overcome and become

The host of the podcast, Allie Hansen, expresses gratitude to her listeners and shares her experience during Thanksgiving break. She also talks about a knee issue that started as an ingrown hair but turned out to be a spider bite. She underwent treatment and is now on antibiotics. Allie discusses her frustration with ongoing health issues and the importance of not taking it out on others. She had an emotional breakdown and prayed for answers as to why she hasn't caught a break. She updates her followers on Instagram regularly. Hello, this is your host, Allie Hansen, and welcome back to the Overcome and Become podcast. Let's get motivated. Hello, Overcome and Become. I'm so happy to be here this week, as I am every single week, but it is your host, Allie, per usual, and I cannot wait for this episode. We're going at it with a different approach. This is the approach I'm going to take to all of my future episodes, and it is more on my side so I can produce the best podcast possible, so that's what's going on. Hopefully, they improve, they get better, it's going to be amazing. I want to give a big thank you with Thanksgiving being this past week. I would like to thank all of my consistent listeners that are here every single week, the people that have even listened to one episode, and hopefully, the people to come, the incredible people that we will be bringing in, but I really want to thank the people that are constantly here supporting me, supporting this community, because that's what it's all about. Now, let's get into a little life recap, because I think it's kind of fun doing it, but I want to talk a little bit about Thanksgiving break. It was so fun, probably my favorite Thanksgiving break ever. I had so much family time with my mom, with my dad, with my brothers, one of them that lives up in Salt Lake, so I don't get to see very often my grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins, literally everyone, and it was the best time. I felt like I really got everything out of this break that I wanted to get out of it. It was relaxing. It was exciting. I ate so much good food. I got the quality time that I wanted, and so, overall, it was just an amazing time and also did some damaged Black Friday shopping, so that was super fun. I did that with my mom and grandma and one of my cousins, and then my dad came, and he, for a second, it was so funny. We were in Boem. It's this little boutique, and it's so cute, by the way. Shout out to Boem, but we were in there, and we had a bunch of bags already, and my dad walks in, and he's like, uh, I think I'm going to go look at dirt bikes. And so, we were like, okay, have fun, and then I was like, wait, can you take all these bags? And he's like, yeah, and I thought to myself, that is a true Black Friday man right there because I was also in the Bath and Body Works line, and this guy was standing right in front of me, and he's like, I don't know what I'm doing in here. My wife said, go get in line because you see how long that is. You got to save me a spot, so it was just hilarious, so I love that not only during Black Friday are all these girls like, I have to get all these things, but they bring their husbands along, or their dads in my case, and they're like, can you hold my bags? Can you stand in line? And so, it's just really funny, but anyways, Thanksgiving was the best time, but then something else to fill you in on, so I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet because it could get pretty lengthy, but I got this little red dot pop up on my knee, thought it was an ingrown hair, progressively got worse throughout the week, and really started bothering me, and generally, my pain tolerance is pretty good. All things don't bother me very much, and so I was like, oh, it's fine, and I hate taking medicine, and I always ask myself the question, like, why do I hate taking ibuprofen? Why do I hate taking Tylenol? I decided that with all of the chemo that I took, like, I had to be on that medicine, so if there's a medicine that you don't have to be on, I don't want to take it, even though it would make me feel better, so a lot of times, I just try and suffer through it, but it was pretty bad to a point where I was like, mom, can you give me some ibuprofen, and she was like, yeah, so she looked at it, and it, you know, had gotten a little bit bigger, but she was like, we'll just watch it, and then Sunday night, we looked at it, and it looked awful, so she took me into the urgent care. I got an antibiotic shot in my butt, which, by the way, is so freaking painful. I got put on a just oral antibiotic, and so then we were like, okay, it should improve from here, and then Monday, after I went to school, after I went to cheer, that was my first official day back into the routine. It was bothering me so bad, and I felt so sick, but keep in mind, that Sunday when I went in for my knee, I also got updated on some vaccines that I was due for, and sometimes vaccines can kind of make you feel a little crummy, so I was like, oh, this is fine, you know, and it felt like that. After I got my COVID shot, I felt like I had a fever, just kind of those symptoms, aches and pains, and just not feeling very good, and that was the same thing, and so I knew that it was because of my vaccine, but my knee looked terrible, and so then moving on to Tuesday, which was yesterday, my mom showed it to my pediatrician, and he was like, what the heck? She needs to get in to see the surgeon right now, and so, of course, I'm confused because here I'm thinking, this is an ingrown hair. How does it get this excessive that I need to go see a surgeon, and so we go in there, and he's looking