In this heartfelt episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett, Rich sits down with Ashley LaCosse and Becky Turner, hosts of the podcast "Two Girls with Cancer." They share their deeply personal cancer journeys, from diagnosis to treatment and survival. Ashley discusses her battle with rare neuroendocrine cancer, while Becky recounts her fight against stage three HER2-positive breast cancer. Despite their struggles, both women highlight the importance of positivity, resilience, and the support they've found in each other. This episode is a testament to their strength and determination.
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This episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett is proudly sponsored by Elite Power Washing, Maryland’s top-rated exterior cleaning company. Elite Power Washing provides professional pressure washing, house washing, roof cleaning, and more. With a commitment to exceptional customer service and satisfaction guaranteed, they ensure your home or business looks its best. Serving Baltimore, Harford, and Cecil Counties, Elite Power Washing uses industry-standard methods and equipment for outstanding results. Visit elitepowerwashingmd.com for more information and to schedule your service today.
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In this heartfelt episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett, Rich sits down with Ashley LaCosse and Becky Turner, hosts of the podcast "Two Girls with Cancer." They share their deeply personal cancer journeys, from diagnosis to treatment and survival. Ashley discusses her battle with rare neuroendocrine cancer, while Becky recounts her fight against stage three HER2-positive breast cancer. Despite their struggles, both women highlight the importance of positivity, resilience, and the support they've found in each other. This episode is a testament to their strength and determination.
Sponsor Message:
This episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett is proudly sponsored by Elite Power Washing, Maryland’s top-rated exterior cleaning company. Elite Power Washing provides professional pressure washing, house washing, roof cleaning, and more. With a commitment to exceptional customer service and satisfaction guaranteed, they ensure your home or business looks its best. Serving Baltimore, Harford, and Cecil Counties, Elite Power Washing uses industry-standard methods and equipment for outstanding results. Visit elitepowerwashingmd.com for more information and to schedule your service today.
Elite Power WashingFollow the Conversations with Rich Bennett podcast on Social Media:
Facebook – Conversations with Rich Bennett & Harford County Living
Facebook Group (Join the conversation) – Conversations with Rich Bennett podcast group | Facebook
Twitter – Conversations with Rich Bennett & Harford County Living
Instagram – Harford County Living
TikTok – CWRB (@conversationsrichbennett) | TikTok
Sponsors, Affiliates, and ways we pay the bills:
Recorded at the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios
Hosted on Buzzsprout
Rocketbook
SquadCast
Rich Bennett 0:00
Thanks for joining the conversation where we explore the stories and experiences that shape our world. I'm your host, Rich Bennett, and today I have two lovely young ladies on. They, I think, was on one of the Facebook groups, put out a post about
being guest on podcast and of course I looked at their podcast is like, Oh, hell yeah, I have to get them on. So I do. I have Becky Turner and Ashley Lucas on both have an awesome podcast, which is weird to say because when you hear the name of the package, you can be like, Rich, why is it awesome?
Becky Turner 0:41
Cool.
Rich Bennett 0:42
You know, because you guys, in all honesty, I believe because you guys are helping other people out, you're telling your story and that's that helps other people. And the name of the podcast is Two Girls with Cancer, and they've released seven episodes so far. Right. Yeah. And if you haven't listened to it yet, you have to listen to it. You're going to. And we'll let you know. Already for this episode, you better have the Kleenex next to you. But even on their podcast, you're going to you'll cry, you'll laugh, you may even get pissed off, you know? But they're very real. They tell it how it is. So. Hey, ladies, doing good. How
good? All right, so I want let's start. We'll go in alphabetical order. Ashley, let's start with you
with your first of all, what type of cancer do you both have?
Ashley LaCosse 1:37
Mine is a hormonal. So mine's neuroendocrine cancer, huh? Yeah, right. It's actually really rare. It's a rare form of cancer. It's very uncommon, I would say. Yeah.
Becky Turner 1:49
Not many people. I actually know a lady who had it, but I mean, when you even if you hashtag it on social media, almost nothing comes up.
Ashley LaCosse 1:57
Neuroendocrine cancer. Yeah. And then Becky's is.
Becky Turner 2:01
Yeah, mine was stage three breast cancer. It's a HER2 positive strain, so mine is actually hormone negative.
Ashley LaCosse 2:08
So Ashley and I were stage four cancer and mine. So so if you listen to our podcast, I am a crier, right?
Rich Bennett 2:17
Yeah. Like the, like the numbers are. Yeah. Episode number seven.
Ashley LaCosse 2:20
Oh, just.
Becky Turner 2:21
Just wait.
Ashley LaCosse 2:21
Wait. Next.
Rich Bennett 2:23
Oh, yeah. I so. So we're actually with you. How old were you when you found out you had cancer? And what made you decide to go to the doctor?
Ashley LaCosse 2:33
I was. I was 37.
I am prior to this. I love health and fitness. I trained in the gym five days a week, meal prepped. You know, I was full time single mom, worked full time job, had a cookbook business. I was busy and then. Right. I just I was so tired all the time, like my iron depleted. They couldn't figure out the root cause
My, my, my balance was going. My vision was going, Oh, yeah, it was so I was stinky. Like I would I put on I went through probably 50 deodorants and nothing was working for me. Yeah. And I even thought, like, I would bring these things up. But they're like, if you're like, Bill, Bill, bad bill and make like, my armpits. It was gross My, my body odor. I would have this smell that came out of my mouth and like, when you try, people think you're crazy. Let's just put it that way. When you're trying to explain these things, you know, they're like, Now you're fine. You're just a stressed out single mom.
Becky Turner 3:32
Shower.
Ashley LaCosse 3:32
Raping in a different deodorant. And then and then I my stomach, it was two weeks prior. And I just felt I felt like I felt like I was dying, like I knew something was seriously wrong.
Rich Bennett 3:45
Right.
Ashley LaCosse 3:46
And then my stomach, it just blew up and I looked huge. You remember that photo? I look like I was nine months pregnant. I did like when I say blob swell. And I literally looked like I was ready to pop. And then I ended up getting for the first week. I know this is gross. Sorry, guys, but I had diarrhea and I was my son. I had the flu. And I'm like, you know what? I'm just fighting something, right? So of course. And me, I'm always like, I'm okay. I'm strong. I got to support my babies. I go to work.
Rich Bennett 4:16
Right?
Ashley LaCosse 4:17
And then it was the week after and it happened again. So it was it was midnight. And I woke up with the worst pain and I had diarrhea. Like my stomach swelled up, like my mom took a photo because she couldn't believe it. She's like, you. You go to hospital like, I'm fine. Just I'm going to take a poop. So I literally had diarrhea for 5 hours. So from midnight to five in the morning. And then I went back to bed and then it was my alarm went off at seven. I'm like, okay, you know, I'm fine. I want to go to work. I got my baby ready. Right before the daycare, I went to work and I started to try and set up and it was like by ten and I was keeling over and I couldn't stand up. And actually, one there was a guy that I served because I was serving at the time and he's like, Man, you look unwell and like, I'm buying. And then he told me a story that he had that I don't know if it was his panic, but something bursts in him. And I'm like, Oh my God, I got to go. I said to my boss, like, I need to leave. So then I drove home, got my mom to take me to the hospital, and it was that was the Wednesday. And they couldn't really figure out what was happening with me. And then they sent me to Edmonton for a CT scan. And then I had I was downstairs in the cafeteria at the I get a phone call. They're like, Where are you? You need to get to emergency right now. You need emergency surgery. And I'm like, Huh? And you don't hear anything, right? Yeah. And then I found out. So they're like, your appendix burst. And like, in my mind, I'm like, Sweet. We found out what's happening. I'm good. Now we can fix this problem. I can carry on with life. Easy fix, right? Easy. Like, yes, I almost died because I went septic, but I was like, okay, so I. Good Lord. Yeah. So I probably had burst, I think, two weeks prior. And I don't know how I survived. I think because I took such good care of myself before. Wow. Well, that was all that diarrhea stuff like my body, right? So then they everything that they pull out of you that they cut out, they'll always send away for a pathology. And we didn't think anything of it. I get a phone call from the surgeon and it was nine or 830 in the morning, just dropped my baby off for daycare. So that because I was still recovering from surgery and then she was like, I need you sitting down. And I'm like, Nothing prepares you for this. And then she's like, You have cancer. And I'm like, okay, So they found a 6.3 centimeter tumor, and like, her appendix is really little, and the tumor had grown so big that of course the appendix can accommodate it and it burst. So it split the cancer in my whole abdominal wall. I ended up having to go for another invasive surgery, so I lost half my colon, The whole peritoneum tissue that protects your organs. I had a cancer, M.S., 30 lymph nodes. And then there was an eight centimeter cyst on my left ovary that destroyed my left over and fallopian tubes. I had to get that removed, but only because they told me that if they cut me open again, it would have been life threatening. So they had to get rid of the ovary. So they stopped surgery, called my mom, asked for permission, cut it out. So that was that surgery. And then so they they were pretty successful and they got rid of all the cancer that they could. But the cancer cells, you can't see. So. Right. And then a few months later, I ended up getting a bowel obstruction from all the scar tissue. So I go to the hospital and then again at a hospital they sent me home. They're like, You're okay. And then within 2 hours I was screaming and I couldn't like go number two, I couldn't go to the bathroom. I just throw it up. It was just everywhere. And then I was in so much pain. So we had to call 911 and they sent me to the Misericordia Hospital and they did another CT scan and they're like, You need another surgery. And because they weren't supposed to cut me open, because you're only supposed to be put under once every few years. And I had been. Really? Yeah. Because it's hard on your body Internet. Okay, So I've been put under I had two colonoscopies and three surgeries last year, all in the span of a year, I guess. Yes, it was kind of crazy, but.
Becky Turner 8:29
You forgot the one plus the exciting part. Yes. When you had a pet scan.
Ashley LaCosse 8:34
So this form of cancer, once I had my PET scan, it showed that I didn't have any more active cancer. But the shitty thing about this cancer is there's no actual cure for it until it hits the major organs. They'll try and prolong your life. So this cancer always comes back like I didn't do chemo, I didn't do radiation. So I don't.
Rich Bennett 8:55
Really.
Ashley LaCosse 8:56
Look like a typical cancer stage.
Rich Bennett 8:58
Cancer patient. Yes.
Ashley LaCosse 9:00
Right. So a lot of people don't believe me. They thought I was faking my cancer. But that's a whole nother story you see on the podcast, right? Yeah, there's some awful people out there, but I didn't look the part, you know, And I guess they just didn't want to believe me, believe me. But.
Becky Turner 9:17
Well, because her. Her treatment was different then.
Ashley LaCosse 9:20
Yes, I typical of other people.
Becky Turner 9:22
Right. Right. I was backstage for so ill. They're bald, they're they're tiny and mine.
Ashley LaCosse 9:28
But my everything happened so fast for me. Like, I think if when I knew things were happening and if we would, it did, you know, a little more tests or whatever, it would have been a different story. But it didn't. And I believe everything happens the way it's supposed to, and I'm out of it. Absolutely not, because it's brought me here today where we are, you know, and I with the form that I have, I, I feel like it's my journey and my duty to help other people on who have the same.
Becky Turner 9:56
Questions and bring awareness to something that people don't even know.
Ashley LaCosse 9:59
Right.
Rich Bennett 10:00
Because because I never heard of that.
Becky Turner 10:02
I said breast cancer. Everyone knows breast cancer, millions and millions of dollars.
