4 – Valerie's Story: How Early Cancer Detection Led to Pre-Symptomatic Diagnosis

[MUSIC] Welcome to the Cancer Signal, a new podcast presented by Grail, where we discussed the impact of early cancer detection, the science behind multi-cancer early detection, and insight into how this approach has the potential to shift the cancer paradigm. I'm your host, Kim Tibaldo. Our guest today is Valerie, who lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, and has worked in real estate for the past 35 years. At 54 years old, she leads an active lifestyle with family and friends, including her six-year-old granddaughter, Annie Poodle Puppy. She recently took the gallery test, which found a positive cancer signal, and cancer signal origins for pancreas, gallbladder cancer, and breast cancer. And she's joining us today to share her story. Welcome Valerie, thank you for joining us. Thanks, Kim, it's my pleasure. Valerie, I told a little bit about your story, but why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself? So our listeners can get to know you. Sure. So I have London Flagstaff for over 40 years, and I have a very active lifestyle. I'm 54 years old, and I have a lot of life that I had of me to lead. So keeping up with a granddaughter of who's six, and my husband and friends, it's just a great life that I have, and I want to keep it. Fantastic, fantastic. Valerie, can you tell us, do you have a family history of cancer? Do you have any known cancer risk factors? You know, my father, who is almost 80, has prostate cancer, but I don't think that that's something that's a risk to me at all. So I would basically say no. Tell us, Valerie, do you participate in the guideline recommended screenings or doctors suggest for cancer? For example, mammography, colonoscopy, have you been doing those screenings for yourself? It's a great question. I've done-- I had actually a mammogram, maybe a month and a half before I had the test. And so I have been doing those things. One of the reasons I thought-- and I've since learned that this is not the case-- one of the things I thought, oh, when you can check 50 kinds of cancer was, well, maybe I don't have to do a colonoscopy. And I found out that that's not the case. You still have to do it. But that was one of the reasons that I had done that. And I haven't. But I'm going to do that colonoscopy now. Yeah, it's important that this test does not take the place of all of our standard cancer screenings. You're absolutely right. Exactly. Let me ask you, how did you hear about the gallery test? Why were you interested in taking the test? I had read the Tony Robbins book, Life Force. It talks about breakthroughs in precision medicine. And I saw the test. And I thought, that is such a great thing for me to do at my age to have a baseline for my health. I was planning on taking it, maybe taking it, and then doing it every single year, just to keep an eye out. I mean, it's so simple and fast for me. And I was grateful that I read the book and found the test and moved forward on that. So now, right. What did you think about the idea of a blood test that detects a signal shared by multiple types of cancer when you first heard about it? What was your reaction? I thought it was genius. I thought what I had read or what I understood was that there are not cancer tests for a lot of these types of cancers. And so there would be absolutely no way to even test for that. And through my experience, I had absolutely no symptoms with my gallbladder. So I would never have even thought to take a test with no symptoms. You don't put that on your list of to-doos, you know? And so it was-- it's fascinating. And if you're going to do a simple blood test and get the information of 50 kinds of cancers, where do I sign? This is-- it was awesome. OK, so you read about the test in the book. You thought up based on my age and all the other things that are going on a good idea for me to get this test. So then tell us what happened next. Did you talk to your doctor? How did you get the test? Did you encounter any difficulties in terms of getting access to the test? Right. I went-- I went ahead and I talked to my natural path, who is pretty much a primary care person. I wanted to-- I had to have a prescription to get the test. And she actually told me that she would not do it. She didn't have information on it. And I told her it's a simple blood test. And I just needed her to say, OK. And she said, no, I'm going to-- I need to wait. I haven't heard about it. So I said, well, that's OK. So then I went to a second person who was a nurse practitioner. He was at a health care system here in Flagstaff. And he said he wasn't going to do a prescription for me. And I said, listen, it's my body and my choice. It's just a simple blood test. I was shocked that it was so difficult to actually get somebody on board to really understand, just the science behind it or what it was that I was trying to do. I mean, in retrospect, they said it was really expensive test to get this information. But Kim, I think it was pretty inexpensive looking at the big picture for me. So I ended up going online. And they have the physicians from telemedicine. So I filled out the form online, which was very simple. And then I got the prescription and got the test. So Valerie, I think a lot of people would have given up after