at it, and he's like, that looks like a spider bite, because apparently spider bites are all black, and a bunch of my skin had been eaten away, and the venom in spiders will eat at your skin, and so he was looking at it, and of course, I'm kind of getting the ick. I'm like, I hate spiders, first of all, and now I hate them even more, so I'm trying to be on the phone with Page Pest Control, not actually, but I was definitely on their website, and he got it all cut out. He got all of it cut and cleaned out, because there was a bunch of pressure in there, and just a bunch of pus and stuff, and a lot of bacteria that he wanted to be able to clean out. Lidocaine is so painful, and it's funny, because I've never had lidocaine awake. I've always wanted to know what it felt like, and I can confidently say, I don't need to feel that again. That was so painful, and luckily, we got it all cleaned out. He did an amazing job. Thank you to Page OR, and then I got another shot in my butt, and keep in mind, I was so nervous, because the first shot I got in my butt, I was bawling my eyes out trying to get into bed, because it was so painful, but this one was so much better. Shout out to Christy Jackson. She did an amazing job. I love her so much for that, so that was another antibiotic shot, and then they also switched my antibiotics, so we're hoping that improved, and then my mom called me today, and was like, hey, Dr. Knutson wants to see you, who was my pediatrician, and we were thinking that I was going to have to be admitted to the hospital to be on IV antibiotics, because last night, my knee looked super soupy in the incision, which is where it's not dry at all. A bunch of bodily fluids, I don't even know, that's everywhere, so we were a little nervous about that, and the redness had consistently been spreading, and so we got that under control. I went to my doctor's appointment. He said it looks like it's improving, so I don't have to be admitted to the hospital, which I am so happy about, because at least it would have been in Page, but girl, I like to be home. I like to be in my bed, and I am the kind of person, I sleep through the night. When I go to sleep, I don't wake up till the morning. In fact, last night, I was thinking, when I woke up this morning, I was in the exact same position that I was when I fell asleep. One of my friends got me this weighted dinosaur for my birthday, and I always tuck it up next to me, because I like to feel surrounded and comforted, and chemo is laying right next to me, and I just had my blanket flat, and I'm a back sleeper, which I know might be weird, but I woke up in that exact same position, and I just thought that was crazy. It proved a point to myself that I really do just sleep through the night, which is a blessing, so I definitely didn't want to be in the hospital, and I'm really grateful for that, but that's been my whole knee journey. I'm on antibiotics. I'm improving, and I will keep you updated. I update every single day on Instagram, so that's where you can check out daily updates, and I do want to share something that is going to go along with this podcast really well, so it is a personal experience that happened with this whole knee thing. It was Monday night after it was super bad. I was in so much pain. I got extremely frustrated, and I was so done with everything. I was just done that this has been the 8 millionth thing since 2016, and it wasn't the bite itself. It wasn't my knee itself because, yes, it was painful, but really, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of a deal. Do we need to get it taken care of? Yes, but it's not this thing that's just controlling my entire life, right, so it wasn't this that was really bothering me. It was the fact that I feel like I have never gotten the opportunity to catch a break. I have definitely had experiences where I took out frustration and anger on other people, which is not okay at all, and I really regret those times, so every day, I try and make a conscious effort, especially when I'm frustrated. I really try and be careful because when you're frustrated, you know, everyone has been frustrated before. It's so easy to just blow up, and other people do not deserve that, especially the people that love you most that are trying to take care of you. I got in the shower and just bawled my eyes out, and honestly, this was probably something that was very needed. I don't know the last time that I really just let it all out, but it was needed, and I just said a prayer, and I kind of asked, you know, why I have not caught a break. Why, so far out of treatment, things were constantly happening because, yes, I should be having side effects. I had chemo for two and a half years. It is expected to have side effects because chemo destroys your entire body, but why so much? Why such rare things constantly happening, and so I was confused, and I was done with it, and I kind of thought to myself that I work so hard on my health. I wake up, and I work out, and I do my best to drink my water and to really focus and pay attention to nutrition, so I was really frustrated that all of these things were out of my control, my thyroid, this knee thing, my lymph nodes, and all of the other million things that I've had in the past have been out of my control, and that's something really hard because I like to be in control of my own life. In fact, that's something we've talked about on podcast before is being the conductor of your own life, and I haven't been able to do that, and I'm trying to take a step forward, and things keep pushing me back, and so it really bothered me. I have always told myself that you shouldn't be frustrated because that