♪ >>On this episode of The Own Your Now Show... >>By the time you are 30, we should be doing breast cancer risk assessment.

We have a lot of young women who are getting breast cancer when they are in their 20s and in their 30s.

Unfortunately, African American women are 41 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than our European descent sisters.

>>We're filling our cups with conversations that unite people with Dr. Kelly Edwards, family nurse practitioner.

>>And Erica L. Taylor, women's reproductive health advocate.

>>I was diagnosed with uterine fibroids in 2008, and it was after first being misdiagnosed with nothing.

I had to go see another OBGYN to discover that I had these tumors.

I didn't know what uterine fibroids were, I thought they were cancerous.

I just knew that these things had invaded my body, and I had no idea what was going on.

>>And you don't want to miss our "Vibe in the Box" guest, violinist Bell Darris.

♪ >>Grab your cups, and let's fill it up.

It's all coming up on The Own Your Now Show.

>>Funding for this episode is made possible by Generate Health, the champions of family and community, friends and supporters of the Own Your Now Show.

Thank you for supporting this program.

♪ >>Welcome to The Own Your Now Show.

I am your host, Tracie Berry-McGhee, also known as Divine Tea.

>>And I am Yolonda Lankford, and they call me what?

>>Lady Yo.

>>Yes ma'am, yes ma'am.

>>And we want to welcome you to the Own Your Now Show, where it's all about wellness, opportunity, knowledge, and empowerment.

Lady Yo, Lady Yo, Lady Yo.

>>Yes.

>>I'm loving the lavender.

>>Thank you, and you are looking mighty spiffy in your bright green.

>>Yes, I'm calling this my Wicked.

[laughs] >>I love it, I love it.

>>I've got to ask you, what's in your cup?

What are you sipping on?

>>I am sipping on some tea with a little honey and two chips of peppermint.

>>Okay, that sounds a little healthy with a little sweet, with a little sweet.

>>And what are you sipping on, ma'am?

>>I'm sipping on my black coffee.

No sugar, no cream.

And I started adding a little cinnamon, because let me tell you, my wellness tea- some little tea, y'all come on in, my wellness tea tip, you can add a little cinnamon to your coffee because that has some antioxidants, and we're going to learn a lot about that.

But my tip is we don't want to keep the doctors away, we always say that.

Because you need to find a doctor that you can trust, an advocate that you can trust so that you can be totally transparent.

That's important.

>>And you know that leads us right into conversations that unite people.

And we have our special guest, Dr. Kelly Edwards.

>>That's right y'all, get ready for conversations that unite people.

And we'll also have our advocate, Erica L. Taylor.

♪ >>Welcome, welcome, welcome, Dr. Kelly Edwards.

How are you today?

>>Fabulous.

>>Yes you are!

>>You know what, we've got to ask you, what's in your cup?

What are you sipping on?

>>I'm drinking from the fountain of youth.

>>Which is water, H20, that's it, that's it.

And you look good.

>>Yes, and everyone else has to get them some water.

Believe me, water does the body well.

We're going to jump into it.

We're going to talk to you like some girlfriends.

>>Let's do it.

>>Hormone imbalance and the role it plays in a woman's life every day.

>>Okay, so hormone imbalance- let's just start off by saying that from the time you go through menarche, which is when you start your period around 12 or 13, you're on a rollercoaster of hormone imbalances.

But the most conversations I'm having now are women who want to know, am I in menopause, am I in perimenopause.

So when I explain to women, yes you are hormonally imbalanced, because the first part of your menstrual phase is one level of hormones.

When you ovulate around day 14, the hormones switch and then some hormones drop and some hormones rise.

So you're constantly in a state of imbalance.

Now some people, they do well with their imbalances through their menstrual phases, but then at a certain point you start to notice certain changes, the way that the hormone imbalance affects you.

And it affects every aspect of your being, from how you sleep at night, how you feel, like even temperature regulation, mood regulation, how you get along with your peers, your loved ones, how you feel socially, how you feel intimately, everything is different.

So a lot of women want to know, well when do I go through menopause?

Menopause is when your periods have stopped for at least one year.

Up to that point, if you're still having a menstrual cycle, you are not in menopause, you are in perimenopause.

Perimenopause can last 5 to 10 years, that's a long time.

>>Did you see me raise my eyebrows?

>>So it's a long time for you to be going like this- up and down, up and down, up and down.

Now some people have predispositions to have extreme symptoms.

