Alison Tucker — Author, Entrepreneur, Breast Cancer Survivor

And it is what's involved. Great to have you along with us. Another guest this week, as always, special guests, because we always get special guests in. This one touched particularly close to home though. The lady has just written a book. Who is she? Who are we gonna be talking to? It is Alison Tucker, author of My Best Worst Year, A Breast Cancer Story. Hello, Alison. - Good morning, David. How are you today? - Good, it's lovely to have you on the show with us. I must admit, when I first saw the book, I thought, okay, well, this is not gonna be very relevant to me, but you know, it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I'll give it a quick whirl. And goodness gracious me. Are you a first time author? - I am a first time author, that's right. An author felt like too lofty a word to attribute to myself. So one of our big learnings was that we label ourselves of what we are and what we aren't. And that's so self-limiting, 'cause now I've claimed the word author, in the same way I had to claim the word cancer patient, both were quite difficult at first to integrate. - We're gonna dive into that and we're gonna get there because it's an absolutely, as I said, it's a bit of a roller coaster book for me in certain times and certain places in the book, but we'll touch on all of that.

First, tell me a little bit about Alison. Where were you born? What did you do? 'Cause you weren't always a breast cancer survivor. - No, David, I grew up in the Eastern Cape after originally completing my first two years in Namibia, first years of school. And so I'm a typical Eastern Cape small town, being East London girl. And when I finished my schooling there, I went to Rhodes and I studied psychology and business studies. And I was having such a fun time in Grand style that I ended up staying and doing my honors and my master's as well. And then the small town girl had a father job and I was fortunate enough to be taken on board on the Unilever graduate recruitment program. So I drove up to Durban feeling very emotional leaving the Eastern Cape. And I've been in Durban for literally all my years since then and it's many years now. So I've been a marketer working in Unilever and then in a global consultancy. And I started my own consultancy about seven years ago. So at the moment I'll do project work on all kinds of things to do with marketing like innovation and brand positioning and strategy development. So that was my day job. And then I found myself thrown into this predicament the day before Christmas in 2016.

And I thought I would have to stop working but I was very fortunate. I had a very good year and I was able to carry on working. So I ended up doing my consulting work and then writing this book that's a sort of gift of gratitude for others at the same time. In my spare time, I've got many passions. One of the big ones is traveling. So I love going to new countries for the first time and going into far-flung corners that maybe other people have ventured to where they're armed with a camera as well as I love food and I love wine. Probably love food too much and I love exercise. So just staying active is a big part of my world as well. And so that's me. - Fantastic. Great, so that's a lovely intro. But now let's get onto this because as far as I can see, you were doing very, very well in the corporate world and your own business that you started was doing well. What led you to go, hang on, there is a problem here. Did you go for a mammogram because I know a lot of things, a lot of times we talk about breast cancer awareness and for the ladies, you talk about going for your mammogram regularly, et cetera, et cetera, but so many people don't do it. How did you find out? - That's exactly it.

The saying early detection saves lives, sort of washes over us. I know even for myself before I had cancer, when I used to hear that expression, an expression that was familiar to me that I don't think it ever really hit home, what a big difference it does make if you diagnosed early. But in my personal case, my sister had had breast cancer about 25 years before me at the age in her mid 30s. And in fact, it was her second part of cancer. So cancer was something our family was sort of literal about. And so as a consequence of that, I knew I was at high risk and I used to go for mammograms from the age of 30. And in this particular year, 2016, I was due to have my mammogram in December. I always used to save it for that time as work started winding down and getting a little bit easier. But it was, it couldn't be in a month or two months before that, but I can't actually recall exactly. And I felt this unusual sort of mess on the side of my right breast. It was different to anything I've felt before. You know, before I felt almost like a contained lump that would move around if I touched it. And so I had had two biopsies before and in those cases, they would be nine. The one was called a thing called a fibroidinobium.

