Emily (00:02.381)
Hello, Nicole, so glad you could be here.
Carly (00:02.908)
Alright.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (00:05.476)
Thank you guys so much for joining me.
Carly (00:07.776)
It's truly our pleasure. How is your day going?
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (00:10.354)
It's going okay. I've been reorganizing my house, so things are kind of in chaos right now. Because you know when you're like organizing if you pull everything out and then put it back? But my problem is that like, you pull everything out and then I'm like, okay, I like did that task and I'm like, I'm gonna check out the list for today and then this stuff just sits there for like weeks until I get to it.
Carly (00:14.635)
Oh.
Yeah.
Emily (00:21.004)
Yes.
Emily (00:37.269)
percent. I'm very good at having the idea and pulling it all out and then being like, I'll get back to this later. I have to go buy bins or I have to go like look at pictures of how people organize their closet and then I'll come back to it. That'll be good.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (00:39.457)
So, we're getting downstage.
Carly (00:40.14)
Exactly.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (00:43.726)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (00:48.596)
Yeah, exactly.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (00:53.446)
100% Yep. You have no interest to target a king hand or is... Yeah.
Carly (00:56.404)
What led you to- Ugh. I'll always take a reason to go to Target.
Emily (00:59.521)
Oh yeah. And then you spent $200.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (01:03.798)
Yes, seriously.
Emily (01:05.597)
If I didn't live in New York, I would be there so much more. I love going to a suburban Target because I'm like in New York City. And if I'm out of town or if I'm like driving home, I'm like, we could, we could stop, we could maybe we don't need anything, but what if we stopped? I'll figure out what we need once we're in there.
Carly (01:06.226)
What led you to- I know. That's the best.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (01:14.686)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (01:17.962)
Yep. Booyah? But you journeyed something from Target. Yeah. Exactly.
Emily (01:23.25)
Always, always.
Carly (01:24.144)
Always. What led you to, what led to this organization of the house? Like we were just like in a rut, you're like, I gotta start fresh.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (01:34.894)
Well, yeah, we had to downsize because housing right now is just so expensive in LA and everywhere. And so we were downsizing, but we had a two-bedroom apartment, so we were in one bedroom, so it's like squeezing all of that stuff. And so when we moved in, we moved in right before my surgery, my last surgery, and that was in like June, and my surgery was in September.
Carly (01:42.219)
Yeah.
Carly (01:52.581)
Oh, yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (02:03.95)
I was in so much pain before then that we were just shelving things and putting them away. So now I feel like, okay, we can start to organize. But if it's taking much longer than, you know... But like, Christmas is coming! We need a space for the three!
Carly (02:14.26)
Yeah, finally.
Emily (02:17.309)
Yeah, so we, so just to.
Emily (02:23.421)
So where you so a little bit of explanation for people who are listening, you know, Nicole reached out to us and was saying that she enjoyed the show and that we gave interesting backstories and talked about people's lives and what they've gone through and you are where are you in your treatment process? What is currently happening? Because when you said in your message that your cancer is like the lonely cancer that really like.
I think hit a note with us and just like the isolation you must feel in that it's something that you know, not that people you know, breast cancer, everybody's like, I know what that is. I've seen the ribbons, I know kind of what the vibe is, you know, but you're experiencing a whole different type of health situation. And, and if you wouldn't mind just telling us a little bit about that in general, and then we can kind of figure out the specifics from there.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (03:15.536)
Yeah, absolutely. So currently right now I'm on immunotherapy, which I started at the beginning of this year, and
At the beginning, they give you two drugs and it goes... Like, they do it pretty heavily, so you go in more frequently. And I think it's every three weeks. And then after a few months, if it seems to be working, they'll put you on a maintenance drug, which is then up to two years long. And that's just once a month, you go in for...
Emily (03:51.639)
Wow.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (03:54.182)
one time, you do this in the future once a month. You still have... the side effects aren't as bad, but like, they're not the same as chemo, not like you don't lose weight here, but like, the symptoms are like having, like, a really extreme flu. So once I've done, for like a week afterwards, it's like, you know, night sweats, something called, like, in full world, or, you know, you feel like you're...
you have faves or whatever fave comes along with the flu. And so like, now the remote learning meat instructs, they're less severe, which is great, but being on the meat instruct means that the treatment looks like it's working. So in my scans, they see the area that they're concerned about, but the area hasn't grown or hasn't moved. So
But we can just hope that it continues that way and that over the next year and a half that it takes to a point where I'm not having to do this again for a kiss time. Because this is my fourth round of cancer. So I'm definitely over it and I'm just looking at anybody's ever ready for it.
Emily (05:11.533)
Wow.
Emily (05:15.745)
Hahaha
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (05:21.014)
Your entire life is consumed by this. And my whole life stops the minute that he's in cancer. Like, everything stops. And...
Carly (05:29.48)
Yeah. And how old were you when you got diagnosed the first time? 26.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (05:33.954)
26. So yeah, so I'm really being 32. Yep. Yes.
Emily (05:35.557)
Oh, wow. Yeah. You should be out at bars at 26. You should be, you know, going out and figuring out who you are and, you know, figuring out what your career is and not being in and out of the doctors every, you know, week or day or whatever. That's, that's gotta be really, really scary.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (05:45.612)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (05:55.682)
Yeah, it was. It was very scary and it was... You know, I didn't even know this is something that could have existed. It just never came to my mind. And that's why I think I call it cancer patients call it normally cancer because it's not something that is well known. It's not something that you would even really think of. That...
Oh, so we got cancer in their mouth and they had to find their entire palate, their cell palate and their horse palate removed. And now they can't eat and drink the same way or talk the same way or they can't drink and eat at all and they need a feeding tube. And none of those things were like even in my radar, you know, like inside.
Emily (06:46.493)
Yeah, not at all.
Carly (06:46.9)
Yeah. Will you explain a little bit of what kind of cancer you're dealing with here?
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (06:53.102)
Mm-hmm.
I'm sorry if I'm taking a long look. My nose gets very dry and it's been dry since I've had a breathing issue. So, I mean, two rounds of breathing issues is, you know, potentially big my nose dry. So I apologize for any slipping in here.
Carly (06:59.096)
please.
