#269: From Acting to Advocacy: Toks Olagundoye Discusses Her Health and Healing from Breast Cancer
Watch Season 2 of Frasier on Paramount+
Actress Toks Olagundoye shares her remarkable journey as a breast cancer survivor while navigating the entertainment industry.
Olagundoye, known for her roles in shows like 'Veep,' 'Castle' and the newly rebooted 'Frasier', opens up about her diagnosis and the critical role that diet and lifestyle have played in her health, emphasizing that she's dairy free and hasn't eaten a mammal in over 30 years.
The discussion also touches on the emotional impact of cancer, not just on the patient but also on their loved ones, particularly how her husband, friends, and co-workers stepped up to assist in her needs.
Her story is a testament to resilience, reminding listeners that while cancer can be a daunting adversary, it also presents opportunities for personal growth and deeper connections with those around us.
The episode concludes with a powerful message about the significance of laughter and joy in the healing process, encapsulated in Alagundoye's wise words, "If laughter is medicine, then I'm heavily medicated."
Episode Highlights
4:05 Welcoming Toks Olagondoye
5:40 Toks' Journey with Breast Cancer
12:00 Toks' Background and Heritage
21:45 Discussing Toks' Role in Frasier
32:15 Toks' Breast Cancer Diagnosis
35:15 Understanding the Diagnosis Process
38:50 Navigating Treatment Decisions
44:50 Chemotherapy and Its Challenges
48:40 Surgeries and Reconstruction
54:20 Lessons Learned from Surviving Cancer
1:01:30 Importance of Regular Mammograms
1:03:20 Toks' Plant-Based Diet Journey
1:12:50 Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
Watch Season 2 of Frasier on Paramount+
Episode Resources
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube
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Full Transcription via AI Transcription Service
[0:00] I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast. You've seen her on TV shows like Veep, Castle, The Rookie, and many others. And now you can see her on the new season of Frasier. Can you believe it? Frasier? Which is now out on Paramount+. It's the talented actress Toks Olagondoye. Today, she candidly shares her ongoing journey with breast cancer and the impact
Launching Personal Size Pizza Kits
[0:30] that diet has played on our recovery. It's coming up right after these words from PLANTSTRONG.
[0:40] PLANTSTRONG Cousins! Last week, we launched our all-new personal size pizza kits from the PLANTSTRONG Test Kitchen. We made these in response to all the comments that we've been receiving from people who are cooking for just one or two, or for families with a bunch of different eating habits.
[1:01] The cool thing about these adorable kits is it gives you a chance to make perfectly portioned pizzas for everyone sitting around the table. And there's one thing for certain, the foundation for each meal will be 100% whole grain and 100% delicious. There's four individual sauce packs that are included with the four pizza crusts, which makes it super easy to feed everyone. Now, as a test kitchen item, these are offered for a limited time, so don't hit the snooze button. Hop on over to PLANTSTRONG.com, be part of the conversation on these fun, new, hip products. We made them for you, and we can't wait to hear what you think. As the leaves are turning, I want to wish you happy October, my cruciferous cousins.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
[1:55] As you know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And that means that here at the PLANTSTRONG Podcast, we're going to be devoting all five episodes on the stories of patients and the latest research and initiatives that promote a whole food, plant-based diet for the recovery and healing of this disease. There is so much science that's swirling around this topic, and so I've called upon several experts to parse out the research and equip you with the knowledge and the hope.
[2:34] Today, though, I'm honored to introduce you to an actress that is currently starring in the brand new season of Frasier, which debuted September 19th on Paramount+. Her name is Toks Olagondoye. She plays Olivia Fitch, the faculty head of the psych department at Harvard University on this new season of the popular reboot, starring everyone's favorite radio host, Kelsey Grammer. Now, in addition to Frazier and other starring roles in television shows like Castle and Veep, Toks is also a breast cancer survivor. She's undergone six surgeries to treat her cancer, along with chemotherapy treatments.
[3:16] Two of her surgeries even took place when she was filming season one of Frazier. Here's the thing. Toks is primarily whole food plant-based. She hasn't eaten mammals for over 30 years and gave up dairy almost 20 years ago. But because there is a lot of cancer in her family, she remained diligent about all of her screenings, which thankfully is what caught her aggressive triple negative breast cancer. She's honest and candid about her story because as she says, she wants to be a service to others and raise awareness about early detections. She also wants to be a source of hope and inspiration, which is why she wanted
Welcoming Toks Olagondoye
[4:00] to talk so openly about her diagnosis, and I'm super grateful for that. So, please welcome to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast, Toks Olagondoye.
[4:14] Today, joining me on the PLANTSTRONG Podcast, I have Toks Olagondoye. Welcome to the show. It is so wonderful to meet you. Yes, likewise. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Now, am I correct? Was yesterday a big day for you? It was. It was my 49th birthday.
[4:34] 49th birthday. I love it. It was my sister's 59th birthday yesterday. Oh my God. That's amazing. It's a very popular birthday. I think it's like one in the top, top three of those popular birthdays. Yeah. Yeah. And an old girlfriend that was summer 16th and you're September 16th. My sister, that's about as far as I know, but nice. Hey, listen, that's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Now, um, you, so you were running a little bit late today and you were at the doctor's appointment and the good news is what, what did everything reveal feel today um that i seem to be doing well on my way to you know being able to say that i'm fully in remission from uh breast cancer yeah had a checkup um it's i have several different kinds of checkups but this one um is with my oncologist and she sort of i had a double mastectomy so she kind of checks the area checks my blood levels and everything and um everything looked
Toks' Journey with Breast Cancer
[5:35] good but But my calcium is a little high. I knew that was a problem. So I have to have some extra scans and stuff today and they were, booking those into the computer. So I was like, sorry. Well, what I'd love to do with you, if you're open to it, is I'd love to dive into your breast cancer, the diagnosis.
[6:01] You know, how you handled, you know, having a mastectomy and finding out that you had breast cancer. And I know you had about six surgeries and chemotherapy. So I think our audience would Would love to hear about your experience with that. Yeah. Also would love to talk about your role in Frasier. That is super exciting. Yeah.
[6:27] And Olivia Finch, right? Yeah. On her way. Yeah. For starters, though, I just, I think it's, I'd love for people to kind of just get a feel for you, Toks. And where does that name tokes come from um because i can tell you that i've never heard of it before i bet nobody that's a listener has ever heard of it before not unless they're nigerian probably or mexican there's like a chain of um like fast food stores in mexico called tokes okay yeah and no i'm not named after them although listen i've never had it it might be the most delicious thing in the world i don't know but um i'm from nigeria born and raised my dad's nigerian and tokes is short for a lot to combo um and it's usually given to people not born in nigeria so a lot of nigerians think that i'm not born or raised there that i was um it's a little joke that my parents thought was funny because my mom is norwegian and so that you know i'm a gift from across the seas in that way. Oh, well, that's beautiful. I mean, wow. If I was a parent, I would love to say, a gift from across the seas, how are you doing today? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, as a parent.