But this time it just felt different. It was this hard mess that was going nowhere, just stationary. So I went for the mammogram on the 22nd of December. It's right away they did an ultrasound as they often do with me. And the next day I had my biopsy and the very next day I got the news that it was indeed breast cancer. So that was my Christmas gift, the day before Christmas. So that's how I found out. - Wow, so the day before Christmas. And then obviously you're going to that holiday period. But I listened. - Yes. - What did it feel like then? Did it feel like, okay, yeah, I've expected this or was it still a huge blow? - David, it was quite unusual because I think deep down, I sort of always expected that it could happen. But when it did happen, I was almost like a bunny looking into headlamps. So I went on to autopilot and as most of my friends know, when I put the phone down from taking the call, I should mention it's not normally a telephone. Normally you would be sitting face to face with a doctor. But in my case, because of the time of the year, I got permission to get them by telephone. But I put the phone down and I had just got out the shower to answer the phone. I was standing naked with the phone in my hand and I thought, I've got a hair appointment in 10 minutes time.

So I just got dressed and went to the hairdresser. And once I sat in the hairdresser's chair, that's when it really hit me. And I thought, oh my heavens, I've got cancer. It's Christmas tomorrow. I've got a lovely holiday to Thailand coming up in two sleeps time. What am I going to do? And I was in, to some extent I was quite glad that I was sitting in the hairdresser's chair where it was very noisy. Because at that point, I realized I had to start telling people, but I wasn't ready to actually talk to people. So I messaged. And as people then try to phone me back, I'd send a message back saying, it's noisy where I am, I can't talk. And that for me is one of the lessons that when someone is diagnosed with cancer, often they just feel like they can't speak to people. So messaging is sometimes better than trying to phone them and speak to them directly. And then it took me a while to feel like I was taking full ownership of the illness. Once I could say, my own cottages, and I could say, I have cancer, then I knew I had taken ownership of it. And I would have to deal with it in the best possible anyway that I could. - Wow, because I can only imagine, I mean, it's one of those things that you try and imagine what somebody must feel like, but unless you've actually gone through it, I don't think you can adequately prepare for the kind of shock it is.

And the fact that one way or another, your life is going to change. From the moment you put that phone down, you at some stage had to accept your life was gonna change. What was the-- - That's it, David. - What was the protocols though that they suggested that you go through? - So when I was uncertain, I thought, no, I'm going on holiday, but I canceled my holiday. And then a friend who's in the medical profession said to me, you know, all the medical staff are actually on holiday themselves. Everything's shut down, it's the middle of Christmas New Year. I suggest you go on holiday and then maybe come back earlier. So instead of going for three weeks, I came back after two weeks and the day after I got back, I had my first oncologist and my surgeon appointment. And for someone who had never ever, I never used to get through, I never had the common cold to be sitting in front of a surgeon and then in front of an oncologist, felt like such a foreign world to me. But nevertheless, that's how the process started. And I went through, what was comforting is I was told that I'd be going through the same treatment protocol, regardless of whether I would be, was living in New York, Paris, Sydney, London, anyway.

So that was quite comforting to know that I would be getting the same protocol as I would in a fully first world country, so to speak. It was a long innings and there was a start curve ball because I didn't expect to have the chemotherapy. So my expectation was that I would have a surgery and then have radiation and that would be it and it would all be over quickly. But unfortunately, once they had the tissue samples after the surgery in the lab, they discovered a small deposit of cancer cells outside the lymph that they removed from my armpit. And so when the oncologist said to me, Alison, if you were my sister or my mother, I would insist you had chemotherapy. At that point I knew I had no choice. So that was the lowest point of the entire experience, the day I learned that I was going to have to have chemo. And I think that's what people fear. And when you're a woman and you hear that, straight away you think, my hair, I'm gonna lose my hair. So that was probably, as I said, the lowest point of the foot experience. - That's one of the things that you talk about in the book is just losing hair and you talk about wigs, et cetera. But just let me understand. So did you have to have a mastectomy?

- No, so I was very fortunate. I was a candidate for what they call breast conserving surgery or a lumpectomy. And these days the surgeons prefer to do a lumpectomy plus radiotherapy if they can get away with it. Not everyone can, unfortunately, but I was a fortunate one. And the recurrence rate is the same for a mastectomy as it is for a lumpectomy plus radiotherapy. So, and with a lumpectomy, you're unlikely to have as many complications from surgery because a mastectomy is more invasive as surgery goes. But as a woman, when you're first diagnosed, all you wanna do is just remove your breasts. And it's like, just get them off. And it's important for people to know that these days that isn't always the only solution. So yeah, so I have had a lumpectomy and that always comes with radiotherapy as far as I understand. - Wow. - And I was also fortunate. I didn't have to have reconstruction, which I know for women is quite a challenging thing. Although of course, the moment it does go through your head, oh, maybe I'm gonna get a perky new pair. (laughing) That doesn't happen either. - I can only imagine, I mean, at some stage, because of the seriousness of cancer, that you need to have some light moments, but there's also some deep moments and some fairly dark moments.

