Michelle Audoin | MBC Advocate, Rethinker, Changemaker | Showing your scars

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and behind it is a reality that affects women first and foremost - directly and indirectly. That’s why we're proud to share that we have partnered with Rethink Breast Cancer for a special series on The Brand is Female podcast today and in the coming weeks.

Today's guest is Michelle Audoin. Michelle happily wears the hats of wife and mom to two wonderful kids, home baker and doggy mama. She was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2017. Prior to her diagnosis, Michelle worked for almost 2 decades as a passionate educator in Toronto. She brings an equity lens to Rethink’s MBC Advisory Board and as a member of Rethink’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group. Michelle has been involved in numerous advocacy and awareness campaigns for breast cancer and MBC. Specifically she’s participated in Rethink’s Queen’s Park Advocacy Day and MBC campaigns, was featured in the MCB Time 2020 video, and has written a blog for Rethink about being a young woman with MBC. Most recently, Michelle is proud to have partnered with Rethink to create Uncovered: A Breast Recognition Project. This resource shares the stories and images of Black, Indigenous and women of colour and it shines a light on how women of colour often see their needs overlooked and underrepresented in the cancer care community.

Listen to this episode to hear why representation matters and all about her journey from diagnosis to bringing forth change within the breast cancer industry.

Rethink Breast Cancer aims to empower, educate, and support all young people impacted by breast cancer. In this series, we will be discussing and re-thinking the narrative around breast cancer in today’s world. As part of this series, you will meet women who are making a difference as leading changemakers in the community. Everyone on the Rethink Breast Cancer team is focused on offering relevant and accessible spaces for the new generation of young people affected by breast cancer, and we are so happy we can share their knowledge on this platform.

Thanks to our partners at Rethink Breast Cancer for their support of this episode of The Brand is Female.

This season of The Brand is Female is brought to you by TD Bank - Women Entrepreneurs. TD is proud to support women entrepreneurs and help them achieve success and growth through its program of educational workshops, financing and mentorship opportunities! Find out how you can benefit from their support!

Full Episode Transcript

Eva Hartling: Michelle, it's a pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you so much for joining me on The Brand is Female this morning,

Michelle Audoin: good morning, and I'm really glad to be here on The Brand. Is Female with

Eva Hartling: you. I like to start conversations by asking you going back to your childhood years, what did you dream you'd want to be doing or you'd be doing as a career later in life.

And did you ever imagine it would have something to do with what you're actually doing today at rethink? Or was it something completely unrelated? At that time?

Michelle Audoin: My, I grew up My dad was a teacher. My mom was a nurse. I knew nursing wasn't the profession for me, but I did get into education.

So I come from a, teacher family, my sister's a teacher as well. My brother's a flight instructor. So education is in our bones, it's in our blood. And so that's what I, the profession that I went into was education. And at an elementary school in the east end of Toronto. And I worked with a lot of high immigrant populations, a lot of new Canadians, and it was just one of the most wonderful highlights of my life.

I'm privileged, to teach in that.

Eva Hartling: And tell me about, and that's great because it seems you where you were on that path already. So it wasn't something that required a pivot or shift in your career. Tell me about those first years, maybe when you started teaching, what was that experience like?

And did it feel, what did it feel that it was contributing maybe to your life and that you were bringing to the communities you were working?

Michelle Audoin: The minute that I walked into the school for my job interview, I just felt like this place was home. I looked around and I saw the diversity.

The children and the community that was at this school. And I knew it was a place that I had to be growing up in Mississauga, my elementary school experience, wasn't the most inclusive or. Culturally diverse. I come from the mixed family background. My dad was born in Trinidad. My mother was from Northwestern, Ontario in a Francophone community in the rainy river.

And the elementary school that I went to was primarily white. The number of minority kids in the school, you could probably count on. Both hands included our family and a couple of neighbours on the street. And so it was really refreshing for me to walk into a school and see all of these kids from different backgrounds.

