For the Love of the Map
For the Love of the Map is the ultimate portal to Supernatural: Unreal Fitness! Hosted by MJ, the show dives deep into the latest Supernatural choreography, detailed VR workout reviews, and exclusive interviews with choreographers, coaches, and community leaders. Whether you’re a seasoned Meta Quest user or new to the VR fitness world, this podcast is packed with expert advice, tips, and inspiration to keep you motivated and moving with joy!
For the Love of the Map
The Supernatural Evolution of a MadMouse Part 1: Fight EP|31
Join us as we uncover the surprising twists and turns of Supernatural workouts with my dear friend Miranda, affectionately known as The Mad Mouse.
From overcoming initial skepticism to embracing high-intensity challenges, the journey of discovering one's potential is both empowering and inspiring. Through engaging discussions about teamwork and the thrill of themed competitions, we celebrate the strength and spirit of being part of a like-minded community, where even the wildest workout adventures become a source of shared passion and enduring friendships.
Our conversation takes a heartfelt turn as we explore the profound impact of community support during personal health challenges, particularly during a cancer diagnosis. We delve into navigating the emotional complexities of such a journey, while finding strength in staying active and connected.
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Having one person who's been through it, having one person who knows what it feels like to hear the words I'm sorry, it's cancer, it hits different. We had to do one. We were doing a side-by-side and we were doing daisies and I don't remember which one that one was in. That's the first prose only I ever recorded.
MJ:That is in uh, not not in the salon. Yeah, it's the third song.
Miranda:It's dumb.
MJ:It's dumb.
Miranda:It shouldn't surprise me that the thing that brought me back was the social aspect of it, the connection. Why would you? Who can do that? And then this little voice was like you could do that. You would do that Sprayed the Kool-Aid everywhere I tried. I was poking at him. Hey, you would love this if you would just get in. Come on, give this a try. I guarantee you're going to love the most complex choreography, but there's still a pattern to it. It might just be a little wilder than your typical low flow. I had to stop creating these excuses for myself even too.
Miranda:I went in and I did everything that they did. The coaches tell you not to do. I got frustrated, I got upset, I missed a ton. I was beating myself up. I may have cried Like I was like this. I did all the wrong things. What other communities? This? This is what I needed, this is what I've been looking for. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and so.
MJ:Hello and welcome back to another episode of For the Love of the Map, where we chat all things supernatural, choreography and finding joy in movement. I'm your host, mj, and today I have the absolute honor of introducing you guys to my dear friend, miranda. Some of you might know her from your leaderboards as the mad mouse, because like she's crazy. So yeah, welcome to the show, dude. Yay, thank you for having me.
Miranda:I'm so excited. This is awesome. I'm so excited to be here.
MJ:I really thought I would have to do a lot more convincing to get you to come on the show.
Miranda:Like bragging maybe no, I much, like a lot of us. I think I'm one of those people that, like, once you get me started talking about Supernatural or my journey or anything like that, like I have drunk the Kool-Aid, I am ready to spread it to everybody and you're probably going to have to tell me to be quiet. I am open and honest with everybody, like everybody at work, all of my friends and family. Like I will talk to anybody about Supernatural or my journey or anything anytime, all the time.
MJ:Yeah Well, I'm excited, I think that's probably why we're not the only reason why we're such good friends, obviously, but what brought us together is because we're so willing and open and want to talk about Supernatural. We're obsessed yes, we have drank the Kool-Aid and we enjoy talking about choreography together.
Miranda:Yes.
MJ:Yes, exactly yeah, yep. So I'm just going to get right into it, okay.
Miranda:How long?
MJ:have you been a supernatural athlete?
Miranda:You and I started at about the same time. It was August. For me, it was late August 2021. So I'm over three years now and going strong. Yeah, I got my headset like earlier in the year and started out like Beat, saber and stuff like that. I tried some of the other rhythm games but they weren't really my thing. I noticed I was like, wow, my Fitbit thinks, like at the time I had a Fitbit, my Fitbit thinks I'm working out what is happening. This is crazy. Can you work out in a headset? That's weird. Is that weird?
MJ:Yeah, so did your Fitbit always think you were swimming?
Miranda:I think it might have, or an indoor run. My watch likes wait. If I'm in Beat Saber, my watch likes to think I'm doing an indoor run. It's interesting, it's interesting. No man, I'm not running.
MJ:Yeah, we don't run man. Something's got to be chasing us, or like-. Zombies, exactly the apocalypse is happening, or someone's offered us like a million dollars, and then we'll be like, okay, we're. The apocalypse is happening, or someone's offered us like a million dollars, and then we'll be like okay, we'll run I would run, I would run for that. Yeah, that's so did you get your headset for you or did you get your headset for your kids?
Miranda:it was kind of a family thing. Okay, my dad had one, and this was so early 2021. We were still kind of not so much getting together a whole lot, but like one of the first times we did get back together, he had this headset and he stuck me in it, he stuck my kids in it and we played Beat Saber and I was like, oh, this is really cool. And I immediately went home and like bought one and all of the things for it, right, cool. And I immediately went home and like bought one and all of the things for it, right, and it was. It was a cool way to put my sons in it and they could go play beat saber with grandma and grandpa and auntie and uncles, you know, like all of those things. And so it was a family thing. Um, they were playing like the Darth Vader ones and they they like the, the boys like the, the Kate, the simulators, the job simulators.
Miranda:I'm like you're going to get in here and pretend you're doing a job you don't. You don't want to do that, dude.
MJ:No one wants to go do a job, like we can't get our kids to do chores in our house but you stick them in the headset, yeah. And to do chores in our house, but you stick them in your headset, yeah. And they want to wash the dishes.
Miranda:They want to do all these things. It makes no sense. It makes no sense, but no, I so I got it kind of for the family. And then, um, I noticed that like a beat saber was like working my heart rate up, so I was starting out easy. And then I kind of like bumped up a level and I was buying all the packs and we were playing together and it was just really fun.
Miranda:And then I kind of like bumped up a level and I was buying all the packs and we were playing together and it was just really fun and I was trying to find just different ways to like bump up the intensity. And then I even started getting to the point where it was like Ooh, I wonder if I can get better on this song. I really like this song and it's kind of hard. Let me see if I can do this a little better. I wonder if I beat it right, like I was gaming it. Um, and then, like my dad was like, oh, you should try, uh, audio trip, you should try synth writers, some of these other ones, and I was like I tried them, I downloaded them and I don't think I've opened them since yeah so that was.
Miranda:That was probably like april ish up to July, august, yeah. And then I saw, I think that I think the thing that brought me to supernatural was Chesney. Yeah, I don't know how it. You know that. You know you start looking at different things and all of a sudden things show up in your feed and you're like, okay, I don't know how, you knew, I was even thinking about that. But here we are and I I saw like Chesney had this big. It was like I don't know that it was necessarily even like a short ad, it was like a video, a YouTube video, like a commercial, but it was more detailed and like she like an interview with her, and she was talking about her journey and starting in the community and all of these things. And I was moved. I was like, oh wow, that's, that's really cool and I it resonated with me and I could relate to a lot of the things that she said and I went and downloaded it and at the time it was it was still a 30-day trial and it was like twice as expensive now as it then than it is now.
Miranda:But I went in, I downloaded it. I think I went in and did like a lot of people do. They go in and they're like, wow, this is amazing. And they play I don't know 12 lows and they can't move the next day. Yes, because it was just so. It's so fun and I was like this is working. I'm working out like, wow, this is because you got to start with. When you first go in, it starts you with the tutorials and you're like, oh okay, well, that's not that bad. And then it gets you into the. It like the first ones that shows you are the getting started ones, and so I popped into those and did like all of them Right. So when I started, there was only flow.
MJ:Right.
Miranda:Um, and then boxing came out that year, that fall it was it was October.
MJ:It was right after the MetaConnect Um, so it was either end of September or beginning of October.
Miranda:Right, that's right. But I got into it and I was already in the community because I think I knew from the Chesney video that there was a community and so I was like, but the community at that time was so small, it was so small.
MJ:There wasn't even like 10 K people back then.
Miranda:No, and now there are 110 K, right Like. But it was, it smelled like a, it felt like a smaller community. You know 10,000 people, 10,000 of your best friends. But I was already in there, right. And I remember my second work. My second day was a workout with Dwana. It was a.
Miranda:It was like a rebel bells or something like that. It was like a take the stage rebel bells. I don't know how old it was, because I didn't realize, oh, this, that they were putting stuff out like every day and I was kind of like catching up. And there was this one that, um, somewhere in there and I don't know. I think it also has had maybe a long room to live since then, but at the time it was just really good.
Miranda:It reminded me of my mom. It has heart and pet Benatar and you know stuff like that. And, uh, maybe Stevie Nicks, and she says something in there about giving it your all or like you know it's, it's Duana, she's super motivating and she relates things back to being a mom and she said something about like all the times you feel like you failed as a mother, and it was like a gut punch and it took the air out of me and all of a sudden I'm crying in my headset. Day two, oh wow, day two, and I posted in the community like, um, what is happening? Is this normal? Should I be crying in the headset Like that's weird, right? But it turns out it's not that weird and it's not all that uncommon?
Miranda:It's not.
MJ:It's day two. One of us. You are officially one of us now.
Miranda:Yep, yep. So that was, like, that's my origin story.
