Embracing Resilience
Eric Bell with Sarah Pattison
SEASON 2 | EPISODE 9
Through cancer, Covid, business and motherhood, Sarah Pattison’s story is a stunning testament to the power of perseverance and the indomitable strength of the human spirit.
In the midst numerous surgeries and scares, she stayed focused on staying present in her life thanks to the help a loving community. In this episode of Turning on the Light, Sarah joins host Eric Bell to tell the story of her letterpress company, The Happy Envelope, and how she has survived her journey with grace.
Plus, as a mother of three, she shares the indispensable role her husband played as a caregiver and the unique hardships faced by caretakers in difficult times. Learn more about Sarah’s journey on The Happy Envelope blog.
Sarah Pattison Instagram | Website
Eric Bell on Instagram
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The Turning On The Light Podcast is a Palm Tree Pod Co. Production
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Sarah Pattison 0:00
I've always said from the very beginning, at gosh, I never want to write a cancer blog. That's not interesting to me at all. Yeah, it's actually not interesting to anyone except people with cancer. I want to write about hope in dark places. Yeah. And I think I think that's why people have followed this blog and why it's like grown legs kind of on its own is because everyone has their own cancer.
Eric Bell 0:37
Welcome to turning the light podcast. I'm your host, Derrick Bell. On this show, we normalize the conversation around mental health, and share honest and amazing stories of our guests about the ways we cope with life's up and downs. nurturing our body, mind and soul takes a lot of courage and vulnerability. I invite you to come be curious as we turn on light today.
Alright, Sarah, thanks for joining me today. And for those of you listening to this episode, Happy Mother's Day. By the time this drops Mother's Day, we will have been Sunday and we dropped this on Monday. So Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. Happy early Mother's Day to you, Sarah. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for joining me. For those who don't know, Sarah. Tell us a little bit about Sarah. And the where I'd love to start this conversation is the happy envelope. Sarah, if that's where you will join me. Sure.
Speaker 1 1:45
Yeah. And actually, I think in a lot of ways, the happy envelope is sort of the it's just been such a huge part of my personal story, and really led into kind of the story that we're at now. Because it's been the number one faith grower in my
Eric Bell 2:08
life. Yeah.
Sarah Pattison 2:11
Yeah. So I taught my husband Ty and I met in college, and got married right after college, and he went into ministry. He worked for young life for about five years or so. And I had a graphic design degree. That's what I went into school to get. And that's what I came out with. Unbelievably, one of the few people who never changed their major. But I always knew I was always an artistic kid and just really loved drawing and coloring and it's just a huge part of my DNA. Yeah. And so graphic design seemed like a great fit. And I was I really loved I went to UT. I'm not from here. I grew up in Rhode Island. Okay. But I came down, I came down to UT. I mean, I have no real Yeah, I have no real answer for that. Except that I feel like the Lord just brought me here because it's, it's where I needed to be, I guess. and got my degree and started working for a little, a little small graphic design firm, just like a sort of three man operation kind of, and with, let's see, I worked there for about two or three years, and they ended up filing for bankruptcy. And, you know, it was not where I needed to stay. And so I just had always loved stationery, I'd always loved that sort of thing. And, you know, no business plan. No, no. I mean, we I just did it. Yeah. So like, let's try this. And started the happy envelope.
Eric Bell 4:02
I think what's interesting to say the name, why, what? There's gotta be something behind the name. Yeah.
Sarah Pattison 4:08
Yeah. So actually, it was kind of funny how we came up with having I came up with it, but I made a list of adjectives that I liked, and then a list of nouns that felt like they had to do with stationery. And I had it narrowed down to three that I liked. And then I sent it out to basically everyone I knew and said, vote on which one you liked the best. And actually, that happy envelope was second.
Eric Bell 4:33
Oh, really? What was first?
Sarah Pattison 4:35
I think it was. Oh, gosh, I'm so glad it wasn't. I'm so glad it was the I'm so glad I just made an executive decision. Yeah, choose the happy envelope. Because I think it was always right. Right WRI te
Eric Bell 4:50
o always right.
Sarah Pattison 4:52
And just think about the fact that every time you say your business name, you'd have to spell it out No, that's not a good idea. You're right. Not a good business name. So I went with the happy envelope, and I'm so glad I did. Yeah. To me. It's because sort of, like, why is the envelope happy? It's because of what's inside. Yeah, you know? Yeah, it's because of what's inside. And what we do is custom invitations, luxury invitations. We have three designers on staff, graphic designers, and it's our love. Like that's what we love creating really distinct, amazing, beautiful new things for customers, you know, for our clients. Yeah.
Eric Bell 5:35
I think one of the things that I've always loved about seeing your store when it was downtown, and then now it's not downtown. It's more out west and Bearden. Obviously, if you don't live in Knoxville, you don't know where that is. But is the old printing press right, the manual printing press, and I've seen tied to it a ton. And that's just fascinating, right? That's like, oh, that's old school style. Right? Yeah.
Sarah Pattison 6:00
Eric, it's like magic. Yeah, I say, Well, we have actually, so a fully operational press room. And we have Gosh, Ty would have to tell us, but I think 123 I think we have seven operational letter presses. And like paper tremors and all the things we need to get to get it all done. But those presses, most of them are 100 years old. It's amazing. And they're still working. That's you know, because it was those presses. You know, they don't have anything electric on them. They're all just, you know, basic, simple machines. Yeah, basically, they still work if keep them oiled. They still work amazing. It is amazing. And what what is awesome about that is you get the hand it is literally each thing we do is made by hand, because it's impressed one at a time. And that means when you're finished, the finished product has an actual texture to it. From the printing, like impresses into the page. I mean, it's really cool. Yeah, I was actually just on my way here. And I was like,
Eric Bell 7:12
I love what I do. Yeah,
Sarah Pattison 7:13
I just, we have a wonderful staff. They're so amazing. Our people are amazing. I get to go in I mean, look at this job. Are you kidding me? Yeah, I get to go in and out with great clients. We have clients all over. I mean, we have clients from the southeast and all over America, I mean, that we work with over the phone, or, you know, it's beautiful. But we have amazing relationships just here locally, I mean, many, many people who just come, they'd love to throw great parties, or they start by doing a wedding invitation. And then you're doing baby things. And then you're doing stationery. And yeah. And we get to make it all right there.
