Jan 21, 2021
- Cari Hahn
And I and I remember being on my hands and my knees rocking back and forth, screaming at the top of my lungs. I just was so devastated. And I think I was breathing all of it. I was breathing the fact that I had had cancer. I was grieving the fact that I had worked so hard and that I had left so little for myself
INTRO
My guest today is Cari Hahn, a breast-cancer survivor and the founder of Karma Candles. Cari talks about the challenges or breast cancer, the stupid things people say (like telling you all about their friends/relatives that died from cancer, losing her job after treatment, and the journey through darkness that has led her to create literal and figurative light for others.
Cari and I recorded this conversation last fall, in the midst of breast cancer awareness week. Cari is warm and engaging, she talks with her whole person, leaning forward with the intensity of the story. And you will notice that there was a small problem with the recording, a bit of a hum in the background. I didn’t realize the hum until it was too late but decided that the content was so good and helpful that I wanted to run it anyways.
Cari is married to Matt, a firefighter, and they have twin high school girls.
- Liesel Mertes
Well, here you are, married to a firefighter with firefighter when you met him. How did you guys meet?
- Cari Hahn
So he was he was a volunteer firefighter when I got home. So I was I was a senior in college. And I actually met him in Florida, of all places, at a wedding. And he came back from the wedding and our friends got married, sent him a postcard to call me.
- Cari Hahn
So he proceeds to start calling me and he has my phone number. And I'm like, why is he calling?
But their relationship grew from that postcard and phone call…and Matt has been with the Indianapolis Fire Department for twenty plus years.
- Cari Hahn
Oh, so we have two identical twin girls that are seventeen years old. So they are doing years at Carmel High School this year. We have Carly and Grace. They are they are delayed drivers. So they will actually they will be driving in about a week thankfully. So they waited for that.
- Cari Hahn
And then we have a Great Dane named Ellie who was a rescue, and then we have a little dog that we had for oh gosh about Peekapoo. He he he's a little guy. It's hilarious to see the two of them next to each other and he's got a really bad underbite. And then we have Monkey, the cat that I referred to as my chemo cat because I got Monkey when I was going through cancer treatment.
- Liesel Mertes
Well, that's a great segue, Monkey.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. And so it was 2016 at your initial diagnosis. Had you and you had a lump that you found or what led you to your. Diagnosis?
- Cari Hahn
My dad, so I I have the order, I have turned 40 that year, I have the order safely placed in a kitchen cabinet where I was going to where I kept forgetting about it. And but I just so happened to be sitting at the computer and my husband and I owned a business at that point.
- Cari Hahn
So I was doing some selling for him. And I just I had to get under my arm. And when I ate, like, I felt then something in my to outside of my breast. And I thought that that's very strange. So I proceeded to then go upstairs and I still felt it. I then thought I took my shirt off and to see what was happening. And as I did that, I saw something there. It looked like it looked like a grape.
- Cari Hahn
It was the size of a grape.
And with this lump, Cari’s journey with breast cancer began. I
- Liesel Mertes
And for someone who has not walked through that sudden emergence into the world of tests and things like that, I mean, was what was the most overwhelming part of all of that?
- Cari Hahn
You know, I I think in the beginning it's extremely the amount of appointments. You couldn't you can't believe how many appointments. And I actually tried to total it the other day from the time I was frightened for my diagnosis when the diagnosis process started.
- Cari Hahn
So mid-March until the end of December, when I was done with treatment that year, I probably went to the hospital at least seventy five to one hundred times for tests, for treatment, for whatever, if a lot.
- Cari Hahn
So I think in the beginning, though, it is it's the weirdest feeling to know that you might have cancer in your body and you're just waiting for tests and schedules and but it's also life is going on around us too. So it's it's extremely overwhelming.
- Cari Hahn
And when you when you when you get the diagnosis, then you learn this whole new language. And if it is, it's it's very overwhelming. And the diagnosis part, I think, is one of the really hard part because there's so much waiting involved with it.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell me more about that.
- Cari Hahn
So initially I, I felt the cancer. So this is mid March. I then call after I felt it. I called the schedule, the mammogram the next day. And at that point they said, oh, no, we can't be. You need to go see your doctor, which you're like. And they're like, well, we're going to get you in actually sooner. And I was able to see my doctor right away.