Emily (07:11.749)
Ugh, well take all the time that you need and if you need, truly don't worry about it. And if you need breaks, we can edit it out. It's not a big deal, so don't stress.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (07:19.619)
Okay.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (07:23.57)
Cool, okay, so I was like, yeah, but the... So essentially what happened was that I... I started having a toothache in June of 2017, and that toothache didn't go away. It was something that, like, just stuck around. You know, if you're pointing at a dentist, the dentist will tell you it's fine. It's just like, you know, it's just a toothache. Like, sometimes these things happen, you know, sometimes you're just like, I'm getting anything or fine.
And I think it was in my mind that over the course of like six months it got worse and worse and worse to the point where like my jaw was in extreme pain and I had extreme pain in like the other part of my mouth and the right hand side. And so when I went for this in January of 2018, the dentist took a strange and said there was an old-fashioned loss for the maxillocyte, somewhere in your teeth hidden.
So like, the maxilla is essentially the phone in which you're seat- like, your thought teeth are sitting in. And your mandible is where, like, you know, the jaw that's opening, and that's where your bottom teeth sit. So my thought teeth, that area on the right hand side, that piece of maxilla was missing. And she's like, I don't know what's going on, but, like, this is not normal. And she sent me to a periodontist. Periodontist took-
panorates and he looked at me and was like, I don't know what this is, sent me to another doctor. And that's been very normal over this life. I don't know, I don't know what this is, and we get sent to doctor after doctor after doctor. And when I saw this oral surgeon, he was not my favourite doctor and it was just, he would talk very slowly and...
to the point where he's like, I'm not stupid, I can understand you and I can hear you, and sometimes the doctor says, I'm not stupid, I'm scared, you know, so he can talk to me like I'm a normal human being, but if it's fine, he says, we have to express the very best you to understand what's going on, you can confy OPC, and so we did that, and that was my very first
Emily (09:24.321)
Hahaha
Carly (09:30.132)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (09:49.25)
entry into a world of surgeries and the world of needing to be your own advocate, standing up for yourself, because that's something that I always tell any patient is to stand up for themselves and advocate for themselves because this procedure, as a firm, we didn't know what I had, we didn't know that I had cancer, and the medication that contained me
Carly (10:06.304)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (10:18.958)
the cancer just kind of ate up. The no-vein medication wasn't holding. And so he was holding my tinnitus basically without any no-vein medication, which was horrific. And, you know, I love horror movies, I love them, but I'm like, this is not an experience that I'd like to have.
Carly (10:30.708)
Oh my god.
Emily (10:30.765)
Oof.
Emily (10:42.097)
No, that is like civil war medicine. You shouldn't be getting a tooth extracted that way with modern care.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (10:45.579)
What is it?
Carly (10:48.012)
Play you under like general anesthesia or something my god like give you laughing. Oh my god Oh my god. I think I would have stopped right there. I would have been like no and not
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (10:48.724)
Mmm!
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (10:54.538)
Yeah, it was rude.
Emily (10:58.489)
Good.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (10:58.582)
Well, that's the thing. I think it's funny because I taught him and it was like kind of very... I wasn't exactly saying it because it was in my mouth, but from like funny gestures and from like the kind of wailing that was coming out of my mouth, he would be like, I should probably stop what I'm doing. My kitchen is in extreme agony. And he did it. And so that's where I think like, really advocate for yourself because in that moment I could have like...
Emily (11:09.546)
I'm out.
Carly (11:20.561)
Oh my god.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (11:26.578)
I should have just moved his hand and not pulled it out like I'm doing, you know?
Emily (11:30.685)
Yeah, yeah. But it's tricky because you look at medical professionals as authority figures. And you know, when you're young, you're taught that they you know, listen to your doctor and you know, and of course, there are so many very like talented, skilled, intelligent medical professionals, but that's not everybody. That's not every single one. And they're not all having the best day ever. And they're not all
Carly (11:31.705)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (11:37.802)
Absolutely.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (11:50.796)
Yeah.
Emily (11:54.865)
receptive to every type of person and they're not all listening to women specifically about pain tolerance and what they're experiencing. This is such a minor thing in comparison, but when I broke my elbow a couple years ago and when they finally did the x-ray, I broke it in five places. I really shattered it, but they didn't believe that I caused that much damage because I wasn't openly weeping and screaming. So they did my x-ray without any sort of
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (12:00.766)
Right, exactly.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (12:21.774)
which we need.
Emily (12:23.913)
medication at all. Like I didn't even have Tylenol before my x-ray and they were twisting my arm and moving it. And I was like wailing and screaming during that. Like before that, I was just sitting there being like, I really hurt myself. And just nobody believed me. Like when I did it at work, they didn't believe me. They were like, Oh, we'll just drive you over there in the van, go wait 20 minutes. You know, there was no emergency vibe because they just didn't believe that I could be in that much pain without.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (12:28.765)
And you're just fishing it.
Emily (12:49.201)
expressing it. And then when I did express it, they were like, Okay, calm down. And then they got the imaging and they were like, Oh, no, like you really did it. And I'm like, Yeah, I know. I'm an adult woman. I told you I hurt myself. Like, it can be very, very frustrating. And I imagine very isolating in that way where you also don't even know. Like I could at least be like I fell on my elbow, fix my elbow. But you're just like, I have no idea what's happening. No one is listening to me.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (13:04.673)
Yeah.
Emily (13:18.197)
That's gotta be so frustrating.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (13:21.836)
Right. Yep. It is. I mean, I've got things all the time. I've seen things where men have gotten like, mixed words of pain medication and women get like, a pain case where I think you're like, well, why? What the hell? Like, why am I not getting the same treatment as
a man and you don't even know, like you're not in my body, you can't feel the pain. I'm communicating with you and telling you, hey I'm in extreme pain and you know that's, that's frustrating and I didn't really hit my pain under control until I saw a palliative care specialist like two years later. So like I was already in this like two years.
Emily (14:00.689)
Oh wow, you said palliative care specialist?
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (14:04.278)
Yeah, failure to care is essentially different care that can give patients that are, specifically cancer patients, but for all types of diseases, but it's patients that are, um, specifically towards the end of life. So, patients that are in a hospital, so, you know, for therapy patients like me that, you know, have chronic pain, they can help them as well. So I didn't even get to that person until...
Carly (14:04.319)
Yeah.
Emily (14:22.381)
Gotcha.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (14:34.73)
two years into a journey where someone sat down and really just like, tell me everything that hurts, you know? And, yeah, so like, this document's obviously not that, you know, like, he just wasn't observant or... Go ahead, sorry.
