Brianna Cardenas
Our podcast is hosted on Anchor
But you can listen in most places such as: Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Radio Republic.
Brianna Cardenas is a PA, an educator, an advocate and such an excellent example of a PA who is truly EMPOWERED.
Brianna was diagnosed at the age of 20 with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome which is a connective tissue disorder that can cause chronic joint and back pain. Initially, she thought it simply meant she was hypermobile, that she might have arthritis. While she was getting her bachelor’s degree in athletic training, a physical therapist, identified her symptoms.
She only applied to one PA school. She states she could only afford one program but also that her illness would limit her ability to commute due to her chronic back pain. She now reflects that she didn’t realize this was one barrier she was faced with as an applicant.
She also reflects that her journey as a patient and PA and has motivated her to create HealedandEmpowered as a resource for those with chronic disabilities.
Machine Transcription provided by Happyscribe
Brianna R Cardenas.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
Welcome to the Enabled Disabled Podcast.
I'm your host, Gustavo Serafini. I was born with a rare physical disability called PFFD. My journey has been about selfacceptance persistence and adaptation. On the show, we'll explore how people experience disability, how the stories we tell ourselves can both enable and disable, how vulnerability is a foundation for strength and why people with disabilities can contribute more than we imagine. I hope that leaders, companies, clinicians, families and friends will better understand our capacity to contribute to the world and help enable us to improve it.
Brianna Cardenos is a physician's assistant, certified athletic trainer, and a professor at the University of Laverne's physician Assistant program. She specializes in pain management and holistic healing methods. Brianna has also been featured on the Unfixed Series, a documentary series that asks deep questions about what it's like to live with a disability and explores why we matter and how we live our lives. I love speaking and learning from Brianna. She's funny, profound and deeply empathetic. She embraces her vulnerability that shows how strong she is and how committed she is to helping people.
Her mission is to improve the patient experience in the health care system, and you can feel how much she gives herself to her patients and students. While this episode is just the first part of what I hope are many more conversations with Brianna, I left the conversation rethinking the way I want to inspire people and Enabled Disabled. We have a really exciting announcement that we want to share. We've activated a recording feature on our website where you can ask past guests questions as well as future guests.
If we get enough questions for our past guests, we'll invite them back to answer your questions. Also, stay tuned to the newsletter where we'll be previewing future guests and giving you the opportunity to ask them questions before we record the episode. Just go to www. Dot enableddisable. Com and press the Start Recording button to leave us your questions. All right, Brianna, it is such a pleasure to see you again.
Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. For having me here.
Awesome.
So let's dive right in. Let's help the audience get better idea of who you are. You are a physician's assistant. You are also one of the people on the fantastic Unfixed Media series. Can you tell us why you decided to become a PA?
I actually am part of the trend of Pas who did not learn about this profession until I was in College. So for those people that may not know what a physician assistant is or hear the word PA, and they think like production assistant or something like that that relates like media and so forth. A physician assistant is what's considered an advanced practice provider. So our soap practice allows us to see patients and also interpret diagnostic imaging or your blood work, prescribe medication. And depending on the state that we live in, it kind of will influence what our scope of practice and relationship with physicians potentially is.
So I absolutely love being a physician assistant. It was kind of like sold to me, if you will, by a colleague in undergrad. I was an athletic training major at the time. I got my degree in athletic training, but I was literally a junior in College when I found out that this profession existed, and my colleague essentially told me, hey, you can do almost anything a position can you just need to pretty much work with a physician and have them be like, a collaborative part of the care that you provide patients.
But you can do surgery if you want, and you can do injections and procedures and order tests. And I was like, That's amazing, because all I want to do is help people. And I don't need, like, an MD or do after my name to do that. So the profession and the professional training for it is a master's degree for people who have their bachelor's degree, usually in a health related field. I can apply for this master science and physician assistant studies program just depending on where you're at in the country.
The programs range anywhere from, like, two to three years, which to me was like sold because I knew I did not want to do an additional ten years of school after undergrad. I at the time would have bet you money that I would have gone into orthopedic surgery because I was like, the athletic training force Med type of person. And I actually ended up falling in love with chronic pain management as my main area of clinical practice. So I did clinical practice and pain management for better part of six years of my beginning of my career.
And then I actually need to take a break after I had back surgery from my chronic illness, which will I'm sure get into. But during that time, it really opens my eyes to just the degree of health care disparities that exist. I had seen it like from the healthcare provider standpoint and just thought, okay, well, maybe those were isolated incidents that the position I was working with was, like, racist or said, kind of like a sexist comment or insinuated that somebody was lazy because they were in pain.