We'll talk more about that when we come back. My special guest is Alison Tucker, author of "My Best Worst Year of Breast Cancer Story". We'll be back in a bit. And we're back with my special guest, Alison Tucker, author of "My Best Worst Year". It's a great title there, Alison. I love that, "My Best Worst Year of Breast Cancer Story". And the reason that the book came about though, you didn't sit up and go, okay, well, I've now been diagnosed with breast cancer, so I'm gonna write a book. Talk to me, how did the book process happen? - So David, when I was first diagnosed, first of all, I thought, oh, well, I'm going to die. Then I also thought, well, my whole life's going to come to a standstill and I'm going to be curled up in bed for some months or for the rest of my life. And I was so pleasantly surprised that the experience wasn't nearly as bad as I anticipated. I was also surprised that I could lead quite a productive life. So I carried on exercising, I carried on working in between my treatment. But a big part of that was getting into a mindset of gratitude. So the day before I started my first chemotherapy session, I had gone for a cycle on the beachfront and I was working out some angst.

And I thought, oh, this is so good, I'm gonna go further than I normally go. And I had a fat tire, a puncture. So I had to push the back back to the gym and I was muttering under my breath. And I thought to myself, if this is how you cope with such an insignificant, a little negative thing that's thrown your way, how are you gonna get through cancer treatment? So I decided to try and think of something positive every day in a way of keeping myself upbeat and in a positive mindset. So that led to me starting what I refer to as my gratitude album on just a simple album on Facebook. Every day of my treatment, I used to put up a collage or a visual of sorts with some copy, so words or a story with it, that was something or someone that I was grateful for. And over time, I realized that I had started demystifying cancer and breast cancer for others. So I started getting a following, not all of which were friends, even beyond friends, people being referred to me who had been diagnosed. And it became quite a thing. In fact, it was quite onerous at times because I would go out, say for a food and wine, pair in the evening or go out for a social evening. And I'd get back and it would be two minutes to midnight and my phone would be pinging with messages, people saying, "Is everything okay?

You haven't posted your attitude today." So I realized that it was resonating with others. And I had done it for myself, but the positive spinoff benefits were so widespread that I knew I had to put this bad situation to good use. So then I was giving advice and tips and learning from other patients who'd been diagnosed, some around the world, even women I never actually met, just through messaging and through chatting. And I thought, I'm so scared that as time moves on, I forget some of the tips and some of the things I learned. So let me write about it. It'll also make it easier 'cause I felt like I was repeating myself. So if someone phoned me and said, "When I'm going through chemotherapy and I've got questions," I could just take that section on chemo and send it to them. So it started off what I called my writing. And after some time and with a lot of encouragement from others, I started referring to it as my manuscript. And then the next thing, boom, attached Tracy and Tracy offered to publish it, Tracy McDonald. So boom, I was to be a published author, which was a shock and a delight, in fact. So that's how the book was born. And it's been a big learning process for me. It's been just great, learning new processes and new things and experimenting and yeah, I've really enjoyed it.

- I always laugh and I joke about this. There's so many authors who sort of, they start off with, "I met Tracy McDonald." Or, "Tracy McDonald asked." And I've been trying to get Tracy on the show forever, but she manages to sidestep it all the time. One day, I'm going to win and we'll be able to talk to her because she truly is a phenomenal person. But Alison, writing all of this stuff down and going through the process of the surgery and then the radiation, et cetera, et cetera, there must have been up days, down days. I know some people, when they get diagnosed with cancer, they do exactly what you said earlier on, is they sort of crawl into their shell. They don't look for the bright side, they don't look for the positive. And a lot of people don't know how to deal with somebody who is living with cancer. Do you offer help? Do you not? What is your experience in that? - Yes, David, you are so right. People are often so focused on the patient themselves that they forget how difficult it is for the people around them. So one example of something I've come across through the cancer communities I'm part of is patients sometimes feel very offended because they might have a close friend or family member who just completely distances themselves from them at a time where they feel they should be close to them and supporting them.