MJ:I was crying on day two. On day two, I love that it was Chesney that brought you in, that you knew instantly there was a community, so it didn't take you a long time to find it. You were just automatically plugged in Like what are these people talking about? Who are these? Are they talking about workouts? Like you know, the community is such a different and magical sort of place on the internet, so, yeah, that in itself is motivating. The fact that you posted on your second day is huge, dude. I think it took me about a week. I posted about a week after.
Miranda:Yeah, yeah I think I was posting pretty often like from the from, maybe not so much from the beginning, but pretty, pretty often. And then you know you get like the same people that are kind of commenting and you kind of click with different people that were active in the community at the time and it just felt very welcoming and just really supportive and like we're all here for the same thing and it was really really kind of cool and like my family knew that I was into this and I was doing it and seeing results and all of these different things. And my kids knew, oh, mom's going to go do her her inflatable balloon man thing. And they're like, are you playing beat saber? And I was like, no, there's this other thing that I found that's really cool, um, and I would like cast it to the TV and they could see it and you know stuff like that too. And so they they've always been super supportive.
Miranda:So that was like that was in August and I started. I started like doing the measurements and I lost, you know, inches and I wasn't so much doing. You know everyone tells you don't get on the scale all the time. Don't judge it by that. But I lost inches and inches from August for even just the first few months, couple of months.
MJ:Yeah, that's amazing, doesn't your husband also play Supernatural?
Miranda:Yes.
MJ:Yes.
Miranda:It took a while, really. I sprayed the Kool-Aid everywhere I tried. I was poking at him. Hey, you would love this if you would just get in. Come on, give this a try. I guarantee you're going to love this. But it took like the next year like a blood pressure scare, because we get, if we go to biometric screenings, we get money in our HSA blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we went and did that and they were like dude, your blood pressure is really high. Like I'm not letting you walk out of here without signing this form that basically says you're going to talk to your primary care doctor. So he's like OK, so he does, he does that and he goes and sees them. And they're like well, you've been sitting at home during COVID and not really moving a whole lot for a couple of years now. And is there something that you could do, even in your home, that would get your heart rate up, would get you moving? And he's like oh, I'm never going to hear the end of this.
MJ:Exactly. He's like oh man, this thing my wife's been trying to talk me into, oh no, here we go.
Miranda:Here we go. And he got in I think it was like end of the year, 22 timeframe towards the end of the year and like drops for his guy, Right. So he gets in and thinks about working out and drops 40 pounds in four months. I'm like yeah.
MJ:I'm really happy for you. Great job, honey, awesome.
Miranda:No, but it's even comparing like how and when he works out. Like we'll talk about workouts and stuff. He could care less about the social aspect of it. He could care less about the choreography, like he's not a oh, that one was really good he's more of a like the music really matters for him and he'll notice if the choreography I mean, I've kind of biased him sometimes with my reviews since we started talking about choreography, but I try not to do that now I was like, hey, so you did that one today, what did you think? And so, but still, he doesn't care about the leaderboard, he doesn't follow a ton of people.
Miranda:He will give me crap. Sometimes He'll send me a little text with a frog oh, I love that, okay. Okay, that's fine. Okay, that's fine, I see you. So we have a little bit of friendly banter and we have like some friends and he has coworkers. Like once he drank the Kool-Aid, he started telling his coworkers and I was like, oh see, and you thought I was crazy. Now he's doing it. But yeah, so he does it too and it's kind of a, it's kind of thing it was. It was kind of nice when I had my headset to myself, because then we didn't have to fight over it.
MJ:I was about to say you guys share a headset, right? We?
Miranda:share a headset and I'm like this is gross. Now I have to share with a boy. It's got the gross cuties on it and he's the one and he's like well, you're the sweaty one. Controller straps are all gross and I'm like so we have to space it out and we have to clean everything very well, and we do. I have profiles set up for my kids. They like to box, they are both ADHD and it is very good for them also. So I know there's been. If there's a lot of people, there's a lot of people in the community that talk about the neuro. We have a neurodivergent community as well. Right, and just how good it is for the gross muscles, for the brain. Just different Again, non-scale victories. The benefits of it are just. They're great. It's great all the way around for everybody Drink the Kool-Aid.
MJ:Yeah, drink the Kool-Aid. The non-scale victories that, being a part of supernatural, committing to supernatural and your health journey are so much bigger, outweigh any of the scale victories. You know, like you said, we we do have a big neurodivergent, um population section of our community, Um, and it's so impactful for them and for your kids.
MJ:For my kid, I try and get her to play. She'll play every once in a while, but it's so helpful that engaging the brain, the, the sort of the distraction, the environments, the movement, the movement with all of that combined is what creates the magic of supernatural.
Miranda:It's really unlike anything else in that yeah area, like anytime I'm trying yes, I would love to see studies about that like I think I think that would be really cool. Anytime I'm trying to get anybody to drink the kool-aid, they're like you have a wait, what now? You have a what. And I'm like, well, I have these goggles. So, like anytime you're trying to explain anybody to drink the Kool-Aid, they're like you have a wait, what now you have a what. And I'm like, well, I have these goggles. So, like anytime you're trying to explain it to somebody else, I think we sound a little nuts and I'm fine with that, but I'm like, so I have these goggles.
Miranda:And I always say, well, have you heard of Beat Saber? And then I go into. Anyone who's ever played, actually played, played. Supernatural would never compare it to that, because the movement is so much more expansive. The boxing, yeah. The choreography, just yeah. Everything is very, very different. Beat saber, I do consider more of a game. I mean, yes, my heart rate will still get up, but it's got mechanics that are predictable. And once you figure out the patterns and I mean supernatural is kind of like that too you can have the most complex choreography, but there's still a pattern to it. It might just be a little wilder in your typical flow, but once you figure it out, it's like oh, oh, oh, I got it, I got it. Oh, oh, I got it. Okay, there it is, I got it. Nope, I don't got it. There it goes. Yeah, there it goes. But you know it's? I always say I'm like okay, so I'll start with describing it as Beat Saber, and then I'm like and then it's nothing like. Let me show you a video, right?
MJ:Exactly. It's funny because, to me, beat Saber is a game that has workout attributes. You just happen to get your heart rate up, work up a sweat, but it is a game, and Supernatural is the opposite. It is a workout that have and have some game aspects to it. You can gamify even more by, um, you know, joining groups, doing competitions, creating your own sort of missions, like a hundred percent on madhouses, which, uh, miranda has gotten, I believe, two of the madhouses at a hundred percent. You are still going after welcome, but not really because you don't like it, but you are. That's a whole other conversation for later we will. So there are so many gamifying of it that you can create on your own, yep, you know. Which leads me to the new feature that just came out Supernatural.
MJ:Together the new feature that just came out supernaturally together. Yes, we need to talk. It's okay, okay, wow, wow. That just came out while this is friday, recording last wednesday, so it's been out for a little over a week now yes and the community is going insane in good ways they're not so good ways and not so good ways.
Miranda:So you and I have been around the block with this right, like I remember when boxing came out and there was a lot of people that were mad and they were like I am never going to use this. They don't listen to us. Why can't we just have custom playlists already? Like, yeah, I get it, I get it. And that was back when it was 20, 30,000 people and now it's 110 and it's a little bit swamped with the negativity and I'm like if you don't want to do it, that's fine. Just it's, it's okay. No, it's going to force you to do this. Give it a try. Mute, don't mute. No one can see you working out. It's a little fluffy avatar. Nobody knows that you're jiggling. No one knows that your thighs are clapping for you. Like Juana says I'm so glad you used her quote for this they can't hear that.
Miranda:In case you're wondering, they can't hear that, right. So I would say get in and try it, get in and try it. I would say get in and try it. You know, like, get in and try it, the workouts are different than they are. The regular weekly workouts. They're different drops than they are. Get in experience it. Give it a try. What's the worst? That's going to happen Exactly.
MJ:You're going to get a workout in either way.
Miranda:You're going to get a workout in, and if it's not for a workout in, and if it's not for you, so be it. Go do your flow, go to your boxing. Whatever you need to do, it accommodates, um, any of your modifiers. One arm, knee, strikes large platform and again, mute, don't mute, talk, don't talk.
MJ:Doesn't matter, just go in, go to you and have fun with it, and if it's not your thing, you tried it, you move on.
Miranda:It's the same thing with my kids. Okay, this is a new food. I need you to take at least three bites before you tell me that you're not going to eat it. Right, because I spent hours on this. Okay, maybe not hours, but if you think about it, on this, okay, maybe not hours, but if you think about it that people behind this spent a year more years, years trying to because it has been requested.
Miranda:a lot People are like who asked for this? Lots of people, lots of people have asked for this. Um, because of people who came from Beat Saber, right, where you can get up. How many people can you play together? I think there's like five in a room. I think it's like five, maybe eight, I could of people who came from Beat Saber, right, where you can get. How many people can you play together in Beat Saber? I think there's five in a room.
MJ:No, I think it's like five, maybe eight, I could be wrong, maybe eight. I've only gone in with five, so I that's the most I've ever gone in and played multiplayer in Beat Saber.
Miranda:Same. I think that's about right. So, yeah, I think that. I think that, um it was asked for, it was requested. Um, I mean, we've been doing parties for longer than that right We've been doing our own parties and a lot of other people in the community have to.
