Transcript generated from the episode’s audio. Speaker names are identified from the context of the conversation rather than from recorded speaker data, and automatic transcription may misspell names and terminology. Please refer to the video for the authoritative version.

David Raubach: Thank you for joining us today on this episode of the Cancer Project podcast. We’re really excited and privileged to have Shannon Miller with us today. Many of you may know her as a gold medal gymnast. She was in the Olympics in 1992 and 1996, an Oklahoma legend, but she is also a cancer survivor, and we’re going to talk a little bit about that experience and just her journey with survivorship and some of the things that she’s doing today to help advocate for cancer screening, awareness for different treatment options, and just journeying through that survivorship process and all of the challenges that come with that. So, Shannon, thank you so much for joining us today.

Shannon Miller: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

David Raubach: So, I know we have ovarian cancer awareness month and that’s obviously something that’s top of mind for you because that was the type of cancer that you had. So, for those of our listeners that maybe aren’t familiar with that part of your story, tell us a little bit about your experience with ovarian cancer.

Shannon Miller: So, I was diagnosed in 2011, but I would say that my journey really started in late 2010. That year had been a great year. I had launched my company devoted to women’s health, ironically. And I was even doing a radio show before podcasts were huge.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: And we were talking, I was interviewing physicians and nurses and health experts on all these topics. And in that fall, we talked a lot about cancer awareness, early detection, how important it is to get to those doctor’s appointments, all these great things. And it was about that time I looked at my calendar one day and saw that I had to be out of town for work on the date of my next OB/GYN appointment.

David Raubach: Okay.

Shannon Miller: So, I called up absolutely going to cancel, postpone the exam until I, you know, had more time. And as I got on the phone, I was put on hold. And just during those few moments, I thought, I’m not walking the walk here. I’m an advocate for women’s health and I’m not doing the thing I’m asking of others. So, I ended up that morning taking an available appointment. And it was that appointment that my doctor found a baseball-sized cyst on my left.

David Raubach: Okay.

Shannon Miller: And that sent me into this whirlwind of tests and scans. And by January of 2011, I was waking up from surgery to find out that it was ovarian cancer.

David Raubach: Wow. And how old were you at this time?

Shannon Miller: I was 33.

David Raubach: Wow. That’s a new mom.

Shannon Miller: Yeah. That’s so young.

David Raubach: So, and what was the, what were those first emotions like? I mean, again you’re in peak physical condition, you’re an advocate for health and wellness and then suddenly you have this unbelievable, traumatic, life-altering medical thing happen to you.

Shannon Miller: I think at first it’s you’re just world stops. Everything just is turned upside down and I was a new mom at the time. Our son had just turned a year old that fall and so you’re just dealing with the emotional, the psychological, the physical. It’s just all of it and it’s all happening at one time and it feels like there’s just so many questions and so few answers and I think it’s that loss of control and here I had been this elite athlete for the better part of my life at this point and as an athlete my job was to know everything that was going on with my body, right? You don’t fly around 10, 15 feet in the air and not know. And so this was kind of that first wakeup call of you’re not listening to your body anymore. I was busy taking care of my son and focused on my work. I wasn’t considering the stomach aches and the bloating and the weight loss. I could chalk those up to just kind of female issues or body after baby and just crazy things and move on and just push forward.

Shannon Miller: And so, kind of during that time, I think there was a lot of, there were a lot of lessons learned. And one of those was to listen to my body and also speak up when something doesn’t feel right. But I think also it’s you don’t know what you don’t know, right? And so it’s reaching out, getting information, asking questions, not being afraid to ask the questions. And I think that was really me, right? I’d go into a doctor’s office, tell them I felt fine, and move on. And I would forget about those issues that I had or I would get just, you know, kind of that natural intimidation of, okay, well, they have lots of things to do. They’re very busy. I just I don’t need to ask any questions. And so now I come in with my list of questions. I sit there, I ask them, and it works out so much better, and I feel better. I’m more informed about my health. And so I always encourage everyone, but in particular women to just really ask questions. Ask about any health concerns. Write it down because you know once you get in there and you put on that paper gown, you’re not going to remember what you wanted to ask.

David Raubach: Yeah, I love that. I think that one of the things that we talk about at our cancer center at the Oklahoma Proton Center is patients being their own best advocates. And that’s really true. And I think you’ve talked a lot about that, which is you have to know yourself physically. What are the side effects that I’m feeling? What are the things that don’t seem right with my body? But then also being willing to go in and ask questions. And I like what you said about writing the questions down ahead of time because it is overwhelming once you walk into that room. What were some of the just very practical steps that you took going through the treatment process to feel like you had maybe a little bit more ownership over what was happening?