And I think what they don't realize is that it's actually not about them. It's about the person who is distancing themselves. They just can't cope with their illness. It might trigger memories or trigger thoughts or painful thoughts for them. And they tend to just stay away from the patient instead of confronting them. What I did do in the book is, and this is why the book is not just for cancer patients themselves, it's also for people that surround them. I've tried to provide some practical tips on how best to support someone with cancer and also the things, what to say and what not to say. So to demonstrate it in a simple way is when someone would say to me, "Oh, hi, Ali, how are you?" I'd almost want to say to them, "You mean besides the fact that I've got cancer?" Whereas if someone said to you, "How has your day been?" Or, "Have you had a good week?" As a cancer patient, that's so much easier to deal with. And another one is because people don't know what to say. They often say, "Everything's going to be all right." And that just makes you want to punch him in the face because you want to say, "Well, when I had my biopsy, everything wasn't all right. I've had numerous curve balls along the cancer experience and things aren't always all right.

Who are you to know that?" All you want is for your fear to be acknowledged. So if you instead just said to someone, "Cheat must be really tough and I admire your tenacity and I just want you to know I'm here for you." That's helpful. And then another tip I often give, and this is something I learned from my own experience, is everyone says to you, "Oh, please let me know if I can do anything." But if you like me and your person that finds it difficult to ask for help, sometimes the things you need are very small things and you feel they're almost too trivial to ask for help. So you tend to just carry on and do them yourself. But one friend of mine taught me this lesson and that is that, "Don't ask, just do." So no matter how small a thing it is, if you feel you could do something that could take a little bit of stress out of a cancer patient's life, it makes a big difference. And the way I learned this lesson was a strange one. I had ordered some wine through a restaurant and it was on my list of things to do. And the restaurant wasn't even far from where I live. But when you're going through treatment, little things feel big. And it was on my list and I wasn't getting around to it.

And the one day this friend, his name is Jenny, just sent me a message saying, "Ellie, I'll be fetching your wine for you today and dropping it off." And I thought, "Isn't that amazing?" And that just took a seemingly big load off my shoulders, although she thought it was such a small load. So just anticipate and just do, don't ask, is what I would say to people. - Okay, but now this also works in reverse because when you are living with cancer, it is so easy to withdraw. It is, as you said, difficult for people to ask for help. But surely at this time, when you're going through something like this, friends, family, a support group are vitally important. - Huge, I was so incredibly fortunate and grateful to have a massive support circle of friends and family. And I'm very mindful that not everyone who has cancer may have that. So I feel quite sad as an example for people going through chemotherapy right now where they cannot take a friend with them or a family member or their partner. They, because they're not allowed, only the patients are allowed into the chemo suites. And for me, chemo days, believe it or not, were fun days. I had the same friend, Shelly, who came with me every time.

And we used to chat and laugh and joke with the nurses and the other patients. It was almost like a little mini party. But for now, it must be quite a quiet and sad place without having been able to have any visitors there as well. Yes, I had a huge support system, which helped me. But I'm a type A personality, which means I like to be busy and frenetic. And I don't like to ask for help. I'm a giver, a battle to take. And my friends told me that that was one of the lessons that I needed to learn out of this experience. I needed to just accept graciously. So I used those four words, "I need some help," for the first time, I think, in my entire life, on hair loss day. Because I ended up in the shower, trying to gently comb conditioners through my, already very vulnerable hair that had started falling out. And as I was curming, all the loose hair was bunching up at the back of my head, like a mat of bread locks. And there was no way that I could get a comb or anything through it. So I phoned my friend, Sheila, and I just said, "I need some help." And it was actually so liberating, saving those four words. She was at my home in a shot, and we took the kitchen scissors, and we sit in the entrance hall at the mirror, and she literally hacked off every bit of hair that I had on my head.