Carly (14:51.816)
Yeah. It's so
Carly (14:57.096)
It's so interesting. No, no, no. It's just so interesting. So, um, I am an occupational therapist. I'm a lymphedema therapist and I'm an oncology specialist. And, um, so it's so interesting how many people don't know that my specialty exists and don't come to me until it's like, not like it's never too late, but like farther along in their journey than they would have wanted. They just don't know that we exist. And it's so important that like the first level of
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (15:03.177)
Mm.
Carly (15:27.31)
care is educated on like everything that they should be referring to or that they should know that exists because they can't possibly do everything so much of a position's job is just referring to somebody else and it's this exact scenario where if someone early on in your time had been like hey probably let's get them let's get you a referral early to a palliative specialist so we can get your pain under control not to say that would have like made this
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (15:39.273)
Exactly.
Carly (15:56.99)
definitely would have helped the process in some manner. And it's such so much of our profession, at least in the rehab part is educating, we start at like we're like educating med students, we're like, let's get them at the ground level so that when they do end up getting to the part where they actually have that role, like they hopefully remember that we exist. And you know, know to put an order in but
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (16:17.719)
Yeah.
Carly (16:20.944)
It's like, so much, you know, I've had people who are like, I had to tell my doctor, like, please, can I have a referral for this, you know, like I did research, I found out I knew about this. And then I was like, can you just write a prescription so I can go? Like, and it's, it's so it's hard as a therapist, because so many things that I refer as well, I have to get the doctor to sign off on. And I'm like, they don't even know what I'm asking for. They just have like, that, you know, it's just like, because we as a society believe that doctors know everything that they just like sign papers
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (16:50.094)
Mm-hmm.
Carly (16:51.178)
They don't barely even know what I'm asking for them for. Obviously, I'm making good clinical decisions, but it's just like I should be able to sign off on these things on my own. I don't know. This is just me ranting about the medical system in general.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (17:01.394)
Oh, no, you're totally right. You're totally right. I'm on your side on that one. And then it's not even just doctors that are kind of blocking this, I think you have insurance companies that are saying, Oh, well you don't need that, and I can't tell you the amount of times. I think this has been six years since 2017 I've been dealing with this. My insurance company and Social Security,
Carly (17:12.811)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (17:28.674)
What do I have to do to convince you that this is a problem? Like, you're telling me she's cancer-free, that's great, but I still have a disability because these are like, face teeth. I have, I don't have a gory palate, I don't have a septal, I have seven teeth on the
Emily (17:34.464)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (17:56.502)
Like, you're in limitations that I have because of that, and just because you don't see a future that you understand or know of, doesn't even exist. And that's kind of where the loneliness part comes in, is it's like, are you going to have to convince insurance and a judge to say, like, I heard a fort hearing on Zoom.
Emily (18:12.598)
Thank you.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (18:22.13)
in 2020 and I went without my obterator, like I took my teeth out and I just had like my thing, my mouth is your teeth and I'm talking to it, so it's like you need to see that like this is what I'm talking about, you know, like I'm not, this is not just something that is on paper and people are saying it's not that bad, it's like, you know, there are things that like, finally got some sensations.
Carly (18:23.82)
Oh.
Carly (18:28.17)
Yeah.
Carly (18:36.592)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (18:51.046)
experience that are just very different because they're in your mouth or they're around your face. Like radiation, for example, for breast cancer, you get rashes and you're uncomfortable, but when you get radiation on your face or your mouth, you get mouth sores, like dry mouth.
Like, it's very, uh, voiceless, it's very painful, um, which is, um... Yep.
Carly (19:22.32)
Yeah, it can affect your taste. It can affect the waves, the way water tastes. It can, you know, affect, you know, every part. Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (19:29.77)
I'm thinking. Yeah. So...
Emily (19:30.897)
Yeah, yeah, my grandfather actually had mouth cancer, but he very different situation. He was a tobacco user his entire life and it was stemmed from that. But I remember, I had one grandfather growing up, the other one passed away before I was born. And when you're really little, you see something and you just assume that's the way it is for everybody. And my grandfather wouldn't eat with us because he had a feeding tube in his stomach and he would go in his bedroom and like get his food that way. And
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (19:35.123)
Really? Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (19:40.031)
Oh, yes.
Emily (20:00.637)
And I just thought like when I was like four, I was like, grandpa's eat through tubes. Like every grandpa like cooks up to this machine. And like one of my neighborhood friends was like, that's not true at all. Like that's not, but I was very used to him dealing with the sores and feeling, I think he was, you know, really kind of embarrassed by not being able to eat with us. And with it was just his, you know, my mom, his daughter and me and you know, my brother.
Carly (20:06.104)
Thank you.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (20:06.948)
I'm sorry.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (20:14.077)
Nothing.
Emily (20:28.013)
he would just kind of hang out and be like, okay, I'm going to go eat. But if it was more people, he would kind of shuffle around. It wouldn't know where to sit or what to do with himself because he just didn't want to be, he didn't want to talk about it. It was a very, to him, I mean, he was like a depression era, World War II vet type of old man. So he just wasn't like, it wasn't how it is now where people are a little more open and, you know, willing to discuss what's going on and willing to
help people with like, obviously we would have helped anything he wanted, but he just didn't want to talk about it. He's like, I'm fine. I'm just going to like have my little water all the time and you know, deal with things on my own and be a strong, you know, patriarch. And it's just such an interesting thing of like, I always kind of wonder what he would be like today in a lot of respects, just like what, you know, he passed away in 1998. So it's 25 years ago. He doesn't like.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (20:56.775)
Thank you.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (21:01.404)
for a second.
Emily (21:20.137)
It's the world is a very different place. You know, like he basically missed the internet. So it's, it is crazy, but it is just something where any type of, of cancer like that, you know, I've never, I don't think I've met somebody since then. Like I just happened to have an experience where he had that, uh, similar surgery and initially that same treatment. And then he was able to be in remission and just kind of was eating from a tube for a long, I think 10 years, 15 years, but, but it was, you know, obviously a very different situation. But.
I don't know where I'm going with this other than it is a rare thing.
Carly (21:51.98)
Hahaha!
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (21:52.446)
No, I- No, I- No, I- Yeah. Well, I mean, you hit on a good point, because, you know, I was an actor, I was, um, a dancer, but I was, like, before all this, I mean, that's when things got a little bit more interesting when I came out here. And obviously, like, I- No, it's great, I grew up in Las Vegas, so, that's my hometown. Yeah.
Carly (22:11.032)
Where are you from before going to LA? Sorry if you don't mind me cutting in.
