Episode 46
What my body remembered that my brain tried to forget
In this episode which is sponsored by our wonderful partners at Inflow I'm sharing an update from a couple of weeks ago when my mom was sick and I called an ambulance. She was going to be fine. I knew she was going to be fine. I was calm. I was functional. I was on the phone with my business partner — who is also an ER doctor, which I have decided is a mandatory qualification for that role — while flagging down the paramedics from the front porch.
And then I walked outside and completely fell apart.
Not because I was scared for her. Because that was the same porch. The same hallway. The same room I'd stood in nine and a half years ago when I called an ambulance for my dad — and he did not come home.
My brain knew it was 2026. My body had not received that information.
This episode is about the part of grief nobody prepares you for — not the raw early days, but the decade-later ambush that catches you completely off guard on a random Tuesday night with zero warning and zero time to put the armor on. It's also about how two things can be absolutely true at once: you can be fully mid-trauma response and still be making sarcastic remarks at the paramedics. I did both. Simultaneously. I regret nothing.
Alison brings a question from Andrew in Eugene, Oregon: "I'm starting to wonder how much of my personality is just coping strategies stacked on top of each other. Is there a real me underneath that, or is that the wrong question entirely?" Andrew, I've been thinking about this all week.
And I sit down with Lauren Yerkes, founder of Post Swim, who built a swimwear brand from her own breast cancer diagnosis at 37 — because she wanted to feel like herself again in a bathing suit, and that thing did not exist yet. Lauren's take on coverage vs. hiding is one of the most nuanced things I've heard in a long time.
"My brain knew it was 2026. My nervous system had entirely different information. Grief is a Mack truck with no warning label and no timeline."
Post Swim: postswim.com | @postswimofficial
Again, please do check out our episode sponsors Inflow at http://getinflow.io/notbroken
They're helping us bring episodes like this one to your ears.
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Transcript
When you're dealing with grief and trauma, the brain breaks things apart until
Speaker:they're boring. I'm starting to wonder
Speaker:how much of my personality is just coping strategies stacked
Speaker:on top of each other. I am a Southern
Speaker:California native, and so, you know, live by the beach, travel to
Speaker:Hawaii often, and I wanted something that
Speaker:covered the things I wasn't yet ready to show the world.
Speaker:All right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record because that feels right.
Speaker:Okay, I'm pressing record. Boop! Hi
Speaker:everybody, I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different
Speaker:Not Broken, which is our podcast on exactly that—
Speaker:that there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken, and
Speaker:the reality is you're just different, and that's fine. I've talked about this a
Speaker:little bit, I've referenced this a little bit, but a couple weeks ago my mom
Speaker:was in the hospital. She's fine now. Mostly it, we, we
Speaker:honestly still don't know what it was. She just got like very acutely ill one
Speaker:day and we let her wait it out at home for a while at
Speaker:the instruction of her doctor really. And after
Speaker:several hours I contacted her cuz I was working the whole day. It
Speaker:turned out that she wasn't feeling any better and we really thought that she would
Speaker:be feeling better by then. So I went over to her house and kind of
Speaker:assessed the situation and I really couldn't move her. And so
Speaker:I called an ambulance and I, I felt kind of silly
Speaker:calling the ambulance because she was technically ambulatory. She
Speaker:was technically able to get up, but it was just me. You know, she had
Speaker:this horrible stomachache. The car was just far enough away
Speaker:that she was gonna have to go downstairs to get there. I wasn't sure I
Speaker:was gonna be able to get her across the street. It was like a whole
Speaker:thing. My husband couldn't come help me. There was nobody else around who could come
Speaker:help me 'cause my brothers weren't nearby. And so I was just like, I
Speaker:gotta call the ambulance. And so I called and
Speaker:they were great. And I really felt like we were kind of like, I don't
Speaker:wanna say misusing it 'cause we definitely needed it, but like, it wasn't the kind
Speaker:of emergency where we needed them to come resuscitate
Speaker:her. The dispatcher said, "Turn on the lights on
Speaker:the front porch. If she's safe to
Speaker:leave, go stand outside and flag them down so that they know what house it
Speaker:is. If she's not safe to leave, and you can leave the door
Speaker:open, do that. If not, you know, they'll figure it
Speaker:out. So I was kind of running back and forth between her
Speaker:and, uh, and I was also on the phone with John, my business partner, because
Speaker:he's an ER doc and he was kind of just walking me through like what
Speaker:to look for, you know, when to intervene
Speaker:more, more thoroughly, et cetera. I was calm. There
Speaker:was no problem. I was calm. I knew she was sick.
