by Danielle Tantone | 9:08 am | Breast Cancer, Faith, Family & Relationships, Health & Wellness, Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship, Nursing, Night Shifts & School, People Stories
I’ve been relatively quiet on social media the past few months and a few people have reached out to make sure everything is OK.
It wasn’t this big, planned out thing, nor was it a social media fast. I didn’t disconnect entirely, just became a little less vocal about all I’ve been doing and thinking, mostly because I was just so busy doing and thinking it!
Any time I would devote to writing blog posts or even basic social media updates and cute photos of my family, has been eaten up by all the unseen activities in a busy life.
I know it’s no longer cool to say, “I’m so busy.”
So let’s just say my life is jam-packed with all the things: from a full-time job as a Patient Care Technician (nursing assistant) that’s harder and more exhausting than any of the many jobs I’ve done in my life, to dealing with paperwork and applications for nursing school, cancer deferment for my student loans, financial and tax stuff, kids and family stuff…
Oh, and then I’m supposed to be…trying to be…deeply desire to be…a writer. So, I’ve been trying to carve out several hours a week to work on my first book. The one I have been working on – off and on – for close to 15 years.
I’ve also been learning how to turn my blog into an online business of sorts. And meanwhile not publishing a single post on said blog! But I’m not going to beat myself up. And I know no one really cares how many times a week or month I post in my silly blog anyway (0 in all the month of January and only a few in December, but who’s counting!) and no one has missed the welcome email I haven’t gotten around to sending out yet to all my friends, family, former clients and blog subscribers. Especially since I don’t really know who my “audience” should be anyway!
So now it’s the beginning of February and I wake up early on a Sunday morning to take a breath, spend some time thinking and contemplating, and then write a little update about the things I have been thinking and contemplating in my relative silence.
Of course there are those obvious things that lots of people have been thinking about recently, the big current news stories: fires in Australia and all those poor animals dying, the Coronavirus, the impeachment trials and election, Kobe Bryant and what to make for the Super Bowl party.
But the things that have really taken up space in my brain are both smaller and bigger, more personal and more universal, more general and more specific.
Maybe a few of these will become blog posts or articles soon, but for now, here’s a list of a few of the things that have been on my mind the past few months – a brain dump, if you will:
- Whether getting breast implants following my bilateral mastectomy is really the best choice for me…
- The amazing audiobook I just finished listening to, A Second Chance by Catherine Hoke…
- 5 Top reasons this middle-aged mom drives for Uber and Lyft…
- Why I ever thought I should and could become a nurse at 40+ years old…
- Why I inactivated my Real Estate License after 20 years…
- The fact that the young man who was shot and killed by police after showing up at one of my company’s hospitals brandishing weapons last week was an employee I had met briefly during training last year, a normal looking blonde-headed kid…
- My mixed emotions after receiving a postcard in the mail this weekend announcing a sex offender in our neighborhood…
- Working my last shift at the hospital last week and preparing for a new position as part of the float pool, which will have me working at all five hospitals in our network and all different departments…
- Why I keep showing up for this job, which should have the description: professional butt wiper, waitress, maid and counselor, and is the hardest job I’ve ever done and pays among the least…
- All the crazy things I saw while at this hospital – which serves a very different population from most of the ones I’ve been surrounded by – and where I regularly cared for homeless people, drug addicts, diabetics, amputees, and patients with mental illnesses of all types.
- How every single one of these people were just people, each with their own story and their own struggle, and how just acknowledging our similarities, connecting with them, allowing them some dignity as I cleaned up their messes – and smiling as much as possible, seemed to make a difference…
- The top 5 reasons I’m looking to switch nursing programs following my current leave of absence for breast cancer treatment…
- Paying off debt while in nursing school with an irregular income …
- How blessed I feel by our health insurance coverage in this difficult time…
- How parenting teenagers is sometimes harder than parenting toddlers…
- Contemplating the preciousness and beauty of life after attending a memorial service for a 12-year-old who lived life better than many of us…
- My book – Believe: a Memoir and a Manifesto…
- How I once became a runner and wonder if I’ll ever become one again…
- How I prepare meals for our family which includes both a committed 11-year-old vegetarian and a few hardcore carnivores and how to know what kind of eating is really the best: from Keto to Veganism, I’m surrounded by opposing views…
- Meanwhile, while I’ve been surrounded by healthy eating and an active vibrant community my whole life, I take care of patients who truly don’t know a carbohydrate from a protein and have no idea how each affects their body, blood sugar and overall health…and I feel like I should help people like that somehow…
- The similarities between suicide and drowning (How the moments leading up to each are so much more silent than you’d think)…
- Why I have secretly disliked phrases like “Kick cancer’s butt!” even though I’ve been praised for having a truly inspiring attitude as I faced my own little fleck of cancer, and how a conversation with a cancer patient at work validated my feelings, helped me understand them better, and sparked an idea of how I can truly make a difference in the fight against cancer…
- Why seeing the color pink doesn’t make me feel weak but rather strong…
- Why I make time to get together regularly with new friends and old, even when I feel like I have too many responsibilities, big dreams to chase and no time for me…
- How I can help others see their glass as half full instead of half empty and find the silver linings in their own circumstances…
This is not an exhaustive list. My brain is always gathering data, asking questions, formulating answers, dreaming big dreams and creating plans, even while I clean up sh*t, figuratively – or more often than not – quite literally!