Like, all those things, I just figured, okay, like, maybe those are outliers, like, maybe those are just, I don't know people's quirks. But then when I experienced that as a patient, myself trying to figure out what was causing my headache, what was causing my dizziness, what was causing my memory loss? I experienced health care providers saying things like I was making it up like I was crazy that I had Hispanic panic, and I just couldn't believe the degree of sexism and racism and ableism that I was experiencing even as a colleague to some of these people and the difficulty that we encountered, my husband and I as we tried to figure out what was happening.
And so it took us a little over three years to figure out that I had spontaneous spinal fluid leaks as a result of my connective tissue disorder, which is called Lsdmlin syndrome. And from my hospital bed, I was able to just start to unpack the trauma of, like, essentially experiencing gas lighting from other health care providers who are my peers and my colleagues and just the level of ego centricity that a lot of healthcare providers are walking around with. And I thought to myself, if I had this degree of difficulty with the disease that I knew that I had, I knew I had allergen drum.
I knew that I had the risk factors for this condition. And here I was literally like an educated person self diagnosed with this condition with the support of my boss who helps verify, like, yeah, I think this is the condition that you have and literally going to, like, tens of doctors who told me that that condition wasn't real or like that I was making it up or that I was just being anxious. Or I should just go get a massage. Like, all of these things were just, like, mind blowing to me.
And so I knew that I had to do something about that. So my career kind of pivoted at that time. I didn't think I was going to be able to work as a PA again, honestly, because I was really sick. I was using a Walker, I was in a neck brace. I pretty much have a brain injury and a spinal cord injury because I had this CS athlete going on for three years for better part of that. So I figured, okay, I'm just going to do my own thing.
I'm going to just be loud about this. I'm going to start a social media page and just get out there and help people. And then just like, slowly over time, I built a website and then started doing patient advocacy services for people when they would reach out and say, like, oh, my God, I think I have this, too. What should I do? Where should I go? Who in the country is even going to believe me. I'm so tired. I've already been to a bunch of people, and they've already told me that I'm crazy.
And now my family is starting to disbelieve me and all of these things. And so I really saw a need to have patient advocacy be essentially the central role of my career. At that point. I think I decided at the time that really the only way that I was going to have a meaningful level of impact to kind of change the I don't know. I guess the attitudes of health care providers was if I caught them early. So I got into PA education about three years ago, and it's really been just an honor and a privilege to work with our future colleagues.
Our PA students have a whole class of students that they're now out there practicing Tas, and it literally is like, just one of the highlights of my life. My former students who are now practicing ta call me and say, like, hey, Bree, I caught Eds today and I diagnosed them and I got some treatment or, hey, I worked this person up for a CSF week, and I got them to the right person, and they've only had symptoms for several months instead of several years. And to know that over time is going to change the experience of patience for the better is just like, seriously, it's the most fulfilling thing ever.
Sorry, that was very, like, long, but I'm like, that's my life story.
Everybody.
Thank you for sharing that.
And.
I can feel the emotion in your voice, and I can see it like when you said that that has to be just an unbelievably good feeling to be able to make that direct of an impact, right. Most of us we think for the podcast and whatever I do, if I can change one person's perception, I've done the work, but I don't get the same direct feedback, at least not yet that you do. And that's so empowering and important. And I'm really happy that you are doing that work because I don't know, I'm astounded by a lot of what you said.
Let's unpack some of that. So rare conditions are rare conditions because most people don't know about them, so we can give some leeway there. But what shocks me is at least maybe 20 years ago. My father is a doctor. I know some things about medical profession, and my understanding was, let's say, at least in the 90s, probably before that. At least I always thought of a physician and a specialist as people who they're experts at coming up with the diagnosis right. If they don't know if something isn't making sense, their role is to dive deeper, to figure it out, to contact colleagues, to go to academic institutions, see what research is out there.
And maybe they've discovered something if it's not anywhere to be found, but to kind of have that attitude of like, well, you're crazy or you just don't know what you're talking about or you're making it up or it's psychosomatic. Where do you think that comes from?
I think there's a lot of contributors to that. So first and foremost, I will say that the culprit and like, you can put me on records, shop this from the rooftop is our broken freaking us health care system, like insurance as we have it currently. So for profit. Health insurance is like the antithesis of providing patient care, because literally, in this country, we put profit over patients, and it's horrible. And unfortunately, the other pieces of why I think healthcare providers nature patients like this are not exclusive to that.
But I think that overwhelmingly the fact that we have for profit. Health insurance is the number one culprit. And so some reasons behind that, because I know someone out there that is going to call me like a socialist, which is fine. I don't take that as an insult. I don't know the one that gets you political. I don't know, call me crazy, but I think that all people should have access to, like, basic dignified qualities of life. And that includes access to health care, access to, like, food safety, shelter, all of those things.
