How Coaching is Different from Therapy (and Why Both Can Work)

How Coaching is Different from Therapy (and Why Both Can Work)

by | 1:33 pm | Health & Wellness, Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship

 

I often get asked how coaching is different from therapy, and which one is better to try.

 

Here’s what I tell my clients:

 

Coaching and therapy are BOTH incredible tools. It depends where you’re at in your life and your current struggles as to which one you want to choose. (It could also be extremely beneficial to do both at the same time.)

 

Therapy can help you work through problems and issues, and can be a treatment for mental illness. Coaching can help you truly create the life you want. 

 

Coaching is more future-focused, while therapy tends to be about processing the past. 

 

Coaching can save you money and time as you work through something difficult. It can help you move forward in a powerful way and create the future you want, regardless of your past. 

 

Coaching helps you see things in a new way and handle situations differently. It takes esoteric ideas and turns them into practical tangible solutions. 

 

It breaks down complex pathways into actionable steps. 

 

A coach can’t cure your anxiety…but she sure can give you tools and strategies to regulate your nervous system and manage your own emotions effectively.

 

Both a coach and a therapist can help you feel heard and seen. And sometimes that’s the most important place to start. 

 

Are you dealing with something big and scary… or exciting and happy, but still overwhelming in its magnitude? I’d love to help. Let’s hop on a call and see if my 1-1 coaching program would be a good fit for you.



Moving Along the Illness-Wellness Continuum over a Lifetime

Moving Along the Illness-Wellness Continuum over a Lifetime

by | 8:18 am | Health & Wellness, Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship, Nursing, Night Shifts & School

This is not my typical blog post, but a paper I had to write for my GCU nursing class. Since much of my creative juices are currently being directed toward nursing school, I figured I might as well publish some of my work here on my blog!

Moving Along the Illness-Wellness Continuum over a Lifetime

Danielle Tantone

Department of Nursing, Grand Canyon University

NRS-434VN: Health Assessment

Geraldine Bazzell, RN, MSN

1/31/21

Just over a year ago, I was enjoying a peaceful September afternoon at the park with my youngest daughter in the midst of a crazy stressful life: three kids, nursing school, working nights at the hospital as a nursing assistant.

The blazing summer heat had broken, and it was finally cool enough to enjoy the outdoors in Arizona. My cell phone rang, and my doctor gave me the life-changing news that I had breast cancer. But I was neither shocked nor alarmed. I was high-risk and had gone in for a biopsy two days earlier after my mammogram showed some microcalcifications.

I had done my research, so when she told me that the biopsy had revealed high grade, Stage 0 ductal carcinoma in situ, the earliest form of breast cancer, my mind went right toward making a plan and focusing on all the silver linings, of which there were many.

I had just turned 45 and I was at a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly. I decided almost immediately that the best treatment option for me was a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. Yes, I could have chosen “just” a lumpectomy, but by choosing the double mastectomy I avoided chemotherapy, radiation and even hormone therapy, all of which, to me, were far more invasive than simply removing the breasts which had served me well but were no longer strictly necessary.

I believe that the healthy mental attitude I chose to adopt during this health ordeal was just as important as my physical health, and despite my serious disease diagnosis, I stayed in a state of overall wellness throughout the entire ordeal.

Wellness has many components: physical, mental and emotional. Though it can be pictured as a continuum, along which we all move back and forth throughout our lifetimes, it is actually a multi-dimensional concept that is hard to completely understand on a one-dimensional model. One can be sick in terms of disease, but rate high in terms of overall wellness, or one can be free of disease but not enjoying a state of overall wellness at all (Wellness, 2018).

The goal is to be not just free of disease, but in a state of optimal wellness as much as possible over the course of a lifetime. As nurses, it is important to be aware of our patients’ – and our own overall state of wellness and not simply look at whether or not we are experiencing symptoms of disease.

