Episode Overview

What if October, the month that can feel like it belongs to everyone but us, held something just for you?

Every single day of October, a woman living with metastatic breast cancer is being handed $500, no application, no criteria, no proof of need, just to go do something that makes her feel alive.

My guest this week is Elissa Kalver, diagnosed 34 days before her daughter's first birthday, who started the world's first nonprofit gift registry for cancer patients from her fifth round of chemo.

You deserve to live, not only to stay alive. This one is an invitation to let yourself believe that.

Meet Elissa:

Elissa Kalver is a stage four breast cancer thriver, keynote speaker, content creator, and bestselling author of We Got This: How I Learned to Thrive with Terminal Cancer. She is the founder of the nonprofit wegotthis.org.

Follow Elissa Kalver on Instagram

Follow We Got This on Instagram

Nominate yourself or someone else for the Be Like Brittany Fund (nominations close on the last day of September)

Resources Mentioned:

Download for iPhone: 

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android: 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Work with Laura:
https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health 

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Read the full transcript:

Laura Lummer 0:00
You're listening to Better Than Before Breast Cancer with the Breast Cancer Recovery Coach. I'm your host Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills, and the insights, and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis. If you're looking for a way to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started. Hey there, friends! Welcome to episode 481 of Better Than Before Breast Cancer. I'm so excited to bring you this episode because you know we're just a week away when this comes out, less than a week away from October, and we all know that October is a pink wash kind of month. There's a lot of great stuff that comes out of that, and there's a lot of stuff that we have to be a little curious about to make sure that if we're putting our money into something that's important to us-that it's getting to the right place. So I am excited not only to introduce you to this incredible woman, but to give you an opportunity. And this is also an opportunity for me to participate in something that's like at a grassroots level for our community of women who've had a breast cancer diagnosis or living with stage four breast cancer, I cannot wait to tell you about this initiative started by Alisa Calver and a group of her other friends who are all metastatic breast cancer thrivers, and it happened as a result of losing someone dear to them in their community, and as a beautiful way to celebrate her life, these women decided to give away $500 every day for the month of October to a woman who has metastatic breast cancer. How amazing is that? $500, no application fees, no criteria you have to meet, just to give $500 to go and do something special for themselves, and that's just something that is unheard of, magical, amazing. And I wanted Alyssa to come on this show, talk about it, talk about some other fantastic things that she has done, and let you know that this opportunity is out there if you're looking for something to participate in for the month of October, and Alyssa will tell you much more about that and about her ideas of even more ways that we can support our community of women who have been through breast cancer. So I can't wait for you to hear this and to meet her. So let me tell you a little bit more about Alyssa, and then I'll bring her on. So Alyssa Calver was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer at the age of 34, with no family history and just before her daughter's first birthday. In her fifth round of chemo, Alyssa launched a nonprofit organization called WeGotThis.org. It is the world's first Nonprofit Cancer Gift Registry, WeGotDis.org provides a free platform for cancer survivors to comfortably request the items they really need, and it gives their loved ones a chance to support them in a meaningful way, so they know what they're giving is something that can be used and something that is needed. Alyssa is also a best-selling author with her debut book, "We Got This: How I Learned to Thrive with Terminal Cancer, she's a content creator. She's a professional keynote speaker, and she is one powerhouse woman. I will tell you. So, I'm very excited to bring Alyssa on. And without further ado, here we go. Alyssa, welcome! Thank you so much for making the time to be on the Better Than Before Breast Cancer podcast. I'm thrilled to have you here.

Speaker 1 3:46
Thank you. So excited to be here and finally meet you.

Laura Lummer 3:49
I know. Finally, I'm a big fan watching you and all of the work that you're doing on Instagram, and well, I watching you on Instagram, all the work you're doing in the world. But yeah, let's talk about it. Why don't we just start off and hear your story straight from you? Your story and how you started. We got this, and this amazing campaign you have coming for for October.

Speaker 1 4:11
Awesome. So yeah, I was diagnosed stage four metastatic breast cancer, July of 2021, de novo, no family history or genetic mutation still known to this day. Yeah, I was diagnosed just a few days before my daughter's first birthday, and that was a lot of what inspired me to realize that the biggest gap I felt in my diagnosis was how we support each other in the hard times because it was so recent that I had experienced being pregnant and using a baby registry and all of these things, and then the moment that I got diagnosed with cancer, I didn't know how to let people help me. I didn't know what I needed to help, and the people that I love most didn't know how to help. And that's really what's evolved into this life mission. Living with her two positive metastatic breast cancer for over five years now, and it's you know as you know every every year comes with new things, and the the best part of it is building up the community and like the people along the way that we get to meet and be inspired by is definitely my favorite silver lining of it all.

Laura Lummer 5:22
Yeah, I mean, it's such a brilliant idea. You know, isn't it interesting? Like you come up with something like that, and you think, why hasn't there been something like that for a long time? Because what a great idea to have a registry. Like you said, people don't know what to do. Everybody wants to help, but they don't know what to do. And so you were still in treatment, right? When you started, we got this.

