Dead America

Finding a cancerous lump in her breast seven weeks after a clean mammogram was terrifying. But fitness expert and race announcer Fitz Koehler refused to play the victim or allow cancer to steal her extraordinary career or time with family. In My Noisy Cancer Comeback, Fitz reveals the juicy and gory details of her 16-month battle, all while zigzagging across the United States. Enduring chemotherapy, radiation, and surgeries in the public eye wasn’t easy. You’ll laugh, cry, wince, and cheer as she chronicles the clash of an avalanche of side effects with 22 major race weekends. Her inspirational tale encompasses the terror of diagnosis, bald heads and black dresses, spectacular stages, parenting with cancer, perspective, and, most importantly, triumph. You’ll walk away grittier, more optimistic, and inspired to conquer any obstacle. This is a must-read for all cancer patients and their families. People from all aspects of the running community will adore getting to experience a behind-the-scenes view of life at the helm of America’s greatest road races.

Grab your copy of Fitz Koehler's book here

Find out more on Fitz

http://www.fitzness.com/

Fitz Koehler Transcript

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Fitz Koehler

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, cancer, fitz, fitzness, book, chemo, thought, hair, stage, koehler, running, exercise, breast cancer, matters, months, bell ringing, appointment, annual exams, teaching, week, terrifying

SPEAKERS

Fitz Koehler, Ed Watters

Ed Watters 00:03

Our lives can be filled with adversity. How we get through and handle adversity really defines who we are. Our guesttoday on the podcast, we spoke with Fitz Koehler from https://www.fitzness.com. This woman is an inspiration, and her story is going to help change lives. I love how open and honest Fitz Koehler is about the situation that she went through with breast cancer. One out of eight women are inflicted by this horrible condition, breast cancer. Many of us have dealt with people, or somewhere in our lives, we've been touched by a person with cancer. So Fitz combats this by writing a book, my noisy cancer come back, running at the mouth, while running for my life. We all face adversity. But this woman faced adversity, charged into it and overcame it in a very powerful way. We are delighted that she is here to share her story. And let's not waste any more time and get into it. To overcome, you must educate. Educate not only yourself, but educate anyone seeking to learn. We are all Dead America. We can all learn something. To learn. We must challenge what we already understand. The way we do that is through conversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others. However, some of the best conversations happen with ourselves. Reach Out and challenge yourself. Let's dive in and learn something right now. Today we have a great inspirational story for you. We have Fitz Koehler of https://www.fitzness.com. And the author of my noisy cancer come back running at the mouth while running for my life. Fitz, could you please introduce yourself and let our listeners know just a little about you and your background?

Fitz Koehler 02:58

Yeah, so I am Fitz Koehler, you got that right of https://www.fitzness.com, and I do a few things professionally, which helped me do one special thing which is help folks live better and longer. I'm a fitness expert. I've been teaching around the globe for decades now. I have a master's degree in exercise and sports sciences and I use my fitness profession I mainly teach via mass media, so TV, radio, books, magazines, corporate speaking and spokesperson work. However I can reach a mass amount of people in one fell swoop is where I like to direct my efforts that way. I own one of the largest school running programs in the world is called the morning mile and people can find that at morning mile dot com. And that's a before school walking running program that allows every student to participate every day, they get a 30 minute window of time to walk around. It's simple, stupid, but they can invite their family, the faculty, everyone's involved and I'm very proud to say my morning milers have run millions and millions of miles so far. And last but not least, I am a professional race announcer so I am the voice slash M.C. host of some of the largest most prestigious running events in the United States. So Los Angeles marathon, buffalo, Big Sur, Philadelphia marathons, the DC Wonder Woman and Batman series I man the start and finish line of those events, make sure everyone is engaged, informed, entertained, has a great race and feels like they won the thing once they've left.

Ed Watters 04:25

Simply incredible. one in eight women get breast cancer. You're a cancer survivor. How did that make you feel, the moment you found out that you had cancer?

Fitz Koehler 04:40

It was terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying. In a you know brief synopsis of my story is, December of 2018 clean mammogram, I had plenty of annual exams before. I started really young just under the guise that golly if I ever had one cancer cell on my body, I'd like to know about it. So I've been fanatical about early exams of a annual exams of all sorts, and I've always promoted them. And so December 18, clean mammogram less than seven weeks later in a hotel bathroom at Disney World, I rubbed my underboob. And I felt it, it was a hard bean like lump and it shouldn't have been there. And so it took me a whopping 30 seconds to pick up the phone and call and make a doctor appointment. I did not hem and ha, I didn't Google it. I didn't cry to my mom or my friends. I pick up the phone and I made the appointment. And that set forth a rapid series of events that ended up with me starting chemo less than 20 days later, I believe, but it was aggressive. And I was aggressive. And that's really the the important story here is that I was one of those one in eight American women. But I saved my own life because I I found it. And I reported it quickly.

Ed Watters 05:56

Wow. So what was the hardest part of getting that diagnosis?