And I wanted to be there to support. As they came into Canada and learn what life is like in Canada I knew what it felt like to be a kid as an outsider. And I wanted to be a part of that and make their transition to life in Canada, smoother and easier.

Eva Hartling: Did it ever feel at one point? We talk, obviously, education is a sector where women are typically not underrepresented. There's a lot of women in the education field as a woman of colour in that profession, was there ever a moment where you felt maybe, racial bias or gender bias and true for you coming into that position

what that experience felt like if you felt there were any barriers?

So let's talk about what led you and, obviously, we're having this conversation, it's the month of October and the month where we raise awareness for breast cancer, you are involved with rethink now. So I'd love to know about how you found rethink and I know this connects to your own health journey as well.

Michelle Audoin: So I can maybe tell you a little bit about my health journey and breast cancer. So breast cancer has always been something lurking in the back of my mind and this has been a long time. Around the age, 14, 15 years old, I found a lump in my right breast. And it's not something you would expect to find in a.

Girl. So young had the support of my family, my mother, and I went the route of having that lump removed, but the experience of being a teenager going through the biopsy, having to disrobe in front of older white men having them poking and prodding your breasts was a very traumatic experience for me and left a scar around my area.

So my breasts did not look the same. You could tell that there had been a surgical intervention on my right breast and growing up, I was always quite self-conscious about that and about my breasts and just knowing that there was that lump there as I said, breast cancer was always lurking in the back of my mind.

And I can fast forward to over the years breastfeeding, finding various lumps and. Being honest with my family doctor and having those checked out and being told, sometimes they're just milk ducts that are blocked, but that fear of always, could this be breast cancer?

I was nursing my second child I felt a lump that seemed like it was different. So I knew that I had lumps in my breast, but I was told they were all always benign cysts, but I felt like this one in this one particular spot had changed. So I did go to my family doctor and we did an ultrasound. They felt that it did look different from previous ultrasounds.

He sent me to the hospital to have a mammogram, and to have a biopsy, the first biopsy wasn't conclusive had to go back and have a second biopsy. And then they discovered that it was breast cancer. And so it was almost like my greatest fears had come to life. It was something that I was always afraid of.

But, these lumps in my breasts, we're going to come back as breast cancer. So that was really hard to process.

Eva Hartling: I can imagine. And do you feel at that time, because it sounds like it at first appeared when you were still quite young and was there, did you feel that there were conversations around you about breast cancer, what to look out for, or, even discussions around what treatment and, Looks like or was this kind of completely new and it felt like you had to, I think it's always about making our own way when we're a patient trying to navigate healthcare for any type of, health issue or disease.

But again, did you feel that there was, enough information out there for you to be able to be educated and aware of what was going.

Michelle Audoin: Absolutely not. There was, I don't feel at all that there was enough education or awareness for me about what to look for. My risk factors there were never any conversations about that for me.

Not from, my first benign cyst, having that operation when I was about 14, 15 years old to when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. So I really felt in the dark that I didn't have a good handle on, what to expect or what this breast cancer thing could be and what my risk factors were.

Eva Hartling: And I think there's a lot of women in your situation and unfortunately, still today and you spoke about how there was the added trauma if the illness itself wasn't enough. There was the added trauma of dealing with some health care practitioners who were maybe not, it sounds like they didn't necessarily have the best approach in working with you as a patient.

And. It sounds like there are two issues here because there is a lack of information, facts being shared. And I want to come back on that and ask you if you feel that has evolved since, but it sounds like there's work that needs to happen with healthcare practitioners. So they have better bedside manners for lack of a better word with breast cancer patients.

So since then and maybe this connects with your work at rethink. Do you feel that we're still in the same situation or that progress is being made?

Michelle Audoin: Hello,

Eva Hartling: it happened. I'm sorry about that. Sounds seem to actually be better this time around.