- Cari Hahn
What's weird about this is I had had a breast exam, so not a mammogram.
- Cari Hahn
But she, she said she, she felt in December there was nothing sealable in December. So this is now mid March. And she basically is like that was not there when you were here in December. And it wasn't there was nothing there. And when when my breast cancer came out, when that when that particular cancer, my cancer ended up to the breast cancer, it was safe to do so. In six months. It grew from nothing available to phase two, which is mind blowing to me.
- Cari Hahn
But I you there are so many times to go on. And so then I go for the mammogram. I had an ultrasound at the ultrasound. They said if there's a problem biopsy. And so sure enough, the radiologist came in and he's like he referred to it as a lesion and he said, you're going to need a biopsy.
- Cari Hahn
And he said, you need questions.
- Cari Hahn
And I said, know? And I just really I didn't know what a lesion was, but I knew I didn't want to be in that room anymore. And I knew I could do it.
- Cari Hahn
So so I left very promptly and then I Googled. And as I got to my heart, what is the lesion in the tumor then that leads to the biopsy. And then, of course, that was when I got my diagnosis from that. But there's even more testing or more pathology then that goes on with the tumor.
- Cari Hahn
So at first I went to when I went and met with an on. He told me the probability of me meeting was very good, that I probably wouldn't need to know what they are doing, pathology on my team for the next month is how long the pathology took. So I thought of April 15th. My cancer did not come out until mid-June.
- Liesel Mertes
So you have this just when I imagine could be a very anxious in between waiting time. Yeah, that is dragging on.
- Cari Hahn
It's very anxious and also are very scared because I don't really trust my body either because I have cancer in it. And then so I have the main cancer which was which was the state stage two in my right. Well then during an MRI, which I ended up using three MRI during the diagnosis and having the biopsy on the other side and then come to find out, I had it looked like a stage zero breast cancer, which is ductal carcinoma in situ.
- Cari Hahn
It was then I have to wait here for on that side.
- Cari Hahn
But during the time you're waiting and you're scared and you're thinking rolling in and it's it's a really it's a really hard place to find peace during that time.
- Liesel Mertes
What sorts of things were you doing for yourself that were helpful and what sorts of other things were people doing for you that were helpful?
You can take other questions we have now.
- Cari Hahn
So I just met with I have a lot of my clients now tend to be, gee, I went to deliver some things for the other day into a huge stack of cards and books and. You name it, gift cards and the response from people when you are diagnosed with cancer, I kind of would say it was almost kind of like a 10 year old in some ways. And I have I am from here. So I I have a lot of I know a lot of people.
- Cari Hahn
My husband is from from here. So we're we're pretty connected with the community.
- Cari Hahn
But the outpouring of love and support and and gift cards and cards and notes and all kinds of things, that the weekend that I was diagnosed, if it was at a party, you have people through the house the entire weekend. And it was actually it was a really fun weekend because I remember sitting on my porch for the weekend and drinking wine with friends and some of them I hadn't seen in a few years.
- Cari Hahn
And the outpouring of support that I got during this time was really, really helpful as far as things that I was trying to do for myself. At that point.
I was I was trying to find books that maybe made less anxious for a long walk or just to kind of distract myself during that time, because it is it's a long way. And if it's just it feels like it goes on forever and ever and ever.
Cari felt well-supported in the immediate aftermath and even throughout her initial treatments.
- Cari Hahn
So actually, during chemo, my work was actually my work was supportive during chemo, my my workplace. I actually I was by my employer during treatment. I was very supportive.
- Liesel Mertes
They what kinds of things were they doing that were particularly good?
- Cari Hahn
If I was at my coworkers ended up giving me six months of donated time, which was incredible. So they took their vacation days and donated them to me if I knew them, if I needed to take the time off, which was absolutely phenomenal.
- Cari Hahn
And then there was a firefighter that was retiring.
- Cari Hahn
And one of the conditions when he retired is, OK, I want to have my time and my vacation time lapse because I want her to have this during treatment. So my co-workers say they want to function with what we do in that time.
- Cari Hahn
So I was very loved and cared for by my co-workers during that time.
- Liesel Mertes
And when did things start to change? Well, let me let me take that back, because I forgot about this and I remember this today as I was kind of prepping, so as I was getting ready to go into surgery, they covered for me for about a week.