Fitz Koehler 06:03

Um, you know, I it's funny I, I've always identified as being a steely, gritty, sturdy person, fearless. And there is no fear and stress like that, that comes with cancer. It was absolutely terrifying. And it allowed me to know I was mortal right away. And not only did I feel fear from my own life, but really the major fear was that I wasn't going to get to experience much of my children's lives. Ginger and Parker. And it was it was absolutely terrifying. And I really because I'm that girl, you know, I'm the one everyone's like, oh, you're perfect when it comes to fitness. So first of all, I'm not perfect, but I'm a girl who does most of the right things most of the time. So I am Exhibit A of healthy lifestyle. And there I was turning into Exhibit A of early detection and breast cancer. And I thought for certain I would definitely die simply because I made the perfect tragic tale. You know, perfect. I had that I was the fitness professional with a great family and the perfect career and I thought, Oh, God, there I go. So took a little while to get me to realize I wasn't going to die. And they did have a cure for me. But it was gut wrenching, painful, it was it was a horrible experience.

Ed Watters 07:29

Certainly devastating at the least. Being a person that takes such good care of yourself, shows us this can happen to anyone. You advocate doing self exams. Why is this so important to us?

Fitz Koehler 07:46

Well, I, you know, it's, I've had my heart broken at the hand of cancer dozens of times. Friends, my dad, two grandma's, you know, I've lost so many wonderful people because of cancer. And I just have always decided I didn't want to go down that way. And I don't want my friends to go down that way either. You know, if I had not found my own lump, if I had waited to the following December to get my annual exam, I'd be dead. It was a fast mover. And if I had waited, you know, by within seven weeks, it was a lump and three infected lymph nodes. If I had waited another 10 and a half months, you know, I'd be gone. So, you know, it's not just breast cancer, it could be any red flags your body shows you and one of the things is that people tend to think they're invincible. It's not going to happen to me quite often they'll find a lump somewhere or they'll have some nagging symptom and they ignore it. They put their head in the sand like an ostrich. And you know, the fact of the matter is doctors don't creep into your bed at night and lift up the sheets and start looking over Oh, look at Ed, he's got a bump here. We're gonna we're gonna fix that. Ed has to make the appointment and say Hey, Doc, check me out. See if you find anything wrong or tell me I'm doing great right and then you also need to I've been saying it you got to squeeze yourself ladies. You've got to put your hand in your shirt they're your boobs you have full permission to squeeze them. Guys you've got testes, you've got to squeeze them. You've got to look at your skin. You know, you just have to do it all and our body will often tell us Hey, something's wrong. We just have to be paying attention.

Ed Watters 09:22

I'm terrified of going to the doctor's. Could you walk us through the treatment you received and the worst part of this period in your life?

Fitz Koehler 09:33

Yeah, so, I'm terrified of going the doctor has got to be something you slap yourself out of because it's the doctor that is the thing that will save your life if you face something, but I did 21 rounds of chemo 33 rounds of radiation. several surgeries and my chemo lasted 15 months. The absolute most difficult part was the chemo the first five months of chemo they gave me we nicknamed it the mean chemo but My doctor said it was the most toxic combination they provide. And it was brutal it was you know it. People think, oh, you're gonna be kind of sick and tired and bald and I was those things but I wasn't kind of sick, I was violently sick. It was like having a tequila hangover. Every single day for five months, it was unbearable. And then what's interesting is I did not give up my career as a race announcer In fact, I chose to be defiant about it. And I just thought, you know what I've earned my spot on those stages, I am not giving them up. And I'm going so with that non stop tequila hangover for five months, where my stomach was chronically exploding, and every, every piece of me was being destroyed from my fingernails, my eyelashes, my vision went bad everything. But I just decided I am not letting this thing get the best of me. And so with that I got on 22 flights flew to 22 different locations, hosted 22 major events and probably half a million athletes. And it was awesome. It was really, really hard. But looking back, I'm really proud and grateful that I committed to doing that.

Ed Watters 11:11

That segues right into our next question. How did you keep working and keep all of the obligations that you had during this timeframe?

Fitz Koehler 11:22

Yeah, so good questions. When I was home. Once my doctor realized how sick I was going to be he put me on a regiment of, I'd have chemo on a Monday it was every three weeks usually on Mondays, he would have me come in for IV fluids every weekday after that and so we got creative while I was on the road, I reached out to my race directors and said hey, I'm going to be there and I'm going to perform as expected but I need a little help organize some sort of situation for me to get IV fluid drips It was pretty interesting. We we had to go through a lot of effort to keep me up on my feet. The good news is once I got onto my stages I was filled with we I you know I call it runner fueled adrenaline, where it was almost like my on switch was struck. So even if I spent the night on the bathroom hotel bathroom floor the night before, because of being sick, I would get up putting on my running shoes and my pants and my you I wasn't running I was just running at the mouth. I'm talking all the day. But I would get on my stage and zoom it was as though I was full fit full force Fitz Koehler again. And I got to be lively and energetic and and what was a great gift was turning my attention from myself to to all of my athletes, and I really got to forget about me for a while and it was pretty special.