Ashley LaCosse 10:06
And it's breast cancer. And as soon as I heard it, like when I got the phone call, all I heard was cancer. And then in your appendix and like, I couldn't remember for the life of me, that name nobody in my house, my sister, my mom were all bawling. I had to call her back 2 hours later, Mike, so I could start doing research, right? I'm like, What kind of cancer? Yeah. And we.
Rich Bennett 10:22
Didn't. That's common.
Ashley LaCosse 10:23
Right? We didn't know what stage it was until actually I didn't see the oncologist until four months later. And then he was like, it was stage four and.
Rich Bennett 10:32
So I was okay with that because I remember, I mean, years ago and I think it's change, but it used to be if they told you you had stage four, that was considered terminal. That's not the case anymore, though, is it?
Ashley LaCosse 10:45
Well, technically I still am. Yeah. But it's it's so it's just a matter of how long it takes for these tumors to form. And then when they're big enough, they cut the back out, you know, or whatever. But once that it's an organ, so it's like I am and I'm not. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
Becky Turner 11:05
They did say that if it goes to a major organ, these are things like your liver, your lungs, your bones. Right. Well, your bones aren't an organ, but you know what I'm saying. Something. Then they can try chemo and radiation to prolong the life. But I mean, by the time you get to stage four in a major organ, you're so weak, yet your body's really shutting down. So for them to only have treatment when it gets to that stage is really quite disheartening.
Ashley LaCosse 11:30
And like now from the three surgeries I'm suffering from, my stomach will swell up again and it will swell up. The longest it's been swollen is three weeks. Then it will go down and then go back up. So I've been about a week now that it hasn't been swollen but gets huge, Huge. Like I'm tiny, you know, I bought a lot of weight from my and everything I went through. But it gets it It's hard.
Becky Turner 11:52
Five six months pregnant. That's what it looks like.
Ashley LaCosse 11:54
It's big. Yeah. And they don't figure it out.
Rich Bennett 11:58
And you say you have a little daughter.
Ashley LaCosse 11:59
I have a son. He's.
Rich Bennett 12:00
He's four son. A son. Okay, So how was he when you started going through all this?
Ashley LaCosse 12:05
You turned three in January, and so just a month later.
Rich Bennett 12:09
So if you don't mind me asking, how does it three I mean, he I'm sure he knows something's wrong with Mommy. How did you explain that today?
Ashley LaCosse 12:18
He he was a brave little boy like I. He wanted to be there. So, like, when I would get my staples out, he, he he grabs my arm and he's like, Mommy, it's okay. It's going to be okay. I love you, Mommy. In that I start bawling. But he was my strength. Like he was very strong. But now I know. I do notice now, like last week of like when I ever because I always have. I have so many appointments to go to do blood work. Like all this testing. I'm always at doctor's, right? And he's like, Mommy, are you coming home? I don't, you know, like, I don't want you to. Oh, yeah, right. It's like, I know he you know, he's like, I don't want you to. Or we're in the city and he's like, There's a hospital, mom. And I'm just it breaks me because he shouldn't have had to go through that, you know, having a sick parent. And
it breaks my heart because I have mom guilt because I couldn't be that mom. I couldn't do those things for him. His favorite thing is just to lay in bed with me, because I do mostly lay in bed. I do. I don't you know, I'm not there yet. I still have to recover from the surgeries. And he'll bring his his coloring books. He'll play with me well, color together. And I'm in bed every single night, usually by six seven, because by that I'm spent. I'm too tired.
Rich Bennett 13:37
But. But the thing is, you have him there for support, and.
Ashley LaCosse 13:41
He's making.
Rich Bennett 13:42
You. He is a strong as a little yes man.
Becky Turner 13:47
And we've said this before on one of the shows like, yeah, she feels mom guilt because she hasn't been able to do things with him. But he also could have had a mom who gave up and died. Yeah. Who didn't fight, who didn't take her health into her own hands.
Ashley LaCosse 14:01
I literally had to like I had no other options. I was sent away, like, here, go live your life. And I'm like, What am I going to do? Because I knew after my second surgery I was still sick. I knew I had to take the holistic route. I don't know if you watched the episode where I have like 100
supplement vitamins, but I do these like I've shrunk it down a little bit, but like when I when I knew I was still sick, my brother in law, he actually suggested to get a live blood analysis and that is from a holistic doctor or someone you know, not in the Western medicine fields. Right. But and I do believe that if I didn't get that done, I would have been dead by my third surgery. My body was infested with microscopic parasites. I had heavy metals, mold, fungus, blood clots, and my liver was failing cheese. So it took and it's crazy because they just sent me on my way.
Becky Turner 15:00
Well, they don't because they don't.
Ashley LaCosse 15:02
Yes. Like the medical system. They don't. They don't. Not that they don't believe in it, but they weren't trained that way.
Becky Turner 15:08
Well, and especially I hate to make this political, but in Canada, because it is free health care quite often it is bare minimum health care. Right. Because they don't.
Rich Bennett 15:19
As you say.
Becky Turner 15:20
And I mean, don't get me wrong, we are both so thankful for free health care. Yeah, but, you know, not when you're having to pay or go to, you know, different alternative doctors. You get what you want. Yeah. Or go to Mexico.
Ashley LaCosse 15:34
Yeah, right. She didn't ever, you know.
Rich Bennett 15:36
And yeah.
Ashley LaCosse 15:37
It took like four four months for the first round because it takes four months for your right blood cells to turn over and like, you know, the other body. So we did like have a detox for parasites. We did, we cleaned everything out of me and with but my second life blood analysis, I was already like starting to get back on track. So, so clean. Yeah, it was. It was night and day. You know, you look at your blood and then. And then I started to feel better. Like I'm. I am physically, mentally, emotionally drained, and my body's not up to par where it used to be. But I do believe that if I didn't get that done, the parasites would have kept going and my body still would have like the cancer would have kept growing. Like, I don't know if all the cancer is gone. We don't know. But I'm on the right track, you know, like I right. I feel like I've done a we research everything.
Rich Bennett 16:32
You know, just which is good. You need to.
Becky Turner 16:35
Be careful.
Rich Bennett 16:36
Because not all the doctors and the doctors don't know everything. I hate to say that, but they know.
Ashley LaCosse 16:41
And then they're a lot of people are closed minded to the holistic road. I think if the Western medicine and holistic would work together, you would be able to save a lot of lives, you know? And I believe that when there's herbs that can cure us, like, oh, yes, you know, and I take that there I was like, what herbs kill cancer. What cancer cells, you know, So I take it I have saffron, garlic, turmeric, oregano. I have so many, but I have a daily, even.
Rich Bennett 17:09
Some vegetables like, yes, it was a juicing thing.
Ashley LaCosse 17:12
So I didn't start juicing until this journey because I would just blend all my stuff out of shakes and stuff. And then I really found the importance of getting it into your system, because after losing half my colon, I couldn't digest food, so I had to. It was harder on my tummy, but I still need my nutrients and sometimes too much fiber is not good for your body also. So then drinking it, it was just easier for my body to do it. And it's yeah, it gets into your system so much quicker and.
Becky Turner 17:42
There's a lot of research that shows, Oh yeah, juicing is helpful for shrinking. Yeah. Mm.
Ashley LaCosse 17:46
Yeah.
Rich Bennett 17:47
But between you and between you and me, I still think there's a cure out there.
Ashley LaCosse 17:52
But of course there is.
Rich Bennett 17:54
Yeah. Can't make money if there's a cure.
Ashley LaCosse 17:57
So let's say little.
Rich Bennett 17:59
And it's all. It just, it never mind. That's, that's a whole.
Ashley LaCosse 18:03
You know how much money they made off of me by cutting me open and how many surgeries. Oh, all my stuff out of me.
Becky Turner 18:10
I met a girl in Mexico at treatment, and she's American. And she had said that in the five years that she'd been battling cancer between surgeries and the rounds of chemo and this and that, her insurance had paid out over $2 million. Oh.
Rich Bennett 18:23
Oh, yeah.
Becky Turner 18:23
$2 million. Are you insane? We have free health care, but one of my medications was not covered and it was $28,000 for six. What, like six treatments of it just I.V. bags? Six, six of them. And luckily for me, like, my insurance paid for it 80%. And then the cancer center itself paid for 20% of it, thank goodness, but still.
Rich Bennett 18:46
28,000.
Becky Turner 18:47
Dollars for six I.V. bags. That's one thing, you know.
Rich Bennett 18:51
Which probably cost them probably about $5 in, you gone.
Ashley LaCosse 18:55
But it's cancer. Well, that's jacked up the price.
Rich Bennett 18:59
Yeah, it is. Good. All right. So, Becky, why would a.
Becky Turner 19:04
High.
Rich Bennett 19:06
Iso with. Cause your stories completely different.
Becky Turner 19:09
Yeah, Like what? A tough act to follow, you know?
Rich Bennett 19:11
Gosh.
Ashley LaCosse 19:12
Becky, we both went through crazy.
Rich Bennett 19:15
So basically, I mean, the same thing with you. You know what? When? What made you go to the doctor to and then how did you find. Yeah.
Becky Turner 19:25
So this was January of 2023 and.
Rich Bennett 19:29
Oh, my God.
Becky Turner 19:30
Yeah. Both she was, she was March and I was February when we both found out like it was very close to each other. Wow. Yeah. So I was out at a birthday party for my brother. I came home, I was getting ready for bed. I took off my bra, and I noticed that my nipple was kind of flat, almost pushed in just on one side. And I didn't really think much about it because it was kind of a tight bra. And, you know, I was fairly well doubt. Is that a thing that you can say about girls? So, yeah, my nipple had gotten flat and whatever. I went to bed the next morning I woke up, it was still flat and I thought, what the heck is going on here? And I got in the shower to get ready for work and I just broke down because I remember reading one time about cancer, breast cancer, how your nipple can become inverted. So at the time that yeah, I know it's not one of the I think it's like not as common as, you know, feeling a lump. But I remember reading Your skin can look like an orange peel kind of pitted a little bit or bumpy and you have inverted nipple discharge from the nipple lumps. You obviously feeling the tumors. And I didn't have any of that, just a flat nipple. And so I wasn't going to go to the doctor because at the same time I was trying to get a life insurance policy because I thought, I'm 36 years old. I should probably do it. I've got two kids. And so I'm like, I'm going to finish this policy or doing this application, and then I'll go to the doctor and it's probably fine. And I remember talking to my mother in law and she had actually had breast cancer and she was a nurse and she said, it doesn't really sound like breast cancer. It probably is mastitis, which is a clogged milk duck, because
my armpit had started to hurt within a couple of days. And almost like a.
Ashley LaCosse 21:15
I want to.
Becky Turner 21:16
Say, like a throbbing in the boob itself. So, yeah, she said clogged milk duct is probably what it is. So I went a few more days and I couldn't handle it anymore because even my friend saw me and she's I was wearing like a big hoodie. And she said, Your boob is way bigger than the other side. So I went to the doctor. Yeah, I had gone to my family doctor. And and keep in mind, I had seen this guy in August or September of the year prior 2022, getting a full physical. And I said, Do you need to do a breast exam? Because that's usually part of your full physical. And he said, no, we don't do that anymore. I said, Well, why not? And he goes, We'll send you for a mammogram if there's a problem. Is there a.
Rich Bennett 22:01
Problem? If there's a problem.
Ashley LaCosse 22:03
How would you know there's a.
Becky Turner 22:04
Problem? And I was 35 and I was like, I don't know. And I was also self-proclaimed crunchy. So I was like, You put radiation, my body? I don't think so. So I was like, I don't have a problem. I would have liked him to feel it, to feel around whatever.