Eric Bell 7:54
I just think it's I always you know, and I've talked to my counselor in the past, in I'm in a business that works with heart pumps. And he was like, There's no mistake, that you're in the business that you're in, and that you you know, are doing trying to do the work on your own heart. And I think that it's always kind of interesting when you find somebody right, your your story, your journey, the the happy envelope, the name, the whole, the works, what what's inside, what's inside the building, what's inside the letter, what's inside of you guys. Right? And it's all tied together. And I love it. And so I'm very appreciative of that. So how long has the happy envelope been around?
Sarah Pattison 8:45
So in October, it'll be 20 years, 20 years, which is amazing. It does. It is amazing. It blows my mind. And it's amazing, because, I mean, Ty and I both we're not business people. You know, I'm like, totally an artist. And I feel like I could have I could have driven this thing into the ground so many times. And Ty is definitely more of a numbers person than I am. But neither of us would say that we're numbers. Yeah. He learned how to do. This is actually a cool story, because he's not an artist. He got a degree in political science, and kind of thought he might go into law, which never really happened. I mean, he went into ministry. And one of our printers that we work with here in Knoxville, I went to go pick something up from them, like a large commercial printer, kind of but we had formed relationships with them over the years. And there was a letterpress sitting in the back. And I said hey, what are you doing with that letterpress and he was an older gentleman and when you He said, I never want to see that letterpress again. I mean, that's the way we used to actually print and it is finicky. And it's difficult and I don't ever want to use it. And I said, Well, can I buy it from you? And he was like, Sarah, you can have it if you can get it out of here. And so the next day to I had called a tow truck. I mean, they're huge. They're like, so it's like, think about moving a car almost. But it's so heavy because it's
Speaker 2 10:27
all Yeah, metal. Yeah. You know,
Sarah Pattison 10:31
in all industrial gears and they're very, very heavy. They're very cumbersome to move. So he moves it gets it into our garage. It had been in a garage for about six months, I looked at him and I was like, Babe, use it or lose it. I don't have I was like, I don't want a letterpress print. Yeah, I want to design. I love letterpress, but I don't want to be the one doing it. Right. And so he just took it upon himself. He went down. There's the Atlanta printmaking Institute is in, obviously, I think it's called Yeah, the Atlanta printmaking Institute. They did a they do like workshops. Yeah. And so he did a every day. Let's see how this worked. Maybe it was once a week for eight weeks, he would go drive himself down to Atlanta, take this like four hour class and then drive himself amazing, just to learn sort of the ins and outs of how to how to letterpress and yeah, he started using it. And then, you know, letterpress people are interesting people Eric I kind of that sometimes they're kinda like almost vintage car people. Yeah. Where they want to know that things are going to if they get rid of something, it's going to be used and not like sold for parts. They, they love it. There's like a culture. Yeah. And so we get phone calls coming fairly regularly. That are Hey, I'm cleaning out my dad's basement. He just passed away. There's this piece of equipment down here. And someone told me we should call you to come take a look at it. So we have acquired all of our equipment. Yeah, ties bought some of it, but some of it just comes from. Yeah, you know, a lot of times we get those phone calls, and it's nothing we are interested in, but they just really like it to go to someone who's using it. And so it just grew out of that. And part of the beauty of that is that it got Ty and I really integrated in the business together, producing so I'm designing, he was printing. And now we have people who help us do that. But when we started I mean that's what we were doing. And it was cool to be able to, to see a finished product. And both of us had contributed to it.
Eric Bell 13:02
Yeah, I love it. And for those listening, that if you've never seen Sarah's husband tie, he He reminds me of our rent. Rent is vintage renaissance person. So it's fitting to me, like this image that I see tie. I grew up with Ty I've known Ty for a long time. But he just that's what he reminds me of like, it's like, to your point about he said, printer press people are just unique and vintage. That's that. That's what tie that's like the quintessential tie right?
Sarah Pattison 13:33
It does fit him. It does fit him. Yeah, yes. Yeah, it does.
Eric Bell 13:38
So I love it. And so Sara, as we continue to move through your journey. So you're you guys are doing your thing. You guys are working together and then and then the world turned upside down.
Sarah Pattison 13:52
Oh, yeah, that's right. So also I should mention we have three girls. Um, Esther and Noah are teenagers. So they're now 16 and 15. Right now currently like today, and we have our bonus baby Eden who is five? That's right. So we have one who's a sophomore one who's a freshman and one who's kindergartener. Wow, yeah, so that was actually probably our next big surprise of our life. world. But what did that do?
Eric Bell 14:24
I mean, I know your you know, your your faith is super important. But at the at the same time, were you like, what, what is this? Oh, it was was it bad?
Sarah Pattison 14:33
It was it right now what I'm gonna be really frank.
Unknown Speaker 14:36
That's what I need. Okay.