 First of all, I am, I'm sorry for this experience, which sounds like, not only was there an issue with the facts and information available to you as a cancer patient.

And then there was the added traumatic experience of working with some healthcare practitioners that maybe did not have the right tools or the right approach in the offering, optimal care. And just in generally speaking how they were dealing with you, do you feel that there's been progress made since and dis you know, the answer might connect what your work at rethink to address issues on those two?

Michelle Audoin: You're absolutely right. It was a traumatic experience. It was traumatic because it brought up the memories of being a young girl. And just having these doctors interact with me in a way that wasn't sensitive to my needs and I didn't feel Cared for or respected or supported in, in those moments.

And so it was really hard for me. Excuse me. It was quite difficult for me to walk into the breast care clinic and, subject myself to this all over again. You have a lump, you need to have it checked out. That's absolutely important, but it comes with a lot of baggage and it's something that I wish healthcare providers took more time with their patients just to get a better understanding of where they're coming from.

Eva Hartling: That makes sense. And so much, I think, care and health services in general. So much is also not just the physical illness, but the whole psychological and emotional, approach to healing. And it seems like that's where there's a major gap. And I've obviously heard that from other women, but hearing your experience How to do we, and I'll also turn the question and kind of frame it with the amazing work that rethink is doing.

What are resources that women can now access? How do you think we can help women who find themselves in this situation? Maybe a first brush with, a risk of breast cancer, because we know now in, in some cases when women have a good healthcare practitioner, it's possible to evaluate what our risk is for potentially having breast cancer, but also for women who find themselves having to get treatment when they get diagnosed.

So what would be solutions that they can or services that these women can tap into?

Michelle Audoin: I'm sure the services vary from the cancer care centers. In hospitals, there's big, there's rural. But one of the things that were most surprising for me was being treated in Toronto, where we have such a culturally and ethnically diverse city, the resources that were available to me did not reflect the diversity of this city and that was really hard for women of colour black women. Our skin does not necessarily heal the same way as white women. So sometimes we're our scars with keloid and so that, that is an issue for a lot of women. And when I made the decision to have a bilateral mastectomy, I needed to see images of black women so that I knew what their scars would look like.

And those were not available to me. So making. A decision about your body, that's going to impact the rest of your life. And you have no images or idea of what it's going to look like is very scary. I think people, most people would not. Do you want to buy a car? You want to see what the colour looks like, how it, what it looks like under the hood.

You do your due diligence. And I wanted to do my due diligence and ask all of those questions and ask about, how do I treat the scars if they do start to keloid and I couldn't get the answers to those questions. So it just made me feel like I'm not really a part of this experience isn't for me.

And it threw me into a depression because I had this surgery and I didn't know what to do with my breasts. So as part of my surgery, I lost both of my nipples. And so I have these two scars running up my body and I did not see my body as a whole anymore. I just saw it as everything above my chest.

And everything below my chest. And I really could not come to terms with the reconstructed breasts and a lot of that has to do with the lack of representation and the lack of information and support for my needs. C

Eva Hartling: So you were talking about seeing, you're not feeling like your body was a hole anymore, and you had to, the upper part of your body, the bottom part of your body.

Michelle Audoin: And so yes, it did. It threw me into a depression and I was really trying to process everything that had happened and what I had wished for For things to be different.

And so I started, just writing things down, if somebody were else another woman like me were to go through this experience, what would I want her to have? And I started writing those things down, and it started to make me feel better just to even just think about these things.

And then I gave it a name, the breast recognition project. And I thought you know what. It would be so nice to empower women to take pictures of their scars, their breast reconstruction, scars, and hear their stories and their voices and have them photographed in a beautiful way, but to make them feel safe and secure to have black hair.

Oh my goodness. Now I have a phone call. I'm so sorry.

So I gave this, these ideas, these. Dream this vision that I had in my mind, I gave it a name and I called it the breast recognition project. And in it I wanted to see, women who looked like me. I wanted to see their scars. I wanted to hear their stories of what their experience going through breast cancer was like, and to make them feel beautiful, empowered.