Speaker:Truly, at that point, I didn't know how sick she was. And I don't say
Speaker:that because things got so much
Speaker:worse. I just— she was talking, she was
Speaker:upright. I just physically couldn't move her. I couldn't
Speaker:do the transport. And so I needed help. Typically, when you're calling an
Speaker:ambulance for a family member, you're so panicked and scared. And that
Speaker:wasn't the case here. It just was what it was.
Speaker:And so they did get there and
Speaker:it was already dark out, so it wasn't exactly the same, but
Speaker:I saw, not through the window, but I must have gone up to the front
Speaker:of the house and I saw the ambulance lights on and I was like,
Speaker:okay, they're here. And so I left her where I could and just let her
Speaker:know, like, please don't move. I'm going to go flag them down. And so I
Speaker:went outside, they were already unloading, and I went to
Speaker:say, to explain what was happening to the guy that was standing there. And
Speaker:I like, nothing came out. I was like, it was just very,
Speaker:very strange. Everybody listening to this,
Speaker:if this is your first day, hi. I doubt it's your first day. Talking is
Speaker:not my problem. There are very few situations
Speaker:where I can't find something to say. It's like either my greatest skill or my
Speaker:worst trait is that like, it's very rare you throw me into a situation and
Speaker:I can't find a way to run my mouth. It's like my thing. But I'm
Speaker:standing on the porch and all of a sudden I'm just like, I couldn't get
Speaker:words to come out. And the guy looks at me and he says, are you
Speaker:okay? And I finally said like, yeah, I'm fine.
Speaker:And he asked where she was. And I said,
Speaker:she's in there in the bathroom. But I like genuinely felt paralyzed. I was like,
Speaker:I don't remember feeling scared. I wasn't, I
Speaker:truly, and I don't say this to be negative, I wasn't worried about my mom.
Speaker:I really genuinely felt like she was gonna be okay. It wasn't like I was
Speaker:worried that she was so sick that she wasn't gonna recover. I
Speaker:just needed help transporting her and I could not. And so it
Speaker:wasn't that. I'm standing there, the next guy walks up and
Speaker:he's the one who has to get all the information. I just, not an
Speaker:exaggeration, started sobbing, totally sobbing,
Speaker:couldn't turn it off, gulping
Speaker:for air. And again,
Speaker:this was not a crisis situation. I was trying to
Speaker:explain to him who she was, where she was, where she was. And I'm, like,
Speaker:gulping for air trying to get out. And he finally says to me, just like,
Speaker:take a second. It's okay.
Speaker:Walk me to where she is. So I walked them in there and there were
Speaker:a bunch of them and they were all very
Speaker:lighthearted and jovial, which in the situation we were in was
Speaker:appropriate. It was a way to keep the temperature down. It was a way
Speaker:to make sure that my mom knew she was in good hands. It was a
Speaker:way to make me know that they were, you know, that they were friendly and
Speaker:approachable and we could talk and I could tell them anything. It wasn't a tense
Speaker:situation at all. And I'm sobbing.
Speaker:We go to walk into the bedroom, and my mom's front
Speaker:door leads to a long hallway. There's rooms on either
Speaker:side, and if you go immediately to the right, that's her
Speaker:bedroom. And then you take the next open door to the right and
Speaker:that's her bathroom. And that's where I had her sat. But I
Speaker:realized that what was
Speaker:happening in that moment didn't matter.