- Cari Hahn
And I remember sitting down with the person who covered for me and she said something that she was giving herself props for the fact that she was going to be covering for me to be gone. And I thought, this is a weird statement I have. Like, I'm not going to Aruba. I'm getting ready to have breast cancer removed from my body. So that that was a little strange. And I just took that away. But, you know, they were I got a bonus at the end of that year.
- Cari Hahn
So, again, they were still very supportive of me. The shift for me really started to happen as I was just a few months out of treatment is when I started to feel this shift from my employer. And in it it happened pretty quickly.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, tell me tell me more.
- Cari Hahn
So I was this was now marked, so I'm done with active treatment, but breast cancer is this lifelong illness that 30 percent of us go on to be diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer after we've had early stage cancer.
- Cari Hahn
So for me. I was getting ready to start a new cancer drug regimen. I'm exhausted and I've only met three weeks of work for everything. So that was for surgery, chemo and radiation that lasted for six and a half weeks. So I was very, very, very tired and I was struggling.
- Cari Hahn
And I essentially, I went to my oncologist and I said, I'm really having a hard time. And I and I said, I need you to give me permission to do that, because I just I wanted someone to tell me it was OK, that I was tired and that I am the kind of person that if you tell me I'm doing a good job, I'm like, OK, I want to do the job.
- Cari Hahn
So my medical treatment people are like, you're so brave, so strong. And I wanted to be all of those things and I didn't want to disappoint anyone or inconvenience anyone. And but really at this point, I just I couldn't hold it together anymore because I was so exhausted. So I went to my employer and I said, this is the beginning of March. And I said, listen, I just I need to cut off just a couple of these.
- Cari Hahn
So for about three weeks, I worked 30 hours. And but it was interesting because at this time I am starting to feel a little bit about your chest and my my third week, essentially, I sat me down and they put their focus on unpaid leave or you need to go back to working full time, actually, to add to your your job, to actually add to the duties in another department. So with my job.
- Cari Hahn
And. I mean, I was floored and I am like, this is really this is I was really floored during the conversation and then you could start that leaves today.
- Cari Hahn
And I said, well, I said to him, I said, can I use any of any of my my from my coworkers? And at that point, it this was someone that I believe was my friend. And he looked at me and she said, no, I'm sorry, you don't have cancer anymore. You don't have donated time. And I said, oh, at least today your supervisor, your job role and your function. And I said, OK.
- Cari Hahn
And I went back down to my desk and I remember being super grateful that I had a really big purse that day. But I also wish that maybe I brought it with me because I knew I knew I was never going to walk out that door. And I started throwing all the things that I could that belonged to me and my birth. And I picked up the phone and I and I called H.R. She was up on on the second level and I said, you know, I want to talk about it today.
- Cari Hahn
And she said, OK. She said, I need you to bring your laptop and your cell phone. And I went upstairs and I took her my laptop and my cell phone. And I went ahead and gave her my my work credit card to never forget. And it was really it was hard. It was shocking. I'm walking out the door with the weirdest experience of my life. But what broke my heart even more was when I got in my car.
- Cari Hahn
I knew at this point I had to call my doctor to get the paperwork started for again, I'm trying to figure out now I'm never walking back in the door, but I had to figure out health insurance and those things. So when I called my oncologist.
- Cari Hahn
What, what really crushed me that day was I apologize to tell you this is unique or special, but we see this happen in probably 50 percent of our patients and that say it really crushed me.
- Cari Hahn
And I remember coming home and I cried probably the hardest I've ever played in my entire life that night. It was like a grieving. It was like it was like it was like a death when I was freezing.
- Cari Hahn
And I and I remember being on my hands and my knees rocking back and forth, screaming at the top of my lungs. I just was so devastated. And I think I was breathing all of it. I was breathing the fact that I had had cancer.
I was grieving the fact that I had worked so hard and that I had left so little for myself and that I could have been on unpaid leave or unpaid leave from my for my co-workers. And and I was grieving if I had used it earlier and would have been fine. And I was also I was grieving the fact that I knew at that point I was going to have to spend the rest of my life fighting.
- Liesel Mertes
You know, your, your story has resonance with what I hear from a number of people who have gone through different disruptive life events, but it's this connection of like I go to work, I didn't go into this encounter thinking that I would quit, but it just became more that I would take whatever was offered. But it became so crystal clear to me in that moment, if you think back to like you stepping into that room, how I mean, there are many ways that the interaction could have been better, but like, what would you have hoped for in that's it?
