Presentations

Advocacy, General 1 Minute

Even before I went to graduate school to get an actual education degree, I’ve spent a lot of time in my life teaching. This role was given to me early on in life as the eldest of six and continued as we were all homeschooled, most of us through middle school. While we didn’t have a “one room schoolhouse” model, my mom often had those of us who were older help the younger ones.

Fast forward through law school and managing law firms for others and finally owning my own law firm, I also spent a lot of time educating my clients, then the other lawyers and the Judges. I’ve only participated in a few jury trials since most of my career was focused on mediation, settlements, and then Bench trials where it’s just the Judge who makes a decision. This experience was education with a large dose of persuasion as I learned to use the facts to show how my client should prevail.

After my diagnosis with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer in 2017, my focus and efforts and goals have changed. Now, when I speak, I comfortably mix vignettes and personal examples with the statistics that have become familiar to me, but are still unfamiliar for the general public. Since immersing myself in the MBC community, I’m still so astonished when I spend time with others who are as yet uninformed.

And so I take every opportunity that is offered to me to speak about MBC, my experiences, and how others can be allies. When my friend, Dr. Jill Norburn, a fellow allumna of the University of Central Florida and Real Estate Mavin, asked me to put together a seminar for the Winter Park Health Foundation, I eagerly accepted. The presentation was recorded and I have shared it below. Jill, of course, asked the best and most probing questions during the presentation.

I hope you enjoy this presentation and I welcome any and all questions!

Living with Breast Cancer: One Woman’s Story

Published by Abigail Johnston

I'm a daughter, a wife, a mother, and I've been living with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer since March, 2017. All of the words I publish are my own.

Published

20 thoughts on “Presentations”

  3. Abigail, thanks for sharing this. I loved the very simple yet succinct way you described MBC. I would love to share this on my social media, mainly for family and friends that just don’t understand. I still get questions as to when I will be finished with treatment, or surprise that I am on Chemo (daily). I’ve been very open with my diagnosis and treatments but I don’t think folks can absorb all or retain very well. It is definitely a learning and teaching process!
    Charlene Kozloff

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  4. Hi Abigail, I read your post, but I’ll come back to the video. Your educational background is interesting. I’d say your mom did a fabulous job of educating you. Children always learn more by teaching than they do the first time around. What happened with the rest of your family?

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    1. I’m always interested to hear about different educational backgrounds and I haven’t always understood how different our family was until we have enrolled our children in school! My mother is definitely a fabulous teacher, still!

      My sister who is 18 months younger than I am has her own business where she blogs and takes pictures of beauty products. My eldest brother is in high level IT projects as a sales person and manager. My middle brother is a professional engineer and works with projects that support the military. My youngest brother is a sale person for back office technology and my youngest sister is a law office bookkeeper.

      Most people who have been homeschooled are drawn to entrepreneurial endeavors or a position where the employee has a great deal of autonomy. While this is not the norm for everyone who is homeschooled, the majority fit into this category.

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      1. Wow! your mom did a fantastic job with all of you. I haven’t known anyone who has done homeschooling that well. Most people I know who tried it were juggling other jobs and the children were doing a lot of the work on their own without a lot of guidance. My hat’s off to your mom and to all of you. Thanks for sharing. 🙂

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      3. I am not surprised knowing just a little about what all you accomplish with all that is going on in your life. You are an amazing and inspiring woman. Is your mother still alive? I’m guessing that she probably is because you are still young. She’s probably my age – or younger!!! 🙂

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      5. I love your mom. What an amazing woman. I hope you are, among everything else you are doing, writing a book about her, and she about you! If not, you should both hire a memoirist.

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