Sarah Pattison 14:38
I cried for three months, did you when I found out that I was pregnant? And the reason was that I think when Esther and now were babies, when they were babies, first of all, they were born a 13 months apart, right? Okay. So we were just drowning, because we were we had this fledgling little business Yeah, you know, no money. We were so poor, barely keeping our heads above water. No paycheck. That was regular, you know? And to babies, babies, you know, and we couldn't afford like they we weren't doing five days a week preschool. We couldn't afford that. Yeah. And so it was a real it was a real faith builder, a real time of dependence dependents. And learning to pray a lot. Because I was like, we're not gonna make I mean, I don't know what we can't keep the lights on. Yeah. You know, and I have these two babies that need me all the time and tie in. I mean, it was hard on marriage. It was hard on business. It was hard on. I mean, I feel like, gosh, I was probably not the best mom. I mean,
Eric Bell 16:06
lots going on. Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Pattison 16:08
So when we found out that I was pregnant with Eden, 10 years later, our business was a lot different. You know, and the girls were obviously, they're fantastic. They're the coolest people and we love I mean, I love them that the older they get the cooler it is, you know. But in my mind, that's where I was going back to your like back to your experience. Oh, my gosh, I can't do this. Like this was we barely survived this the first time. Yeah. Eden has been a completely different experience. And we're so I mean, we're so thankful for slash say, Well, I mean, I guess she's gonna give us young people say, you know, she'll keep you young. Yeah. And she does. She does, because she's, you know, five. Wow. And but it's different, too, because we have so much help. I mean, Esther and Nell are like, yeah, lover. I mean, they're like little moms. Yeah, you know. So we have this trifecta of amazing, you know, girls at our house, poor Thai, Thai, so I should mention our staff. We have 12 staff people, including Thai 11 of them are female
Eric Bell 17:22
man. He's around a lot of female. Yeah.
Sarah Pattison 17:25
Oh, we have three girls. And a female dog. Yeah. And a wife.
Eric Bell 17:29
He needs to hear me. Oh,
Sarah Pattison 17:32
no, it is all girl all the time. But he's a good girl, dad. So it works.
Eric Bell 17:38
That's amazing. So that's the first. That was the first.
Sarah Pattison 17:41
Yeah, we'll call it a hiccup. Yeah, that was a hiccup. And then, so 2020, right. March 2020. Most world shuts down, right. Our business is 78% event based, meaning it's invitations that were custom creating for weddings, primarily, but also all, you know, all kinds of events, parties, yeah, mitzvahs, that sort of thing. And guess what was not happening? All that all of that. And so it was? Yeah, I really thought this might I this might be the end.
Eric Bell 18:26
At what point? Like, you start hearing about the pandemic. We all do, right. It was around the spring break times people. I mean, at what point were you like, yeah, okay, this is, whatever, and you're like, and then you're like, Oh, dang. Yeah. Like this could actually affect us.
Sarah Pattison 18:45
So in March, was when everything kind of shut down. And I would say, Bye, you know, and then President Trump was saying just, you know, it's close to Easter. Yeah. After Easter will kind of reopen. And so Easter was probably, you know, April sometime, I guess. And then, of course, in May, it's still Yeah. You know, are you What did they call it essential business or? Yeah, so non essential business, which, I mean, totally. This is not like politics aside, I'm just really thankful we're in Tennessee, because print printing was considered an essential business. Okay. And so we were able to keep our doors open in some capacity. You know, we didn't we had to let people I mean, we had to send people home because we didn't have enough work for them to do you know, all of our retail staff. Well, the retail shop wasn't open, right. It was probably June when I sort of felt like oh my My goodness, there is no end in sight to this. So the whole flatten the curve thing. It's like when you started to realize, oh, this is not going to be just a month or two thing. Yeah. And that. I mean, there was there was a point where we were having conversations, I mean, with the like, are people going to? I mean, will buffets ever be back? Right? Will people ever have large group things again? Or? I mean, that's done, you know. And so it was probably June when, I mean, we were just living off savings, you know, and trying to pay the, I guess we had two or three people that we were trying to just keep on the payroll.
Eric Bell 20:49
Were you ever thinking about during that time, like, Okay, what is it trying to pivot trying to do something like, yes, what can we do? What can we create? Yes, 70, something plus percent, you just said was events? Those were not happening? What would How did you adapt to that.
Sarah Pattison 21:06
So we've always had sort of three streams of major streams of revenue at the happy envelope, not always, but that's one, our biggest one is custom. So that's when we're specifically designing something for a specific client for a specific event. Then there's also we create our own products, which is so fun, cards, tea towels, calendars, you know, and those are just great, because you're not doing it for a client, you're just designing things for yourself. So a lot of greeting cards, one sort of specialty, we have it, that happy envelope is what I call I say, the world, there is a market for non cheesy Christian things. And it's really hard to find those things. Because, you know, I don't want to buy a mug that says, geez, first coffee, then Jesus, like or whatever, you know, just to take something beautiful, that's a little more classic, I guess. And that's where I feel like it's sort of my sweet spot personally for design, and kind of my passion. So anyway, the custom stuff being off the table, we turned our focus to the products that we create, and how to distribute those in a different way. So if it's not going to be retail store, then it's going to be online and wholesale. So we do wholesale our products. But of course, that was problematic because we're wholesaling to other retailers who are also shuttering, you know, or closing their doors. So it really was a big focus and push almost immediately for online, just to build up our website to get our own distribution out there. And, interestingly enough, through our retail store, when you could I mean, people still would just come and knock on the door, and someone in the press room would could check them out. You know, yeah. And the Knoxville community was amazing. It's awesome. I think for for local for supporting local during COVID. Yeah, this is going to be like bananas. But it's true at the end of and I know we're about to get to like the major thing, because that happened in August. But at the end of 2020, when we ran all of our numbers 2020 was our best year we've ever had.
Eric Bell 23:39
That's unbelievable,
Sarah Pattison 23:40
on believable.
Eric Bell 23:43
I'm not sure I can wrap my head around that
Sarah Pattison 23:45
I really can't either. It was like Loaves and Fishes. It was like we didn't really understand even how, yeah, happened kind of. But so much of it was Knoxville support, I think and just small business support and people really, really grabbing a hold of supporting local and small businesses.