Let me know which of these resonate with you and which ones you’d like to hear more about!
by Danielle Tantone | 9:32 am | Health & Wellness, Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship, Nursing, Night Shifts & School
Most of my patients are older, but yesterday, I took care of a young man who had jumped in front of a bus. On purpose.
He was young, with so much life ahead of him. A boy really. Less than half my age. I wonder what he was thinking as he stepped out in front of that bus. How he felt just moments before it hit. He was quite perturbed to still be here instead of wherever he believes he would have gone if the bus had successfully killed him.
“Maybe you were spared for a purpose,” I said to him late in the afternoon, after I had been in and out of his room several times and gotten to know him a bit. “Maybe there’s something on this earth that you are meant to do, someone you are meant to be.”
I don’t know if my words made it past the haze of his suicidal ideation and deep depression.
There is a side of me that remains bright-eyed and optimistic and wants to think I could make a difference, even when I’ve known too many wonderful people who have chosen to end their own lives, either quickly or slowly.
The rational, educated part of me knows that mental illness is complicated and you can’t just erase it with love and positive affirmations. And yet. Perhaps I could be a spark that could ignite a desire to live from deep within, and cause him to seek out the help he needs. Maybe, just maybe, my care and compassion can give him an ounce of hope.
At the hospital, you can always tell there’s a suicide patient by the haphazard pile of stuff strewn about outside the room. Trash can, linen basket, metal cupholder, sharps container, anything that could be removed and used as a weapon or a hanging device.
They place a sitter in the room to constantly keep eyes on the patient, and she documents what he’s doing every 15 minutes. I have been a patient sitter a few times when they needed me there. It was pretty hard for me to sit there for 12 hours instead of buzzing about like I usually do.
But this time, I was the PCT, Patient Care Technician, and he was one of 10 patients in my care. So I buzzed in to check his vitals, empty his catheter, help him to the commode, straighten up his sheets or get him a blanket, ask him if he wanted to wash his face or brush his teeth.
It’s a little like being a mom.
A few times throughout my busy, bustling day, I got to sit there longer, so the sweet sitter could take a break. I think this one touched both our hearts.
Most of the day he stared stonily at the TV or out the window. I wondered what he was thinking.
I asked him questions about his family. I asked him if he liked the holidays, hated them, or really didn’t care one way or the other. He said he didn’t care one way or the other.
Finally, I got him to smile, but the first smile didn’t quite reach his eyes and I told him so. Which made him laugh slightly and then a real smile lit his whole face up.
“You have to find the things that make you do more of that,” I said. “What would you do if you didn’t feel so depressed?” I asked. He said he would go to trade school and become an electrician. I said that sounds like a wonderful job. Electricians fix things, make them work. Light things up.
I truly believe that every person on this earth is unique and special and has a purpose, and I told him that.
I hope he finds his own light.
I hope he knows I really care.
And secretly, selfishly, I hope that he will remember my smile, my words, my energy and my love, and that it would make a difference.
We aren’t allowed to keep in touch with patients. He doesn’t even know my last name and probably won’t remember my first. But I’ll remember him, and I pray that I made a difference. Chances are he won’t be there when I return to work after Christmas. I have the next several days off. I hope he won’t be there, because laying listlessly in a hospital bed in an empty room would be depressing for anyone. But I also hope, I really do hope, that he finds his desire to live, gets help, and makes a life for himself.
