Two Friends, Same Diagnosis, One Bold Vision

Two breast cancer survivors launch the Stage Hope Podcast, sharing raw stories of diagnosis, motherhood, and finding joy beyond the struggle.

Meet Cassandra Dell and Dr. Kayoll Gyan - an engineer and a nurse scientist, two mothers, and friends who are done waiting for the ‘right time’ to share their stories. In this debut episode of the Stage Hope Podcast, they rip the Band-Aid off and open up about theirbreast cancer diagnoses, treatment journeys, and what it really means to find hope on the other side of a life-altering experience.

From the gut-punch of reading “carcinoma” on a patient chart to making impossible decisions about fertility in the middle of a cancer fight, Cassandra and Kayoll walk through the raw, unfiltered reality of young motherhood colliding with a breast cancer diagnosis. They explore the emotional weight of the diagnostic waiting period, the grief of plans interrupted, and how faith, community, and identity shift when life throws its hardest curveball. What stands out is their shared commitment to talking about cancer not from a place of fear, but from one of resilience, purpose, and even joy - proving that vulnerability and courage are two sides of the same coin.

If this conversation resonated with you, subscribe to the Stage Hope Podcast so you never miss an episode, and leave a review to help others find this community of hope and honest conversation.

Transcript

Cassandra Dell:

Hey, it’s Cassandra Dell.

Kayoll Gyan:

And Dr. Kayoll Gyan.

Cassandra Dell:

And you’re tuned into the Stage Hope Podcast, a place where you can check out from the weight of your everyday worry and...

Kayoll Gyan:

Check in for joy, hopefully some laughs, and skills to do life better to help you center your well-being.

Cassandra Dell:

Welcome, everybody.

Kayoll Gyan:

Man, we are finally here, Cassandra.

Cassandra Dell:

We are here today! So this project, this idea has been a long time coming for the both of us. We both walk different seasons and continue to in our lives, but we are centered and grounded in this project we are kicking off today, right now.

Kayoll Gyan:

I know. I’m excited. I feel like this is something we’ve talked about for so long, whether or not we do it, and the nervousness that comes with doing something so public with such a personal experience. I’m excited and nervous, but excited more to see where this takes us.

Cassandra Dell:

Absolutely. I was talking to a friend about this experience, and it was interesting. I don’t know what we’ll ultimately name the episode, but she was like—and I’m going to use profanity for the sake of this, for the children in the back of the cars that might be listening—she was like, “This is a big ass rip the Band-Aid and go.”

Maybe that captures the attention of everybody. But it is such a private thing. We are choosing to be vulnerable and step into courage in hopes that this will add value to anyone listening.

Kayoll Gyan:

We’re both breast cancer survivors. It’s always the first big Band-Aid. Who do you tell? When do you tell people about this? Even in that early stage of it, there are several Band-Aids that need to be ripped off at different stages.

Since we’re both at the point where we finished active treatment and we’re now in survivorship, it’s another Band-Aid in the sense of, okay, how do we share our story and do it in a way that is honest and compassionate?

We want to be real and hopeful and not necessarily focus so much on the negative aspect of a cancer diagnosis. We know that’s hard, obviously. What bits of hope or truth or joy can we pull from what we went through? I think that’s what we’re trying to accomplish here with this.

Introducing the Hosts

Cassandra Dell:

We’re just going to kick off and really just start telling the audience who we are. I’m going to let you go first.

Kayoll Gyan:

What? Me? I was going to let you go first.

Cassandra Dell:

Okay, okay. I’ll take the mic. Precluding this whole episode, I wanted to ask myself: who is Cassandra Dell?

Kayoll Gyan:

Yeah, I think that’s a good question. Let’s start with, who is Cassandra Dell?

Cassandra Dell:

Who is Cassandra Dell? I am first a Haitian-American. Shout out to my people, okay? We qualified after 50 years. This is very timely. This head wrap is the closest thing I had to red.

Shout out to the Haitian team qualifying for the World Cup after 50 years. I am a Haitian American and I’m excited about that. I am a mother and a wife, a mother of two.

I am a curious person. I would always say charismatic in how I approach, so I can be high energy, but I’m also very introverted. By profession, I studied engineering, but I am in marketing right now as a product manager.

Then the things I like to do for fun: I love to play in makeup and skincare. I love group exercise classes as of late. There are small projects I’m trying to pick up that I feel like are pieces of me, like knitting, but that’s been hard to get to.

I love just being active. I also enjoy mentoring young women and being in a sorority. I enjoy the space of creating community and networking in a way that is genuine, that collectively helps us get better—as I would say, greater together.