Ashley LaCosse 22:17
Because that's his right.
Becky Turner 22:18
But he said, No, we don't do that. So fast forward, what, four or five months and it's now January. And so I go back to see him and I said, Hey, like my nipple is flat. It has been flat for a week at this point is that my armpit hurts and my boob looks a lot bigger than the other side, kind of like a heat radiating in it. And he didn't want to look at it again. Same freaking guy. I don't know if he hates boobs or what, but.
Ashley LaCosse 22:43
What the.
Becky Turner 22:44
Hell? I hate her boobs. And I said, I'm telling him what's wrong with it. And he said, Well, you're you know, you're too young for a mammogram. And I should have known better because.
Rich Bennett 22:53
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Becky Turner 22:56
You know what? 35 is not like I'm too young.
Ashley LaCosse 22:59
Kids, and.
Rich Bennett 23:00
Ain't nobody to.
Ashley LaCosse 23:01
You.
Becky Turner 23:01
My sister in law had died of breast cancer at 25 years old, so I knew better.
Rich Bennett 23:06
Jesus.
Becky Turner 23:07
And so he said no, like a mammogram isn't going to show you anything because young people have very dense and fibrous breast tissue anyway. And he said, If you want, I'll send you for an ultrasound just to ease in.
Rich Bennett 23:19
The hell did this guy become a doctor?
Becky Turner 23:21
Right. He was like, Can you look at it, please? Like I started to get annoyed and I'm like, I'm here. And he goes, Okay, we'll go get a nurse to like a chaperone it. And so he he feels around and he goes, No, there's nothing wrong with it. And I was like, Well, okay, I'll go to this ultrasound. Anyway. So I called the ultrasound place and they go, Why didn't he give you a mammogram requisition? And I said, I don't know, ask you. She goes, Well, you're getting a mammogram as well. So I go there. Just a couple of days later, they were able to squeeze me in, do the mammogram first.
Rich Bennett 23:53
So no pun intended, right?
Ashley LaCosse 23:55
You.
Becky Turner 23:57
Me
and and they do the mammogram first and then they go to the ultrasound and they're spending a very long time on the ultrasound. And I don't think anything of it because I am a serial optimist. Everything is puppies and rainbows in my world. And and so I'm thinking, man, like, this is very thorough. I like their southern girl. And then she goes.
Ashley LaCosse 24:21
Oh, I I'm just going to have my supervisor.
Becky Turner 24:24
I'm just going to ask her question. It's okay. And then so she comes in and she's being very thorough and they both leave the room and then the one comes back and she goes, Yeah, so the radiologist wants to see you for a biopsy. You need to be back here in 3 hours.
Rich Bennett 24:40
And I say, 3 hours.
Becky Turner 24:41
Yeah, 3 hours. No time to prepare. And if I had had time to prepare, I would have said no, because, again, self-proclaimed crunchy biopsy thing about a biopsy picked her like a water balloon. It's fine and intact, but the second you put a little tiny hole in it, it's going to start leaking, right? So yeah, I'm not against biopsies, but I think that there should be ways of administering, you know, like a low dose chemo with it to kill any of the.
Ashley LaCosse 25:07
Just in case. Yeah, yeah.
Rich Bennett 25:09
Yeah.
Becky Turner 25:10
Yeah. So I leave for my 3 hours, I call my husband and bawling my eyes out because here I am thinking that I just have clogged ducts and I come back and I go, fine, like, let's do the biopsy. And I really wrestled with it. I the whole time I was like, No, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do I'm not going to do it. And then I get there and I'm like, okay, fine, let's just do it. And it didn't take a lot of days at all. I think that was on Friday. I had that by Wednesday, I had the results. I had had a doctor's appointment booked for the results, but the results hadn't come in yet. But in in our province where we are, I can log in to a website and see all my results for everything, right? And so we were just about to get in the car to drive to the doctors to get my results. And I got an email saying, Your test results are in. And so I go to my car because I had left my laptop in there and I am just sitting there by myself waiting for my husband and I click on the report and it said Stage three breast cancer. And I just freaked out. My husband walked in the garage and I'm hyperventilating and I said, It's stage three. Like, what do I do? And I didn't know anything about anything. So we drove. We had about a half an hour drive to get there. I call my mom, I'm bawling. I call my best friend and bawling. So and then we get to the doctor's office and it was so busy I had to wait in the waiting room for an hour. And so by this point, you know, I'd known for about an hour and a half, so I don't want to say I was calmed down, but I had prepared myself. I guess I had process what I had just read. So I got into this same guy. Remember a guy didn't want to look at my boobs and he goes over them. Yeah, right. You would have gotten ghetto on a sure I but I'm not I'm very passive. So I'm sitting there and he says something about. Mm hmm. Yeah, I heard you needed to get a biopsy. I think we'll get the results soon. And I'm like, Why do you think I'm here? I said, It's cancer.
Ashley LaCosse 27:10
Yeah, because he was like, There wasn't results. He was like, Oh, the results are in yet.
Becky Turner 27:13
Or you need a biopsy or something. Like, he just hadn't done any research, search on any thing about my history. And I said, like I had told you, it was something and it's cancer. And he's like, Yeah, it's cancer.
Ashley LaCosse 27:28
Like, Billy was.
Becky Turner 27:30
Quite stunned that, Oh, how could it be when he would look at it.
Rich Bennett 27:34
Right? Is he still your doctor?
Becky Turner 27:36
No. No. Okay. So my husband my husband has the most darling doctor in the entire world. And he begged, not even begged, and he just put it out there. Hey, any chance that you would? Because this is what happened. And he took me on, and I saw him yesterday. Oh, good. What a beautiful name. Yes. Okay, So anyway, we. That was that I went about my day. It was absolutely traumatic. Like we got home, my mom showed up. My I think. Yeah, my brother showed up, my ex-husband showed up, my ex-husband's mom because, you know, it was his sister. Her daughter passed. Both my kids were there. My husband was there. I think my dad was out of town, but he would have been there and we all just sat there and cried and prayed. And it was awful. And I just remember having to tell my kids, like, who I don't ever want to like, I don't get emotional. But who said And.
Rich Bennett 28:28
Because the hell were you kids?
Becky Turner 28:31
They would have been 11 and nine at the time. They're eight, 12 and ten. I don't remember. It's such a blur. They're going to be 14 and 12 right away. So yeah, they must have been.
Rich Bennett 28:43
Sort of I mean, still teenagers.
Becky Turner 28:45
Yeah, And more. And my oldest one, she was born four weeks after her aunt had died. And so she obviously didn't know her aunt, but her whole life, all she ever heard about was Auntie who passed away from breast cancer. Right. So it hit her hard. And it's been so weird this whole year and a half since I've been sick. She has been kind of a different kid, sort of a dissociated, a little bit of a avoidant attachment. Maybe she's really mean to me now. And, you know, we've finally really into counseling as a family this week, actually. And the counselor said, you know, when when there's fear, when the person you love so much, there's a chance that they could be gone. It's going to come out in different ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now I'm like, you're just mean to me because you miss me.
Ashley LaCosse 29:36
Yeah. You love me, right? I understand.
Rich Bennett 29:40
It's. It's weird. It may sound weird to say this, but with this, if you were getting, you know, if somebody upstairs knew you were going to get breast cancer, thank God it was now or last year and not during COVID.
Ashley LaCosse 29:57
Oh, right.
Becky Turner 29:58
Well over Boston forever. And can I.
Ashley LaCosse 30:00
I feel so bad for anyone who had to go through that.
Becky Turner 30:04
Yeah. Being alone through treatment, wearing masks and treatment. They tried once to.
Ashley LaCosse 30:09
Mask at all. When I was sick, that oncologist was like, he's like, You should be wearing your mask. I'm like, Dude, I got cancer. What else is going to come look like? I already got something wrong.
Rich Bennett 30:19
The thing is, you wouldn't have been able to. Well, you're at least down here. You know, the kids weren't allowed to go to school, so. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, you know, their anxiety depression is just off the charts with kids. And if the news were to, oh, man, I'm sorry, Becky, you know.
Becky Turner 30:40
So I felt very strongly in everything in me that I did not want to do traditional treatment. I didn't want to do chemo. I watched my sister in law go through it. It was awful. And I remember after she passed her, my mother in law had said, I wish that we had taken her to Mexico like I they were going to I mean, it was so expensive, but they were going to figure out how to do it and take her and the the cancer center here had kind of convinced them like, no, we've got the top of the line doctors and the best drugs and the best protocols and she'll be good. And she died at 25. And so I for the last 15 years or 12 years or whatever, I had thought, no, I'm going to go to Mexico if I ever get sick, I'm going to Mexico.
Rich Bennett 31:25
And so I Mexico.
Becky Turner 31:26
Well, they do a lot of alternative things there.
Rich Bennett 31:29
But they they made like a stem cell and all.
Becky Turner 31:32
Oh, yeah, definitely. You can get stem cell on every corner. Oh, funny story. When I was in Tijuana because I thought it we did a tour, a walking tour of Tijuana, and I remember our tour guide. She was so excited to tell me that at every pharmacy on every corner you can buy Ozempic. And I was like, Yeah, it was like right at the height of it, I'm like, Oh, thank.
Ashley LaCosse 31:50
You, I'm okay. Thank you. Wow.
Becky Turner 31:52
Yeah. So in Mexico, you know, things are a little different. Regulated differently, but but some of the top of the line clinics down there because they can do alternative things that they wouldn't dream about here.
Rich Bennett 32:07
So it's just not a great cause, you know? Oh.
Becky Turner 32:11
I don't know about that, Rich. It was.
Rich Bennett 32:13
Very.
Becky Turner 32:14
Expensive. Yeah, I used that 31,000, and that's American. So that in Canada, that's like $1,000,000. Oh, yeah.
Ashley LaCosse 32:22
Yeah.
Rich Bennett 32:22
But you said that one, That one prescriptions 28,000.
Becky Turner 32:26
This is fair. Yes, you're right. You're right. When you think about all of the treatment I had there, plus surgery, plus everything else. You're right.
Rich Bennett 32:32
Right. I mean, yeah, granted, treatment's not going to be cheap, but still, I think it would be cheap from what I've heard. True. It's cheaper down there.
Becky Turner 32:41
And not even.
Rich Bennett 32:42
Just let me rephrase that.
Becky Turner 32:44
Less expensive. Yeah, cheap. We're not talking like back out to you. Right. That the level of care was really great down there as well like they they just new thing and the thing there too and Mexicans I don't know if it's the lifestyle I don't know but everything's a little nonchalant like yeah, they're happy but just like no big deal. It's fine. And I'm like, It's not fine. I have cancer, Like I need to get better. And they're like.
Ashley LaCosse 33:13
Yeah, like we could just squeeze you in later.
Becky Turner 33:16
It was just, Oh, chill, we're here. It was like, if you don't do this treatment right now, you're going to die. So, yeah, it took me a month of, like, trying to figure out how I'm going to the money to go down there and me and my husband, like battling because he saw his mom go through traditional treatment, chemo, radiation therapy, surgery. And I was like, That's great for your mom, but it's not for me. I whatever. And anyway, it ended up that we went to Mexico, so it was already five weeks later at this point that I got there. I did four weeks of treatment there, came home for six weeks, went back for two weeks. And the first day I had gotten to Mexico, my Mexican doctor said, You need chemo. And I'm like, No, I don't. I don't need it. Well, yeah, but I didn't know this because no one had told me. But HER2 positive breast cancer is very responsive to chemo, like 70 to 80% chance that the cancer is going to completely reverse itself and all your lymph nodes are going to go back to normal. Nobody told me that I started.
