Everyday Wonder Women

Episode 2: How my college roommate Traci tackled cancer and her kids’ learning disabilities

• Stacee Santi Longfellow • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Stacee Longfellow reconnects with her college roommate Traci to share a powerful story of resilience through cancer and parenting children with learning disabilities.

• Diagnosed with breast cancer after multiple doctors dismissed her concerns
• Moved to a new city with toddlers just months before her diagnosis
• Cancer journey created unexpected community connections with new neighbors
• Both children diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD requiring specialized education approaches
• Used metaphor of "glasses for your brain" to explain medication to her son
• Found specialized school using Orton-Gillingham multi-sensory learning methods
• Emphasizes importance of parents advocating for educational testing
• Highlights how children often adapt more easily than adults to learning differences
• Stresses crucial importance of advocating for yourself in healthcare settings
• Recommends recording doctor appointments to review information later

Head over to Instagram @Stacee_Santi_Longfellow if you have questions for Traci or comments about the episode, and pick up Stacee's book "Stop Acting Like a Girl" on Amazon.

Me (Stacee):

Welcome to the podcast Everyday Wonder Women. I'm your Stacee Santi Longfellow, a veterinarian, an entrepreneur and the author of the book "Stop Acting Like a Girl. In each episode you'll meet an amazing woman that you might not know yet, but by the end, trust me, you'll be so glad you did. These are stories of grit, courage and resilience Women who face tough challenges and come out stronger on the other side. I'm so glad you're here. Stick around and let's get into the interview.

Me (Stacee):

So I recently had a chance to catch up with my first roommate, Traci, from Texas Tech. She came to see me in Phoenix and we hopped in the car and took a road trip to Vegas. I thought it'd be fun to turn on the mics as we chatted about her life and her story. There's a little bit of road noise You'll hear that and we even drive by some guy getting arrested on the way. But Traci's got a great story. She talks about how she got cancer when she was a new mom and she also talks about dealing with learning disabilities in her kids, like ADD and dyslexia. So I hope you enjoy the episode. Come with me now and meet my friend, Traci. Well, today's pretty special. I get to interview my old college roommate, young college roommate.

Me (Stacee):

When did we meet each other, Traci?

Traci:

It was the fall of 1989. At Texas.

Me (Stacee):

Tech University and our mothers our parents were so awesome. They put us in the only dorm without air conditioning to save a buck. Yeah, I forgot about that. Lubbock, Texas in August, is fun times with no AC. Can you believe that? Remember how hot we'd be? We'd just go to the shower and you'd just get wet Like you wouldn't bring a towel, yes, no.

Traci:

And then you'd come and just lay on your bed. You'd open the windows, but depending on how the wind was blowing, it either smelled like oil or cow poo. Do you remember that? It was like it never smelled good outside. You just didn't know which foul smell you were going to get that day. Oh yeah, that was fun.

Me (Stacee):

That was 1989 and now it's 2025 and we are in the car and we're headed to Las Vegas. Woohoo, we're going to go see a comedy show with Nate Bargatze.

Traci:

I'm not sure if I said his name right.

Me (Stacee):

I never know how to say his last name and we're meeting another friend from tech there, yeah, so, Traci, tell everybody a little bit about yourself.

Traci:

Oh gosh, where do I begin? Can we start from my birth?

Me (Stacee):

You can take us through the short version.

Traci:

Well, I was born and raised in Texas, Grew up in a little town called Granbury, about 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth. That's where I lived until I graduated high school and moved to thriving metropolis, Lubbock, Texas, and I was there from what? 89 to 93. And then I changed my major, my graduating semester, so I ended up having to do a fifth year and graduated from Texas Women's with the Dietetics and Institutional Administration and then did a postgraduate internship out in LA through the UCLA teaching hospital system them and got my RD and moved back to Dallas and worked at Parkland Memorial and then decided to go back to graduate school for speech pathology and then met my husband at Parkland he was doing his residency and then we ended up getting married and staying there through his fellowship and then we moved to Greenville, South Carolina. Well, we had our two kids before we moved. We had both of those in Dallas, and how old are your?

Traci:

kids. Now my kids are 21 and 22. Faith just graduated from Auburn and Clint is a junior at the Citadel. You went back-to-back with babies. Yeah, they're 16 months apart. Oh my God, that sounds awful.