Eric Bell 24:08
I'd say that, but it's also there's a lot of grit inside of you guys. I mean, you guys could have you know, folded the tent. said hell with it, right. Yeah. Okay, this just happened to us. It is what it is. And, you know, I think that's a lot of people when challenges come their way. You got two choices, you know, you you get dirty and go and grind. Or you say, Hey, I guess I guess I guess there's some other way it's meant to be right, whatever. And that's not that you know, to each their own right. Yeah, but yeah, those that, you know, pivot, adapt, grind, you know, fight through the challenges and that's that you guys you know, you had to adapt you you went straight online, you you started doing different things and that I think that sometimes yeah The community continued to support you for sure. But you guys had to do something for the community to support because eventually they will just say that's true. That's not gonna
Sarah Pattison 25:09
Yeah, that is true, you do have to do something for the community to support you. I mean, you have to have a business for them to come to. It felt it felt it felt maybe less like a pivoting and more like a Hail Mary. But, but regardless, and I mean, you know, I just can't underestimate one of my passions, I would say, in my spiritual walk, has just, I feel like I'm sort of an evangelist for prayer. Because I just think, I mean, the Lord knows. And we did a lot of and by prayer, I don't mean anything holy about that. It's talking to God, honestly. And, you know, we're about to get into the cancer story, because that I was diagnosed in August. So you were asking about timeline. June is when I started to think, oh, gosh, like, it can't get any worse than this. And then, in August, I noticed a difference in my left breast. And it wasn't a lump. It wasn't the things that you know, like a pea sized lump or a it was like I was breastfeeding again. Is what it felt like, but just breast and I wasn't so that was what was weird. Yeah. And I just kind of at first thought was this, you know, Peri menopausal or something, you know, it's 40. Yeah. 40 Yeah, it was 41. Anyway maybe he like Peri menopausal maybe there's some kind of hormonal thing going on, you know, even was three at the time. So I wasn't I hadn't, like just had a baby or anything. And, and then after about two weeks, I thought, I guess maybe I should have someone look at this. Like it's not going away. But I didn't have any pain. Yeah, so I went to I went to get a mammogram, it was my first mammogram, because I mean, I was just 40. And I have no breast cancer in my family at all. And I remember standing in front of the I went to a place here locally. And I remember the nurse standing in the back with me. And looking at looking at it and saying, you just now noticed this. And I was like, I felt really stupid. Yeah. But
Eric Bell 27:57
and you're and you're like, Yes, I did.
Sarah Pattison 27:59
I just now noticed this. And spoiler alert. So what, you know, what did it had just happened that Edie just have a inflammatory breast cancer, which is what this turned out to be, is very different than breast cancer. It's a whole different animal sort of. And it's very, very fast moving. So like, within a day, you might see a difference from which I did, and later, I'll tell you more about that. But so it wasn't that I just now noticed it. It's that it just now happened.
Eric Bell 28:34
And so you That's August, that was August, you get this diagnosis. Yeah, you're thinking two months earlier, like It can't get much worse. Now, two months later, and yeah, you're like, Okay, now what?
Sarah Pattison 28:51
Yeah, now what? And a few things to know we had this health insurance, you know, we're entrepreneurs. So we had this health insurance that was sort of like a medi share kind of thing you know, which had been great for a long time. But it became pretty clear pretty quickly that if nothing else this was going to be like a part time job to keep track of like all the receipts and have to submit them and get reimbursed for things and And so immediately that was like top on my prayer list because I was like, I don't have time to neither time nor I have the bandwidth really, to have like to be handling all of this. Yeah, we're working doing all this thing. But tell you this because at that first mammogram appointment, a little nurse came over to me and said, Hey, I I see that you yourself pay, which self pay is code for them for uninsured. It's just the way our insurance worked. It's not really quote, insurance. It's anyway, I digress. But she said, I see that you're self pay. And I just, I'm gonna give you this phone number, you need to call this woman, she gave me her name, and she's over at the Tennessee Department of Health. And she said, you may not know this, but Tennessee has a breast and cervical cancer program. And they basically because breast and cervical cancer are typically so easy, typically have a high rate of success from treatment. They don't want anyone to not be able to get treatment because of affordability. And so based on your need, they'll, they'll basically give you insurance, they'll basically pay for for things for you. And I was like, thank you. So I took this phone number. Okay, this is interesting, right? And the first when I called this woman, Eric, the first thing she she was so helpful. I called her my, it was like a TennCare program was like, I called her my TennCare Angel, because she helped me do all the application and stuff, which is so out of my I don't normally do stuff like this, but okay, it was like, Well, if there's help being offered, then I should look into it and see what it is. The first thing she needed was my last three months of pay, like a pay stub. And I was like so I've, I mean, because of COVID I didn't have one. And she was like, great. That's even better. And I every single thing we did was paid for. That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable. We didn't pay a penny not a copay. Nothing. And I didn't have to fill out any paperwork. Or it was like a miracle. And it's right now it was a total wait.