[7:51] Have you ever been to Norway? Oh, yes, absolutely. My mom's whole family is there and we would go once or twice a year. My whole childhood. And I still go about once a year. And yeah, it's my favorite place in the entire world. It's incredibly relaxing. It's the one place I feel truly safe.
[8:14] And, you know, being biracial, you can be othered a lot by family. And it's like the, it's the place that I feel most in tune with my family. Hmm. We, I just went to Norway for spring break with my family and I, we, we, we flew into, we flew into Bergen and then we went up on, I mean, and we stayed right on the, I think Norwegian region c somewhere um it was it was freaky it was freaky the the mountains the lack of humanity the lack of traffic yeah i was like we got to go back asap absolutely it's i mean it is it's just one of the most wonderful places in the entire world it gives you a really good idea of what what earth is supposed to look like and how we're supposed to treat the earth and each other you know it's very much so very much so um and i it seemed to me that.
[9:20] Norwegians for the most part were doing pretty well i mean i think it's it's it's a wealthy company i'm a wealthy company a wealthy country i think it's what is it oil and gas that has allowed it to to do so well yes absolutely um and they have so much money because of it that i mean that They're able to be a socialist country that really does provide everything for their people. And they take in a lot of immigrants because they want to literally share the wealth. Where did you grow up? Did you grow up in the States or Nigeria or where? I grew up mainly in Nigeria. When I was three and four, we lived in England. And I moved around a lot, but was in Nigeria for the most part. You know, we'd go to Norway a couple of times a year. I would go from like ages of seven to 13 every summer. I would spend a big chunk of the summer in Switzerland going to school there to prep me for boarding school in England, which I went to for secondary school for high school.
[10:23] And we always spent a big chunk of time in England, too, in the summer. So those were my key places that I grew up. But home base was Nigeria. Wow. It was your I mean, you moved around a lot. Was your father in the military or something or what? No, I think it's just simply by virtue of having family everywhere and being a British colony, you know, in Nigeria, you know, a fairly new country, especially when I was born and everything there is very British. And so it's kind of where everybody ended up at that time. And my dad was a banker when we lived in England. It was because of his job. And, yeah, I spent time in Norway because of my family. Switzerland was because my dad wanted me to speak fluent French. And yeah, but it was really just, you know, that's tons of Nigerians, especially in my generation spent time in England. Yeah. And how's your French? Do you speak fluent French? Oh, I did. I did once upon a time. I've lived here for a very long time and have had no reason to use it. I mean, if you plopped me in the middle of a French speaking country, I'd be absolutely fine. But if you wanted to conduct an interview with me in French, I would to politely decline. Right, right. The only thing that I, my parents taught me in French, and this is when we were like, When we would go on ski trips and we'd be going up the chairlift and they taught us to say, Qui occupe la fromage?
[11:51] Who cuts the cheese, right? Yeah. Of all things. Of all things. Hey, you can say something in French. Exactly.
Toks' Background and Heritage
[12:03] When did you know that you wanted to be an actress?
[12:08] Gosh. Gosh, not until quite late. I was always going to be a doctor. And then when I was applying to schools, I started having this recurring nightmare that I killed someone during my internship. And it was an actual like it was a huge fear of mine. So I decided I did apply to some very good, good schools with pre-med programs. And I got in and then I applied to other places where I would be able to do pre-law and at the end of the day I picked to go to a university where I could do pre-law but I still wanted to do theatre which I had started in high school that was the first time I did it I just thought oh this will be fun and the principal of the school and the head of the drama department thought that I was very talented and so they asked me to partake in a program that they had there which was um a baccalaureate program it was a really amazing theater program and so I did and I really enjoyed it and I always ended up in all the you know plays and things that we did um and then in um college I took one theater class my first semester and it happened to be adjacent to the auditorium and I walked out onto the auditorium the first class and I kind of looked out in there And I thought, God, I've got to do this forever. I have to.
[13:36] And yeah, so I changed my major and my I thought my parents were going to disown me, basically. But instead they said, listen, just do your best. Have a plan B. You know, don't plan to be an actor, plan to work, you know, in the profession in a way you can make money. So my trajectory was always that I was going to work in a theater somewhere in New York. and then do regional theater on the side. And I got lucky enough to actually be an actor and pay my bills that way. Sure have. You sure have. I would hope that it's exceeded all of your expectations. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And when did you land your first, let's say, role Were you like, yeah, I am an actress. God, that's difficult to say.
[14:37] That's difficult to say, because I feel like every time I land a new role, I say that. Because every time I'm like, oh, God, you know, the first time was I had a professor at UMass who came to me and said, PBS is doing this series and they need a host. And I'm just sending this out for us to send students. And I'm just going to send you because you can book it. And I was like, OK, he was right. I did. And I made a full one thousand dollars. Which was more money than I'd ever seen or made in my entire life I was like I'm rich and um yeah I have to say that's probably the first time you know getting paid to be this is my first time doing television and you know it was all me and a camera and a director and a script and um yeah I had I mean I love what I do I always have fun and every single time it's a new experience And every single time I feel like I'm at a different level. So, so when you, when you, when you hear that you got that role, you got that part and you, I just got a thousand dollars to, you know, be the moderate, whatever it was on PBS.
[15:48] What's the first, who's the first person you pick up the phone and call? It was my mom. Your mom. Yeah. Yeah. That's my mom. Nice. Yeah. She's like, always like, yeah, of course they call us too. Like she's, she's never like, Like, my parents are never excited. They're like, congratulations. They kind of, like, expect me to excel. So I'm like, okay, cool.
[16:11] All right. And then what are some of the shows that you've been on that the audience members might know or recognize you from? Ooh, okay. So I was a series regular on the show Castle. They brought me in in the final season to be Castle's partner. I was on the show Veep. I actually played the Kamala Harris character on V. Really? Yeah.
[16:39] I've done, like, you know, like, guest roles on shows like NCIS and Law and Order and, you know, those sorts of things. I did a season of The Rookie because it's the same guys who do Castle. So they, like, wrote a role for me and said, do you want to come play? And I was like, oh, yeah, absolutely. I, what else? What about The Neighbours? Obviously. I mean, The Neighbours is one of my favourites, but unfortunately not a lot of people watched it. Okay, okay. But that was, I mean, one of my favourites of all time. I have been fortunate enough to...