Traci:

Yeah From someone who didn't birth any children. No, it wasn't ideal. I remember having a little bit of a panic attack when I figured out I was pregnant with Clint when Faith was only eight months old, anyway. But it all worked out and I'm glad they're close in age now. So, anyways, and what was I saying? Oh, we moved to South Carolina, got Kyle, got a job there, and that's where we've been for the last. It'll be I can't believe it.

Traci:

It'll be 20 years this summer in Greenville, south Carolina and you still work a few days a week or every PRN. You said yeah, I'm PRN. You said yeah, I'm.

Traci:

PRN At the hospital. Yeah, Greenville Memorial Hospital. Yeah, usually a couple of days a week or like this month, you know, I said I wasn't coming in in January.

Me (Stacee):

And tell us a little bit about what your job looks like. Like. What's a day in the life of work for you?

Traci:

Well, since I'm the PRN person, I don't really do any of the complicated stuff. Mine's pretty run-of-the-mill, but we're a consult service and I just run all over the hospital. Most of what I do is swallowing disorders, though, but we do everything from. You know head injury stuff, so strokes, head injury, you know neurodegenerative diseases, major cardiac surgery, head and neck cancer, so anything. Like I said, we're a consult service, so we go everywhere, wow, anything. But, like I said, I'd say 75 percent of what I do is um swallowing stuff huh, that's really interesting.

Me (Stacee):

Yeah, and what has been, probably, to date, the most challenging part of your life, that that you can think of uh, the most challenging part of my life is we had just moved to.

Traci:

We moved to greenville in june of 05 and the kids were two and three and I got diagnosed with cancer in october of 05 so you left your whole family in te to move. Yes, All my yeah, everything we, because Kyle's from back west too. So I mean, yeah, we didn't know a soul, except for, you know, the five other couples that were coming to start up the practice.

Me (Stacee):

How'd you find out you had cancer?

Traci:

Well, that's kind of a long story. It all started back, actually, in Texas. Clint was about four months old and you had breast cancer. Yeah, I had breast cancer and I had nursed Faith fine, you know, no problems. And then, clint, I kept getting mastitis and then I noticed I had like a lump, but when I told the doctors about it they just told me it was scar tissue and you know not to worry about it or whatever and just massage it out in the shower.

Traci:

So that's what I did. And then it still didn't go away. So I saw my internist and they told me the same thing, so still wasn't worried about it. And then we were in the process of moving to Greenville and saw, you know, needed OBGYN. So went to the OBGYN, told him, you know, had this lump since my baby was four months old and he's like now like 18 months old. And she said the same thing the scar tissues to keep massaging. So how much are you supposed?

Me (Stacee):

to yes I know.

Traci:

so here I've been oh see that guy getting arrested. He was, yeah, he was cuffing him Anyway and then I went to an internal medicine doctor and kind of told her my whole saga and she said that sounded.

Me (Stacee):

Did you like take yourself to the internal medicine doctor? You were worried.

Traci:

No, I just had made an appointment to establish myself with a new OBGYN and a new internist because we were in a new city. Oh, establish myself with a new ob-gyn and a new internist because we were in a new city, oh, so I just happened to have, you know, my appointment to establish myself, this doctor, and I told her that, you know, this knot was still there and I felt like it was getting bigger and it was really hurt, um, and she actually ordered an ultrasound oh, that sounds very innovative.

Me (Stacee):

Yes, what the heck yeah, are you serious?

Traci:

yes, and my mom had just flown in a scheduled visit. She and I were going to go up to ashville and check it all out and just have kind of a mom-daughter weekend, because Kyle happened to not be on call or anything that weekend so he was going to take care of the kids. Anyways, I went by radiology and did my thing and it turns out it was cancer. Oh my gosh. And did my thing and turns out it was cancer. So, oh my god, never made it to Asheville that day and the oncologist actually was, I guess, saw my films. She was walking through the reading room and saw my films and saw my name, you know, and she knew Kyle from the hospital films and saw my name and she knew kyle from the hospital and came in the exam room and anyways, I had my mastectomy scheduled like for the next week. Wow.

Me (Stacee):

So it was all really fast, like fast and furious and you're so lucky you moved, I guess because that forced you to get established.