Ashley LaCosse 34:16
Yes, right. A DIC of a doctor.
Becky Turner 34:18
Yeah. So like in in Alberta where we live, your first action after you get diagnosed with breast cancer is to see a surgeon. They usually want to do surgery unless it's so advanced that they think you need to do chemo. Neoadjuvant chemo is what it's called. And so of course, because I was stage three, it was in my lymph nodes and HER2 is a very aggressive type. They said I needed chemo first and and so I had seen the surgeon, I thought he was fine. I liked him. He was good, but I knew I wasn't doing chemo. I came back from Mexico and I had had some great advancements in Mexico as well. All of the tumors in the breast itself in four weeks were gone. I was gone. And wow, like now, granted, I did do chemo in Mexico, but it was low dose chemo. So instead of being 100% potency, losing your hair, getting sick, it's only a 30%. And they do it. It's called insulin potentiated. So basically what they're doing is dropping your blood sugar with insulin and spiking it with glucose. I've heard that it's pretty dangerous. I've been shamed so many times by diabetics on.
Ashley LaCosse 35:21
Cancer is going to stick.
Becky Turner 35:23
By it. I mean, it's.
Rich Bennett 35:24
Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Back up. What was that last thing you said about diabetic.
Becky Turner 35:28
Diabetics have shamed me for.
Rich Bennett 35:31
Oh, I thought you said you were doing no work. No. Okay.
Becky Turner 35:35
No.
Rich Bennett 35:35
Oh, wow. Okay.
Becky Turner 35:36
So everything's monitored by a doctor. My oncologist in Mexico has been practicing since 92, so he's not new by any means. Right. And he also said that this therapy is frowned upon in Mexico, but they don't have the same regulations. So until someone forces him to stop, he said he's going to do it because he sees the results with it. So, yeah, basically the whole concept is cancer cells live off of glucose. When they're hungry, they're going to eat anything. So if you eat anything that's a carbohydrate, it's going to snatch it up and it's going to fuel it. If you fat. Really? Yeah, if you fast, it's starving. So I would have to fast for a few hours prior to this treatment and then they would administer the chemo drugs and then they would drop my blood sugar with insulin just for a few minutes, not long at all. And then they would spike it back up with glucose and then they would give me like a juice and a granola bar and I'd eat lunch. And so the concept was that these hungry, starving cancer cells are needing to eat. And as soon as that glucose get them, they're going to eat that and anything with it, which is the chemo. So they just.
Ashley LaCosse 36:43
That's why it makes so much sense because I was hungry, like, yeah, probably eat a ton of food. That was another side. And we also had parasites. Yeah, I gained £20 from September to January. Huh? Sorry. Wow. Okay. Just the thought I forgot to say that, but yeah.
Becky Turner 37:00
So yeah, in that first four weeks that I was there, yeah, I did an MRI and everything in the breast itself was gone and I had quite a few masses in there. I don't remember the exact, but I knew excuse me that I would need a mastectomy because it was in more than two quadrants. So if you, you know, picture your moving in quadrants. If it's in more than two, it's a mastectomy. It's a mastectomy. If it's only in one quadrant, it's a lumpectomy. So I think I had tumor masses in three of the four quadrants. So and plus they said like a calcium sprinkling. So basically like a I don't even know how to explain it. It not like a tumor mass, but like, like tumor bodies everywhere.
Ashley LaCosse 37:38
So they would have.
Rich Bennett 37:39
All these, like, spider webs.
Becky Turner 37:40
Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah. They just said it was like one deposit. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And so, yeah, I came back and I talked to that same surgeon and I said, Hey, like, I just did four rounds of chemo. And you know what? I want to do surgery now, what are my next steps? And he looks at me, he goes, You didn't lose your hair. And I said, No, I did it. I didn't. I didn't tell him specifically I'd gone to Mexico, but I had sent my MRI from Mexico and my reports from Mexico to his receptionist in preparation for this appointment. Right. And and he goes, Well, let me call your oncologist. Like your treatment plan was supposed to be six. She'll probably just be able to give you the next two and then then we can do surgery. And I said, No, no, sorry. I went to Mexico and did chemo. Well, his whole demeanor completely changed and he goes, Oh, well, you just wasted two months of your life. And that's not the standard level of care at all. And let me tell you, the standard of care down there was amazing. Like, this guy's standard of care was not amazing.
Rich Bennett 38:46
And he told you you wasted two months of your life. Was your husband with you? Yeah.
Becky Turner 38:51
And I remember leaving and my husband going, I believe that that man truly cares about you. And I was like, f that guy. He does not care about me. He cares about.
Ashley LaCosse 39:00
Nothing.
Becky Turner 39:01
Fear mongering. He's got a God complex. Yeah.
Rich Bennett 39:03
So I would reject that son of a bitch.
Ashley LaCosse 39:06
I don't.
Becky Turner 39:07
I'm not confrontational by any means. And I quite often have their process. And then when I leave, I'm mad. So in this conversation, he's now saying, Well, actually, I'm not going to call your oncologist. We're going to go straight to a mastectomy. But he said this I'm not going to do a what's called sentinel node biopsy. That's where they take just a few lymph nodes, see if the cancer is still there. And if it is, take out a few more or leave it right. He goes, I'm going to take out all your lymph nodes and you're going to get neuropathy in your arm, and that's that. He also said, You seem like a person who's resistant to radiation and. LO Well, just because I went to Mexico, I guess, and I didn't want to do any treatment, and he said, You seem like a person resistant to radiation, and I'll let you know. Now, if you don't do radiation, you won't qualify for a reconstruction. And so, yeah, which is not accurate. And so I ended up going or and then he sorry he this was a monday he told me you have until Friday to make your decision. If you want to do six full rounds of chemo or go straight into this mastectomy with a full lymph node dissection, that was my option. And I was like, I'm not deciding you're going to give me four days to make a life altering decision. And so Friday came and went my husband said, Did you call him? I said, Heck no. I didn't call him like he can wait. And so I ended up going to see my medical oncologist. That's the one who administers the chemo. And I said, you know, what are your thoughts on this? And she goes, Let me call him and just see if he'd be willing to do the sentinel node biopsy and whatever. And I get a call later that day from the surgeon's office saying that I've been assigned to a new surgeon.
Ashley LaCosse 40:51
So because it worked.
Becky Turner 40:55
And and the new surgeon was amazing. He was so good. And he said, Hey, why don't you send me your Mexican MRI and I'll look at it. And in the meantime, why don't I send you for an MRI? Because that other guy had said, I'm not sending you for an MRI because you've just wasted two months and we're basically out.
Rich Bennett 41:13
Of that guy's even has I wonder if he has a job.
Becky Turner 41:16
He's rated number one or number two surgeons in Edmonton.
Ashley LaCosse 41:19
That's why he has a complex.
Becky Turner 41:21
Like you say, he has a God complex because these women, they come to him within a week of finding out that they have breast cancer. And so he's the savior that's going to get rid of their breast cancer. But for the US people who question him, he does not like that.
Ashley LaCosse 41:34
Because he's got that man complex. Women are beneath him. Like I wouldn't.
Becky Turner 41:39
I think he's just used to being in a position of authority and women basically throwing themselves at him to save them. And I just had questions, right. Like he didn't tell me that the chemo was 70 to 80% effective. He could have. Yeah. So when I met this new surgeon, he told me that stat. That's right. He learned it. He gave me all kinds of things to read about it, but he sent me for an MRI. He looked at my MRI, and of course, when my new MRI came back, we found out, yeah, all the tumors in the breast were gone, but the lymph nodes were still there. And I was devastated because at this point I'd been to Mexico twice and I thought, like, I just spent all this money and I thought I was getting better and I knew I was. But lymph nodes are a lot tougher to treat than, you know, stage one, Stage two tumors.
Ashley LaCosse 42:26
You're I just think that's actually from the other doctor's appointment. But when you have cancer in your lymph nodes, it's never going to go down. It's just going to keep getting larger and larger and harder and harder.
Rich Bennett 42:39
MM Oh.
Becky Turner 42:40
I didn't know that.
Ashley LaCosse 42:40
I didn't know that because.
Rich Bennett 42:41
I didn't know that.
Ashley LaCosse 42:42
Right. And I thought it was cancer. Right. But it went away.
Becky Turner 42:45
Interesting. Yeah. So, you know, it still took me another month to decide what I wanted to do and I, I just kind of kept hearing in my head like, you can do it, you've done hard things. And I listen to a podcast where a guy said that he was chemo. He wanted to do everything holistic, and his doctors told him he would die if he did it and he did it and he was going to believe in the treatment he was going to believe in his body and he was going to do everything holistic as well. So I it was just sometime in June and I was like, you know what? Let's do it. Let's do chemo here. I don't need hair. And I was like, My hair's not going to fall out anyway. And it did, by the way. And yeah, he or sorry, I did it and the first round was awful and I was like, I'm done, we're done here. I'm never doing chemo. And we adjusted the dosage and then it was tolerable. The next five treatments were tolerable. I mean, he was not fine, just picture being hung over for like three or four days. But I live like this for most of my treatment because I wore wigs. I would put on makeup, I put on lashes and and no one would ever know. And I never stopped myself from doing anything. I went on vacations. I went and hung out with friends. I did everything that I wanted to do because I wasn't going to stop living my life, you know?
Rich Bennett 44:06
Good.
Becky Turner 44:06
I've certainly done things with a hangover. I could do things with a chemo hangover as well. So yeah, then I, I finished that. I had a mastectomy a month after chemo, and when the pathology report came back, it had shown that everything had completely reversed and. Huh. Yeah, everything had reversed. They had seen like the lymph nodes in the armpit. There was actually one that they had biopsied, like taken out in surgery that had shown that it once had had cancer and it no longer did. And then there was a few that they had taken out that didn't have cancer at all. And then in the breast tissue itself, all the cancer was gone, only scar tissue was left. So it it worked completely for me.
Rich Bennett 44:45
You're not in remission, then you're cancer free.
Becky Turner 44:48
I am cancer free. Yes.
Rich Bennett 44:50
Wow.
Becky Turner 44:51
I know. And then and it's so funny because for someone like me who was so pious when it came to, you know, how much I hated the health care system, how much I hated cancer treatment, how much I was against chemo, radiation, and that was the one that worked for me. And I you know, it was very humbling for sure. It changed my opinion in a lot. Do I still hate pharmaceutical companies? Absolutely, I do. I do. I think that maybe some people want you to get better, not want you to die. Yes, I do think.
Ashley LaCosse 45:21
Every cancer is different in every single body.
Becky Turner 45:24
And I very much.
Rich Bennett 45:25
Exactly.
Becky Turner 45:26
Yes, that's true. Right. Because we've said this before, Ashley could have the same HER2 positive breast cancer and her respond so much differently than me. Right. Because every DNA makeup is so different. And I really do think that because of all the immune boosting that I did in Mexico and all of the supplements and things that I was on during, I think that really helped me fly through treatment. I ended up doing radiation just because I did everything else. So let's let's do it since then, you know, that ended in February, just a couple of months ago. I have been very tired. My body hurts. I will say my muscles hurt, my back is forever going out just because my body.
Rich Bennett 46:06
Is almost like in a rebuilding phase.
Becky Turner 46:07
Yeah. And it's so funny because insurance desperately wants me to go back to work and they keep sending my doctors information asking why I can't go back to work. Like, Do you know what? I just went, You're.
