The Diagnosis Whiplash: When 'Fine' Isn't Fine

Announcer 0:01

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host, psychotherapist, coach, and empowerment expert, Beverley Glazer.

Beverley Glazer 0:19

What do you do when your body says stop and your life demands that you keep going? Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverley Glazer, a transition coach and reinvention strategist for women over 50, helping you turn a lifetime of wisdom into your most powerful next steps. And you can find me on reinventitpossible.com. We share powerful stories here: stories of loss, resilience, reinvention, and rising. And this story will leave you with courage. Farla Efrost is a seasoned retail executive, speaker, and a truth teller who built her career leading companies through complexity and change. But when she found that she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, alongside with the loss of her mother, her sister, and her father, she was forced to be in the hardest leadership role of her life. She leaded herself through her own survival. This conversation is about cancer, grief, control, and courage, and what it means to fight for your life without losing yourself in the process. Welcome, Farla.

Growing Up Fast And Ambitious

Farla Efros 1:36

Thank you. It's so nice to be here.

Beverley Glazer 1:38

Fla, what was it like growing up? Were you in a very close family? What was life like for you?

Farla Efros 1:45

So uh life was it was almost like a bit of an only child, actually. Um, my siblings were uh 11 and nine years older than me. So growing up, I was somewhat of their toy. And I had to grow up very quickly. So I right away I didn't really play with dolls. I didn't play with Barbies. I just wanted to hang out and be surrounded by the adults. It was so much fun.

Beverley Glazer 2:15

And so, what would you describe your life before cancer?

Farla Efros 2:19

Before cancer, I was the epitome of the woman that was trying to do everything. I spent probably five days a week on a plane. I was in multiple cities. I was running around constantly working with clients, trying to turn their businesses around, um, and also managing a household from wherever I was, whether I was, you know, in Australia, whether I was in whether I was in London. It didn't matter where I was, but I was still managing the household and showing up uh when I was needed.

Beverley Glazer 2:52

So you were that woman, that woman that did everything.

Farla Efros 2:56

Everything. Yeah. Everything. And it was crazy when I think about it, the things that I would do, you know, driving home 12 hours from New York to attend a recital for my daughter, only to turn around and go back to New York. Uh, that was the kind of mother I was. I did everything.

Beverley Glazer 3:17

Everything. And what drew you into the retail world and high-level leadership?

Farla Efros 3:24

So I would say that um early on, I was always working within retail. So my first job was actually in McDonald's. Um, and then I continued working within the retail space, and I was sitting in a in actually it was uh a course, and somebody pulled me out of the course and said, why don't you come and join us? So it was one of those opportunistic moments where I didn't really know what I was doing, but they asked me to join and I said, let's do it. And from there, my career just uh continued to grow. Um really. Yeah, and it and it was great. And I always took chances. So that was the other piece of of me. Even though when I was asked uh to be the chief merchant at Office Depot, I had no idea what that really entitled, to be honest. And but I but I did it. And I traveled, I left every Sunday, and I came back. Um, I came back on the weekend and I was going back and forth uh between Florida for three years. And that was the kind of uh person that I was that I would just lean into these opportunities and just take them and see where they would take me. And and you were a mom too. Yes. Yeah, yes. I had my I had my daughter, um, and four weeks later I was back on the road. And I was that mom that was literally in the bathroom pumping and bringing it through customs and security and the whole thing. So it it was that was the kind of person that I was. I I loved the work, I love the turnaround, I love the opportunity, and I felt like I can, you know, also manage the household and and be a mom because I really wanted to role model for my daughter as well. That was really important to me that she that she too uh would have an opportunity and really choose that opportunity to be able to stand on her own two feet. That was so important to me.

Beverley Glazer 5:33

And you came from a family that had a history of cancer. It was there all the time. What was that like?

Farla Efros 5:41

So it was always very uh prominent in my house, I would say. So my my grandmother, who I actually was named after and I've never met, she passed away from breast cancer. And her sisters and her family, apparently, it's hard to kind of pull all that history together. Uh, they too had different types of cancers and passed away. And when I was growing up in the household, my mom got breast cancer when she was in her early 60s. So it was very, very prominent in my family. We talked about it a lot. Um, and then obviously when my mom got it, it was just it was I was kind of surrounded by it.

Beverley Glazer 6:23

Did you think you should change your lifestyle or anything like that?