[17:20] Have jobs that have really fulfilled my dreams I mean the neighbors I got to do so much stuff on the neighbors it was so much fun and I got to do a lot of like kind of you know I got to do all my accents and like you know be weird and wacky and on Castle I got to fulfill my dreams of doing my all my own stunts and you know like everything that I've done has like brought a new thing I you know I got to be on Shameless which is one of my favorite shows of all time Veep was one of my favorite shows of all time. And they're always a new challenge, you know? Yeah. It's, I don't know. I'm, I've been really lucky in the world of acting. You've been, you've kind of, you're, you're checking off the boxes with your bucket list. I am. I am. And I always wanted to do voiceover work and I done a lot of that, you know, I what's, what's that like?
[18:12] It's, it's a little surreal. It, it, it depends on what, show so like if i'm doing like um family guy i do so i do family guy beavis and butthead and american dad a lot no family guy beavis and butthead can you like what are your voices in those can you do for those with me is um you know they've pretty much got everything done and then when they need like a like two or three different characters in each episode they'll come to me and be like okay we we need you know there's characters from the south okay there's characters doctor do whatever you want with that you know so i do like different things for them um and then when it comes to something like arcane that was an unbelievable experience it's one.
[18:58] Of the most wonderful and beautiful animated things i've ever watched have you seen it well i i watched some of the trailers and didn't it didn't season two just come out in august or something season two is going to come out in november yeah that's it that's it yeah i mean it did really well like um you know at the time that squid game was number one on netflix it like it was the show that knocked squid game off its number one spot wow they so it's based on a video game so that the people who worked on the animation are the same um studio that does the video game so it's all the same guys they didn't like shop it out to anybody and they really cared about it took them six years to make the first season and it's so beautifully done and they really took their time and it was the first time that I really felt like I could take my time in the studio and really put the amount of depth into it that I would put into an on-camera show so that was totally different and then you know I did DuckTales I was a series regular on DuckTales which is another completely different thing because it's like the tone of it is like you know you're You're somewhere between adult humor and kids humor, you know, so you have to walk that line. And it's really everything that I've done is fun. Tell me when you're doing it, when you're doing the voiceover work, do you. How often do you nail it on the first try or is it sometimes, you know, 10, 20, 30?
[20:26] I mean, I'm I'm pretty good at it. So usually you'll do three in a row. And I'm pretty good at getting it in that first three in a row. Yeah. And if it's something that I'm not getting, I will usually, you know, most actors don't like a line read. And I'll usually just say, tell me exactly how you want me to say it. And I will just marry you because I want to do it the way they want me to do it. Can you give me a line that you would do from Beavis and Butthead? I want to know what your voice is like. I mean, it depends. There's a character that I do play on that in a few episodes. I don't even remember what she sounds like now, but she's the neighbor. And I think she's really shrill like this. And she's a little high strung and she really hates them as neighbors. Love it. Okay. And then what about Arcane? Who are you in Arcane? On Arcane, I play Mel and she's very regal and she's got sort of a deeper voice and she's very relaxed. And yeah, she's a very graceful character. So it's a little bit of a different flow for Mel. Oh, that's much nicer than the Beavis one. I feel very calm right now.
[21:42] Okay. So let's get to Frasier, which is super exciting.
Discussing Toks' Role in Frasier
[21:48] And so let's start with this. I loved watching Frasier. And as you know, I think it is probably one of the most successful spinoffs ever when it comes to these kind of series from Cheers, right? Right. Yeah. And I mean, if I'm not mistaken, Cheers was 11 seasons and the first Frasier was 11 seasons. Yes. And how unusual is that? Very. And then what what to your knowledge, what was the inspiration for Frasier to do another reboot to almost 20 years later? So, you know, Kelsey was seeing all these other reboots come out and he was like, I mean, we could do that. And he was like he had felt like um Frasier still had more life to live um that you sort of saw you've seen like these two very big parts of his life in Cheers and the first Frasier but he still hasn't found love and he still has you know has all of these um.
[23:02] He has, you know, loose ends with his son and, you know, his best friend that he would love to, you know, reconnect with. And so there are all these loose ends that he wants to tie up. And he's doing that in this final iteration of Frasier. And he was really excited to be able to do it. He loves the character. And he, I mean, he still puts his all into it every day. You'd never know he's been playing it for two decades. Yeah. Well, the first season was 2023 to 2024. How did you happen to get mixed up in Frasier? So the casting director for Frasier is, so, you know, you'll sort of like make, you'll have little fans in casting departments, you know, and this casting director has called me in for everything he's ever done. He was the casting director for Modern Family, for instance, and I think I auditioned for Modern Family 10 times and then finally got on it because he was like, now I'm getting you on here.
[24:04] So, you know, he went to his favorites and I was one of them. And when I say favorites, I mean like the first batch of favorites, which I think was like 200. So the people that like, the women who popped into his head, yeah. And then, and initially, honestly, I got the script and I didn't even look at it. I was like, I don't want to do it because Frasier is one of my favourite shows of all time. And I was like, if they wreck it, I don't want to be part of it.
[24:33] And then they came back again and I was like, all right. So I sent an audition in and I thought, oh, she's kind of a fun character. Okay. And then about a month later, I had a conversation with Kelsey and it was a lovely conversation. And I thought, well, it was nice to talk to him. It's like, that's that. Yeah. And then they were they they asked me if I wanted to test. Well, I did. But they couldn't get a test deal together that my agent liked. They she did not think they were offering me enough. And so she came back to me and she said, listen, I don't I think we should say no. And I was like, oh, she said, listen, if they're not valuing you now, they're never going to value you. I had literally just stopped chemo. I had stopped chemo a week and a half before I was right out of chemo. I was exhausted. And I thought, OK, you know what? This is just the universe's way of saying I have to rest because I worked. I worked through my first three operations. I was on a show called Fatal Attraction and they were amazing. I worked through that. I worked through my chemo. I was tired. I have a four-year-old who is at the time three and I was like, okay well, this is the universe telling me I need to rest and so they tested and.
[26:00] A day after the test, I got a call. Two days after the test, I got a call. Do you still want to be on Frasier for my people? And I was like, yes. I was lying in bed just regretting the whole thing. Like, oh, God. Oh, God. And she said, okay, great. We've got a deal together. Can you make the table read tomorrow? And I was like, ah, yeah. So that's how it happened. And I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled that it did because this has been probably the most special work experience of my entire life. Well, I got, I got to see a sneak peek of episode, episode one.