I pray that getting run over by a bus and surviving becomes a catalyst to turn his whole life around. And I do believe that’s possible…
*Details changed or omitted to protect patient’s identity.
by Danielle Tantone | 4:49 am | Breast Cancer, Health & Wellness, Nursing, Night Shifts & School, People Stories
At work yesterday I walked into the room of one of my patients in response to his call light, asked him how I could help, smiled and looked him in the eye, as usual. Overcome with emotion, tears sprang to his eyes as he explained that he just felt so anxious and overwhelmed at learning a few moments ago that the surgeon would be amputating his big toe today. He had known he was having surgery, but not until today had they mentioned amputation.
“It’s just a toe, but still. It’s part of my body,” he said.
I stopped what I was doing, came around to the bedside and placed a hand gently on his shoulder. I looked into his eyes and told him that I understood and I was sorry. And while I have always been an empathetic person, easily able to put myself in another’s shoes, now I actually do completely understand what it feels like to have a part of your body amputated.
I shared with him that I too had recently had part of my body amputated. Both my breasts, in fact. A bilateral mastectomy.
Breasts are not the same as legs, arms, feet or toes. In some ways they seem less important, and in some ways even more. Breasts are perhaps the most defining characteristic of the female body. And yet seven weeks post op, no one even knows I have “robo-boobs” unless I lift up my shirt (which thankfully my job neither requires nor allows).
I don’t even mention it to most patients. Unless they notice me struggling to reach up above my head. Or unless it seems fitting or important to share. My own pain, my own experience as a patient, will make me a better nurse.
So much more I want to share, but another 12-hour shift beckons, and it’s been so long since I have even posted anything, that I figured something is better than nothing. More to come. I promise.
by Danielle Tantone | 5:03 am | Breast Cancer, Health & Wellness, People Stories
As we followed the medical assistant back to the oncologist’s office, I couldn’t help but notice the curved row of recliners right in the main central corridor of the clinic.
They looked out a huge wall of glass to the gorgeous rain-soaked North Scottsdale desert. Were it not for an IV pole perched next to each lounger, a bag of clear yellowish liquid hung and ready to be infused, this area could have been a nicely-appointed nail salon.
But I knew what it was. My husband, Michael knew what it was. This was where cancer patients received infusions of chemotherapy that would kill their cancer cells, along with many of their healthy cells, causing gastrointestinal distress, hair loss, fatigue, and all the other symptoms synonymous with cancer. We passed wordlessly, and I felt both grateful and guilty that I wouldn’t have to sit in one of these chairs as part of my treatment.
Dr. Brendan Curley entered the room cheerfully, his warm smile reaching right up to his blue eyes.
He shook our hands firmly, introducing himself, then said to my husband, “And you are…?” We laughed as he explained that he didn’t want to assume he was my husband rather than my father, son, boyfriend, or something else. We shared stories of mistaken identity and awkwardness upon assuming the wrong relationship. I once assumed my patient’s girlfriend was his mother and he once assumed a patient’s daughter was his granddaughter. So, we both had learned never to assume.
And then, before getting into any details, as if he wanted to relieve any fears up front and make me feel at ease right away, he said with a smile, “Want to know what my treatment plan is for you? None. There is none. I don’t ever need to see you again.”
Nevertheless, he took a few minutes to get to know me and really listened to my story.
When he heard I was in nursing school, and also working for HonorHealth, he suggested maybe I could come work with him after I graduate. I think I just might do that! He was professional and friendly, warm and personable. Our consult felt like a chat with an old friend. I have met very few doctors who made me feel so valued, important and cared for during a routine consultation.
After he listened, he spoke. And this visit – these 20 minutes with the oncologist who I never have to see again – confirmed and validated my decision to get a bilateral mastectomy for a Stage 0 cancer.
I knew for sure I had made the right decision, even though it was (still is) painful and a lot less fun in reality than I had imagined…
He carefully outlined the options I could have taken and what the treatment protocol would have been with each of those options.
Since the kind of cancer I had, DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma in Situ) is Stage 0 noninvasive cancer, chemotherapy is almost never part of the treatment.
Chemo is only ever given if the cancer becomes invasive or is found in the lymph nodes.
But even though my cancer was non-invasive – contained “in situ” within the milk ducts – if I had elected to have just a lumpectomy, he would have treated me with radiation followed by a hormone blocker pill to eliminate recurrent DCIS or a new breast cancer in the same breast or the contralateral breast.
Had I chosen only a single mastectomy…
I would have eliminated the need for radiation and reduced my risk by 50% since I would have removed 50% of the breast tissue, but I would still have needed to take an estrogen blocking pill, Tamoxifen for at least five years to lower risk in the contralateral breast.