Speaker 1 5:45
Yeah, it was my fifth round of. I just switched from like TCHP to THP after getting a second opinion and dropping carboplatin. But you know, in the thick of it, right? Like I'm bald, I'm sick, I'm all the things that I stereotypically pictured cancer to be, and it was in that point where I realized that, like, not all of this was going to be temporary. Like, I I'm going to be living with cancer forever, and I need to figure out what that's going to look like. And that frustration turned into purpose, and I got on the phone, called up my good friend who's our CPA, and I was like, I need to do something. And I think this is the gap. You know, I don't think we figured out how to help people in the hard times, and I think that we can fix that. And he goes, All right, tell me what we're gonna do, and I'll help you apply for it. And so I initially was like, Let's, you know, help people locally, maybe just breast cancer. I can't possibly help everyone, right? And after making some phone calls, I went to Babson College, which is a business school and specifically known for entrepreneurship outside of Boston. And when I started calling up friends from Babson, everyone's like, "Why can't we help everyone? Like, why can't you make this a tech platform? Why can't you do all these things? And I'm like, "I don't know because I don't know how to do it, and then every call would lead to more calls. It would be like, okay, so you need to talk to this person. They have a marketplace like this, or this person used to work for the knot, or like whatever it looked like. And it became not only like passion and purpose, but like relentless. That I was like, I have to figure this out, like I can't just, I can't just unknow what what needs to be done and and hasn't been done in the right way, and so that led to we got this.org, and it started off with just fundraising. You know, I hadn't done a GoFundMe or anything for myself personally, and I decided to do it for this idea of creating the first nonprofit gift registry for cancer patients, and so that's what we did. We put it out there, raised over 100,000 in the GoFundMe, and that to me was like, okay, like this is proof of concept because people outside of my circle are now donating. Like people agree that this should happen, right? Yeah, they're not just like you know, yesing me, and you know maybe the first whatever someone might get from a GoFundMe is like, well, if this is what Alyssa wants, this is what we'll donate to, right?

Laura Lummer 8:08
Yeah.

Speaker 1 8:09
But when I realized it was much bigger than that, it really expanded out, and you know, been learning a lot, making a lot of right and wrong turns over the past five years, and ultimately we've we grew most recently this past year from 1500 users to over 15,000 within the calendar year, and that's where I probably hit my biggest point of burnout the end of last year because I realized this community is growing so much faster than the resources for it, and everyone tells me this idea is genius and it's so great and everyone needs it. But why am I, you know, five years in and I haven't sustainably funded it? Like, you know, I'm constantly grinding out. I have to spend so much of my time on fundraising versus the actual mission.

Laura Lummer 8:57
Yeah,

Speaker 1 8:57
and you know, like any entrepreneur, you you hit a problem and you got to solve it. So we're in the midst of that inflection point, and you know, I've learned to ask for more help myself. Yeah, I've learned you know to figure out like what needs to be done and maybe what could wait and what I'm not willing to wait on. You know, a lot of things that people are like, well, you're doing too much and all that, and some things I'm like, no, I'm not. Like I have to do this, and it's we're gonna have to figure out a way to make it work. Yeah.

Laura Lummer 9:29
Well, I mean, starting off with $100,000 GoFundMe, that's not peanuts. That is a pretty amazing foundation to start from. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So tell everybody how it works.

Speaker 1 9:42
Yeah, so you go to wegotthis.org, and there's a few ways you can utilize the website. My dream for the website as a whole, and and already is is working this way, but you know exponentially more. My dream for it is that anytime someone hears that they've been diagnosed with cancer or someone they love has cancer, this is one place. That you can go for all the resources and community that you need. So whether that be other nonprofits that like you need to know like where you can get financial support or retreats or like what you know podcasts you should be listening to, which people you should be you know trusting sources and things like that. We have a resource directory where you can filter by those things, and we have hundreds of other nonprofit organizations doing wonderful stuff on it. I realized early on that a lot of stuff does exist. It's just there's so many, and if you don't know about it or hadn't been told about it, there's only so much that we can learn and absorb. And I'm still learning about new organizations, and I'm in the nonprofit space, living with breast cancer for over five years, right? So there's that element. There's a recommendation shop where you can go and see recommendations and brands that we partner with. I find this really useful for our supporters. Like if someone's asking what someone needs when they're diagnosed, I send them the link to that shop, and it's every product that's purchased in that shop. We got this gets up to a 50% commission back as a donation from the product. So none of that like 10% in October stuff. This is every day of the year getting money back for the community. And then the main thing, like we talked about, it's the first gift registry, nonprofit gift registry for cancer patients, you can start a registry. You can register for products and services from any website. We are continually advancing that, and that's where 100,000 was not enough. When you think about things like Baby List and all these other organizations, they are worth billions. They have 1000 employees. We are just me full time with some contracted help and people supporting, but it is, it's it's like balancing fundraising, you know, a whole organization and community while simultaneously doing an entire tech startup, while also creating these directories and platforms for everyone to access, and I think that that's the way that it should be done. I think that, like, we shouldn't do one thing at a time because we need all these things, and they all feed each other. And what I've really tried to dig into is how do we make it as easy as possible for people to give and receive help. So, you know, easiest thing to do is create a registry. You can make it public or private. You know, if you if your friend is going through or family going through cancer and they haven't started a registry or don't know about it, obviously you can recommend it to them. But you know we got to meet people where they're at and what they're comfortable with. That's why the recommendation shop so important to me because we also have there where like you don't have to bother them with asking what they need. Like we have things separated by symptom, by treatment, and this is for all types of all types of cancers, all ages, all stages. The common thread is like we all need support in the hard times. That's not a breast cancer thing. That's not that's all of us. Whether you're a caregiver, previver, survivor, thriver, like wherever you fall in this community and world, you shouldn't be doing it alone, and that's the mission of of what I've created.

Laura Lummer 13:06
That is so important, Alyssa. And you know, I think that you you've hit on that. You said you learned to ask for help, and that we shouldn't do it alone. And I find that it it's so hard, way too often, for women who have had a diagnosis to ask for help, right? We're the worst when it comes to asking for help. We're the worst when people say, "Well, I want to do something for you. What can I do? Right? Totally.

Speaker 1 13:29
I always say there's no like reward for like making it harder, right? Like, yeah. The whole idea is like we want to live and thrive, and our supporters want that for us too.