Miranda:There are ways to do it without doing this, and I think if you've got a bigger party, maybe we still do that, um, but, or we could all go in and we could do, like multiple sets of rooms. Right, we could do a couple of different rooms with three people in each one and we could be. We don't have to use their chat. We could use a different chat, but we could still all hear each other and we can still all go in and we're all going to be synced and we're all going to be these really fluffy avatars high-fiving each other and clapping and all of these things. It's really fun.
Miranda:I really like the way they did it.
MJ:I agree, and it is totally different from the normal catalog in the library. First of all, you've got challenge zones. You've got all this fun stuff, the challenge zones. You've got all this fun stuff. The challenge zones are obviously my favorite. Turbo speed things speed up. It is so cool, it's the best. But again, you don't have to do it. I like it. I think it's really fun and I also like the way they organized it to be more collaborative versus competitive. However, stick me in a room with one of my friends, like my friend Chad, and suddenly the competitiveness comes out in me and I'm like I'm going to kick your butt Chad.
MJ:I'm getting MVP but anyone else? I'm cool, I'm like we're doing this together, but like you put one I'm. You know. You put Chad in there and I was on it and my heart rate got so high Cause I was giving it everything I could so you wouldn't win.
Miranda:Dude, he brings that out in people.
Miranda:Yes, yes, we love that it can be what you, it can be whatever you want it to be, whatever you want on any given day, for sure, yep, yeah, I think that's awesome, it's fun and I think I hope more people get that chance. I hope so. I hope so and I think that if you turned off by the community by now right, it's been a week, y'all. Okay, it's going to die down. The dust is going to settle. This happened with boxing. This happened with knee strikes. If you've been here for a little while, you've seen it, it's going to be okay. Mute.
Miranda:If you need to Scroll on by, don't feed the negativity. Go in there and give some love to someone who said wow, I was really against this and I went in and I tried it and I changed my mind. Go bump that post, go comment and say, wow, that's awesome. Like, if you find yourself withdrawing from that, go find the positives and like feed that. Yeah, right, there's a quote. There's a Mark quote in there somewhere where he talks about feeding the wolf inside. Feed the beast. There's two different wolves. There's a light and a dark, and whichever one you feed is the one that grows. I don't remember what workout that's in, but I know. I'm pretty sure that was a Mark quote. I think he said it a couple of times. It is a Mark quote.
MJ:And I'll put the quote up here, if you're watching YouTube.
MJ:Now we have to go find it. We have to go find the workout. Thanks, miranda, you're on this mission with me. We have to go find the workout now so that I can also put the workout up here. I don't know, it wasn't on my list. It wasn't on my list. It's not in my notes. Okay, it just came to my brain. We'll figure it out. It's it?
MJ:Yes, yes, so I have an ulterior motive for having you on the podcast today. A little bit Obviously, you are my dear friend. I believe that your super natural journey, your story, is very relatable to others and I also believe that others will find great comfort in it. It is October, which is it is October, which is breast cancer awareness month, and it is I knew back in February of this year that you would be on the show in October because I want you to share your story with the world about your breast cancer diagnosis, everything that you sort of went through while still working out in supernatural the community. I'd really like to share that with the world and, um, yeah, so that was my ulterior motive to have you on the show today.
Miranda:I am, I am happy to, and I there are people that and I'm totally open about it. So the first thing that I will say is, through my journey, having the community, having the support right, like you have your family. They're very supportive. My family was so there for me. Friends, coworkers, family that I haven't seen or talked to in years came out of the woodwork. They were arranging things. It was so, so beneficial and meaningful, supernatural, became almost like my support group in that sense.
Miranda:Um, but I also had one person that I knew through someone else. Like she was a friend of a friend, we were friends on Facebook and once it all kind of hit and I posted about it, um, she reached out to me. She was a survivor, uh, on going on 20 some years and she and I developed this relationship and she was there for me and even though her journey is different than mine and was, you know, before mine, and things have changed in the medical community and with treatments and all of this over time, having one person who's been through it, having one person who knows what it feels like to hear the words I'm sorry, it's cancer. It hits different, right, like just having that person and that's why they tell you to go to these support groups, because you're talking to people who are going through it. She was my person and I'm going to shout out to Karen I love you, karen.
MJ:We love you, Karen.
Miranda:Anyway. So yes, she was my person, and then the community. It became just this place for me to. It was an outlet.
MJ:It was a support group.
Miranda:There is a lot of other women and men. I remember a man in the community who was going through breast cancer and treatments. It's not just women, but it is. I will soapbox, I'm going to, I'm going to pop up these, these few PSAs here and there. One in eight women will be diagnosed or will go through it in their lives. How many women do you know? I'm one of the many women you know. There shouldn't be a stigma with this. There shouldn't be a. Let's make this open, let's talk about it. It's a lot of women and it's. I thought it was like 50, 60 year old woman, right, this old lady problem. I was 42. So I had been doing Supernatural since August. I dropped three inches off of my bust because we're women and it drops off of there first.
MJ:I don't know why.
Miranda:It just does Relatable. So and I felt something right and so like PSA. Number two is if you feel something, say something. If you're a lot of times it's a partner, because they're looking at you every day who will notice hey, you've got a weird dimple going on there, what's what's that about it? So if anybody notices something, if you feel something, you say something, you go see your primary care doctor. And I did, and I think that was in like September, right, like within the first month I lost like three inches off of my bust and felt something. And so I went in and I talked to my primary care doctor and she's like you know, it's probably just, it's probably nothing.
Miranda:They try their best to not say yes or no, you know, but there is probably nothing. It's probably dense tissue, whatever. But get it scheduled, get it checked out. And she kind of like did a rush on it and she did it with an ultrasound at the time. So like all of that was in the orders, because normally you go and you get the scan, and then you go home, yeah, and then you get a call back, which is the worst, and then you go back in because they want additional imaging, and then you go home and then you get a call back.
Miranda:Right and it can be many. So I was lucky I had it. I had it scheduled. It was the Monday after Thanksgiving 2021. So it was Monday, november 29th, and I went in and I did the scan and I'm in my little pink. They warm them up for you. They're so nice, they have my little pink gown. And then I go wait in the waiting room and they're like they'd like to see some additional imaging and, like you can see, I'm like texting my husband and my mom and my sister right Group text and you can kind of see it the anxiety kind of rising up a little bit with each progression of this. But it was all in one day it was.
Miranda:I was there for like two, three hours. I was by myself because I thought it was nothing and it was going to be routine. And so I I go in and I do one set of scans and then I go sit in the hallway and then they call me back Okay, well, they'd like to do a couple others, okay. And then I go back in the hallway and they're like, well, let's, let's go in and do the ultrasound. And so then they have a tech come in and they do the ultrasound and she's going around and she's taking pictures and doing all of these things. And then I go back and sit in the hallway and the radiologist looks at it.
Miranda:And then the radiologist calls me into her office and she's like, well, there's something that we would we probably would like to biopsy on both sides. Do you want to do that today, or do you want to come back? And I'm like I'm here, let's, let's just do this, and I'm lucky in that way, because the waiting is the worst. If you have to go and come back, and go and come back, and go and come back, like the waiting and the head game that that is. It's the worst. So I got all, I knocked all that out in one day. So she comes in and she does a biopsy, like two or three on the left and one or two on the right, and that thing sounds like a shotgun going off and they like they may not, they numb you, but it's scary.
Miranda:You feel it. So one of them did not numb the way it was supposed to, or we didn't wait long enough, and that thing went off and I about punched her in the face because I I jumped you're not supposed to jump, but I jumped and I and it hurt. And then she says something like oh well, sometimes if it is abnormal cells, they don't respond to the numbing the way they're supposed to. So then I'm laying there and I'm like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And that's when I started crying, because I'm like, laying there on this table by myself, and she's like oh, no, no, no, no, I mean that doesn't mean that it is or is, and so that she's like trying to backtrack. But and then I'm laying there and I'm like, so she's like, oh, you're going to take it easy. Go take some ibuprofen here's, we're going to send you home with some ice.
Miranda:When can I work out again? Right, when can I work out? That's when you know you're addicted, yes, you're hooked. When that, when you have some sort of medical procedure, and the first thing you ask is when can I work out again? Because she was like well, is it like upper body? I was like, oh yeah.
MJ:It's basically. I'm going to be flailing my arms around for like an hour and a half. When can I do?
Miranda:that. Yeah, when can I do that? It's just like I'd give it at least 48, if not 72 hours. I'm like okay.
MJ:Yeah.
Miranda:And I was bruised, all the heck. And so then I go home and then you wait and you wait for the results and you wait for the call, and so then they call and you get that I'm sorry, it's cancer. And I don't remember much else of that conversation. Blackout, yep. It's just kind of fuzzy at that point because you're like uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, what? Okay, what do I do next then? Right, and so it's my particular type of cancer is dcis. It's ductal carcinoma in situ. So it's like um in the milk ducts. Yeah, um, except the fact that I could feel something. It was a fairly large something, which means it had kind of already grown to being outside of the ducts. So PSA number two is early scans are important. Baseline scans are important. I had my babies late. I had them in my thirties, mid thirties. I was busy having babies and didn't have time for that. So when I was diagnosed I was 42 and given the size of it, she said it had probably been there for years. So baseline scans are important.
Miranda:I know so many women who are diagnosed in their late thirties and early forties. Now, this is not an old lady disease.
MJ:Yeah.