The origins of the Illness-Wellness Continuum

The health-illness continuum, originally conceived and published by John Travis, MD, MPH in the 1970s, provided a nice picture to show how optimal wellness was achieved by moving past simple absence of disease to higher levels of wellness. The idea was a combination of the Lewis Robbins’ health risk continuum created by Lewis Robbins and Abraham Maslow’s concept of self-actualization.

However, the model makes it hard to understand the fact that it is possible to be physically ill but oriented toward wellness, or physically healthy but suffering from an illness mentality, and the continuum is rarely a perfect line. Even if someone is sick, in a disease state, they can still be doing very well in terms of overall wellness (Wellness, 2018).

More About the Illness-Wellness Continuum and Travis’ Work

Moving from the center to the left shows a progressively worsening state of health, while moving to the right of center indicates increasing levels of health and wellbeing. While medical treatment such as drugs, herbs, surgery, psychotherapy, etc. alleviates symptoms and brings a patient to the neutral point, the wellness paradigm can be utilized at any point on the continuum, and directs a patient beyond neutral. This idea of true wellness does not replace treatment, but works in harmony with it (Wellness, 2018).

A state of emotional stress can lead to physical and mental disease, even cancer, and true wellness is not a static state. In fact, it’s not as important exactly where a patient falls on the spectrum so much as in which direction he is headed. Even dying can be done from a place of wellness (Wellness, 2018).

The Importance of Understanding the Continuum in Patient Care

The health-illness continuum also interacts with the continuum of patient care. In a healthcare system that is often criticized for focusing on acute conditions rather than wellness and prevention, thinking of wellness in terms of a spectrum has advantages for everyone involved. A truly patient-oriented system of care “spans an entire lifetime, is composed of both services and integrating mechanisms, and guides and tracks patients over time through a comprehensive array of health, mental health, and social services across all levels of intensity of care” (American Sentinel University, 2020).

Such a system would provide high-quality and cost-effective care for patients using community-based services such as home health nurses, telemedicine, disease management programs, informatics, and case management. Nurses are essential within this continuum of care. They support treatment, help educate and guide their patients toward better health outcomes (American Sentinel, 2020).

Nurses must consider not only the continuum of care, but also pay attention to where each patient is within his own health-illness spectrum, always remembering to look at the patient holistically. A nurse’s role goes far beyond simply treating disease. She can have a tremendous value in promoting overall wellness on every level.

Nurses’ Personal Place Along the Health-Illness Continuum

On another note, nurses must pay close attention to where they, themselves are along the continuum as well, since they can’t very well take care of others if they aren’t taking care of themselves first. Studies have shown that nurses experience more musculoskeletal disorders, depression, tuberculosis, infections and occupational allergies than the general public. Nurses’ shift work was shown to lead to sleep deficiency, lack of exercise, cardiological and metabolic problems, and even cancer (Letvak, 2014).

And while the nurses’ health is important, it is not just about them. Studies also show that nurses who work with physical and mental illness experience more medication errors and patient falls, and offer an overall lower quality of patient care provided (Letvak, 2014).

According to the ANA, “A healthy nurse lives life to the fullest capacity, across the wellness/illness continuum, as they become stronger role models, advocates, and educators, personally, for their families, their communities and work environments, and ultimately for their patients” (Letvak, 2014).

The ANA offers many levels of support for nurses on their own journey along the health-illness continuum.

Health is in a Constant State of Change

A person’s health is always in a state of continual change on every level, moving from health to illness and back again. His condition is rarely constant. The health-illness continuum (see figure 1-1) illustrates this process of change. Each individual experiences various states of health and illness throughout his life. But it is actually the individual’s response to the change, rather than the change itself, that affects his health most profoundly (Brookside, 2015).

Figure 1.1 (Brookside, 2015)

Adaptation to a chronic disease can be considered a state of wellness. If one person is in great physical condition, but suffering from depression or substance abuse and unable to go to work, while another is living with a chronic disease like diabetes but functioning fully within his life, which one is at a higher level on the health-illness continuum (Brookside, 2015)?