Laura Lummer 13:41
Yeah, we get so far away from like it takes a village, but what doesn't take a village? Like a village is easier when you're raising kids, when you're going through tough times. Um, a client after client will say to me, you know, I feel this or I think this. Am I alone? Am I crazy? And like, no, get in the community, don't everybody thinks that at some point, everybody goes through that or feels like that. So I love that. Yeah, that it's just there's nothing wrong with asking for help. In fact, it's a beautiful thing to be strong enough to say, "I need to rest right now. I'm dealing with a disease that could kill me, and I need to take time

Speaker 1 14:23
to rest. So, how do

Laura Lummer 14:24
you? I think this is such a great story because people are going to hear and think, "Really? I remember how shitty I felt in my fifth round of chemotherapy. You started a business, a nonprofit, and had you had any experience in nonprofit or fundraising before that?

Speaker 1 14:41
So, not necessarily like working in nonprofits. I had been fundraising. My husband and I did a lot of endurance races for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Now Blood Cancer United did a lot with team and training for marathons and triathlons and all of that. My mother in law is over 13 years in remission from stage four lymphoma, and so that was really. Like my first time understanding cancer as an adult, you know, of lost grandparents and things, cancer, but like was younger, not so much immersed in it. So having more of an immediate family member going through it, I was starting to understand it more, getting really involved with team and training and LLS. So that was kind of my first bout at fundraising, but you know, much different extreme than than what I'm doing now. What's funny, full circle, is that the executive director for Blood Cancer United, formerly Leukemia Leukemia Lymphoma Society, Sarah Clark, is actually my board chair. So it's pretty cool how like these people that I met, you know, over 10 years ago, doing these races and things, are the people that I first called, going through all of this and figuring out what to navigate. And that's the part of that's not new for me is connecting people. I've always come from an entrepreneurial business background, and I've always been a collaborator. So, like, better together is not just a saying to me. Like it's how I operate. It's also how I want to operate. It's more fun. Like I don't know why we like I personally would just never want to do anything alone. Yeah, yeah. So that was really like where this experience came from of me having this idea, thinking of it small, having friends kind of plant the seed on stuff bigger. Some able to help more than others or connect me with people, and I just started on this snowball of like, okay, how can I figure out how to make this work? How do I figure out what is the best thing to make work? Right, and we're still constantly doing that. Like, you know, people compare it to a business, and it does have to be run like that. It's not a business, right? Like I don't own it. It's it's run by a board, and you know it's not mine. It's it's ours, you know. And what I love about what what we're doing is it's it's created by someone in the thick of it, right? Like I am actively a cancer patient, and for so long I wouldn't use that term. And I agree with that. Like in the community, like we shouldn't, you know, minimize what we're doing down to being a patient. I really, I prefer Thriver, you know, Survivor. All this, she's great. But I found myself more so, especially since like some burnout at the end of last year. For the general population, I use the term patient a lot more because people don't get it, you know. And I understand. I wouldn't have gone it either. But people don't understand that. Like last Wednesday, I was hooked up to my infusion, and like I'm going through fatigue right now. Even though I have my hair, it's because treatments are much more targeted thanks to research and other stuff. But like at any moment, I could have a scan. You know, any 10 to 12 week period, I could end up having to totally change treatments and be back, you know, in that phase, or you know, all sorts of weird chemo and oh yeah, other side effects, right? So that's like a big piece that I really try to educate people on is like I want to make sure that the community feels seen and heard while simultaneously making sure that our supporters feel comfortable asking questions and that they get to learn what we're going through, because I think without both things happening at the same time, like neither can happen optimally, and I think we like it makes it easier on both ends, right? Like if our supporters can understand how to support us? That takes a big burden off of us. Like not only just because they can get us things, but like even outside of that, it was a huge burden responding to people's text messages about how they can help. And I felt this obligation of like, I don't need anything.

Speaker 1 18:34
Thank you for reaching out. Like then you're like worried about everyone else's feelings, and that just wasn't to me, of course, the responsibility of the patient. But I also feel like there had to be a better way. So what if we could build that village, right? Like, what if we could create the platform that makes this happen, and not just a platform for only the people I could reach or touch or get out to, right? This is for the masses. Like the way that it's being built and has been built, is so that anyone can use it. You know, and we're not like international yet. There's a lot of like logistics around that, but like these are the things that I'm setting it up to grow to.

Laura Lummer 19:13
Amazing. Well, I mean, to 10x. I mean, and I'll use this term. You said isn't a business, but do you have a nonprofit business that 10x's in one year, while you're going through treatment, and you bring up such an important point because, yeah, people just don't understand when those of us who have metastatic breast cancer are that it's lifelong treatment. I can't even tell you how many people who see me right and they heard or they know or that you know that I have stage four cancer, and they'll say so. But you're all good now, right? So like, when did you finish treatment? Yeah, and you're like, yeah, this is I'm in treatment right now. Like I do it every day, and they're like, really? But it's you have. The hair, you look healthy, and for me too. Since mindset, as you well know, is a very big part of this, and looking forward to that future version of ourselves who that gets that coveted NED, you know, that scan that comes back is like, yeah, none of it is active. Awesome, amazing, right? And there's so much that goes on behind the scenes, navigating the treatments, the insurance BS, you know, the billings, all of that. I think that you know, a quarter of my time at some point, if you look back through the calendar, is is navigating the system, right between approval and denial.

Speaker 1 20:44
Job in itself, yeah. I mean, our our system is created to be difficult for us to navigate, and I mean, I had to push our call twice because of navigating that. And yeah, it's it's a lot. I think, of course, we associate certain pieces with cancer, and so when people look at us, they're like, "But you have hair. You look great. You're good, right? And yeah, like we, I think we both want people know we are good. Like you know, we're living. You can live with this. Like we're we don't want to just be people's worst nightmare. And so it's a lot of realities at the same time because I want people to know that that hope that like we you know so many amazing friends and I have friends you know who who are mostly just thriving and doing awesome stuff but like we're still in the group chats with so many hardships and other things and we're continually losing our friends and so how do we let people know like the importance of funding research, the importance of all these things were not a lost cause, but also that like we simultaneously deserve joy and we deserve to live well and fully and all of that with cancer. Whether we get to live what one would consider like a full life or not, like there's I think there's a certain cost to survivorship, you know. I'm feeling now that I've surpassed five years. Everything is getting harder. Insurance is getting harder. All the pieces, because like we've survived, right? I'm alive, and so everything in life has become amazingly more expensive. I like. I think it's set up for us to. I mean, I just was on a call where the statistic given to me was that more than half cancer patients report using all of their savings and money by the time that they finish treatment.