Carly (22:17.612)
You're in Las Vegas? Oh, like with the lights and everything? Ha ha.
Emily (22:18.028)
Okay.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (22:23.106)
Everything. Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, I think the common thing is like you live in a hotel and you're like, no, I think we have houses and like regular jobs and what not. So yeah, but no, I love Las Vegas. It's like one of my favorite places. I mean, it's cool. You know, my dad lives there. It's like this kind of comfort when you go there, you know.
Emily (22:23.225)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
Carly (22:31.32)
I'm sorry.
Emily (22:32.365)
Hahaha
Carly (22:45.44)
So you moved to LA to pursue dancing and acting and all that.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (22:50.375)
Yeah, and I originally went to Newtombe in Utah for theatre, and I was there for like two and a half years, and I had followed a boy out there. I felt like my high school sweetheart, and we were together for a very long time. But you know, I felt like about here and it really was probably not the place that I wanted to be, but it was like in my head that like, I wanted to be.
together. It wasn't really like a thoughtful, like, security phase, like, in ten years, whatever you feel, you know. And it was an adorable experience, it was a beautiful place, but it just wasn't for me. So I got my associate's degree and then he and I moved out to Los Angeles with my mom, my mom tied the knot.
Carly (23:20.216)
Thanks for watching!
Carly (23:33.771)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (23:44.878)
and we've stayed in this one bedroom apartment, all three of us, and I just, if you can even imagine, like, your 20 years old sharing an apartment with your below, like, it was very, very tough. It was very tough, um, and yeah, there were many, uh, many situations where it was just like, we gotta get out of here, like, we can't do this, you know? Eventually, we made it in our, we found our own apartment, um.
Carly (23:48.48)
Oh my goodness.
Emily (23:51.25)
Wow.
Carly (23:58.266)
Oh my god.
Emily (24:07.81)
Hahaha
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (24:14.21)
and you know we finally settled down in that way but it was a rough road like getting here and when i got here i had um i had kind of sorted having these symptoms of an eating disorder kind of stuff up and then when i got to LA it became a full floating disorder which i did not have any unit treatment for like four and a half months and i was in like
Carly (24:22.101)
Yeah.
Carly (24:41.376)
Wow.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (24:42.346)
Personal hospitalization, so I was there for really, like, big games, but it was a rough fill, you know, and it took me a long time to, like, move on from that, but I, you know, I'm in a good place now with all of that, so it's, you know, I take the work and...
Carly (24:51.093)
Yeah.
Carly (24:59.032)
That's good. I'm sure it couldn't have been easy, like having to deal with that history. And then now you have to deal with something else that affects eating in a different way. But like, I did that at all, like have any connection? Or were you like, that one's in the past, now I'm doing this one.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (25:07.886)
Mm. Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (25:17.262)
Sometimes it does, sometimes it comes up for me, because sometimes I don't want to eat anything but like ice cream because it's just easy to eat, you know? Or foster, it's just easy to eat, and sometimes I look at it in my head, and my husband is always there to console me and tell me, like, hey, you know, you're fine, you're fine, bring it around. And yeah, sometimes, it fits in the way sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't work, you know, okay, so like...
Carly (25:26.164)
Yeah.
Carly (25:36.172)
Yeah.
Carly (25:43.094)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (25:47.058)
This last surgery had a very, um, big impact on my face, and it is one of those things where I'm struggling with my identity now. Like, who makes this person? I guess I'm a very different person. And when I saw my new teeth, I was like, they're beautiful, but they're not me, they're not my smile, even before this surgery.
Carly (26:02.144)
Yeah.
Carly (26:14.544)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (26:16.614)
I try to figure out my identity every time something happens.
Emily (26:21.49)
Yeah.
Carly (26:21.88)
Did you know going into the surgery that it was going to affect your appearance? Yeah, so they...
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (26:26.43)
Yeah, yeah, you know, I knew where it was in my face. So like, I saw a divot start to kind of form on my cheek here. It was like, it's not that weird. And eventually over the months, this was like the worst, some of the worst thing I've ever had. It became kind of this like part where it like
Carly (26:49.164)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (26:56.066)
game was just so, um, like, I believe in the shark and just, like, your whole thing and your electrify. Um, I knew exactly, they told me how, like, they were gonna open it up and there would be stars here and your eye light, it's just like, oh, at least you pulled the thing in, cause it's like, your eye light drew and you might get the provision and all this stuff and in the first few months, like,
got to see it happen, my eyes were closed, and now like a year later, and I have self-efficient in my eyes, it's like, you're just taking a chance at college, because that's the only thing you can do, you know?
Carly (27:37.504)
Yeah, did they, were their nerves impacted? Is that some of the changes that were happening because of that?
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (27:43.39)
Yeah, yeah, so there are definitely nerds that work so hard. So, um, for my face is numb. Um, and there are some nerds I can tell are like regenerating, um, or like, you know, just like, you know, there's like, you know, sometimes like itchiness or it's like short, you know. Um, but what they did was they took the, um, took like
like meat from my leg, from my thigh, and they like cut from like my knee to my hip, a painful, um, you know, like a painful incision, and they took meat from there to replace, like, the cheek, to have something there. Um, and so I also had to like deal with like this, like, healing my leg, um, which was like very rare compared to everything else. Um.
but when I was like unrecognizable when I went into or when I came out of surgery they didn't really know how long it was gonna take like my last two surgeries were about like even about three hours long this one was 14 hours and my poor mom and husband were out in the lobby and they were there until like 8 o'clock she got home and they're like my husband's like my wife's in there like we don't even hear anything like what's going on
Emily (28:57.96)
Wow.
Carly (29:11.531)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (29:12.526)
And at one point one of the surgeons came out and they were like, we're still working on her. And they also didn't tell me that I would be coming up in the ICU. So I went up in the ICU and that was also pretty traumatizing because it's just not something I expected. You know, you have this breathing tube down your throat and just not an experience I had. So it was a... this room was really more of like a traumatic kind of...
Carly (29:17.612)
Wow.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (29:40.434)
experience for sure.
Carly (29:41.885)
Yeah.
Will you talk a little bit about a couple of things, if you don't mind? Will you talk a little bit about one, like your experience just as a young person dealing with this while other people around you are your same age or not, to about like a little bit more about like the identity part and just like where you kind of have gone up and down with that struggle and well, actually I have so many things. How much time do we have? No.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (29:47.926)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (30:12.327)
You can ask me anything you want.