Traci:

And yeah, this one doctor like yeah, the fourth doctor actually, I guess, investigated further, so luckily it was a. It was ductal, so that's in the grand scheme of breast cancer that's the slowest growing, I believe. Oh, it is, yeah, so luckily they caught it even though it had been there for at least 18 months that I know of. It was early stage, so I just had to have a mastectomy and then I was on a drug called tamoxifen for five years how did you get through this time in your life?

Me (Stacee):

because I can only imagine you've got two little babies really and you're think oh my god, I could die. Yeah, no, like what was your coping?

Traci:

strategy. My mom came out and she, she lived with us for um a few months until I kind of like got back on my feet and because I guess the thing that was so limiting was, you know, I couldn't use my arms, like I couldn't, you know, I couldn't use my arms, no-transcript. So that's what was so limiting. Just my kids being little, you know, like getting them in and out of the bathtub, in and out of their car seats, you know, just stuff like that. So other than, like, the surgeries and the medicine kind of made you feel bad at first, but I got used to all that. It was just aggravating that I couldn't like even like put my own shirt on because I couldn't, I couldn't raise my arm above my head. So the little things you take for granted, that um. But like I said, mom came out and stayed with us and she was my saving grace oh, and when you're going through something like that, is it?

Me (Stacee):

you just reach a point where it's just one foot in front of the other and you just have short term like I just got to do this and I just got to do that. And you don't let yourself think of the big what if? Yeah, no, because that's got to be not productive. No, and then?

Traci:

once. Once I had surgery and all the biopsies came back, I knew it was contained, I knew it hadn't spread. So yeah, at that point I was like let's just get her done. Like I just had to get through all the surgeries, all the reconstruction, so yeah, so once, once, all the pathology came back and I knew I wasn't going to die, then it was just kind of like, okay, what do I got to do? Let's just get it done. So it really was just like the first probably three or four days where we didn't know what was ahead of us. So once we got past that, I knew what had to be done. It wasn't too bad. And then really it was kind of it sounds kind of weird that I'm not going to say it was a blessing, but we really got to know all of our neighbors really quickly.

Me (Stacee):

Oh, you did, yeah, because they bring you food or what.

Traci:

Yeah, our neighbors on each side of us, you know we had we've kind of gotten to know them those first couple of months that we lived there and then and they were both really well connected in our neighborhood and then yeah, they like started, like a meal train, and all this stuff for us, like people we didn't even know are showing up on our doorstep with like food oh, you kind of did a fast track.

Traci:

Yeah, community yeah, so it was. I mean it sounds stupid, but it was really. I don't know that I would have gotten to know so many of my neighbors as quickly as I did if that hadn't happened, and know a lot of kids would come by and, you know, get the kids and take them to the park with their kids, and so they, you know, made friends too. So anyway, so in a weird way it was it kind of worked out. I didn't, I didn't die and we got to meet a lot of great people.

Me (Stacee):

You got to make a bunch of friends, yeah, you also have two amazing kids, but it hasn't always been easy.

Traci:

Clint was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD at a pretty young age. He didn't sleep forever. No, he didn't sleep through the night until he was five, and I tell you it was five and that was after, you know, we had gone through a bunch of testing and consulted with a lot of people and made the decision to put him on a methylphenidate. But it was life-changing for him. How long did it take to kick in, or whatever? Oh, right away, like with, yeah with like stimulants. I mean, it's either in your system or out of your system. So the biggest challenge was just figuring out the dosage and the timing, like what time of day to take the medicine, yeah, and like um, because everybody kind of metabolizes that stuff differently too. So kind of learning, um, when it was going to be going out of his system as to as him to want to redose him but then not to interfere with his sleep and also his. His eating is kind of a catch-22. Like he can actually sit to eat now, but then it kind of messes with their appetite too. So, um, I don't know. It kind of became an art like. But I think you know every kid is different how they, you know, react to all that stuff. So I guess it's learning, learning how his little body, I guess it's learning learning how his little body worked. And then, once I figured it out, then you know we just clicked right along, and luckily too, in Greenville there was one of. There may be more now, but at the time I think there was only like four other schools for dyslexic children in the nation and one of them happened to be in Greenville, south Carolina, camperdown Academy.