People have underlying mood disorders, anxiety, depression, they're going to experience their hormonal imbalance different than a person who is more mood typical, that don't have clinical mood disruptions.

So yes, if you're having a period, you have hormonal imbalances, by the time you're 40, your hormones are going up and down.

You will not be in menopause until you stop your period for a whole year, but there's a lot of stuff that's happening.

>>That rollercoaster.

>>I like that you said that sometimes people- we are predisposed to certain things, and I'm so glad we're having this conversation, because these are not conversations that our parents typically had with us, or even our grandparents.

So I'm glad that we're breaking the cycle.

What about the screenings?

Because now we've got social media, we've got our mammogram robes on, letting everybody know what is happening, but there are some screenings that are absolute musts, and the fact that you said 40- what are some of the screenings that are absolute musts for us?

>>Let me just say this before I forget.

I get a lot of questions- do I need to have my hormones checked?

There's a couple of hormones that you should have checked for medical problems, like diabetes.

If you are a diabetic, you're going to have more hormonal imbalances.

If you have thyroid dysfunction, we should check your thyroid that can cater to hormone disruption.

But as far as checking a woman's specific female hormones, that does not have to be done until you have missed your period for at least three months in a row.

There's not a whole lot I can tell you about your hormone imbalance that I know that you have unless you've missed your period for at least three months.

So let's just say that.

So basic screenings.

By the time you are 30 we should be doing breast cancer risk assessment.

We have a lot of young women who are getting breast cancer when they are in their 20s and in their 30s.

Unfortunately, African American women are 41 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than our European descent sisters.

You're more likely to die at a later stage.

So by the time you are 30, your provider should be doing a risk assessment.

Who in your family has breast cancer?

Your mom, your aunts, even your cousins.

We need to know that information.

So breast cancer screening, just a risk at 30.

If you have a strong family history, like someone close to you, if they were in their 40s and they got breast cancer, we need to be doing mammography when you're between 30 and 35.

Between 30 and 35.

But generally, a mammogram at 40.

You need colon screening by 45.

We don't need to check your bones until you're about 65.

We should do mental health checks at every single visit.

Every single visit, we need to check that people are well in their mind and in their spirit.

>>You know, Tracie has daughters, I have daughters.

How do you suggest that you help your daughters find the right doctor, the right person?

>>So if you're looking for someone to be in the walk of your health for a lifetime, you might want to try to find a younger provider.

A lot of us want brown providers.

However, we don't have as many to go around as we would like to, so I would start off, try to find someone who's in an age range that maybe can grow with you.

If you'll prefer a female provider, which a lot of us are preferring females now.

Get your female provider.

You have to shop.

Make that first visit, if you feel like you can talk to this person, they're answering your question, your provider should come in with a basic knowledge of you.

They should come in saying, "I've gone through your chart, this is what I see," or just be asking the questions about your family history, your emotional history, your mental well-being.

I like to know, are you happy with your job?

Do you have a good social network?

Do you have the adequate space, is your space conduit to well-being, so you want somebody who can be holistic.

>>You have that bedside manner.

Everybody wants to lean in.

Let's talk, girl, like we can talk about this forever.

>>I told you, we're going to talk about it like we're girlfriends.

>>And we literally, we were talking to some women about you coming on, and one of the- we call them Owners, y'all, y'all are Owners.

One of the viewers said to us, if you have had- she said she had a hysterectomy, she had fibroids and everything was removed, does she need to continue to go to her OBGYN, or does she transition to her primary care physician?

>>Absolutely come to your OBGYN at least every other year.

If you notice, your primary care provider does not get you undressed.

So when you come in to see your OBGYN, you're naked besides your socks.

I often want you to take your socks off, too.

So you can tell a lot about a person's well-being just with their skin, at different areas of the skin.

So I think it's still valuable to come in to see your OBGYN at least every other year, because we look at the body and women differently than sometimes the primary care provider.

>>That's a good one.

>>All of the information was good.

>>Get your treasure chest.

>>Yes, yes!

>>Because you can have other tumors that develop in your lower abdomen where your ovaries or your uterus used to be.

And then also there are changes that happen in the urogenital area with menopause, that we're going to be the first one to see.

And you know what, ask those questions, people are still shy to say that intimacy or penetrative sex is uncomfortable, it's dry, they don't like it.

>>Let me tell y'all something.

We're going to keep having her, y'all will have to come on the B-side, because I know we have to wrap up.

We want to know your wellness word.