Speaker:I was communicating with them, I was giving them the instructions, but I was not
Speaker:reacting to that morning
Speaker:in February of 2026.
Speaker:My body was there. My brain was somewhere else
Speaker:because I was standing in the spot
Speaker:where I called an ambulance for my dad
Speaker:9 and a half years ago. And I walked them
Speaker:down the same hallway
Speaker:to the same place.
Speaker:9 and a half years ago.
Speaker:And my confidence that my mother was
Speaker:going to be fine, and I truly, again, I
Speaker:was confident in that. I was not worried. I was worried that she was sick,
Speaker:but I wasn't worried that she was dying, had nothing
Speaker:to do with the reaction that I was having.
Speaker:As far as my nervous system was concerned,
Speaker:I was taking this crew of very, very similar,
Speaker:very lovely first responders, I should say, who were just as
Speaker:lovely then as they were this time, into
Speaker:a room
Speaker:the exact same room
Speaker:where my dad had
Speaker:waited long enough to make eye contact
Speaker:with me one more time before he died.
Speaker:And I knew my mother was coming back home.
Speaker:My dad did not come back home. And it
Speaker:didn't matter that intellectually
Speaker:I knew that I was standing here safe
Speaker:and taken care of in 2026, and that these
Speaker:nice people were going to haul my mother off to exactly where she
Speaker:needed to be, and that we would get her taken care of, and
Speaker:that she was going to be fine. It didn't matter
Speaker:because as far as my nervous system was concerned
Speaker:It was August 21st, 2016,
Speaker:and I am not a person who
Speaker:remembers every detail of a lot of different situations. I'm just not.
Speaker:I remember every single second
Speaker:between walking into my dad's bedroom as we knew that he was
Speaker:crashing and watching them take him away,
Speaker:praying it wasn't true but knowing I was never going to see him again.
Speaker:And I might as well have been watching myself
Speaker:walk into that room 10 years ago as I was walking
Speaker:in to get them to my mother again,
Speaker:intellectually repeating to myself over and over and over,
Speaker:everything's fine, this is fine. And I kept saying— I said this to the guy,
Speaker:I was like, I'm I'm so sorry. I— there's nothing wrong right now. I understand
Speaker:she's sick, but there's nothing wrong. I am literally having a
Speaker:reaction to something that happened 10 years ago in this room
Speaker:that I didn't realize was gonna happen until I walked out on that porch.
Speaker:And this very, very sweet first responder
Speaker:looked at me and shrugged and said, meh, I've seen weirder. And I was
Speaker:like, is that a challenge?
Speaker:It's been 10 years, 9 and a half years. It'll be 10 years in August.
Speaker:We have officially reached the point of this timeline where the year
Speaker:we're in has the same last number as the year he died.
Speaker:And I never thought it was possible to get this far out there. I never
Speaker:thought it was possible for this much time to pass. I never thought I would
Speaker:have this much, this many stories and this much life without him in it. It
Speaker:just never occurred to me that there was 10 years to live and
Speaker:even obviously more without him
Speaker:right there. It's not that I didn't know it was possible, 'cause there are lots
Speaker:of moments that are just a punch in the gut outta nowhere and just render
Speaker:me to tears. And I'm like, how could that, how could this just, this isn't
Speaker:new information. He doesn't keep dying. He did it one time. It was
Speaker:rude enough that one time, but it's not like he keeps dying. But
Speaker:like, this is not new information, but
Speaker:that is the mechanism of grief. And we have
Speaker:talked about this before, how the brain breaks things apart when
Speaker:you're dealing with grief and trauma. It breaks things apart until they're boring.