And we just giggled and laughed as she did it, because we knew if we didn't get good and laugh, we would probably both be in tears. But that was my first experience of really acknowledging to myself that you can say, "I need some help." - Yeah, and so important, I mean, I've mentioned earlier on that you write in the book about wigs and things like that. With this chemo and radiation side effects or MESA, I mean, you said that when you went through your chemo, it was like a bit of a party, but I've seen firsthand, or firsthand, the after effects of chemo sessions when it just wipes you out. How did you deal with that? - So I was, once again, very fortunate in that, although I felt very different, and there were days where I felt fatigued, I did have probably a better than average experience with my chemotherapy. And when I had what's commonly known as the Red Devil, which is a very toxic kind of chemo, they gave me a thing called E-Med, which is an anti-noisier thing. They give you one just before you have the infusion, and then you get two to take home, which you have one each of the next two days. And that really worked for me. So I was never nauseous as such. I never, ever vomited.

In contrast to my sister, when she had chemotherapy was really violently ill, day in and day out. So there I was fortunate, but David, the time that was really difficult for me was actually the aftermath of the treatment. And that was when it was really challenging in many, many respects for that whole year, which was for me 2018. And besides trying to deal with the physical ravages of cancer, so trying to grow hair, I used to hold a little magnifying glass up and look in the mirror to see if any hair was brightening in my head. Of course, not having eyebrows and eyelashes is just devastating and worse than not having hair in your head, to be frank. My fingernails and my toenails were all very, very damaged from the second kind of chemotherapy I had had, which is called pachytaxil. And so I was trying to heal those. I used to walk around trying to hold, keep my fingernails hidden from other people, because on the one hand, I didn't want to paint chemicals, paint them to try and hide them. On the other hand, I didn't want people to see them. And then also they say that most cancer patients lose weight, with the exception of breast cancer patients. So I had put on weight during my treatment.

I didn't have the benefit of the steroids anymore that you get while you are in chemo. I was back into exercise. I just couldn't run as far or as fast as I was able to before my treatment. And in fact, still to this day, I just can't get the same speed or distance, but I'm still out there, which I suppose is the main thing. And the other thing is, sometimes chemo cancer patients are on certain drugs in that phase. So I was on a thing called tamoxifen, which is a hormone blocker, because my cancer was a hormone-fueled cancer, which means that there all kinds of side effects, like terrible bone ache and joint ache and sweats and batting to control your body temperature. So there was that. And then at an emotional level, everyone is so excited for you because you finished your treatment and you're excited too, but you don't quite go back to being the person you were beforehand. So cancer is still so much part of your being. You still try to shake it off, so to speak. And so you expect it to continue as before, and you feel like you don't wanna talk about it and bore your friends all the time. But it's something that's with you all the time, so it weighs quite heavily. In addition, you get skin anxiety and you've got hypersensitivity toward your body.

So any little ache or pain, or even if it's a joint ache, you think, "Oh, well, the cancer spread to my bones now." So your mind plays tricks with you. You light night and you imagine things that are happening that actually aren't happening. And then you always have the fear of a reoccurrence. So the aftermath is a period that's very difficult for cancer patients, but I don't think people always realize that. - Yeah, it's very true. But we're gonna dive into some of the things you did and some of the things that we've said as well a little bit more when we come back. This is what's involved my special guest, Alison Tucker, author of my best, worst year of breast cancer story. Back in a bit, and we're back with my guest, Alison Tucker, author of my best, worst year of breast cancer story. Alison, there's a couple of parts in the book that, I mean, this is not a medical treatise or something like that. This is your experience going through cancer and what you did and how you dealt with it and the lessons that you learned. One part that touched me is, I think it was your niece that said that she writes the book when your hair started going back and she was rubbing your head and going, it's so soft.

- So soft, it's so soft. - I mean, that's just one of those moments when you can actually picture something like that and you can see how that can have an effect. But on the other side, there's some of the downsides. You attribute a lot of your sort of growth and your experience of cancer to the fact that you were determined to keep on working and to keep on being fit or moving. Talk to me about that. - Yes, yes. So what I did when I was first diagnosed is I contacted Discovery Vitality because I wanted leniency for my gym membership. I was worried that I would lose my preferential gym membership because I wouldn't be able to go to gym or I wouldn't be able to exercise and get my points. So they sent me the forms and now I still love today because I never needed to send the forms in or to fill them in, in fact. And I managed to achieve my vitality points every single week throughout my experience, except one week. And that was the week of my surgery, which I suppose was to be expected. And that surprised me and surprised other people. And it's not because I'm superhuman, it's just because I got into the mindset that I knew and I'd read that staying active can help in the experience and it can even help your response to treatment.