Miranda:So that was Tuesday, that was the next day they called me and then like it. Actually we complain about how slow the medical field can be, but when needed they can go all gas, no brakes, right, I did MRI on Thursday. We drew blood to go for the genetic sequencing to see if I had BRCA1, BRCA2 genes, and then we waited for that because I have a family history of it on my father's side. My grandmother, my paternal grandmother, died from breast cancer when I was like gosh, I was a baby, and I think some of the women on that side have had their experiences with it and some of my cousins, and so we have kind of a higher family history on that side, but not so much on my mother's side. But we went and we did the blood work and PSA number two is I don't know it's more than 80% of women who actually are diagnosed with it. Don't have the gene.
Miranda:You can have family history Cancer doesn't care, you can have family history. Cancer doesn't care, you can have family history. You can not have a family history. But it was all of a okay, let's go do this test, let's go do that. And then so there's all of this like waiting in between and everything, and with the biopsy they go and they do like certain typing of it. But I still didn't have a stage, which is something that you really associate with the big C, right, like you associate a oh, it's staged this. I didn't get that until they, until the like the final pathology report after the surgery. But we were like they didn't stage it for me until then. But they were like, okay, well, this is what we're going to do. So they kind of did a typing. They look at what makes it up because they've learned so much out of this in the last 20 years, right, but they look at it's called ER, pr and HER2. So ER, estrogen, pr, progesterone, her2. I cannot remember what that stands for, but that ER, so it's estrogen progesterone, her2. I cannot remember what that stands for, but that ER, so it's estrogen progesterone.
Miranda:Mine were positive. Those markers were positive, which means my hormones were feeding my cancer, and the HER2 being negative means it was not super aggressive, which I was very lucky. So it was kind of like, of all of the things that you could have wished for, no one wishes for this but if you were going to say this is what we're looking for, you kind of wanted to know that you could hit it with these hormone treatments and that it's not super aggressive and all of that. But even still, once you know that it's there, it's like I'm like okay, so what's the next step?
MJ:And they're like well surgery.
Miranda:I'm like, okay, so what's the next step? And they're like, well, surgery? I'm like, yeah, so let's do that. And they're like, okay, well, that's probably going to be after the new year. I was like, um, no, can I talk to someone else? And I was like, look, I love you. You're also like the first surgeon that I talked to. I was like you're awesome, that's there. It's like invader, invader. It's like invading your dreams. I'm I'm like picturing stuff out of stranger things. There's like malignant. Malignant is just a bad word it is a bad word I picture in like tentacles.
Miranda:I think maybe I was watching stranger things at the time and that was a bad idea too, um, but I was like it's in my, it's in my body, it's, we get it out, get it out. And they worked some magic, and it was December 21st. We were still waiting, though, for the, the genetic sequencing, to come back, because if I had the gene, we were going to take them both. My left was clear. My right or sorry, my left was malignant, malignant. My right was clear, and so it was. Are we going to take them both? Well, if you have the gene, then the other one's just you're. You're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, even though most women don't have the markers.
Miranda:But I did ask at the time. So when it came back and I didn't have the markers, I'm like so should we just take? A lot of people would just take them both, and they said, no, you don't have to. Don't do that. If it an extra surgery, it's an extra recovery, it's a lot harder on your body, you don't have to do that. So let's, we'll do just the left. And I said okay, asap, and the schedule will work some magic, and it was december 21st. So guess how I spent christmas?
Miranda:yeah, exactly wow um, it was a. It was an overnight stay. It was actually pretty easy, it was pretty quick, but it was an overnight stay and then they sent me home with medications and again, how long before I can work out again? Four weeks was the answer. Four weeks, four weeks. And in between all of this it's like hurry up and wait, okay, do this and wait. So we were like doing this testing and then wait, and it was a lot of like one step forward, two steps back.
Miranda:How do you tell your kids? How do you be, how do you tell? My kids were six and eight at at the time and I was 42 and they were boys. So my littlest one is like, well, am I going to get it because you had it? And I was like, well, I hope not. And he's like, can boys get it? We don't have boobs. We don't have boobs. And I'm like, yeah, you don't, but men can still get it, but it's much, much more rare. But again, it was out of from the lips of babes, right, like it's one of those. That was probably the hardest thing, right, and it's like you're trying to be strong but at the same time, they need to know that you're. That was the hardest part, man. They need to know that you're.
MJ:that was the hardest part, man. That's a scary, scary thing to go through on your own, but then to have small children to have to explain it to and explaining it to them brings out even more emotion. It's, it's a lot, it is a lot.
Miranda:And I, I put it out in the commute once, once I was able to verbalize it, because that made it real. Right, okay, I'm done. Crying in the shower I can say this now I have cancer. It makes it real. And I put it out in the community because I knew I'm not the one in eight. Come on, there's women in this community who have or aren't going through it, and there were.
Miranda:And so, like the whole next few months and even like the next year of all of this was so tied into my supernatural journey, and it was so. It was my. I went in and I smashed these targets when I was feeling overwhelmed and mad Like you. You go get the rage out, I do those rock cards, I go get the rage out, and then I have ones that are going to make me cry and even do the meditations. I could not go into the meditations, not at that time. That was not a thing I could do. Later, yes, but I kept going and I kept working out all the way up until the day before my surgery, because it it was therapeutic for me and it just helped me work through it, you know, made me stronger. And so when I told my kids and I'm like they're like, well is, how bad is it? And again, I wasn't staged yet and I didn't know, and I was like it doesn't matter, I'm going to fight. I'm almost a fighter. We're going to fight, right, because what's the alternative? We're going to fight and you're going to. How can I and how can I help, right? But they worry, you know they worry and all of their little worries and insecurities, all of them come out like at bedtime, right, and then it's like okay, one more day, we're going to get through one more day. And so we just kept plugging along to that, marching towards that surgery date. And we took just the left side, stayed overnight when they did it.
Miranda:They also did a sentinel node biopsy, where they go and they inject you with dye right before the surgery and they can check to see if it has gone into your lymph nodes. And at the time when they do that you also agree. If they think that it has gone into any of your lymph nodes, they're just going to take those too. So, coming out of my surgery, the surgeon and like they look at those. So they took three at the same time with my surgery because they traced it to three of my lymph nodes, um, and at the time of the surgery their first glance in the OR said it's not in your lymph nodes.
Miranda:So we went into Christmas. I was doped to the gills pain meds, but we went into Christmas thinking I was clear Wasn't in the lymph nodes. Thank you, right, right. Two steps forward, three steps back, and then the pathology report comes out and says, just kidding, it was two out of the three. I'm like, okay, okay, merry Christmas. Okay, awesome, cool, great. And then it's a well, we're all like, okay, what next? So it's let it soak in. And then I couldn't work out yes, because I'm still in this four week moratorium. And so it's like, okay, what do we do next? So then they're like well, we're going to do a PET scan, p-e-t scan.
Miranda:I cannot remember what that stands for either, but they inject you with radioactive sugar because your canceller will feed off of that and it will light up in this particular scan if it hitched a ride on your lymph nodes and is anywhere else in your body. So we put that on the calendar. We had that done. Put it on the calendar for January 12th and in the meantime I'm still trying to get better. And when you have any type of surgery like this, they put drains in because when you have cuts, whatever, your body flushes the area with fluids and all of that. If you leave it in there, it's bad, it can cause infections. All of these things I did all the right things. I got them taken out when we were supposed to, and all of that. I got the all clear to take them out heading into New Year's. And then infection and I ended up back at the emergency room because it was just like out of the blue and I was still on like rotating Tylenol, ibuprofen, so I didn't have a fever.
Miranda:I didn't have some of the warning signs to go with it.
Miranda:So all of a sudden, it was just like it's red, it's inflamed, it's hot, it's gross, it's right. And I'm like sitting there crocheting and I was like, am I having a hot flash or something? What is going on? What's happening? And my husband looks at me and he's like your tank top is wet. And I was like he's like you're oozing. I was like, ah, oh God, what is happening? And he's like we probably should take you to the emergency room. Isn't this what they said to look for? And I was like I don't know Where's the paper. And so we're like trying to find the paper that has the things that we were supposed to watch for. And I was like, oh yeah, look at that right there. Okay, we should probably go to the emergency room. It's like New Year's man.
MJ:Oh it's crazy, it's at night I'm in Colorado.
Miranda:It had snowed, the roads were terrible, mom's 45 minutes away, my sister's 45 minutes away, my mother-in-law is 45. Like we're kind of in the middle of everybody.
Miranda:I have a lot of family here. My dad is up north, like, but they're all 45 minutes to an hour away on snowy, icy streets. So I'm like it's eight o'clock at night, we're gonna throw the kids in the car. I'm texting my mom Can you get to my house, can you come stay with the kids? She's like, yeah, absolutely. So he drives me to urgent care and drops me off because he's going to go take the kids back home and leave them with my mom.
MJ:Right.
Miranda:And I walk up to the urgent care and it closed at eight. Oh no, he's texting him Come back, go back, go back. Oh no, he's like well, you're lucky. I was just down the street at the gas station because we need a gas. He comes around, comes back, drives me across the street to the gas station because we need a gas. He comes around, comes back, drives me across the street to the hospital, drops me off at the hospital by myself. This is january 2022. Everybody's hacking and coughing it's still covid times, right like it's like, oh, awesome. And so he drives the kids back home, leaves them with my mom, comes back and so then they go through all this stuff. And again it's New Year's and I'm like, oh, this is stupid. And they're like we've reached out to your surgeon. The surgeon on call looked at everything.