[26:38] Somebody on your team was nice enough to send me the, the first episode that dropped September 19th. So this will have already, it will have already aired, but I'm sure we can go back and watch it. Um, and it was brilliant. You were brilliant. I was laughing so hard.
[27:00] Tell me, do you guys perform in front of a live audience or not? We do indeed. We do. We rehearse for four days and then we, we do a live one and it's, it's, Oh God, it's the most fun. It's the most fun in the world. Did you say you rehearse for four days? We do yeah i mean three days really because we have the table read and then we all go home after that because they want to rewrite everything and then we have um like two full days of rehearsal, um and then on the um fourth day technically fourth day because we do like wednesday table read um thursday friday rehearsal monday we do our camera rehearsal so all the camera people come in and they figure out what their shots are going to be i don't know how they do this they literally figure everything out in one day they're brilliant but a lot of these people be they've been working together since cheers you know they've been they've done cheers they did will and grace they did you know so they know exactly what they're doing but still and then um you know we'll have like a little like tidy up session the day of and then we'll get into hair and makeup we do a speed through and then we go in and we we do a live we do you are really funny tell me and tell the audience like.
[28:29] How would you describe Olivia Finch? Like, what's her personality like? And what does she do? What kind of what makes her throb? So Olivia Finch is the head of the psychology department at Harvard, and she is incredibly intelligent. She is very driven. She's absolutely an overachiever. But she is very stunted in her personal life because she spent so much time trying to get where she wanted to go. And um so you know she doesn't have a partner she doesn't have children she doesn't have anything close to any of that and she is also she's a big old nerd you know she the things that she enjoys doing and likes doing like a lot of people are like what what what are you doing but like to her it's thrilling and because she's a bit sheltered when it comes to social situations yeah um she She doesn't really care what anybody thinks. She's this beautiful mixture of being incredibly sure of herself, but also having no idea how to navigate through social situations. She's very, very socially awkward. And she wasn't initially written that way. I brought that to her, which is very true to who I am.
[29:51] So it's, yeah, they've written towards it quite well. But you get to see her dating and you get to see, you know, I don't think she's ever really had a group of friends before who have seen her for who she is and enjoyed her. And she finally does have this group of friends. And she's really enjoying, you know, figuring herself out through these people who really see her.
[30:15] And, yeah, you also see her sister this season, played by my amazing friend Yvette Nicole Brown, who was that was my request. I was like, if we ever actually see her sister, it has to be that. And she did a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant job, as she always does. And she always brings so much joy and positivity to set, which is what our set is. Our set is a joyous, positive place. And we've been so blessed to only have that kind of person come on and work with us. But you also see through her relationship with her sister that she is, you know, I think part of why she's succeeded so much is because obviously they've got parents that have driven them very hard, but also her sister is incredibly successful and she's just kind of trying to keep up with her, you know? So yeah, that's Olivia. Okay. And is her brother Tabitha? I mean, her sister, Tabitha? No? No, her sister is Monica. Okay. Okay. Okay. You know, you, you have, You have two lines that I remember from the first episode that just stick out because it was so funny. The first was, and if it's the wrong decision.
[31:29] Yeah. Yes. And, you know, it'll make sense when you watch it. And then the other one is where I think you're looking at it. Maybe it was an old boyfriend that's in this shit or a girlfriend. And he's dating a girl. And you're like, a woman that looks uncomfortably like me.
[31:48] I do i remember both of them she's a little high strung yeah yeah yeah for sure okay um, do you know how many episodes are going to be in in season two yes 10 episodes because it's streaming so we only get 10 okay okay well knock it out of the park you guys are off to a great start. Let's, let's talk about your breast cancer diagnosis, if you don't mind.
Toks' Breast Cancer Diagnosis
[32:17] How did that, I mean, let's backtrack for a second. You, if I'm not mistaken in, you know, my notes and my research, you have been vegetarian for about 30 years. Is that correct? No, it's, it was like I kind of a it's a weird journey I never wanted to eat animals as a kid um so as soon as I was able to get away to boarding school I stopped eating meat for the most part I haven't touched a mammal in since I was about 16 um I still ate um fish and poultry in my oh god like about 20 years ago, I gave up dairy, which was life-changing. And then I gave up poultry. Then I was pescatarian for a long time. Then I gave up fish. And then I was fully vegan for about...
[33:11] Six years, which was fantastic. Um, you know, but then because of my diagnosis and because I'm a survivor and because so many, um, well, there are no FDA approved supplements. And so anything can go into a supplement. I am unable to get my B12 through supplements anymore. So now I eat a little little bit of fish every now and then, but still no dairy, no poultry, no mammal, anything. And there's a lot of seafood I won't eat. I pretty much just stick to salmon when I do eat seafood. Explain to me the B12. Why can you not get your B12 through supplementation? So my um oncologist doesn't want me to be taking any supplements because they're not um.
[34:10] There is nothing exactly so you you might not know what's in there and because of that there's no quality control if there is some sort of carcinogen something in there in you know the first five years after you survive cancer are the most important you want to make sure that your body is as clean as possible. So yeah. And I, and you know, I get it. I get it. But yeah, I would rather be fully vegan if I could. Yeah. Yeah.
[34:44] That's really interesting about the, about the supplementation.
[34:48] Well, you know, a great source of B12 is if you get Red Star Nutritional Yeast, that's, that's basically. Is it? Yeah. The way it's grown, it has, my understanding is naturally occurring B12. So that's an option for you right there. Cause you definitely don't want to get deficient in B12.
Understanding the Diagnosis Process
[35:10] No, absolutely not. But thank you for telling me that. That's fantastic. Okay, good. Yeah. All right. So when, when were you diagnosed with your breast cancer? So I was diagnosed in August of 2022. I went in to get a routine mammogram. And they saw some calcification. They said, we want you to get like, they're kind of three different levels of mammograms. So then I had to go get the next level of mammogram, which is more of like a 3D thing. And they were like, yep, definitely calcifications. I had to go in and get a biopsy. The biopsy showed cancer. And so I had to go in and get what they call a partial mastectomy, but it's really, it's just a. Yeah. yeah and um so they took that out but they did not there was one side where they didn't get a clear margin we went in two more times and they still couldn't get that clear margin and my doctor was concerned about that because they didn't see any of that on any of the imaging.
[36:17] So she said you know i i would recommend you get a mastectomy on this side and i said listen let's just do all of it. Let's just get a full, I don't want to worry about this anymore. I've got a small child. What's going through your mind when you basically came back and there was some calcification or there was something suspicious? Are you worried? Are you fretful? Are you chill? No, I wasn't worried at all the first time. I thought, okay, let me go get the second one. It'll be fine. And then they said, you need a biopsy. And I was like, okay, let's go get the biopsy, it'll be fine. And then I got the call from my OBGYN, he told me. And, you know, I was definitely shocked. But at the same time.