So when people say to me, you know, what piece of advice would you give to my friend who's got cancer? I say to them, if you could only give them one piece of advice, just tell them to keep moving. And that doesn't mean they have to go do a park run like I used to do on every Saturday. If all they can do is walk around their house or walk around the block that their house is, and even that is very good. And it's not really the physical moving, it's just the fresh air and being outdoors. So I had a sort of tribe of friends, my back and being friends, as they called, and we used to meet down at the beachfront and we used to run together, or in some days we would call it one, which means run and walk. So as my chemotherapy wore on and I was getting more fatigued, I'd have to walk a little bit more than I could run. And then we'd have coffee afterwards. So it became a social thing for me and it was happy times. It was tough not being able to push myself as I used to push myself, but with time I got used to the fact that I had to just listen to my body and do what I could do. So that was useful. And when I did manage to carry on doing my park runs, and I always joke that I did my 50th park run during chemo, and 20 out of those 50 were fueled by chemotherapy.

But my friends all arrived on that day, all arrived dressed in pink, being the color associated with breast cancer, and we had a big celebration afterwards. So we turned activity and exercise into fun times as well. David, I've just mentioned pink, and what I do want to do is at this point, is just mention that because of all the pink that's associated with breast cancer, people often think that it's only women that get breast cancer, but it's very important for everyone to know that men do also get breast cancer. So I often use, this is an analogy, if you're at a sports stadium and it's filled with men, it's a rugby or soccer stadium, for every 828 men sitting there, one will have or will get breast cancer. So that's a little known fact, but it's really important for men to know that. So I do worry that October is breast cancer, we're in this month, and there's a lot of pink washing and pink everywhere, but I think the message shouldn't get lost. That it's not just about a woman and it's not just about October, it's about the whole year being cautious and listening to your body and getting your checks. - And also doing self checks, I would imagine would be a good place to start off with as well and just get into that habit.

- Yes, absolutely, because you get to know your own breast structure, and so you would pick up something, and the thing is that people, you know, women pick it up and they think, "Oh, it's probably just part of my menstrual cycle, "I'll wait and see." But if it persists, they really do need to go and get it checked, because early detection with breast cancer can mean a difference between life or death. If you leave it unchecked and it has metastasized, you automatically become a breast cancer with meds, as I say, and that's stage four, and that means that it is not curable, and you will be having treatment and battling and struggling with it for the rest of your life, no matter how low or short that may be. So it is material to have those checks and to get tested. - Yeah, no, I absolutely, I agree with you. As I said, I've had family members and friends that had firsthand experience with cancer and with the ravages of cancer, and that's one of the things, I mean, you mentioned that you lost your hair and your eyebrows and eyelashes and all of those things, but how scary is it? Because people, I've noticed, people react differently to the treatments. There's some people that can almost fly through them with very little side effects, and others, I mean, I've seen some people, and I thought to myself, I never, ever wanna go there, never.

How beautiful was that for you as well? Because I mean, you get to see these people. - It is quite amazing at how different people react differently, even to the same treatment. So, you know, and we do compare notes, we sit in the chemo suite and we compare notes as patients, and it's a terrible thing to confess, but as you sit in the compare notes, you are trying to compare other circumstances to yourself. So if someone is there with a recurrence and you're chatting to them, you're thinking, your thought behind your question is, how lucky am I to get a recurrence like them? But, you know, I saw people who, like me, sailed through the red devil chemo, and I saw people who were really, really sick on the red devil, and then the same people who may have been really sick while having the red devil, would move to the next kind of chemo, which is supposedly less toxic, and they would then be very ill. So it's so unpredictable, it's really a very individual thing, and that's why supporters should never expect that, you know, I worry that about writing this positive experience in my book, I do worry that people may read it and say, and expect all of the friends or family who have cancer to also have such a positive experience.