Laura Lummer 22:37
That doesn't surprise me at all. Yeah,

Speaker 1 22:40
doesn't surprise me at all, and so then take that and think about us stage four, and that we never finish treatment, you know. And I live a very amazing and full life. I'm very you know fortunate and all that, but I worked a successful career and had savings and retirement that has all since been drained, and that shouldn't be the case. Like that is wrong. It is, yeah. And and aside from the nuances of financial toxicity and all those pieces, I think that a lot of it is is navigating where to find the help. So that's why the like resource directory and you know cultivating the nonprofits so that people know what exists. I think, is so important. Like before, just starting something, like look to see if it exists already. Like I spent months making sure that there wasn't a nonprofit doing what I was doing, and I got to be honest that since having this, a couple smaller nonprofits have tried to do it. Like, and I've like randomly seen it forwarded to me or other stuff, and I don't know if they've expanded or not, but like it's like why? Why would you do that? Like, is it ego? Is it that you feel like you have to create your own? Like, email me, message me. Like, let's work together. You know, like keep on

Laura Lummer 23:52
board. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 23:53
yeah. Like, there's we're so collaborative. I work with so many other organizations that were able to amplify impact, and I started realizing, like, rather than creating retreats, like, no, we don't need to do retreats. There are tons of organizations doing retreats that are for whether it's the AYA young adult space or specifically breast cancer, or been doing a lot with the Survivorship Collective now for psilocybin retreats, and that's been amazing. It's like these things exist. Let's find the best way to let people know that they exist, and not to say that more nonprofits shouldn't exist. It's just let's be really mindful. Like we wouldn't start a business that didn't show that it would have a good return, right? And so I think we need to think similarly about that with nonprofits before we suck up funding from all these different areas. Like, how can we make this streamlined and utilize the work that's already being done so that not hundreds of nonprofits have the same resources on a resource page that's so difficult to navigate. You know that's why it was so important to me to add the filtration to it. Like let's actually figure out how to code it correctly. Like you know because. Nonprofits don't put the same kind of investment into their website the way that a business could. There's a lot of restrictions that make having a nonprofit way harder than having a business, and then there's some ways that you know make it easier to ask for support. But people just expect you to have volunteers and get everything for free, and that you can just do it for free. And I did for over four years to my own detriment, you know, and it's like you know, it's it's finding the ways that we can all succeed together. That I think I'm going to keep working on it relentlessly as it happens. I was going to say until it happens, but it's happening. It's just oh, it's definitely happening. Collecting it, yeah, yeah, definitely

Laura Lummer 25:40
happening. That's amazing, and I think I agree with you 100% Like even in my world and coaching, there's so many people who want to help women get emotional support. You know, and so I'm forever helping my clients find those resources out there so that they can, because they say, you know, I've got all this money going towards treatment. Hey, I get it. I'm in treatment too. I understand, and I have a background in nonprofit for many, many years. And so, what you just said, I think, is so important that I'm going to restate it. Nothing is free. Yeah, nothing is free. And so, if you have a for-profit business like I do, then your customers are paying you. If you have a nonprofit business like Alyssa, you've got to raise money from other people so that you can provide this. And I think too that when people see something online, they think, "What's online? I mean, it's just for free, right? I mean, you just go online. That is not how this works, you know. Hosting and coding, yeah, this stuff is expensive.

Speaker 1 26:47
Well, and that's a big piece that I think you know people will be like, oh, so do you give out all the gifts to everyone? And you know, we are doing some of this more now, and we'll touch on that. But nobody asks Baby List if they're buying everyone's baby registry gifts for them, no one's asking the knot or you know these other wedding registries and honey fund. Oh, are you paying for people's honeymoons? Yeah, no, and they're billion dollar companies. But meanwhile, because the term nonprofit's involved, it's like I'm in. And frankly, like a lot of why I do so many things at once is because I feel the obligation that I have to in order to keep the peace that is peace that's so important to me is that we continue to create this platform that can help everyone. Like I care about the millions, and that's like we can do that. Like we can do that right now. It's literally just a bandwidth issue, and and we're able to do a lot of that, mind you. With me being the only person working full time, I have operational support, and like I mean, I need more infrastructure. But like you know, a lot of the people helping me out that I contract are fellow cancer survivors, like my web coders, my friend Matt, who's an amazing lymphoma survivor. Like we're doing what a lot of companies would probably spend millions of dollars on. That like we're spending a fraction on, but we still need that fraction. Like we still need to, you know, like all all of that piece. So yeah, it's I could go on that for for too long.

Laura Lummer 28:16
Well, and the people behind it have bills to pay. Also, you know the people who are working full time in nonprofit organizations. This is the livelihood, and I think that people. Yeah, I mean, I

Speaker 1 28:30
became an employee at the beginning of this year. Oh, we got this because I ran out of insurance, and I'm still struggling with a lot of those pieces. But like, it's it's wild what we're willing to sacrifice for our own community, and I do believe that people want to help. Sometimes we want to help in the way that feels best to them, and so I try to provide as many options for that as I can while doing programs and resources that I know make the real impact. And the one I'm most excited about right now is the Be Like Brittany Fund, and I know you know some of my friends involved in that, like Bethany. People follow my Guru Cancer, Wren from Living Our Breast Lives, Annie Bond, and Caroline Ezo, and we've been working hand in hand with Brittany Beadle's mom, Carla, and her husband Patrick, and it really came about when Brittany passed away, you know, several months ago, and we were in a group chat, and and I think it was Annie who brought it up of like, hey, we should just like text out people. Why don't we get some money together to send Patrick a gift card, you know, so he knows we're all thinking of him, and he doesn't have to worry about meals and other stuff. And so we did that. Ended being like a decent amount of money, like 12 to $1,400 within a few hours, and this is like within the metastatic community, like not outreach. We didn't even post about it online, and so when Bethany reached out to him to be like, "Hey, where can we send this gift card? We all want to support you, he was like, "That is so amazing. Brittany would be so happy that you." This, I don't need that, and I would love if you would pass it on to another thriver or donate