the first doctor. A lot of people would have given up after the second doctor, but you didn't. Why were you so determined to get the test despite those hurdles? You seemed pretty dogged about getting this test. Right. Well, I mean, it's a great question. And I don't know. I just felt like it's just so smart and so easy. And for my health, I really wanted that information. The more they told me, no, the more I was like, this doesn't make sense to me. And I need to move forward and figure out how to do this. So Valerie, how did you-- so you went online. You had a telemedicine consult. How did you receive your results? Who delivered them? How were they delivered? And what was your reaction when you got the results? Tell us about the results. Well, I received a call from the physicians, the telemedicine physicians. And there was actually two people on the call. And they told me that they detected a positive signal. And they walked me through what the next steps would be. And they said, we really encourage you to get an MRI. And I ended up getting an abdominal MRI and then a chest MRI. And like I said, I had done in a mammogram like a month before. So I thought, well, that's probably-- I'm probably fine on that. But we should check out the gallbladder pinkriest signal. And so the diagnosis that was eventually delivered after those diagnostic tests, MRI, et cetera. They told you that you had gallbladder cancer. Is that correct? They actually didn't. When I had the MRI, the doctor who read the MRI said, I don't see cancer. But what I do see is that your gallbladder is very angry. And I've never seen anything with so many stones in it. So you have to have that removed. And I said, I've got a lot of trips planned. And I said, is this something that I need to do in the next month, through the next six months? Like tell me what I'm looking at so I can schedule this in. And he said-- and I'm grateful for this-- he said, stop it. You need to have your gallbladder removed in the next month. And so I shifted my schedule and got that surgery in. So fast forward to the surgery. I-- the date after-- the surgery, which was fine. You know, I just had my gallbladder removed. They got in the pathology results back and I'll be darned if there wasn't a four and a half centimeter tumor in my gallbladder. And I said, wow, okay. All right. Now I've got to learn all about cancer and what are the steps forward. But the doctor of my surgeon had taken out 1,500 gallbladders. And this was the third. He saw that appeared to be cancerous to him. So he basically knew what he was doing. He took a tiny bit of the liver because he knew what was kind of coming. And a two-live notes, which were very helpful in moving forward with my next surgery plans. So I was grateful to him for recognizing what it was he was seeing and being able to take a little proactive approach for me. - Wow, really, really amazing, quite compelling Valerie. So I understand that you're currently undergoing chemo. But I also understand that you ran a 5K turkey trot around Thanksgiving. So is it safe to say that you're feeling well? Tell me what's happening with you now. - Right. So the standard of care for me is I had a surgery to make sure that there was absolutely no more cancer in my body, which has been a very successful. And then I'm doing six months of chemotherapy because we were able to catch it soon. I'm able to do my chemotherapy is pills. And so I'm two weeks on, one week off. And I feel good. I'm on chemo this week. And I have a lot of energy and I'm able to work. I don't know if that's good or bad. But it, you know, I'm relatively unaffected by this process. And I 100% think it's because it didn't get to that liver. Like it was kissing the liver and at that time, and so we caught it before it became more of a problem for me. - And Valerie, as I said in the opening, also able to be serving that role as grandma and a new parent to a poodle puppy tell us about that. - Well, you think the 5K was a lot. I have to walk that dog a lot, definitely. My granddaughter who's six lives in Flagstaff and we're able to spend a lot of time with her. This afternoon she has an early release day and I'm gonna take her swimming. So, you know, I'm just grateful that my lifestyle and all the things that are important to me are really not that affected because of what could have been a bad outcome. Like I am so blessed to have such a great outcome on this. - Valerie, did this experience change how you view or think about a cancer diagnosis in just general big picture? - Yeah, you know, I didn't, because it's really not in our family, it's not something that was front and center. We didn't really think about it or talk about it, but what I do think is that I'm just, I'm so glad that I did this. And I'll tell you something interesting, when I first went to get this test, especially because it was so hard. I asked my husband, I said, "Hey, are you gonna do this? I'll do this with you at the same time." And he said, "No, I don't wanna know." And which was shocking to me. And I was like, "I am exactly the opposite." Like I want to know, this is important to me. And so after this process, I said, "Okay, now do you wanna know?" And he said, "Yeah, I'm gonna do this after we get all your stuff squared away." So I said, "Good." And you know, Kim, I think it takes courage for