Speaker:And that is not a linear process, and it's not a process that happens
Speaker:quickly. And even 10 years later, it can still be
Speaker:happening. And so my brain,
Speaker:up until that night 2 weeks ago,
Speaker:had never thought about what it would be like—and why
Speaker:would it?—had never thought about what it would be like to be standing on
Speaker:that porch in that
Speaker:location with
Speaker:that experience and
Speaker:have such a similar thing happen.
Speaker:I had never deconstructed what it was like to have
Speaker:paramedics come on the porch again. I had never deconstructed
Speaker:the fact that the sound of the monitor
Speaker:that they put on him that showed he had no heart
Speaker:activity, I'd never processed the fact that that sound
Speaker:still lives in my head and I can hear it. And I'm not
Speaker:usually good at conjuring those things back up, but I can hear it at any
Speaker:time. I know what it sounds like. It is, like,
Speaker:deeply ingrained in my soul. And I
Speaker:had never broken that part down because I had never been in a situation to
Speaker:break that part down. So I got
Speaker:my mom to the hospital. I cried,
Speaker:and I stopped trying to stop. I think that was the difference. I
Speaker:stopped trying to stop. I am not the most unhinged person
Speaker:these paramedics have seen that day and I'm not getting in their way and I'm
Speaker:not causing them problems. So I'm just gonna cry and that's just gonna have to
Speaker:be okay with them. And it was, they were super cool about it. But I
Speaker:stopped trying to stop because my body wasn't ready to stop.
Speaker:I went through all of the steps. I got her out the
Speaker:door, I got her house locked up, I got her dog taken care of.
Speaker:I talked to her neighbor so that, you know, her neighbor asked if there was
Speaker:anything that we needed and I talked to him and I got his phone number.
Speaker:I got into my car, I drove to my house, I grabbed my stuff. I
Speaker:was sobbing the whole time. My body
Speaker:wasn't done yet. It was involuntary. There's nothing I can do about it.
Speaker:I sat in the car at the hospital until I
Speaker:felt like I had it back together, and then had it
Speaker:together for the entire time that I was at the hospital. Also,
Speaker:for the record, the doctor, when they ask you if
Speaker:your mother lives with you, you're supposedly not supposed
Speaker:to say, oh God, no. That's not the response they
Speaker:want. I don't know what response they do want, but that is not the response
Speaker:they want. She actually laughed. That was shocking. And then also, when
Speaker:they ask if you'll hold all of her jewelry, you are not supposed to say
Speaker:that yes because you can pawn it. Also
Speaker:not supposed to do. Oh, and then
Speaker:when your mother's liver studies come back over 11,000, which is
Speaker:like liver failure levels, except she's never had liver issues before, so that's very
Speaker:weird. And a month ago, her liver studies were fine. You are not
Speaker:supposed to look at her in front of the doctor and ask her— because when
Speaker:they say, like, this could be some kind of hepatitis, you are not supposed to
Speaker:look at her and ask her if she's using intravenous drugs again, because
Speaker:they will laugh. They will. But then when they wheel her out to
Speaker:CT, the very sweet but a
Speaker:little dense nurse will come to you and say,
Speaker:"I'm 99% sure you were joking, but I just need to clarify that
Speaker:she does not actually use intravenous drugs." And I was like, "She does not, no.
Speaker:In fact, I wish she would, but she does not." But I thought when I
Speaker:left that the episode would just be over.
Speaker:I was on— I was standing on that porch in my mind.
Speaker:For the 3 days that followed, easily.
Speaker:Because that is what grief is. And that's what
Speaker:trauma responses are. That's what my brain did.
Speaker:And I had no control over it. And I, I couldn't,
Speaker:even if I wanted to fight it, I couldn't have, but I wasn't going to
Speaker:because that was involuntary. That was out of my control.
Speaker:I am proof that you can both be
Speaker:mid-trauma response and also
Speaker:an asshole smartass, because it's like my thing.
