Achieving Balance During a Health Crisis with Holly Bertone

Trevor:                    Hi there. I’m Dr. Trevor Cates. Welcome to The Spa Dr. podcast. On today’s podcast, we discuss how to achieve balance during a health crisis. My guest is Holly Bertone. She is the author of the number one Amazon bestselling book Thriving in the Workplace with Autoimmune Disease, and she’s president and CEO of Pink Fortitude. Holly is a breast cancer and Hashimoto’s survivor, and turned these two significant health challenges into a passion to help others. On The Spa Dr. podcast, I often interview doctors. While I love interviewing doctors, I think it’s also important to hear from people who are not doctors, but who have encountered health issues, such as breast cancer and Hashimoto’s, and what they’ve done to not only survive, but also thrive. I hope you are inspired by this interview with Holly.

Holly, welcome to my podcast.

Holly:                       Thank you so much for having me here. I really look forward to connecting with all of your viewers.

Trevor:                    Yeah, absolutely. I want to start off with your story and your journey, because I think it’s a great way to start so people get to know you. I understand you were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, and then Hashimoto’s one year later. Tell us about this journey, because well, that’s quite a double hit.

Holly:                       Yes. It was very much a double hit. The breast cancer came as a total shock. I enjoyed my sweets and not super healthy in my teens and 20s, but in my 30s, kind of cleaned my act up, and I actually started racing XTERRAs and mountain bike racing. I always considered myself relatively healthy, but I still enjoyed my sweets in moderation, things like that. The diagnosis came as a total shock. It was actually on my 39th birthday. Two days later, my then boyfriend got down on one knee and proposed. In 48 hours it was, “You have breast cancer,” and “Will you marry me?” My life has been a whirlwind ever since. That year we were engaged, it was really about my treatment. The wedding was … We went to the justice of the peace, and we were married 10 days after treatment ended. But I had a surgery, and chemo, and radiation. It was about nine months. It was a very short but aggressive treatment schedule.

Really at the time, when someone gives you a cancer diagnosis, I think your visceral reaction is to get it out and to get healthy. Like, “I just want it out of there. I want to kill everything.” At the time, chemo seemed like the natural thing to do. I wasn’t aware of other treatments. Again, I was young. I was like, “Let’s be aggressive. Let’s get this out.” Between the chemo and the radiation, I think really pushed the Hashimoto’s up to the surface. A year later, I wasn’t recovering after cancer. My doctors kept telling me that, “Oh, well your body’s been through a lot. It’s going to take a long time to recover. Just give yourself some time.” I’m like, “Well …” Not that I was jealous of my friends that completed cancer treatment and then went out and ran a marathon, but my thought was, “I should at least be able to get out of bed and function, right?” Finally, I just kept pushing and pushing for answers, and I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, which is an autoimmune thyroid condition. That kind of started that whole process then too.

Trevor:                    Now, for people who aren’t as familiar … I mean, we’ve talked about Hashimoto’s on my podcast before, but just give people an idea of what those kind of symptoms are like for people who don’t know what that is.

Holly:                       Oh, sure. In kind of layman’s terms, I like to call it the sluggish thyroid. The predominant symptoms for me are … The chronic fatigue is the worst, and a lot of joint pain, brain fog, and memory and cognition issues. I also had a lot of migraines, and a lot of IBS and stomach issues as well.

Trevor:                    Yeah. It can be quite, quite debilitating, and a lot of symptoms that may seem unrelated. If you think of digestive issues as just a digestive issue or these different things, but it has to do with the immune system and it being an autoimmune disease. How did you go through this? How did you balance all of this while working a full-time job?

Holly:                       The first few years was actually pretty difficult. I went to an endocrinologist. I live in the D.C. metro area, and I thought I was going to a decent doctor. He gave me some medicine, kind of patted me on my back, and said, “Go on your merry way.” I trusted him as a doctor, that he was treating me correctly, and it wasn’t working. I mean, the symptoms just kept getting worse and worse. It was really difficult. I mean, I work a full-time job, had this new family to take care of. I have a fairly new husband. He came along with a son of his own from a previous marriage, so I have a new stepson to take care of. Part of it was just sheer will, just getting out of bed and just making the most that I could of every day. About five years, start to finish, went by before I kind of realized … I don’t want to say I gave up, because I don’t consider myself a quitter, but the doctors kept telling me that all of these symptoms are normal, that my body’s been through a lot, that between the cancer, the chemo, the Hashimoto’s, that I’m going to be not feeling well. But I also don’t think that they understood the severity of some of these debilitating symptoms too.