Where I See Myself on the Continuum

I have always thought of myself as an overall healthy person. I know my body well and I take care of it. However, I have not ruled out the possibility that the physical and emotional stress I was under in 2019 actually led to my breast cancer. I was dealing with a lot and I was working the night shift, which has been proven to throw off the body’s circadian rhythm. Some studies even show a link between shift work and cancer (Yuan, 2018).

So, in that moment, I was heading toward illness. However, the fact that I was being regularly screened and took prompt action to treat the cancer, and the fact that I chose to see all the blessings in my diagnosis turned me around toward the wellness end. Facing illness with eyes wide open, trusting God and having a strong support system are huge in terms of wellness.

Conclusion

As an aspiring nurse, I find it encouraging that we are learning about the health-illness continuum. I feel very strongly that good healthcare is so much more than simply eliminating disease. As nurses, we can have an impact of the overall wellness of our patients and the entire community. The patient care experience, like the human experience itself, is about so much more than just staving off disease. Nurses can have an impact on a person’s entire life through their compassionate caring, empathy, education and love. A good nurse can encourage, inspire and comfort her patients, promoting dignity in the most embarrassing of situations and helping a patient turn back in the direction of wellness no matter how sick they are.

It is important that nurses do not forget to treat themselves as their most important patient, taking care to get enough sleep, exercise, healthy food and mental, emotional and spiritual stimulation. It is a stressful and important job we do. We hold our patients’ lives in our hands. We must never take our own health for granted or think that it is unimportant.

I am grateful that I got cancer. I am glad I got to experience what it is like to be a patient. I am grateful that they caught it early and that through my journey, I have been able to encourage so many others – to get regular screenings, to not be afraid of bad news, but to welcome it because getting the news lets them do something to fix it, and to face their challenges with grace and faith.

References

American Sentinel University. (2020). What is the Healthcare Continuum of Care and What Are the Different Nursing Roles Within it? The Sentinel Watch. Retrieved from https://www.americansentinel.edu/blog/2020/02/15/nursings-role-in-the-continuum-of-care/

Brookside. (2015). The Health-Illness Continuum. Nursing Fundamentals 1. Distance Learning for Medical and Nursing Professionals. Retrieved from https://brooksidepress.org/nursing_fundamentals_1/?page_id=115

Letvak, S. (2014). Overview and Summary: Healthy Nurses: Perspectives on Caring for Ourselves. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 19, No. 3, Overview and Summary. Retrieved from https://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-19-2014/No3-Sept-2014/OS-Healthy-Nurses.html

Wellness Associates. (2018). Key Concept #1: The Illness-Wellness Continuum. Retrieved from http://www.thewellspring.com/wellspring/introduction-to-wellness/357/key-concept-1-the-illnesswellness-continuum.cfm.html

Yuan, X., Zhu, C., Wang, M., Mo, F., Du, W., Ma, X. (2018). Night Shift Work Increases the Risks of Multiple Primary Cancers in Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of 61 Articles. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Retrieved from https://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/27/1/25

Danielle,

Thank you for sharing about your diagnosis and a bit about your journey with breast cancer; this is a perfect example of how emotional health impacts our placement on the continuum. Good discussion of each section of the assignment. This is one of the best submissions I have had for this assignment. See comments throughout for learning opportunities.

Geri

 

I’m Almost Positive my Covid-19 Test Will be Negative, but…

I’m Almost Positive my Covid-19 Test Will be Negative, but…

by | 8:05 am | Faith, Family & Relationships, Health & Wellness

I got tested for Covid-19 on Tuesday. And now I wait for results. At home, quietly. Without going out and about or even seeing extended family. Though I haven’t quarantined from my immediate family, I did have my ex-husband keep the older girls an extra few days until we know for sure. Even though I am almost positive it’s not going to be positive. Even though if I do have it, they have already been exposed because I was with them in the days leading up to the symptoms showing up. I’m taking no unnecessary risks and presuming guilty until proven innocent. And it sucks.