Emily (30:13.185)
Hahaha
Carly (30:14.35)
Three, a little bit, if you don't mind about just like how it affects your relationships both with your family and with your husband and you know, people having to be in a caregiver role versus in a family role versus in a relationship role. And four, last one, lots to remember, is a little bit about like where you have been in your progress of like eating and like being able to eat via, you know, your mouth versus other, you know.
or your stomach or whatever you may have gone through. So, okay, you have the floor. Those are my four questions. Okay, great.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (30:46.05)
Yeah.
Emily (30:50.594)
Hahaha
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (30:53.042)
I'm ready. I'll start with the relationship question since we were just kind of chatting about that. That has impacted my life immensely. Being a young person having cancer, I have had really close friends. I was actually a pool dancer.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (31:20.53)
I was looking for friends and we were constantly trading together and when they stopped phishing, literally everyone disappeared. It was like, a little bit, some people texted me, but like, everyone disappeared. And I have friends that I've had literally since I was in elementary school that I'm still friends with. And those people stuck around, but the people that are like, guy-babe friends in LA, they
Emily (31:28.953)
Wow.
Carly (31:30.741)
Yeah.
Carly (31:40.801)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (31:50.098)
that was really hard because I was like, no I don't have anyone in LA that's like, come, you know, actively come and like, sit with me. And I had, I think I was looking at some people later and that was really like comforting. But as a side note, I was with my like, my high school sweetheart and we had in, what's it, 2018, or a 10 year like-
Emily (31:54.839)
Yeah.
Carly (31:55.089)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (32:18.466)
together anniversary and we would have been married two years that year. So it was like 10 years together and we were having this Valentine's Day dinner sitting on the floor watching Crazy Rich Asians, we were having Chinese food and nothing like that, any correlation, so please edit that if that's an issue. That's really what I said.
I had no relation at all, and I had no relation to everything yet. Anyway, we were sitting on the floor. Okay, I was just like, I was just like, oh my god. Um... That's like, really overbearing. Um... So anyway, probably a free time, but he was acting really weird, so I stopped the movie, and I was like, hey, what's going on? You know, like, two hours later, it's like, I don't know what I want, I don't think. I'm not sure that this is what I want. Um...
Emily (32:49.389)
Great movie, great food. You're just having a day. Ha ha ha.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (33:14.702)
I was like, what do you mean? I'm not saying like, what do you mean? Like, we just moved into a new place, a new house, like, you know. He was like, I need time to think about it. And I was like, yeah. And a week later, he thought about it, supposedly, and I was like, I appreciate it. He was like, I'm not getting over this, like, what's going on?
Emily (33:22.462)
Wow.
Carly (33:27.557)
On your anniversary?
Carly (33:41.205)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (33:41.918)
And he was like, you're recording it? I was just essentially saying it for him. I was like, you wanted a divorce, right? And he said, yeah, I wanted a divorce. Okay. Yeah.
Carly (33:50.036)
In a matter of a week, he was like, he went from like, I'm not sure to like, let's, we're done? Oh my God. Fuck this guy.
Emily (33:50.306)
Wow.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (33:57.19)
Yeah, well I did find out, so this was very hard. This is my first love, we had this really close relationship. It was like someone had died, you know? It was just that grief, you know? It was so heavy, and then at the time, that was the loneliest time I'd ever felt during my cancer
Carly (34:10.785)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (34:26.082)
no one was listening to me. My daughters kept saying it was post-op pain, post-reunion pain, they weren't saying, like, I was like, this pain, there's something wrong, there's something wrong, they weren't believing me, and I just felt so alone, and, you know, I had, like, I was having, like, suicidal ideation, and I was, like, going through all this stuff, and now here comes my third ear.
Carly (34:48.489)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (34:54.338)
and suddenly, like, you know, this isn't for me anymore. And over the next few months, we ended up just doing a mediation, like, you know, we weren't, like, fighting over things. But at one point, they talked about alimony, and I could have gotten a lot for alimony because of my situation, and he made a lot more money than I did. I was working at a job.
You know, uh, and he looked at me when we were both out of the office, he looked at me and said, like, I won't be able to stay in LA, like, if I have to pay you, like, I won't be able to stay in LA. And he had just got, like, a really controlled Disney, like, all this stuff. It was like, I really think about it and I'll say here and now. And so I figured it out and I think of, like, the best deal of his life.
Carly (35:53.048)
Thanks for watching!
Emily (35:53.154)
Yeah
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (35:55.406)
And we signed papers, we moved on. Every now and then, like, we checked in with each other, it was like, you know, very personal. And then, a couple months later, I met my future husband, my husband. It was like, yeah, it was very fast. I wasn't expecting it, but it was like, this is the first time. But, yeah, it was really amazing. But, two years later...
Carly (36:18.744)
That's amazing.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (36:24.462)
I'm sitting on the right-hand face of it. And I see like a lot of people are in the front seat. And it's like really...
Carly (36:34.399)
This is important stuff, we gotta make sure.
Emily (36:36.377)
Hahaha
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (36:37.226)
Let me make sure you can hear it. Um, so I'm going through Facebook, and I see... I had an idea that he was having this emotional affair with this woman. Um, she was also married at the time. Um, yeah. But I had a really good idea that he was having this emotional affair. Um, and I didn't-
Emily (36:55.03)
Oh boy.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (37:06.506)
I didn't think it was physical, like, it was just knowing him, I didn't think it was a physical affair. So I went through, I went through Facebook and I see her name, which is last name. And I was like, what the f- So I, can I correct my hair? I can't, right? Um, so I click on her name, and-
Carly (37:25.713)
You can curse, yeah. Fuck it. Fuckin' curse.
Emily (37:25.829)
Oh yeah, curse it up.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (37:36.094)
The banner is a family photo of her, him, and her baby. And then I scroll down and I look and I see the signogram. Dated six months. Curring six months backwards, we were still together.
Carly (37:56.12)
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Emily (37:56.225)
Whoa.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (37:57.918)
Yeah. So essentially, he completely... Yeah. He lied through the entire communication, so that whole, like, still-up story, but like, I don't think I was gonna lie. He knew that he had a freaking girlfriend. And just didn't tell me. He's gonna come see me. Yeah.
Emily (38:00.205)
Wow.
Carly (38:01.9)
Work it.
Emily (38:13.909)
Yeah, he was like, I can't pay for my new family if you get alimony, not I can't stay in LA and recover from this breakup. Wow, that is some shitty, you're better off without him. I mean, that's clear. Yeah.