But with the US healthcare system, what has happened is that these insurance companies have so much power that they get to control the narrative on what's called reimbursement. And the reimbursement is basically like, if you're aybusava went to the doctor's office, right. And we used to maybe have a half hour in their office or an hour long visit, if you are a new patient, like having consult the insurance, you would use your insurance and say, hey, have Blue Cross Blue Shield at no, whatever it is.
Right.
And the doctor would say like, okay, great. I'm going to get reimbursed X number of dollars, right? So like, for a consult, it could be like $300, like back in the 80s and 90s. Now that Reimbursement has been cut over and over and over and over again by the insurance companies, which leaves physicians and people who own medical practices. Pas can own practices as well as just like, not as common. Typically, we see positions as the practice owners. But when you have now a scenario when you were bringing in, let's just say, like, random number $500,000 a year in Reimbursement with your current patient panel.
And now that gets flashed in half to 250. Like that needs to cover your overhead. That needs to cover your medical assistance, your Pas, that you're paying your office staff who's doing, like the scheduling, the builders who are even submitting these claims so that you can get money back from the insurances in the first place. And so what are they left to do but double the amount of patients that they're seeing to try and make up that revenue because they still have to pay their space rent.
We still have to pay our malpractice insurance, which is like thousands of dollars a year. We still have to be able to provide for our families and be able to pay back our student loans. Like my husband and I have $4,000 a month that we pay for our student loan. So, like when you slash reimbursement, unfortunately, the insurance companies kind of force positions into this impossible. That's from the outside factor. Other factors are things like just the fact that medicine itself is rooted in white supremacy.
So we have, like.
A pseudoscience hold on a second when you say medicine, just so we can be clear when you say medicine, you mean Western medicine. You mean medicine in the United States. Do you mean where are you referring I don't think you can say that for, like, Japan, right? Like, there's different culture, different systems. So what do you mean by medicine?
I would say Western medicine clarifier. So Western medicine is reducing white supremacy, as is academia and patriarchy.
Right?
Like women were not allowed to attend College until about 100 years ago. People of color were not allowed into College either. They weren't even allowed to go to the same, like elementary schools, like, there are people alive today who went to school in segregated systems.
Right.
And so if we continue to go back and back and back, we find that there were pseudosciences like phrenology where they would measure your skull size and say, like, okay, clearly, people of color are like, the inferior people because of their skull. You know what I mean? Just like these total pseudosciences that have created these myths about black people having higher pain tolerance or people just being, like, genetically predisposed to having higher rates of hypertension and diabetes. And these are still widely held misbeliefs that perpetuate into the medical system today, literally, until 1096, there were nursing techs that said that the more melanin in your skin, the less sensitive to pain it was.
And so then you have people that are trained from the 90s. And before that literally are out there thinking that because my skin is a little bit darker than a white person, I might have a medium pain tolerance and that a black person just has a higher pain tolerance, which then leads to disproportionate belief of whether or not people are in pain, disproportionate treatment for what we perceive as painful for these people, because we're projecting these beliefs onto people. And so then what we do see.
And there's literature support this is that people of color, especially women of color, are more likely to have essentially experiences of gas lighting in the medical community where their pain is not taken seriously. It's worse if people aren't doing what is considered, like, socially productive work, like if they're not out being an executive or something. I don't want to say the word Jessica versus if they're doing domestic labor, like if they're stay at home mom or if they are doing work inside the home or things that are considered by some of people that have these kind of elitist mindset to not be as valuable of work.
So it's really alarming that just this is kind of the culture of medicine that unless we address it like, head on and we all interrogate. Like, if you grew up in the United States, you're going to have internalized white primacy based on consumption of media and all those things. I had it myself. I know that for example, in College, I prided myself on sounding whites because people would tell me that. And I'd be like, oh, my God, thank you. And then didn't realize until later like, oh, that's just because my parents had to assimilate in order to get ahead.
So I lost my culture as a result of the society that we live in. And so if we don't actually do the work as healthcare providers or any people out there, not just health care providers, but to really interrogate some of the ways that we think and why we think these ways. We're just going to continue to repeat these cycles. And that's why I'm thrilled to be in education, because I have the opportunity to tell this to students before they get out there and touch patients before they get out there and perpetuate these cycles of discrimination, essentially.
So. There'S that piece of supremacy piece. And then I guess kind of in that same stroke of the brush is the concept of ableism. We live in a capitalist society where a lot of us base our work on our productivity. I know I did. And when I thought that I couldn't work as a tag or warning, I was essentially suicidally depressed. I literally did not think that I had any value to anybody, not the people that loved me, not to myself, because I couldn't make money. And, like, what a just like, perversion of the human experience.