I wanted to have a black hairstylist, I would want to have black photographers, but like makeup artists who understand the unique needs of women of colour and, it gave me some comfort to go back and look at those notes and just think, maybe one day this could be something real.

This could be something that could help other women who are probably feeling alienated from the system.

Eva Hartling: Absolutely. And I think you're pointing to, health inequities that affect women undergoing cancer treatment, or unfortunately, it's in other areas of women's healthcare as well.

It seems to be a common experience, with the lack of representation. So tell me about it. I'd love to hear it as I know there are a few, actually, you know what, I'm going to go back. Cause I want to talk about stigma for a second. You bring up the lack of representation and it sounds like this, this project was really a great way of while increasing representation and really being inclusive of all women's experiences.

And unfortunately, it seems to happen throughout it's not just for women going through cancer treatment. For other areas of women's health care as well, but I want to talk about stigma and what you bring up, feeling like your body. Wasn't a hole anymore. Obviously, the stigma around scars that were on your body.

And I know several women or every woman who goes through a procedure like that deals with some form of stigma and there is the stigma of being a cancer patient as well. And there's a certain way that the world sees you or it feels like the world sees us. Once we are we carry that label.

And how is the best way? What kind of support do you wish, would exist? And. What's needed for women to feel fully supported, helped, carried through that experience. So that, again, it's not just the physical treatment that takes place, but women are also catered to, from an emotional and psychological manner at the same time. So you bring up a lot of ways that, lack of representation is really hindering the ways that women can feel cared for, which I would think impacts again, that emotional and psychological healing that needs to take place.

In addition to physical healing especially where we're cancer is concerned. What would be ways and what are ways that women can feel cared for and, find resources to support them. You've mentioned, going into a depression after your experience. So what would be the path forward?

So women can better feel supported in situations like these.

Michelle Audoin: I think there needs to be better awareness about what supports are available to women what to look for in terms of signs of depression and how to reach out for support. So I think we need just to make these services more accessible.

And part of them, I don't want to say experience, but part of your diagnosis, when you're diagnosed with breast cancer, there is so much going on. And I think women just need to have. Access to that information. Your diet may change. Your tastes may change. So there might be just issues with food and digestion.

There are social, emotional there are family supports if you're raising a family or if you have a spouse and I think women need to know what these resources and services are that are available to them so that they can. Get in connect get in contact with them, connect with these services sooner than later, before something gets out of hand before you fall into a deep depression.

Eva Hartling: And this brings me to talk about uncovered. It's a project that rethink has led which I believe stemmed from your original idea of being able to show women of all backgrounds of all racial backgrounds as well, and, showing their cars basically and sharing images of their body

to really help empower women through this experience. So can you tell me about what would that the process of working on that book was like, and what you hope it can accomplish?

Michelle Audoin: So uncovered started with my, sorry, uncovered started with my journaling experience of how I wanted to process my journey.

My feelings, my depression, and. I wanted to turn something that was really difficult and negative for me into something positive. And at the same time, there was the murder of George Floyd and the whole world was looking at it. What was going on with racial injustice in this world? A lot of is in the states, but Canada is not innocent by any means.

And so I was seeing all of these companies, organizations putting out statements of support and being a black woman. I found it ironic that in some of these organizations and statements, I did not feel that support, that was not my, experience on my receiving end. And so I just started emailing, writing to these companies and organizations and I written to rethink and express some of my feelings.

Sorry. My voice is just going. And so I'd written to rethink, and I expressed my feelings about various issues and the founder M DeCoteau she called me and she said, you know what? I saw your email. And I want to talk about your feelings. And so we had talked about a lot of different things and in that conversation, I said, you know what, while I've got you.