- Liesel Mertes
Like what would have been you coming out and going, oh, man, I'm so glad I work to capture that sentiment that you had earlier on in your diagnosis.
- Cari Hahn
You know, you obviously at this point, I'll never know what really what really happened. My fears, my beliefs, my beliefs, because they talked a lot about insurance and how expensive the insurance was and how much their employee cost them and insurance. I was on their insurance if that wasn't my choice. My husband has felt so horrible I have to pay for insurance. Here's the thing about me. I am such a I. You can take the gloves off and I'll have any conversations with you if I would have sex.
- Cari Hahn
You cost us a lot on insurance. Can you can you work part time and work here and then we just don't have I mean, I have been like, that's great. I would love to work part time.
- Cari Hahn
Now, I don't know if that role if I could have done that, but I wish that whatever it was that caused that. But there had just been an honest conversation because I've spent the past three and a half years in my house.
- Cari Hahn
What was it me? Was I just. Is it because I'm defective now? Because I have cancer? Like you said, people just not like me anymore because like cancer. I mean, it's all these things are replayed in my head that, you know, I don't really know what caused that. And again, even if it hasn't been a conversation I like, I just wish the conversation would have occurred.
- Cari Hahn
The other thing is that I think if I'm being really honest, when you're going to reflect, you look like someone going through cancer. That's this where when I started, I, I have this long blonde hair. I have a fabulous personality. I'm happy I'm on these things and I love all of those things when I was going through cancer, because that's who I am. I, I, I like people. I have an outgoing personalities, but I also look fat because a lot of times I didn't wear a wig, I wore my hat.
- Cari Hahn
So, you know, if if cancer is scary to look at and I don't know if that played a role, I don't know if they were like, oh, just get her out of there. We don't we don't want to see that. I mean, like, I was Shrek or something, I, I don't know. But but cancer, it's not sparkly. It's not pretty. It's cancer and it's hard. And and I gained weight when I was in cancer treatment because I eat potatoes because that's all.
- Cari Hahn
But thank God I have this metallic taste in my mouth and you're tired and you're fatigued.
- Cari Hahn
And you know, like I said, I'll never know what, what caused it, but so all I can do is show and and make up things in my head. And sometimes probably the things that I make up are probably pretty harsh and I'm sure not accurate.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, well, is that the challenge of those unanswered questions and even to just have in mind if if you're an organization who's dealing with someone who is in the midst of a lot of physical and emotional and mental upheaval, to think we've got a lot going on in their body and in their headspace, I want to communicate really like I want to over communicate.
- Liesel Mertes
I want to overcome it. That's a good message, too. Yeah.
- Cari Hahn
And when I was on this leave, as I'm trying to get my ducks in a row, I probably ended up being on leave for a couple of weeks. It was probably maybe a month or so.
- Cari Hahn
And part of it too, I didn't quite want to play golf because I also thought I want to keep on coming back because you don't want me back. And that was the only power I think I have at that time. And I remember call me, I think, walking out the oncologist office and into the you're so overwhelmed already. I mean, like badgering again to make sure that I'm not going to come back. And that was really hard. And when I finally I finally started to get insurance, I got all the ducks in a row and I made the decision that the notice I wasn't coming back.
- Cari Hahn
I went to pick up my things and that person met me down in the lobby. I had all my stuff. I mean, my brother said dumpster. I mean, just like they put me out there. But I remember her. She cried as if this is happening. And she's like, there's just some things that are not right and they're not fair. And she's crying. And I looked at her and I said, I'm going to do something about that.
Cari Hahn
That doesn't make her any less guilty because at some point she did the right thing would have been to stand with me. And, and that wasn't her choice. So here she is crying to me.
- Liesel Mertes
Right, which is the added pressure of then you needing to respond to the emotional need in the midst of your own sadness, right?
- Cari Hahn
So. Big mess in this season and a lot of pain from the work,
- Liesel Mertes
I'm sorry for that. It just sounds awful.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
We will return to Cari’s story in just a moment. 2021 finds us immersed in challenges. And it is hard to know if you are supporting the mental health of your people. This is where my company (and the podcast sponsor) Handle with Care Consulting can help. We offer workshops, coaching, and keyontes to help you build a culture of care. Because empathy isn’t a personality trait, it is a set of skills that can be learned. Let us help.