[37:07] There's been a lot of cancer on my mother's side of the family. My mother, in fact, has cancer right now. She's got lymphatic leukemia. So something she can live with for a very, very, very long time.
[37:18] But many people have passed from cancer in my family. Many people have had it. So there was this weird sensation of, oh, like I almost relaxed. It's like I had been waiting to get cancer my whole life almost. And I almost relaxed and was like, okay, so I know what kind it is. cool. How do we, how do we deal with this? Um, the one time that I got upset was when I had to call my dad and tell him, um, because I knew it would be difficult for him to deal with. Um, so that I got upset when I had to tell my dad. Um, but yeah, you know, we just got the game plan together. Um, I talked to family and friends and everybody had the things that they were going to to do to help out. Initially, I was just going to have radiation. But after they didn't get that clear margin, the second time that they went in, they also took lymph nodes to make sure it hadn't spread. It had not spread. But instead of being at stage zero, which is what they thought I was, I was actually at stage one. Then I moved on to needing chemo. That was the first time that I I personally was devastated about it because I knew that chemo meant that I would not be able to have, I probably would not be able to have any more biological children.
[38:39] So I did do one round of IVF trying to get some eggs, get an embryo. And we, I mean, I was 48 at the time.
Navigating Treatment Decisions
[38:52] So you know usually at that age you'd need several rounds in order to get something we got three eggs only one made an embryo and unfortunately that embryo didn't make it but I at least had the peace of mind of knowing that I tried um and um yeah that was the first time that I I actually wept from being sick because I thought oh god and then you know I my best friend from UMass um she is a breast cancer survivor she had it about 10 years before I did so I'd gone through it peripherally with her and I knew I knew how hard chemo was um so yeah I was a little devastated by that because you know I wanted to be able to play with my kid and you know just have energy and, as as as much as I'm able to rally under pretty much any circumstance you just can't when you're on chemo, it's just not possible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, where, where did you have all of your surgeries and medical care? I was at Cedars-Sinai.
[40:01] Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was at Cedars and, um, I had that, is that in New York city? It's in Los Angeles. Oh, it's Los Angeles. Okay. Yeah. And I had, um, I had amazing care. I had very good health insurance through SAG. I was very lucky about that. Um, I, um, I was very, very lucky that I was on fatal attraction at the time because that actually, it qualified me. It It was like through my qualification for the next year. So that qualified me for the next year of health insurance. So I didn't have to worry. It was very relieving.
[40:38] Yeah. And my doctor, he's amazing. He made sure that I was comfortable with all my doctors. All my doctors were female, including my fertility doctors. My surgeon was female. My fertility doctors were female. My oncologist was female. Like everybody was female. They're all women of color. Um, and, um, yeah, I, I had an amazing experience with them. They gave me a social worker, different therapists and nutritionists. Um, I had it all with them. I, I was, I was very conscious of how incredibly lucky I was to have that level of health insurance and level of care because it, I don't know how anyone gets through that without it. Mm-hmm. So tell me, chemotherapy, how many rounds, how many weeks apart, how does that work? So I did four rounds, they're three weeks apart. And I also was doing cold capping in order to kind of salvage as much hair as I could. And so I would- What does that mean? What does cold capping mean? I don't know what that means.
[41:52] You're essentially packing dry ice onto your head. Is that painful? I mean, it's painful for some people. I did not find it that painful. It's definitely uncomfortable. Most people do find it very painful. But like I had a tattoo on my ribs done yesterday and I fell asleep. Like I've got really high pain tolerance.
[42:15] So, yeah, it can be. But it does save. I was able to save about 50% of my hair, which was, I mean, I was still able to audition. I was still able to do all sorts of stuff and feel like myself. I was very candid about the fact that I was ill. So people knew. So had I lost my hair, it wouldn't have been, you know. But, you know, initially I did not think that I would care. I was like, oh, well, let me just do cold capping just in case I book a job or something. thing. But I, I was very glad I did because so, so much becomes, so much is taken out of your control when you're going through treatment and being able to look in the mirror and see some semblance of who you are is very, very helpful. And it is incredibly distressing when your hair starts to fall out. It's, it's really, because it really does, it comes out in chunks, you know, and it's just like, you're in the shower and all of a sudden there's just like, a big wad of hair on the ground you know it's really disconcerting you know the way it happens it's it it it kind of makes you feel like you're dying you know because your body is it's quote unquote failing in that way of course it's not it's just it lets go of the hair because it's trying to make sure that it's giving to all of the parts of your body that really need you know nutrients and stuff so it kind of just lets go of your nails and your hair because it's like you You can deal with that later on, you know.
[43:40] But but yeah, cold capping was great. So I would go in an hour before to start the cold capping. Then the chemo itself would take about two and a half, three hours. And then I would stay for an additional hour.
[43:57] Four hours to finish a cold capping and what they do is they put fresh um ice on your head every 20 to 30 minutes um and I mean honestly by the third batch your head is completely numb you're not feeling anything after that um yeah and I was in a really great infusion center as well um it was beautiful there's a beautiful view and everyone was really nice and you kind of had your own little like cubby so you're kind of like in your own space and um yeah I um it was it was hard um but you know the first week afterwards your body is just like no thank you I don't want to do anything you know and um I would really really force myself to eat you know the first Just see, I would get it on Thursday. Friday, I would feel great. I would feel fantastic on Friday.
Chemotherapy and Its Challenges
[44:52] Saturday, I'd get a little bit of nausea and I would lose my appetite.
[44:56] Sunday, the nausea would get a little bit worse and my appetite would completely disappear. So those days I would literally have to force feed myself, which not many people can do. It's really hard to do. What would you force feed yourself? yourself um it was usually pasta pasta bread you know just like because that was really palatable and you know it was i knew it would be filling and um i would just because the more i could get into my system the the the less the nausea was and i did not want to take the nausea medication because my body already had so much poison in it and i did not want to add anything that i did not need to add so i did it without the nausea medication it's also on an incredible amount of steroids because I was allergic to, I mean, they put you on steroids anyway, but I was allergic to one of the chemos. So I would go into, I went into anaphylactic shock because of it. So they had to keep on upping the amount of steroids I was on.
[45:55] So yeah, it, I already had so much poison in my system. I just wanted to, you know, so, and I was drinking tons of water um and um which most people aren't able to do either um i'm really good at mind over matter so i just was doing what i knew would help my body function well um and i didn't have any of the, i didn't you know i i also oh i had um ice on my fingers and toes while i was doing the actual chemo so that i wouldn't get neuropathy um and i was taking um.