Farla Efros 6:28

I think at the time it was I was too young. And when you're young, you think you're somewhat invincible.

unknown 6:35

Yeah.

Farla Efros 6:36

But I always exercised and I always ate healthy. And the one thing that I took from my mom, unlike my sister, was I was always very um cautious with cautious and very in tune with my health. So that's why at um 41, I entered the high-risk program at Sunnybrook. So that was really important to me because it was obviously it was like my mom was like sitting on my shoulder telling me it's so important to be vigilant. And they accepted me, because they don't accept everybody, but based on my family history, uh, they accepted me into the program, which meant that I would do mammograms and MRIs every six months to a year.

Beverley Glazer 7:24

Yes.

Farla Efros 7:25

So it was constantly on your mind. Constantly on my mind. But I never I actually thought because I exercised and ate healthy, that I thought that it would skip me for some reason. So I worried about it, but it wasn't top of mind until my sister got it. And I think that's when I and I and I did actually. My sister got uh esophagus cancer first, and then she got breast cancer. And I went into my high risk doctor at the time and said, I think I want to do a double mastectomy. Whoa. So, which is really interesting when you think about the chronology of what happened to me. So I go in there, then my sister gets even sicker, and they tell me also to do an elective double mastectomy. It requires a lot of different sign-offs and psychological evaluations and so forth. And I just kind of put it on the back burner because I wanted to uh spend time with my sister. So I never actually went back to it, which is um, I talk about it actually in my book that that that is one regret I I do have that I never went back to it. Um, because essentially two years later, I received the same diagnosis of cancer.

Beverley Glazer 8:58

Right. Where were you at the time when you received that diagnosis?

Farla Efros 9:02

I was uh sitting in a hotel room. I was on a conference call with a very big athleisure wear company, and I looked to my right and I saw my phone ringing and it said the hospital name. And I just put the call on pause and I just picked it up. So that's where that's where I was. My husband was coming out of the shower and we were gonna, we were heading for dinner, and it was a showstopper. I never got back to that call. No, I just left it going. And I kept the one thing that I kept saying on the call when they called me was, but the mammogram was clear. And because I had seen the results already, because I was so in tune, I always went on the portal, and it said that it was clear. So I actually thought I was in the clear. I thought, okay, we're doing this MRI and we're doing a biopsy, but I've done them before and it's just going to be nothing. Um, so that was kind of my that was my thought process in my brain uh until I got that call and it was a complete showstopper.

unknown 10:14

Right.

Beverley Glazer 10:15

But all the while, not only taking care of yourself, but you were flying back and forth from Toronto, where you were living, back to Montreal to help your parents. You went through funerals, you went through everything, you were handling it all, and you were sick as well. How did you keep functioning throughout all this? It was one thing I would say.

Farla Efros 10:41

It was when I got sick, I put together, like a consultant, a vision and an objective. And it was I didn't want to die. And so that was like my North Star. So I had to put one foot in front of the other every day and be grateful that I had a great village around me supporting me and happy that it was caught early, despite being very aggressive. It was caught early. And I just had to keep going. I had to, I wanted to be there with my parents as much as I could. It was very difficult, as you can imagine, because I was doing chemo, then getting on a plane, and then coming back. And these these weren't nice visits, right? I was dealing with a mother that had had a stroke and then got diagnosed with brain cancer. And I was dealing with a father whose uh Alzheimer's really went to like a very unbelievable level level where he didn't recognize me. So it was very uh traumatizing for me. Um, but I just I just went with it. I just leaned in and I went to see my mom and I tried to encourage her. And then I went to see my dad, and even though he didn't know me, lying there with him rubbing my back, singing Frank Sinatra was just so peaceful for me. And that gave me the strength to keep going.

Beverley Glazer 12:22

You also said you're not passive, and I can hear that. No one would say you're passive. But when you got that diagnosis, you said you are not going to be just a passive patient. What do you mean by that? So I wasn't going to be a passenger.

Farla Efros 12:42

I wanted to run and be in charge of my treatment plan. I didn't want to sit there and have them tell me what to do. I wanted to tell them what I wanted them to do. And it's a subtle change. And I did that by I did not even call them appointments, I called them meetings. So the first meeting with my oncologist, and it's going to sound ridiculous, but I dressed up in a full business suit, got my hair done, and I had long, long, long hair at the time, got my hair done and went in and handed out packets to the doctors, which were very clear with here's, you know, I've already done most of the research. Here's again my objectives, here's all the data. And now we're going to go through all the questions so that I can be part of the decision making.