Eric Bell 32:07
Two angels Actually, yes. You're the angel that told you. Right? That's right. She didn't drafted tell you? No, not at all. She didn't. Luckily, she looked at your file, right? I mean, like, just think of all the things that have to happen. She looks at your file thinks, oh, gosh, I gotta say something to them. She's gonna have to say anything Correct. You're over here, then. Who knows if it ever is totally right. You know, the TennCare angel shows up next. That's amazing. Yeah,
Sarah Pattison 32:32
it was it was remarkable. So when I was first diagnosed, I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, which is like breast cancer. And they said, I mean, you have a lot of cancer, it's as they do staging like three B, which basically means your next stop is it goes somewhere in you know, Miss metastasizes, somewhere distant in your body, and you want to keep it away from four, you know, and so three B is sort of the last stop before four. So that was alarming. You know, it's a lot of cancer. But doctors were kinda like, yeah, it's a lot of cancer. But we're going to start you know, we did I did chemo, I did like the maximum amount of chemo you can do and then had a double mastectomy in March of 2021. So I started chemo, you know, basically September of 2020. And then in March of 2021, had a double mastectomy where I chose to not do any reconstruction and just stay flat. And I chose that because in terms of risk of recurrence, I just wanted if anything came back I just wanted it to be as easy to see and find as possible. And my doctors were seemed really hopeful. You know, my I was working with doctors here in Knoxville team here in Knoxville, and everyone seemed hopeful and it was good news and blah, blah, blah. But it was so it started to get weird, I guess. After I had that mastectomy in March.
Eric Bell 34:30
Last Me me me ask a few questions. Obviously, I've been down some of the similar paths you didn't quit and throw in the towel when COVID hit when you get this diagnosis. Was there a part of you that it's like you know, you're getting some pretty, pretty bad news. Pretty rough news. Was there ever time that you're like, Why? Why is this happening? Why, why now? Or I? Or did you have a fighter mentality? You know, I think that a lot of like, we can talk about the diagnosis. So I want to hear what what were you experiencing? You know, your face very strong. But were there some times that you're just like, Man, I don't know if I keep going doing this. You've had a lot of experiences since then, that we'll continue to talk about, but you know, and then, you know, the other people is, you know, Thai people, that the caretaker of somebody it's a it's a tough, it's tough. It's not easy. Was there? Was there a moment because you've been through you had been through a lot? Right? What was going on?
Sarah Pattison 35:54
Well, I really never did ask why me? Or why now? Okay. Um, I know a lot of people do. I think that's a normal question. I I've read. I've read a few really great books during that season. One is Elisabeth Elliot's book, suffering is never from nothing. It's fantastic. I highly recommend it. And another one is prayer in the night. By Oh, my gosh, she wrote liturgy of the ordinary. I don't know why I can't think of her name. But she talks a lot about that question, why, and puts forward that people don't actually want to know why. They want to know that they're not alone. And I think that's right, because I don't think we would be satisfied with the why answer.
Eric Bell 37:11
Yeah, what? Yeah, what what will actually do?
Sarah Pattison 37:14
Right? Why? So if there's some kind of cosmic, you know, answer to that. And there is. That's the other thing. I think I believe that there is Yeah, so there was never really a why. For me. More for me, the question was what like, what next? What now? And sort of how, how do I continue to do? And also do this?
Eric Bell 37:50
Yeah, raise a family, be a wife, run a business? Do all the cancer treatments, do all the all the things? Yes, yeah.
Sarah Pattison 38:01
Yes. And you mentioned caretakers, and I think actually, it's, it's really wise and good to sit down and look at that for a minute. Because you should have tie on another time, because, you know, he, I think it's actually maybe harder. Honestly, for the caretaker, I really, I really mean that. I think it's harder for the caretaker, because the caretaker is also thinking about a future. That's potentially they have a lot more stress, because they're not only thinking about right now, how do I take care of Sarah, how do I take care of my girls? How do I take care of the business? How do I take care of all those things? But they're also thinking, and Good God, how do I do that for the next 40 years if this person isn't here? So I I mean, there was a point when things started to get really bad that I was like, I mean, it's funny, but it's like bury my personality. I was like, sorry, Ty, that sucks. You know, it's gonna be Yeah, it sounds really hard. I'll see you when you get there. You know, like, wow, like there's
there's only so much you can do if you think you're gonna die. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the hardest part at the beginning when I still thought, this isn't going to kill me, like the hardest part was just figuring out how do you change? What does work look like? Now that you're, I never thought oh, we need to close that happy envelope or anything. I actually thought oh, Well, this is probably a great opportunity for the happy envelope to be less about Sarah Patterson and what she wants and what her vision is, and more about, you know, the other people who work here and you know, letting those younger designers really do their thing. I think in a lot of ways, it's been the best thing that happened for the happy envelope. I don't think I was like holding it back. But I think that it's really hard for people to let things go. Yeah, you know, yeah, for sure. And it forced me to let some things go. Yeah, that probably, you know, needed a little room to grow.
Eric Bell 40:41
Yeah. So this has all been going on Sarah, and then how many surgeries have you had?
Sarah Pattison 40:53
Maybe a eight, or nine,
Eric Bell 40:57
eight or nine surgeries. You've had tons of different scares. Let's jump. Fast forward to your most recent one.