MUSCIAL TRANSITON
- Liesel Mertes
As you think back on things that people said or did, and there are other things that you would say to people who are watching someone who has breast cancer like this is just dumb. Don't ever do this.
- Cari Hahn
Yeah, I mean, people tend to you know, it's funny because when you have cancer, you know, it's obviously opens up this communication and it never fails.
- Cari Hahn
How many people tell you that someone I know had cancer and they died? If it always goes to that? And it's almost comical because I like to say that. But people say that a lot. A lot more than you think they'll say. Oh, well, she be that the first. And then I came back and she died. So there's a lot of it, really. And you have to laugh about I mean, that's what I do.
- Cari Hahn
I have to laugh sometimes painful things, because that's how I get through them and deal with them. But a lot of people, surprisingly, will tell you about that.
- Cari Hahn
And actually, not long ago, my daughter was at the farmer's market with me for my business. And someone came up and she's like, oh, well, oh, well, my friend had cancer, but hers was back and it's Terminal four and she walked away. I looked at Grace, my daughter, and we both just felt we both were laughing because.
- Cari Hahn
Grace, why does everyone telling you about everyone who died? I don't know. And I said it's a really great thing for people to talk about.
- Cari Hahn
The other thing that I think that I think it's really insensitive when people talk about their loss not being a very big deal with hair loss. And, you know, at the time it was fine because I knew it was in an effort to save my life. When I lost my hair, but I just think sometimes that's a really good thing to bring up with people who are going through cancer.
- Cari Hahn
I think you can talk to them and say, how are you doing all of that? Like a person going through cancer talked about it. But I think when people minimize it and say it's just hair grow back. It is just hair and it will grow back, and I was taking my life, but unless you are me sitting in my shoes, you really don't deserve to have that conversation. Right.
- Liesel Mertes
Well, and would potentially forces you to have to stuff any unpleasant feelings that you might be having about your hand? I guess I can't mention that because.
- Cari Hahn
Yeah, it is just there now. Yeah. I mean, it's like I mean, I would say those two things are probably the things that I think a lot of people. Right. And I think sometimes too. And again, you probably realize this was what I think people in general don't like to talk about unpleasant things and they don't like to be uncomfortable.
- Cari Hahn
And so you can tell the people that come in the room that it's just it's so uncomfortable for them. It's not uncomfortable for me. I mean, I have a plane going off my car. I mean, that's just that's what it was. But there are people that it's so uncomfortable they don't know what to say or do. So they just kind of they kind of avoid, if you like, the play.
- Liesel Mertes
Right. Well, and I imagine there are very physical markers in some ways in a journey with cancer like surgery, there's chemo, then there is the landscape of like continuing monitoring appointments. What has this like? It's not the immediate stage of constant intervention, but some of the pervasive uncertainty of wait and see.
I asked Cari about the on-going journey with cancer, the yearly scans to make sure that the cancer has not returned. She talked about the uncertainty and the waiting, and I wondered what has been helping her.
- Cari Hahn
If it's hard, if I do, I do a lot of yoga. And that has been a huge source of just helping you through this life that I have of uncertainty and waiting. And when I first it was shortly after the job when I reached out to my friend John, I called them and I'm like, Don, I'm I'm struggling with everything right now. And at that point, he said they say that women who try to do yoga really, really well in front of survivorship.
- Cari Hahn
And I have done a couple of years before that and it was hot yoga. And I remember I was miserable. My eyeballs were sweating. I'm like, this is terrible. I absolutely hated it. OK, so he's like, try yoga. And I am willing to try. So that day I now I want to yoga. I was not hot yoga practice one hundred plus degrees and it was an hour and a half. That's what I am not enough that I packed up because I really couldn't.
- Cari Hahn
But I loved every minute of it for me.
- Cari Hahn
I enjoy the last six of the toxins, all of it leaving my body with all that sweat and all of that I love because just to be able to be in a quiet room for me, do that.