Rich Bennett 46:18
Not ready.
Ashley LaCosse 46:19
Yet. See the trauma, let alone, like the physical?
Becky Turner 46:22
I'm exhausted, my body hurts. And now everything that I've packed down because I love to repress everything. It's all coming out now and yeah, I just feel like I felt sicker in 2024 than I did in 2023. And I think it's just the emotional weight of everything. So, yeah, I like action. I when we connected that, we had always talked about let's do a podcast together, share our story. And then finally just a few months ago, we're like, Let's actually do it. We're both.
Ashley LaCosse 46:49
Sick. Yeah, really, Let's look at the time.
Rich Bennett 46:52
You How did you, how long have you two actually known each other first?
Becky Turner 46:56
Just since we got sick.
Ashley LaCosse 46:57
Since we got actually have would have been a few weeks after I found out.
Becky Turner 47:01
Yeah. So I was in Mexico for my first four weeks and a guy I went to high school with messaged me and said, A good friend of mine just found out she has cancer. She's our age, she's from our town, you know, what do I do? So I reached out to her thinking like, we're going to be friends, I'm going to help her. And we were we connected. We found out right away. Yeah, we found out. We knew so many of the same people. She knew my brother And our town is not big. 30,000 people. And she lives a mile down the road. Like, I don't know how. We've never crossed. We've never. Yeah. 37.
Rich Bennett 47:36
And you both grew up there, though?
Ashley LaCosse 47:37
I've been out here since I was 25.
Becky Turner 47:40
Yeah, I grew up here. But, you know, I've been back for a lot of years. Like, I moved away and then I've been back, so I don't know how we just didn't connect, especially because my brother had hung out with her. Yeah, I don't know. So we connected, but we never got together in person just because her health. One day. My health. One day we're exhausted. We forgot brain fog is real and it was not until a another girl that we had met through this process from the same town had passed away that we actually got together. I picked her up for the funeral. That's the first time we got together. This was just October and it was he.
Rich Bennett 48:13
Passed away from cancer.
Becky Turner 48:14
Yeah.
Ashley LaCosse 48:15
Yeah. So we all kind of at the same time it happened, hers came back.
Becky Turner 48:19
As she got sick a couple of weeks before I did. So again, I had reached out because she was going to Mexico for treatment and I needed to know more about Mexico. And yeah, I would like she when she was down in Mexico, I got her to get me some medications. When I was there, I got hers and stuff like and she was such a sweet girl and yeah, she had passed in October. And so Ashley and I realized we need each other because, number one, not a lot of people understand what we're going through. Number two, like, we need that support system because, you know, in actuality, people do die from this disease. Yeah, young people die from this disease. And it didn't matter like who you were before or what you did, how healthy you were before, if it finds you and finds you.
Ashley LaCosse 49:04
But I feel like she was my for me, I could freak out and tell her, Oh, my God, it's cancer. Like, just the other day I thought, I have cancer. My lymph nodes, because my levels are really low. But she could be. She's my outlet for being calm. She's like, No, no, you know, like, we got this because I.
Becky Turner 49:19
Get it every every campaign. I'm like, it's cancer.
Ashley LaCosse 49:23
The same thing with her. When something upstairs, she'll always tell you she's at the hospital or she's she needs this check and and we're there for each other, but we're there for each other in a different way because we understand each other and we understand what we're going through. Other people, not that they weren't there for us, but they just don't get it, you know? Right. They don't.
Rich Bennett 49:42
Understand. A lot of people don't know. It's the thing with cancer and we've talked about this before on the show, but because a lot of people and hate the phrase, but a lot of people say the C word, but a lot of times when people hear cancer right away now, not just the people that are diagnosed, but people that know them, they feel freaked out.
Becky Turner 50:06
Yeah.
Ashley LaCosse 50:07
Like.
Rich Bennett 50:07
You know, they're freaked out like like if they get too close to you, they.
Ashley LaCosse 50:11
May cause disease. There's a.
Becky Turner 50:13
Leper.
Ashley LaCosse 50:14
That's actually. That's how I felt.
Becky Turner 50:16
This social pariah.
Rich Bennett 50:18
Which is just. It's weird. And I think sometimes a lot of people don't know what to say as well.
Becky Turner 50:25
I'm experiencing this like I have been off work since March 2023. I have not heard from a single person from my work, not once, not my boss, not even the only time I reached out was to let me know that they gave my office away, but no one had to ask me if I was. And so when insurance called me in January and said, Someone from your work told us that you're healthy and you're coming back to work. And I said, Oh.
Ashley LaCosse 50:48
Who could I.
Becky Turner 50:49
Possibly heard that I was cancer free?
Ashley LaCosse 50:51
That's crazy, because.
Becky Turner 50:52
Oh, but I think it's because, you know, it was still fairly new that had only been there a year. But like, I just don't think that people know how to talk to me. Like, I think they think I'm going to be sad and cry all the time.
Ashley LaCosse 51:05
My end the best support support system I ever had coming away from my work and my coworkers. And still to this day I had one was like, Well, you look fine. When are you coming back to work? Your surgery done. You're you don't have cancer. And it's like, that's not how it works. But they there's so much out here.
Rich Bennett 51:27
And the good thing is you guys are going to, you know, the podcast is going to grow, you're going to get sponsors and this is going to be a full time job for you both.
Becky Turner 51:36
That would be so awesome.
Rich Bennett 51:38
Well.
Becky Turner 51:39
I we talk about the past.
Ashley LaCosse 51:41
I do. But I have to be optimistic a little because as a single mom, I don't know if you know, it's.
Becky Turner 51:48
Not if it hadn't made me.
Rich Bennett 51:49
You know, made me have to fly up there and open up a can on you because you're not really.
Ashley LaCosse 51:54
Bringing night ready. I do believe it. Like for me, prior to this, I was always like, I'm going to become somebody with social media. Like just post and post, post and post, you know, because I share all my recipes and stuff like that. But I do believe it will happen.
Becky Turner 52:11
I do think being a social media star is not sustainable because at some point no one's going to care right about anything. Like you don't care if you're unboxing clothing that you got, like.
Ashley LaCosse 52:21
Let's just bring it up.
Becky Turner 52:23
Like nobody cares if you put on your make up in a video. But you know, when you're putting out quality content with things that legitimately matter to people because those TikTok stars right now are going to mature and grow up and have it things happen in their life and they're going to need a different outlet.
Ashley LaCosse 52:40
But my content is different than that. Like, I know my journey, I share my juicing all my recipes. I want to help people.
Becky Turner 52:48
And that's I don't think they're they're new and ticked off.
Ashley LaCosse 52:50
That I can't do those trends. I ain't going to jump on this. No, but that for her and I like when we came together to do this, it was like, we just want to help. We want the world. Yeah, I had awful bitches. Excuse me language, but just to be attacked for being a sick person because I didn't look like a sick person and it wasn't stage four cancer, blah blah. It's like, how dare you? The thing that we're trying to get across is like be kind to one another when somebody needs you or they're sick, just be there for them. You know, you don't have to be rude. Don't. Or if say somebody is doing better, don't be jealous. Like just come together. You know, it's hard because the world is such that.
Becky Turner 53:29
That's one thing we found with each other. Like when she told me in August that her PET scan came back clear and I was still in the height of chemo, bald, feeling horrible. I was so happy for her. And there was a part for a minute that was like, What am I going to get that? But I was never like, She shouldn't have that. I was so excited for her and that's what it needs to be. And that's what we really were hoping for with this podcast, with a social media presence, is that people feeling like they're not alone in this. Like, yeah, you can be 30 something, you can be 20 something whatever. You can be any age, you can be healthy, you can be any anything and get sick and just know that there are people who have gone through that and understand.
Ashley LaCosse 54:08
What you're Don't ever let somebody tell you how you feel. Mm. Normally and always advocate for yourself because if I didn't keep questioning, questioning, I probably would have been dead. Or if I didn't keep searching for help and answers and stuff like that, I wouldn't be here because my is so different than that. It's like, you know, there's nothing for me. And it's like, What do you do? I could've went down the rabbit hole and I was like, No, I'm going to die. I got cancer. Yeah, Really?
Becky Turner 54:34
If it's incurable.
Ashley LaCosse 54:35
Right? And that's a nice way to live. A little bit like there in the beginning, I would wake up in the middle of night, gasping for air and falling down like, Am I alive? Am I still here? You know? And it's like the stuff goes through your head. Like I I'm a positive person, but I will say that that took me down and I was dark, dark places in the beginning because I didn't think I was going to.
Becky Turner 54:56
But I think probably those times that we got to talk it out and just be there for each.
Ashley LaCosse 55:00
Other was that that's what I needed and that's why I like her positive energy rubs off on me and now I'm back to who I was in that aspect. And like, we feed off each other and. Right, that's how it should be.
Becky Turner 55:12
You know, I heard when you said that you're like her positive because my cancer was so positive.
Rich Bennett 55:18
You well, then okay.
Ashley LaCosse 55:21
Right.
Rich Bennett 55:21
I'm I'm just the funny thing I'm sitting here listening to both of you and you guys haven't known each other that long.
Ashley LaCosse 55:28
We get this. All of it.
Becky Turner 55:30
We've got a good rapport. Yeah.
Rich Bennett 55:32
It's as if you two have known each other for. As if you're sisters, yet almost.
Ashley LaCosse 55:37
You know.
Rich Bennett 55:38
I mean, it's like you have that strong bond. And from what I hear.
Becky Turner 55:42
Yes.
Ashley LaCosse 55:42
You do.
Rich Bennett 55:43
You know.
Becky Turner 55:43
Well, you know, we were kind to each other. We respect each other. We understand what we're going through. And those are the building blocks of a strong relationship. Right. Like, I have such good girlfriends I've been friends with for 20 years and they're amazing. And I, I, I'm thankful for that. And we've always just been very respectful for each other. Unfortunately, Ashley hasn't had quite the same experience with some of her friends.
Ashley LaCosse 56:06
I have a good core group that like my girls that I go in high school with. They're there, but I haven't had some women in these town think they're like Housewives of Beverly Hills or something. And they're tired of me just,
you know, And it's it's unfortunate. And me as a very strong woman, I don't put up with anything. So then I become the aggressor and but it's like, no, I'm not going to put up with your shit. You know, you want to pick on somebody who's sick, I'm going to make them.
Becky Turner 56:38
Like I'm already so.
Ashley LaCosse 56:39
Right. I'm really fighting for my life, even though I don't like it because I want to put on some makeup. I just colored my hair. I want to feel good. When you look good and you're looking at yourself in the mirror, you're going to it's going to tell your body that you feel good, you know? Yes. Your cells. Listen, we've.
Becky Turner 56:56
Said this on another show. Your cells are listening. Yeah, they're listening. When you talk about yourself and they're listening when you say good things.
Ashley LaCosse 57:04
About yourself, like always with my baby or ourselves, it's like, you're smart, my son, you're handsome, you can do anything. You put your you. If you keep telling yourself all these things, you're going to believe in yourself, right? Yeah. You know, I, I in the beginning, I didn't tell myself I was going to make it look like I'm going to die saying, Oh my God, this is okay. But then myself, I did. But, but ours was so different, right? So I think if there would have been if they would have been able to give me that little glimmer of hope, I probably would have been okay. But I didn't have that glimmer of hope I had. When it comes back and hits your organs, you got six months to 15 years to live and then you'll die to the cancer. And that's what I have to battle every single day is when it comes back, you know? But I won't do. I don't want it to come back, obviously.
