Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.

When people look at my garden, most will comment on how amazing it looks. People do not realize that my garden is a direct reflection of my soul. It is a result of an expression of fear and conquer, overcoming trauma, a symbol of survival, a symbol of growth, a new beginning, a journey to protect me and my loved ones. Overall, it is an expression of hope, resilience, and a lesson that even though life comes with trauma and failures, at the end of the day, the choices you make, the investment of time and effort you put into creating a better tomorrow will reward you with new interest, new perspective and a new you.

Trauma

In 2019 I was diagnosed with breast cancer after pushing for testing because my mind and gut feeling kept telling me something was wrong. You know, that little voice that keeps yelling at you to keep digging? Yeah that voice was telling me to go to the doctors to get testing and to not accept dense breast tissue as an answer. An ultrasound and mammogram had been done and results showed a very slightly widened duct. The mammogram looked restless and very different for each breast. As an oncology nurse, I have thankfully seen enough ultrasounds to know better. So I pushed. I told them to checkmout the widened duct because my mom had Paget’s disease in her breast, a ductal cancer too. I got an MRI which lit up like a Christmas tree. Still the doctors are saying dense breast tissue with fibrocystic changes, and again, I push for a biopsy of that duct. Finally, the doctor says well we will biopsy it but do not worry, it is probably nothing. Well it did not show ‘nothing’, it was DCIS -ductal cancer. Lumpectomy is going to fix it followed by 40 sessions of radiation and five years of hormone therapy. Again I said no, do a mastectomy, no radiation. The doctor stated that following her advice was the least invasive and least traumatic way to go and she persuaded me to do lumpectomy instead. I knew it was a mistake.

Fast forward, I get my lumpectomy and they state they had to remove a much larger area. Original was 3x5x2 cm section and they removed a 6x8x2 cm section. That was nearly double the size, and to put it in perspective it was the width of a tennis ball and a length of a field hockey ball. I am happy I listened to my body.

Pathology came back and the margins were not clear. I still had cancer. Again, I asked for mastectomy, even though they made the reconstruction look really nice. They wanted to try one more time with lumpectomy and they also offered DIEP. Which is where they take tissue from your belly and reconstruct your breast with it. I decided that this would be the best option – basically a mastectomy with full reconstruction and a tummy tuck to boot. The plastic surgeon said:”great, you are an excellent candidate for DIEP though it will cost you out of pocket 20K to cover the physicians, because your insurance does not pay us as physicians.” I was so upset when they told me this, and my husband said: “We will do it because this is what you need.” I went through more emotions on that one day than one experiences in a lifetime, or at least, that is what it felt like.

We did get put on the schedule, and then COVID hit. My surgery that was scheduled for late May was cancelled. Meanwhile we moved from Virginia to Florida, and i have a new Virginia date scheduled for August, and I was going to stay in a hotel post procedure and recover. I cancelled that surgery after deciding that I want a second opinion here.

I researched and found a plastic surgeon here in Orlando who does DIEP procedures. He works within the hospital so they just see DIEP as reconstructive surgery and it is fully covered by insurance. So I schedule the surgery and get surgery on October 8. The surgery lasted about 8 hours. On the 9th, a blood supply failure needed fixing, 6 more hours of surgery. I finally got to go home on the 13th and on the 16th, I went back to the hospital admitted for another blood supply failure, another surgery. This time, there was no more fixing so I received an implant. The thing I tried to avoid at all cost. Again the doctor had persuaded me, and again that decision was one that I am to this day regretting.

I had therapy for over a year for nerve pain, fascia therapy, and another reconstruction to improve the look of my scars. I have undergone five surgeries to fix something that would have been fixed if that first doctor would have listened to my request for a mastectomy. I live with discomfort and pain on a daily basis, a loss of upper body strength, anxiety and depression, and a serious dent in my self image. If I could turn back time, I would have insisted on a mastectomy and I would have just been done.

There is a morale here though, that no matter what treatment you do to fix your trauma, either physically, or mentally, trauma is always there, and while you can forgive your trauma, it becomes part of you as your person.

In my next post, I will share how I am fixing my trauma with my garden and I will show you how my garden reflects my soul.