Shannon Miller: I would say that the first several weeks of what they call wait and observe were excruciating because there’s really not much you can do. My OB/GYN consulted with a gynecologic oncologist and so I was doing, you know, any tests and scans but there’s no routine test for ovarian cancer so we were still all kind of in the dark and so that was a really tough time because I felt like I didn’t have any control over anything. I just kind of walked around a little bit like a zombie just wondering, and you know you get very well-meaning people, friends that tell you it’s going to be okay, and but inside you’re like, “But how do you know?”

David Raubach: Right.

Shannon Miller: Right. If they don’t know, how do you know? And so it’s all of that, but then after I was diagnosed, it was almost in just this odd way a little bit of a relief. Now, mine was a little bit different because they had taken out the tumor right at diagnosis, you know, when I was diagnosed. But when I learned I needed to go through chemotherapy, at least at that point, I could be a part of my own health. You’re kind of trying to understand that you have cancer and then I found out a couple weeks later I’d need to go through chemotherapy. And I think that’s when my mentality changed. I kind of reverted back to that competitive mentality that I knew so well through sport. I now could be part of the process because I had a goal and my oncologist was very clear. The goal is get through chemo without stopping and that’s going to give me the best chance of non-recurrence and all of that. And so that’s when I started to focus on, okay, hydration, protein, how do I get as healthy as possible before starting chemo, the mental side of that it was so important and sport, it had to be in health and my faith is first and foremost. So just kind of all of those things that I felt like I suddenly started participating more.

David Raubach: Mhm. So, was the pathway that you had from a treatment standpoint, surgery and then chemotherapy, is that pretty typical for ovarian cancer?

Shannon Miller: Well, there’s so many different types of ovarian cancer. So, it kind of depends on where you are and the tough thing about ovarian cancer is it is so often caught at a later stage, okay? Because there is no routine exam and because the signs and symptoms can be so benign seeming. Things like a stomach ache or bloating or sudden weight loss. These are not things that you suddenly think of, oh, I might have cancer, right? It’s, oh well, it’s a Monday, you know. So, that’s what makes it really hard and why we want to create so much awareness around ovarian cancer and really just getting to those regular doctor’s appointments so that you have that baseline so when something feels off, you think about it more. And so from a screening standpoint, I guess one, it’s don’t ignore symptoms that are lingering or that don’t seem

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: right.

David Raubach: And remind me again, for you as you look back, I think you said at the time you didn’t really connect those with cancer, but now that you look back, what were maybe some of the signs that somebody who today could be thinking about, okay, maybe I should go get checked out?

Shannon Miller: Yeah. So, some of the signs that I had were, I had bloating and I remember that specifically because I had this favorite skirt and I was going to wear it for this really important business meeting and it just wouldn’t quite zip up. Now, your body’s going crazy after you have a baby, but I had lost about eight pounds that month and that was a significant amount of weight. I thought it was baby weight, but I thought, well, I lost all this weight and I still can’t zip up my skirt. And so you know those fleeting thoughts that you look back and you go, ah, that was a flag. I had some pretty bad stomach aches but again I thought dehydration, stress, you know, I was launching a new company and had just had a baby. It was a lot going on and so I just encourage women, talk to their physician. Get in for those regular appointments and write things down. So if you have something odd going on, whether it’s stomach aches or anything else, write it down and that way if it’s happening for more than two weeks, go talk to your doctor.

David Raubach: Okay. So then if symptoms are presenting, is it, are you going to see an OB/GYN or a primary care physician or what type of physician then would a woman think about going to see?

Shannon Miller: Well, I always think it’s important to see your primary physician anyways because you want to create that baseline because we’re not just talking about ovarian cancer. We’re talking about everything, heart disease, diabetes, but just get a baseline of where you’re at so you can do better, right? We can all do a little bit better. And so, if we’re having those regular visits, we know which areas to work on. I feel like it’s kind of like coaching. If my coach doesn’t tell me what to work on, I can’t get better, right? And then from there your OB/GYN, for those regular pap tests for cervical cancer and just for those regular checkups, and mine was found on a pelvic exam and without that, if I hadn’t gone in, things might be very different.

David Raubach: Yeah. And so is it typical for ovarian cancer to present when somebody’s in their 30s, or what, like what age, what’s kind of the youngest age that you might see it and then what’s the, on the other end of the spectrum, the older age that you might see it?

Shannon Miller: Well, and I want to be careful. I’m not a physician. So, but I think it’s important to know that ovarian cancer, there’s so many different types. And so I’ve met 19-year-olds, okay, that had the same type of cancer that I had. We used to, you know, decades ago think of it as, you know, older person’s disease and so you didn’t think about it in your 20s or your 30s. Well, we have to think about it. We have to think about our health overall, not to be scared, not to be worried, but the way I think about it is if something is there, if something goes wrong, again, whether it’s cancer, heart disease, diabetes, doesn’t matter, if something is there I want to know at the earliest possible stage because that’s when you have the most choices, right?