I've just been sitting on this idea and my, my breast reconstruction journey has not been a straight one. It's two years that I've been living with my reconstructed breasts. And I still have no idea what to do with them. And this is really hard for me to process, and I wish women did not have to go through this as specifically black women.

And I said, I just had this idea of. Creating a resource, something for them that shares their stories and their images because they're not available in the hospitals. And she said you know what? We can help you with that. And. I was just absolutely thrilled. And so, we started collaborating, I shared with the rethink, all my notes that I'd been journaling over the past year or so.

And, I said, this is important to me that we need to make this a safe space for black women. This has to be a cathartic experience for me because I'm trying to process it.

So it was really important for me to rethink if I was going to trust them with this project that they were willing to meet me on this journey and have it fill a cathartic need for me.

I needed to have my voice heard I needed to have these women who were going to come with us and be a part of this resource, have their images and their stories seen and heard. And so to do that, I wanted a black photographer. I wanted a black hairstylist for women who still had their hair and I wanted black makeup artists on set everything to make the women who were participating feel comfortable and at ease.

And so that's how uncovered was born. So we put together this resource and in our first edition, we had eight black women. Courageously came forward and shared images of their scars and their stories, their experiences of, navigating the healthcare system where sometimes you, women of colour are often not seen and not heard.

And this gave them a platform to share those experiences with.

Eva Hartling: And can you tell me about the feedback, how, even just working on a book with these women and the, how the book is being received, what are you hearing from your community?

Michelle Audoin: Yeah walking I'll speak about the experience of filming the first edition of uncovered, because even though this was mine.

My vision coming to light. It wasn't an easy task to just walk into the set and take off my top and bare my scars because it was something that I still had not processed in myself. And I really had a hard time looking at my body as a whole. So I, I. Was quite nervous and apprehensive about walking into this situation, even though it was my idea.

And I was on set for the two days where we were filming and taking pictures of the women, the female participants, and every single woman walked in like me a little bit apprehensive, unsure, you know this is a new experience because you've never seen yourself in this light. You've never been pampered in this way.

And then all of a sudden you're taking your top off and showing your scars when you've never seen other women's scars before that looked like you. But after getting their photos, when the women walked off the set, they all had these radiant smiles. And for them. It was just such an empowering and moving experience to feel loved and cared and supported at that moment.

And to be able to share their scars and feel like they're part of something that's going to help other women down the road. So that was really a wonderful experience. And the resource after it was launched, was really well received. You know,

 I was receiving messages on social media about, this is, this was the first time, so many women were seeing themselves represented in the cancer space and it wasn't just, black women or women of colour writing to me.

I was receiving messages from white women. Who really, he just thought cancer is cancer. It doesn't discriminate. And then writing to me saying, I didn't realize my experience was so much easier than yours. I didn't realize I had access to so much more resources than you did. And I didn't realize that your experience as a black woman was so much harder.

And women saying, I'm going to commit to asking my cancer care center or my doctor, my plastic surgeon, to have resources available for women of colour to make sure that their bodies are shown in portfolios, to just make sure that. All women are included.

Eva Hartling: and that's, that, that is so important and such beautiful work. And I'm not surprised to hear. You know that that it was welcomed with a warm reception and we need more of these initiatives. What does the future look like in your eyes for women? And I do mean all women and their experience in receiving

proper treatment and care when it comes to breast cancer, what would be your outlook, for the way this should be handled overall, moving forward in ways that healthcare practitioners, community resources the community of women even can grow and evolve into a fully supportive and hopefully nurturing environment.

Michelle Audoin: I think it's important, for all women to feel supported and to, I think for all women to feel supported and to see themselves in the cancer care setting. It's important that Canada start collecting race-based data. A lot of the stats that we have Are based on American studies.

And a lot of the images and the data that we do have in Canada were collected on white people. So I think until we start having better representation of, women of colour and. Women of colour in the cancer care setting, then I think we're not going to be able to move the needle very far. So we need to have access to that information and to have our voices in issues representing.