Sarah Pattison 41:09
Yeah. So um, so I do feel like I need to go back and say after that double mastectomy. I noticed this, like immediately after pretty pretty soon, like four weeks after, I noticed this rash on my chest. And that it was weird. And this is what I'm saying. Like, in the morning, I had this like light pink rash on my chest. And by that evening, it was sort of bright red and had some bumps and the next morning it had even more bumps. That's inflammatory breast cancer. Wow. What did you do? Um, I called my, I texted my oncologist. And then I called my surgeon and said, What is this something like, Should I be concerned about this or, and they had me come in. And I remember the nurse practitioner, my surgeon was out of town, and my oncologist was out of town. And it was a Friday, of course, always. And the nurse practitioner looked at it and felt it and said, This looks like an explosive recurrence of cancer. And it was just four weeks after I'd had my mastectomy. Spoiler alert, it was not a recurrence of cancer, it was the cancer was never gone. It was always there. Because inflammatory breast cancer is different in this way, from the time it at its origin. It's not just in your breast, it's in your breast. It's in the dermal layer of your skin. So that lower light level of your skin, and it's in your lymphatic fluid and your lymph nodes. So for those of you who don't know, the lymphatic fluid, I certainly didn't know this sort of washes all over your body. It's like your body's filtering system. And so the bad news for that is, that's why it is so far along by the time that you've been catches, it's all over your body. It's all over. Right. It's it's like been floating everywhere. And so that's the problem with the the like survival rates for inflammatory breast cancer cancer are significantly lower than for just standard ductal carcinoma, because it just moves to stage four so quickly, because it's already Yep, kind of everywhere. Yeah. But they, you know, it. It was never stage four. So that was great. That was like major. Good news in my corner. And I did go out to MD Anderson. I lived out there for three, three months getting my radiation done out there. For inflammatory breast cancer, MD Anderson has an inflammatory breast cancer clinic. So the other thing I should mention is that it's very, it's a very rare breast cancer. It's less than two between one and 3% of all breast cancers is inflammatory. And so my local team here did an awesome job. I thought they were great. But they might see you know, a handful of inflammatory breast cancer patients really, in their career. Excuse me, and at MD Anderson are at this inflammatory breast cancer clinic. It's always you know, all day long. And so I just we needed to go check it out and get a second opinion there and we did and decided to do our radiation out there which they radiate twice a day. So you do radiation in the morning and in the afternoon. I'm staying in a hotel. Well, no, I stayed because I had to live there for three months so I got an apartment
Eric Bell 44:59
is empty Houston, Houston. Yeah, it's in Houston.
Sarah Pattison 45:01
And that's a story in and of itself, but you can read the blogs on it. And so the surgery that I had to have out there, I had surgery and radiation out there. The surgery was a 14 hour surgery, where they basically had to remove this patch of skin where the rash was, but all around it because they wanted to get clear margins. And I had because I had stayed flat. There was no reconstruction. I had no skin to be there was no way for them to close that wound, if I'm making sense. And what made it more complicated, even complicated by MD Anderson, Stan point, I mean, it was complicated for them. And this was like, all they do was that I hadn't been irradiated yet. So they couldn't do a skin graft, right? You know, because then they're gonna fry that new skin. And so it was like, a lot of back and forth with a whole team of specialists about how are we going to close this lady's chest up, basically. So they ended up doing that by essentially what I would call a glorified tummy tuck and taking my belly and moving it up to my skin, not just the skin, but actual like, like, blood vessels and tissue and stuff like that. So it was just a really big deal surgery. Stayed there did the radiation came home considered no evidence of disease, and no evidence of disease means your as far as we can tell, you're quote cancer free. And when was that? That was in October of 2021. I was no evidence of disease. And then I did radiation for three months. And I came home right after Christmas. Okay. And so for a year, I mean, in October of 2023, no, two, two to thank you. We're into this. In the future. Yeah. In October of 2022, I had a big party. And it was like, I threw myself a huge NCD party one year. Oh, because I do think I should mention inflammatory breast cancer. The big marker is five years, five years, no evidence of disease. If you can make it five years, no evidence of disease, it's, you have a really low chance that will ever come back. So every year, but your chances of it returning within five years is pretty high. Like 71%. So it's like not great odds. But so every year is a really big deal. Yeah. So October, throw myself this big party, like, great, celebrate it. November, I start getting this little cough. In December, my cough is getting worse. I just thought, you know, Eden, had a little cough. She's kindergarteners, she like has all kinds of germs from school and little kid being around little kids all the time. And. And right around Christmas, I started to get really sick, like just just sleeping a lot more very, very tired. I was winded, really winded really easily. Like I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without having to sit down and catch my breath for like 30 seconds. And the week after Christmas, it just got to a point where I was like, this is something is really not right here. I couldn't I mean, I was sleeping like 15 hours, 15 and 16 hours a day. I couldn't really go to work. I mean, I just was ill. I just felt I had no appetite. I started losing weight. And so I reached out to MD Anderson, I get scanned at MD Anderson every 12 weeks. It's been more than that because we've had a few little scares of one thing or another and so we've gone out there earlier but so my next scan was scheduled for like February maybe. And they wanted me to when I kind of described what was going on they wanted me to go ahead and come in, fly out there. So we flew out and I was where was I emotionally at that point. I think I I was worried I had cancer in my lungs. So breast cancer if it metastasizes typically, lungs, liver, bone brain. It's gonna be one of those four places. And so
Eric Bell 49:53
so you're just thinking, Yeah, I can't breathe. I'm having trouble. Yeah, it's just cancer of the lungs now it's yeah. exercise to the lungs and yeah, here I am again, you know down the road. Yeah scared put out just what what's going through your I mean, you're pretty sick you so you're not feeling great anytime you're shown your your mind starts to play tricks when you start getting really down and tired and film sick. What do you what do you fill in? Well,
Sarah Pattison 50:27
there was also this possibility that the chemo drug I had been on. I was taking a chemo pill for that year. If you looked up the side effects of this chemo drug, it was like literally exactly the same as lung cancer. And so I thought, well, I was still hopeful. Because we had had an issue with my lungs before that ended up being nothing. We'd had an issue with lungs where it was like you have spots in your lungs come back in five weeks, we'll check again and ended up being you know, drug related. So I was hopeful maybe this is just the drug. Yeah. But it just felt so much worse. That I was worried. But honestly, Eric, I'm not a worrier. And I kind of don't like wastes. I really don't like wasting time. And worry feels like a waste of time to me. Kind of.