Trevor:                    Yeah. What happened then? Like what kind of challenges, how did you overcome them? What was that like?

Holly:                       One day I was reading some articles … Again, I always considered myself healthy, but never really understood the concept of clean eating. I was reading a couple articles, and ended up purchasing The Autoimmune Solution, by Dr. Amy Myers, and went through The Myers Way about the elimination of gluten, and grains, and dairy, and sugar, and processed food. It really made sense. My first was gluten, processed food, and sugar. Again, I was 5’2″. I was a fairly thin, healthy weight. I enjoyed my sweets in moderation. I thought, “Well, if I’m gaining weight, or if I’m overweight, I should probably cut back, but why should I? I am still a healthy weight,” so I enjoyed my sweets in moderation. Little did I know how much those sweets had an effect on me. Between eliminating the gluten and the sugar, the first couple days, and this might be a little too much TMI, but the Candida, I think it was, just came out of my body. I mean, I was covered in these just rashes and welts from the detox of just that food.

About a week later, I eliminated dairy, and then a month later I started eliminating other foods, because the cleaner I started to eat, the more I realized … Like I could actually isolate a food and say, “Oh, this isn’t working for me.” For example, peanut butter. I would eat peanut butter, and I just started to have a reaction, so I’m like, “Okay, I should stop eating peanut butter.” I was actually able to isolate foods pretty quickly. Then I went through an entire cleanse of our entire house. I eliminated just kind of one by one. I mean, don’t have a ton of money to just dump everything in the trash can at once, but as I was getting low on one product, I would buy a new product.

I started learning how to make all of my own cleaning supplies. The majority of my cleaning supplies, I make on my own. They’re all-natural. A lot of them are made with like vinegar, and the essential oils, and all-natural soaps, and things like that. Then I purchased nontoxic cleaning supplies in the interim, and then also with all-natural beauty and bath products as well. I could tell that made a huge difference in our home. It’s funny. My husband is a Green Beret, and one of the toughest men on the planet. It was interesting. He actually really embraced our new kind of crunchy lifestyle. I’d make him try new products, and he was like, “Hey, I like this better.” The whole family kind of got onboard as well.

Trevor:                    Oh, that’s great. Dr. Amy Myers, I’ve interviewed her for my podcast, so for anyone listening, watching, and you’re curious about Dr. Amy Myers, you can check out her interview, learn more about her approach. I think it’s great that you talk about how you found out about what she was sharing about what to eliminate and the triggers that cause the flareups of autoimmune disease and that were making you worse. What I appreciate you sharing is that for you, it wasn’t easy to just eliminate everything at once. While some people can do that, it’s not always easy. Especially like if you’re working, you’ve got kids, you’ve got a lot of things going on in your life, it’s not always easy to do everything at once. But what I love hearing is that you started with something. You started with sugar and gluten, and those are two really big triggers for autoimmune disease. This is also true for skin issues, that those are two big triggers. Noticing then what happened with your body, and how you had improvement, and then you were thinking, “Okay, well now what else can I do?”

Then like you said, then you become more aware of what’s going on with your body, and the connection between the foods you’re eating and what happens when you eat them, and also other things in your environment, cleaning products, beauty products, those kinds of things, and how they impact you, because I think many people walk around ignoring it. It’s not like they’re doing it on purpose. They just don’t know. Sometimes it’s when people get really sick, that’s when they start to look for answers. Unfortunately, I mean, I wish people didn’t wait until they got really sick to start making these changes. I want to also call out about the fact what you said about sugar, that a lot of people, like you, think, “Well, if I’m thin and I’m active, and I like my body, why should I stop eating sugar if I’m not trying to lose weight?” There’s so much more that sugar [crosstalk 00:12:39]

Holly:                       I enjoy treats in moderation. What’s wrong with that, right?