And I don't think that that's an unusual thought process for a lot of people. And so I know that I was certainly in denial about having a chronic illness that could disable me. I was certainly in denial that I could be so profoundly disabled by something that people couldn't see or something that people thought I was making up. And it was this whole process of just kind of relearning my humanity, essentially. And I don't think that I would have had that opportunity had I not gotten sick and had, like, my illness literally just, like, grabbed me by the collar and been like, Nope, you got to sit and, like, sit on the bench for a little bit.
And I don't think that able bodied people have that opportunity, in many cases, to reflect on what gets them up every morning. What drives them. How would they describe themselves without including their job in that title or in that description? And it really I don't know. It's like, kind of a disservice to our populations to not be like teaching those things and be teaching those schools of thought. But I think there's a lot of people that find that too radical of an idea that people just have intrinsic worth on their own because they're people.
There's so many factors that make us like this.
That'S fine. They're difficult topics to talk about, and they're things that people don't. They're difficult because it makes us feel uncomfortable. And I think the more we understand our history and the more we understand where we came from. That's one starting point, the better we can understand or at least think about where do we want to go? And I think this is a lot of media. Everybody blames media, social media et. Cetera. But I think a lot of the messaging that we get is that we can't really make a difference and we can't really make things better.
We're fighting against these gigantic systems and bureaucracies and power and what can we really do? And so I think a lot of people bury their heads in whatever it is that they need, right. Whether I need to make a living. So I'm going to focus on work and I have a family, and I'm going to focus on family. And I'm going to make sure that that's the most meaningful thing for me. And that's what I have the most control over.
So.
There'S a lot of factors there. And I'm glad you're bringing this to the table because it's important when I would read a textbook in high school.
Yeah. Okay.
I wouldn't question the textbook once I got to College again, I was lucky. I was privileged. I went to a good school. The first thing they taught us was, you don't know anything. They made us read Socrates, and the first General Assembly was great. You got in you're all smart people. Now the next message we have for you is you don't know shit. You think you know things, but you don't. And that was a big shock. And it was really about critical thinking the rest of the way through and everything.
Every idea, every position, every person was challenged and let the better ideas win. That's how I learned. And so if I read a textbook, a medical textbook that said from the 90s, that said, African Americans have higher pain tolerance because of the color of their skin, I would say, Wait a minute. Where's the study on that? That makes no sense. Like, Where's the proof, right? It doesn't correlate with my logic. So I don't know how that got passed on from generation to generation without questioning it.
Systemic racism is a valid explanation for that.
Right.
And then it's like one of the things that I try to tell students is who benefits from this, right? Like whenever you read a study or a book, even if it's a medical text, like, who paid for this study, who stands to benefit from you believing this information? And I think it becomes kind of this cognitive roadblock for a lot of people because I think just generally, like my husband and I were literally just talking about this at lunch. Generally, as a society, we are stretched so thin, like with the daily things that we have to do and the level of alerts and emails and things like that that are like bombarding us on a daily basis.
And just like having to put up in many cases with jobs that people hate. Right.
And we were saying, like, gosh, how do people even have meaningful relationships? Because most of the time that people get to spend together as a couple, especially if they're working multiple jobs or raising kids or any other things is literally spent complaining about how much they hate their job or how much they hate their coworker or their boss or whatever. And then so there's really no time to just sit and be like, wow, I'm really grateful for time that we got to spend together, that we got to just chill there, like, be in the garden together or whatever.
Right. And I realized that that's even a privileged statement for me to say, because there was a point in time where I couldn't have even had a meaningful conversation with my husband because I had such severe cognitive impairment. You know what I mean? So I know that there's people probably listening to this that are like, okay, well, I'm not even at that level where I can even express gratitude or think about things without facing out so trust and believe that I'm aware that people's experiences are different and that I'm also seeking from a place of privilege.
But I have access to medical care and access to mental health services and a very, extremely supportive spouse that I'm allowed to unpack some of these distressing topics. Right.
And for a lot of people, it does create this cognitive distance of, like, wait. So and so that I love and respect the health care provider, could they have done these things or could they have perpetuated some of these things? And the answer is probably yes, I probably did it early in my career, too. There's not a point in time that I can specifically point to, but I know that there was a point early in my training, like on my clinical rotations, for example, where there's power dynamics with the people you're training under and things like that where they'll say something overtly racist, and there's really nothing that you as a student, can do about it, because then you're going to potentially get kicked out of school, and then it's just a whole system of power dynamics that further perpetuates the problem.
I remember in PA school one time I was on my Orthopedic rotation, and part of the reason why I decided, wow, I don't want to go into Orthopedics. And this is an isolated incident. So if you're an Ortho out there being like, hey, I'm not that person hashtag. Not all orthose like, you're correct. Not all orthos but this Ortho. We had a Muslim male patient, and he had requested that I not be in on his research because he didn't want a female in the operating room to be him indisposed, essentially because they do have to categorize the patient.