Carly (38:14.373)
Oh my god, I wish there was a way you could go back.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (38:22.614)
Yep. Yeah.
Carly (38:25.377)
That's.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (38:27.186)
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I mean, honestly, if that's the kind of person he is and that's the kind of person she is, then they're meeting for each other. She's like, she dated one of her husbands too, so it's like... yeah.
Carly (38:28.463)
Yeah.
Emily (38:34.91)
Yeah, that is a-
Carly (38:35.096)
I'm sorry.
Emily (38:38.549)
That is a next level Facebook discovery. I have only ever discovered minor things like that on Facebook. I have never discovered a secret family.
Carly (38:39.405)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (38:48.71)
Oh yeah, it was like... I really never thought I heard this kind of like, Oh my god! And Eris, my husband from the next room, was like, What? And I was like, He has a family! And he was like, Who has a family? And I was like, He has a family! And he was laying on the floor, and he was like, I need to know who. And I just showed the picture, and he was like, You know?
Carly (38:56.608)
Yeah.
Emily (39:12.141)
Hahaha!
Carly (39:15.472)
Oh my god.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (39:15.822)
Since we've been together for a while, I kind of recovered from that, because that felt like a really big betrayal on this part. You know, here I am being with this nice person, I'm leaving him f**king hands, I'm sorry. Honestly, I left all this stuff just nice. I would have, like, I saw this thing recently, somebody was like, how did you get revenge on your ex? And she had mixed up all of his stuff in boxes and put, like, you know, f**k.
Emily (39:21.345)
Huge!
Carly (39:22.102)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (39:42.39)
Like, they stuffed their shoes, they stuffed everything, put like, papers, they closed. It wasn't a nice and genius idea. Everybody's done that. They're totally... Uh, they made their shoes. I think I'm gonna do that, so it's fine. Uh, but it was, it was, uh... Yeah, it was...
Emily (39:48.729)
Oh yeah.
Carly (39:48.91)
Hahaha
Emily (39:55.325)
Yeah. Wow. I once I did have an ex. So when I was 25, I was dating a guy who was 30. And he spent a lot of time with this woman who was 35. And that's only relevant to the story because I genuinely was like, I feel like you're either cheating on me or what's going on with this woman. Like you're spending a whole lot of time with this woman. And he literally said to me,
Why would I want to be with a 35 year old when I can be with a 25 year old? And my 25 year old brain was like, you're right, 25 is way better. And they're married now. They've been married since like a year after we broke up. Like it's, you know, and it's a very different situation. We only dated for a year and I wouldn't, like a month after we broke up, I was like, yeah, we probably shouldn't have been together, but.
Carly (40:32.845)
Hahaha
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (40:37.12)
No.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (40:43.894)
Yeah.
Emily (40:44.337)
It was jarring to see on his Instagram just their like wedding photo because they kind of like did a little small ceremony elopement kind of thing and just spending weeks months telling me like I don't I'm not attracted to her like and then it's like okay sure
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (40:59.261)
Right. Yeah. Thanks for the, yeah. Thanks for the audience.
Emily (41:03.577)
The internet, without the internet, we wouldn't know about any of this. We would just be walking through the world thinking we were never, never betrayed. Speaking of the internet, I was curious if you feel like you've been able to find people in your community via like, I'm not sure if you're on TikTok, I've seen your Instagram, but if that has been a helpful thing to you, if that's been a neutral thing to you, like what has your experience been with
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (41:08.074)
It's so true. Yeah.
Emily (41:31.009)
with finding community and is the internet helping you do that?
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (41:35.338)
That's a great question. Facebook is actually good. There's a group of Facebook that's not selecting new patients. That's it. And that's essentially the surgery right now. So not just right under cancer, that's more general. But they're also heading to cancer pages as well. And that page has really helped me navigate things in the beginning. And I started my Instagram, like I think...
And that was like what my Instagram was about. And I ended up saying, well, how does this whole thing happen to me? I'm just going to post about it. And it finally just became my thing, where I'm just going to really post about it. Like, no one knows about this. And then it just became... So one of the videos I posted was like a few months before, and the internet is so bizarre because one day I just got like
all these notifications for Instagram, and I was like, what is going on? And one of my videos hit, and it wasn't super viral or anything, but it hit, and it was like a million views or something, I don't know, maybe it wasn't that much, but it was a lot, and I got 20,000 followers in like four days, and I was like, that's weird, you know? Like, it's just bizarre. And I was like, oh, I posted it that day, it was like a couple weeks behind. Yeah, it was weird. So like...
Carly (42:53.304)
Wow.
Emily (42:58.113)
months. Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (43:03.438)
I've been liking it to a point where I'm like, I hate her voice. And I'm still navigating it, I have a Facebook. It's the same as Instagram, but it's just like I'm still navigating it. Like, why is it hard to like figure out? And I feel really old, like when I hear it, I just feel like really old. And I'm only 32, but like, I don't know how people know. I don't know how people are doing like this little age and I don't know.
Carly (43:21.976)
Thanks for watching!
Emily (43:33.785)
Thanks for watching!
Carly (43:34.186)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (43:35.786)
I don't know. So, I try, I try. I've been definitely on Instagram, I think I'm on Instagram. And you know, for any community out there, I think I've found that on Instagram there have been a lot of people who have found some footage and they have found that what I am saying is really helpful for them and that's what I'm doing. And that's why I guess I keep doing it.
Emily (43:37.431)
Yeah.
Carly (43:58.808)
That's great.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (44:03.946)
I want, not only do I want people to know that this exists in the world, that like, if you see someone that looks like me, and I don't feel like wearing my teeth that day, and I just have the empty mouth of teeth, like, know that like, this is a possibility, and like, I can see just my face just like me if it exists, and I can be like beautiful just like you're beautiful, like, just the way you think, so, and that-
I've been very difficult to navigate. And so I have support groups. There's a support group at the hospital that I go to. There's SponsorWolf. There's another one that's a bigger organization that meets SponsorWolf, which I think I'm gonna email to you guys. But it's a really small community, and I have never met someone my age
like in person with anything like this. Everything's been older, like much older. But I've connected with these people to the point where like, these people are my family and I love them and they have been through so much and like collectively it's like...
Emily (45:08.277)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (45:27.014)
This disease is so painful and so isolating that to have other people that can say, I know exactly how you felt in that moment is like sometimes just what you need. Um, because there's always so much that, you know, like, here's an earache and then I got
Carly (45:43.23)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (45:55.098)
I hadn't dated anybody since high school. So I was on my dating
Emily (45:57.568)
Yeah.