I wanted to ask, what is your balance?

What do you do to balance?

>>I change my wellness word depending on what season I'm in.

Right now I'm in the season of prioritization, because you cannot have success in anything that you have as a goal, you have to set as a priority.

So prioritization is something that I'm personally trying to make sure that I'm doing on a day to day basis.

>>I like that.

>>Look, we like that, and I know you all are also going to like Lady Yo's one-on-one tip.

Lady Yo, what is your one-on-one tip?

>>You are enough.

>>You are enough, y'all hear that?

You are enough.

Say that again.

>>You are enough.

>>Awesome.

You have taught us so much, like we constantly, you reaffirmed the things that we knew, things we didn't know, and we need to have you on again.

We thank you so much.

>>You're welcome, thank you.

>>Listen, listen!

Next, coming up on our conversations that unite people, we are going to have Erica L. Taylor.

We've got more tea, y'all.

>>Yes, we do.

♪ >>Welcome, welcome, welcome Erica L. Taylor.

Erica.

>>Yes, yes, yes.

>>Sister, what's in your cup?

What are you sipping on?

>>I am sipping on some dark chocolate with sprinkles.

>>I bet you are sipping with some sprinkles.

I see that all over you.

That's a good thing too, that's a good thing.

Now in your bio, you said, "Documentary to making cookies."

What speaks to you most?

>>I feel like they both speak to me equally, because they're both extensions of who I am.

So I love documentaries, I've been a documentary producer working on a docuseries for over 20 plus years, but the cookie thing, that speaks to me as well because it's about love and legacy.

It's named after my grandmothers.

And so I feel like they both speak to who I am, they will both leave a great legacy and something for other people to remember me by, but they also bring joy and positivity to others, and feeling and emotion, and so I feel like they're both my babies.

>>And we love some positivity.

>>Yes we do, and cookies baby.

>>We love those too.

>>They're both her babies, they're our babies.

That's just delicious.

You know, the thing about it is how you tie everything in.

I want to talk to you- as a therapist, the women come in and they deal with so many different things, especially in our culture.

You, as a reproductive health advocate, talk to us about Red Alert?

>>Absolutely, so Red Alert is an extension of my own story, it's a personal documentary.

I was diagnosed with uterine fibroids in 2008, and it was after first being misdiagnosed with nothing.

I had to go see another OBGYN to discover that I had these tumors.

I didn't know what uterine fibroids were, I thought they were cancerous.

I just knew that these things had invaded my body, and I had no idea what was going on.

And there wasn't enough information out there for me online, my friends didn't know anything, my family wasn't talking, so I took it upon myself to get more information, and this was after years and years of pain and suffering and treatments.

I went from being diagnosed in 2008.

My physician said she wanted to do like a looksy, she wanted to do a laparoscopic surgery to go in and take a look to see how many fibroids I had, what was really going on in there.

So she told me that recovery would take just a couple of days, it would be okay.

So of course I trusted that.

She went in and did the laparoscopy, and I woke up and all the fibroids were still there, but she took my appendix out.

>>What?

>>I was floored.

I wasn't quite sure what the protocol was for that, how we ended up there, and it was a very enlightening experience, so to speak.

I was going through some other domestic issues at home as well, and so she had no way of knowing that, but it made the recovery very difficult for me.

So from there, I dealt with uterine fibroids for years, dealing with the excessive bleeding, the frequent urination, the painful intercourse, just the embarrassment, having to carry a change of clothes with me.

Things not fitting well, feeling tired all the time, anemia, craving ice all the time, things that we see a lot of our sisters doing.

So I dealt with that for years, and I moved out to California from Texas, and I found a clinical trial.

At that point in time, I was out there trying to be an actress, y'all.

>>I bet you were, darling.

>>There was no health insurance, just to be straightforward with you.

So I saw a clinical trial that was happening, and so I answered the call for the clinical trial, and I remember going into this little room that was like a little broom closet almost, with this table.

And there's this doctor, and there's another young lady there who was, it's almost like she asked her to come in there off the street.

I don't know who she was, but I knew she had to have a presence there, because this was a male physician.

So he started to do a transvaginal ultrasound, something that I had never had before, where they insert the wand in there.

And so he just said, "Oh honey," and I said, "Wait a minute, what did this man just say?"

And he said, "Oh honey, no one told you?"

And I said, "Told me what?"

And he said, "No one told you?

You need to have a hysterectomy right now."