Rich Bennett 57:52
Right.
Ashley LaCosse 57:53
So that's why I stay positive.
Rich Bennett 57:55
And you going to come back, you'll kick.
Ashley LaCosse 57:57
It's aspirin. You? Well.
Rich Bennett 58:00
Yes. So with both of you is because, I mean, when you're diagnosed with cancer, it's a lot on your mental health.
Ashley LaCosse 58:08
Oh.
Rich Bennett 58:09
Yeah. Diagnose if anything, It seems like my mother had cancer, lung cancer. But I remember reading a book and then I passed it on to her and my belief is that it helped her because then she went into remission. Is there anything like that that helped you guys, or was it mainly just a support of the family?
Ashley LaCosse 58:33
Yeah, support for me by like close friends, people that are just there for you. I didn't have I wasn't really a reader.
Becky Turner 58:44
Have some research.
Ashley LaCosse 58:45
You know.
Rich Bennett 58:46
But just a reader of cookbooks.
Ashley LaCosse 58:47
Yeah, but that was my outlet. That's what made me happy. After I got, I was like, okay, I can still do something. So I didn't like videos. I love it. You know, I could show people that was like my outlet.
Becky Turner 58:59
I spent a lot of time with friends and family, you know, like I, I was a churchgoer prior to this. I didn't do a lot of church while I was sick just because I didn't want to be around people. But or at least around people that were not my friends. And but, you know, I did a lot of praying and worshiping and things like that. And so that was very helpful for me. But I think the biggest thing was like staying positive. Like even when I felt like crap, a lot of fake it to make it sort of moment. Yeah, because you really trick your body into believing it, right? Like when I felt really stressed out and terrible and crappy, I'd be like, You're okay. Like, you're going to be good and you're going to be better. You're already better. And I believe that.
Ashley LaCosse 59:48
You have to, but you have to allow those emotions. Ride it out, but don't stay there. Yes. Because your body has to release it. Right. And then, you know, be like, you know, I can do this, you know, because we can we really can do anything we put our minds to.
Becky Turner 1:00:04
Mm hmm.
Rich Bennett 1:00:05
Okay. So with the podcasts, those of you listening, make sure you check it out. Two girls, two girls of cancer,
seven episodes in it. We're we're recording this May 31st. Oh, my God. It's the last day of May.
Becky Turner 1:00:21
This year is Holy.
Rich Bennett 1:00:23
Damn, May 31st, seven episodes in and correct me if I'm wrong, but as of now, you guys, it's just you two telling your story.
And in the last episode, Ashley, Demi, you know.
Becky Turner 1:00:44
I edit this stuff, so I have to listen to it over and over and over again, and I'm like, What are you doing.
Rich Bennett 1:00:50
In life so fast? But it was good though. It was good. And the thing that I love about it is we said this before we start recording, You guys are being yourself.
Becky Turner 1:01:01
Yeah.
Rich Bennett 1:01:01
You know, but I guess my question is, have you even though it's only seven episodes in, have you heard from anybody else that's listened to your podcast that's going through cancer yet?
Ashley LaCosse 1:01:15
Actually through like prior to this, what I was sharing my journey. I had a lot of people reach out and was grateful that they had found me so that they weren't alone. I have like the one lady in the States that I always talk about, and I've never met her, but I just have this love for her and she does for me. And like she was terminal, you know, and she's still living. Yeah. And that was like, how many months? Months ago? But I believe, like, through what we're doing
to just be able to help people, that's what they need, you know?
Becky Turner 1:01:51
Mm hmm. Yeah. We've both had lots of people reach out, either through social media, through word of mouth. I get girls from church and and granted, I haven't been to that church, and since pretty much I got sick. But people will message me and say, hey, a new girl started going to her church. She has breast cancer. Can you be her friend? And I'm like, sure, send her my way. Let's talk about it. I had a neighbor, remember? We were at your iron infusion. I had a neighbor call me and say our friend's daughter just got or had a mastectomy the other day. How does she do this with her binder? How does she do this with her drains? And the lady who called me was a nurse. She was asking me for help and I was like, Oh, okay, I'm an x ray. So, you know, I.
Ashley LaCosse 1:02:32
Think, Wow.
Becky Turner 1:02:33
I hate what we both had to go through. I hate that we've both gone through cancer, but it's changed our entire worldview. It's helped us. I help people. Help, Yeah. Become an inspiration. I hate to say that because I'm, you know, I'm a humble person, but.
Ashley LaCosse 1:02:49
Well, we don't have a medical background, but when you're faced with death, you have to do research and research. And and, Becky, I have to say, she is way better at that than me. Like she.
Rich Bennett 1:02:59
Right.
Ashley LaCosse 1:03:00
She's so good. Me And like I always ask her to help me.
Becky Turner 1:03:05
It's hard mentally. My brain does absorb.
Ashley LaCosse 1:03:08
Yeah, it's a hard.
Rich Bennett 1:03:09
The thing is, you don't need a medical background. It's we to ice. For example, in the addiction world, you have peer recovery specialist. A peer recovery specialist is somebody who is in recovery. They've been through it. They're the best ones to help somebody that's in recovery. You two are the best ones to help people that are as far as support wise, you know, to help people that are going through.
Becky Turner 1:03:34
There's something about having experience. My mom this yesterday, she this is her analogy. Remember Hair Club for Men. I'm not just the owner or the CEO. I'm also a member. That's what the guys used to be. So she's like, not only are you helping people by telling them, but you're also because you've gone through it.
Ashley LaCosse 1:03:56
Yeah, kind of. Yeah.
Rich Bennett 1:03:57
That's a
good I think I might be a member of that.
Becky Turner 1:04:02
You and me both. This is a wig.
Rich Bennett 1:04:05
No, it's not. Yes, it is. Is it?
Ashley LaCosse 1:04:07
It is.
Becky Turner 1:04:08
You know, I will say my hair has grown in a ton. It's probably an inch or two long, but it is, I call it my Phyllis hair. And I'm sorry if any of your listeners are named Phyllis, but Phyllis to me is like not old bus driver with a dirty little mullet who smokes cigars and yells at your kids. That's my Phyllis haircut right now.
Rich Bennett 1:04:28
So talks like Marge Simpson.
Becky Turner 1:04:31
Marge's sisters.
Ashley LaCosse 1:04:32
Yeah.
Rich Bennett 1:04:34
Yeah.
Becky Turner 1:04:34
So that's me. I'm like, Hey, look at my Phyllis today. The way it was cut, it was just, I don't know, she's it's like Ziggy Stardust. That's what it reminds me of. So I wear wigs.
Rich Bennett 1:04:46
Yeah. Hey, that was a good Ziggy Stardust. Yeah, it was awesome. Mm hmm. Oh, I love David Bowie. Come on, now.
Becky Turner 1:04:58
Yeah. I mean, that was cool in the seventies. It was, like my shtick then. Yeah, but very now, as someone who's used to having.
Rich Bennett 1:05:04
Never long without. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So what have you guys talked about? Whether or not you're ever going to have guests on. Oh, yeah. When I say guest. Okay. Like other people that are going through cancer.
Becky Turner 1:05:20
Oh, yeah. Okay. So as we've alluded to, we're not overly techie. No, no, no. We are. I know how to set up a camera. We have some microphones and we're talking to it, right? We've got a light. We want to get to a place where we can do things like this, where you're in a different country and we can have this.
Ashley LaCosse 1:05:38
Like your own.
Becky Turner 1:05:39
And yeah, that's the plan for sure. Right now we are in my husband's office, which is, you know, obviously not set up for a podcast. You know, eventually we will get there. My husband said that we could convert our spare room upstairs to be an.
Rich Bennett 1:05:54
Oh, because he doesn't want you using his office. Okay, I have.
Becky Turner 1:05:57
To tell you. So right behind us, you can't see. No, but he had to Star Trek pictures, Picard and Riker because he is a Star Trek. He is a Trekkie.
Rich Bennett 1:06:07
He's a Trek.
Becky Turner 1:06:08
The next generation only, though none of the other ones. And he has two pictures, and I take him down every time and he's like, Why are you taking me pictures down? I'm like, Do you think that I want Captain Picard in the background? Are you.
Ashley LaCosse 1:06:21
Kidding me?
Becky Turner 1:06:22
Oh, the pictures are nice. I will say they're cool, but he's also got, like, Venom and Spider-Man. He's got some Simpsons stuff in here. So it's. I mean, it's not.
Ashley LaCosse 1:06:29
It's not us. But we got back. He got us to play with.
Becky Turner 1:06:32
It's just a new us. Hello. So this?
Rich Bennett 1:06:34
Yeah, I like the zebra pillow.
Becky Turner 1:06:36
The zebra is the neuroendocrine cancer ribbon, and pink is the breast cancer ribbon. So we got. We got couple.
Ashley LaCosse 1:06:41
Pillows.
Rich Bennett 1:06:42
Oh.
Ashley LaCosse 1:06:43
No. The form.
Rich Bennett 1:06:44
Of. Well, I mean, I knew about the pink, but I didn't know about that.
Ashley LaCosse 1:06:47
I, you.
Rich Bennett 1:06:48
Know, I can't even pronounce it. What is it neuro like?
Becky Turner 1:06:52
Like your brain. Yeah.
Ashley LaCosse 1:06:53
And then she says about.
Rich Bennett 1:06:56
You know, near neuroendocrine.
Ashley LaCosse 1:06:59
Endocrine.
Becky Turner 1:07:00
Neuroendocrine neuroendocrine neurons.
Rich Bennett 1:07:02
Yeah. Look, I dropped out of high school, okay? Do did you really give me a hard time? Yeah. My senior year.
Ashley LaCosse 1:07:09
You doing great?
Becky Turner 1:07:10
No. Right.
Rich Bennett 1:07:11
Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Just so I had to quit my senior year and go into the Marine Corps. Oh, I love that. Boy, was I a full.
Ashley LaCosse 1:07:19
But it brought you here today.
Rich Bennett 1:07:22
Look, if somebody would have told me years ago, I would be podcasting and interviewing people, I would have. Well, first of all, I would have said, What the hell's a podcast? That's what I would have told them. They were nuts, right? Because even in radio, when I was in radio, I did interview people. I was I played music. That's all I did. I was a music deejay. You know, it's like interviewing people. I don't like to talk to people. Mm hmm. Why? Why am. I mean, back then, I.
Ashley LaCosse 1:07:47
Didn't come so naturally.
Becky Turner 1:07:49
I was going to say, Aren't you, like, an extreme extrovert? I can tell you this. My job with you.
Rich Bennett 1:07:55
I was was very shy in high school and everything.
Becky Turner 1:07:58
Well, you've broken out of your shell.
Rich Bennett 1:07:59
Some people say that that's a lie. But I know now they're talking about. So where do you guys want to take the podcasts? What's the next step for you besides a studio? Hey, you're almost as.
Ashley LaCosse 1:08:14
If we could go.
Rich Bennett 1:08:15
This month. An alternative. Yeah, right.
Ashley LaCosse 1:08:17
Have.
Rich Bennett 1:08:17
Oh, take it on the road.
Ashley LaCosse 1:08:18
And talk to you. Have ideas, you know, like, share our story, help people question like, you know, if they're struggling, anything, you know, that's what I see.
Rich Bennett 1:08:27
When you travel. You got to travel here first.
Ashley LaCosse 1:08:30
Oh, absolutely.
Becky Turner 1:08:31
What? Where are you again? Remind me.
Rich Bennett 1:08:33
I'm in Maryland.
Becky Turner 1:08:34
Oh, right. I've. I've been to Baltimore.