Traci:

What do they do? That's different than a regular school. They use the Orton-Gillingham method, which is kind of a multisensory approach to learning, because every human learns differently, nobody learns the same way. Kind of a multi-sensory approach to learning because every I mean every human learns differently, nobody learns the same way. So they use all the senses. Just to give like a kind of a concrete example, you know, our kids will have, like you know, spelling lists and they have to practice their spelling words. Well, for his homework we did it with chalk on the driveway because the driveway is textured. Oh, so when he writes, the texture sends sensory information to his brain. I'm like just gets in there.

Traci:

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah it, you know, helps with your working memory and also just to like um, you just use a completely different, different parts of your brain to do stuff, um, when you use the multi-sensory approach the way we were in college, where you get one way to learn.

Me (Stacee):

Yeah.

Traci:

Yeah, so you know, just read it like you know, seeing it, saying it, writing it like using all you know your eyes to see it, your mouth to say it, your hands to actually write it like it's um, that was kind of the premises of it. I mean, I'm sure there's the experts in it. Could go into a lot more detail, but um so that was a big deal for him.

Traci:

Oh, huge. Faith did have the same thing but she was a lot less severe and her area was more like she could read beautifully, like you could sit across from her and read. She sounded all fluent, but then if you sat next to her you would realize her accuracy. She would change prepositions or throw in words that weren't there, like fill in the blanks for herself. Yeah, kind of a good concrete example for her was, um, she was in second grade. Well, this is another thing too. My mom was an english teacher and she's actually the one that kind of picked up on faiths. When she was, she'd come out to stay with the kids.

Traci:

Kyle and I had gone on a big trip for our 10th anniversary, I think it was, I think she was in second grade and so my mom, you know, helped her with all her homework and my mom's the one that picked up on helped her with all her homework, my mom's the one that picked up on Faith's little issues. But one day, I remember, I was in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table doing her homework and I just kind of glanced over and saw the directions but then saw what she was doing. I'm like what the heck is she doing? So I was like, hey, faithy, I was like, did you read the directions? But then saw what she was doing. I'm like what the heck is she doing? So I was like, hey, faithy, I was like, did you read the directions? And she told me she had. I'm like, read them out loud to me. And so then she read it out loud to me and then all of a sudden I see her over there with her big eraser, like erasing everything, like she had changed, you know, a couple of the preposition words when she was reading the directions. Well, that changed the whole. You know, that completely changed what she was supposed to be doing, just by you know, anyway. So we had her tested Anyway.

Traci:

So, with accommodations, she did they try all. I mean it's like a whole. I mean like two full days where you just drop her off and she's like with this educational psychologist that does all this testing and they figured out with her that her biggest help was just to have more time. So so from then on she had the accommodation of having more time, especially when it came to any kind of reading assignments, and that drastically helped her. So anyway. So it's just kind of figuring out how they learned and then just having, and then, of course, as they, as they got older too, that they became more self-aware. You know, they knew the drill and I don't know. Kids are amazing, like how quickly they learn things, pick up on things, and I don't think even adults takes adults a lot longer to, I guess pivot.

Me (Stacee):

Yeah, kids are way more accepting of change. Oh, yeah, we're setting our ways. Yeah, well, what advice would you give to, say, a young mom out there that has a kid that's struggling in school, and like how do they first find out if their kid could have a learning disorder and then how should they support them?

Traci:

Like what's the?

Me (Stacee):

best thing they can do to set their kid up for success.

Traci:

Get them tested so you know how they learn like, and there are places that just test kids yeah, there's um, I guess you know the the biggest thing which I've. It's it is expensive, so I do feel I schools will do it, but usually this is where I have I don't know. I feel like I probably should have like done something about it a long time ago. But public schools, they don't really do anything for your kid until they're failing, like for your kid until they're failing.

Me (Stacee):

Like there's no proactiveness, it's all like, unless it's just a particular teacher's yeah and we did.

Traci:

Oh lord, we've had some amazing teachers, but we've had some pretty unamazing teachers too, you know that that don't think. You know. Dyslexia is real, or you know think it's real.

Me (Stacee):

Yeah, what are the signs like? If you haven't got them tested but you're thinking this might be a thing with my kid, like what should you look for? Like face did filling in. Like watch what they're reading.