Laura Lummer 30:06
it. And

Speaker 1 30:06
so, we forced that a little bit of a of a gift card, so he'd at least feel like we're having dinner with him, you know. And then we ended up having a friend who Emily was going into brain surgery. She's a single mom of an amazing boy, and we got to just send her money. And how often, especially as stage four, like do we just get something where we didn't have to ask for it? We didn't have to know that people were trying to fundraise for us. You know, like not there's anything wrong with that. It's like so amazing when people do that instead of GoFundMe's. But like, when do we get to just feel taken care of, and like you know, we just I you know can only speak for myself, but I hear there's lots of others like it's exhausting, right? We're in this so long, so we kind of like try to also be mindful of like when we're asking and how much we're asking of people, and you can only drink from the well so many times,

Laura Lummer 30:57
right? Right.

Speaker 1 30:57
And so when that happened in the group chat, it was like everyone was like, "This feels so good. Like, how do we keep doing this? And that's when I was like, "Okay, well, this is not sustainable. Like, we can't keep funding each other by each other. Like, that's not how this should work. But I already have a 501 c3. Like, I have a nonprofit. Let's make this a program. And so, um, what I did was worked with my operational team that that I recently brought on a few months ago that's changed my life and contracting that out has has helped a lot. And it basically was like, how can we do this in a way that's compliant that makes sense? And we created the umbrella of like the we got this giving fund, and so that way we can do it for things beyond metastatic breast cancer in the future too.

Laura Lummer 31:38
Okay,

Speaker 1 31:38
and for this specific initiative, it's in honor of Brittany Beadle. It's called the Be Like Britney Fund, and I've thought about like you know we all kind of brainstormed and was like, okay, what's the best way we can do this, and like how can we make October fun because October sucks for most of us, right? Yeah. And we came up with every single day of October, we're gonna flip the script. We're gonna make it exciting, and we're gonna give away $500 to a metastatic thriver with no strings attached. It's completely unrestricted. They can use it on bills if they really need or want to. But like, man, I hope that they'll push that aside. Even if you know, like, look up some of the nonprofits. Maybe that can help with that. Like, use this on going to Disney, like Britney would use it on going out to dinner, on an outfit that's going to make you feel awesome. Like maybe that trip. Like I know it's not enough to totally transform someone's life, but $500 without having to really ask for it-that's where, like, that does change lives because to me, that's giving ourselves permission and validation that we deserve to live. Like we are not just worth surviving the second we get diagnosed with cancer. We still deserve a full life, just like everyone else.

Laura Lummer 32:55
Absolutely, and

Speaker 1 32:56
it's just been the best thing ever to get to work on, and to get to work on it with my dear friends, and to get to know Brittany's family better, we've you know already fundraised enough to give away those $500 grants every day of October. So amazing! There was no way. I mean, because you know the girls were like, "Well, what happens if we don't raise like the 15,500? I was like, "Oh no, no, that's not an option. It's like I have to go knock on every neighbor's door, like I will do whatever we have to do to do that. I had no doubts that that was going to happen.

Laura Lummer 33:25
Yeah,

Speaker 1 33:26
but my plan was never to make it just 31, right? Like, as amazing as that is, I get chills every time I say it every day of October. But like, no, we're so much bigger than that. We've had over 500 people nominate so far for those 31 spots, and I have every intention. No matter how long it takes, it might not be $500 for each one of them, but like we are going to get people significant joy for every single person that gets nominated. So, I think you said this will get to come out before October. the The nomination to nominate yourself or someone else it closes the last day, like through the last day of September.

Laura Lummer 34:04
Okay.

Speaker 1 34:04
So please keep filling that in. Don't be intimidated by the fact that I said that a lot of people have already done it, because every single one of you, we see, like we will see your name as long as you don't make it anonymous, which you can if if you feel like you need to. Yeah. But we see what people are commenting of what would bring them joy and those things, and like, man, if it's the last thing I do, like we are getting everyone that feeling.

Laura Lummer 34:29
You're amazing. You're amazing. Yeah, yeah. So this show will come out then on September 25th. So people will still have time. They got some time. Yeah, yeah. They'll have time to donate. They'll have. Yeah, see, just as

Speaker 1 34:40
importantly, it's always harder to ask for the donation part. It's a lot more fun to talk about the giving away of money, but how we're able to do that and create these programs is through funding. It's not just funding this one fund, right? It's funding this whole concept of community and giving, receiving in the hard times, and it's really funding the part of our lives that is. Living, not just surviving and staying alive, and to me that's just as important as surviving in research. You know, and luckily we don't need the amount of money that research needs. We still only need a fraction of that. And so, if you are able to donate, I see donations coming in 510, $25. I've seen random donations coming in that are $2,000 or $10,000, not a lot of those, but a few heroes really coming in strong. If you have, you know, a way to get involved or a way to to donate, or if you don't have a way to donate yourself, but you want to run an event locally, you know, and like different ways to fundraise or post about it and tag us, like all of these things will make it so that everyone gets to feel seen this October because we all-that's amazing.

Laura Lummer 35:44
I mean, that's amazing. Like, I just want to soak that in for a sec. I have never ever heard of something like that-a campaign like that. Like, when I first saw it on Instagram, I was like, "Wait, what? You know, I had to read it twice. Like, you're giving $500 every day of October to somebody-that's incredible.