Miranda:We're going to admit you and I'm like I thought they were just going to give me some antibiotics and send me on my way and they're like no, we're going to admit you. She wants to see you in the morning and look at it herself. I'm like okay, um, so I tell my husband. I'm like, tell my husband. I'm like okay, I'm here, we're good, we know what's going on, we know what the path forward is Go home. The kids are going to freak out. Go home, Be with them. I'm okay. I'm okay. What can you do here with me? You're going to sleep on this uncomfortable couch that you haven't slept on since our kids were born. Right, those awful couches in the hospital rooms that, like they fold out. No one's sleeping on that and I was like and I don't have my earplugs and you're going to snore, you're going to say that you didn't sleep, but you're going to snore and it's going to keep me awake.
Miranda:Go home. I love you. I know you're here with me, but no one's going to do anything if we don't get a good night's sleep. So they're like pumping me full of IV antibiotics which I find out I'm allergic to.
MJ:Oh yes.
Miranda:I'm not allergic to anything like in my whole life and all of a sudden I'm like y'all, I'm really itchy. It's like 3 am and I've already gone through one bag of the stuff and they're about to switch it out for like the next bag of the stuff and I'm like should I be red like this? Should this be itchy?
MJ:Right.
Miranda:They're like, uh, no, no, no, no, okay, so we're going to keep giving you IV fluids, but we're going to wait for your doctor to come in in the morning and see what she wants to do. I'm like, okay, so it was a, it was a rough night, but it was again. It was the shit. My surgeon comes through in the morning and she's like, okay, well, we're going to see, cause they're taking blood all the time at this point too, and checking like my white blood cell count and they're like, if it's not responding to the antibiotics, that means you've got like. So I think it's called cellulitis, which is a skin infection, right? Um, and if that's the case, we have to take you back to the emergency or not? The emergency room, the operating room, um, open it, reopen everything, flush it out clean it and we start over, which we did not have to do, thankfully.
Miranda:So the antibiotics did their job and then they sent me home. They actually put another drain back in. We left that bad boy in there for like longer than we needed, to be sure, right, even as uncomfortable as it was, because they're the most uncomfortable things in the world but we left it. And then, once all of that was said and done, I came home. The antibiotics worked, the pain meds again, the drain, and so like it was another like week or two, right, and then it was like, oh hey, you can go do your PET scan now. So it was still a lot of hurry up and wait and hurry up and get the next thing. And and oh, by the way, you got the final pathology report and you're stage two because of the. I think I was stage two A just because of the size of everything. But oh, we think we got it all. You've got good margins, all of these things. So that was all good news.
Miranda:And then you get to go do get injected with radioactive sugar and scanned and go see if it hitched a ride on your lymph nodes and is anywhere else. So I went and did that and my scan came back clear. So it was like yeah. So it was like, okay, I can breathe, it's not anywhere else and the whole time, like the family is everybody's there for me. It's really, really great Work, is they? My coworkers are the best. They arranged like a meal train for me. If you've never heard of that. It's a people sign up, there's a calendar and they sign up to bring you food and they're like just dropping it off on my porch, leaving recipes. I have so many Tupperwares the kids are eating and I'm not cooking. It was, it was wonderful, it was the greatest.
Miranda:And so I got to kind of do what you need to do. Right, you need to heal, you need to, but I didn't have my outlet, I didn't. So I'm like posting and I'm like scrolling through and I'm seeing other people doing stuff and I remember posting something in the community there was one that was like I'm sitting there and I lay in bed with my little one at night till he falls asleep. We have we always have dad sits in with the oldest one. I we always have dad sits in with the oldest one, I sit in with the youngest one. Sometimes we flip-flop, but that's what we do, because at some point they're not going to want to do that anymore and I'm just going to ride that train until it stops, because this is when these questions come out.
Miranda:And so I'm sitting there and I'm scrolling through the community and there's somebody doing Tutu Tuesday and there's these people out there doing these side-by-sides and my son I thought he was asleep, I thought his eyes were closed and he's like why are they wearing tutus, mom? And I was like, well, it's Tutu Tuesday. He's like I don't know what that is. And he's like how come you didn't do it? Is it because you're still healing? And so, like that, all of these things come out. And so I remember, like posting things like that and still staying engaged with the community, and it was helpful for me, you know, to take that and put it out there and still get responses back and seeing you guys in your tutus, like I had the biggest smile on my face. I missed it so much and it was like why this is crazy, this is crazy. Why do I missed it so much? And it was like why this is crazy, this is crazy, why do I miss this so much? So I waited four weeks to the day before I could get back in again and in the meantime I also had to do well.
Miranda:And then I started radiation. I did a three-week course of radiation and, like, through all of that, they tell you physical activity. I'm seeing all these statistics, right, like how much it knocks down the chance of recurrence, and it's not a small number. I'm a math person. Okay, it's like 20, 30%, it's like it's in that it's a pretty big number, it's significant. If you do 30 minutes a day, your doctors are telling you to do this anyways. They've been telling me to do this for years. Could you fit in 30 minutes a day, five days a week of cardio, maybe a couple of days of resistance training, which is what they started to add in once I went to PT, but I'm not going to get up at four in the morning and drive to the gym in the cold in Colorado.
Miranda:I tried, we did, I did. I had a membership, so it was also my physical therapy, right. And then they kept saying well, you're going to be tired. You're going to be tired because you don't have anesthesia. You're going to be tired because your body is healing. You're going to be tired because radiation itself doesn't so much take it out of you, but you're having to go do it every single day. So it's five days a week for however many weeks, and just that it just takes it out of you. I mean, my drive there and back was longer than the actual treatment, but the whole common theme through all of it was if you're feeling this, go get some exercise, go outside, go for a walk, get in the sun, whatever. And so we did a little bit of that. But I waited like four weeks to the day and like got in and felt like coming home Right, like it was, like my body wasn't ready. It really wasn't. It was so tight and twitchy the nerves and everything in places that I did not anticipate all down my side.
MJ:Oh, wow it was crazy.
Miranda:Um, just like where it was. It was all down my like way down into my side, my ribs and stuff down here. Everything just kind of went. What did you do to us? And so those flowy flows started with lows and those flowy flows helped me stretch without hurting too much. Um and again, like just being able to post in the community about how I was feeling and how my body was feeling. The comments, the support, the coaches were in there cheering me on and it just it was cathartic, it was healing.
MJ:Yeah, that's a good word. I can. I can totally relate to that, for sure.
Miranda:So it was just something I needed to come back to, you know, and like eventually, like I get, and then I was like real spotty. So I just kind of fell off and my energy tanked and I was just kind of out of it for a while. But throw a workout in here and there, and I'd have. I remember when I, when I did a post, and I kind of like in here and there and I'd have. I remember when I, when I did a post, and I kind of like went back through my journey and I looked at the calendar and it was like I'd have a streak for a week and then I'd be off for two or three and then I'd have a streak and then I'd be off and then I'd have a day or two. It was real spotty all through, like summer of 2021.
Miranda:Um, but I was going to PT and she was like a lot of women who come see me after something like this can't even wash their own hair, Like they can't because it's still so tight, and whatever. She's like what are you doing? I was like let me tell you about this little thing, Lord, vomit, Like it. Just let me tell you all of this stuff. And she's like huh, that's really cool. Let me. I think I could recommend that for some people.
MJ:Right Um yeah.
Miranda:So that was that was really fun. And so she was like after a while like I went and they worry about because they took lymph nodes, they worry about lymphedema, um, but that movement inherently has a little bounce to it. It's going to help that stay away and not set in, because there's not really anything.
Miranda:Yeah, just movement is going to help stave that off. Um, so like she's like, yeah, just just keep doing what you're doing. And I'm like okay. But I had kind of fallen off the wagon. I was like, yeah, all right, fine, the energy, my energy had kind of tanked, but I was still there. I was still looking at the community. I was still like, okay, I need to get back, it's going to be better for me. Still like, okay, I need to get back, it's going to be better for me.
Miranda:And I ended up like I ended up with COVID, the very end of my radiation treatments. My dear child brought it all home for us for the first time for Valentine's day. I remember it was Valentine's day and I'm like testing every day, like I find fine, I feel okay. But it was still a time where the last thing you want to do is go walk into a cancer treatment center where these people already have tanked immune Cause it wasn't just radiation, it was radiation chemo, it was like a whole center and you don't want to go in there and give it to all these other cancer patients who are fighting for their lives.
Miranda:So they're like okay, have you come up? And I'm telling them this. I'm like my son's positive. And they're like are you? And I was like no, so I'm wearing like the super mask every time I go in. And my very last treatment I finally popped up positive and they're like here's what we're going to do. We're going to move you to the end of the day. We're going to have two techs stay past five o'clock. They're going to take care of you. Everybody else will have gone home. I walk in there and they're in like the full up suits. I'm in my N95 mask and I'm like, oh my God, I just want to get through this.
Miranda:This is the last trip because you have to do it on schedule, because it builds and even once you stop, it continues to build in your body. It doesn't really, it just keeps going. It doesn't even really like taper off for a while after you're done with treatment. I was like we need to get this last one done. We can't just like push it into next week or the week after that. It was like 12 days or something like that on the first time before I tested negative again. But it was like, well, we're going to do this, it's your last treatment, we're going to do it and we're going to be done. So we did.