Cari Hahn
And I recommend that for a lot of breast cancer patients that they would try this.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, that's a great recommendation. Well, it's here in that I think sometimes there's an outpouring of support in the immediacy after diagnosis treatment, and it sounds like that was congruent with your story. But I'm reminded, even as you talk like it's I don't know if lifelong is the right word, but it's it's like a long game getting a lot of these inflection points of uncertainty and waiting and second guessing like the landscape has changed for you now and again, you know, people who are young that are destined to be more aggressive.
- Cari Hahn
So, know, I have I have a few friends right now that are that have stage four. They have metastatic breast cancer.
- Cari Hahn
And that's heartbreaking to have to see that and to know that every day they still are getting help and they are fighting and they are knowing that there is no cure for them and they're going to be in treatment the rest of the rest of their lives. And a lot of times they will get a metastatic diagnosis and typically live about two to three years.
- Cari Hahn
What I will say is that the advancements in breast cancer with metastatic, you're seeing that longer now, which is which is incredible.
- Liesel Mertes
Can I jump in? Because I realize I have heard that word. What does metastatic mean? Does it mean many locations?
- Cari Hahn
So metastatic basically means that it came back it came back in an area like so if it was breast, it then traveled to the lungs and maybe traveled to the brain itself, to the bone, the liver. So it basically it's a location away from the breast. But when that happens, there is no cure for stage four metastatic breast cancer there. It's not a cure. So, again, typically, they say say you usually live for two to three years, which are diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.
- Cari Hahn
So and that that is the diagnosis that with early stage breast cancer, 30 percent of us are diagnosed with metastatic within a decade or two or three times.
- Liesel Mertes
That's sobering.
- Cari Hahn
It is. So what? For me, these animals are scary. But then there's also what I'll say is there's also the guilt that someone has to do the one in three. Right. And, you know, there when my scans come back clean, I I'm so relieved and I'm so I'm so grateful.
- Cari Hahn
But then I have friends that walk alongside me as cancer survivors and they're doing that. And that batho battle is really hard because there is survivor guilt is hard. And I have a very deep level of empathy from being a survivor.
- Cari Hahn
And so when that happens, I mean, it can I can cry for days because I'm just so heartbroken that it's not me, but it's.
- Cari Hahn
Then why? Why is why? Because, again, I haven't gotten used to this stuff, but I have to go through those scans and I know how scary those things are that.
- Liesel Mertes
Well, I I imagine that so much of these feelings in this connection with empathy and also, as you mentioned, your, your degree work as an undergraduate in some creative arts like you to Karma Candles. I would love for you to tell listeners about the work that you do.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. Tell me about Karma candles.
- Cari Hahn
So when I when I finished my treatment, obviously, and then I, I didn't have a job and I'm like, what do I do? So I laid around in my bed and I cried for a few months and it was that didn't really serve me for obvious reasons. So I remember, you know, I finally learned that one day, look at me like Cari is like you're either going to be a victim of this or you're going to be a victor.
- Cari Hahn
And I know you're not a victim, is not you've never been who you are. And it's like, I cannot wait to get out of that bed, but I really I really strongly enough. And when I was getting up, I would get up on the floor, get home, and I would ask with things are fine, but I love you. But I would say gift for them. And then I get up again and it's all over.
- Cari Hahn
And so this is about four months, probably three months. And I I took the girls to the mall one day, and they really love the Anthropology candle and I bought him a candle.
- Cari Hahn
And then I thought to myself that I can make a candle because I've always been a creative person. So my my degree was in art therapy. My mother is an interior design assistant, interior design. And I come from a family of people that to like to create.
- Cari Hahn
And I started eating and Googling how to how to make candles.
- Cari Hahn
And I also want to create products around me, too. And when I started realizing what was in a lot of products that you buy from the store, I was trying to reduce the toxins that I use in my house and on my body. And so I started making the candles with the friends and it was just a hobby. And it was all so I, I then for a period of time, work for a hospital foundation, raising money for an infusion center.
- Cari Hahn
And I thought, well, that maybe would be really helpful and maybe that would be healing. And then I did it for almost a year, but it really wasn't because it was a hospital foundation. So I'm still in the hospital. I'm from the hospital is still kind of a scary place and overwhelming place.
- Cari Hahn
So it was last May the night that Matt and I decided that I had much help with the candles. And he's like, you know, why don't you make it full time? And so we decided to make it full time. And then all that I do like candles and candles when I when I make them that I am lighting up the dark, the dark places of life. And I and I do believe that.