Rich Bennett 1:08:36
Have you ever heard of Johns Hopkins?
Becky Turner 1:08:38
Yes.
Rich Bennett 1:08:38
Oh, yeah. Right up the road from the big hospital.
Becky Turner 1:08:42
Yeah. My we grew up in Brampton, Ontario, and we would drive down to Baltimore because we had a friend down there. So I've been down a bunch of times.
Rich Bennett 1:08:50
In Baltimore City.
Becky Turner 1:08:52
I guess. So is there a different Baltimore?
Rich Bennett 1:08:56
We have Baltimore City. Then you have the Canning.
Becky Turner 1:08:58
Well, we went to the Orioles game.
Rich Bennett 1:09:00
And.
Becky Turner 1:09:01
Okay, I remember being there 4th of July. I remember eating lots crab or lobster or something when I was down there.
Rich Bennett 1:09:07
Crab? Yeah, we got the best. We have the best crab. I love.
Becky Turner 1:09:10
It.
Rich Bennett 1:09:11
Can't be Maryland Steamed crabs or crab cakes. Hey, Pippy.
Becky Turner 1:09:15
Like that alone, I would come there.
Rich Bennett 1:09:17
Yeah. And she's like, What the hell? You all told me.
Becky Turner 1:09:21
You're the chef.
Ashley LaCosse 1:09:22
I know. Whip something up with the crab. I could put it in front of me. I Well.
Rich Bennett 1:09:26
Don't tell me you've never had crabs.
Ashley LaCosse 1:09:28
You have. I have. I have.
Becky Turner 1:09:29
Okay.
Rich Bennett 1:09:31
Steamed.
Becky Turner 1:09:35
We need to go out for dinner. Yeah. I hate to say.
Rich Bennett 1:09:38
Okay.
Becky Turner 1:09:38
Red Lobster or fancy dinner.
Rich Bennett 1:09:41
So if you guys make it here, we'll go out, We'll get crabs. We love it. You know, this way Ashley can figure out.
Ashley LaCosse 1:09:51
And there's butter.
Rich Bennett 1:09:51
Real seafood is.
Becky Turner 1:09:53
Butter. What is the point of eating without butter or baked?
Rich Bennett 1:09:58
What? just love butter. Why do you want to dip the crab meat in butter?
Becky Turner 1:10:04
Really? It's just so good.
Rich Bennett 1:10:06
For some people. Hear that? Yeah.
Becky Turner 1:10:08
I mean, Rich, keep in mind, we live in a landlocked province, so it's not like our seafood is quality here. So I'm. I'm talking.
Ashley LaCosse 1:10:16
You need the old lobster and crab.
Becky Turner 1:10:19
You have to dip it.
Rich Bennett 1:10:20
Oh, God. Yeah. There's so much. I get so much seafood. I could turn you guys on.
Becky Turner 1:10:24
Sir, I will be there tomorrow.
Rich Bennett 1:10:26
The things I would do for you.
Ashley LaCosse 1:10:27
I love calamari.
Rich Bennett 1:10:29
Naked fish. Oh, oysters.
Becky Turner 1:10:31
Yeah, all of the above.
Rich Bennett 1:10:33
Well, we got to talk about food. I haven't eaten.
Becky Turner 1:10:35
My. My husband is allergic to all these things like anaphylactic. And I always say, like, you're ruining my life. I just want to eat out with my husband on a nice seafood date, and I can't.
Ashley LaCosse 1:10:48
Leave him at home. I'm not.
Becky Turner 1:10:50
Feeling.
Rich Bennett 1:10:50
This.
Becky Turner 1:10:51
It wouldn't be fair to bring him into a seafood restaurant.
Ashley LaCosse 1:10:54
Just pick him up something.
Becky Turner 1:10:55
And get him a McDonald's burger. Yes, A happy baby.
Rich Bennett 1:11:00
Oh, God. All right. So for both of you, actually, since you put that post up, how many podcasts have you guys been on so far?
Becky Turner 1:11:07
Oh, quite a few. I think you are Number six maybe, and we have were booked for the next couple of weeks with different ones. The response was actually really fantastic. I didn't think anybody would want to talk to us by any means. I don't know.
Ashley LaCosse 1:11:25
It's a little self doubt.
Becky Turner 1:11:28
I don't know.
But yes, a lot of people have reached out and we've booked whatever these interviews and it's been really fun to do it. I mean, I feel like we're often telling the same stories, but I it's cool, though. It's cool to be able to share it. Yeah, it's cool to see how other people run their show and and their interview styles and even if we're telling the same story over and over, like I am learning, you are learning so much just by reaching.
Ashley LaCosse 1:11:56
So many different people. Right?
Rich Bennett 1:11:58
Exactly. Everybody's audience is different, you know? I mean, especially with a podcast like mine, because we talk about so many different things.
Ashley LaCosse 1:12:06
And it truly is getting easier. I never done any of this stuff.
Becky Turner 1:12:10
Yeah, her our first day recording, I said, you know, like, what's your favorite podcast? Or, you know, have you always wanted to do this? She's like, I've never listened to like a what?
Ashley LaCosse 1:12:20
Oh.
Rich Bennett 1:12:22
You know, actually, I'm glad you mentioned that. So because a lot of people that get into podcast, some of them never listen to podcasts, a lot of them some people get into anything. It's very easy.
What podcasts did you listen to first before you guys started? Because some podcasters will listen to certain podcasts to get an idea.
Ashley LaCosse 1:12:42
I didn't listen anything.
Becky Turner 1:12:43
I had a few that I listened to pretty frequently. So there's one called The Spillover with Alex Clark. She had a lot of guests on there that would talk about health or hormone health or, you know, getting out of abusive relationships, things like that. From a conservative point of view, not that I care if you're conservative or liberal, whatever, but hers was conservative point of view. I also listened to Doctor Mindy Pelz. She is big into fasting and also healing your hormones and things like that. And it was actually on her show that I listened to that guy that said that he did chemo and then I was like, I can do chemo. So those were the two I really listened to a lot. And then sometimes I like to listen to other like randoms, like conspiracy ones. I love me some conspiracy.
Rich Bennett 1:13:29
Me.
Becky Turner 1:13:30
Biblical conspiracy ones. I love that. So yeah, that's.
Rich Bennett 1:13:34
One of the thing that scares me now, because a lot of my friends said, Hey, we need to do a podcast on conspiracy.
Becky Turner 1:13:40
Or have me on.
Rich Bennett 1:13:41
That would be a maybe a separate podcast, not a separate episode. Yeah, maybe a separate podcast.
Becky Turner 1:13:47
I actually did one with two buddies prior to getting sick called The Big Mike Show. Big Mike was named Michelle Obama, Mike and Doug, and it was all conspiracies. I think we had about 35 or 40 episodes. It was all very conspiracy driven for sure.
Rich Bennett 1:14:06
Right? Oh, it's it's a lot of it's a lot of fun. I mean, doing doing the podcast is the thing is you get you get to meet great I mean hell I wouldn't imagine you too otherwise. You know, I spend I have a funny feeling you guys are going to be on again.
Becky Turner 1:14:23
I hope so.
Ashley LaCosse 1:14:24
We would love.
Rich Bennett 1:14:24
I'm afraid. I know you will be.
Becky Turner 1:14:26
Let's do it in person.
Rich Bennett 1:14:28
All right. We get to the Maryland.
Ashley LaCosse 1:14:31
I will.
Rich Bennett 1:14:32
I will. We'll talk about Let's talk that when we're done. So all of you listening, make sure you go and listen to two girls of cancer. You can catch them on YouTube,
Spotify Good iPods, probably all the different podcasting platforms, right? Apple.
Becky Turner 1:14:49
Apple, for sure. You told us everything. Good podcast.
Rich Bennett 1:14:53
Good pod. Yeah. Yeah. So I you guys need to check out good page because what it is it's the podcast app. But what I love about it it's I tell everybody it's like Billboard you know a billboard right You know the music charts. Yeah it's a billboard meets social media, meets a podcast. That's cool because you can create lists of like your favorite podcast and all that. People can leave comments or rate each episode.
Becky Turner 1:15:23
Oh, well.
Rich Bennett 1:15:24
Not just the whole the podcast as a whole, but each episode of that, if they leave a comment, you can reply back, You can follow me. Oh, that's cool. It's oh, you'll, you'll love it.
Becky Turner 1:15:34
We'll check it out. I love.
Rich Bennett 1:15:36
That. Definitely. So is there anything you two would like to add before I get to my last question? Oh, God. This last question is going to be hard for both of you.
Ashley LaCosse 1:15:44
Just advocate for yourself. Don't take no for an answer.
Becky Turner 1:15:48
Yes, Stay positive. Find things that bring you joy kind to people.
Ashley LaCosse 1:15:53
Don't have anything in your life that doesn't serve you.
Rich Bennett 1:15:56
And if your doctor doesn't want to check at your boobs and get to somebody else.
Becky Turner 1:16:00
Seriously, let's find a new doctor.
Ashley LaCosse 1:16:03
So she's.
Rich Bennett 1:16:06
Okay. So Ashley went first. So, Becky, you're going to have to go first this time. I know it's only been six podcasts. You been on so far, but is there anything that the host has never asked? A host has never asked you that you wish they would have asked you, And if so, what would be that question and what would be your answer?
Becky Turner 1:16:26
Oh, my gosh, I got me on the spot. Let actually go.
Ashley LaCosse 1:16:31
You know what I find, not just in podcasts, people never really say, Are you okay? How are you? Like, are you handling things like, for me, I'm a strong woman. I'm always been, you know, and then they I'm inside. You know, I've had bad days, but nobody's ever really been like, Are you okay? Like, besides my therapist, I've been going to for like, a year. But I think people forget about that side, if that makes sense.
Becky Turner 1:17:01
Well, especially if you're putting on a face, you look right?
Ashley LaCosse 1:17:04
Because I do. She does. We both do. We both. Yeah, but that I. All right. But it's not deep down no one's ever really asked me. Are you scared? Damn right. Every single day I live in fear. But do I. Do I show it? No. I cry myself to sleep all the time. You know, sometimes I let those thoughts come in and it's healthy for us to cry. But no one's ever really been like. And I mean, maybe they just. They see me as that strong person. But all strong people are still they still need that little extra love, you know? Yeah.
Rich Bennett 1:17:39
Well, I think of that too, in that grin. Like I said, I've been doing this for a while and I know you're not. Okay. I don't think anybody ever is right. But my thing is, too, and I people knew this, especially with me. Um, any time you want to talk or you just need somebody Listen, even if you want to vent, I'm always available.
Becky Turner 1:18:07
In.
Ashley LaCosse 1:18:07
You that.
Rich Bennett 1:18:08
You know, call me face. You know, whatever. Doesn't matter. You know, I'm always there to listen. I wish
when I going through everything I went through, I wish people would have been there to listen to me. Now, granted, this is way before social media and all. I mean, I told you guys I'm so old when I mean, we had the one room schoolhouse and my notebook was a tablet and a chisel.
Ashley LaCosse 1:18:34
Yeah. Or a.
Rich Bennett 1:18:35
Stone and chisel come.
Ashley LaCosse 1:18:36
Out and.
Rich Bennett 1:18:39
See, I was, I was adlibbing to try to give Becky more time.
Ashley LaCosse 1:18:44
Yeah.
Rich Bennett 1:18:45
Oh
yes. She still has the answer. Oh, my God. Becky.
Ashley LaCosse 1:18:53
Oh, that's our inside joke.