Trevor:                    Right. Yes. It was creating a lot of inflammation in your body, and it was one of your big triggers. Yeah, I really applaud you for figuring that out, and noticing it, and taking action, because sometimes it’s that first step. Then once you do, you notice all these things, right?

Holly:                       I didn’t realize how much I was addicted to sugar. I mean, coming off of it, it was my will to get healthy was stronger than everything else at that moment in time. Some people, I guess, need kind of a gradual cutback. Some people do it kind of all at once. But for me, just one day I just stopped eating these foods. I kind of went through one food by one food, but the gluten and the sugar was instantaneous. It was amazing the effects on my body, but it was also amazing how much I realized how addicted I was, and just to see that come out of my body, and then a few days later realize, “I’m not craving this.”

It was a pretty empowering feeling, especially in the workplace. I don’t work a full-time job in the office anymore, but there’s always events going on. Someone’s always having a birthday, or a promotion, or a whatever, so there’s always a happy hour, there’s always a lunch celebration, there’s always doughnuts that someone brings in, there’s always birthday cakes going on. It’s easy to get caught up and say, “Oh, well it’s a special occasion. I’ll just have a few bites,” and you eat the entire piece. Well, in and of itself, you can think, “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with a piece of cake,” but it’s all cumulative. I didn’t realize how much just eating just that one piece triggered, “I want another piece, and I want something else, and I want something else.” After eliminating everything, I had no desire for any of it. I mean, I could look at my favorite sweets all day long and just not even care.

Trevor:                    Yeah. That’s so true, and I’m glad that you were able to do that and to see that. It can take a lot of willpower in the beginning, but then once you feel the difference in your body, and you see it on your skin too … I don’t know. A lot of times, people with one autoimmune disease have other autoimmune diseases. Some people with Hashimoto’s also have psoriasis or other skin issues, for example. I don’t know if that’s an issue for you, but the way you feel, and then also what you noticed on what your body is trying to tell you too. Yeah. Those are all great things.

Now, I know with having Hashimoto’s, especially after going through breast cancer, it wouldn’t be that hard to fall in sort of feeling like a victim and that kind of victim mentality. I’m using your words here. I’m not trying to insert a word here, but you’ve talked to me about this. What is it, instead of being a victim, coming from that approach of, “Oh, everything’s happening to me,” what is a different way to kind of look at this? I don’t know if I’m expressing this the best way, but for coming from your perspective, what is the best way to show up, especially in the workplace, because you talk about that in your book?

Holly:                       Mm-hmm (affirmative). Actually, when my mother was pregnant with me, she was diagnosed with Addison’s disease, which is an autoimmune condition. It’s actually a very rare autoimmune condition. She’s had to be on cortisone her entire life. They gave her a live expectancy ’till about the age of 30, 35. Excuse me. She’s 72 and still going strong. I grew up watching her be very sick my entire life. Granted, she had periods of good health and bad, but you never knew when you were going to get that phone call that she was taken to the emergency room. Her life mantra was always to have fortitude. That was kind of her life mantra and her life word, to basically just, regardless of what life hands you on any given moment, any given day, you just get up and make it happen. My parents love to travel. It didn’t matter how sick she was, she always made it to the beach, and she always made it to vacation. It was just great to see that she never let anything get her down, even in her sickest times.

I think just having that modeled to me when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, it took about a month of the boo-hoos to go away. I mean, it was a pretty big shock. But after that, it was just kind of this peace that came over me that everything was going to be okay. I really went back to that place of having fortitude, and that life mantra for my mother to just get up and make it happen every single day. I don’t know if it was just something inside, or the fact that again, I have a new family to take care of … But everyone has something that they’re going through on any given day. I mean, whether it’s an illness, or relationship issues, or financial problems, or depression, or someone grieving, someone died, anything really, we all have out moments, and we all have our days. Our days on this earth are limited. You never know when our last day is going to be, and I think it’s just that mindset of, “Am I going to wallow in self-pity, or am I going to just raise up and make the most of what I can do?”