When I told my team leader at work that I was suddenly feeling sick Monday afternoon: headache, dizziness, little nausea, but no fever, though I felt “feverish,” she couldn’t get me out of there fast enough. She gave me a phone number to call for the employee return to work hotline, and pretty much no other instruction. Just get out – away from the moms and babies and the nurses who care for them – do not pass go, do not collect $200.

It was like going to the nurse at school as a kid feeling sick and hoping she would send you home, but instead of just reluctantly calling mom and suggesting you should go home and rest, she kicked you to the curb and told you not to come back until you could prove you didn’t have the plague.

I’m a nursing assistant in Labor and Delivery at the largest hospital in Phoenix and our state is currently experiencing a huge spike in Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. They can’t take any unnecessary risks.

But at the same time, many of my friends on Facebook are complaining that they are required to wear a mask when they go out in public. Or even refusing to do so.

I wasn’t going to write about this until I had results…positive or negative. Or maybe not even at all. I haven’t been writing on my blog or even posting on social media much lately. There is so much noise and hate and animosity on social media right now, that I’ve just stayed quiet. Even on my own blog. Frankly I’ve been feeling sad and tired and even a bit hopeless about the state of our world and have far too much going on in my own life to focus on all the BS I can’t control.

A few people have said that they miss my heartfelt and inspiring words, but mostly there is so much noise right now that I’m not sure many people have noticed my absence.

I have friends on the far ends of both sides of the political spectrum, and I fit somewhere in the messy middle, and I have always loved the diversity of viewpoints. But I get so anxious every time I read the angry, hateful things my friends are saying, and how people are politicizing this current unprecedented health crisis. I have friends who refuse to believe what’s really happening and instead hold fast to the idea that someone is pulling the wool over our eyes and trying to take away our freedoms. I have other friends who spew hate toward people who are gathering at rallies and protests.

So much dissension and hate. I hate it.

After I changed out of my scrubs Monday, I sat in the locker room for a few minutes, slightly dismayed and not really sure what I was supposed to do. I had called the hotline but it had only been a recording. I left a voicemail and they said they would return my call within 24 hours.

Do I stop by Employee Health to get a Covid test? I felt tired and achy, and really wanted to curl up in bed. I had been hoping they would send me home, but really wasn’t thinking it might be Covid. Even though of course I have been exposed. We all have at the hospital. But we wear masks, wash hands, sanitize surfaces, and wear full PPE in deliveries and around known positive patients. I have felt mostly safe.

But I could have picked it up outside the hospital too. We have been out and about a little more over the last few weeks.

And though I have been wearing a mask whenever I am in close proximity to people outside my own family and close friends, I take it off whenever I can. It’s bad enough to wear it for 12 hours straight at work. I have been too lax about it, I realize now.

After I clocked out, I stopped by the screening station I walk past each day when I come to work, where they take my temperature and ask if I have any symptoms, and I asked them if they knew what I should do if I do have symptoms. They didn’t know.

I drove to the nearby Occupational Health building, parked in the garage and walked up to the elevator, but a big sign said not to enter if you had any symptoms. So, I turned back around and headed home.

On the way home I called my primary care doctor to see if I could get in there for a test. They were able to give me an appointment for the next day, Tuesday.

By Tuesday I was feeling somewhat better. Just low energy and still a little dizzy and achy. Plus a little sad that not a single person from work had bothered to check in and see how I was feeling. They are supposed to be caring and empathetic nurses and I didn’t feel very cared for. But I got over it. They are busy and focused on their patients. On top of that they are now short-staffed on nursing assistants, thanks to my absence. Most of them probably don’t even know why I’m gone. I’m working on getting a tougher skin and not taking everything so personally. It’s a work in progress.