I said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I am in my mid-30s, I don't have a man, there are no prospects.

What are you talking about, you want to rip everything out, I'm confused."

He said, "There's so many uterine fibroids I can't count them all, and the only way to fix this is a hysterectomy."

So of course that caused tears and confusion and concern.

And so at that point in time I didn't know what to do.

Fast forward some months later, the Affordable Care Act was introduced, and I was able to get some health insurance and see a fertility specialist who also specialized in women's health and uterine fibroids.

So I had a myomectomy, I had an abdominal myomectomy where they make an incision that's larger than a c-section incision, and she removed the fibroids.

She told me she could save my uterus, and I was excited about it, but unfortunately when she went in she ended up removing 22 uterine fibroids from my uterus, scraping endometriosis off of both of my ovaries.

And when I was in recovery I started to fade out, as my mother said.

I started to faint, and I was having an allergic reaction not only to the pain medication, but I was also hemorrhaging because I had so many cuts to my uterus.

So I spent about seven days in intensive care.

>>This is advocacy work, because not only do we need someone to advocate for us, but you had to learn to advocate for yourself in the process.

>>And little did I know, that was only the beginning.

And I'll give you the fast forward version, but while I was in the intensive care unit, the physician came in while I was still groggy and out of it, and asked me if it was okay if she gave me some blood.

Well, I was uncomfortable with blood transfusions, but she waited until my parents had left because she knew they would not want that to happen, and so she asked me while I was on these heavy pain medications and right after treatment.

And so she said, "Just scribble something here," some random piece of paper.

So I prayed.

I prayed about it, the next day my blood levels started to rise and I started to feel better, and then I was taken out of intensive care.

>>You know, that story is miraculous, that you are here sitting with us here today.

>>And I think it's probably common.

>>It's more common than we think.

Now, you turned that into a documentary.

So I have a question, what advice do you have for a young person who says, "I want to create documentaries."

Do you suggest they do it on their own life, or on a family member's life?

What would that sound like?

>>Absolutely, so we talk about this a lot in the advocacy space for documentary filmmakers.

I'm also president of an organization called the Documentary Producers Alliance, where we advocate for documentary filmmakers.

And so we talk about the ethics of documentary filmmaking.

So when you're looking at a topic for a documentary, you definitely want to be able to connect to that topic.

You know, there are some amazing stories out there, but you have to ask yourself, as a filmmaker, am I the right person to tell that story?

Will I be the person to be able to project the right image of the participants within this documentary out into the world?

Am I the person that should be able to do that, or should do that?

And so if that is not the case, then you have to really take a step back and think, okay maybe I can refer this person over to another colleague of mine that may be more suited, or may have had that same experience that this person has had.

>>Thank you.

>>You can tell that you have done the work.

You're on the other side, and you're advocating for others, and we're just blessed that you're in our space to be able to see that work.

I'm going to have to ask you, what is your wellness word for the day?

>>My wellness word today- I actually want to say what I always say to people, it's a phrase that I use, I've used it on my websites before, but I believe that we are all connected and our lives are a chain reaction resulting from a simple act of love between strangers.

>>That's it, that's it.

>>You know, that's one of my favorite words, Tracie, love.

[laughs] >>Love, it is.

That is what it looks like when we can come together and receive the wellness tips that we have received earlier.

We talked to Kelly, talking about the value of us being committed to the process of getting the resources that we need.

We just love when we can talk about wellness and see that when you have a good advocate, that you can make a difference.

Lady Yo, what do you think about this?

>>It's all fabulous information that we can share with other women.

I think that's the most important thing, is that we decide to share, and not be ashamed, and not be ashamed.

>>So we tapped into our Own Your Now flow.

Lady Yo, you talked about your word being 'love.'

Is there anything else?

What other word would you want to give us?

>>You know what?

Enough.

>>Enough.

>>Enough, yes ma'am.

>>Well, we know that we are going to make sure that we continue to be enough, and we understand the value of knowing that love starts when we can come together collectively and know that we are all well.

We're going to continue the process.

But before we go, Lady Yo, we're got to ask you, because y'all know we've got the "Vibe in the Box" coming up.

Who is our "Vibe in the Box" guest?

>>Tracie, we have a phenomenal young lady.

Her name is Bell Darris, and she is a violinist.

>>Well you know what, I can't wait to hear her.

Until next time, make sure that you do what?

>>Keep sipping peace, love, and positivity.

>>Remember, tomorrow isn't promised, so own your now.

♪