Speaker 1 36:04
Thank you. Incredible. And I and I look at it like, and it is like every time I say it, I get chills. I'm so excited about it. Yeah. But then you know, Brittany's mom actually said to me on one of the calls. She said, you know, people always say like, well, we can't help everyone. We can't do this. And she's like, and sometimes I wonder, like, why not?

Laura Lummer 36:20
Why not?

Speaker 1 36:21
And I say that all the time. It like spoke to me so much because I'm always like, why not? Like, if I, as an active cancer patient, can make this happen, why can't bigger orgs do it?

Laura Lummer 36:34
You know what I did want to ask you though is for people who maybe are not on Instagram or who are not familiar with Brittany, and you could share a little bit about who is Brittany, and you know, let's see this amazing personality. Let's talk a little about her story and why that motivated such an incredible project, and why it's so important to get involved.

Speaker 1 36:58
Yeah, absolutely. You know, out of our group, I definitely I'm so grateful I had the pleasure of knowing Brittany for the time that I did, but definitely the least amount from everyone else. I mean, Bethany definitely being you know her her bestie breastie for sure.

Speaker 2 37:11
Yeah,

Speaker 1 37:12
and I remember meeting Brittany through Bethany, and we had some Zooms and things, and she was just she is such a bright light. Like it feels like she's very much a part of of all the things that we're doing. I think getting diagnosed at 18, it's the youngest I've ever heard, right? And so she was diagnosed at 18. She lived 11 years, defied so many odds, and you know, unfortunately, did pass away at age 29. But amidst all that, I think there were so many times that we thought she might not make it, and when someone keeps defying those odds, it starts to feel like, like maybe it's just not going to happen, like you know.

Laura Lummer 37:54
Yeah.

Speaker 1 37:54
And I think that it's a blow no matter what, but I think that it really once it really did. I mean it was just I don't know a lot of people in the community that weren't inspired or affected or knew Brittany in some way, and that's really huge for you know specifically metastatic too right like we're really a niche community of unfortunately a lot of people still but you know and so when Brittany passed, I think so many people wanted to to find ways to honor her, to remember her, and so many people are doing that. And I, you know, keep telling between Bethany and Brittany's mom and and Patrick, her husband, like how honored I am to be able to be a small part of that, and really how honored I am to get to be on calls with them and to learn even more about her. Like how I knew Brittany was through Instagram DMs or Zooms we had. She would always ask about my daughter. My daughter even hopped on one of the Zooms, said hi. We were gonna, you know, go to Disney World together, which didn't, you know, wasn't able to happen because of timing with her her loss. But you know, she texted me a picture of her holding my book in the hospital when she was in her last lines of treatment, and you know, me ordering hers and the way like that we support each other is so important, and I think that we're really fortunate that a lot of people in our community are that way. But I really feel that Brittany pioneered so much of that in such a selfless way, and she really had a smile on her face when most people wouldn't, and most people wouldn't turn the camera to them, and she did, and that changes the world, in my opinion. And so I look at it like with the group we have together, and utilizing her legacy in this way, and really honoring it. I really feel a responsibility. To not only each other but to ourselves, like this is something we all deserve to know for sure. That like we deserve to to live with joy. And Brittany always talked about that. She loved Disney. She talked a lot about feeling your feelings and embracing that. And those are the pieces that I don't think we do a great job in life in general, like you know, in the world in general, we have a really tough time holding two realities at once. And she did that in such a graceful way, and I believe that the ripple effect of that will continue to change the world because I think a lot of us can see ourselves in Brittany and how she lived, we want to see ourselves in that. And so I look at this initiative and how I hope and think she would want, you know, her legacy based on the conversations that we've had. I see it as us giving people the permission and the validation, like I said earlier, to do that. Like this isn't about having to prove yourself. You know, there's no proof of need here. It doesn't matter where you're at in treatment or not. Like, I think that cancer imposter syndrome is such a common thing. Like, if if you get what I'm saying, like, oh my god, every retreat I go on or thing, it's always like, well, you know, mine's like earlier stage, or like, oh my, I didn't have to do chemo, or like, oh, I didn't have to have surgery, whatever it is. And it's like, no, no, no. Yep, we're not here to, like, we don't have to be self-deprecating. We're not here to prove who has it harder or not. We're here to like be here for each other. But I really think a lot of times we forget to be there for ourselves, and we forget to value our actual lives, and that's something. When you live with this long enough, like we have, you know what that feels like. And so that's my rant and soapbox on that.

Speaker 1 41:51
We deserve to live and thrive, and I just am so grateful that Brittany was in this metastatic world in person for for so long to make that impact, and we're constantly on group chats when we see rainbows or like I ended up being at Disney Studios on Friday. I just post a reel with like this guy doing impersonations of telling people to look at the Be Like Britney fund. Like these are things that I'm like, what are the odds of that? Like that-that can't be a coincidence. Like Brittany's a part of this too. Yeah.

Laura Lummer 42:24
Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. That is. It is absolutely amazing. And you, I don't remember how long ago it was, but I would say maybe year, year and a half before I stumbled across Brittany, and I think it was someone else, probably Bethany, my guru, cancer, saying something about her, and I was like, "Who's this Britney person? And I think that yeah, there's something, and I remember just binging, like going through everything that she had ever posted and thinking, "Who is this old soul? This is she was diagnosed as a child. I mean, 18 years old, you know, and I think her diagnosis was what something to do with her prom, or she started chemo like at her grad high school graduation day. But to listen to her talk was like, oh my gosh, this girl, this woman is is just wise beyond her years, you know, and that's what really impressed me about her. Yeah, she still had the magic, the Disney magic, right? She still had the fun about her, and she did fun things. But whenever she just talked and sat down and made videos, they were so encouraging. And to be in your 20s, right, this time where most people are trying to figure themselves out still, you know, and have the wisdom that she did. I just thought that was remarkable. Yeah,

