Elizabeth Olson: Seeing the Pride Flag at Moffitt Made All the Difference

Elizabeth Olson opens up about the fear she felt when her mother was diagnosed with recurrent jaw cancer and faced extensive treatment.  Olson also worried about how she and her wife would be treated at Moffitt. Would this be a safe space where she would feel accepted and supported?

Seeing the Pride flag at the hospital on the day of her mother’s surgery reassured her, allowing her to focus on supporting her mother through recovery.

We also hear from Laura Bosselman, manager of patient experience and chair of Moffitt Unity, who discusses the importance of displaying inclusive symbols like the Pride flag at Moffitt.

Thank you to our Storyteller: Elizabeth Olson and Laura Bosselman

To our Narrator/Host: Loreen O’Brien

And to our Production Team: Kathi Barden (podcast project leader), Anne Bidelman, Donna DiClementi, Robin Gordon (Patient Advisor), Randy Isaacson (Family Advisor), Loreen O’Brien, Terry Payton, and Cristina Perez

Podcast Transcript

ELIZABETH: My name is Elizabeth Olson. My mom is Gloria, and she is probably one of my best friends.

We've always had a really close relationship. Even growing up, we we've always had inside jokes. We laugh a lot. I just I still call her multiple times a week. We text multiple times a day. We just have always had a really great relationship.

And even with that type of relationship that we had when I started dating women in college, I was still really nervous to tell her. I knew in my heart that she would still love me and that she wasn't going to reject me. Like so many parents of queer kids do when they come out to their parents and to their families. But there was still a lot of fear there, even though I had such a close relationship with my mom. That fear was there. And that fear exists because society tells you that there is something to fear. If you say, This is who I am and this is who I love. And so that fear or that anticipation of being harmed or being degraded in some way is part of this bigger idea of minority stress theory.

I have a Ph.D. in human development and family science. My research is specifically focused on working with historically marginalized populations. So I've done a lot of research with folks who identify as LGBTQ, and my my research primarily focuses on community climate. The idea of thinking about how we can create spaces of support and how support or hostility in a community or an organizational space can either support and help the well-being of historically marginalized folks or can hinder that.

So minority stress theory, which was put forward by a scholar named Ellen Meyer, basically says that people who hold a marginalized identity, like somebody who identifies as LGBTQ, experience stressors above and beyond what we consider typical day to day stressors. So work stress, family stress, life stress, the stress of being diagnosed with cancer. People experience that that stress and that trauma and moving through the world. As a person who identifies as LGBTQ, you may experience additional stressors which include being personally discriminated against or harmed by others, but also that fear of discrimination.

That anticipation alone causes a lot of people to be in a state of hyper vigilance, always being looking for those indicators of will I be harmed? Am I safe in this space? Will I be supported or will I be rejected? That can cause a lot of stress, too. And the idea of concealing one's identity, that takes a lot of mental energy and strain to think about. When do I share this identity? When do I not? How do I hide it? Should I hide it? That concealment also takes a toll on people's health.

So my mom actually had a spot of cancer in her gum removed probably about 15 years ago. They just did a surgery and removed it and she was fine and hasn't had anything recur for the last 15 years.

She was diagnosed with fairly invasive jaw cancer in spring of 2023.

We met with Dr. McMullin for the first time in late spring, early summer of 2023. She underscored for us how serious it was at the time that it was going to be a pretty invasive surgery and reconstruction of her jaw, as well as chemotherapy and radiation treatments after. I remember feeling really scared in that meeting. Because I think I was just expecting surgery. And it was a lot worse than we were anticipating. We didn't know what chemotherapy was going to mean, what the radiation was going to mean. She was going to lose almost all of her bottom jaw. She was so scared about how she was going to look and how she was going to be able to talk and communicate. There was so much unknown and. I remember how scared my mom, my dad and me were coming out of that meeting.

Moffitt was incredible. They were able to get all of the scans and tests that they needed really quickly, and the surgery was scheduled just a few weeks later for June 1st of 2023. I went home.

I'm so glad that I was able to be at that initial meeting to hear directly from the doctors what the diagnosis was, what the treatment plan was.

Thankfully, if there is a silver lining, it's that this all happened and was going to happen over the summer. So as a university faculty member, I had more flexibility that I was able to come down and be a caregiver and support her here in that my wife and I flew back to be able to support her and my dad through the surgery. We wanted her to be supported by family and love to get her through that treatment.

My mom had to be on campus at 530 that morning for pre-op. They told us to expect it to be a 12 to 14 hour surgery, so we knew it was going to be a long day.

It was 5 a.m. We were stressed. We didn't know how the surgery was going to go. We knew there were a lot there were lots of moving parts, lots of potential complications. We were feeling a lot of stress and we were focused on what was going to happen that day and for the next the rest of her life. we didn't know what was going to happen. And that is where our focus was when we pulled into the Moffitt Circle Drive in the morning. I forgot that it was June 1st, which is typically Pride Month. I was just worried about my mom and her getting through this surgery and how much longer I was going to have with her.