I just love being in spaces like that. Anything that is for the progress and bringing light and enhancement to our cultures and our community, I am absolutely here for it. So that’s enough about me.

Kayoll Gyan:

I love that. First you’re an engineer and then all these community things that you like. I think it’s so diverse having so many different lanes that we occupy at the same time. How about me?

How would I describe myself? First, I am a child of God. I’m a believer. I’m a Christian. I am Jamaican. At this point, we didn’t qualify for the World Cup, but still, Jamaica to the world. Let’s go.

Right now, I’m living in Massachusetts, in Boston, but I’m from Brooklyn, New York. I grew up there as well. I’m a mother. I have two boys, and I am a wife as well. I am a person that likes exploring. I like trying new things.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve kind of shifted away from those things that I like and focus more so on things that I have to do, like work, children, and family. I’m trying to get back to trying different things to find out again, what do I like?

How can I fit that into my busy schedule? It’s not always about work. There’s more to life than just what you need to do for a paycheck. I’m hoping that this podcast is one of those spaces for me to explore different identities again.

I’m a big sports fan. I love sports. Basketball is my favorite thing in the world. I always tell Frank that if I didn’t do this, I would love to be a sports journalist or an athlete of some sort.

I’d love just being around the game of basketball, interviewing athletes, talking about their work ethic, how they become great at what they do, and just all the details of that. I really am a big sports fan.

Cassandra Dell:

I love that for you. You tapped into something that was so important. When you become a mom, although we’ve held that role for a short period of time in our lives, it’s something that holds precedence, not only in time but finances and how we occupy space.

It’s a title and a position that we have that maybe takes us sometimes from the creative and leisure parts of our lives. We’ll be talking about that as we grow and develop in this space. So the elephant in the room—the Band-Aid. Let’s just tear it up, okay?

Cassandra’s Journey with Cancer

Kayoll Gyan:

Tell us about your cancer experience, Cassandra. When were you diagnosed? How did you find out? How did that affect you and your treatment experience? I know I’m asking like ten questions right now, but pick from any and start wherever you want.

Cassandra Dell:

I’m not going to even shy away from saying the word: cancer. It is something that you never expect to happen to yourself. Particularly when it was not even a whisper in my family at all. It is something that I saw “out there.”

It was October of last year. To take a step back to September, I felt an “invader” in my breast. I said to myself, “That’s awfully weird that it was there and out of nowhere.” I said, “Okay, don’t panic. It’s probably just a cyst or some sort of benign thing.”

I did my due diligence and headed to my OBGYN. I walked that path. There’s a lot of waiting. It’s not just, “Hey, we go and we’ll have your results in T-minus two days.”

There is imaging and then the actual biopsy to do the pathology report. I say all that for those who do understand that walk. I did imaging and the perimeter looked atypical—not encapsulated as one would imagine.

Let me not get too medical because the bioengineering is kicking in. Long story short, I was diagnosed in October of last year. Oddly enough, it was Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

We didn’t waste any time. I met with the physicians, oncologists, and the team. They said, “We want to make sure we squash this and we eradicate this from your entire body. We want to get started.”

I had to make big decisions like, am I good with the two children that I have? This can affect other things in my body or the future of that. I didn’t want to waste time because I want to be here, healthy, alive, and well for me and my family.

I started treatment in November and underwent that until March of this year. It was like, “Yeah, congratulations. You’re through the chemo round and now you have to prepare for surgery.”

After I went for surgery, I was an in-between candidate for radiation. But knowing me, it’s all or nothing. I said, “Go ahead and burn those cells out.” So we also decided on radiation as well.

I went the whole nine of walking chemotherapy, going through surgery, and doing radiation. I’m expeditiously moving myself forward now, dealing with up-and-down side effects from fatigue to brain fog to physical changes.

As we are both aware, it’s a new you. Right now, I am walking the line of oral treatment and doing my best to strengthen myself not just physically, but also mentally. I know I said a lot there. I don’t want the episode to be too long first round because I know we’ll continue to unravel that.

The Challenges of the Diagnostic Phase

Kayoll Gyan:

You mentioned the waiting part. People don’t realize how long it can take from finding something until you actually get a definite diagnosis or detailed information—not only is it cancer, but what kind, what stage, and what are the receptors on it.

That was very surprising. At least for me, it was scary too. What do you mean you have to wait for these test results to come in? I don’t think that people realize how long it can take before starting treatment. How long was that for you?

Cassandra Dell:

That’s such a good question. From the time of first finding the mass itself and going to the OBGYN versus the first day of treatment, that was at least seven weeks.

