David born fellow podcasting fellowship graduate introduced me to the tom. Offs terry bill ryan and olympia. Terry tom off wrote a book. The focused fight you can see details in the show notes. It's a story about hope. And survival of one ordinary family and their community of support to bring a two year old through five cancers over twenty years three times leukemia and twice adult tongue cancer. The compelling story brings a fresh voice on strength resilience and coping strategies during an extraordinary medical journey. I read the focused fight. Call terry and frankly. I felt reluctant to use my podcasts. To hawk her book make no mistake. The book is gripping well written unusual and informative read it. I highly recommend you read it but read the book. A conversation about the book would be a pale replica of buying so as we spoke memories of my first childbirth. experience flashback. Major health issues are a family affair. The patient is the star but the supporting characters are patients to. I found that a story to reveal the supporting cast would add to the book in these episodes sister. Olivia and the supported families and communities. They are the stars. Let's start with the tom offs themselves. Hi my name. Is lydia tomoe. It's nice to meet you. If i am giving additional information about myself if i would say i live in washington dc. I went to james madison university. And yeah okay. Great so your your claim to fame as far as famous to me is that you're the sister of a brother who has had many go rounds with cancer. I'm just really curious about your first memory of that. My first memory of ryan with cancer do not have very too many memories from before cancer. I would say some of my first memories are a wooden train. That was on c. Five three at the town that we used to ride in before we would go to his hospital room or being in the clinic with in doing our therapy being very young. And i was for many years but i definitely have memories of in today's age hand. Washing is very important to everyone but that was something that was like knocked into my head from a very young age. Hi my name. Is terry thomas and i am a quilter and now brand new author and i love to travel. I love photography. And i love the color fuchsia color future. Thank you bill bill. Tom off and i've been married coming up on thirty four years next next month and we've had quite a journey together. Lots of joy lots of difficult times but my career and my family or my greatest loves and i have a lot of hobbies like technology and now reading a lot and writing and just enjoy social media enjoy bringing value. There's how oh miami's ryan be here. I appreciate you wishing to myself in my store. Okay and you have quite a story. You're what i think you told me. You're twenty six twenty seven twenty. Six to twenty seven in august were different. That's normal. I delivered via then ryan. How did it come into your consciousness hanging out with other people that this was different. Because when you're a kid when you're that young normal whatever it is you do life as normal and then you comes a point where you start. There's more of other. So i would say that my many of my friends who also had siblings. They hung out with their siblings at home. And i also hung out with ryan at home but i also went to the hospital to hang out with him so i think that's where the differentiator was. They're going back home after school. And i'm going elsewhere so that i could be with my brother or with my family also. So was there ever point where it was like. Oh my god enough already. I wish i was queen for a day and i could wave a magic wand and he was just better and life would be more like what i think my friends life as i would say yes but also because it was from beijing four on in my own life. I didn't know any different so it wasn't other than the reprieves gas from cancer treatment. Obviously he was diagnosed sin in remission and then relapsed so the periods of remission definitely like i hope this just stakes. Because i get to have everyone at home and right right right. There's less back and forth and whatnot. But because i didn't know any different. I don't think that there was a. I hope that you know this. I hope that it didn't happen so many times but it just is what was. What was you've spent a god awful amount of that time in the hospital too much time. Yeah and so now. You're not so that's great. One of the things that that interested me about your story is that it's a family story that even.