BREAST CANCER AWARENESS
“
...THERE WAS
A LESSON,
AND IT WAS
A MONSTER
OF A LESSON.
IT HAS BEEN 6 YEARS SINCE YOU WERE
DIAGNOSED- HOW HAS YOUR LIFE
CHANGED SINCE YOUR DIAGNOSIS?
IS IT SOMETHING YOU STILL THINK
ABOUT A LOT?
It seems like yesterday in some ways and yes I do still
think about it a lot. It has changed my life for the better
as it still drives me to continue to pursue my passion. Just
thinking about the idea of death makes me very driven to
paint, write, and design beautiful spaces for others.
HAD YOU KNOWN THAT YOU
WERE AT RISK?
I had been through several scares since my twenties
about various weird lumpy things in my breast, so I was
already on ‘high alert,’ as somebody who was likely to
develop breast cancer someday. Back then, however, I
was pretty sure I was invincible. Every time I went under
the knife, I spent most of my time trying to calm down my
mother so she wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown. I preferred it this way. If I was busy calming her, I wouldn’t have
time to have my own anxiety, or indulge in a pity party.
a good kind of cancer). This got the kids through without
fear, and it helped me too, to keep reminding myself that it
wasn’t a big deal. It was true that comparatively speaking,
my cancer was not the worst case, but instead my problem would end up being that infections following radiation and reconstructive surgery would result in 3 weeks of
hospital stays and a total of six surgeries.
For the next two years, I muddled through the side effects
of the ra