Ed Watters 12:42

 During this time period in which you had cancer. What was the best advice, or the best help that you received?

Fitz Koehler 12:51

Um, I, you know, I didn't get a lot of advice. I think my good decisions came from within. But I really did have a lot of wonderful support. I mean, what I had to create, or I decided to create a little video announcing that I had breast cancer, I would have actually kept the whole ordeal private if I could have. But knowing I was going to stand on stages bald after having two feet of hair for my whole life. I thought people would ask questions. So I make this video and you know, I told people I said, Listen, I have breast cancer, I'm going to be fine. It's going to be difficult, but you know, I'm not going anywhere. I expect no pity you can root for me, you can pray for me, but no pity. And I'll accept your well wishes and you know, here I go type thing. But the world dumped love on me with kind messages people sent gift cards for restaurants. You know, I have two kids, I do have a husband but he works full time and you know, things like feeding my children became a big deal. You know, getting them safe rides to and from school became a very big deal. And so as far as the things that mattered most to me, I think feeding and driving my children were some of the greatest gifts I received. And my husband did everything you could imagine. I mean, he took me to all of the scary appointments and you know, anything I needed, he provided and I can tell you some days when I was really in bad shape. If he didn't bring me a drink, I wouldn't have had a drink. So it was really special to have him there. Just doing anything and everything he could to keep me healthy. And then when I was traveling, my friends, my race community, they were bringing me snacks and drinks and I actually almost passed out on a stage in July in Denver so it was 100 degrees. And I was a mile high in the sky which I'm no good at elevation because I'm a Floridian and I just had my sixth and final round of the really mean chemo. And I was on my stage with Wonder Woman mind you so at the DC Wonder Woman run series Warner Brother sends out their their wonder woman and she's gorgeous. And, you know, amazing. And so I'm standing at next to her with about 10,000 athletes surrounding me doing my thing, and then all of a sudden, Denver starts spinning. And it starts turning yellow. And I think, Oh, no, don't pass out, don't pass out, don't pass out. And then I looked at, at the ground around my stage, sometimes my stage is on grass, which is nice, this day it was not on grass. And then I saw the concrete below the stage, and I thought, Oh, no, don't break bones don't break bones. And just, you know, sometimes people, it's the right person at the right time, but our sound and video engineer, Kent, he just happened to be bringing me a drink and a snack to my stage. This was not his job, he was not snack guy. He just randomly decided he was going to take care of me in case I needed it. And I, I put the microphone down. And I started drinking and eating and the world stopped spinning. And that was just a magical little bit of support that came out of the blue and really saved us from a very difficult day.

Ed Watters 16:14

Yeah, thank God for good people. So could you tell us what was it like for you to lose your hair in the first place? And also, I noticed when you started growing your hair back, you started naming your hairs. Could you walk us through that?

Fitz Koehler 16:33

Yeah, so I I can definitely say sometimes people mean well, they they're meaning well, trying to lighten a difficult situation. Oh, it's just hair. Well, I agree that my hair was a fair exchange for my life. But it's not just hair. If it was just hair, we'd all just shave her head every day and be bald. So it was gut wrenching the thought of losing it. And then when the it started falling out, oh, it was very, very painful. And mine decided to fall out in very dramatic fashion. While I was on stage, at the Los Angeles marathon, which is my largest event of the year, I have 25,000 athletes out on the course. And I'm Manning finish line and my black stage was covered with two feet of long blonde hair everywhere. So that was tough and yielded many tears. Although I was able to do my job. Nobody knew what was going on other than my announcing partner, Rudy, but came home and shaved it which was difficult. I sat at my kitchen table with my family and my stylist Christine came over. And what we did is we separated my hair into two braids, chopped them off. And my children have them they asked for them. And I thought sure if this is what you want, you can have it so I was sad. Being bald was weird. I could it was cold. You know, I never wore a wig, I would only wear hats if you know we're out in the sunshine or it was cold outside. So it was definitely unusual getting used to I had a dark tan line on the top of my head because I always parted my hair in the middle. So I had like a skunk stripe from my forehead to the crown of my head, which was weird. And then when it started coming back in, it's amazing. You can be so happy for so little or so grateful for so little. And so yeah, I had the first piece of hair came right dead center top of my head. And it was just one piece. It grew overnight. It was maybe I don't know, half an inch of hair. And I thought there it is. So I called it Alfalfa, which is, you know, perfect for many reasons. But I did have that one Alfalfa hair, I mean, at the top of my head. And so I showed my kids and I, I'm sure I took a picture and shared it online Look, I've got Alfalfa. And then, um, a couple days later, Ginger was like, Oh, my God, Mom, you have a ponytail. And it was one rogue hair coming out of the back of my head where a ponytail would start. And it was possibly two inches long. And you know, I could have trimmed it because it was weird. And instead I thought I would take Alfalfa and and I named her Lolita because she was long and sexy and girly. And I made them role models for the rest of my head. So I had Alfalfa and Lolita for quite a while and