David Raubach: And that’s interesting what you said about talking to someone who is 19 getting ovarian cancer. And I think one of the things that we’ve seen in the United States and in Oklahoma is this increase in cancer incidence rate for people who are younger. So, you’re seeing, an example would be colon cancer where you’re seeing people in their 30s and 40s get colon cancer at a higher rate than they ever have. And what are the reasons for that? I mean, I think that’s still something that we’re trying to figure out. Is it lifestyle choices? Is it environmental toxins? Is there even better screening?

Shannon Miller: Better screening.

David Raubach: Yeah. Maybe we’re just catching things earlier because we’re doing a better job looking for it. There’s a lot that goes into it and part of the purpose of the cancer project and this podcast is to just create awareness about trends in cancer, cancer incidents, cancer screening, how should people think about approaching cancer screening, when should they start screening. And again going back to colon cancer, I mean at this point there’s a lot of people that would recommend getting your first colonoscopy, maybe not at 45, maybe at 40, or if you have family history or a higher genetic risk, maybe even at 35, because as you said, if we catch cancer earlier, we can do a better job treating it. And you were fortunate that your cancer was caught a little bit earlier. And I think you’ve said that that helped you out from a treatment and survivorship standpoint. What was it like going through chemotherapy?

Shannon Miller: I don’t think that’s anything that we would ever wish on anybody. It’s a really hard thing to go through.

David Raubach: It is a hard thing.

Shannon Miller: I think people do need to know that there are so many different types of chemo. So my experience was not my father-in-law’s experience. He was going through stage four colon cancer treatment at the same time I was going through my treatment and we had completely different things going on. He was never sick one day.

David Raubach: Okay.

Shannon Miller: I was sick all the time. He had neuropathy in his feet. I had it in my hands. We said, you know, like together we made one really good person. But it was tough, you know, for me coming from this background. Now I was very retired from sport at that time. But still the mentality of all right, I’ve got this. I used to work out, you know, 40 plus hours a week. I can do this. I like, I can get through chemo. That’s fine. And I was humbled, like, well, I’ve been humbled many times. So, but this was, I would say, the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do. It is just a different animal. I talk about the fatigue and in sharing about fatigue, when I talk with other survivors they agree it’s not, I’m tired today or I need a nap today. It’s every limb weighs a thousand pounds.

David Raubach: Oh wow.

Shannon Miller: And how do I even lift my arm to brush my teeth?

David Raubach: Right.

Shannon Miller: How do I get the energy to slide over to the side of the bed so I can sit up and walk and get up, right? It’s just this, it’s just crazy. I’ve never felt anything like it in my life. And so that was kind of one of those wow moments. The nausea was tough. Into the first week of chemo, I was back in the hospital.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: And I thought, it’s been five days, how am I already failing at this? And I couldn’t keep down food or water. It was just the nausea. And they treated me with every nausea medication I think they could think of and it just didn’t really help. But it was during that time that I really started to learn that lesson from sport, kind of relearn that idea of team. And I think in the beginning I had tried so hard to kind of keep people at arm’s length. I’m fine. I’ll do this myself. You know, I don’t want to complain. I don’t want to bother anyone. Don’t want to be a burden. I’ll just do it, right? Well, I wasn’t going to do it. You can’t do cancer alone.

Shannon Miller: And I think it was that lowest moment when I just really felt like, I can’t do this. I don’t know how, I can do a full twisting double back, I don’t know how to do this. And I just remember starting to really think about team, and my care team, my medical team, but also friends and family and neighbors, people that so desperately wanted to help. And they just needed to know how. And I think that really helped change things for me. It didn’t make it easy, but I do think it made it easier to be able to kind of understand that lesson of there is strength in not only accepting help, but also in asking for help when it’s needed.

David Raubach: Yeah, I think that’s a great point, Shannon, in that it’s okay to ask for help. Like, you’re at this point where you’re going to need, whether it’s your care team or your family or your friends. It takes that whole extended family to get through something like a cancer diagnosis and it does impact everybody. It impacts your family. Talk a little bit about that and just how you were trying to navigate being a mom, being a wife, extended family. You talked about your father-in-law going through cancer treatment at the same time. How are you managing that aspect of, I still have these responsibilities with the family but I’m going through cancer treatment.

Shannon Miller: It’s so hard and we were very fortunate that, I think I was very fortunate, I had my son, he’s what I got up for in the morning.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: And he’s what gave me the energy to keep finding that next forward step. Like, okay, I have to do this, like I’m looking at the reason why I need to get up and take that next forward step every single day, and I’m going to try not to cry, but that’s what kept me going. I think being able to appreciate the help, people coming over and maybe taking him for a couple hours so I could nap and wouldn’t feel like, you know, a horrible mom for taking a nap for a couple of hours. You know, that’s hard. It’s the mental, it’s the emotional, it’s the struggle of, okay, but I should be working or I should be with my son or I should be doing 15,000 other things, but I just can’t, right? And really coming to that understanding that the best thing that I can do at this moment is take care of my health, right? Because that’s what’s going to produce the best result in the end.