[46:33] And for people that don't know what neuropathy is, it's basically tingling in your extremities. Yes. Yeah. Do you know if you do get neuropathy from the chemo, is there a shelf life on that?
[46:50] It's different for everybody. It can last forever. It can last for a couple of years.
[46:54] It's really different for everybody. But if you do, they have cold gloves and cold socks that you can get on Amazon. On and um my cold capping person would actually put it in her cooler because hers was like an insane like freezer and she'd freeze them up for me really really well um and i also was doing acupuncture um i was seeing an acupuncturist who um was a specialist in you know um treatment cancer treatment and i was taking um l-glutamine which really really helps with neuropathy um and that was courtesy of my acupuncturist that I knew that um I could not take any herbs at the time because my liver was already going through so much um but yeah I just you know and then I would force myself to go on walks go outside um you know it it was the first week is really difficult the second week you feel a little bit better but you're still very low energy but that's when I would go back to work and because I was doing voiceover work I was able to do voiceover work at the time um I also had a very low immune system so I wasn't able to be on set because of that I couldn't really be around people um but I have a studio at home so everybody was wonderful and worked with me through my home studio and um then the last week the third week you feel great and then you go back to chemo.
[48:23] Yeah. Yeah. Um, if you don't mind, I'd just like to ask you some, some kind of, I mean, this is very personal, but, but I'm wondering, were you able to salvage your nipples for example?
Surgeries and Reconstruction
[48:38] I was that. Okay. I was. So there is a, so some people will do double mastectomy and and um reconstruction at the same time my surgeon who is also a woman of color i two different surgeons so the surgeon who took everything out and then the surgeon who was building me back up and um so she likes to do it in three surgeries and the first surgery is called a nipple sparing and what they do and i still don't really understand how or why it works but But they go in and they separate the the the nipple from the flesh on the inside before you do the mastectomy. And it sort of forces blood to the area. And then when you do the mastectomy, they put this.
[49:32] It's like a it's like you're being um like you're wrapped in plastic basically like if you've ever had a tattoo it's the same thing that they'll put on your tattoo and so you're basically wrapped in plastic so that your nipples know where to be because there's no nerve there's no nerves anymore you know so that when you get your you know reconstruction you don't have like one pointing up and one pointing down right so um then they you have to wait about three months and then you do the reconstruction um and uh it's you know they're both big surgeries um and um but some people the nipple sparing doesn't work mine did work but i cannot feel a thing they do have surgery now that gives you a little bit it's a little more complicated of a surgery can give you a little bit of feeling in your nipple but it's nothing that is going to um it's nothing that aids in like sexual gratification or anything like that it's just like you can feel it like you can feel your arm yeah yeah so my surgeon said i don't think it's worth it because it it requires even more surgery i want to do that to you but i still have them and i'm happy about that yeah yeah and so you've got implants do you know what kind of material they use for implants now yeah so you can do saline or you can do silicone. I have silicone.
[51:00] The, so the, the silicone, the.
[51:04] Um, looks and feels quote unquote more real. The saline does not. The benefit of the saline is that if you have a leak of any kind, you, it's just saline. If you have a leak of any kind with the silicone, you can have a whole new issue. Um, and you do have to get them swapped out like every 10 years is what is um recommended by the FDA but what a lot of surgeons will do is they'll just kind of keep an eye on it with um imaging like as you get towards that 10 years and what they do now so they used to when my best friend had it done she had the implants put under the muscle that's how they used to do it because there was not there's nothing there but skin once you've had a double mastectomy right um and she had the two-for-one surgery so the way I I did it at the nipple sparing. Then I had the double mastectomy and I had spaces put in and the spaces of a trip. So it's basically a bag of saline and it's got an opening with a magnet around it. And they put just a little bit in and you go in every two weeks and they literally pump in more saline. So you're literally getting your breasts inflating. Yeah, because when they do the mastectomy, they have to take quite a bit of skin when they stitch you up. So even if you're going back to where you were before, which is what I did, you have to stretch the skin out.
[52:32] And then once you've stretched it out that way on the third surgery, they'll go in. And what they do now is they use cadaver skin and they essentially. Oh, actually, no, sorry. They do this in the during the mastectomy when before they put in the spaces. they build you essentially like a.
[52:54] It's like a cage almost with cadaver skin. And the way it's built is so that it's going to scar. It's going to end up being scar tissue.
[53:02] And it gives you the lining that you need at the front of the breast to hold the implant between the front of your breast and the muscle so that you can now have it on top of the muscle instead of under the muscle. Because under the muscle is first of all it's quite painful the um the you know you have to do a lot of physical therapy because now you're stretching the muscles as well um and a lot of women who have it done under the muscles they they like will have difficulty doing like if they do yoga have a difficult doing like a downward dog or something you know or the or like i have all my mobility like you sometimes will lose mobility um i was very conscious of that so i was doing a lot of body work um but um and then also the muscles can push the implants up so they end up up here after a while when they're on top of the muscle they actually end up kind of sagging a little bit to look a little more real yeah you know um but you don't have anything in there except for that cadaver skin and the implant everything else is gone what a uh what a what What
Lessons Learned from Surviving Cancer
[54:16] a journey. What an absolute journey. What would you say are some of the big things that surviving cancer has taught you? Oh my God, so much. So much.
[54:29] There were definitely a lot of gifts that came with it, I have to say.
[54:35] The first is that I am naturally a very anxious person. I'm I'm actually, I'm naturally a worrier. I worry much less. Um, my priorities are completely different. I have far fewer priorities, very good at being like, that's not a problem. Uh, I can take care of that later, letting things go. If it's something I can't do anything about. Um, and, uh.
[55:01] My husband was my caretaker during the pandemic my husband he's a mechanic he stopped working so that I could keep working and um because we had a young child and he was just about to go back to work when I was diagnosed he stayed home and um I you know I was the person who took care of everything all the shopping everything to do with the house or the but like everything thing and he had to take that on you know and um it it it created this beautiful dynamic where we are now really equals because he had to he saw a lot a lot of what i had to do the second week after my first um my first operation he came in he was like i didn't realize how much you do around I just wanted to say thank you. I was like, okay, cool.