Carly (46:00.794)
haha
Carly (46:19.902)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (46:23.878)
and I was like, just talking after we finished eating, and he was like, um, and we sat like in front of the gate, and he was like, oh, next gate. And we were like, what's your name? Maybe it's like, whatever. And apparently, he was like, that is not the norm in LA. Like, in order in LA, it's like, you'll hold waiting games before you text them back. And I was like, well, I don't know how to gate, so here I am. Ha. Uh, it works out. Yeah. Um, thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time. Take care.
Carly (46:46.296)
Yeah, so that worked out for you actually.
Emily (46:46.773)
I'm not gonna do that, yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (46:53.674)
and he was just... I told him, but I said, what, this is what's going on? And I found out later that year that everything had gone through surgery because the thing that I was feeling, they were telling them in 2019, was a recurrence of cancer. So I sat the whole year telling them I made this decision, and they're telling me, just, just post it up there, just...
what's radiation saying, and I'm having to literally say, okay vacation, you know, like I talked about before, and you know, it was like, I was like, hi, there's something wrong. And then I had been able to save my friend's teeth from the first surgery, so if you just look at me like that, you wouldn't know anything was wrong. But then those teeth started to split apart.
And so by November I was like, two meter from Taurus. I was adorable, but I was like, two meter. And when I put it in, I started listening to it, and it was like, yeah, this isn't normal. I'm like, no, it's not even tiny for this. Yeah, whatever. It's nice. But I told Eric, I said I was a hundred percent, I think we're this far. It's incredibly difficult.
Carly (47:51.553)
Wow.
Emily (47:59.584)
Hehehehehehe
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (48:19.41)
it's painful for both the person who's watching it and the person who's going through it. If you can't handle that, that's totally fine. Like, we've been dating for like a few months, it's okay. Like, I like you, but it's fine. Just help me out. Just tell me I don't do it, or like, I'm not going through it, or like, just help me out, and like, I'm fine. And he says, um, he was like, I don't even see that as an option. Um, and it was just really sweet, and he's
We've been together now like almost five years and it's just been... We got married on Halloween last year and it was a beautiful wedding. I wore black and white and he wore red and it was like a perfect day. And I just... I just had a perfect wedding. I had gotten married before and I just...
Carly (49:02.616)
Woo!
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (49:19.178)
that when he wasn't, you know, he wasn't the right person, so it just wasn't, you know, he didn't feel safe, you know, and this time just felt like it just went so perfect and so right, and when I see the toll that it takes on him, like, when I have these days when I'm like, I feel, I'm so scared, like I'm scared right now, and he's like, why are you scared?
Emily (49:24.376)
Yeah.
Carly (49:24.598)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (49:45.234)
I'm scared to die, because I have, I know the reality of my cancer. My cancer does not react to chemotherapy. I cannot have radiation anymore because I've already done two rounds and I can't have any more direct radiation. And if a chemotherapy doesn't work, that's it. Like there's nothing else out there. At least right now. And, uh...
if it travels somewhere, like, that's it. And I don't know what that looks like for me, I don't know, like, but I've seen in forums that it can travel, and, like, if it does travel, we might have an issue, you know, like, why is there a reason for you to eat in these seats, and, like, you know, we all are taken the same side, like, that's fucking scary to hear, and, like,
Carly (50:40.724)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (50:42.806)
I have all these plans and all these things that I want to do and I'm like... I don't know, like, I'm like, the thing that I want the most is to have a baby and I just think I'm gonna put it off, and put it off, and put it off, and it's so hard to see all my other friends starting families and buying their first house and settling down and here I am like just at like a frustrance like constantly like
maybe because I'm UK and then maybe not. Maybe because I'm UK, maybe not. And right now, the most stable that I know about genetic because I'm only doing systemic treatment, which I haven't had, for four years I haven't done any systemic treatment, it was only external. And I think the systemic treatment is what I needed, so it looks like it's working. And it's the first time that I have not done it in...
Emily (51:41.269)
Oh, did she freeze?
Carly (51:41.582)
Um, so I think, yeah, it's okay.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (51:42.766)
literally like anything. So like I have had like I was taking a lot of fan medication um you know in containing and like through a lot of years but like I got to the point now where I don't really have to take any during the day because I'm really insane and that's always been an indicator of my cancer versus pain you know so the first thing I think
Emily (51:44.889)
It's probably recording, but.
Carly (52:00.748)
That's amazing.
Carly (52:05.244)
Yeah. Will you explain this for a second for people listening what a systemic treatment is?
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (52:11.146)
Yeah, so it's like chemo or immunotherapy, where it's something that runs through your body, and it's like something like an S-ray or like, you know, a CT scan where they're like scanning you from the outside of your body. So that's what immunotherapy is doing. And what immunotherapy is, is it's not like chemo, so it's not like controlling something
Emily (52:17.997)
Gotcha.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (52:41.146)
first the immune system, so the immune system goes and heals the cancer cells. So that's why when you get like your infusion, the week after you feel like you have the flu, because your immune system is like in overdrive trying to get moving and like killing themselves. So that's what's it's you know like I
Emily (52:48.589)
Gotcha.
Carly (53:02.388)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (53:09.582)
I did a test and got some people some probes and you know, it said like 80% and I was like, I'll take 80% that's good, you know, I mean it's better than, you know, better than less than that, it's better than none, so I'm like I'll take it. And yeah, they are, they are, absolutely. And yeah, I'm gonna, you know, I felt like, I just felt like in my throat, like that's when it needed.
Emily (53:25.593)
Those are pretty good Vegas odds, so you know. Ha ha ha.
Carly (53:29.495)
Thank you.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (53:39.618)
So we'll see. I'm just like, I can't wait for my fingers to roll, it's for whatever we do in the universe. But, yeah, I don't remember where I'm going with what I'm talking about, but it's the... Oh yeah, like, having to wait all these years for, like, just thinking that I'm okay, and then, like, having a reference, and then thinking I'm okay, and then having a reference, and I went into surgery.
When I went into surgery last year, that was my third recurrence. So I had a recurrence after the surgery in 2022. So like, since then, they were like, in for a bath. And I was like, you were just in there for 14 hours. What do you mean in for a bath? Yeah, and you know, they're like, well, yeah, they're like, well, I think you're missing cancer cells. They're like, you guys are missing cancer cells for like...