Shannon Miller: And so you want to balance that quality of life with that focus on your health and wellness. And as I talk to survivors throughout the country, I think one of the things that survivors battle most is when the bell rings, right? When they ring the bell, the treatment is over. And regardless of kind of what the outcome is, when your treatment is over, a lot of people in your life, it’s a sigh of relief and then it’s, okay, all right, we’re back to normal, let’s go. And as the patient, you’re not 100%. Right? You’re still sick. You still might have nausea, fatigue, and all the things, right? My hair, I was still bald. Things don’t change overnight. And yet sometimes the expectation by the patient, ourselves, we think things are just going to magically get better. I think sometimes our work, our co-workers, our friends and family, it’s a sigh of relief and it’s very natural. I’ve done it. I’ve been on the caregiver side. But you have to give yourself some grace and understand that it’s a process, right? This is a journey. It’s not a sprint, and just give yourself some grace and know that each day it’s going to get a little bit better, but it’s not going to happen overnight, and that’s okay.

David Raubach: Right.

David Raubach: Talk about what it was like going back for your first follow-up scan, because I’ve heard a lot of patients talk about just kind of the, I don’t know what the right word is, trauma or PTSD or anxiety that comes with, okay, now we’re going to see if this all worked.

Shannon Miller: Yeah, you just kind of caught me right there. It’s tough and every scan is, it’s the, is it still there? Did it come back? It’s all the questions. It’s am I going to get thrown back into this again? Like I just finished treatment. Do I have to do this again? Great. Like what? It’s all the questions. And for me, I think it was definitely harder initially and then I kind of have wrapped my brain around how I’m going to work with the scans. Even 14 years out, it’s still a day that I take the entire day off. I plan the day off. I try to get the appointment for earlier in the day.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: And I just have my prayer in the morning. I go to my exam and I come home and I usually just drop. I usually just take a nap.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: And then by the time the kids come home from school, I’m back and ready to go again. But it takes a lot out of you. Just mentally and emotionally. And I always share that it’s so important to kind of prepare yourself mentally and emotionally, not for bad news. That’s not what you’re preparing for. You’re preparing for taking on whatever challenge is coming your way, right? And hoping for the best. You pray for the best, but understand that you can handle it. Whatever comes your way, you can handle it and you don’t have to do it alone, right? Because you’re going to have that team with you.

David Raubach: You talked about, and just going back to the experience with chemotherapy, I’ve heard you talk about taking this approach of being an athlete and what were some little things that I wanted to get better at each time I went out and practiced, and applying that to chemotherapy or getting through chemotherapy. And I think there was one story that you told, maybe you could give us the details on, just taking steps in the living room.

Shannon Miller: Yeah. So goal setting is such a big part of my life. It always has been for as long as I can remember. You know, my coach started us with that understanding, long-term goals and short-term goals and the importance of follow through, and that, you know, baby steps, those incremental steps are how you really get to that bigger goal. And so it’s just kind of ingrained in me. And so for me during chemo, it was a lot of days, all right, today’s goal is get up, get dressed, walk two times around the dining room table. And if I did that, that’s my win. And there were days that maybe it was a 10-minute walk. And that’s great. It was not training for a gold medal. This was not a two-hour training session. This was what would be my win for today.

Shannon Miller: And I always think of it as, you know, what is that incremental forward step? And what can I feel good about each day that’s going to just get me that much closer to that end goal, which is getting through chemotherapy without stopping? Like, what’s going to get me there? And so I plan for what is my goal every single day when I wake up, every week, every month, every year. And those are important things to have.

David Raubach: Yeah, I love that and I’ve used that story multiple times. We have a new patient orientation at the Proton Center and so when I talk to the patients I talk about setting goals for yourself that you know, or think that you can accomplish, and being realistic about those goals. And I use the story of, hey, it may just be literally walking around the living room table. That could be the goal for the day. Set that as a goal and get up and do it and then feel really good about yourself that you accomplished that goal that you set for yourself.

Shannon Miller: Well, and it’s so important because there’s a lot of people that are going through a diagnosis that they’re used to having really big goals and really accomplishing a bunch of stuff each and every day. So, sometimes they can feel like they’re lowering their goal. You’re not lowering your goals, your goals have just changed. And I think that there’s a mental health aspect to that, too. Like there’s something, I don’t, there’s something just positive and fulfilling about setting a goal and then accomplishing it.

David Raubach: Talk a little bit about how you approached getting through treatment and getting through the survivorship process and some of these scans from a mental health standpoint.