[55:54] Nice to hear that. It was, yeah. And now, you know, we really share those duties now. You know, we take care of our family as an equal, you know, as equal partners. It really made us more of a unit. It was very, I think that something like this is actually a lot harder for the caretakers than it is for the person going through it. Because you know when you're going through it like everyone's taking care of you you know and then you're you know like it's everyone's taking care of you and and um he really he he to say he rose to the occasion is an understatement he really did and I think it made us both um appreciate each other even more it made our marriage stronger I mean our marriage always was strong we always have been very much in love and very good friends but it added another layer to that it also taught me that honesty is the best policy with my kid um I have I was honest with him about everything all the way through even though he was so little and so he felt involved he wasn't scared at all about any of it um and um my level of gratitude I've always been someone who comes from a place of gratitude but my level of coming from a place of gratitude has I mean it's it's It's all encompassing now. It's in everything that I do because I was very aware of.
[57:19] That I was so lucky not only to have family and friends who like my best friend came to take care of me during you know I when I after I had my double mastectomy my family was coming in and out my sisters my father my mother my stepmother like everybody was you know we have a nanny who's with us Monday through Friday you know um 10 to 6 to make sure my kiddo is okay and she was phenomenal and I mean I was just really blessed to have so much I was able to do acupuncture which just not covered by my insurance. I had like so many different therapists to make sure that I was okay emotionally. I was able to do massage and body work and a lot of things that people weren't able to do that I know made it easier for me. I was lucky to be working with people who would give me grace if it was a day that I didn't think I could, you know, make it to a recording or something and would let me record from home. Fatal Attraction moved around everything so that that I could get those first three surgeries done, you know, and the final surgery that I had, well, the final lumpectomy I had, I had it the next day after that, I had my egg retrieval. And then the day after that was my final day on set. And they rearranged everything so that it would be the easiest day for me possible.
[58:36] And then on Frasier, I had my double mastectomy in the middle of of filming the first season and um initially we had pushed it to the end when I got the job and then my my surgeon was like this is it makes me nervous it just does like we can push it but I just don't I have a gut feeling that we shouldn't she was just so anxious about you know the fact that we hadn't seen stuff in the imaging and stuff and so I was like well we've only filmed three episodes so I guess I'm getting written out of the show and I went to the the showrunners and And I told them and they were like, yeah, what do you need? And I was like, oh. So then I went home that night and I got a call from Kelsey and I was like, OK, now I'm getting fired. And he was very emotional and he said, listen, I know how actors think. We adore you. This is your family. The show is your home. We will do everything that you need so that you are OK. We'll give you the time that you need. I mean, working with the best people on the planet, it um what they did was they they pre-filmed one thing that i was in they wrote me out of um.
[59:48] How did we do it they they shot me oh yeah they pre-filmed one they wrote me out of a second one and then they planned that right before a hiatus so that i could get the two and a half weeks that I needed um and then yeah I went back after two and a half weeks um and uh yeah everyone was just really great and my mum was driving me to work my husband was picking me up from work so I couldn't drive for weeks and weeks um I mean everybody chipped in everybody chipped in to make it as easy as possible for me. So I just, I realized how very, very fortunate I was. And it also, I've always been someone who, you know, likes to volunteer, you know, and, and do what I can to give back, but it was never really like a focus of mine. And now like anything that I can do for anybody, whether it's an organization or a friend or whatever I will do. Um, because I feel you're like, if you can do something, you should do something. And if we all did that, the world would be a much easier place to live in. And that's why I'm so candid about what I've gone through, because if I can help, you know, one person go to a mammogram that they don't want to go to and find something early enough that they can.
[1:01:10] Go through treatment and live, then my work here is done, you know? So, so, um, what would be your recommendation to women? And I know that men get breast cancer, but much, much, much less frequently. What would be your recommendation as far as getting mammograms?
Importance of Regular Mammograms
[1:01:29] So definitely get your annual mammogram. 100%. Um, I was a little blase about it. I hadn't had one for a couple of years because I breastfed for almost three years. And because I was breastfeeding, I could have definitely had one the second year, but I just didn't. I was like, I'm fine. I'm breastfeeding. Nothing else is going to happen to my breast. How that made sense in my head, I don't know. That's not true. But definitely go and get your annual mammogram. A lot of people think that they're going to be painful. They're not painful. They are very uncomfortable.
[1:02:02] Kind of like as close up as you can get, your arm is in the weird position. And then yes, your boob does get squished between two big like metal plates but you know they they only go as far as they can they're not like you know going any further so it's uncomfortable but it's necessary because the earlier you find cancer and so many well it's it's second only to um skin cancer for women and but 90 of women who who go through treatment beat breast cancer these days the breast cancer treatments are getting better and better and better and the earlier you find it the the less treatment you're gonna need first of all like you might just need a lumpectomy and no radiation and you know but, As soon as you can get it, get to what it is, the better. And I know that a lot of people operate in a place of if I don't know, then it's better for me not to know, you know, like, you know, what is it? Ignorance is bliss, you know, but that's just not true. You know, in this case, knowledge is power. You need to know what's going on with your body so that you can figure out how to fix that.
[1:03:15] And mammograms and, you know, do a self check in the shower. Make sure you're seeing your gyno once a year so that they can do a check as well.
Toks' Plant-Based Diet Journey
[1:03:22] Um definitely i'm begging everybody to please please do that because um the kind of cancer i had i had triple negative which is incredibly aggressive and had i gone possibly even a couple of months later i might not be here right now right right are you i know that you're um for for the most part, vegan slash, you know, plant, plant-based, are you on any particular.
[1:03:53] Eating regimen within that vegan plant-based world, uh, per the recommendation of your nutritionist or, or anybody? No. So, you know, my doctors were very perplexed because I'm so healthy. You know, I don't drink. I don't do any kinds of drugs. I don't, you know, I, I, I exercise all the time. I don't smoke. I'm, I'm so healthy. And they were shocked. They were absolutely shocked that I, I was sick, you know? And I mean, the one place that I wasn't healthy is that I stressed all the time and stress, you know, that's just, if I could add in there too, too, because in watching some clips of you, I remember you saying that for almost three years, you were getting like four hours of sleep a night and sleep deprivation is brutal, brutal. If I had to guess, that's what did it. I had, um.
[1:04:53] I didn't have postpartum, but I, I just, I'm a, I'm a worrywart. And I just worried about my kid all the time. I just thought, I just always thought he was going to die in the middle of the night. It's just, I just, the thing I had and I just could not sleep. I couldn't do it. I could not sleep. My body would not do it. And thankfully I'm in therapy. And finally my therapist, you know, he'd wanted me to go on something and go on something and I wouldn't do it because I was breastfeeding. I breastfed my kid till he was almost three years old. And I i was just like nah i don't want to be putting any poison in my body because of my kid um and um you know finally i did go on something which finally relaxed me enough so i could actually sleep through the night and i love my sleep i love my sleep and now i prioritize a minimum of eight hours of sleep yeah it's definitely incredibly important and another thing i didn't do actually is i didn't play enough i was like work work work work work work work you know and And now we do family vacations all the time, even if it's just like sometimes we'll just like rent a house by the beach and go to the beach for three days. You know, like even if it's just something like that, it's so nice and relaxing. And I definitely feel a difference in my quality of life because of it. We have to learn. Society does not support that. It doesn't support like playing and relaxing. And it's just as important as anything else. It really is.