I remember it being mid-September, going in 24 hours to my OBGYN, and then not starting treatment until November 14th.

Kayoll Gyan:

At that point when they found out that this was cancer, did they have the information with the type and the stage?

Cassandra Dell:

We had already determined—for those who are in this journey or know about the language—HER2 negative, HER2 positive, triple negative, triple positive. There’s an array of hormones and receptors involved in understanding the “personality” that a cancer takes in one’s body.

By then, they had known all that information. I even went through something called Oncotype, which determines the speed or the aggressiveness of a cancer. All of that was determined prior to the oncology team.

The doctors said, “Okay, this is where we are, you’re going to be fine, this is the start date.” You are processing information at such a rapid rate because you’re trying to understand terms that you never thought would be applied to you. You are also trying to take in: this is happening to me. I am the patient.

Kayoll Gyan:

That’s so true. Even for me, I remember it just felt so surreal. I kept using that word because I just could not believe that I was sitting on that side of the table or that it was happening to me.

You have to be present and aware of what the situation is asking of you. You have to acknowledge this and make decisions, but at the same time, you’re also dealing with the shock of actually being in that situation in the first place.

Cassandra Dell:

Before we flip this to you, I remember the day I was home. My husband had stopped in for lunch and decided to just lay down. I get this alert on my phone like, “Oh, your results are in.”

I’m thinking, because the doctor hasn’t called me, let me just go check my results. They actually ended up apologizing in hindsight, but I had read the information on my own. It was not a call from the doctor’s office. It was me reading my chart.

You think, “If you don’t hear from us, this is good news.” Well, I hadn’t heard from them and I went to go check my chart and I’m looking at the terms. You see that word, “carcinoma,” and I’m crushed as I’m reading it. I’m almost looking for the “it is not.”

I allowed myself to take it in and sobbed. One of the most visceral experiences that you can have is: “How is this happening to me? Why is it happening to me? Is there anything that I did to cause it?” It was just as the tears were pouring out. Holy crap. Those were the first few moments.

Navigating Fertility and Motherhood Decisions

Kayoll Gyan:

You mentioned being in the doctor’s office before you started chemo and that conversation about having more children and fertility. What was that like? How did they ask you the question, and what were you thinking to come to terms with a decision in that moment?

Cassandra Dell:

Great question. For many people who may not know, going through chemotherapy treatment can affect your ovaries and your ability to produce because of the toxicity of the medication.

Mentally, it was a seesaw of gratitude that I had had my children, but also, “How dare this come in and tell me that my second child may be my last one?” How dare you just cut the road and cut the cord?

I felt like it was just disrespectful and invasive. The way that feels like an ultimatum, like you’re at the point of no return—I felt robbed. Why could my body not just go through the natural cyclical expectation?

Life had other plans in that moment. It was a combination of grief but also trying to prioritize what was most urgent, which is my life and being here for the two children that I do have.

Kayoll Gyan:

Did you make the decision during the visit or did you go home and talk to your husband about it?

Cassandra Dell:

I feel like I had made the decision there. It was not absolute, but I was like, “Okay, look, while a third would be lovely, I am on the path of not delaying treatment.”

I didn’t want to allow this thing to create another cell to extend into my body. While I allowed myself to grieve it, I knew immediately that I was not going to go the egg preservation route. I said, “Let’s just move forward.”

Should life choose for me to be in my 40s and have a child, great. But right now, let’s walk in life with our two. It was pretty instant. You’ve posed really good questions. Walk us through the initial days of your diagnosis.

Kayoll’s Discovery and Treatment Journey

Kayoll Gyan:

I realized something was wrong in June 2021. I was going in for my annual physical. My doctor was doing the breast exam and she felt my right breast while we were having a conversation.

Then she feels my left breast. She was like, “Huh, did I feel this before?” I put my hand on my breast and I was like, “No, this is new. I didn’t realize this was there.”

She finished her exam. Of course, you think “cancer,” but in my mind, I’m like, “No.” She thought it was probably just a cyst, so she sent me to get a sonogram.

During the scan, the person doing it said it doesn’t necessarily look like anything serious, but they couldn’t really tell. They said to come back for a follow-up in three months.

Within those three months, I went off because it was summertime and I had plans. I wasn’t going to let this stop my plans. I had planned to go to North Carolina for a wedding, Nashville to visit my friend, and then Texas.

It was my first time traveling solo with the boys. At the time, they were two and four. I was nervous preparing for my first flight solo with them, so I went and I did all of that.