you have other amazing parts of your life, but that night, I really realized that it's okay to be frustrated sometimes as long as you properly handle it. It is okay to feel emotions and to be frustrated sometimes, but it's also okay to decide how you want to feel because personally for me, when I am mad, I get even more mad because I'm feeling mad. I know that was so confusing, but I just hate feeling like that, and so that's one of the reasons why I've always tried to stay so positive and happy because I hate feeling negative emotions, but that night, I felt for myself that it was okay that I felt frustrated, that I cried, and not because I was in pain. Yes, I was in pain, but I wasn't bawling my eyes out because of pain, but it's okay sometimes. You don't always have to be upbeat and motivating and exciting and have a smile on your face, but when you do want to feel like that, remember that that's okay too. Remember that at the highest points in your life, you're laughing your head off. You're smiling that your cheeks hurt so bad, and it's a good time, so I want you to remember that all emotions and all feelings are so important and that people are going to go through hard things, so let me ask you. As you obviously saw the title of this podcast, it is Why Do You Do What You Do? That is the topic today, so I want you to ask yourself throughout the rest of this episode consistently, why do you do what you do in your every single day life, whether that's big or whether that's small? It could be as big as why do you have the job you have or why do you brush your teeth in the morning, and what purpose do you have to do that because I have had some eye-opening experiences today, and I actually then asked some questions that I feel really honored about, but it's personal to someone else, so I'm not going to share it on here, but I want to share why I do what I do every single day because to me, it's important that you hear someone else's experience, and then as you think about this question throughout the entire episode, and you ask yourself and ask yourself and ask yourself, you can figure out why you do what you do because it's going to make your life so much better even through those hard times. If you can figure out why you do what you do, it's going to make it 8 million times better. This is why I do what I do, and by far the one that stands above all, the reason that I am so grateful to just wake up and open my eyes and breathe every single day is because I almost lost all of that, and the thought of that just breaks my heart. The thought of not being here anymore really just, it tears me down, and so the gratitude that I feel to still be here is unlike any other, and I really wanted to go more in depth in this. I don't want to be controlled by other things, and I don't think anyone should be controlled by other things. You should never be controlled by one thing. I did not want cancer to be who I was, and I had a couple of experiences that made me feel like cancer was all I was, and honestly, two and a half years of intense chemotherapy makes you feel like cancer is your only life. It makes you feel like chemotherapy, hospitals, hospital beds, vitals, surgeries, bad tasting things, constantly being nauseous and sick, and chemotherapy, it felt like that was my lifestyle, and I didn't want it to be. I never wanted it to be, and so when I ended all of my treatment, I was so excited because I was done. I was done with cancer, and it turns out I am done with cancer, but I still struggle with so many things. I still have all of these side effects, hence my thyroid. I made a promise to myself that I wasn't going to let those things control me either. With everything that you go through, it should not be who you are. It should never be who you are. I have places that I want to be, and this might be interesting to some people, and maybe some people don't think like this, but this is how I think. I have the exact vision of the woman that I want to be, the lifestyle that I want to live, the things that I want to wake up and do every single day, and a lot of them aren't very far off of what I'm doing, but I always have different things that I want to change up, different places that I want to improve in my life, and in this vision, I don't picture all of these illnesses or injuries or negative things because you just don't plan that into your future, but that's why it's so important that you don't let it decide who you are because it's not. I will never look at someone and say, oh, they're the person that had cancer, or maybe even if it's a special needs thing, I never ever look at someone or want to look at someone and be like, oh, yeah, that's that Down syndrome kid. Oh, yeah, that's that autistic kid because, one, those are things they can't control. Those are things that they did not choose for themselves, and, two, that should never be how you view someone. That is exactly what the definition of judging a book by its cover is. You have to get to know the person, and they are worth so much more than that. Going off on a little side tangent of Down syndrome kids, obviously, it's easy to see, and it's hard not to let your mind just go to, oh, yeah, they're the kid with Down syndrome, and I'm not saying you're a terrible person if you ask maybe your mom or whoever you're with, oh, they have Down syndrome because that's not bad at all. People are genuinely curious in the kindest way possible, but that shouldn't be all they are. I met a little boy the first six weeks I was up in Salt Lake. He was this little Down syndrome kid, and he was the sweetest person I have ever met in my entire life. His family went to the zoo and bought me this