Shannon Miller: I think, well, the mental health standpoint is so important because I mean there’s just so much research on the mental side of recovery and in successful outcomes and better outcomes and quality of life and all of these things. And so it is important to not just focus on the physical and the medical but also that mental and emotional side as well. And people do that in so many different ways. Whether it’s prayer or meditation or, you know, when I say positive mindset I do not mean putting a smile on your face and pretending everything is fine. That is not, we need to have that pity party. We need to have the real emotions and be able to find those coping mechanisms to work with all of the challenges that we’re going through. And so I think it’s different for each person, but there’s so much support out there. Again, that goes back to, do not be afraid to ask. Whether it’s your nurse navigator or coordinator, whether it’s your care team, there’s support available for those things. Take advantage of it.

David Raubach: And like you said, it’s okay to say, “I’m not okay.”

Shannon Miller: Exactly. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be upset or be angry. Let those emotions come out.

David Raubach: So fast forwarding now, over the past decade plus since treatment, I won’t age you specifically, you have done a lot to give back to the cancer community. Do you feel like there was almost this reason that you went through cancer? Now, like this is kind of this second segment of your life, there’s the before cancer diagnosis and after.

Shannon Miller: It’s, I feel like it’s an extension of the things I was doing with women’s health to begin with. It was just, women’s health was something that really spoke to me because I had so many women in my life, and not to leave out the guys, I just, I know more about women, but there were so many women in my life that I watched kind of put their health on the back burner while they were focused on family or work or the other million different things. And so that was something that kind of spoke to me and this I feel like is such an extension of that. And anyone that knew me growing up, I was incredibly shy, just painfully shy. So the idea that I would now go and talk around the country about my ovaries was not on my life plan.

Shannon Miller: But during treatment, it was one of those times when the news went public with the ovarian cancer diagnosis and then I was going through treatment and I was having such a hard time and I was inundated with notes, email, letters, you know, all of the stuff, and women sharing, families sharing with me their issue and their diagnosis and their challenge and their hope and their help. Here’s some tips on skincare, here’s some tips on wigs, here’s some tips on giving yourself some grace, you know, all of those things. And I thought, gosh, you know, I have this wonderful voice that gymnastics has given me and I want to use it for something good, and here it is.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: This is something that I can really be passionate about, as a caregiver when my mother was going through cancer as a patient, and just being embraced by the cancer community and continuing to embrace the cancer community has just been so wonderful and just feels like where my heart is.

David Raubach: What are some of the things that you’re excited about in terms of the way that we approach cancer? And then maybe conversely, what are some things that you’d like to see us within the oncology community do better?

Shannon Miller: Oh gosh. You know, I’ve just been amazed with the entire cancer community. And when I talk about that, I talk about every angle of cancer, whether it’s early detection or research or survivorship, you know, all of it. What’s so impressive to me is even just over the last 15 years, we now say the word ovary, right? You know, it’s now okay. There’s not that stigma. We talk about ovarian cancer. It’s just, you know, what happened in breast cancer. You never talked about it. And then all of a sudden when you start talking about it, things happen. And so I love that there’s just more awareness out there. I do caution people to, you know, be careful just going on the internet and getting information.

David Raubach: Google.

Shannon Miller: Yeah. Find your resources. AI now presents even more issues. So AI can be used for great things. But also just, you know, check your resource. Discretion.

David Raubach: Use discretion.

Shannon Miller: Yes. But I do think there’s so much happening in the medical, on the medical side, right? And we’re looking for, we’re looking for that routine test for ovarian cancer. I mean, I can’t wait for the day that comes through, but there’s so much more testing and screening and opportunity to catch these things early now than ever before. And I’m talking kind of in general about all cancers. And so being able to create that awareness so that people know what they don’t know. They know what tests to get. They know what questions to ask their doctor. They know how important it is to just get those regular doctor’s appointments even when you feel great, right? Go in and get checked. And if your doctor says, “Yeah, you look great,” then that’s your win and that’s great. So keep it up, you’re doing the right thing.

Shannon Miller: So I think taking the fear out of going and getting those checkups is important. Creating the awareness of what patients can ask and do so that they feel like they are their best advocate is so important. And I do think the physicians and the nurses have done such a great job of really getting at the patient’s level. I didn’t come in with a medical vocabulary of knowing what all these things were. I needed someone to explain it to me in language that I could understand. And so I think that’s so much better. Nurse coordinators, nurse navigators, are so important, and understanding that you have that available to you.

David Raubach: Yeah, I think what you’re describing a little bit to me sounds like this holistic approach to care, mind, body, and soul. And the other term that I would use is integrative or integrated oncology, where you’re taking traditional treatment approaches like radiation, proton therapy, chemotherapy, surgery, and merging those with maybe what historically would be considered alternative approaches to cancer. But I think we’re learning so much more about how our bodies can fight cancer while the interventions are working to help fight the cancer. Meaning, for example, you may be getting proton therapy and those beams of protons are going in and damaging the cancer cells and helping kill the cancer cells. But your body’s immune system is also going in and recognizing and fighting those cancer cells with a little bit of help from something like proton therapy. And those two things work together. And I think we’re more comfortable talking about that.