On my website, and some of the writing that I do, and inspirational speaking that I do, I really try to encourage people not just to step up and to not be a victim and to really just kind of take ownership of their lives and make the best of the situation, but also, what can you do to benefit others in this situation? So not just not being a victim, not just continuing on, but also, how can you impact someone else’s lives by what you’re going through? How can you help someone else through this? That’s the story of the fortitude.

Trevor:                    Absolutely. I appreciate that. Also, I really appreciate what you were talking about. At first, there is a grieving process of [inaudible 00:19:44] when you’re diagnosed with an illness such as breast cancer or Hashimoto’s, there’s a time when it’s okay to grieve about it, to realize, let it really hit you and let it sink in, because you don’t want to just brush it off, right? It’s good to. But if you stay in that space, it can be a tough path to choose. Instead, that mind shift that you’re talking about, that mindset. I think it’s not always easy to make that step, so I’m curious to know what recommendations you have for people to make that first step. One of the things that you just mentioned was giving back, or serving others. Maybe that’s one of the really key things, because I think I hear that a lot from people is what helped them get through that time is reaching out to others and seeing how they could serve, or they could guide other people through that they’ve been through. I love that piece. I don’t know if there’s anything more you want to share about that, or other things to help people with that, once they’ve gone through the grieving process, how to make that next step.

Holly:                       I think kind of finding that whatever spiritual religion that you kind of subscribe to, whether it’s prayer, meditation, exercise, yoga, things like that. I wake up every single morning, and there’s five things that I do before I even get out of bed. I start every day with gratitudes, in terms of, “Thank you, God, for this day and for all that you’ve given me.” The second thing I do is I pray for other people. I pray for forgiveness for myself and for others. I meditate, and then I do a devotion. I also think that kind of helps me put every day in a good kind of mindset. Not saying every day’s perfect. It’s far from perfect, but it really kind of helps frame the day, being grateful for everything despite the challenges.

When I was going through kind of a rough time, right before I left my full-time job, management was not being cooperative. There was a point in time … I talk about it in the book, but it was a point in time where I just lost it. I was in the office. I got some bad news that my FMLA had been rescinded, and I just I broke down. I mean, I was just big, old crocodile tears, just complete epic crying breakdown. One of my friends just kind of walked me out of the office, and we went down to the stairwell. She just kind of rubbed my back while I cried, and I quieted down. I realized I’ve been through breast cancer. While this is a difficult situation, I kind of knew that I was called to do the same thing. Despite how bad I felt, despite the fact that I was one step away from being in the hospital for probably a very long time, I knew that I needed to do something to help other people.

Even just the first time I did this, I was in the hospital going in for one of my treatments with cancer. There was a girl just looking really sad in the waiting room. I didn’t know what to say, but I was like, “I’m Holly. I’ve got breast cancer. What are you in here for?” Just trying to make conversation. We just started talking, and her whole countenance changed.

Trevor:                    Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate your talking about all of this, of reaching out to people, and then also your practice, your daily practice of having something that you do every morning. It seems that some of the people that are most successful in business and with their health, and a lot of times it’s after they’ve gone through some sort of journey like similar to your … I mean, everybody has their unique journey, but a struggle of some sort, then they start implementing this practice. I think it’s so great. I have my own that I do too, and I think it’s great to figure out what works best for you. Everybody’s got varying amounts of time, but we all have time when we wake up in the morning for a thank you, some sort of gratitude. You could do it internally. You can write it in your journal. You can say it out loud to someone. But I think that that’s a great tip to have people start their day with something like that. I really like that. Yeah.

Holly:                       Oh, thank you.

Trevor:                    Tell us more about your book Thriving in the Workplace with Autoimmune Disease. Tell us more about that.

Holly:                       Oh, sure. Well, the book came about, I had a Hashi’s flareup. Everything was going really well, and then just recently I had a Hashi’s flareup where the chronic fatigue was just through the roof. We had some testing done, and my adrenals were redlining, which means they were just pretty much just crashing. The whole … What is it? … the HPA axis, the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, adrenals and then the thyroid were not working at all. My health was at a pretty critical junction. The management at work was not accommodating. I was working for a federal agency at the time, and had been working there both as a contractor and full-time employee since 2004 in very successful positions. We had a new management team that had just come in, and they were not accommodating at all. Even despite looking for resources to help, and even looking within and outside of the organization, I couldn’t find any.