Speaker:It's like a two-for-one that you get, like me sobbing and also
Speaker:making jokes about the fact that one of the paramedics
Speaker:said that the woman paramedic who was
Speaker:in charge, the— I guess the paramedic in charge, that he
Speaker:was joking with her and said that she was micromanaging him, and
Speaker:me, through sobs, said, "You probably deserve it."
Speaker:And he was like, "You're correct. I can still
Speaker:be an asshole." Which is— I don't know how to
Speaker:turn that off. But so two things can be true. But also,
Speaker:that is the reality, the deep, deep
Speaker:reality of grief and trauma that we— I don't think we talk about,
Speaker:which is that 10 years later, out
Speaker:of nowhere, it is a Mack truck that
Speaker:will run you over without explanation, or without
Speaker:anticipation, I guess. There's no time to
Speaker:protect yourself. There's no time to put up the guard. There's no time to
Speaker:send yourself the trigger warnings that you need
Speaker:to put up the armor. There wasn't time. And 10 years
Speaker:later, my brain is not healed, and I don't think it ever will be.
Speaker:I mean, it's not something that I want to happen. I don't want to walk
Speaker:around sobbing for 3 days, but sobbing kind of feels good when life's a dumpster
Speaker:fire and everything seems awful. It's just also
Speaker:not— you're not in control of it. And I will say
Speaker:that I feel awfully lucky to be 10
Speaker:years in and to have
Speaker:been so deeply connected with somebody
Speaker:that I could be rendered to tears on
Speaker:a porch on a random Tuesday night
Speaker:because he still hasn't come
Speaker:back. And that's rude. Very, very rude.
Speaker:And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's
Speaker:Small Talk. We have a question from Andrew in
Speaker:Eugene, Oregon. "I'm starting to wonder how
Speaker:much of my personality is just coping strategies stacked on
Speaker:top of each other. Is there a real me underneath that, or is
Speaker:that the wrong question entirely?" I don't know that it's ever
Speaker:the wrong question. If it's a question you have, it's a question
Speaker:you have. I think maybe the inclination to second-guess
Speaker:yourself kind of like illuminates the problem
Speaker:altogether, right? It's that you're second-guessing you
Speaker:second-guessing yourself. So, like, that's meta
Speaker:and adorable. But it's really hard to figure
Speaker:out who you are without doing a whole lot of
Speaker:work. It takes time. It takes a whole lot
Speaker:of feeling things within your body and also, like, deciphering what is
Speaker:the right thing to feel. And that's a kind of a complicated way to say
Speaker:it, but like, you know, there are times when you're going to be presented with
Speaker:something that you either think you want to do or think you need to
Speaker:do. If you feel like you need to do it and you don't
Speaker:want to do it, you're gonna be presented with
Speaker:guilt or stress or frustration.
Speaker:Like, is that the valid emotion there? Because if it's something you don't have to
Speaker:do, something you've never had to do, but you're still trying to unravel from this
Speaker:pressure you've always been under to be someone else, or to be somebody who
Speaker:would do those kinds of things, what's the correct thing to feel
Speaker:there? And, and there's not a right answer to that at all,
Speaker:but it takes a little bit of time of
Speaker:being honest with yourself. And sometimes you're gonna do things
Speaker:just because it's what you've always done without realizing that
Speaker:that's not what you want to be doing or not things that fill you up.
Speaker:I mean, there's things that we all have to do that we don't want to
Speaker:do, like Nobody wants to go get their driver's license renewed, but we have to
Speaker:go do it anyway. Like, you're not gonna wake up one day and be like,
Speaker:"That is the thing I love doing, and I have just
Speaker:misunderstood my intention." It just takes time. And the
Speaker:real complication to that is not necessarily
Speaker:figuring out who you are now, which is, again, takes time and
Speaker:is a process and requires just you,
Speaker:you know, thinking through and trying things and testing things and seeing what
Speaker:you like and seeing what you don't like and seeing who you enjoy being around,
Speaker:and which might be no one, to be honest, and seeing
Speaker:who you don't enjoy being around and those people that you want to
Speaker:separate from. But
Speaker:the real kind of kicker to that is you're not the same person
Speaker:throughout your whole life. You're just not. This is going
Speaker:to shock people. This is gonna shock everybody listening. There was a
Speaker:time in my life when I was young and dumb that I really
Speaker:liked going to things.