The test wasn’t too bad. They didn’t swab quite as far back in my nose as I have heard they were doing. Hopefully it is still accurate. Who knows. I won’t have an answer until at least Friday, maybe Monday. They said test results have been running about four business days.

If I do have Covid-19, it’s a very mild case. But here’s the thing. Though my case may be mild, it also could get worse and have lasting effects.

More importantly, I have come into contact with dozens of people over the past few weeks, each of whom has also come into contact with who knows how many people. I saw my parents. I hugged my dad on Father’s Day. What if I gave it to them and their case wasn’t so mild?

I watched my uncle die of Covid-19 two months ago. I have seen patients with it in the hospital. Yes, even in Labor and Delivery. This is not a joke. This is not a political stunt.

Part of me hopes my test is positive, so my family and I will develop antibodies and have some immunity to this so little understood disease. But it most likely is negative. So I hope I get the results fast so I can spend time with my precious family this weekend and return to work next week.

This is such a scary time to be a nursing student and a nursing assistant. Part of me wonders what I am doing, why I would start over in a new career at 45, why I don’t just stay home and write, or focus on one of my many side gigs and business ideas. But I do really like making a difference in a person’s life, one person at a time. So I think I can deal with the red tape, rules, and even politics in order to do so. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can…

How Do You Do Spring Cleaning During a Pandemic?

How Do You Do Spring Cleaning During a Pandemic?

by | 8:30 am | Health & Wellness, Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship

5 Timeless Tips to Refresh and Renew Your Home for Spring, plus a bonus 2020 quarantine tip.

Spring Break has been extended indefinitely, and we are suddenly spending a lot more time at home.

Perfect time to tackle all those home improvement projects we never have time for? Well, maybe… if you aren’t also trying to work from home, learn to homeschool, and deal with the up-and-down emotions of five very different people who are not used to spending quite so much together time!

In theory, we’d all have even more time for Spring Cleaning this year: time to disinfect from top to bottom, KonMari the whole house, re-organize the pantry, clean out the garage, and finish all those little projects we don’t usually have time for. But the reality – at least at our house – has been pretty different from the dream. Nevertheless, I am counting my blessings every day, still looking for silver linings, and finding ways to cope with new stresses and hardships.

This article was originally published last year in EastM Magazine a beautiful local lifestyle magazine distributed in our area. But the tips are pretty timeless, even during a pandemic. Perhaps especially so. It’s not so much about Spring Cleaning as about giving our homes and our lives a little refresh, a renewal – which is more relevant than ever right now.

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The Wild Ride of the Coronavirus Scare…and What if We Actually do Have it?

The Wild Ride of the Coronavirus Scare…and What if We Actually do Have it?

by | 9:07 am | Faith, Family & Relationships, Health & Wellness

My, how life can change in a week! Last week I posted an article about how we were still going to Disneyland despite my recent surgery and the Coronavirus, which at the time, was just shy of an official pandemic.

We had a wonderful trip and made fabulous memories, rented an electric scooter which zoomed me through Disneyland and got us to the front of at least a few lines. I’m so glad we got to go before the world changed, social distancing became the norm and you could no longer buy toilet paper in the normal way.

Today, I’m relaxing on the couch in pajamas and a cuddly robe, an afghan over my legs, ignoring the emails that pop into my inbox every few minutes from every company I’ve ever done business with, letting me know how they are handling the Coronavirus.

Though the early morning couch time isn’t so unusual since I love waking up early to write while the rest of my family sleeps in, and I’ve been less active recently as I recovered from surgery, the world seems eerily quiet today – and the fact that I’m nursing a sore throat, headache and body aches is a harsh reminder of the current state of the world.

The only one up after a busy day of semi-quarantine with my three kids and husband, I just took the second dose of the antibiotic I was prescribed yesterday for strep throat.  My 11-year-old daughter Kate and I both started feeling sick Friday evening – which would normally be far from blog-worthy, but as new revelations surface each day in this crazy modern pandemic freak show world we are living in, it’s hard not to be just a teeny bit worried.

