based nutrition conference

about lifestyle medicine.

And so it was

it was like kind of the

perfect thing that I needed that weekend anyways, for sure.

And you know, the other thing that strikes me is

when you've been on the show previously,

we've talked about your other health struggles,

which brought you to a plant based diet to begin with.

And so you

are a very, very, very healthy eater.

You do live a very healthy lifestyle

and yet you still got this diagnosis.

I know that you must have thought about those two things.

Did you ever ask yourself, Why me?

What did I do?

100%.

I think everybody asks that question

and I think it's helpful but really hard to also hear

when people hear about the diagnosis, say like,

you're one of the healthiest people that I know.

And I that was really hard for me

and I actually really happy to hear that

I'm the healthiest person that they know,

but at the same time, really difficult.

But I still end up with this diagnosis.

But at the same time, what might not be what might be

surprising to some people is that I'm not 100% surprised.

I mean, I am surprised

from the standpoint that I was diagnosed at the age of 33.

My mom's a breast cancer survivor.

My grandmother on my dad's side is a breast cancer survivor.

My godmother, who's

my mom's cousin, is a breast cancer survivor.

So we have this really extensive family history

of not only breast cancer, but other cancers.

So it's kind of

the reason, part of the reason

that I switched to a plant based diet was because of

not only my PCOS and infertility

that I know we've discussed here on the show before,

but because of this overwhelming amount of cancer in my family,

so from a standpoint, I'm not super surprised.

But at the same time, how early I have experienced

this diagnosis is one of the things that is

so surprising, I should say.

And based off of that, I was actually surprised

to learn that I do carry a genetic mutation.

So my mom was diagnosed at breast cancer at 49

and we actually never had genetic testing done

with my mom's breast cancer diagnosis

because they didn't believe that it was related.

They thought it was

hormonally related because my mom

had had a hysterectomy and her thyroid removed.

So they related

that to the hormone replacement therapy

that she was on for just a short period of time.

So when I was diagnosed at 33, I automatically qualified

for genetic testing.

But then when it came back,

the genetic counselor called me and we actually did

find that you do have a mutation.

I thought, what, really?

Because only 5 to 10% of cancers

actually have a genetic mutation related to it.

So it was actually a little bit surprising.

But as you can imagine, there was lots of emotions

back and forth like not surprised.

This is my family's history, but I tend to be

the healthiest person people know.

And and so there's lots of emotions that surround that.

And there is definitely emotions of anger.