Speaker:I liked being around people. I had a lot of friends,
Speaker:I think. I had a lot of people who tolerated me, at a minimum.
Speaker:I had— wait for
Speaker:this one. Wait for this one. I had a lot
Speaker:of shoes, and I wore them all the
Speaker:time, and I coordinated them to my outfits
Speaker:because I liked shoes that much. I enjoyed
Speaker:wearing shoes. That was me in my
Speaker:youth. I was a very smart
Speaker:kid, but also clearly dumb because I wore shoes all the
Speaker:time and I didn't need to. That was me 20 years
Speaker:ago. That is not me now.
Speaker:So maybe you are performing a version of
Speaker:yourself who you're not anymore because you've grown out of that. Maybe you need
Speaker:to take some time to just feel around and make
Speaker:note of what feels good and what doesn't and what feels like what you want
Speaker:to do and what doesn't to figure out who you are now. And maybe you
Speaker:also just need to give yourself space to realize that, like, you might be someone
Speaker:different in 5 years anyway. And so just, like,
Speaker:roll with it. But there are a lot of people who are
Speaker:so used to masking that they don't know who they actually are under that.
Speaker:And the only way to really figure that out is to try things, to see
Speaker:what feels comfortable, to see what you enjoy, to see what you don't enjoy,
Speaker:to figure out what lights you up, to note what things
Speaker:give you unmanageable dread, and go from
Speaker:there.
Speaker:We have a special guest today, guys. So excited to have her here.
Speaker:I want to introduce you to Lauren Yerkes, who's gonna tell us
Speaker:a little bit about her company that she runs.
Speaker:Um, it is an incredible accessible apparel company
Speaker:that is focused on very niche populations and
Speaker:people who have historically had a lot of trouble finding certain types of garments.
Speaker:So I wanted to give her a couple minutes to tell our audience about what
Speaker:she does, why she does it, how she got here. Um, so
Speaker:Lauren, thank you so much for being here. And also thanks for causing mass confusion
Speaker:among my staff because we do not know how to deal with two Laurens, which
Speaker:is fun. Mostly me going to respond to things that
Speaker:were not meant for me because I clearly have control issues. But I
Speaker:would love to hear a little bit more about your background and your company so
Speaker:that our, our listeners can learn a little bit more. Yeah, well, thank you for
Speaker:having me. I'm very honored and I've been around
Speaker:multiple Laurens too, so I totally understand where you're coming from.
Speaker:It's literally how I became L2, so it's not like I should be
Speaker:like averse to this, but it's been messing with my brain, so. I
Speaker:understand. Well, my name is Lauren and I'm the founder of
Speaker:Post Swim. Uh, Post Swim is a purpose-driven
Speaker:swimwear brand and it was born out of my
Speaker:own diagnosis with breast cancer. I was diagnosed at the age of 37,
Speaker:and I've spent years in the fashion industry. I
Speaker:saw all of this product all the time. Um, I was formerly
Speaker:the chief merchandising officer for Revolve, and so I was approving brands to go
Speaker:on the website on a regular basis. And after my own
Speaker:diagnosis and going through surgery and treatments, I really
Speaker:struggled to put a bathing suit back on. I am a Southern California
Speaker:native, and so you know, live by the beach, travel to Hawaii often,
Speaker:and I wanted something that covered the things I
Speaker:wasn't yet ready to show the world. And so we focus on
Speaker:coverage, and I always say that with a subtext, so
Speaker:to speak, because I always want people to know that it's not coverage to
Speaker:hide, it's coverage to empower women to share their story when
Speaker:they're ready, because it does take time after you've gone through something like this to
Speaker:feel comfortable to share and to expose the things that you're maybe still getting
Speaker:used to. And so that is our goal at Post
Speaker:Swim. And we design, you know, purely with intention. We
Speaker:design with coverage in mind. We design for comfort and confidence.