Doc said Kate’s is a recurrence or residual of an ear and sinus infection she had several weeks ago that is making her feel dizzy and causing her headache and elevated temp. And my throat is classic strep. I’ve had it enough times to know what it feels like.

But I can’t help but wonder if we didn’t also pick up this dreaded Coronavirus from one of the many surfaces we couldn’t help but touch at Disneyland this week, or by getting just a little too close to an unknown carrier in one of the many long lines we waited.  We were as careful as you can be with three kids at Disneyland, using hand sanitizer before and after each ride, just like I do when entering and exiting a patient’s room at the hospital, washing with soap and water also throughout the day, trying not to touch our faces.

They didn’t test us for Coronavirus at the urgent care yesterday. At this point, they are only testing people with severe symptoms and a known contact with a confirmed case of Covid-19, which of course are very few, since they are only testing a very few. And the fact that we were both diagnosed with bacterial infections makes me feel a little better. This we know. This we can treat.

I still feel very much in the dark about Covid-19, even as a healthcare professional on leave of absence who is consuming every article I can on the subject.

The PA at the urgent care yesterday said we should see drive-thru clinics start opening up in the next week and then testing for Covid-19 will be available on a broader scale. He said he believes this thing has actually already been around for several months and we just didn’t know it. He has seen many patients present with flu-like symptoms but test negative for the flu or pneumonia that kept coming back. But all this is anecdotal.

On some level, I feel like it makes no difference if we have the virus or not. There isn’t a medicine or specific treatment for it, and we are only supposed to go to the hospital if we have extreme symptoms. For now, we will assume we do, even though we probably don’t, and stay home, away from our older relatives. I will keep a close eye on Kate, who has asthma and a weak immune system, and always gets everything worse than the rest of us

But I think it would be helpful to know the real numbers of this thing. The hospital group I work for only had one confirmed case in its five Valley hospitals last time I heard. And latest reports show only 12 confirmed cases in all of Arizona. But I can’t help but believe that’s probably pretty far from the reality of the situation.

Also, if I do have it, does that give me immunity, like the chicken pox, so that I will be able to take care of infected patients without fear in the coming weeks? Or conversely, is it more like Dengue Fever or malaria, where subsequent infections can be worse? No one really knows yet, and that’s what’s so scary about this.

I think it’s very likely that the dramatic change that has overtaken our country this week – social distancing and staying home – will turn the tides and prevent this pandemic from wiping out mass quantities of Americans. Of course, the financial toll will be huge. But in this moment, it still seems possible that we will look back at this time and laugh at how we overreacted, a bit like we do when we think back to Y2K. We will never really know if it was precisely our (over) reactions that prevented the dreaded results we feared.

I wasn’t at all surprised to get the email just before I crawled into bed last night that our school district finally caved and has decided not to reopen schools on Monday after Spring Break. Ours was one of the last districts in the area to make the decision. I imagine they reversed their decision to stay open after receiving push back from parents and teachers. And I’m relieved. But I also know there are families who will suffer, parents who don’t have the option to take time off or work from home, children whose only meals are the free ones they get at school.

My first instinct is to do something to help. And I probably will.

But for today, I’m stuck on the couch nursing a killer sore throat and can’t do anything but write about it. While everyone else in my family sleeps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ode to My Breasts, a Eulogy and a Celebration of Life

Ode to My Breasts, a Eulogy and a Celebration of Life

by | 4:19 pm | Breast Cancer, Health & Wellness

The Breast is Yet to Come: My Journey Through Breast Cancer, Treatment and Reconstruction

Watching the new Little Women movie in the theater several weeks ago, I was struck by the fact that I never really grieved the loss of my breasts. Or celebrated their life. Since chopping them off due to breast cancer a few months ago.