Rich Bennett 1:18:57
I had to.
Becky Turner 1:19:01
That's why I like the little Becky comments. Oh, my gosh. And then also my my name on Instagram was Becky and then in brackets with the no hair, because my remember, beyond Becky with the good hair for a while. No, I'm Becky with the no hair.
Ashley LaCosse 1:19:13
Yeah.
Becky Turner 1:19:16
I'm Becky with the Phillips hair.
Ashley LaCosse 1:19:18
She looks beautiful. Yeah. It's our own persona versus the
Clippers.
Rich Bennett 1:19:25
And. Come on, what's your answer?
Becky Turner 1:19:28
Maybe. Yeah, definitely what Ashley said. Are you okay? No.
Rich Bennett 1:19:35
No, no, you can not. If you take her answer, you're the one that told her to go first. You cannot steal her.
Ashley LaCosse 1:19:41
I'll give her a little more time. I feel like a lot of people and I have to get this out because it's. I feel like a lot of people are just over it. Over it. You know what? I hate to say that.
Becky Turner 1:19:51
Like, over you being sick, over.
Ashley LaCosse 1:19:53
Me being sick, because it's the same story over and over, you know, And.
Rich Bennett 1:19:57
It's like, what?
Ashley LaCosse 1:19:58
You know, And I think.
Rich Bennett 1:19:59
People are assholes.
Ashley LaCosse 1:20:00
But we're not all but we're not. And I don't know if in my whole life I'm ever going to be over it, but it gets easier. Yeah, but I do know that as time goes on and you just from people, you don't give a shit. And not that they don't have their things going on in their lives because we all do, right? But sometimes it does feel that way and it's a very lonely journey. That's why if I didn't have her like we have our families and stuff, but if I didn't have,
you know, my best friend going through cancer and we weren't in the beginning, but I don't know what I would do because she gets she's not over it, so I'll never be over it with me. You know, she'll always be there for me. She's not going to be me.
Becky Turner 1:20:44
People have suggested that we change the name because she grows with. Cancer is sort of a negative connotation. You don't currently have cancer, but cancer ever really doesn't match. Drama doesn't live there. The cells are still there. What we went through was still hers.
Ashley LaCosse 1:20:58
So one person gets cancer. There are 99% more. What's that likely to likely to get cancer again in their life besides someone who hasn't had it, you know, so hers could return mine? Most definitely does, as they say, but it won't. But it's like it's us. It's who you know the.
Rich Bennett 1:21:17
Name, don't you think? Yeah.
Becky Turner 1:21:18
Yeah, we will. Okay.
Rich Bennett 1:21:20
Exactly. Well, it's just like you think about somebody. It went through anxiety, depression. You still have it. You just learn how to control it. Yeah, You know, I mean. Oh, you figured it out now for me?
Becky Turner 1:21:35
Well, maybe.
Rich Bennett 1:21:36
So. For so for those of those of you listening, I just have to say this. Okay, So Becky, was the woman responsible for getting everything set up on their end? It her maybe about 20 minutes to figure out how to get everything work. And even though she's a podcaster, she could not figure out how to get the microphones working or the headphones or anything like that, you know? So that's why we're giving her more time to figure out how to answer this question, which I have to admit, I've never had. I've done over 500 episodes that great and have a nice question all the time. But I've never had anybody take this long to answer a question.
Ashley LaCosse 1:22:19
Yeah, I'm just like.
Rich Bennett 1:22:21
Okay, do you have it now back? Yeah. Do you have it now? Becky? Are you. Are you sure? I am. Oh, yeah.
Becky Turner 1:22:26
Well, I don't know. Now you're going to run into story about this. I think if people never talk about death, like when? Because people are so scared to walk on or they're so scared to hurt you, they walk on eggshells. I've never had anyone in podcast or in person asked me, Do you think you're going to die? Are you scared of dying because it's such a taboo topic? Like, Yeah, there are. Sometimes I do think about that. Like quite often, yeah.
Ashley LaCosse 1:22:53
We all are going to die in our lifetime.
Becky Turner 1:22:55
But yeah, really. But like if someone said to me, Are you scared of dying of cancer?
Ashley LaCosse 1:23:01
Heck yeah. Yeah, I ain't ready.
Becky Turner 1:23:04
But no one wants to talk about it because, like, but I feel like I would ask somebody.
Ashley LaCosse 1:23:08
I don't ask you that.
Rich Bennett 1:23:11
What would be your answer? Closure. Well, you already did. Your portion, of course.
Ashley LaCosse 1:23:17
Was gasping. Everybody scared of the already dying or dead. Not that I'm going to go with this. It's just makes it easier.
Becky Turner 1:23:24
It's a defense mechanism.
Rich Bennett 1:23:27
I think everybody's scared while we see everybody. A lot of people are afraid of dying because they think about who they're leaving behind. I mean, I'm I'd be afraid to die because, yeah, I'm I'm leaving everybody behind. So I don't want to do that. Of course, I got to go. I'm going to make it to at least 100 and on.
Ashley LaCosse 1:23:45
This.
Rich Bennett 1:23:46
Show so I can have you to back on and you could tell me I look like 30. Let's say it was a 40. Whatever it was. You made me feel good.
Becky Turner 1:23:55
So our Uncle Rich. Yeah, he's only 40. So.
Rich Bennett 1:23:59
But. But my belief was and I never believed this until my mother was going through cancer. And I read that one book, and then I started to believe that you don't you don't start living until you die.
And it was I got that from that book. And one of the things, if you get a chance to read, I know you guys don't read, you can read. She reads I love you, too. Okay. Tuesdays with Morrie.
Becky Turner 1:24:28
Okay. Maury Povich, you.
Rich Bennett 1:24:29
Got to know. Okay.
The book is called Tuesdays with Morrie, written by Mitch Albom. It was Morrie Schwartz. It's a true story. But one of the things I loved about, you know, Morrie Schwartz, we he said in the end, well, Mitch Albom wrote the book, but he said, well, I just said, you don't know. He said, you don't know how to die or you don't know how to live until you learn how to die. Because he had I believe it was A.L.S. or, you know, which their terrible disease. I understand there is. Yeah, there is no cure for which one of the things and I ki I say this all the time if I get something I know I'm dying. If I know I have a certain amount of time, I want to have a living funeral.
Ashley LaCosse 1:25:22
Yeah, right. I mean, I share the party.
Rich Bennett 1:25:25
I got to. Yeah. People that come see me when I'm dead, you know, I got to know who the hell they are. I want to hear what they had to say about love.
Ashley LaCosse 1:25:35
That I do.
Rich Bennett 1:25:36
See, that's what he did. That it was all city. It was awesome to do.
Ashley LaCosse 1:25:41
I said, we show everybody a a.
Becky Turner 1:25:44
I want to wait until maybe I'm like, a little sicker or before I just have a living funeral at 37.
Ashley LaCosse 1:25:50
What I said party non if you.
Rich Bennett 1:25:54
Know see you both have two goals in mind. Two Yeah the same goal as me. You're going to make it to at least a hundred.
Becky Turner 1:26:00
Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rich Bennett 1:26:02
Tell me I didn't hear you.
Becky Turner 1:26:03
What? Heck, yeah.
Ashley LaCosse 1:26:05
Yes, we are.
Rich Bennett 1:26:06
Heck, yeah. What?
Ashley LaCosse 1:26:07
We are going to live to over 100. 200 forever.
Becky Turner 1:26:10
200.
Rich Bennett 1:26:11
Got to.
Ashley LaCosse 1:26:12
Come on. Jesus. So used to way back in the.
Becky Turner 1:26:14
Stem cells and.
Ashley LaCosse 1:26:15
Stuff. I'm pushing 200th here.
Rich Bennett 1:26:20
Wow. Actually, you definitely won't have a bite.
Ashley LaCosse 1:26:23
Oh. Oh, okay. You'll literally just be looking.
Becky Turner 1:26:26
Down to your feet.
Ashley LaCosse 1:26:27
No, no, I will be taking my supplements and working up. Okay, I got the win.
Becky Turner 1:26:33
Yeah.
Rich Bennett 1:26:34
Yeah. Oh, jeez. Becky, Ashley, I want to thank you both so much. God bless you both. God, I love you guys. Any time you want to come on. The doors open.
Ashley LaCosse 1:26:45
Love that.
Rich Bennett 1:26:47
And like I said, if you if you need help with the other stuff, set up a call and.
Ashley LaCosse 1:26:51
Would love it.
Rich Bennett 1:26:52
I'll get you rock and rolling because you guys need to start money actually.
Ashley LaCosse 1:26:58
Actually hold out.
Rich Bennett 1:27:00
Do you guys have a website or is everything just.
Becky Turner 1:27:03
But I can make.
Rich Bennett 1:27:04
A way you.
Ashley LaCosse 1:27:04
Can it.
Rich Bennett 1:27:06
Make a website. Okay all you listen here's all right so
they're going to make a website and they're going to have a little donate button on there because. The expenses add up when it comes to this. So everybody, please, you know, make a donation, help them out now. Cool. It doesn't it doesn't stop. So they got kids to take care of, too, and they got to get that studio.
Ashley LaCosse 1:27:32
That's right.
Rich Bennett 1:27:33
With the proper.
Ashley LaCosse 1:27:35
With our pink and.
Becky Turner 1:27:37
Do you know how expensive supplements are?
Rich Bennett 1:27:40
Oh yeah. I made $28,000 for that one. Medicaid. She's just like Jesus Christ. I mean, supplements aren't that much. I hope they're not, are they?
Becky Turner 1:27:51
Well, why? You take 100 different ones like Ashley and I.
Ashley LaCosse 1:27:57
Each things like between, like, I don't know, all the way up to $55. 60, actually, one was 75. I can't remember.
Becky Turner 1:28:04
That's crazy.
Rich Bennett 1:28:04
I actually actually can can. People still purchase your cookbooks?
Ashley LaCosse 1:28:08
They can. I'm just more like, I'll send it to you. Pay for shipping.
Rich Bennett 1:28:13
No, no, Stop. Stop doing that. Where do people where can they get your Eleanor website? Did you cookbooks.
Ashley LaCosse 1:28:20
Website. That's going great.
Becky Turner 1:28:21
No, we don't.
Ashley LaCosse 1:28:22
Think you put it, but no, but I mean like we have a link tree so it takes me to like.
Becky Turner 1:28:27
I could put a store on there. Yeah.
Ashley LaCosse 1:28:29
I mean.
Rich Bennett 1:28:30
So it's not on Amazon or anything like it was, but I've published, I.
Ashley LaCosse 1:28:33
Have so many books at home that I would rather probably want to get rid of those. Okay, then Amazon gives me like 2%.
Rich Bennett 1:28:42
You could sign them.
Ashley LaCosse 1:28:43
That's how you can sign them.
Rich Bennett 1:28:45
You can sign them and look out for the next cookbook, which is going to be from Ashley and Becky.
Ashley LaCosse 1:28:53
You sing.
Rich Bennett 1:28:53
Oh, for rest recipe is for cancer patients. Yeah, that's a good idea.
Ashley LaCosse 1:29:01
Yeah.
Rich Bennett 1:29:02
It's just you haven't thought of that yet.
Ashley LaCosse 1:29:06
We have. You know, there's so many things that we want to do, and then we have a book.
Rich Bennett 1:29:12
All right. I'm your man. I'm your manager now. Yeah.
Ashley LaCosse 1:29:14
See you. You been probably the best, because not only are you good at what you do and you're a people person, you're. But you want to help us. We? Not that the other ones weren't, but I.