I realized that with cancer, they rolled out the red carpet. People have empathy when they hear “cancer.” With autoimmune, it’s different. It’s called an invisible illness. People can’t see things like chronic fatigue or joint pain. I got, “Oh, well just drink some more coffee,” or, “Get some more sleep at night.” “Oh, I was up with my kids last night. I’m tired too. What’s your excuse?” They just didn’t understand and grasp. Unless you have it, it’s really hard to explain what it’s about, so it’s, “Oh, well you’re just being lazy. You’re making excuses,” which was far from the truth. I just needed flexible hours, which I had already had, that they had taken away. When I realized that they were not going to budge, and my health was at a critical junction, I ended up resigning.

I wanted to write a book because I couldn’t find the resources. This is actually the first book out there to ever look at autoimmune as a disability, which it technically is. The ADA was actually amended, and includes the functions that cover autoimmune disease. But it’s the first book to look at autoimmune as a disability, and workplace accommodations for individuals that have these conditions. The first part is my story, and I go into just the horrific detail of everything that I went through, including having my FMLA rescinded, which is illegal, by the way. I kind of say, “The middle part’s the legal part,” which is necessary because I want people to know the laws that protect them. But I also kind of say that the middle part’s about as dry as gluten-free bread, unless you really like the legal stuff. But I did have several people help me with the legal end of it, and very appreciative for that.

But then the last part are really the take-homes, the resources that people can use, a list of all the accommodations, a list of sample language that they can use, the resources that they can go to to really empower them to say, “You can still work a full-time job, even if you’re struggling with some of your conditions. You can still work a full-time job. Ask for some accommodations within the guidelines of the law, and be able to balance your health and work.” I’m very excited to put it out there and to be able to help and inspire other people.

Trevor:                    Well, that’s great. I think it’s great that you have that resource for people, and for people to be able to get answers. Sounds like you’ve done a lot of work making sure that it’s backed by what the law states, and the legalese behind it. Even though it might be kind of dry, I think it’s important to show that you’ve actually done your homework, and that this isn’t just some sort of thing that’s going to get somebody in trouble for speaking out for themselves, that they could actually have something to back them up when they talk to their employers. Yeah.

Holly:                       It also gives some good advice about how to talk to your employer. I kind of give … There is one chapter called The Harsh Reality. We live in a world where good people and good managers and good workplaces are always going to be good. I hate to say it, but bad people and jerks are always going to be jerks. People kind of have that innate characteristic about it, and it’s really tough to change. I give examples of how to look at both your symptoms, look at the employer, and just kind of how do you make these decisions about, “Should I tell? If I do tell, how do I tell?” and things like that.

Trevor:                    Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. Perfect. Tell everyone where they can find your book. Then also, you’ve got some freebies on your website. Tell everybody about that too.

Holly:                       Oh, sure. The book … I don’t know if you can see. It’s called Thriving in the Workplace with Auto … You can find it on amazon.com. You can search on the book title, or Holly Bertone. My website is pinkfortitude.com. If you do a backslash thank, the word T-H-A-N-K, I’ve got some free books as some downloads for you as well.

Trevor:                    Perfect. Perfect. Thank you. We’ll put those links up on my website too, so if someone is driving right now and listening, then don’t worry. You don’t have to pull over and write that down.

Holly:                       [crosstalk 00:30:49]

Trevor:                    Okay. Well Holly, thanks again for coming on today. Really appreciate your information and the support that you’re providing people. Thank you.

Holly:                       Oh, thank you again for having me. It was quite the honor.

Trevor:  I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Holly. To learn more about her book and the free gifts that she mentioned, you can go to thespadr.com, go to the podcast page with her interview, and you’ll find all the information and links there. While you’re there, I invite you to join The Spa Dr. Community so you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows. You could also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you get your own customized skin profile at theskinquiz.com. It’s free. It just takes a few moments to answer some questions to find out what your skin is telling you about your overall health, and what root causes might be holding you back, and some recommendations. Just go to theskinquiz.com. Also, I invite you to join me on social media, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and join the conversation. I’ll see you next time on The Spa Dr. podcast.