people to take the test, especially the first time, because there's 50 kinds of cancers that you could find out that you have, you know, like me. They're like, "Well, you know, is it better not to know? Is it better to know for me? It's better to know." So that's how I can sit here with energy and continue my life right now. - Yeah, they say information is power, right? And we know how important that screening and early detection is in cancer. Absolutely. - Now, what would you say you sort of knew about cancer screening before this whole process? I mean, were you going to a doctor regularly? Were screenings being recommended? Do you have a sense or perception about screening? - This screening experience that I had, or the information that I had about screening, was that you got your mammogram. You had a pap smear every five years if it came up negative. And now that I'm in my early 50s, now I need to have a colonoscopy. So that's the extent of, and I thought, okay, I guess if you do all those things, then you're fine, right? And that is apparently the opposite of the right answer. So that's not the case, especially for me. - What did you know or understand or believe about the importance of early detection of cancer before this versus what you know now? - Well, I think that the early detection, which is what made so much sense when I read that book. It said, if you catch it at stage one or stage two, you can, you know, it's not this huge life-changing project that you're in. It doesn't change your whole life. You have the ability when, or I have the ability, when you, and really run offence with your health and make really good decisions. You have a lot more options when it's early detection than if you are at stage three or stage four, then a lot of your options are taken away from you. So that's what I wanted to do. - And now, what would you say you learned from this experience that would be helpful to others who are maybe curious about the test, trying to get the test or going through the process and through, you know, what do you think would be helpful for others to know from your own experience? - You know, based on my experience with this, it's, it is so easy. It's, there's absolutely nothing hard about getting the box, taking it to your local lab, having your blood drawn, and having so much information about your health that quickly. So I would just, based on my experience, I would say just stick with it. And really encourage people along the way. I looped back around to the two doctors that told me no and I let them know what my result was. And they said, well, one of them said, that's really great information. And now I'm gonna learn more about it. And I have a couple of patients that I think this would be helpful for. So I just getting the word out and really understanding that this is something that has made such a difference for myself and my family in our lives. Like this is a pivotal point in our life. And we luckily are on the right road. - So you've now become an educator and an advocate as well, you're advocating for others, which is really very, very inspiring. Before we go, Valerie, it's been such a joy spending time with you and hearing your story. And I really appreciate you opening up and sharing your story because I do think it will be an inspiration for so many. But Valerie, just tell me your thoughts and hopes for the future. What are your plans? You have this granddaughter, this new, very demanding puppy. You're obviously very active. But when you think about, we're coming up on the holidays and you know, new year's starting. What are your thoughts and hopes for the future for you and your family? - Well, my thought and hope is that in another five months when I'm finished with a chemo, like this is actually gonna be just a dim memory. And I don't know that I would have been able to say that if we fast forwarded a year and I was having symptoms like that's how, how scary it was. And I thought, You know what, I might buy a lottery ticket 'cause I'm feeling lucky, you know? Yep, I've got my trips back on my schedule and at the end of May is the conclusion of the chemotherapy. I already have friends booking resorts and parties and celebrations. So I mean, that's what we should do with our friends anyway, right? To celebrate. This just gives us a really good excuse to have another party. Excellent. Well, we'll be right there with you celebrating Valerie. And again, I thank you so much for joining us on the show today and we will keep in touch and want to continue to follow your story. This is the Cancer Signal presented by Grail. I'm Kim T. Voldow, tune in next time to learn more about the impact of early cancer detection. Based on a clinical study of people ages 50 to 79, around 1% are expected to receive a cancer signal detected result which includes predicted cancer signal origins. After diagnostic evaluation, around 40% of people are expected to have a confirmed cancer diagnosis. The gallery test is prescription only. It is not recommended for individuals who are pregnant, 21 years older, younger, or undergoing active cancer treatment. Gallery does not detect all cancers and should be used in addition to routine cancer screening. False positive and false negative results do occur. For more information, including important safety information, please visit gallery.com.