Emily (54:26.165)
You didn't see it? Yeah.
Carly (54:27.2)
Yeah, like from where? Like, then you take it out with the whole point?
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (54:37.366)
Six years now, like, you know, and...
sometimes they're like this, ugh, it is. And so I'm just praying that this time things work out. But I have gotten second opinions and some of them are good, some of them are not so good, and that's where being your own advocate comes in, because you really have to push for, well, either way, if this doesn't make any sense, or,
Carly (54:44.064)
Now cancers are nasty beasts.
Carly (54:52.44)
Yeah.
Carly (55:14.196)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (55:14.27)
And I think, you know, doctors wanted to do a complete reconstruction, which would mean like, filling a whole floor and replacing all of the things that are there. Which pretty essentially like, put me back to normal, but it requires any physical references that happen. So like, if I had, if I got cancer again, all of that works in case I'm not, I think I have to undo it all. Yeah.
Carly (55:40.796)
Yeah, undo everything.
Emily (55:41.465)
Bye.
Carly (55:43.344)
Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry that you're dealing with all of this. I mean, it is so evident how strong you are. I mean, I'm sure you've heard this a million times, but I'm sure you're at so evident how strong you are, how passionate you are about, uh, not only your own experience, but helping others who may be struggling with the same thing. Uh, and I, uh, you know, there's a lot of research out there that just even
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (55:44.539)
Yeah.
Thanks.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (55:55.95)
Thank you.
Carly (56:13.238)
like a good willpower and a good like emotional well-being can play such a huge part in your overall you know recovery and care so I mean just you know keep it up that's like the words it keep.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (56:28.078)
Thank you, no thank you so much. No, it means a lot. It means a lot. It really does. Is it?
Emily (56:30.815)
Yeah.
And thank you. Thank you for sharing with us, honestly. Thank you for reaching out and thank you for, for shining light on something that well, a lot of people don't know about. I definitely learned a lot just in the past hour and you're just very. Eloquent about it and very, you know, positive in your demeanor. And we just really appreciate you coming on the show for sure.
Carly (56:37.829)
Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (56:39.415)
Hmm
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (56:50.158)
Thank you.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (56:53.454)
Thank you so much. I actually wanted to add one thing. During my time, I decided to go back to school. I finished my bachelor's degree in psychology, my master's degree in psychology, and I'm in a doctoral program for clinical psychology. So hopefully I will, in the next five years, follow me to Dr. Kowalski.
Carly (56:53.951)
Yeah.
Carly (57:01.868)
Woohoo!
Carly (57:11.412)
Well, well...
Emily (57:18.549)
Wow, that's amazing. That's...
Carly (57:19.856)
Yeah, we'll make sure to edit our show notes. Let us know when you become doctor. We'll edit all of our show notes to reflect the appropriate title. Yeah. Well, we want to make that so, yeah, that's so incredible. I mean, it just like truly shows how passionate you are about just like helping other people and that's amazing. Yeah.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (57:25.358)
I'm really excited. I'll be telling everyone. Hahaha. Yeah.
Emily (57:28.105)
Yeah, that's amazing. Congratulations.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (57:32.107)
Thank you.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (57:39.222)
Thank you. Thank you guys so much. It's so lovely to meet you and, you know, like put a face through the voice. That, you know, listening to you. They are! They are!
Emily (57:46.169)
course. Yeah, we do have to do our
Carly (57:46.688)
Hopefully they're nice faces. Well, yeah, we have, thank you. We have an important segment. Yeah, tell it Emily, take it away.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (57:52.672)
Hehehe
Emily (57:54.197)
Yeah, we have to do our one and only segment, which is where do you like to eat alone when you're at lunch?
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (58:00.542)
Oh yes. There are two places in life, but one place is called Leo and Lily, it's in the valley. In Love and Hills, they have the absolute best history from selling french fries ever. They have this giant meat salad that has like,
Emily (58:16.345)
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Carly (58:17.618)
Mmm.
Carly (58:26.808)
You know, I'm starving. I mean...
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (58:28.998)
The other place that I like is called Health Net, which is very popular, and there's like two locations. One location is pretty well known if you know the Cornachians and their giant salad bowls. That's where you get them from. And their salads really are delicious. They're Cornachian standard. Yeah, they're Cornachian standard, right? Yeah. So those are the two places I like to go.
Emily (58:45.857)
Gotcha.
Carly (58:46.024)
Oh yeah.
Emily (58:53.625)
They're pretty good.
Carly (58:54.056)
They must be good. Well, amazing.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (58:59.102)
Are you fucking... Yeah.
Emily (59:01.697)
Perfect.
Carly (59:02.388)
Perfect. Well, we want to give you the time now to promote Your Instagram or anything else that you want to throw out there and you know, that's the time Just give everybody what you want them to know
Emily (59:12.917)
And if there's any kind of resources you want us to share, feel free to email them to us. We'll put them in the show notes so people can, you know, if you want to reference them or whatever, we can get that info out.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (59:13.334)
Yeah, thank you.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (59:18.582)
Okay.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (59:23.374)
Yeah, absolutely. My Instagram is nifflesfrickensmile, as is my Facebook page and my TikTok. I don't know what my Twitter slash S is, I don't really do, I'm not learning anymore, so you won't find me on there. But nifflesfrickensmile, and I just try to post, you know sometimes I f-
I linger and I don't post for a while because I just like this in a way, but I do try to post regularly and I'm really trying to get my sex focus there because I really do want to be with the people and I know that's where people will find me and I want to be able to show people, showcase different things so like, you know, educational therapy in terms of being able to like...
Carly (59:56.28)
Thank you.
Carly (01:00:05.234)
Yeah, the younger.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (01:00:20.246)
both in my mouth and the things that I'm working on personally. So that's the kind of things you find on my page. I'm just adventurous with me and my doctors appointments and my CS or no CS. I am one of those things. I am a vain believer in cancer isn't funny if you have no sense of humor.
And I have a faith believer that you really have to make sure that you're in a sense of humor with this, or a sense of humor. Um, and, like, just laughing yourself to bits. So, that's it.
Carly (01:00:56.552)
Well, good. In the right spot.
Emily (01:00:57.465)
Amazing. Well, thank you again so much for being here and yeah, that that's it. We did it
Carly (01:01:04.492)
For everyone listening, thank you so much and goodbye.
Nicole Kowalski-Kleinsasser (01:01:04.526)
Thank you guys so much.
Emily (01:01:07.201)