Beverley Glazer 13:41

And that's what that's what I did. And what did they say? You must have blown them away.

Farla Efros 13:48

They giggled. And I think that they became so appreciative, actually, because they knew that I was prepared. And so it's not like other patients waste their time. So I want to be clear on that. But it was just a very productive conversation that we would have. And I think that they were, they loved really that I had so much information and so much data that they didn't have to go through all of that with me. Right? It was all there. So I knew all the statistics. And I kind of knew what my treatment plan was going to be before they even told me.

Beverley Glazer 14:32

Okay. And and were they just overwhelmed? Did they say, well, you know, maybe we should tell you, maybe you're wrong, or, you know, did they kind of sit back?

Tests Data And Proof Treatment Works

Farla Efros 14:44

So I think they sat back. There was at times that they would push back at me. I I I won't tell you that they didn't. And I would, and if it was something that I was so passionate about, I would push even more. So um there was a test that I wanted them to do before I committed to doing chemo, and it's called a KI67. And I wanted them to do that test because it tells you if your bot how your body's going to react to chemo. So why would I go down the chemo path if if my body wouldn't actually react to it properly? True. So those were things I pushed for a mid-scan. So after chemo number three, I said, I want to do a scan. And they said, Well, we don't really do scans, we do it at the end. I said, Well, that doesn't make any sense to me. I want to know if it's working. Because if it's not working, why am I doing this? And they agreed to it. And I will tell you, they did the scan. My um, my cancer, my tumor went down by 50%. And those are the things that you need to hear so you can go on. Like suddenly it was like this bright light went on for me. I'm like, okay, this is good. If it's down by 50%, well, when I'm finished, it may be gone. And we need that. Like individuals and people need that. We need such we need encouragement as we're going through this journey because it's very lonely and it's very hard, not only on you, but people around you. And so you need a little bit of a bright light. And that light for me was I I I was happy. My husband would say that I wasn't, because I'm a you know, he just would say, but I was happy because I knew I knew it was working.

Building Hope With Friends At Chemo

Beverley Glazer 16:52

You felt a little more confident that what you were going through was may just have a good result. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And what helped you get through those six rounds of chemo? Was that it? Always having hope.

Farla Efros 17:09

It was having hope and it was having my friends. So I did something very different. I did a sign-up sheet. So my husband came to my first chemo, and he did what husbands typically do. He took a nap and he wouldn't talk to me because he didn't want to talk to me.

Beverley Glazer 17:34

I can see that. Yes.

Farla Efros 17:37

So I kicked him out and I did a sign-up sheet, and I had my friends take me to chemo. And when do you ever get eight hours? It was eight hours because I did the cold cap, which didn't work. But when do you ever get eight hours with your girlfriends? And it was, I'm at my most vulnerable point. And we are sitting and we're laughing and we're drinking, we're we're singing show tunes from when we were in summer camp together, and we're taking videos, and we the food you can only imagine, right? Handing out food to everybody. And so we made it fun. And those are the things that again encouraged me to keep going because there was such a there was su so much support around me that wanted me to keep going.

Beverley Glazer 18:29

And so you made a party out of it. You made whatever was possible possible.

Survivor Guilt PTSD And Daily Fear

Farla Efros 18:35

I did, and and they would they among each other, among the five people that took me, they were competing about who would have the better food for me. To be candid, I didn't eat anything. I was quite upset. But we had so much food and like and and like all the people around us were were just mesmerized by what was going on, right? And I would I would do conference calls and like all the fun things, and we'd hang out with the nurses. So we really made it as as fun as it could be as possible, yeah.

Beverley Glazer 19:12

What about survivor guilt though? Because everyone around you, yeah.

Farla Efros 19:17

Tons yeah, tons. Um, my sister. I mean, she died before I got diagnosed, but I needed her. I really, she was my big sister. Um, I needed her there. And my mom, I never had my mom at CO. Um people that are younger than me, I joined all these groups and they were, you know, and some of them passed away. So I do a why me pretty much every day. And that's why I'm so grateful. I wake up every day humbled and so grateful that I'm here and that I need to, it's my sliding door. So what I like to say is cancer is not my weakness, it's my strength. And maybe I needed to get it. That sounds so ridiculous, but maybe I needed something to tell me to stop and be more present.