You know, I want them to realize that it is an individual thing. But at the same time, there are things you can do to help lighten the experience, and to try and fare better than perhaps you would without trying some tricks. - Yeah, and that's one thing that I like in the book, is you give people a lot of tips and things that you've learned along the way. We spoke about wigs briefly, but things like makeup, makeup tips, things like that, these are all things that are vitally important, but number one, you don't think about it before you have discovered that you're living with cancer, and number two, whilst you're living with cancer, probably not something that's top of your mind. - No, and I had had the same hairstyle for all of my 50-odd years, and it was probably part of my signature, so it was a shock of blondia. I was blond right from the time I was born, basically, so it was wavy, long blond hair. And so, and I probably used to hide behind that hair, so losing it, I was petrified of, but the day I lost my hair, finally, it was, I almost felt liberated, and the odd thing is that a lot of women who go through it do feel, use the same word, liberated, when they've lost it. I don't know if it's because you fear it, imagine when it happens, it's a relief, or whether you just feel light in the head, or, yeah, I felt totally liberated.

And I then started wearing wigs, and I was very nervous, and I wanted a wig as close to my current hairstyle as possible. The reality is, is that I started having so much fun with the wigs, that I ended up, if women from Australia sent me her pink and platinum, I had all different wigs, and I would just choose a different one on the day, depending on the mood, and each one had a name, so there was Coco and Chloe, and then the best one of all, was my one I used to exercise with, where it was a little, just a mock front, so I had a bit of hair across the forehead, and a little bit down the sides, and it was attached to, like a stocking band, that you wore around your head, and then I used to put just a turban over that, and that would be what I exercised in. I was a bit too nervous to cycle down to the beachfront, or to run with a wig on, in case I lost it along the way, but my cap and Holly, the fake fringe, worked very, very well for that, so I had a lot of fun with the wigs. - I'm absolutely blown away about the positivity that you're bringing to it, because it is, and we've mentioned this, it's life-changing. We are running out of time, when we come back though, I'd like to wrap up, and I'd like to get your take on why you called it your best worst year.

So we'll do all of that when we come back, it is what's involved, my special guest is Alison Tucker. And we're back, what's involved with Alison Tucker, author of "My Best Worst Year", a breast cancer story, wrapping it up, so Alison, why the title? Let's talk about that. - David, what I really expected to be my worst, the worst year of my entire life, turned out to be the best, I wouldn't say the best year of my entire life, but a very, very good year, and much, much better than I expected. So that's why I use it as a working title, in fact, I just called my writing my best worst year, and then when Tracy and I started having discussions, and we were gonna publish the book, I thought it was just a working title, but actually it seemed to resonate, and it seemed to resonate with others. So one of my friends said, "Oh, why don't you call it my breast worst year, "to make it a bit quirky?" And I said, "I don't think it's quite fitting "the positioning of the book, "because although the book is lighthearted, "it wasn't a sort of comical take as such." So, Tracy and I both thought that it would work, and I've had very positive response to it, which is great. And I hope that it will show people that a cancer diagnosis is not the end of the world, and that in many cases, you can lead a very productive life, and you can have an enjoyable time, even during the tough times of undergoing treatment.

- Indeed, indeed. Now, one of the things that you mentioned, and I would think this is the best part of the year, is personal growth experiences that you have. Gratitude is one of the things that you spoke about. Talk to me a little bit about that. So, I've always been a glass-half-full kind of person, so I guess it's a gift to often be able to see things in a positive light. But, you know, they say that feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a gift up and not giving it to someone. Part of the expressing gratitude is being able to accept the love and support first. So, for me, I had this mantra, which I picked up somewhere along the lines, and I can't find someone to attribute it to, but it was inhale love and exhale gratitude. So, I try to really embrace all the love and support I got, but in exchange for that, then exhale gratitude. And it's something I try to keep up to this day. But, you know, if I am going through a little bad patch, I'll remind myself that perhaps I've forgotten to take that moment to think about what I'm grateful for on the day. And, you know, 'cause I don't keep the diary as such anymore. I try to do it on a more sort of informal basis just for myself.