They're essentially like, naked under their hospital gown, basically. And so this position I was shadowing, was at the patient point blank and was like, no problem. We'll absolutely respect that request. And so I was just like, okay, I'm just going to go to the car and study. So they put him to sleep, and I hadn't scrubbed up yet and got ready for surgery because my understanding was that I was going to respect this man's wishes. And my surgeon was like, Where are you going? And I was like, he doesn't want me in on the surgery, and he's like, oh, fuck that guy.
It doesn't matter. Like, just hop in. Sorry for my language, but basically just like, oh, yeah, screw it. And just point blank, like, freaking lied to the patient. He was like, just make sure you're out of the or before he wakes up. And I literally just was so shocked by it. And then at the same time, like, so ashamed of myself. Now, in retrospect, right? Like that. I just was like, okay, I guess I'm going to do this because had I been defiant to the person who was essentially being the gatekeeper to me being able to work as if Yay, I could have jeopardized my own career.
And so I just did my best to avert my eyes when they were down to him. Or, like, turn, you have to keep your hands up like this when you're in vertical scrub from your neck to your chest. Basically, your neck to your belly button is like, your sterile field. And so basically I just turn so that I was trying my best to respect him. But I just think about how blatant and easy it was. I guess it just disregards someone else's humanity because their beliefs were different.
I don't know. I feel like that was one of the pieces that really stuck out to me as to like, oh, man, like, people really don't care about what patients want. They don't care that these are like real human beings. They're going to pass their own personal biases and judgments on them, and that's going to influence their character. I mean, it's bad and like, seeing those kind of things and then experiencing those things firsthand. Like, it's really it's wild the way that I will have conversations with family or clients that are people of color to prepare them for medical appointments.
Compared to comparing my y client for upcoming patient encounters, it's just horrifying and like, just to give you an example of what I mean, my sisterinlaw is Latinx as well. And so we were going to go to a neurosurgery appointment, and they told her, hey, you need to make sure to address business casual. I'm going to make sure that I'm business casual as well. You don't have to do full makeup because then they won't believe that you actually have hand weakness. But you need to be showered and have your hair done, like, present as well as possible.
Otherwise, there's very high likelihood that there's going to be a negative judgment of you if you show up comfortable. And so literally, this is something that is an extra layer that people of color have to think about in order to just be like, okay, how do I maximize my chances of being treated like a human being today when I go speak medical care, which is just like, I just don't think that other people have to think about that necessarily. And it really does influence the way that at least the way that myself, my husband and people of color that I've worked with experience medical care.
Our biases don't go away just because being a physician doesn't give us those superpowers. And the objectivity is you are trained, right and being more objective and being more analytical. But nevertheless, we're human beings and those things don't just go away.
Of course. Yeah.
And I think that we have such a desire to seek control in our lives, like not even just in the medical field, but just like anybody I think wants to have a sense of control. And that's what scares a lot of people about prospect of being disabled or like having more and more degrees of disability because of that loss of perceived control that we have in our lives. And I think that the idea for some people, especially when they have larger egos or they haven't had the access or the training or the availability to see mental health services, they encounter this cognitive dissonance when presented with this information.
Right.
And then they tend to get emotional. I find that the people that are more likely to poke fun at people for being like, snowflakes or emotional or whatever it is are like the ones who are actually the most triggered and living in their midbrain emotional brain more than a lot of people. It's just ironic, but I don't think that we know enough about the brain yet to be able to say that with all 100% certainty and objectivity like, this person is making this up because I can't physically see it with my own eyes.
They're like on an MRI or on blood work. And then I think one thing that is hopefully going to shift this narrative is seeing now all these pieces of long coped, which are mimicking things like chronic fatigue syndrome, just also called me. And all of these people that have been sick for so long with me are like, see, we told you. And there's literally doctors that will take time out of their day to find the research articles that say, like, no, this is a real thief.
We know that it involves the brain stem, like, we're learning that mast cells and the neuroimmunologic response are involved. There's literally physicians that will find these articles and write responses into the journals that publish them and say, like, these people are just plagiating these patients and they're just encouraging them to basically lie about their diseases. And this actually isn't real. And these physicians should lose their license for just adding fuel to the fire and pretending that these people are being authentic with their conditions.
Like.
How do you have that much time in your day?
How is that even a scientific debate that's, like what you would expect to find on Twitter and Facebook, right? That's not what you would expect in a medical Journal. I want to focus a little bit if you don't mind, because I think this is really important. What you said earlier about your sense of self worth kind of just dissolving when you couldn't work and you had to take a break and you were really sick. It would be really helpful. And I do want to talk a little bit about ableism in this vein.
Like, what were some of the things that helped you put your identity back together and reshape it and feel a sense of self worth outside of your career?