There’s a scene in the movie where Jo has just cut off her hair and sold it in order to give her mother some money to take care of her ailing father. Jo, who’s generally more concerned with books and writing than beauty, nonetheless sits sobbing on the stairs as she intensely grieves the loss of her beautiful locks. “Your one beauty!” her sister Amy proclaims dramatically. And I sat there in the theater with tears running down my own face as I recognized and felt the profound grief the actress so perfectly portrayed. Until then, I hadn’t felt it. I had moved so quickly to triumph and silver linings, as I always do. Just as Jo chopped off her hair for a reason and a purpose, a bold expression of life and freedom, taking control in her own small way over a situation she had little control over, so did I with the bilateral mastectomy. And just as Jo was left with a new perky hairstyle, I had boldly announced to my friends that I was excited about a new set of perky smaller breasts. And I was.

But Jo’s hair would grow back and be just as beautiful as before. And though perhaps my new set of boobs might also eventually be something someone might call beautiful, the reality of recreating a set of breasts after a complete bilateral mastectomy is a far cry from a “boob job.”

And really, I’m OK with that. What do I need them for anyway? Other than to help me look somewhat normal in women’s clothing and give my husband something to play with…on the rare occasion that I even let him! But I had glossed over the fact that a major part of my body would be amputated and that whatever breast-like mounds my expert surgeon would create would never again be the soft life-filled breasts that had been mine since puberty.

With no nipples, thin skin that lacks a fat layer to surround the implant, big purple scars streaked down and across like anchors,

very little sensation, and absolutely no breast tissue whatsoever, it will be a very long time before the two mottled disks on my chest begin to resemble breasts or offer much entertainment to my husband. Though they may look pretty good from underneath my clothing, they probably will never be the perky cute things I first imagined would replace the large 45-year-old sagging breasts that had breastfed all three of my babies. Furthermore, at that moment, I was in the midst of an internal debate over whether I should even move forward with implants as planned, as I learned more about the dangers they could pose to my body. But that decision process is a whole different aspect of my story. Today, I wanted to take a moment to grieve my loss and celebrate the life of my breast friends.

A friend said to me the other day that I never talk about my boobs.

And I realized that even though I feel like I never stop talking about breast cancer and this reconstruction journey, I really don’t talk much about my actual boobs and their life before breast cancer took them from me. And I’m sure a lot of people reading this think that’s the way it should be. There’s part of me that thinks talking about my boobs publicly is completely inappropriate, embarrassing to my kids (but then again so is everything I do these days!), un-Christian and vaguely narcissistic. While it’s (barely) become acceptable to be bold about breast feeding and breast cancer, I’ve been careful to be vague about any references to my boobs as sexual objects or parts of me that I actually really loved. But I’m part of a few Facebook groups that serve as virtual support groups for women going through breast cancer, double mastectomies, and reconstruction, and some of the conversations going on there have emboldened me to take a moment to remember the breasts I once had and share a few fun stories of our time together. Feel free to stop reading if you find this offensive.

The truth is I was blessed with really great breasts, and now that they are gone forever, I feel like I have earned the right to say that out loud.

I remember a moment in high school uttering a secret silly prayer that God would grant me big breasts and long legs. Both seemed equally unlikely, as I had been just a tad over 5 feet tall for a few years by then, with short stocky legs, curvy hips and a cute perky set of 34Bs that didn’t seem likely to grow any larger. But somehow, over the next few years, the boobs continued to grow, though sadly the legs did not. Eventually they became C cups, then D and then Double D (or even triple, depending on the band size and the brand sizing.)

I was honestly a bit perturbed that of the two options – legs and boobs – God had chosen boobs to give me, as I could have paid for bigger boobs, but as of yet there was no operation to give me the long, lean legs I wished I had.

But deep down I felt lucky to have God-given breasts that women would pay thousands of dollars for. God is truly the ultimate craftsman.