Eric Bell 51:30
I mean, as I've sat here, you know, for the last however long 50 minutes, I'm mesmerized by your, your, your resolve your fortitude. You know, I know you have a deep faith, but it's just, it's more evident than I could have even imagined. You know, that you just stand pretty firm and in your faith in your way in. But you also look at everything with the glass full. I mean, it must be it's more than full. Because you don't worry. I mean, yeah, of course, I'm sure you've had some difficult you and I have had some really, really difficult discussions, right. And like you said, you're you're thinking about what it could be like for him. If you're not around, right? Yes. And but you're you are living you just you are living fully and in the present and it's beautiful. And it's it's amazing to me and I think that so, so many times I've been in medicine a long time I see a lot and and the fight right I remember Lance know, the one thing that I remember Lance saying when he had cancer, and it just shocked me. And he's say, Man, sometimes I would talk to the Christians on my cancer floor. And they'd be just like, ah, it is what it is, is I guess this is God's will. And he's like, no what do you what are you talking about? What are you really talking about? No, no, it's time to fight. Right? And when you have a fight mentality and like let's do this your brain thinks differently and you operate differently when you have a well it is what it is things spiral fast
Sarah Pattison 53:32
Yeah, I think that is actually probably very true. So I do think I'm was like born with a cheerful disposition it's just sort of my nature you know, to look at things with glass half full more
Eric Bell 53:45
real full. Yeah.
Sarah Pattison 53:47
Yeah. But I'm also a realist you know, I don't think I have like rose colored glasses on or I'm a realist, I but I am yeah, I'll fight until I can't anymore. You know. I mean, there's a point I guess when he can't but I wasn't there yet. But I will say probably the first time I really felt my I don't know if it's disposition is the right word or Outlook sort of change is when we we went to MD Anderson in January, we got the scan. They showed us the scan, like my oncologist there and she pulled it up. And sure enough, there were these it kind of was like there were my lungs, you know, everything's in black and white so you and it looked like someone had kind of taken like a handful of pepper or something and just thrown it on my lungs. So it was just like a little light bright. ate sort of like a light bright toy, just all these little kind of dots. Yeah. You know, and that was cancer. So that was disheartening. But then she continued to scroll down. And there in my liver was like, my liver was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was like actually like a light bulb, it was like one large mass that took up half my liver. That was a shock. I think it was a shock to everyone. I think everyone kind of thought maybe the lungs. But the liver
it was yeah, it was shocking to see it on. I mean, I'm never gonna forget seeing that. I have that image just still in my mind's eye. And tie. You know, asked what's next. And I really also another thing I will say, if you've been in medicine for a long time in the medical world. I'm a huge proponent of self advocacy. And you got to ask all the questions. And I say things like, I don't want this sugar coated, I want you to tell me what I need to know. I'm a person who wants all the information. Yeah, because
Eric Bell 56:29
they're also trying to protect you themselves. The whole Mansa, it's a dance,
Sarah Pattison 56:34
it is a dance. Yeah. And so how many times I even said early on, okay, I know you're giving me this choice. You're telling me I can do this, or this? I can. And I'm asking you, if I were your wife. Or if I were your daughter, what would you suggest? Because I just really don't want to make this decision. I don't feel like I have all the information.
Eric Bell 57:00
You know, it's interesting, just real quick is medicine. We say it's a diagnosis. But it's it's an elimination. It's a process of elimination, you know, that they get to them that diagnosis. I just, but we always go to physicians and doctors and be like, Hey, man, I need you to tell me what this is. What's the answer? What's the answer? And they have to walk through the processes of kind of science and say, Okay, well, I thought it was this is not this. And you know, and that's essentially what happens in this case, right?
Sarah Pattison 57:33
Yeah. And it's why they call it a practice, right? The practice of medicine? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, as my body changed, conversations sort of changed, too. So, Ty asked what's next? And I mean, she just explained, in short, that there was a new chemotherapy drug that was proving successful with stage four metastatic cancer. But I mean, my big takeaways were it's not curative. It's just management. It's every three weeks and you'll you'll be on chemo until you die. And if you choose to do nothing, your liver will start to fail within a couple months. So I mean,
Eric Bell 58:35
so you get you get the ultimate worse news that you Yeah, have been prepared for, sort of throughout this whole process, but always with a hope that you'd never get this. Yes.
Sarah Pattison 58:49
Correct. I think I always had in my back pocket. Well, at least it's not search for, at least it's not so much for I mean, all these crazy things that happened, this cancer situation has been truly a roller coaster. Like, I mean, even my friends in the cancer world who, you know, are in medicine, or like, this has been the craziest story. But I think that always I had that as sort of a umming I'll call it like a crutch like, Well, yeah, I can lean on that, you know. And so no, didn't have that. Yeah. Now that I didn't have that. I yeah, I feel like I sort of fell apart. I mean, I came home. I like didn't get out of my bathrobe. I didn't. I was still sleeping a lot. And I just honestly I think I just was depressed, kind of or at least grieving. At least processing just this is this is it? I don't I don't know. I think I am good at putting my nose to the grindstone and just getting things done that need it for that I can do it.
But this was very different. What do you do? I mean, there's nothing to be done. You're at the end of the road of what to do. So I write this, you know, I write the blog about this. And tie with was really the one who was the impetus for I think if I think if it had been up to me, Eric, and I was asking people, you know, everyone wants to know, what can I do? What do you need? What can I pray for? We have a great community here in Knoxville, a great spiritual community. And
that's been built over many, many years. I think I would have just said, Pray for my kids. Pray for Thai. And that, you know, I can just end well. And instead, Ty said, No, we're going to ask people to pray for a miracle.
And I was like, Alright, that sounds good. Sounds good to me. And so that's what we did. And I talked about that in the blog. Right? When I got back from Houston is just, here's the story. Here's where we're at. Would you all just pray for a miracle? And there was just an out pouring? I cannot even describe to you. Yeah. And I saw that ocean of people, I mean, texts, letters in the mail, emails, comments on the blog.