Speaker 1 43:47
I couldn't agree with you more. I love that that you highlighted that, and I've really noticed that when we get into the cancer space, we really separate ourselves by age, right? Like the joke of like when you're, you know, so when you're a young adult, like 18 to 39, is the the typical age of of the AYA adolescent young adult community. You know, it's it's the time when everyone tells you you're too young to have cancer. Yeah, right. It's like you're you're not a little kid anymore. You're not pediatric, and you're not old enough, you know, to have it. But then, like, why do we separate that? Like, what changes when a child goes from 17 to 18 and is no longer in the pediatric space? What happens when a young adult goes from 30? I mean, I'm 39 right now. I'm going to turn 40 next year. Is that going to change anything in my life that has to do with my cancer? No. And a lot of the things that we do should matter whether you're young or old, right? There's totally discrepancies that we need to address, like in research and other stuff that is different, right? And like will behave differently depending on our age and our sex and all these different stuff. But when it comes to the actual like living part and like prioritizing like. And a lot of those pieces, we can learn so much from Brittany, and she's you know 10 years younger than me, and I've learned more than her than most people my age or older, right? And I think that if we stop doing a disservice for ourselves in the community by focusing so much on age, like I think there's a time and place for sure, right? Like so amazing what a lot of people do in those spaces, but like we did a lot last year. We delivered over 1000 Lego flowers, both built and unbuilt. And I know that children love Legos. Like I love Legos. I know 80-year-olds who love Legos, right? Like, same with magic. We do a lot at the Magic Castle. My father-in-law is a magician. Like, kids love magic. Adults love magic. Like, why? Why separate it? Like, we're so much that we can coexist, and we can accomplish so much more together. And so, I really, I love that feeling of being inspired and motivated by someone who, like I didn't didn't look at her age at all, other than the fact I wanted people to know, like, hey, we're getting diagnosed yet. Like, don't overlook us. Don't you know?

Laura Lummer 46:11
Right.

Speaker 1 46:12
But also, like, none of that matters when it comes to living life. No. Which is, I think, really what you were saying is like we can all learn from from each other, and there's a lot of components involved.

Laura Lummer 46:24
Yeah, absolutely. And I am a firm believer that it is when we decide we want to live, and we're going to enjoy life, and we're going to do whatever we can as much as we can. Because especially in stage four, we go through different. We have capacity for certain things at certain times, right? It's ups and downs. It's not a linear process, and I think that no matter where we are, the determination to invite joy into your life every day is a part of what gives us longevity. It is a part of what contributes to our ongoing healing, and you know when I was diagnosed, it was full blown everywhere, and on October 11th will be six years since I was diagnosed with stage four. And you know, and my oncologist told me, I think it was last year, at five years. At five years, he kind of started listening. He's like, "So, what is it that you do to stay healthy? What is it that you do? You know, and you know, but he just said, you know, when you came in here with so much cancer, at the end of that first year, he said that was really incredible that you were still here. He goes, I couldn't believe you were still with us. He says, but now at five years and you're still healing and getting better. He says this is unheard of. It's just unheard of, and I'm like, yay, okay, good. Let's keep doing that. Yeah, yeah, we

Speaker 1 47:46
like being unique in those ways.

Laura Lummer 47:48
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I also want to borrow hope, right? I remember when I was brand new, that was the thing that got me. I started looking for women who survived, women who had stage four cancer? Who were still alive five years, three years, eight years, 10 years? You know, and that gave me hope. And I was like, if they can do it, I can do it. Right? We both have human bodies, and human bodies can heal. Yeah. So sharing those stories and and what you're doing, bringing that that unattached joy into the lives of all of these women throughout the month of October to say do something special for yourself, treat yourself is just incredible, and that's part of just like the joy of life and the joy and and the treasure of community, right? That is the magic of community, right there to be able to do something so remarkable. I love it. But before we close, not only are you diagnosed with stage four de novo, and for anybody who doesn't understand, since we didn't know the language before we were diagnosed, de novo means first diagnosis was stage four, and then in treatment you start a nonprofit and you have a child, and you wrote a book. So yes, yeah. So you're such an underachiever, you know. Like you know,

Speaker 1 49:17
I only know one speed, but you know, I always say that's how I was before cancer. I just am unapologetically that way now, and I think I've given myself a lot more permission to not view myself as crazy, but to you know be like, this is who I am, and I know what I can handle, what I can't. When I wrote my book, it's called We Got This. Name a nonprofit too. How I learned to thrive with terminal cancer, and I got into a lot of keynote speaking, and it felt like you know writing a book was a natural step there. I really wanted it to exist. I wanted my daughter to have it. I wanted people to have a way to you know in longer form read through my story and and things within it had a lot of guest pieces like. My husband wrote a piece about being the caregiver. My fertility doctor wrote a piece. My friend Laura Lagrassa wrote a piece about your inner child. Like there are a lot of elements to that, but how I've really looked at it since, and how I've kind of changed a lot of my speaking too, is really around this idea of storytelling. And I think we throw around that word a lot, and it's important word to throw around. But like my favorite way of of telling my stories through videos, like I actually genuinely enjoy making reels and and talking through and editing things. Probably my least favorite way is writing, if I'm being honest. But they're all equally as important to me because I always want to meet people where they're at, and that might be different in different times. They might want to absorb it differently, hear it in different ways. What might resonate in one space might not resonate in the other. And so that was just a really exciting thing to be able to to do. And I talked about that at Camp Resty this past summer. About I did a storytelling workshop, and I think a lot of it was, you know, intended to be about writing, you know, which you would think. And I started off by asking everyone to write down the top ways, like all the ways that they tell their story, you know. And some of the answers were so awesome, like through art, through dance, through someone's a former cheerleader, like for professional football, like, and then taking those and like, which ways do you like the most? You know, like, we're not obligated to anyone else to do something a certain way. Like, we put our story out there because we want people to hear it or we want a certain impact from it. So do it the way that we enjoy doing it the most. So I had so much fun writing my book. I'm probably not going to write like 10 books because that's not the way that I like doing it the most. But I will make a reel every day, you know, and things like that.