A guy I dated briefly in my 20s told me I had the “best boobs in Scottsdale,” and even though there are so many things wrong with that scenario and statement, I took the fact that he’d seen who-knows-how-many commercially enhanced breasts and thought mine were better as a serious compliment to God’s work, even though looking back I should have perhaps been offended by his sexual objectification of me as a person, or at least ashamed of myself for putting myself in a place to be appraised in that way. In college, my self-dubbed nickname was Double D. Though I had originally referred to myself that way in a self-deprecating nod to my tendency to sometimes act like an airhead even though I was actually pretty smart – Ditzy Danielle, as soon as the name sprung from my lips, the entire mixed gender group of friends I was talking to looked down from my face to my breasts, and I realized it was a perfect double entendre. I often wished I had been bold enough to pay my way through college by working at a topless bar, using my boobs for a purpose.

But even in my wildest days, I really was pretty conservative and prude underneath it all – and anyone I ever dated is nodding his head in agreement on that.

I couldn’t even muster the courage to go topless on the beach in the South of France, where it really is acceptable and not even sexual. Despite the fact that my dad is French and I was raised to be comfortable with my sexuality, I was more Puritan American than European sensualist. Yet in my youth, I really wanted to be free and uninhibited. Another time in my 20s, as I was driving across the country with my then boyfriend, we arranged our trip to correspond with Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I loved everything about the French-infused city of New Orleans, and as we visited the Carnavale party on the streets, I saw countless women flashing their boobs and then being showered with plastic beads and other goodies, like a semi-grown-up version of trick-or-treating. Looking back it seems so frivolous and misogynistic, but at the time, I really wanted to be able to let loose a little, shake off my inhibitions and flash my boobs, too. So, understanding that I really wanted to have the experience of doing that, but knowing that I’d never be brave (or stupid) enough to do it myself, my boyfriend reached his arms around me from behind and lifted up my top – bra and all – to free my breasts for all the world – or at least whoever happened to be passing by – to see. It was a fun, exhilarating and carefree experience that I’ve always been secretly glad I got to have. And thankfully that was before cell phone cameras and social media.

Many years later, a few days after the birth of my oldest daughter, I laughed through tears of pain as I tried to force a milk-engorged breast the size and shape of a football into my tiny and very sleepy newborn daughter’s mouth.

I used to joke that large breasts were not necessarily a benefit where breast feeding was concerned. I had to hold them with my hand to make sure they didn’t smother my babies, whereas my small-breasted friends could just bring their babies right up to their breast without the help of a hand to hold up its weight, even walking around the house while they nursed, cradling the baby gently with one arm or hands-free with a sling. I could definitely never do that. I needed two hands available for the job. And my breasts produced enough milk for a small army rather than a single tiny baby. All three of them had symptoms of reflux in those first few weeks, but really it was just because milk poured into their mouth like water from a firehose! After breast feeding, there was certainly some deflation, but when all was said and done, they still weren’t bad, all things considered.

But as soon as I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I didn’t even hesitate before deciding to chop them off.

So many women I meet are scared to death of a mastectomy, choosing instead a lumpectomy, which they see as a less-invasive option. It’s a very personal choice, and because they caught mine early, it was my choice to make. To me, the lumpectomy route actually felt more invasive. Cutting a chunk out of my breast, leaving me deformed, hopefully getting it all but never quite being sure I wouldn’t have to go back under the knife to get another spot, felt like trying to carve out the bad parts of a rotting apple. Not to mention that if I had chosen the lumpectomy route, I would have had to endure radiation and hormone therapy, both of which came with side effects that I really wanted to avoid. I wanted to go through this once and be done. I didn’t want to face breast cancer and the life disruption that comes in its wake again 2 years from now, 10 years from now, or 30 years from now. I’ve met too many people who chose a lumpectomy or a single mastectomy and then got breast cancer – or brain, uterine, cervical or lung cancer – later on. I’m only 45. I could easily have another half my life to live. And I’ve got places to go and things to do!

So, goodbye my breast friends. You were lots of fun. Thank you for the laughs and good times. You were loved, but you certainly weren’t worth dying for.

 

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