Miranda:But I remember that too. It was I was February, like first through the 21st, basically of 2021. And then and then we were done. And then it was like, okay, what next? Then? What? Well, now you can think about whether you want to do a reconstruction or not. But if you do because you've been radiated, it's common practice to wait at least a year, because it changes those cells, it changes the musculature beneath it. You need to give it time to soften back up and to just heal. And I was like a year, a year, what am I going to do with myself for a year?
MJ:Guess what.
Miranda:Supernatural, yeah, heal and supernatural and physical therapy. But it took me time to get back in, yeah, but that was that's a lot, that's a lot.
MJ:Well, I'm interested. You got away from getting in, from keeping your streak, from keeping the commitment of exercise, basically, yeah, yourself right. What was it that got you back in that finally clicked for you? Because ultimately, it always has to be us accepting and deciding to commit to do it, and usually there's a little push. There's usually something that happens, or a community or a workout, even something that you just want to get back in. For what was that? Do you remember what that was for you?
Miranda:It was some of the external communities.
Miranda:I started seeing competitions and I started I mean, the other community, the main community, was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Right Boxing was out and they were pushing it for Christmas and all of that stuff and there was a lot more people in there and it felt not as personal to me, as intimate, as intimate yes, yes, that's the word. And so I was like man, I need something, I need some sort of motivation. And so I started seeing posts for like Ukeland and that was it wasn't called that at the time, but they were doing brackets and so I you can see it in my journey, you can see, like the week that they were doing brackets and it was like I, it was like every other day I was in always got knocked out in the first round.
Miranda:So that was my on week that I was done and that was like through the summer and like I remember taking my headset with me, we went on a vacation. We had this big, beautiful house with a pool and it was really cool Like doing a bracket, a bracket doing like a high boxing for the first time, because it was whatever came out that day. You had to do it and go against somebody and I was like man, I've never done a high boxing before. I don't know if I could do this, but I did it. And then I went and jumped in the pool and that was the best thing ever. Yes, because I don't have that here in Colorado.
Miranda:It's pools are not a common thing, um, but they, they are where we were visiting and, um, so having that and having having like a competition, like oh, I got to get in today because I've got to do this Right, whatever, um, so you can see it like you could see it on the calendar, you can see like a week on and then like some time off, and then you guys would run, they'd run another one, and it was like a week on and then some time off, and then like brackets were like meh, okay, we're not really going to do those anymore. And then there was team competitions came out, and so I think the first one- was our was Harry Potter.
MJ:Yes, the end-ish of 2022 was when we did our first team competition in Oakland.
Miranda:Yes, yep, I always mix it up Gryffindor baby From day one you've been a Gryffindor.
MJ:Seriously, why did I think you weren't a Gryffindor the first year I was a Gryffindor? The first year? I've always't a Gryffindor? The?
Miranda:first year I was a Gryffindor. The first year, uh here.
MJ:I'm gonna interrupt this because I haven't come. We haven't had a podcast episode, but I did speak about how we were gonna do our this year's Harry Potter tournament and I was taking some time off to to focus on that with the community and everything. But for the third year, slytherin won, but Gryffindor we tied with Gryffindor. They also won. Gryffindor won year three. Slytherin won year three. We had the exact same amount of participation, which was so close to a hundred percent. It's huge. Everyone showed up. Everyone showed up, every single workout, yep.
Miranda:We had a hundred plus people and it was just something about the team. Workouts motivate me more and I was thinking about this because there's a question that I was thinking about and it shouldn't surprise me, but it didn't click for me until literally like midnight last night. It shouldn't surprise me that the thing that brought me back was the social aspect of it.
Miranda:The connection the connection, the human, the connection, the teams, the. I'm gonna film myself in the stupidest costume and put it over here because it's private community. It's a big community but it's private, it's not 50 000 or 100 000. But it took me a lot. It took me a lot to be able to do that because I'm sitting over and I'm like, well, do I put in my my, my falsity, do I cause I'm anytime I'm going into work or whatever? There's aspects to that. And finally, it just took getting comfortable with my own body, as it was Right. Um, and doing these competitions. You can't tell you, do these, I'm this big. What was I freaking out about? You know? Well, I remember.
MJ:I specifically went searching to see when you came into my orbit, when we started, when I started noticing and knowing you and getting to know you, and um, I went back through and you had commented about sending in a video for a group, side by side, and it really touched me because I could tell you wanted to do it but you didn't feel. You know you were scared. A lot of people, it's a lot to put yourself on video. It's scary, it's very scary.
Miranda:You're not looking at it that way, but we're always so critical of ourselves, exactly, and you just gotta.
Miranda:It's a whole mental block it is you just gotta take the jump and just do it. So there's like there's pictures of me. We had like an ugly sweater thing going on. I don't it was like that christmas or something, because I remember I had like this elf and it had it was boxing and I had these elf legs that were like dangling and going around the itchiest, ugliest sweater on the planet, oh my gosh. And like a Santa hat. And I did it in Nightmare, before Christmas came out that year, like during Disney villains or something like that, or well, I guess it was during Harry Potter. And then I did it in a Jack Skellington onesie.
MJ:You did, I went off the deep end right, like you were all in, and that's what I love. Like, yeah, if you're going to do it, go all in.
Miranda:You know just go, just do it. That's how. So that was like the end of the and you can see it right, like I can't for for this, I went and I scrolled back through all of this stuff. You can see so right like radiation was February. I waited even some time after that. You can see March, april, may, june, July, august, september, spotty Right, spotty Off, and on and off and on. I restarted my streak. I don't know how many times it's in one of my posts I started, fell off and restarted. A lot of times, but times it's in. It's in one of my posts. I started restop, fell off and restarted a lot of times.
Miranda:But the thing that came that brought me back was the team workouts, and it wasn't just Ukeland, it was um, I did uh.
MJ:Supernatural SNCE. Yeah, supernatural uh events community events. Yeah, they do their competitions.
Miranda:And then once I would did a. I did, though. I did like a euclid one and I did the snce one and I was like I don't and that one. Those ones are intense, right, they're a week and you have a lot of workouts. It's like 70, 80 minutes commitment to cap or what you know. Whatever it is, it's a, it's a lot, and I was like man, I don't know if my body can do this, but it did.
MJ:Yeah.
Miranda:And I was so like man, this is awesome. And then that brought me into, like the smack group, the um, supernatural metal athletes right Like cause, I was asking. I was like, what other communities? This? This is what I needed, this is what I've been looking for. And so that's when I ended up on my beast mode team and a big shout out to my beast mode girls. Right Like, for me, the social aspect is everything.
Miranda:Like I said, my husband could care less. I'm his social, I'm on his leaderboard. I know a couple of our friends, right Like he doesn't really care, but like he's sitting there with me and we're like playing in competitions and I'm snort laughing and he's like, oh God, what a banana. Say now, like he knows he knows everybody, he knows my smack girls, he knows the beast mode girls. We're going for a meetup. Like in like a few weeks, you guys get to meet. I'm so excited In person. In person, it's going to be awesome.
Miranda:And it's like people are like. They're like internet people. You've never met them before. They could be serial killers, you don't know. And I was like I know I've known them for like a year and a half now. So that was all like beginning of 2023, when it really just clicked, clicked. The community part clicked. It was the community and it was so everything that I needed, that I didn't know I was missing and it was so important to find those people. And there have been ups and downs and ins and outs, but like that's it's still just again, like the theme that kind of runs through it all is the people that I found.
MJ:Yeah, because you connect with them. They rely on you. There's this aspect of teams and the external communities that you can't get from just the main community. You know, yeah, people are relying on you. You know that, yeah, and so you show up. Yeah, and so you show up and you do for them what you sometimes won't do for yourself, and then that makes you stronger, feel stronger, you feel better. You're giving that energy to other people. It's just this very symbiotic situation.
Miranda:And it becomes this okay, well, I'm going to stop creating these excuses for myself, even too right, like there were times. It's people that are going to check on you when you go dark that you wouldn't have thought. And again, it's the same type of thing where, if you've got someone who you have, this commonality, you have this something that brought you together, but at the same time, they just, these friendships and these relationships develop and they notice when you're not there. Yeah, notice when you're quiet, but it's, and it's so much more than supernatural. I can go talk to them about anything. Yeah, laugh about anything, cry about anything, you know. Again, I've got, I've two adhd kids, and sometimes it's so much. But until you talk to other people and they're like, oh well, I have adhd and I can tell you what it does for me, or I also have kids who are struggling with this, and as a mom, it's you know. Or as a dad, or you know, um, and it's just everything for me. It just it's supernatural, is like the roots of it, but it just bloomed at that point into this big, full embracing thing that I crave now, that like it's like who am I, who is this person? Again, like I don't know why.
Miranda:I'm surprised because in my past life as a gamer it was always I'm not going to get in there and go do this by myself. I was always at a minimum with my husband, and then it was like a group of so-and-so and then it was like big groups of so-and-so taking down this huge monster. So we did like raids and so like. When we did these huge online group things, right, it was always a social thing. We're in discord, there's a ton of us talking, we're working together for this common goal, and then that was like all through the gamer stuff, right.
Miranda:And then, even when I was had other fitness journeys, it was never by myself. It the ones when it worked for me. It was because I had a friend who was going with me. We went and we did these classes together, or you had like a group thing you would go in and you guys had like a group share, and so it was for me it was never a solo journey. Yeah, I don't know why, it clicked for me literally last night that it's the social part of it that I relate to Same.