Eva Hartling: Yeah, I think that's that would be a great place to start for sure. Is there anything else in your work at rethink initiatives that you might be looking forward to? Maybe the continuation of the uncovered book and project as well, or, things that are on your radar for the next month.

Michelle Audoin: Absolutely. So this month of October, we're going to be launching our second edition of uncovered. It comes with, almost a theme of now you see me now, you don't. So last year's resource was very well received. And I was touched, rethink was. Glad that it was so well received, but at the same time, I was really disappointed that there wasn't any systemic or structural change, no commitments from anybody.

A lot of positive feedback from people who work in the cancer care community who work in cancer care agencies, but there wasn't any change. And what I kept saying to rethink was. If one of my loved ones, my sister or my nieces were to be diagnosed with breast cancer tomorrow, their experience would still be the same isolating experience that mine was four years ago and that's wrong.

So we know that women of colour. Are saying that they don't feel that they've seen and heard and that their needs are not at the forefront of conversations. And that we have this resource that I created with rethink and it's well-received, but nobody's taking the necessary steps to make any changes.

And so that's at the forefront of this new edition of uncovered is just really diving into the ways that the women who participated this year just really didn't feel seen or heard during their experience. And there's also stories of the cup of some women whose doctors knew that there were gaps in the representation of women, of colour.

In cancer and they were supportive and they would have these conversations upfront with their patients. And that led to more positive feelings during their cancer care experience.

Eva Hartling: Yeah, I can see that. If you're comfortable sharing where do you sit in terms of your own health journey?

And especially when it comes to breast cancer and what is the outlook for you? And also, generally speaking, are you, I think we never fully, healing is an ongoing process, obviously both at an emotional. A psychological level and physical level, but where do you find yourself right now?

Michelle Audoin: When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. So this is the kind that there is no cure I'm on treatment for life. And so that, that was that's very difficult. So I was trying to. Process a lot of things. When I was diagnosed in 2017 I was processing the diagnosis.

I was processing, losing my breasts and having the bilateral mastectomy. At the same time, I was dealing with the trauma of that, 15-year-old girl having a. Having her breasts examined for a lump to be removed. And I was nursing my son at the time and I lost my breasts while I was still breastfeeding.

And so that bond was severed with my son very abruptly. And that was something that I was not given the time or the space to talk about and process. So there was a lot that I was going through. And then just this floundering of how do I accept my body as it is. And after shooting the photos for uncovered.

And I saw myself on the cover, and then I saw the women in the resource. I looked at my body differently. I looked at it for the first time as a whole. And as beautiful and as strong as it was that it got me to this point. And so I've been able to accept my body and not feel like I need to do anything else with my reconstructed breasts.

I can accept them now as what they are and it's part of my body. So that's been a positive move forward for me.

Eva Hartling: I'm glad to hear that. And obviously wishing you well in the next steps. And continuing treatment and care and congratulations on the work, what you're doing, with rethink and helping, increase representation. All women in black women specifically, I'm very excited to see, what rethink is coming up with next because these are such important resources and important conversations to have around breast cancer because unfortunately women are often left behind when it comes to healthcare.

And thank you so much for speaking with me, Michelle today. I really appreciate it. It

Michelle Audoin: was wonderful, thank you so much for having me.

Eva Hartling: It was my pleasure.

Eva Hartling: I really hope you enjoy today's conversation.

And if you did, as always, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and give us a review wherever that is possible. Thank you to TD bank group women entrepreneurs, further support of The Brand is Female. You've got it in you to succeed. Let TD help guide you. Visit The Brand is Female dot com slash podcast and click on the TD logo.

Thank you for listening. I'll be back in a week with a new guest. Thank you so much for listening to a podcast by The Brand is Female I'm Eva Hartling. And this episode was produced by our team sound engineering by Isabel Morris, research and production support, Claire Miglionico marketing and digital growth, Kayla, Gillis and partnerships, Natalie hope.