little stuffed animal otter, and I still have it seven years later, and it means so much to me because of who he was. And so it's important that you don't let things define you, but you don't try and define other people. Asking myself the question, why do I wake up and do what I do every single day? Why do I wake up and make my bed in the morning? Because I know that it's going to make me more productive. Why do I wake up and brush my teeth? Because I can't function without brushing my teeth in the morning. Why do I wake up and pee? Because I have to pee. I need to feel relief. Why do I wake up and go to school? Because I have an urge to learn. I want to grow my mind. I want to strengthen my knowledge, and I want to be able to be smarter so that I can do more things in this life. Why do I get ready and go to work? Because I want to look professional. I want to make money to supplement my podcast, to have fun, to be able to invest into my health, to be able to buy gifts for other people, to be able to save money for future businesses, a future house, a future car. Why do I go to cheer? Because I love to dance. Because I have friends in dance, and I love to hang out with them. Why do I spend time with my family? Because I know that they're the people that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. Why do I hang out with my friends? Because I know high school is a place that I always want to look back on, is a place that I never want to forget. And I love my friends, and I love the memories we build together. And I cannot wait to tell my future kids about those memories and stories, going all the way back to, why did I wake up and take 27 pills at a time every day to stay alive? Why did I get a port implanted into my chest and sacrifice so many things? So many things to make my cancer journey easier. There are so many whys you could ask yourself, so many questions that you could ask yourself. Why am I friends with this person? Why do I do this? And you might not even know. You might have to take a step back and think about it. Some of those bigger things, and I'm going to be honest, I spent hours thinking about what I was going to talk about on this podcast, because I just could not come up with it. And then when I finally came up with it, I still spent time thinking about, hmm, why do I do what I do? Why do I do that? So ask yourself, why do you do that? Yourself wants to know. And when you do know, you can help yourself a lot, but you can also help other people. Because when I figure out the why behind what I do, I know who I am. I know the kind of energy that I want to put off. I know that I want to be a positive and uplifting person and a friend to all. When people walk up to me and they are like, you're so upbeat and positive, I love it, because that's something that I am trying to strive towards. So figure out, maybe even if it's three words, three describing words, what energy do you want to put off? What would be your three dream words that if someone walked up to you and said, what would it be? Because your why defines that. And then if you break down your day and you come up with something and you're like, wait, why the heck do I do that? And you have no good reason for it, and maybe it shouldn't be in your life, because everything that is worth your time is going to have a purpose behind it. Ask yourself that question and figure it out. Do whatever you need to do to figure it out. Write it down. Think about it. Tell someone. Because I like to look at it as adding so much more spice to your life. Your life can be so much more exciting and have so much more spice if it's fun and uplifting and you know who you are. So now we're going to finish off with a quote, and that quote is, you didn't go through all that for nothing, babe. And I love this quote. And once again, found it on Pinterest. Doesn't have an author. Just want to preface that now. But I love this because you don't go through everything for nothing. If you go through a bunch of trails, it is preparing you for something incredible. And I know that. I know that 100 million thousand percent that you have so much capability to do absolutely incredible things in this world. And those incredible things look different for everyone. Everyone is so different. Everyone is amazing. Remember that. And remember this podcast. Share it with everyone you can think of. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you all learned a lesson from this. I know I definitely get a lot out of my own podcast because preparing for them, verbally talking about them, and then breaking through my nerves to be able to post them helps me learn a lot. And if you're wondering, before I post every podcast, I get very nervous. Because I'm like, what if it's not good enough? What if people don't like what I said? What if I said something wrong? Because we always make mistakes. I always make mistakes. And so I get really, really nervous. And I try not to show it. And that's okay. But I hope you all have such an incredible week and an amazing holiday season. I know Paige, unfortunately, maybe fortunately for some people, is finally breaking into the chillier months and the cold weather, which a lot of people really like. I don't love. But most importantly, have an incredible holiday season. Because we're about to be in December. Christmas is right around the corner. And it's such a fun time of year. There's so much joy and happiness and giving. So take advantage of it. Live in it. Thrive in it. Remember, you are worth so much more than just living. Thrive in your own life. I love you guys so much. And I cannot wait to talk to you guys next week for another very exciting episode. Bye!