MJ:So, yeah, it just that's absolute same for me and I think because finding the teams, finding our people in our group, it's really motivated myself, and I know you as well, because now you're a team leader, now you're helping other people find their people and encouraging large groups to do things they thought they could never do. You know, that is what it feeds our soul in a way we didn't even realize we needed, um and it. It keeps us showing up every day.
Miranda:It does, it keeps this journey going right. Like how many? Again. It's like I, I could fall off anytime, any day, but I'm going to come back for this, that or the other thing, or like it really just became part of my routine. And you know, I think if I was alone, I probably would have fallen off by now. Yeah, you know, I think if I was alone, I probably would have fallen off by now. Yeah, you know, and it was. It was also again. It's like the just this thread and it's uncomfortable and I don't want to go through the rest of my life like this, right? So it was a decision that I made.
Miranda:And so while I'm doing these team events and I'm so like beginning end of 22, beginning of 23, I'm starting to look at the options. What type of reconstructions can we do? What are the different things? And so I had been referred to a specific plastic surgeon and I had gone to see him and we did not click. So PSA number two, four, seven I don't know what we're on now, but this is the other PSA be your own advocate for your health.
Miranda:And if you don't click with somebody, if this is a person who's going to be cutting you open and doing something to your body. If you don't click with them, you go talk to somebody else. You have that right. Yep, you ask for a second opinion and they're not going to be offended. This is their job, this is their life. People do this all the time. We have a program through my work. Even that is an entirely separate medical help for the employees. You have to release your medical files to them, but they have their own experts on staff. They were sending me pamphlets. They were sending me information. They were sending me books. They were like we can set up a meeting, we'll give you second opinions, we'll have our surgeons look at it and see if what they're saying makes sense for you and it was just a completely unbiased second set of eyes, like information.
Miranda:You've got to be the advocate for that. These are your doctors. You trust them, you expect them to be the experts and tell you what they think is right. But if you feel in your gut that it's not for you, then it's not going to hurt anything to talk to anybody else. Again, there was a lot of hurry up and wait and I was like or in February, right, february was my one year past radiation. I was like, okay, let's go, I'm ready, come on, let's go.
Miranda:Except, I didn't like this guy and so I went back to my surgeon the one who did not kick me out for asking if there was somebody else, if she couldn't do it soon enough, because I clicked with her when she said I like putting cancer in buckets. I was like you're my girl, all right, cool. So I was like, if you and I talked to my primary care doctor the one who saved my life, right, who? The one who said, nope, it's probably nothing, but go get it checked Right, and she's also awesome, like I could see myself drinking a glass of wine with her, having a care team that you can be yourself with and that you can be open with and talk to. I went to them and I'm like I need somebody else. Who can you, who should I talk to? And they each gave me some names and I picked like a common name off of that and made an appointment with them and, even though it pushed it out, so come like April, march, april, so we're past that year mark.
Miranda:So it pushed things out, but I went and I got a second opinion. I talked to this other person and it turns out she did an entirely different type of surgery that I was way more interested in. And the stuff that the first guy was telling me was all based off of the one procedure that he knows how to do, and the information he was giving me about the one that she does was not entirely from a place of knowledge. And so once I started talking to her I was like, oh, oh, well, that sounds like a thing I might be interested in. And so there was a lot of go and research and look at it. Now this surgeon, this is going to come back to Supernatural. I promise had it. Now this surgeon, this is going to come back to supernatural. I promise this surgeon um was also very similar to me very blunt open. She's like okay, well, if you do this, it is no joke, you need to train for this, like you're going to train for a marathon.
Miranda:And so the type of surgery that I did it is, I think they're going to I think it's called like a deep D-I-E-P or D-E-I-P flap, so they use your own body's tissue to and relocate it. So they take it out of my abdomen with certain blood supply and a very small fraction of, like intestine right Because of the abdominal muscle, because it has to have a blood supply. But it's like a huge surgery. It's like 10, 12, 13 hours. It is a massive surgery. It is. They have two surgeons in there with you. They've got a microsurgery because they have to stitch all of the blood supply together once they take it off of here and put it up here.
Miranda:But there is no foreign body in my body. I didn't have to do expanders, I didn't have to do an implant. That was not the best option for me that the person was selling me to begin with because of my radiated tissue. Because of my radiated tissue. It would not. It potentially would not respond the way that we think and it could fail. There's risk with any surgery. Okay, and that was my case, that may not be someone else's case. That was the case for me.
Miranda:I learned recently, now that I've done this, that having my own tissue there and your abdominal tissue, your baby belly, is the closest to actual breast tissue, so that's why they use it. It also had a lot of high risk of failing. What if the what if it started dying? What if it didn't have the blood supply? And if it's going to do it, it's going to do it within the first 48 hours or even during the surgery. They're going to take it out. They're going to cut you open. They're going to take it out. They're going to cut you open. They're going to get in there and realize that the radiation shriveled up all of your veins and arteries and there is no blood supply to give it. And then they close you up and you go home and you've done all of it for nothing. But the odds of that it's not zero.
Miranda:However, she said, because it's such a huge surgery, you need to train for it Like you're going to train for a marathon. I want you building up your endurance. I want you pounding protein like nobody's business. You need to up this. You need to up this because I want. You're going to come in at this level and it's going to lay you flat for months. This is harder than your mastectomy. This is like three times harder than your mastectomy. You're going to come in at this level and it's going to level you down to here. So if you can bump that up your starting point, it's only going to drop it here and you won't have. So that's how she put it to me. So how did I train for this surgery that I wanted?
MJ:You joined lots of team competitions. I know that much. I remember you were a part of every team competition.
Miranda:I was. I did as much as I thought. And not only that, but I started going for long because I was doing 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Boom in, out, done Right, dude, I went part-time. I actually went part-time. Yeah, I went part-time in like spring of 2022. Cause I was like how am I supposed to?
MJ:work full-time. How am I?
Miranda:supposed to work full-time? Yeah, we were starting to go back into the office. I have a 45 minute commute. I'm like how am I supposed to, mom, work full time and work out and build, build back me and take care of me, because the physical activity aspect, as we already said, is a huge deal. I don't want this coming back.
Miranda:Self-care, all of that is huge and you have got to stop feeling guilty about it. Women, men too probably right Like there is no shame if it's going to make your life better and it's going to make you stick around better and you're going to be a better person and be in a better mood and a healthier person. All of the things that they tell us, except our brains don't like to actually listen to. And so I had to something, had to, had to give, and I was lucky enough. Not everyone can do this and I know that I was lucky enough that I could take a step back, because my husband was doing well on his side of things, you know and so I was able to cut back and take the time, and so I'd be in there and I started working out mid morning and I started going from 30 minutes to 40. And then I went from 40 to 45 and then I went from 45 to 50 and I just kept bumping it up and then I was doing an hour and then I needed to buy this other headset with the battery that I could swap and everybody told me about, and so then I needed extra batteries and but again, I was still always just doing it with the teams and with the groups and it just pulled me in and pulled me through and then I started bumping up intensities, even in 22,. Even with the competitions, I could count on one, maybe two hands.
Miranda:The number of high intensity workouts that I did Like that was not my thing. I was like these are stupid. Who does this? This is not a workout. This is. I'm back in Beat Saber. What am I doing on Expert Plus? This is stupid.
MJ:Oh, and you were loud and opinionated about it, because I remember I remember specifically having a conversation, not just with you but one of my fellow admin. Like she is very vocal about this and she's going to create some negativity. People are not going to believe in themselves that they can do these highs. Like we have to get to the shit. Like we have to talk to her. We need to work out with her, we need to show her how capable she is. Like help her feel that way and that's a big part of our competitions is helping people discover that they're fully capable of doing all these hard things you hadn't gotten there, yet I remember the first one was.
Miranda:I think it was during Wizard of Oz and I think it was, or I don't remember this, but I thought it was. I thought it was there was. I know I have a post about courage. Show me something, you're courageous. But then there was also one that was a go back and revisit a workout that kicked your butt, yep, and come away with it with a yellow box. Go see if you can do better. And that was like April, may, right, when I was starting to do this slow build, and I went back to uh, is this workout that my husband loves? I will find you the card. It is a high intensity.
Miranda:I couldn't do it. When it came out, I made him do it because I couldn't do it. Um, it was somewhere in the range of my surgery, recovery, pt, something, um, and for whatever reason, I went ahead and tried it anyways. I think. I think it was between the mastectomy and when I was like building back up. It might have been over that summer and it laid me flat and I was like I did it because of the music. It's a rock hard, it's called Becoming the Bull. It's got like a treu and trapped.
Miranda:All your kind of dance and polyamorous and it had Rise Against in it and it was my music. I'm a rocker girl but like I was flat on the floor but I did it. And so then in the competitions I came back and I said this is going to be the one that we're going to redo. I remember when it was I did it in a party. I did it in a party. I did it with, like beast mode girls. It was during a time when we were had to do mad houses. It was May because I also that's the first time I did all the mad houses back to back and that was dumb.
MJ:I think that would have been the Ukelympics and it was the anniversary team event we put on because it was our year of having Ukeland open. That's right and we did an Olympics thing because I was on a different team than you, but you, I don't think we've ever been on the same team. We've never been on the same team. We've never been on the same team. We should fix that. Oh, we should, we should, we definitely should. Maybe later this year or at the beginning of next year?