Shannon Miller: Yes. It’s a team approach. Fighting cancer is a team sport and everyone has an important role to play.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: And I love that there, the integration is much more there now. And I think even on the non-medical side, like you said, the mental aspect, the non-medical support that you can have, there’s so much more available now even than when I was going through it 14 years ago.

David Raubach: Yeah. What, so you did age yourself there, 14 years.

Shannon Miller: See, gymnastics kind of ages me.

David Raubach: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Well, you look great for 47, I guess.

David Raubach: So, I want to kind of come at this from a different angle. You know, you talked about, I think it’s sometimes a little bit challenging for family members or friends to know what to say to somebody who’s been diagnosed with cancer. What advice would you give to, let’s say, a spouse whose significant other has just been diagnosed? How should they, like what did your husband do well? And or maybe what are some areas that you’d say, “Hey, you could do better with how you approach,” again, your significant other being diagnosed.

Shannon Miller: Okay. Well, I love that you’re asking this. We talked a little bit beforehand. I’m working on a project that kind of focuses on this very thing. I can’t talk about it yet. Maybe another podcast.

David Raubach: In a few weeks, we’ll have you back.

Shannon Miller: But it is so important to know because you think about, and I’ve done this, but you think about a loved one who says to the patient, “Let me know how I can help.” Well, that’s, it’s a very nice sentiment. We all do it at some point, right? But now the patient has to deal with all the challenges they’re going through, the emotional, the physical, the mental, and now they’ve got to find a job for you to do so you can feel better about yourself. You know, it’s just another portion of that mental load that they have to take on. And so I’ve tried to be a little bit more careful about, you know, those words that we use. And that’s not to say it’s a bad thing. I mean, but “let me know if I can help” is a great thing to say. But it is one of those, how do we help? When my mother was going through cancer, I mean, I felt helpless.

Shannon Miller: What? You’re going through nausea. I’m like, trying to buy her saltines. That’s the last thing she needed, you know, like stop giving me saltines. And then when I went through it and people were giving me saltines, I thought, oh my gosh, what did I

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: What did I do to my mom?

David Raubach: Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Miller: But it is one of those things where you just, you feel helpless. You feel like there’s nothing I could possibly, I can’t cure cancer, right? I can’t take this away from her. So, what do I possibly do? And so, we do need to do a better job of bridging the gap between what patients truly need and how we can share that with others. And it is such an important piece of the pie. But I would say anything that you do is going to be helpful. So whether that’s, you know, helping clean the house, right? And in very seriously, that’s a big deal. Think about those few hours during the day where a patient feels up to doing something. And so instead of cleaning the house so that they have some normalcy

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: for their children. Maybe they actually spend quality time with their kids. So those things matter.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: In the grand scheme of things, going over walking a dog or holding someone’s hand during chemo. You know, book club, read a book together. You know, there’s all these little things. There is nothing too small that you can do to show your support. Whether it’s a message during the day, hey, we got you. Anything you need, I’m a text away. Whatever that is. Just do something.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: I think because it matters.

David Raubach: Yeah. I’ve heard it described as just being present. You know, being aware, being observant, being willing to listen when it’s time to listen. I heard somebody one time talk about, think about the things that your spouse is. So if it’s a husband and your wife is going through treatment, think about the things that your wife normally does during the day. Know that she’s not, for a period of time, going to be in a position to do all of those things, and then you step in and do them. So like cleaning the house, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, taking the kids to school, whatever that is.

Shannon Miller: Which is hard because it’s hard on the caregiver too because now they’re also taking on, they might now be the only income.

David Raubach: Yep.

Shannon Miller: In the family. So they’re taking on.

David Raubach: So even as a caregiver, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Shannon Miller: Do the laundry the way that I do the laundry. Like, don’t, that might be a little heavier lift. Don’t invent a new way to do the laundry that you think is better. This is not the time to do that. Not the time to show me, “more efficiently.” Brag about like, oh, you know, I made the whole process better. No, no, no. This is not the time for that.

David Raubach: Well, be careful, because if you do that, you might be doing it for the rest of your life. There you go.

Shannon Miller: Yeah, exactly.

David Raubach: Yeah. Well, no, this worked out really well. So, I saw you posted on Instagram recently. You spoke with, is it Jay Bilas?

Shannon Miller: Jay Bilas. Yeah.

David Raubach: At an event. So talk a little bit about just you going and doing all this speaking, especially for somebody that, you said you were really shy growing up, and now you’re out, you know, speaking with big names and at big events to lots of people.

Shannon Miller: Well, it was funny, so when I retired from Olympic competition and I was going to college here at OU, I really felt myself kind of withdraw. I was not very social because I was just so shy and I didn’t know anyone. And then it’s hard to get to know someone because you’re like this Olympian and it’s just awkward. Or at least I felt awkward because I was shy. And so I thought at one point, I have got to kind of come out of my shell a little bit, like I’ve got to figure this out. This is not okay. And I thought of the scariest thing I could do, and that was go speak in front of people.