But what I also love is that the fact that this did inspire other people to gratitude practices. So, one of which is a friend of mine who, in fact, is also an author. She wrote "An Elephant in My Kitchen" with Fransard from "Tudo Tudo." And she lives in France, and she said that her and her husband had started a gratitude practice where every night before they had their evening meal together at the table, they would each say what they were grateful for, which I thought was beautiful. And then I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful if every family just had a blackboard painted on and set a wall in their home with a piece of chalk line close by where family members could just write up on the gratitude wall, you know, what they're grateful for. Because just reminding yourself of positive things. It's almost impossible to feel depressed if you're in a state of gratitude. So, I think it's a good state to try and be in. Doesn't mean to say you're not gonna have bad days, you're not gonna acknowledge them, but it does say that maybe they'll be a little bit less daunting if you can try and feel the gratitude. - Wonderful stuff. And it's very, very sound advice. And that's part of what I enjoyed about the book is that it's filled with different moments, but it is all about advice and it's your story.

Now, what is, where is Alison now in terms of number one, the cancer, but in terms of where's your head at? I mean, are you going, what is your next? So, let's look at that. - So, from a cancer perspective, I've now graduated to six monthly checkups. So, for the first two, I'm three years out of treatment now, and I'm still what they would call NED. So, no evidence of disease. For the first two years, I had a blood test and I'm kind of just appointment and consultation every three months. And of course, every three months, you get that rising anxiety that week, and then the big relief when things are okay. Then now I've moved to six monthly checkups and blood tests. And I did also just have a bone scan not so long ago, just to check my bones because I have got a sore hip and a sore wrist, but I think that's all to do with probably the side effects of drugs and previous sports injuries. So, from a cancer point of view, when you diagnose, you realize your life will always be divided into BC and AC, before cancer and after cancer. So, it's always gonna be there. Once you're a cancer patient, you're a cancer patient for life, so I'll keep that title forever. But I do hope that I can continue in good health as I am now.

At a personal level, part of writing the book was about trying to express gratitude for positive experience and to do some good. So, what I'm doing is the books that I'm selling direct to people that I ordered through Tracy, all the profits from those books go directly into more books that are distributed through the Breast Health Foundation for women who are diagnosed. So, that's a charitable act. And I also hope, I have a talk that I've constructed about how gratitude turns gratitude great, which is my breast cancer story, but also with a big focus on how gratitude helps. So, I hope to be able to offer that as well as source inspiration for other people. So, and then I'm still consulting. So, I'm still, I still have my own business and I'm still continuing consulting. So, it's, and still exercising and still loving life. - Before I let you go, there's two things. First and foremost, if people want to get hold of this book, where is the best place to go? Is it available in bookstores, online? - Yes, so globally it's accessible via Amazon and the last Amazon as an ebook for Kindle, which is great because I've had so many people from the UK and from Australia getting in touch, actually asking where they can get the book.

And then locally it's also available in paper version and in all good bookstores. So, through Tracy McDonald Publishers. And if people don't see it automatically, they'll find it in the biography section. - Fantastic, okay. Well, Alison, thank you so much. My final question before I let you go is, how is the kitty cat? - Oh, my kitty cat, as I'm sitting here, Kimber is lying on the chair in my office. She's my assistant here in the office most days when I'm at doing desk work. And yeah, Kimber is the delight of my life and yeah, very, very special cat with, I think I probably told the story in the book of how she arrived in my home, but I leave that for readers to find themselves. - Yes, you see, that's the thing. There's a couple of things I just wanted to keep a little bit secret here. But I think it's so cool. We have a cat here as well and he's a male, his name is Duke, and he's been nicknamed the chairman because as soon as I stand up from my base, he's on the chair. And generally, when I'm recording podcasts or radio shows like this, he's actually on top of the desk and he stays intently at the microphone. So he's convinced he helps me. So this is a good question. - I think I should call Kimber keyboard Kimber because she likes the keyboard, so she loves lying over my hands, yeah.

They are very, very, very friends, really a big part of our life. And David, we completed the on-air bit, have we? - Well, we're about to complete the on-air bit where I say thank you so much. - Wow, thank you very, very much. It was lovely, lovely chatting. - It was fantastic. That was my special guest, Alison Tucker, author of my best, worst year abreast cancer story. It's a great book. Go out and read it if you know anybody that has cancer, is living with cancer. It's definitely well worth having a read that Alison Tucker, my best, worst year abreast cancer story. This is what's involved. Thank you for listening.