For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, TODAY Show lifestyle contributor Jill Martin and SoulCycle instructor Stacey Griffith came together for a powerful and moving conversation about TODAY Show Radio (Cap.108) about their experiences with breast cancer, as both women are currently undergoing treatment.
Listen to Jill and Stacey's Breast Cancer Awareness Special on the SiriusXM App
Close friends Jill and Stacey talked about testing, advances in technology, their own diagnoses, their experiences with chemotherapy, cold cap therapy, and their individual decisions about how to work throughout treatment.
Jill's Family History and Genetic Testing
Jill and her surgeon, Dr. Elisa Puerto del Mount Sinai HospitalHe first highlighted the importance of getting tested for breast cancer in order to be proactive.
“I want to use this time appropriately because this could have been prevented, okay, through genetic testing,” Jill shared at the beginning of the episode. “Again, for people who didn't know, we lost my grandmother to breast cancer. My mother is a 25 year breast cancer survivor…she is on my father's side. It's not my father's family thing. And if I had known, this could have been avoided and then I could have taken action.”
Jill learned that she was positive for the BRCA gene and scheduled preventive surgery, but unfortunately she had already developed breast cancer and the need for preventive surgery became the need for immediate surgery. If she had known about the BRCA gene sooner, Jill said, she could have taken steps when she was in her twenties that would have spared her the treatment she undergoes today.
She also implored listeners not to put off their mammograms because “the alternative is worse.” Jill continued, “Get the information, use it to your power, and take the power into your hands so you can take action.”
Dr Port added: “Early detection and diagnosis is key and gives you the best chance of survival, and also the best chance of surviving by doing less. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and that is the breakthrough. “Not everyone needs chemotherapy, but when you do, it certainly works.”
Stacey's path to a diagnosis
Before she was diagnosed with breast cancer, Stacey shared, she had been experiencing serious menopausal issues, such as brain fog and night sweats, before her partner, Michelle, noticed a lump in Stacey's breast.
“My mammograms had been delayed due to Covid,” Stacey explained. She had a hard time getting an appointment and eventually forgot about her lump, and it wasn't until an appointment with her gynecologist to address her menopausal symptoms that she remembered to have a professional breast exam.
Within 24 hours of that exam, Stacey got an appointment with a breast specialist, who confirmed that she had breast cancer.
“In that moment, I became a Stacey Griffith that I didn't know I was capable of becoming,” Stacey said. “I never knew this personality, I never felt it before. She was completely out of body, out of mind. I felt like she was on another planet.”
Chemo: meditation and cold cap therapy
While Stacey recently “rang the bell” to celebrate the end of her 12 rounds of chemotherapy, Jill is still in the middle of her treatment and Stacey's next steps are surgery and radiation.
“The chemotherapy part for me, in my mind, with my mental health, is not the hardest part, which makes everyone say, 'What are you saying? Chemo sucks. It was horrible. I don't know how you can say that. And the radiation has me petrified,” Stacey admitted, because she saw her late father go through it firsthand.
But, according to Stacey, Dr. Port told her that “this is the most amazing technology, this is how we eliminate it,” and it has come a long way since her father's time.
To manage her anxiety, Stacey said, “I meditated a lot before everything,” recommending the teachings of Dr. Joe Dispenza. “I had headphones in my ears all night. I listened to it all night. I would get up early in the morning, take a cold shower outside with ice water and just… my meditations, I think, and the trial medications and the chemo are what cured it. I really think positively that without the meditation part, I don't think it would have been as easy for me.”
Stacey, who regularly keeps her hair short and attributes her lack of hair loss to her meditation, didn't choose to try cold cap therapy like Jill did. Mount Sinai describes protection against the cold as an “approach” [that] cools the scalp to very low temperatures (-22 degrees Fahrenheit), which constricts the blood vessels under the skin of the scalp. This reduces the amount of chemotherapy drugs that reach and are absorbed by the hair follicles. As a result, hair is less likely to fall out.”
“It's a very brave decision to do that,” Stacey said of Jill. “I'm an athlete and I love ice baths, but I wouldn't choose them just because I'm too much of a baby.”
However, even with therapy, Jill shared that she lost about 30 percent of her hair. “Everyone's choice is different,” Jill said. “My choice to wear a cold hat; You know, my hair has always been my thing. I am a confident person in my appearance. I always thought I was pretty enough for anything, I focused my efforts on other things. But it's definitely a commitment, and it's definitely something I'm committed to doing over these last four [treatments].”
Choose when to work
During her breast cancer treatment, Stacey made the decision to step away from both work and social media.
“I don't want to go into my job giving 50 percent of who I am as an instructor, because that's not who I am,” Stacey said of her work at SoulCycle as a founding Master Instructor. “I've always shown up 100 percent.”
Although it has been difficult, she explained that the decision not to work gave her more time to focus on her relationship and family. And although she is now ready to become “a little more accessible” on social media, forgetfulness due to chemotherapy and short temper due to steroid treatment make tasks like posting regularly a frustration.
Stacey is still not sure when she will teach her spin classes again. “The return class has changed its date many times,” she acknowledged. “I thought I might come back in January, which I doubt will happen, just because everything starts in November, and then it's six weeks from there, and then there's another four weeks… so now we're already in February. .”
Stacey anticipates a rush of new riders returning to SoulCycle when she returns, as people who participated in her first classes nearly two decades ago vowed to get back on the bike in honor of her breast cancer survival, and she He wants the company to also be prepared for that.
“I just feel like the timing of my return has to be in line with the timing of SoulCycle, ready for a new generation of all of us cyclists,” he said.
Jill, on the other hand, continued to work as best she could while in treatment because she wanted to document her journey in real time and raise awareness about the importance of early detection. Her TODAY Show co-worker, Hoda Kotb, went through her own battle with breast cancer when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007.
“In the weeks without treatment, I can get my energy back, I can look like myself and I can come to work. But the weeks of treatment are hell,” Jill shared. But she added: “I want to leave this with hope and advances in technology so you can experience chemotherapy and treatment if you need it.”