And when we pulled in, the first thing that we saw was the trans inclusive pride flag. Front and center. And it felt so relieving. It felt like we were being seen.

It felt like as a family, we were seen coming in to the entrance that it wasn't just cancer patient number X coming in. But, Gloria, you and your daughter and your daughter in law who are coming in to support you, we see you and we value you. And it it just it it did actually take some of that minority stress off of our plates. It felt like all of my attention could now be on my mom. And I didn't have to spend my energy evaluating whether or not Moffitt was a safe space to introduce people to my wife. I didn't have to be hyper vigilant to look for markers of hostility or support. I could be who I was. I could let people know who we were and why we were there to support my mom and just focus on that. That's what the Pride flag meant when we pulled in.

About a week and a half after the surgery when she was moved off of the ICU and put in a regular hospital room. She was actually front and center in Moffett, so the window from her hospital room was overlooking the backside of the flags. She took a picture of it. When she moved into that room, she took a picture through the window and said, Look at my new view. Just pointing out again that the flag was still up and she could see it. And yes, it's just a flag. It doesn't mean anything.

But what it does mean is that somebody put that flag up. Somebody as a part of the Moffitt team sees and recognizes that there are LGBTQ people that come to Moffitt. So the fact that Moffitt put up that flag. To me that says, We see you, we value you. And those symbols that mean nothing indicates that there are probably bigger policies and practices within the institution and organization of Moffitt that do support me. That's what the flag represents.

LAURA: My name is Laura Bosselman. I am the patient experience manager at Moffitt McKinley Hospital, and I've been at Moffitt for close to eight years. I am the chair for Moffitt Unity, which is the LGBTQ A-plus team member engagement network here at Moffitt.

So Moffitt thinks it's important to display symbols like the inclusive Pride Flag for Gay Pride Month, because it really shows that Marvin has a commitment to embracing diversity, equity and inclusion at our workplace, and not just for our team members, but for our patients and families, their caregivers. It's really helpful for them to know that they're coming to a place where they're going to be accepted for who they are, and they don't have to be scared to define their relationships and explain who they are to each other. Moffitt and our providers will accept that, and they will be confident in providing, you know, patient, family centered care to any type of patient and family, not someone that fits a certain mold, but everyone that's out there.

Moffitt is a wonderful organization for team members because you are allowed to be yourself when you come to work with your team members, with your supervisors, with your managers and directors, everyone is going to appreciate you for who you are. Allow you to be yourself and in the workplace. As a queer person, I have never felt more welcomed to be myself than I do at Moffitt.

ELIZABETH: So after my mom got out of surgery that night at about 11 p.m., they took my mom directly over to the ICU.

The next day, our first full day back in the ICU, the nurse who was on duty and taking care of my mom that day, we introduced ourselves to her. My dad said, you know, this is my wife and this is my daughter and this is her wife, my daughter in law. I remember her telling my mom that she has a beautiful family, that she was so lucky that her kids could come down and support her. I think at some point my mom was showing pictures of our wedding to the nurse and was showing that off. And the nurse was very joyful and supportive. I remember a lot of the nurses who came in would often talk to my dad as her spouse. What questions do you have? Do you have any concerns as the primary caregiver? But I remember they would always go around the room and ask me if I had any questions or if I needed anything. They would always ask my wife if she needed a bottle of water or a blanket. I felt like I had more capacity and energy to just focus on loving and supporting my mom because I didn't have to focus on how other people were thinking about or treating me and my family. I feel like we all were seen and valued as a part of her support team.

I think a lot of people say we love you and support you despite your differences. And I would encourage folks to love and support others because of their differences. I'm not just coming in as a caregiver to my mom. My mom is not just coming in as somebody with cancer who needs to have it taken care of. She is coming in as the mom of a queer kid. I am coming in as a queer person. And we felt supported not despite those identities, but within those identities. And that's a really important thing for people to remember.

I know that I spoke about my experiences as a queer person and how that relates to LGBTQ indicators, But these things are true for communities of color, for people of different nationalities and immigration status, for people of different abilities, status, socioeconomic standing. They also experience those fears and those stressors and. Again, I can't speak from personal experience, but seeing seen and supported within their identities is just as valuable and needed.

I think we came in with the assumption that we would not necessarily be supported in this space and walking onto Moffitt's campus and seeing those symbols changed our understanding of the climate here in this organization, in this setting, that we felt safe and we felt that we could be a strong, loving, supportive family to help my mom in her recovery, which is what we were here for.

And that was the most important part.

Music Credits

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/ben-johnson/woke-me-at-the-break-of-day
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https://uppbeat.io/t/dan-barracuda/serenity
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https://uppbeat.io/t/dan-barracuda/we-wonder
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https://uppbeat.io/t/dan-barracuda/spring-wishes
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https://uppbeat.io/t/christopher-galovan/peace-be-with-you
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