Well, I will first start by saying that it is work that I'm still doing like this morning. I literally cried because I just didn't feel like getting up today, like I got up and I was like, Babe, I don't feel good. I just want to sleep and I had to cry about it and do the self compassion work and all that stuff. So just like, Disclaimer, I'm not speaking. I got to help figure it out. So I think that transparency is a good one. It's just like knowing that if you cried getting up today as well and you're listening to this like you're not alone.
So I guess number one is knowing that I wasn't the only person in the world that's ever gone through this and that at some point or another, it wasn't going to stay the same, right? It was going to get worse and it's going to get better. But it wasn't just going to stagnate. So that was helpful to me. At least I have the most amazing, impatient and wonderful husband in the whole wide world.
Like.
I seriously can say with all honesty that I would not be alive today without him. He has helped me even from before I got sick because I have ADHD and anxiety, which I dealt with prior to being disabled by my connect tissue disorder. And my husband's been with me since I was 18 and he was 19. So we've grown up together because now we're in our 30s. He has been my rock. So I am extremely privileged in that sense that I have such a supportive spouse that I can really talk to about anything and who has not given up on me even when I gave up on myself because again, trigger warning, I get kind of dark.
But when I was really sick with my CSS week and I couldn't work, there were days that I just would go to bed and hope that I wouldn't wake up like I would think about all the time. Like, how could I essentially kill myself so that it would not affect my husband in the most negative manner and not cause too much trauma? It was really a dark place. So I'm also very privileged to have financial access to health insurance and housing and food stability. And those things also allowed me to essentially allow my brain to heal to the capacity that it could.
I was fortunate that I found an answer to what was happening, that I had a CSF leak and that there were things that we could do to treat it, and that I was able to access treatment and didn't get locked in loopholes or have catastrophic outcomes from misdiagnoses. Like one of my dear friends with the CSF League, who was another one of my support system. Really through some of the dark times of my League, she was misdiagnosed as having a Chiari malformation and had an unnecessary surgery on her brain because they thought it was a Chiari malformation and not a CSF leak.
And that's not an uncommon story. So I'm very privileged and lucky that I was able to get the right diagnosis. I was able to get the correct treatment. But then also, one thing that I share about that really helps me, because to be honest, I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, a lot of the days, and having low self esteem, like since childhood basically was a roadblock to me, even wanting to do the hard cognitive work of, like healing myself, healing my mind, healing my body.
And so one of the things that changed my life is while I was in the hospital, I want to say it was the second or third time I was there at Cedarsinai. I had a wonderful inpatient pain management team, and because I had done pain management too, we were talking about like, okay, what are some alternative therapies because I am in like, seven out of ten pain. I can't stand up right, or I start to get dizzy in blackout, like, I'm living just such a terrible quality of life right now.
And we talked about doing Academy invasion, and I'm actually doing my doctorate studies at this time in my paper that I'm writing as my Capstone paper is going to be on Ketamine because that infusion allowed me for the first time in like, since childhood. I should say to experience being alive without pain, which in and of itself was like, I can't even describe the breath of fresh air that it was. It literally felt like, sorry. It felt like I was drowning. And it was like the first breath of fresh air that I had had in over a decade.
And I feel like it gave me like a second wind. And I knew in that moment that like, okay, if I can feel this way and feel less pain and feel more alive or even just this hour of this infusion that is like, this state of existence is possible, and I should fight for it. And it allowed me to integrate years of therapy overnight. And I went from kind of knowing that I should be talking nicer to myself and trying harder for myself, like actually believing that.
And having it not feel like a lie. So like waking up and doing the work meaningfully, not because I'm supposed to do it, and it allowed me to really have some relief of my anxiety and depression and medical PTSD in a more meaningful and instant capacity than anything that I thought existed from a therapeutic standpoint. So I get Academy infusion about every four to six months.
Now. One of the side effects is that it raises your CSF pressure. So for me, that was like a miracle drug because I needed more spinal fluid and it's less addictive than opioids. It's a schedule three medication, and opioids are scheduled, too, so it carries less insurance risk. And yeah, I do that every four to six months, and it allows me to not take any antidepressants or angiolitics. Not that there's any stigma for people that there is stigma. But people shouldn't feel ashamed if they have to take medication for mental health disorder because a disorder just like anything else, like diabetes or cancer.
But that's the medicine that allows me to really keep my anxiety and depression and PTSD symptoms. And then on top of that, just continuing to do a lot of the therapy. And I would be lying if I said that a big part of regaining myself with is being able to work, not just for, like, the monetary standpoint, but because I feel like I'm making a difference in the lives of my students and in the lives of the people that they're going to serve someday. So, yeah, a lot of things.
It's not just one thing.