Eric Bell 1:02:04
You know, we talked about this air. It's amazing the way people respond, right? I was just just with any tragedy, right. But it's, it's your, you know, your blog. And we'll share that in our show notes, by the way, and you can check it out. But the blog, you, you could have chosen not to talk about this. You could have kept quiet, you could have not talked about your journey, people would have just heard it through secondhand through, you know, besides your close friends, but you decided to share your journey and you became really honest and vulnerable. And that just brings people just to the core, right? Because like we talked about in the beginning, we all have some form of cancer. We're all battling something. Inside, you know, I just love the quote from Robin Williams. And I've said it a lot is man, we're all fighting some battle that nobody knows what that is. Absolutely, you were just able to share that battle more publicly than maybe somebody wants to share. Right. And so it's so beautiful, that they did pray and they came out. But again, I go back to you, right, you have just done a lot of this, you continue to work, you continue to show up, you continue to do your thing, you become vulnerable, you share and you bring people together in your story. And that's just a beautiful thing. And so, you know, I commend you for that. And then tell us tell us the good news.
Sarah Pattison 1:03:41
Sure. So thank you very much. I think, yeah, so we had, you know, and you'll have to just read that last the blog post. I think it's called glory B. And after waiting a number of months, we had sort of like little interesting things that were happening. And realized unbelievably, on Good Friday, we had a scan the day before Good Friday. And on Good Friday, my oncologist walked in the room and said there's nothing there. There's, you've what was in my liver turned out to be a result of a blood clot in my portal vein going into my liver. So as far as they know, I mean, right now I'm no evidence of disease again. I mean, it's, there are no words. And it's interesting. I mean, it's hard. It's hard still for me to even Talk about it because, you know, there are all these questions and I'm like, I don't, you know, people will say, Well what happened or sorted? MD Anderson get it wrong? Or did what? And I'm like, I don't know how the Lord did it. I just know that I was dead. And now I'm alive. And that is good enough for me. Yeah, I'm not gonna, like turn around and try to like, dissect it to figure out what happened, because I really don't care. Go back
Eric Bell 1:05:27
to the same thing we talked about. You never really asked why in the beginning, and you're not going to ask why now? Correct. Right, correct.
Sarah Pattison 1:05:35
That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Eric Bell 1:05:38
Sarah, um, you know, as we start to wrap this conversation up, and I've, I know, this has been a journey, I'm honored that you would sit here with me and share your share your journey. And I'm sure that it does. You know, I'm sure listeners filled the heaviness at times, but they also feel the joy. I mean, you sit here in the you laugh with me, and we share them to be the beautiful, this is life. Right? We have been able to sit together and talk about life and experience that and I'm honored that for that time. What is it that, you know, I wanted people to start this show, I started the show because I wanted people to come on to share their stories, share their journey share that we're not alone. You know, the theme is turning on the light, you know, how can we turn the light on? Right? And, you know, there is no light without darkness? I'm not mistake, I know that that's the truth. What is it that you would love? You know, as as again, as we wrap this conversation up? What is it that you would love to share with people that you have a microphone now and you could preach? You know, from from the microphone? What is it that you'd love to share with people about that you wish you could give to them so they could hear? Yeah,
Sarah Pattison 1:07:03
I think that I mentioned earlier, an evangelist about talking to God really, honestly, I think the reason I can be vulnerable, hopefully in a winsome way. And not like, you know, sharing too much information. But the reason I can be vulnerable, in my writing an honest is because I'm that honest with the Lord. I think when you're doubting, and when you're like, This is the worst thing you've ever done. Like, I hate what you're doing right now. Tell them that. Because the most important thing in your heart thing is that you're not alone in it. That is actually the most important thing. And even if you're angry, or maybe feeling yourself grow bitter. Say bring it bring it a Elisabeth Elliot in her book that I told you about suffering is never for nothing. She says, God is so big, there's nothing. There's nothing he can't handle that I can dish out to him. And I have done plenty of dishing out. That would be my encouragement. Because unbelievably, you'll be met there.
Eric Bell 1:08:29
Sir, it's been, again, it's been an honor sit with you. And I do think that's perfect. That is the garden not so big enough. Is your garden not so big enough that that he can't handle it? All? Right. Like it's all of it.
Sarah Pattison 1:08:45
Yeah. Like he doesn't need the cleaned up version? of what?
Eric Bell 1:08:49
Yeah. Sarah, where can people find out about your journey?
Sarah Pattison 1:08:55
Sure. So I post my blog on the happy envelopes website, which is the th e happy envelope.com. And you can go to blog. And you can there's a there's a button there where you can start at the beginning of the journey if you want to. Or just pick up on the latest. The latest one?
Eric Bell 1:09:17
Yeah. You've been a bright spot in my life today. I really appreciate your time, Sarah, it's been an honor sit here with you and i What's the word? No evidence of disease.
Sarah Pattison 1:09:31
That's right, and Edie and Edie baby and Edie and
Eric Bell 1:09:35
I I continue to hope for that. I really hope and I'm sure the listeners will be doing the same thing when you get to five years. Right? That's right. We had a little that's all it was. Yeah.
Sarah Pattison 1:09:47
I said I'm not counting that. Yeah, right there. Now. I'm not counting it. We're gonna just call this I'm going on here too.
Eric Bell 1:09:54
Yeah. That's amazing. Well, thank Sarah for joining me today.
Sarah Pattison 1:09:58
Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right. My pleasure.
Eric Bell 1:10:01
Thanks for joining us this week. Help us keep turning on the light by rating and reviewing the show on Apple podcast. Follow us on Instagram and be sure to share with a friend. If there's a topic or guest you'd like to hear from us, shoot us a DM and let us know. Thanks for supporting our project. As Robin Williams once said, everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about the kind always. The turning on the light podcast is part of the palm tree Podcast Network a podcast is produced and edited by Anthony