Traci:

Yeah, I would say with, with, and girls for some reason, just statistically I think, fly under the radar a lot more than boys do, and I don't know all the science behind that exactly, um, probably because less is expected of them in general, because of us girls, maybe, and then too, I think this I don't know I think well, in Faith and Clint's case, like was, uh, a lot more active and um, and drawing attention to himself, yeah, so I guess maybe that is.

Traci:

But this too, just the differences. Um, how I noticed clint's issues was from, you know know, because Faith, you know, learned her ABCs, like she hit all her milestones, like there was no problems at all with Faith learning and you know she did well, I mean, even though it was early elementary. But I mean she, you know, none of the teachers had picked up on it, like she had done really well. But with Clint, um, like flash cards and this is again this is a working memory thing which is very kind of classic dyslexia um, I mean, you could look at the same flash cards 110 times and he can memorize if you kept them in order, like you would memorize. But if you mixed them all up, even though he's already looked at this letter B 500 times, he can't recognize it so he's not being able to recognize letters and also, too, with learning issues.

Traci:

if you see a huge gap like there's a huge gap in like what their, their IQ and then their actual function, that's a big red flag.

Me (Stacee):

Like they're just not testing.

Traci:

Well, yeah, but like Clint one of his teachers that was very instrumental in having us, you know, pursue testing, having us, you know, pursue testing, and she would just say that you know he would get all these like higher-level concepts but then he couldn't get just like basic rote stuff. So huge gaps like that. Because more like with like intellectual disabilities, they'll be the same playing field, like all their skills are kind be the same playing field, all their skills are kind of the same level. But with dyslexia it's not an intellectual disability, so things don't match if that makes any sense.

Me (Stacee):

Yeah like, wow, well, good job taking care of those kids because they're now faith, is graduated college and yes, and clint is nearly graduating.

Traci:

Yeah, he's a junior in college and you know, when he was in first grade, we we never knew if college was even going to be in the cards for him, so anyway. So, yeah, he rocked it.

Me (Stacee):

I have a funny story to tell you. So I guess when I was born they used the forceps on my head to pull me out and mom said my head was really dome shaped because of that. And my dad, the doctor, let dad come in at that time to see me and he looked at me and he went up to my mom and hugged her and he said we'll do whatever she needs, we'll give her the best life we can possibly give her. And the doctor said, mr Santee, there's nothing wrong. This will all reshape itself in a little bit oh, that happened to Faith.

Traci:

They had a vacuum wrap so she had a big cephalohematoma on the top of her head, so she was like young Bert from Sesame Street. Yeah, she looked like that.

Me (Stacee):

Luckily she had a ton of hair so it camouflaged and you guys can't see Traci, but her and her daughter both have a ton of hair. Well, what advice would you give to a young mom that just got that lump they just found that lump in their breast or maybe any woman that just found the lump in their breast like that's terrifying so advocate like I mean I should have had, probably at the second, when the second doctor told me I should have, I should have advocated for myself, like to have more tests, like okay.

Traci:

okay, I know it's not typical for a 34 year old that, but I think I should just just to advocate like, don't just because they're the physician. If you have more questions and you have a gut feeling, don't let anybody need that. A gut feeling, don't let anybody need that.

Me (Stacee):

I really loved what Traci had to say about advocating for herself all the way from her own personal health care to dealing with her kids' learning disabilities, and I think sometimes it's really hard to advocate for yourself, especially when you're worried about what other people think and we talk a bit about that in the book "Stop Acting Like a Girl on page 70, where it's around ditching the people pleasing. Because here's the deal when you start speaking up for yourself, don't be surprised if it makes some people uncomfortable, and it might even make yourself uncomfortable and people might want to call you things like difficult, bossy, arrogant or even annoying. But don't worry about what they say, especially when it comes to your own health care, your own family and your own life. If they don't like it, they can just move along.

Me (Stacee):

I hope you enjoyed meeting my friend Traci and if you have any questions for her or comments about the episode, head over to Instagram and you can find it all at Stacee, underscore Santi, underscore Longfellow. I know it's a lot and don't forget that my first name is S-T-A-C-E-E. Thanks so much for joining. I hope to see you again for the next episode. This is kind of a new venture for me and I'd really love to know what you think about these interviews and also if you haven't had a chance to pick up the copy of my book "Stop Acting Like a Girl." You can do that on Amazon. Have a great day, guys.