I think that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that this is complicated, but there's something so precious and we need to share this more together as people, right? Is how all of these experiences and how you're building yourself back up. You're not complete. You're not perfect. You're not fixed, right? You are in process. You are doing something. You are doing the best that you can, and you are working through it, which is making you a better person. It's making you empathize with more people, taking better care of people and giving back to the world.
What else can we possibly do as human beings? That's better than that true.
And I think one thing that being so sick gave me was really an opportunity to not just acknowledge.
But.
I guess really appreciate the finite time that we all have here, and some shorter than others. And I feel like it almost gave me permission to not have to be perfect because we have such a short time here. I was spending it just spinning my wheels or taking jobs that I didn't need to or picking up, like, weekend five gigs during College and PA school and all of those things because I was just like, I couldn't even be comfortable. In my own mind. I constantly had to be doing something just to, like, keep my demons occupied, not even at rest.
I remember just being like. Man.
I could very likely have a shorter lifespan, but Alternatively, I could live until I'm 100 or I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and only have two more days all the time spending my time thinking about the fear of death and all the things that I wanted to do before that time came or whatever those things were standing in the way of me, like actually being present and living each day. I was never in the present. I was like ruminating and depressed about something that I did in the past or anxious about something that was going to happen or didn't happen but might happen.
And I should be prepared just in case it might happen, like in the future. That's a hard head space to be. And I see so many young people that are in that head space, and they compare themselves to what they see on social media and things like that. I know that I did that I would look on LinkedIn and be like, oh my gosh. These people that I went to PA school with are like opening their own practices. They're like flipping houses that I had to remind myself like, Yo, but they also came from generational wealth and our able bodied and all those things just giving perspective, I think, is really hard if you don't make it a point to intentionally have that be like the media that you're consuming.
So I know it really helps me when I switch my whole Instagram feed from following peers and stuff like that to looking at positive affirmations or listening to the Holistic psychologist, which is like a great Instagram page and seeing ways to just navigate some of the feelings that I felt, validation that they were real and authentic feelings, they shouldn't be ashamed of them, and that other people are going through the exact same thing. And so waking up and filling my feet with things like, you are worthy or like, your worth is not based on your productivity.
Those were reminders that I needed every day and so kind of just switching up what was on the menu every day from a media consumption standpoint was also very helpful.
Absolutely. And I think isn't there a sense. Like.
The first podcast I did was a couple of years ago for my producer now FEI. And I think at some point or another she asked me what's the motto that you live by. And I have a bunch. And the one that came to mind that I used to say a lot to people was as somebody with a physical disability and all these challenges, et cetera. If I can do it, so can you. And I was reflecting on that after we spoke for the first time, and I was like, you know what?
That message can be so profoundly misinterpreted and can be seen as able as to its core. And.
I gave that a lot of thought. And.
I don't want to lose the ability to be inspired by life, by people, by nature, by whatever it is that we all draw inspiration from and that have meaning to us. But we have to be so careful and so thoughtful about how we choose to do that. Right.
So when you hear that, if I can do it, so can you. What's your initial reaction to that?
Initially, I kind of like it's like a little visceral of, like a gut punch, I guess, because everybody's circumstances are different. And one of the rhetorical tactics of a lot of conservative political figures is that they basically will refer to somebody who has succeeded, despite the odds or whatever the case is. The person that comes to mind is like Candace Owens, who is a black conservative commentator. And people will say, like, well, this one black person said it, and she's successful. So like what's every other black person disputes, you know what I mean?
So this concept of exceptionalism doesn't allow us to focus on the systems that create the rule because somebody being an exception to the rule is evidence that the rule exists. So when it's the scenario, like, oh, Brianna is able to go back and work in PA education. And look, she's making a difference. And she started a business and she's on the Unfixed podcast film series. And she's on the top of podcast and all these things, right? Like, if she can do it, I feel like that doesn't allow us to interrogate the systems of like, okay, why was it hard in the first place?
We talked about the sexism, the ableism, the racism that exists. We talked about our broken healthcare system right then. It also doesn't allow people to focus on the many privileges that I do have. Like, I've never experienced housing insecurity or food insecurity. And people might almost use my intersectional identities and the things that I've been through identify as a queer, disabled women of color. Like, people might look at those things and say, like, oh, well, she checks all the diversity boxes, and she still is successful.
And so it negates the fact that, yes, but I also have my food safety, shelter needs completely met. Like, I've never had to worry about going hungry. I have not had to worry about a roof over my head. I have not had to do this alone. I've had partnerships like solid, sole level partnership from my husband. I have amazing friends who are supportive. I have family members and extended family members who reached out. I have friends that organize meal trains for David. And I like, when I was really sick.
So, like, I in no way, shape or form did this on my own. Like, I didn't bootstrap my way out of illness. I think that the focus on the individual as the exception to the rule almost can potentially be weaponized against people who might be going through similar things on the surface, but have very different circumstances. If you look a little deeper and we should, I think, be instead focusing our efforts and our critiques and our. Energy.