In the meantime, I was still feeling my breast to notice if there were any changes. Sometimes I thought, “Does this feel the same?” I wasn’t quite sure. But when September came, I realized something.

I was actually in a job interview on a Friday and I thought, “Man, my breast hurts. This doesn’t feel right.” We were going to New York that weekend for a wedding and our anniversary. I said, “When I come back on Monday, I’m going to call and make an appointment.”

I called my PCP and told her I felt like the lump was getting bigger. She scheduled me for a follow-up. I went back and they did more scans. That’s when they did a mammogram and a biopsy at their breast oncology unit.

I was waiting to see what was happening. One day, I was in Lowe’s trying to get a fence because a storm had blown my fence down. I was in line and saw my phone ring. I went outside to the parking lot. Frank was in the car.

I picked up the call and I guess the way that I looked, Frank must have seen me from the car because he came out and met me. I put the phone on speaker and the doctor said the test results show that it is cancer.

My heart sank. We went to the car and drove home. I didn’t get my fence that day. I went home, went to the bathroom, and just started crying. I can’t believe this. Frank came and met me and he started crying too.

After a few minutes, I said, “You know what? If God brought us to this, he’ll bring us through it.” After that, my disposition changed. I was like, “Okay, if this is the road that I have to go down, I’m going to do whatever I have to do.”

I was still being treated at this one hospital, waiting to find out any more details. One week went by, then two weeks. Going into the third week, I thought, “No, this is taking too long.” Nobody was calling me.

I did my postdoc at a place in Boston. I emailed my mentor and told him I just got this news that I’m diagnosed with breast cancer. I asked if I should contact the person who had interviewed me for my job. He said, “Yes, you need to contact her.”

He put me on a three-way email with her. She responded and set me up for my first appointment. She told me to get my scans on a CD and have everything transferred to the new hospital. Within a couple of days, I was in her office. By that Wednesday, I was at the hospital where I would be treated.

It was just surreal navigating making decisions for yourself, but also navigating the shock that you are actually a patient now. This cancer got past your defense.

I was writing in my journal that this thing got past my defense without even sounding an alarm, growing and taking up space in my body. I wondered, “Did my body tell me messages that I didn’t listen to? Was I just so focused with work that I ignored the messages it was trying to tell me?”

Cassandra Dell:

You’re nailing it. Your words stick because the feeling is so mutual. How dare this just come in without me noticing? Could I have caught it sooner so that it was just a quick removal?

What I’m capturing from you sharing your perspective is how life is just going. You’re at Lowe’s. Never mind the role of still having to parent and show up at work while you’re waiting. And you don’t look like a patient.

Kayoll Gyan:

Exactly. At that point, I was 33 years old. As you mentioned before, no one in my family had breast cancer or cancer. That word just wasn’t even part of it. It was hypertension or cholesterol.

In my work as a nurse scientist, my work is looking at health promotion. Part of my work focused on cervical cancer prevention and the role of culture in health decision-making.

Another part of my research looks at the role of religion and spirituality as resources to cope with a cancer diagnosis. I was in this space of cancer prevention and treatment research, and I still never thought it would be me.

I just didn’t have the risk factors. I had my children and I breastfed both of them for at least 15 months. I did all the things. I wasn’t overweight and I was always active. It just didn’t make sense to me.

I also did the genetic test to see if I had a genetic predisposition and it was negative as well. Regardless of things not adding up, my present situation said that this was found in my body and I needed to fight it. I ended up having chemotherapy, surgery, and then 25 rounds of radiation.

Cassandra Dell:

How long did it take from that initial diagnosis to actually starting treatment?

Kayoll Gyan:

I first heard the word “cancer” at the beginning of September. It was my PCP who actually told me the results. The people from the breast oncology clinic didn’t call me. That was my first red flag.

She was very supportive and responsive, but not hearing back from the clinic where I was doing my scans wasn’t a good start for me. That was the reason why I switched where I was being treated. I started chemo in October. In all, it was about a month and a half.

Cassandra Dell:

So it’s almost the same timeline, that six to eight weeks.

Kayoll Gyan:

Maybe the timeframe was fine. But the fact that I went three months from the scan to then finding out it’s cancer—I felt like maybe that was my mistake. I should have told them to go ahead and do a biopsy right then and there in July.

I just wasn’t thinking of anything. With them saying it didn’t look like cancer, I kind of just relied on the good news.

Cassandra Dell:

When you don’t know what you don’t know, you’re leaning on professionals who see this every day. I completely understand thinking, “Could I have done it differently?”

When you’re in it, it feels long. It feels like forever. One of the first questions I had was, “Can you just wrap this up and do the surgery?” I want to pose you the same question about children. What was your initial thought around having to make a decision around that?