- Cari Hahn
And then when I when I hear feedback from people, especially people who are going through a hard time and they tell me what happened to them during our time, I ever denied that I would be.
- Cari Hahn
And then I ended up designing some jewelry and certainly jewelry, because again, when I was in my battle, I never really found anything that I felt that I was going through. So there's a couple of words. I have I have warrior and I have faith and I have hope and I have that. And for me, I have worn my bad ass necklace this entire month of October of I fundraise because October is a big month that I read my work with a lot of nonprofit.
- Cari Hahn
And I hear some hard news and I see things that I do in my day to day anyway. I do those things, but especially in October, it's really tough and I love those. And I have women that are sitting there giving their chemotherapy and delivering and I'm so grateful that I get to be a part of that with them. And that that's kind of a badge of honor.
- Cari Hahn
Yeah, there there's some lovely pieces and I have been the beneficiary of receiving some of your candles and some we just burned through to the very end of the last one there in some beautiful.
- Liesel Mertes
Containers smell great. They do not give my people headaches, which oftentimes happens in Bodyworks candles. I will we'll have a link in the show notes. There are some physical places that they can get them here in central Indiana where some of those places.
- Cari Hahn
Yeah, so I have a handful of local retail defeat factories.
- Cari Hahn
So I am in Denver from Tucson, down from Carmel. I am coming in from all the sisters in Indianapolis.
- Cari Hahn
I am at Cloud9, which is a day spa. So I have a handful of retailers. Oh, I am for getting back to the studio here with my candles. They're phenomenal and a lot of a lot of the places that are Women-Owned too, and they're local. And I'm always about people going to support those places, which is great. So one of the things about the is that the headache. So they're laugh so as I can possibly make a film and then all of my fragrance with something called phthalate free.
- Cari Hahn
So we basically don't have any of the chemical plasticizers in them. So we're just going to burn their cotton because again, I want I want the face that people are and I want to be is clean and non-toxic.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, they're they're lovely candles, you should check them out. Cari, I appreciate you opening up your story today. Was there anything that you would really like to add that you didn't get a chance to say?
- Cari Hahn
No, I thank you for one thing that I didn't probably say is a phenomenal book. When I was diagnosed with someone gave me a call. There is No place like Hope. You can get it on Amazon. I really, really recommend that it was written by someone. I think he was a prosecutor, but I love it. I love that. It's a really easy book to read that would fill my great name to vomit a little bit that that book still goes with me to appointments for sure.
- Cari Hahn
And when I'm going through, if it's if I have a scan, I grab that book and I always recommend that to people who are newly diagnosed. And I recommend to you that their family members have it. I think even regardless of what you know, in the beginning of this, I was so fearful of the diagnosis. But really, the treatment is not worse than the disease. You want to fight it regardless, even if it's even with terminal cancer.
- Cari Hahn
I really still believe there and I really still believe you can still fight. You know, you've got to do it in your mind. But I think you can do it. And that's why I love a book like that, because I think to read it and I have to surround yourself with positive things and positive people to make the outcomes better when you're going through. Thank you for that recommendation.
- Liesel Mertes
I will also link that in the show notes. Yes. Well, Cari, thank you so much for your time.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
Here are three key takeaways from my conversation with Cari:
- If you know someone that is living with cancer, resist the urge to tell them all about the people you know that have died of cancer.Cari heard these statements a lot. In my trainings, I talk about the empathy avatar of Commiserating Candace, she (or he) always has a sad story to share. This sharing hijacks the story of the person who is currently suffering. Don’t be a Commiserating Candace
- If you are an employer or a manager of someone who is living through cancer, what support systems do you have in place for once the chemo is done?Cari talked about being well-supported initially, pushing through all of the appoitnments etc. But her body was exhausted on the other side and, when she asked for flexibility, her workplace was unwilling to shift. Do you have policies in place for the long-game, designed to accommodate the aftermath of bodily stress that happens post-treatment?
- Breast continues to influence the lives of survivors.There is the stress of wondering if the cancer will manifest again, the bodily exhaustion, and the survivor’s guilt. If you are a friend or a coworker, continue to check-in with the survivors you know, especially once the chemo is done. They still need and will appreciate your support on this long journey.
Learn more about Karma Candles at www.karmacandlesandkinds.com