[1:06:19] Would you say you've always been, until you've kind of come to this epiphany and one of the gifts you've gotten from the cancer, have you always been a bit of a workaholic? Oh, yeah. Absolute overachiever. Where do you think that comes from?
[1:06:36] It definitely has a lot to do with the way I was raised. Nigerians, we are achievers, period, end of story. My mother was a high achiever, she's Norwegian, she was a very high achiever. I mean, my dad went to Harvard, Yale and MIT.
[1:06:54] You know like that's where I come from I've never heard of those schools I know that I mean he's an idiot really but yeah so um so like you know and and I was never there was no you know I was I was born in 1975 there was no let me help you with my homework there was no do I you know do you have homework today like do it do it well get A's I also you know was an athlete I also danced I also played and competed in flute like I did everything all the time and it had to be the best and um I never got any there was never any okay well done or let's go celebrate that it was like okay great you achieved that next so that's kind of how I did I never learned to like stop and enjoy that I did something and congratulate myself and it's not my parents fault that's just the way things were, you know, and I think especially, you know, being a black girl who's going to be a black woman, my dad knew it was going to be rough for me. My dad never treated me the way that a lot of other girls are treated. There was never anything that he told me I couldn't do or wasn't capable of, you know. And so, you know, I did do well at everything. And so I just kept on pushing and pushing and achieving and pushing and achieving and pushing and any downtime felt like like laziness.
[1:08:13] So I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing it on the one hand. Yay. Great. Thank God, because I've gotten to a great place in my career and in my life in general, because of all the pushing and the standards I have and the fact that I, you know, I will surmount any obstacle and all of that, but I never learned how to relax and enjoy. So you're, you're approaching 50, You just turned 49. But as you're kind of, you know, getting on in your life, who who are who are some of the people that have been heroes that have really liked help shape and transform who you are?
[1:08:58] Um my parents definitely you know the people I've spent the most time with but also um my manager um has been like my second mother for the last gosh 15 years um she's gosh you know three decades older than I am two decades older than I am and um I I listen to her a lot she's is a wise woman. We hang out a lot and I, you know, take a lot of, she knows a lot more about this industry than I do. But I would say for the most part, there was an actress named Ruby Dee. She was married to Ossie Davis and she was one of the very first, you know, black actresses to do a lot of film. And she was a big activist and she was.
[1:09:53] Was one of the most wonderful human beings I have ever known. She's very kind, very giving, very thoughtful, very intentional in everything that she did. So you had the good fortune of working with her? I did. We were in a show together in New York that did two runs in New York and one run in Atlanta. And I was fortunate enough that even though they replaced some of the people in the other two, who she had me come with her. And so I spent a lot of time with her, especially when we were in Atlanta. And because, you know, I'd walk her to her apartment afterwards and sit with her for about an hour or two. And we'd just chat and she'd tell me these stories. But also just the way that she moved through the industry and the world. I learned a lot from her in just so much grace and graciousness and the way that she considered others. You know, she was not a selfish woman by any stretch of the imagination.
[1:10:54] And she really solidified in me that one of the best ways that you can be, is to really be observant of those who are around you and inclusive and and considerate and caring you know um she she made everything better wherever she was and uh i i think of her every single day every single day i think of her every single day sometimes i'll be like god how would Miss D have handled this? How do I think she would, you know?
[1:11:26] And then, honestly, I have really curated my chosen family, the people who I am around. Like, you know, I went out to dinner last night with my closest friends here. They are people who come from completely different walks of life. And, you know, they're not people who I all met together, you know. They are all kind caring thoughtful happy people who are easy to be around easy to be friends with thoughtful um you know and um I get I am shaped by those friendships because it's a constant giving on both sides you know and being you know having friends who if you can't make it somewhere where, or, you know, with what I do, that happens all the time. All of a sudden I have a job, you know, it's none of this, like taking it personally or nitpicking or whatever. It's, oh my God, good for you. That's great. Totally understand. Or, you know, someone could just be like, oh, I can't go to dinner tonight. I'm tired. And, you know, the other person is like, well, I'd rather you rest. That's fine. Thank you for telling me, you know, so being shaped by those relationships. And I guess also, honestly, my therapist, you know, I've been with the same therapist for 11 years and he, It was a big part of my life. You know, he's really changed it for the better. Yeah.
Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
[1:12:51] Well, from my vantage point, from where I'm sitting in Austin, Texas, it seems like, Things are going really well for you and you're in a great place. A lot of gratitude, an incredible, loving, caring husband, a beautiful son, a manager who loves the Dickens out of you and is watching out for you. You've just landed on Frazier, you know, incredible parents. Way to be, way to be. You're going into your 50th year. It's really wonderful. Wonderful. I really appreciate you coming on the PLANTSTRONG podcast for being so open about about your journey with with breast cancer. And, you know, I want to close out with a quote that you gave. I think it was at a little press event that you did for for Frazier. And you said that if laughter is medicine, then I'm heavily medicated. And we all could use more laughter, more fun, more play in our lives. So way to be. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Can you give me a virtual PLANTSTRONG fist bump? Yeah. Boom.
[1:14:18] All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Toks. Thanks. Take care. Okay. The new season of Frasier is out now on Paramount+. So check it out if you're anything like me and you used to be a fan of Frasier back in the day. This might be a really nice walk down memory lane. If you are on Instagram, Toks posts a lot of beneficial information on her Instagram account. So I'll be sure to link up to that so you can follow her in today's show notes. I'm really grateful that she was able to take time from her shooting schedule and speak to us during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Up next week on the PLANTSTRONG Podcast, Dr. Dawn Mussallem, a little ray of sunshine, joins us from the Mayo Clinic to talk about some of the outstanding research and studies that show definitively the benefits of a whole food, plant-based diet it in the prevention, treatment, and healing of a cancer diagnosis. It's an episode that you won't want to miss, but until then, always, always keep it PLANTSTRONG.
[1:15:28] The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, and Ami Mackey. If you like what you hear, do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones. You can always leave a five-star rating reading, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And while you're there, make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode. As always, this and every episode is dedicated to my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. And Anne Crile Esselstyn. Thanks so much for listening.