Kayoll Gyan:

My oncologist said I could do fertility preservation, but that would add another three to six weeks before starting chemo because that needs to be scheduled. As I mentioned, we already had two boys at the time.

I wanted a third child. I had been playing with the idea of it. Around the time I was diagnosed was the time I would have started trying to get pregnant for the third child. I felt robbed in the sense that this cancer experience was potentially taking that away.

I didn’t make the decision in the hospital. But that night, my husband said it was my decision. He was fine with two. But I had envisioned three. That was hard for me.

I came to realize that it was something I actually grieved. I had to take time to grieve not having a third child. But that night I was looking at my children and thought, “I need to make sure I do everything possible to be here for the children I already have.”

That night I called the office and said I’m not doing the preservation process. I wanted to start as quickly as possible. We ended up starting chemo the next week.

Redefining Identity After a Diagnosis

Cassandra Dell:

The stories sound so similar. When we had the chance to connect along my treatment journey, I was amazed at how similar the experiences were: two kids, mothers, and similar lines of treatment.

We’ve walked a battle we didn’t think we would have. How has this shifted your identity in any way?

Kayoll Gyan:

That’s such a good question. I wrestle with that because, as a Christian, I never want to dwell on something negative that doesn’t speak life into me. I wrestled a lot with whether I wanted to talk about cancer.

If I do speak about it, is the way that I speak about it honoring my experience and the revelations I received from God? Is the light I’m shining on the cancer itself and the toll it had on my body?

Or can I talk about it in a way that gives people hope and lets them know that it can be a thing that draws you closer to finding your purpose? It can bring you closer to God, your family, and your community.

I try to have that balance where I don’t glorify the cancer, but talk about it from a lens that gives people hope. I define myself as a child of God, a person that has overcome many challenges, a friend, a mother, and a wife.

I want to help others who may be going through cancer. If I can pull from my own experience of struggle to share nuggets of what I learned, that’s the space I want to move into. I don’t want that alone to be my identity.

Cassandra Dell:

This really shows the rawness and transparency of it. I see it almost like an online journal. Similarly to you, I have walked this path and continue to.

There are still doctor’s appointments and trying to find out what professional spaces look like. You have this thing in the rearview mirror that checks in and out.

Religion was something that I was not well-practiced in prior to treatment. But I found myself leaning on it, whether it be gospel or just words of positivity. In society, we often share once we have gotten through the battle or once the coast is clear.

Kayoll Gyan:

True.

Cassandra Dell:

I hold space for any person walking through a diagnosis like this, because I recognize that when there is fear, we gatekeep. We don’t share that until the coast is clear or we get some sort of medical sunshine.

Kayoll Gyan:

Like there’s a finish line you can kind of see.

Cassandra Dell:

Yes. I want to create a space that lets people know that life does throw curveballs. It’s how we share as humans and how we hold space to support someone that makes us better.

Going back to identity, I’ve always been a natural empath. I want to hold this space here. This connects to my identity because I want to be in conversation.

There’s no quick answer, but I want to create spaces for people to feel like themselves and be vulnerable but courageous. This Stage Hope Podcast allows the parts of me that I hide to unravel.

I was listening to The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett and Brené Brown was on there. She talked about how courage is being vulnerable, but it’s also believing in yourself and following your intuition.

This platform is allowing just that. Going through treatment, you don’t have a choice—you want to live. I want to invite that same energy into mommyhood, creative space, and entrepreneurship.

The Mission of Stage Hope

Kayoll Gyan:

I completely agree. For us, we could see a finish line. But for many, maybe there isn’t a finish line. For some, it’s terminal. Is there a way to still bring hope to those conversations?

Being a believer doesn’t prevent you from going through struggle. It doesn’t extricate you from that aspect of humanity. But what I learned is that it changes the way you struggle.

It changes how you view it or what you take from it. Everybody is going to go through something. For us, that happened to be breast cancer. My hope for this conversation is to provide light or hope in a space that is safe and trusting.

Cassandra Dell:

It’s going to be one heck of a journey. Our experiences have led to the Stage Hope Podcast. We hope our listeners find a space that invites joy and living life in spite of the challenges.

It’s not all blue skies and sunny days. Our hope is that we bring laughter and a sense of what it is to be human. We want to share what it means to be resilient, courageous, and vulnerable, all while just having fun.

That is what makes life delicious. I’m excited about it.

Kayoll Gyan:

All right. Well, let’s go.

Cassandra Dell:

Thanks for listening in and see you next time. Bye.