Beverley Glazer 20:21

When did cancer stop being an event? It's cancer, and actually become now a way of life for a lot, because that's what it is for you right now.

Patient Advocacy: Taking the Wheel of Your Treatment Plan

Farla Efros 20:31

Yes, every day I will tell you there is not one day that goes by that I don't wake up and think it's back between the aches and the pains. And I think it's it is just it is a way of life, and I think I'm always gonna have um PTSD from it, and I don't think it's ever gonna go away, but that's why I'm here now to tell my story and encourage people and give them the strength to know that they don't have to be a passenger and they can really uh take agency on your on their health wherever they are, and they should. And if they can't do it, ask somebody that can. That's the other thing. I was able to do it, probably just based on my experience and then my just my need for control, to be very honest. But some people can't, and that's okay. But lean on those people that can actually help you and support you because you really want it's all about the result at the end. And you want to feel heard and you you want almost, I like to say, almost like customized, you know, having your treatment customized to your body because what works for you doesn't necessarily work for others. And build your executive board. Team, as I call it. So you're doctors, and I had a naturopath on there, and I had an exercise person on there. So I had a whole slew of people that would come in and out of my executive board team. But it was really important that at the end of the day, they all understood goal on the talk about that book.

Beverley Glazer 22:24

It was called, it is called, and it's just out now. It's called Fuck Cancer. And it's something that you had to do. Yeah. What propelled you?

Farla Efros 22:37

It was everything for me at that time was so dark. Between losing my sister, my mother, my father, having an awful home invasion that I felt that I needed to put pen to paper. It was cathartic for me. And I felt that I was having on the cancer side of things, that I was having such great results, and I was getting what I needed. And I felt that it was so important to share that with everybody. Because it doesn't take a lot of work. I think that's the most important piece of it. So I felt like I just had to um put it in. This is less to me about a story about myself. Like we all have stuff in our lives, but this is really putting together a bit of a framework and a process that people can actually use for cancer, for dementia, for any disease, frankly. It's really how you deal with your doctors on a day-to-day basis to ensure that you're getting precision medicine.

Beverley Glazer 23:52

What message, what final message would you like to leave the listeners?

Farla Efros 24:00

You don't have to be alone. We're all here to survivors are all here to support each other. And it's so important that you surround yourself with just great people. Because the other side is so much better.

Beverley Glazer 24:23

Thank you, Farla. Farla Efrost is a seasoned retail executive, a cancer survivor, an author, and a speaker who has held leadership roles across the retail industry, including being the president of HRC Retail Advisory, interim CEO of True Religion, and Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer of Office Depot. She has also been a frequent guest on BNN Bloomberg, and through her platform, the Healing Rebel CA, she shares her journey through cancer, grief, resilience, and healing. Here are a few takeaways from this episode. Fear does not mean you have to be powerless. Ask questions. Find humor. It can help you survive the unbearable. And sometimes rebuilding begins before healing is even complete. If you've been relating to this episode, here are some things you can do for yourself right now. Do not stay silent. If you have a question, ask. Do not keep pushing yourself. Illness, grief, and fear can take its tall. And find one moment of presence in each day. Sit in silence, breathe, relax. Healing happens in small moments of simply being present. For simpler episodes on healing, listen to Reclaim Your Health, episode 141, and meeting the 5% odds of cancer, episode 164 on aging with purpose and passion. And if you have stories of unapologetic women who have boldly reimagined life on their own terms, check out reinvention rebels.com. So, Farla, where can people find you? Where can they buy your book? Please share your links.

Farla Efros 26:20

Um, they can find my book on my website, which is www.farlaaffrost.com. They can also buy my book on Amazon, they can buy it on Barnes Noble, and they can buy it on Indigo.

Beverley Glazer 26:32

Terrific. And all Farla's links are in the show notes, and they're on my site too. That's reInventimpossible.com. And so, my friends, what's next for you? Are you ready to move from stuck to unstoppable? Well, download the free roadmap, and that's also in the show notes. And if this conversation speaks to you, please add us to your playlist and share it with a friend. And remember, you only have one life. So live it with purpose.

Announcer 27:03

Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website, reInventimpossible.com. And while you're there, join our newsletter. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion. And celebrate life.