David Raubach: Oh wow.

Shannon Miller: And so I worked on it for a little bit before jumping in and finally jumped in. But I never really felt comfortable because you’re a lot of times asked as an athlete to go speak about yourself, right? And I wasn’t comfortable doing that. But through the cancer experience, I realized I didn’t have to speak about myself. I mean, there might be stories that are parallel to the challenges that I was going through during treatment, but I was trying to help people. And I think when I made that mental change, in my mind, it went from, oh, I don’t have to talk about me, I’m talking to others about an experience that maybe can help them, right? And that made it so much easier to go out and just share my story, but also share hope and just talk with people. And now my husband says I won’t stop talking.

Shannon Miller: So, but it is so important. It was very hard in the beginning after treatment. I mean it took everything out of me to talk about that story. It was so fresh.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: I would speak for 45 minutes at an event and then I would go sleep for 14 hours.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: It just was all I could do to get through it. And then it got easier kind of the further out I got. But I think it’s so important to, you know, when, not all survivors want to speak up, right? And that’s totally fine. I think you should do what you’re comfortable with. But the more that survivors who feel like it can share their stories, we do share awareness and hope and raise funds for research. And I think it’s this commonality, this understanding that cancer doesn’t care who you are, where you’re from, how many gold medals you have. Cancer is something that we all have to fight because it’s going to touch all of our lives at some point.

David Raubach: Yeah.

David Raubach: And I think one of the things that I’ve noticed about you, Shannon, and other people that are recognizable figures, public figures that are willing to talk about their cancer diagnosis, is it gives people that maybe are not in the public limelight this courage, or that last little kind of push that they need, to be able to talk about what they’re going through. Okay, I’m seeing how Shannon is approaching talking about this really personal, difficult experience that she went through, I can do that within my local community. And I think you’ve been able to do that for people.

Shannon Miller: Well, I’ve only been able to do it because I had so many others do it before me and show me the way. And I think that’s really important, when you have people out there that will go out and talk about their experiences, you go, “Okay, yeah, I think I can do that.” And you can see the importance of it because when you can talk to 200 people or a thousand people, or you know, do interviews that go to a million people, you’re getting that information to them. And at the end of the day, that’s what we want.

David Raubach: The other thing that I’ve noticed that you’ve been willing to be very transparent about, which is also again very personal, especially for women that are going through treatment, is losing your hair, to the point where you’ve been willing to actually share videos of you getting your head shaved as your hair was starting to fall out. Talk a little bit about just how difficult that was to go through, and then why maybe you are willing to even post some of those videos now.

Shannon Miller: Oh, there’s not a whole lot. I have like the same five photos of me bald because that was it. Like, okay, take your pictures, but then be done with it. And now I do think it’s important. When I went in knowing that I was going to lose my hair on the treatment that I had, my doctor said it would happen in the first couple of weeks and

David Raubach: Oh, it did?

Shannon Miller: Yeah. And it was something I just, I thought I was prepared for and I thought, “Hey, okay, it’ll grow back. It’s fine. I’m not going to worry about it. I’m not going to be scared of it.” But it’s not that. It’s not fear. It’s just a feeling as if you’re losing your identity when you look in the mirror and you do not recognize that person looking back. I didn’t have any hair, but you don’t have any eyelashes or eyebrows and your skin’s so pale and your inclination is to think of this as a symbol of sickness.

Shannon Miller: And what I had to do every single day was look in the mirror and remind myself this is not a symbol of sickness, this is a symbol that I’m doing everything I can to get and remain healthy. This is a strength. This is my forward step. And so it became a little bit more empowering if I could just kind of remind myself of that each day. But it is tough, just, you know, the reality of it. You know, it actually is a little bit painful, just the sensitivity of your head. Learning how to put on a wig.

David Raubach: I will say, I was going to ask, so did you wear wigs?

Shannon Miller: I did. Well, especially when I had to do things publicly because it would take, you know, if I went bald, it would take the focus of whatever the event was. If I was doing something for, you know, the Olympics or with kids, right? It would take the focus off of what I was there for. And so, I’d wear a wig, but there are some photos with, you know, the wig was not exactly on straight. And I look back and I think, huh, okay. But I think it was empowering in a different way for me because I still, I am an introvert, still, you know, you still have that feeling of, okay, I don’t want to do anything embarrassing.

Shannon Miller: And I would go to the local coffee shop, and some days, when I was feeling better, I would walk my son in his stroller and we would go by the coffee shop, and there were some days I would go almost kind of dressed for work when I had to be on camera, and so I had my wig and makeup and grab a coffee. And then the next day I would be, no wig, no makeup.

David Raubach: Oh, right.