Laura Lummer 51:47
Yeah.

Speaker 1 51:47
So yeah, if if you're able to check out my book, we got this on Amazon. Also, I did record the audio book, which I recorded myself. I can also get through Audible and all the things. And everyone who guests wrote on the book also read their portion. So, like Andrew McMahon from Dear Jack Foundation, he wrote the foreword. He read that. My husband read his piece. Like it was, it was really fun. I just really cool, and I want to bring. It's almost like a Instagram post collaboration, but in print form. Yeah,

Laura Lummer 52:19
I love it. Now I've got to get the Audible because I love an Audible book anyway. But I got to listen to that that part of it now. That's so great. Yeah. Well, what an accomplishment and all of it. I mean, you just are amazing. It's just likewise.

Speaker 1 52:34
You are the positivity.

Laura Lummer 52:36
The example of living a full life, regardless of the circumstance of life. We still get to choose to live, and it's those people who come to me after a diagnosis, especially a stage four diagnosis, who come to me and just say, basically, they're looking for help at the end of their life, you know, and it breaks my heart, and it's like, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's let's rethink this. Maybe let's let's maybe this isn't a death sentence. Maybe we can thrive beyond this, you know. And so I think the more that you get this community and that these people, everybody gets involved and hears and hears the story that you had said something while we were talking. You said we don't want to be everybody's worst nightmare, and I think by sharing these stories, we can become people's inspiration instead of people's worst nightmare. Definitely, yeah. People can signing, yes, yeah, that we can live. Oh, if if I get a recurrence, if it ever happens, if and I hope it doesn't for anybody listening,

Speaker 1 53:38
yeah, yeah.

Laura Lummer 53:38
But there's hope, you know. Yeah, I think

Speaker 1 53:41
one of the hardest parts of that, you know, that gets underestimated in a lot of ways, is how do we get enough people to hear that? And so, just as important as telling our stories is making sure that there's people that know that they exist and where to receive it. And so that's why doing things like your podcast and putting things out in different ways and all of that is so important, and there's so many amazing, you know, doctors like Elizabeth Potter and Dr. Chaplinski and people online who like are really taking time from a life that's very difficult, like that career, to take the time to do these extra things, and that's where like we really I think start making moves where we're getting out it out there enough that it's okay if not everyone feels comfortable telling their story. If not everyone wants to start a nonprofit in their fifth round of chemo or start their own podcast, right? Right, right. Or coaching and stuff. And that's where like there's enough of us making sure that everyone feels seen and getting the stories out there. And that's the stuff that just makes me so freaking excited. Yeah,

Laura Lummer 54:40
totally, and I think that's a great point you make, and an important point. We're not saying everybody needs to do something, but we're saying there's a space here for everybody, no matter where you're at. Even if you just need to borrow some hope, you know that's the important thing. We're here when

Speaker 1 54:54
you need us, whenever you're ready. Completely.

Laura Lummer 54:57
Thank you so much, Alyssa. So let's make sure every. Knows we want to go to wegotthis.org.

Speaker 1 55:04
Yes, so go to wegotthis. org. One thing I didn't say that I want to also plug is just wegotthis. org. Be like Brittany Fund. Nominate yourself or someone else. Donate if you can. And then also we have our second annual Cancer's a joke stand up comedy show here in LA, november 15, so everything kind of leads right into that. I do it with four other hilarious comedian breast cancer surviving friends: Julia Johns, Julia Rozzi, Annie Bond, and Grace Helbig, who is so funny. And the coolest thing about that is we do live stream it nationwide. So if you aren't able to make it in person, anyone who has or had cancer, the tickets are totally free for you virtually. We're unlimited, so please submit for that on the website. You'll see "Be Like Britney Fun. You'll see "Cancer is a Joke. Please take advantage of both if you you know qualify for that. If you are a supporter, you can also buy tickets too. And just appreciate you helping us spread the word and

Laura Lummer 56:03
yeah, yeah. Let's get that out there. All right, cool. Well, let's put that holiday. I'm always up for a comedy show, so yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 56:11
You're driving distance. You got to come out. I, you know, I'm hoping Bethany can fly out for it. Annie's out here. You know, got quite a crew.

Laura Lummer 56:19
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I look forward to it. That sounds amazing. Yeah,

Speaker 1 56:23
of course. We already announced Nicole Byer. By the time this comes out, we're announcing Lori Kilmartin, who's a hilarious writer for Conan and Jimmy Kimmel, and a comedian herself. And there's going to be at least a few more names that will get people excited for sure. A musical act and all of us running amok, Being ridiculous

Laura Lummer 56:41
sounds awesome. I love it. Yeah,

Speaker 1 56:44
yeah. All right, awesome. Thank you so much.

Laura Lummer 56:47
Thank you. Thank you so much for being here, Alyssa. I really appreciate it. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to share that with you, and I hope that you will all go check out wegothis.org. The links are right where you're watching this or where you're listening to this podcast, go and check out this amazing gift registry. Look through the resources and recommended items. They may be something that you need and didn't even realize was there to support you as well. And let's do everything we can. If you're in a position to donate and give to this amazing cause, be like Brittany. Give back to our community of women who are living with breast cancer, it's just such an incredible gift to be able to give. So let's come together. Let's go to wegotthis.org. Let's support the Be Like Brittany campaign. And also, if you live in the Los Angeles area, grab some tickets and let's meet up at the comedy show. Cancer is a joke. That's gonna be so much fun. All right, friends. I'll talk to you again next week. And until then, be good to yourself, and expect others to be good to you as well. Take

Speaker 3 57:50
care. Your mind is clearer than before. Your heart is full and wanting more. Your future's at the door. Give it all you got. No hesitating. You've been waiting all your life. This. This is your moment. This

Unknown Speaker 58:28
is your moment in time. This is your moment. This is your moment to shine.