Miranda:Wait a second. I have a feeling that would be too much awesome in one place, and maybe that's why.
MJ:They might not allow us. We might get some vetoes. Maybe that's it that might happen.
MJ:Anyway, but you were so sweet, you allowed me to join your team's chat so that I could come to one of your workout parties. And I said hey, I know I'm not on y'all's team, I'm just here to work out with you. Thanks for having me. And what's funny is year, year and a half later, that messenger chat is still in my archived area showing I'm active on a call. It says I'm still in that party. It's like Marla, you're still talking to them. What do you? What is which is broken? But I joined that day that you played all the madhouses back to back. At that point you were not a fan of madhouses. You thought it was dumb. No way anyone could do this as a workout. It's more of like a game. I played one madhouse. It was returned to the madhouse with you. I left that party and the next thing I know I see a post from you that you did them all, all of them, and I just thought to myself she's turning around.
MJ:She's turning around, she's going to be full of herself now and know what she is capable of.
Miranda:Watch out world well, okay, so we have to back up to that, because I was terrified. So I think even during, uh, early in the year, disney, like heroes versus villains, there were like pros only that were in there and I went into them, and so I think I don't think they were mad houses at that time, but I think it was like bring down the house or, and I think it was bring down the house and I was like I went in and I did everything that they did the coaches tell you not to do. I got frustrated, I got upset, I missed a ton, I was beating myself up. I may have cried.
MJ:Yeah.
Miranda:Like I was like this I did all the wrong things that they were coaching you. Like I did not listen to them at all, I didn't even turn them off. I don't think we could at that time but, still I, I did not listen off.
Miranda:I don't think we could at that time but still I, I did not listen, yeah, and I, and I was like this is so dumb, I hate these. I think I had done a mad house, like before that. But and then, like that one, I was like okay, well, I'm not going to get so frustrated about this, and the only way to beat it is to like jump and do another one. And so I did like bring down the house and I was so mad at myself when I was done with it, with my bronze, I was so mad. Why am I so? Why did I care about that? They tell you not to Exactly and I jumped into not in this alone, and I was like this is even more stupid.
Miranda:I'm never going to get these. These are so dumb. This is more stupid. And I like I finished it. I don't think I bailed out of it, I finished it. I think we had to do one. We were doing a side-by-side and we were doing daisies and I don't remember which one that one was in. That's the first pros only I ever recorded.
MJ:That is in, not in the salon. Yeah, it's the third song.
MJ:It's dumb. It's dumb. Well, that was one of the first. That was the first pros only side by side, because I always try and put community side by sides out that are super accessible at all. You know, usually mediums, yep. But we had never done a pros and I was like I'm just going to put it out. You know we're doing two a month, so if they can't do the pros, they can do another one, but I want to do a pros. And I was so shocked when you were like I'm sending a video, I was like what, really Okay?
Miranda:This girl, this girl Right.
MJ:Because at that point she hates pros. Right, we were friendly but we weren't friend, friends yet, we weren't in each other's lives, daily talking. So I knew you as one of the Just Link community. I think this led to that. I think it might have, because we were talking back and forth. You were nervous about sending in a video and I did what I always do and talked you through it. You know like I get it. It's very vulnerable. You're not going to be great at it, but you got 25 other people doing the same thing. Just do it to be with us. You know, yes.
Miranda:Yep, and this was, I think you'll know this, probably off the top of your head. When did Return come out?
MJ:Oh shoot, Was it March? It was March. I can't remember the exact date.
Miranda:Well, funny thing is.
MJ:today is October 4th, and today is the two-year anniversary of Forget the Madhouse, so it would have come out in March. The following year is my thinking.
Miranda:All right.
MJ:I made a list.
Miranda:Okay, my prose journey, my first one, was Forget the Madhouse in January. That is the first prose I ever did was Forget. It was in January of 23 for a competition.
MJ:And then in March.
Miranda:Yes, but when I did it it did not have. So we figured this out too. January 5th it did not have the first song, the lost art of keeping a secret. So it had been out since october and that week, that day even, maybe, because I thought there was someone who did it january 5th and they had that song. And I did it january 5th and they did not. But I did it in jan January for a competition and was like this is the stupidest thing I have ever done. Who does these? Who makes these? So forget, who makes these? Who makes these? Who enjoys these? This is dumb, you people are crazy.
Miranda:Y'all are crazy. This will never be my jam.
Miranda:And then March was Bring Down the House and Not In this Alone, and that was on the same day because I tried. So I did one for the recording, I did one for Daisies and then I was like, okay, well, I'm just going to, I'm going to jump into the other one, cause that's how I got. I got to get over this. I have to get over this fear and I have to get over this depression over not doing well at this and not succeed. It beat me Like they beat me. Oh, come on. And then we did return together in April of 2023. And that is when mouse was born.
MJ:It is. It is when mouse was born.
Miranda:You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. There was so much blowing up. I called into your party chat when you guys were doing it, when it came out that morning, and you did it back to back. We did. Y'all are crazy.
Miranda:I called into it so I could listen, because I was at my kid's dentist waiting room and I'm like listening to you guys on my earbuds and I'm like what, guys on my earbuds? And I'm like what? This is insane, I can't, there's no way, I can't do this. And then I think it was it got put in a competition or whatever. I was terrified and I don't think we were on the same team even at that point, right, like I think I don't remember which one it was, but it was in April of 23, early April of 23. And I was like, oh, I can't, I can't, I can't, I'm not going to. And everyone kept telling me it's better in a party, it is, get in there, do it in a party, it's better in a party. This was after knee strikes came out and I had the coach off, because I think at that time we could do focus mode, or I had Mark turned way, way down and I forgot that there were knees and there's not knees in the first song.
MJ:Right.
Miranda:And then ties that bind comes on and Mark tells you now I think this is a good time. I should remind you that there are knees, and I think I either had him off or turned down, so I didn't hear that warning him off or turn down.
MJ:So I didn't hear that warning, that first knee strike that came on. In the sound that came out of your mouth of shock and surprise, you sounded like a mouse, just like, yeah, that's what it was. And every time a knee would come on you would do it. I was hysterically laughing, you were laughing, everyone in the party, we were having fun. It was fun then. You know it was fun and hence why I'm always like if you're scared to madhouse, do it in a party, I'll play with you, I will play. Reach out to me. If you're scared to play a madhouse, mouse will even play with you. We are huge, huge Madhouse fans.
Miranda:We'll tell that story. Yeah, that is how Mouse was born, and so the nicknames that have evolved from that came through the other competitions. There was the Ukelympics and I was a pirate captain, a rum addled pirate captain on non-scale victory Island, and so then I was captain mouse, sparrow, um, and then there was like a Phoenix team and then so like it's just evolved, and then in May went during, I think, ukelympics. Then that was when I actually this is. This is when the tide turned.
Miranda:Okay, I can tell you exactly when the tide turned because this person who in january not four months before was like this is the stupidest thing on the planet who does these bailed on her husband and best friend. I was supposed I remember it being like a cold, rainy day. I was supposed to go have lunch. I was off and I was supposed to go have lunch with my husband, my best friend and her husband. I have known my best friend since eighth grade, right, like I've known her forever. And I was like, um, I'm not coming. And they're like what are you okay? Are you sick? And I was like, no, but I'm a little bit mad. No, but I'm a little bit mad. And I was like they knew that I was heavy into the supernatural kool-aid at this time.
Miranda:And this is when my my ramp up was starting because, also in may, I remember going to lunch with my mom and my sister, like for mother's day. I had a date on the calendar for July for my surgery. So I had something to work towards and I think this was before well, I don't remember when Mother's Day would have been some time in there, okay but I had bailed on them because I was like, well, we have to do two, and at this time there was welcome, forget and return, and then there was the quick hits forget and return, and then there was the quick hits, and then we had also lumped in bring down the house and not on this alone. Yes, uh, with this, because it's kind of well they had houses on them and whatever.
Miranda:So I was like, well, we have to do two. And it was like pick two out of any of the. I don't remember if it was two specific ones, if it was welcome or if it was forget and return. But somewhere along the way we did some math and it was madhouse math and so it made no sense. But we said, okay, well, you're halfway there, you may as well do them all. And I'm like in one day this why would you? Who can do that? And then this little voice was like you could do that. And then this little voice was like you could do that, you would do that.
Miranda:And we didn't do them back to back. I think we did like a couple and we had like different people with the first ones, we did in the second ones and I think also like in that same time, I also did a workout with. That was the the one that challenged me and I came back to becoming the bull and I beat it by like a ton more. And so the confidence that it all inspired in me who is this person Like? I just I beat this workout that I haven't gone back to since I was at a low point. I beat it and I beat it hard. I bailed on people. I love to do all the mad houses in one day. We did. We did all of them, yep, uh, including bring down the house, and not at this, like we did all of them yeah it was dumb and we've done that since then.
Miranda:Yes, with the madhouse monster, at least once. Yeah, twice.
MJ:I have only completed all four of them. Back to back to back. One time we need to do it again. Thanks for joining us on today's episode of for the love of the map. As always, you can join the discussion in the private Facebook group and follow along with show updates on Instagram and TikTok. Links can be found in the description below. If you find value in the show, please share it with your friends. Your comments, likes and reviews are invaluable and I cannot thank you, guys enough. See you next time.