Shannon Miller: And you get the looks and then you realize, it really, like, people don’t care.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: It’s, you know, they know you’re going through something. They’re kind about it and I was just honestly too tired to care.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: I was too nauseous to care, and that in its own way was a little bit empowering for me, now to be able to look at those small things in my life that sometimes you get so worried about, and you go, that does not matter.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: It just really doesn’t, in the grand scheme of things. I’m not worried about it.

David Raubach: Yeah. It’s a big day. I’ve heard patients talk about this. It’s a big day. That moment when you’re willing to walk out of the house and go into public and know that you’re going to see people and you have no hair.

Shannon Miller: Yeah. And it’s just, but it’s hard to get to that point and some people don’t ever get to that point through treatment and that’s okay. But it is, yeah, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s that’s part of the journey that you just have to go through and navigate.

David Raubach: It is. And I think, to your point, everyone is different. And the great thing is there’s options for all of us. So if one day you can wear a wig, you can wear a hat, you can wear a cap, you can wear a ball cap with a ponytail. You don’t have to wear anything at all.

Shannon Miller: I live in Florida now. It is hot and muggy. I did not want to wear a wig every day.

David Raubach: Yeah. Yeah. Treatments have gotten better and honestly wigs have actually gotten better as well.

David Raubach: So, just as we kind of wrap up here, what are some of your goals for the next year or two? I know you mentioned that you have something that you can’t talk about, but maybe you’ll be able to talk about in the next month or so, but what are some of your personal goals, your goal setter over the next year or two?

Shannon Miller: Well, I always have my different goals in different areas. So, each year I try to learn at least two new things.

David Raubach: Okay.

Shannon Miller: So, you know, they’re just completely random. They’re personal to me. They might not be exciting, but there’s just things I like to do and I just, I love to learn. So, I always want to be learning something.

David Raubach: And then with regard to, what are you learning right now?

Shannon Miller: Well, I was going to relearn golf this year. But I think that’s going to get tabled to next year because this project I’m working on is kind of going to be my new thing. But last year I got my boater’s license.

David Raubach: Oh, wow. Why?

Shannon Miller: I don’t know. But I thought it would be cool and so I did it. And so there’s just random things that I want to just, you know, keep my brain going. And part of that is also still getting, you know, the chemo brain and just feeling like I’ve never quite come back to 100%. So I just want to keep my brain going and so I focus on that. Work-wise, yeah, I just have this incredible project I’m working on. But on the other side of that is continuing to go out there and speak all across the country to different communities. And I have a couple of different topics. Yes, the cancer topic, but I also talk corporately a lot about the gold medal mindset, and that’s kind of goal setting and teamwork and positive mindset and leadership, resiliency, all of those good things as well. And so that’s fun for me. And then family-wise, I’ve got one that’s about to start driving. So, oh my gosh, I’ve got that going on.

David Raubach: Talk about goals.

Shannon Miller: Yes. So, really just, you know, being present with the kids because, man, they’re getting old.

David Raubach: Yeah.

David Raubach: What, so speaking of gold medals, you are still involved with the Olympic community.

Shannon Miller: I try to be.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: Usually every four years around the Olympics, I get to go and be an analyst or do some broadcasting or media or hospitality, that sort of thing, which is a lot of fun for me.

David Raubach: And I do have to say too, and especially here in Oklahoma, you are still a legend. We’re doing this fundraising dinner tonight for the Proton Palace Foundation, which we’re very privileged to have you be the keynote speaker at. And we have 10 gymnasts from the national championship winning University of Oklahoma gymnastics team that were ecstatic at the opportunity to come to dinner and meet you.

Shannon Miller: So that must be, which is crazy because I doubt many of them were born.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Shannon Miller: Which really dates me.

David Raubach: Yeah. That’s got to be neat for you too though, to see like your university and the local community having success in gymnastics and continuing that legacy.

Shannon Miller: No, absolutely. They’re incredible and it’s been fun watching them. It’s amazing how far gymnastics has come, and especially collegiate gymnastics. And I never got to be a college gymnast. Now, with the rule change, there’s so many more gymnasts that can do both the elite and the college route, and that’s so good to see.

David Raubach: Yeah, that’s a good point because you kind of had to do one and then do the other. So, that was

Shannon Miller: Yeah.

David Raubach: No, that’s an interesting perspective on that.

David Raubach: Well, Shannon, any last words, and I would say any last words for somebody that’s going through cancer right now?

Shannon Miller: I would just say the most important thing to remember is that you are never in this alone. Find your team. Ask questions and know that there really is strength in seeking that support. People are there to help. So it’s okay to let them.

David Raubach: Yeah.

David Raubach: Well, thank you so much, Shannon. I really appreciate that. And I know that you’re very passionate about the cancer community and we’re very passionate here at the cancer project about the cancer community and cancer patients and just seeing people survive, and you’ve talked about thriving during and after treatment as well. And so we have that joint mission for people here in Oklahoma and across the country. So thank you again so much for joining us today.

Shannon Miller: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.