Speaker:All of our suits are different purposes. So there's
Speaker:minimal to maximum coverage. There are styles that are great for
Speaker:women who are flat after surgeries, great for women who use
Speaker:a prosthetic, and great for an woman who has had no
Speaker:surgeries. So it's really about thinking about
Speaker:the outcomes after a diagnosis or any surgery, a
Speaker:hysterectomy, you know, C-section, whatever it may be. The
Speaker:first time that you put on one of your own suits that actually
Speaker:made you feel confident enough to wear that suit, what was that
Speaker:like? Oh my gosh. I just remember standing in front of the mirror and I
Speaker:was like grinning from ear to ear. I was like so
Speaker:I felt so confident and really just comfortable.
Speaker:I had reconstructive surgery, and so I have this rippling effect
Speaker:that you can see anytime I bend over or move a certain way. And it—
Speaker:that was really made me self-conscious. And so our
Speaker:first suit from the first collection is called the Kim Top, and it's a square
Speaker:neck and it sits a little bit higher and it covered that for
Speaker:me. And so it felt like I was me again. I
Speaker:just wanted to feel normal and I felt like that swimsuit gave me that
Speaker:ability. How do you encourage people to find the balance
Speaker:between, you know, 'cause there, there are very strong messages about the, out there
Speaker:about how you shouldn't be ashamed. And that's obviously that's true.
Speaker:And those scars are how you survived to get here, et cetera. But
Speaker:also even if you're not ashamed of them and you shouldn't be ashamed of them,
Speaker:but even if you're not ashamed of them, they're so personal. A stranger who sees
Speaker:you have a giant scar might have questions and maybe you don't want to talk
Speaker:to them about that. How do you approach that with women who, or
Speaker:people who use your products who are still kind of navigating that journey
Speaker:and maybe just not sure how to handle it? Yeah, it's, it's
Speaker:really about finding that right suit. Not every
Speaker:suit can cover every scar. So it's really thinking about where are your
Speaker:scars and, you know, if you have multiple scars, which
Speaker:one is the most triggering for you. So for me,
Speaker:it was like a port scar was really like, anytime I see somebody with
Speaker:a port scar, I'm like, you had cancer. I know it because I have the
Speaker:same scar. And so it was, it's really trying to help the woman
Speaker:identify what is she most self-conscious about and
Speaker:finding a suit to help her to, you know,
Speaker:it's not cover, it's coverage, but it's not to hide. To your point,
Speaker:it's really to allow them to just feel normal again. You
Speaker:know, think back to life before cancer, and that's always what
Speaker:you compare to is what was life like before
Speaker:cancer? And now it's always, there's the before Lauren and then there's the
Speaker:after Lauren. And a lot of times women will tell me, I
Speaker:just, I want the old me back. And so I just
Speaker:try to build that and work with them to identify what that style is that
Speaker:fits their needs. Awesome. Lauren, where can
Speaker:people find your suits? Our website is
Speaker:postswim.com, and then you can follow us on social media
Speaker:at Post Swim Official. We're on Instagram, TikTok,
Speaker:Facebook, and X, Twitter, whatever it's called.
Speaker:Well, thank you so much for being here. I'm so glad we got to learn
Speaker:a little bit more about what you do. And, uh, everybody go check out her
Speaker:website and send it to your friends who might have a need. Thank you so
Speaker:much. Thanks for being here, guys. Have a good day. Love you. Mean it.
Speaker:While we're doing this, I'm gonna run to the bathroom. No bathroom
Speaker:breaks. I'll make sure to mute myself then. I did
Speaker:not sign off on that.