If you will, on trying to fix some of the systems that oppress us all in the first place and make it so hard so that we have these hero journey stories. And it's like, it shouldn't be the hero's journey that I like got healthy. That shouldn't be like, this miraculous story that should be the norm because we live in an advanced society that shouldn't be like, oh, my gosh, like, inspirational story because it shouldn't have had to be this hard in the first place. Everybody should be able to get access to health care and be healthy.
It shouldn't be or relatively healthy or at least cared for in the face of whatever illnesses they have. And it shouldn't be like, oh, well, I don't have the money to get the PPO insurance, so I couldn't see that one provider or I couldn't afford to pay out of pocket because I'm on state funded health insurance that should not even be barriers in the way of people being able to succeed or have just a quality of life. So I guess I'm passionate about it.
No, you're right. And I would love to have you back on for a follow up episode because I want to explore these ideas in some more details because I am reworking that message and I'm rethinking it and how I want to say it and what I want to say. But yet it's still so important to have something that we can anchor ourselves to or multiple things that we can anchor ourselves to help us get through whatever degree of suffering, difficulty, challenges, obstacles that all human beings face to some degree or another.
Right. So there are ways that we can help support each other in that journey. Oh, absolutely.
And one thing that I always recommend to everybody is if they haven't already checked out the Unfixed film series, please do that. I've had the privilege of working with Kimberly and Mia who have done just such a phenomenal job of telling our stories myself and many other people who are facing chronic illness or disability on YouTube. Just unfixed. But it's amazing. And I feel like I've never met most of those people in real life. I've never even met Kimberly or Mia in real life. I feel more connected to many of the people that I've met on social media who are going through these periods of adversity or living lives with adversity from health conditions or whatever the cases that cause adversity in their life may be.
But one of the things that I think is really lacking in our society generally is just like this sense of connection and shared experience because we've all been fed that we're supposed to have, like the house and the car and the spouse and the kids and the jewelry and cars, whatever. But.
If you watch the Stone series, like, the depth of I don't know, just self awareness and understanding and patience and compassion and empathy that comes through with the things that these amazing humans have to say. It's so much deeper than some of the connections that I've had. Like, I've had friends since College who I've never had as deep of a conversation with them as I had with some of my CSF League family, my leaker FAM online. You know what I mean?
I don't know. I think that that's something that everybody should see, because I know for a long time, I didn't think that there was really anything to be celebrated or cherished or favored about being sick. But instead of looking ahead to like, when I'm better I'll do this or when I'm better this or that watch that film series because it really just shows you like, it's okay to just exist and find out whatever lesson life is teaching you at these times. And just it gave me permission as I watched these stories, and as I connected with the chronic illness community to stop striving for perfection and just start embracing, like, just what's happening today.
And like, the small wins. Like.
Got Dressed today. Full start.
That's okay.
Yeah. Absolutely.
This series is incredibly good. I'm a huge fan. I can't wait to meet more of the amazing people on that series. You, Kim, are just incredible human beings. And.
It's a life changing series for people. I think everybody should watch it. It's stunningly good. And I really look forward to having some more interesting and profound conversations with you. You're a very impressive, empathetic, intelligent, amazing woman. And thank you for being here. How can people reach out to you? Connect with you? Find out more about you.
Awesome.
Well, first, I just want to say if I can do it, anyone can just kidding. So I am online at heelsandempowered.
Com.
I help people with chronic illnesses, kind of navigate their experience with chronic illness and help them prepare for doctor appointments. I can do nutritional counseling. I can talk to them about alternative therapies whether that be vitamins or cannabis or they want to learn more about Ketamine. They talked about it today, and I don't see people at this time as patients in that capacity. I served as a patient educator, a patient Navigator, but hopefully in the near future, I'll be able to kind of convert into seeing people as patients again in a telehealth capacity.
And that's where people can text me Ashield and empower.
Com.
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Brianna.
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure. And yeah, thank you so much for coordinating this episode and having a podcast with just amazing guests and just really amplifying our voices, because I think that it's a privilege to be here amongst all the amazing people you've had on so far. Thank you.
You're very welcome. It's an honor and a privilege for me, too. And it's a phenomenal learning experience. And these are deep, meaningful, amazing connections. And I'm just happy to be a part of it.
Awesome.
Well, have a good day. Thanks for listening. If you listen to the podcast.
All right.
Take care. Have a good one.
Thanks.
Have a good one. Goodbye you.
Helpful links:
Website: https://www.healedandempowered.com/
Connect with Healed and Empowered on Social Media:
Connect with Brianna Cardenas on Social Media:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/briannacardenas_pa.c/