But in choosing the bilateral mastectomy…
which removed all of the breast tissue from both sides, I had essentially eliminated my risk. I now have less than a 1% chance of ever in my life getting breast cancer.
And since all my genetic testing came back negative for cancer markers, I don’t have an increased risk for any other type of cancer either.
That doesn’t mean I have a guarantee to never get cancer. Even healthy people get cancer. There are carcinogens in our environment, in our food, and who knows where else. But I can go back to living as healthy as I can and not have to worry.
The oncologist’s office was a beautiful, peaceful and surprisingly positive place. If I had to go there regularly for treatments, it would be a pleasant environment in which to face the pain of cancer treatment. Still, I am grateful that I don’t have to go there again!
I stumbled upon the video below as I was writing this story
I thought it perfectly captured Dr. Curley’s sweetness and authenticity. Growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, his mom was “everyone’s doctor” and his dad was a cancer doctor in a larger town a bit further away. Dr. Curley’s oncology practice brings together these two flavors of patient care into a warm and friendly experience, even as he helps patients navigate the scariest illness.
And in his spare time, he volunteers at the hospital with his therapy dog, Princess Danger, an adorable English bulldog. . He doesn’t even mention to the patients he visits with Princess Danger that he’s a cancer doctor. When he visits with them, he’s just a sweet, smiley guy who cares.
“Life is about finding people who care. It’s about finding people who are going to take the time, finding people who essentially are going to treat you like family,” he says.
“Life is not about extending days. Life is about adding moments.”
And I won’t soon forget the few moments I spent with Dr. Brendan Curley. If you have to have a cancer doctor, Dr. Brendan Curley is a great one.
by Danielle Tantone | 8:43 am | Breast Cancer, Faith, Family & Relationships, Health & Wellness, Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship, Nursing, Night Shifts & School, People Stories
I wrote this article to be published in the January issue of Las Sendas Life magazine, which is distributed in hard copy form to the I-don’t-know-how-many thousands of residents in our community each month. It’s basically an intro to my Breast Cancer journey and a hint at where I’d like to go from here. I’m so grateful to the magazine’s publisher, Heather Harrison for giving me another medium to share my message.
None of this will be news to those of you who have been following along since I started posting about this almost exactly two months ago, but I figured it’s a good place to start as I attempt to go back and fill in the details of the story.
People have told me they are impressed by my openness, my positivity, my courage, even if some of them think I’m crazy for blabbing about my personal business to anyone who will listen. And I have said again and again that it’s easy to be positive when I feel so lucky, when my cancer was so minor, when I really wasn’t sick and didn’t have to sacrifice anything.
They have told me not to minimize my pain, my experience. Facing cancer and getting both your breasts amputated actually is a big deal!
But I have felt so guilty, when others die from this disease and I was prepared to suffer, but didn’t have to.
Yet I realized, after connecting to an old friend at a party the other night, my first social event since the surgery, that this is about more than just me. She shared the terrifying experience of her own recent biopsy (which turned out benign) and we laughed about how barbaric and uncomfortable that procedure was. “You need to write about that,” she said. And I realized that I have glossed over some of the negative aspects of my experience because they just didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me, and I wanted to jump right away to the positive.
I have watched friends lose parents and children, suffer from autoimmune diseases that in many ways are worse than cancer because they are so undefined and misunderstood. I have seen friends die: from breast cancer or liver failure, accidents, suicide, even murder. Who am I to talk of pain?
But who I am is someone who can give words to my experience and the experiences of others, I can tell the stories of the struggles and triumphs that make us human. It’s what I have always been best at. So I will go back over the events and details of the last few months of my experience and share the details – not just the positive affirmations, but the scary moments too. And I will begin to sprinkle in other people’s stories too. That’s my gift.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Getting breast cancer wasn’t in my plans, at least not right now.
I had recently turned 45 and had just begun the second year of a three-year accelerated BSN nursing program. I was working nights as a nursing assistant at a hospital across town and juggling a husband, three kids and a home. I was also helping a Real Estate client negotiate the purchase of a home.
But God didn’t ask me about my timing.
And quite frankly, though I didn’t know it yet, I needed a break from the frenetic pace of my life. When I received the diagnosis of High-Grade Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS) on September 20, 2019, I felt more relieved than upset. If you were going to get breast cancer, this was the kind to get – the earliest, most treatable form, “cancer-lite.” My mom had received the same diagnosis almost exactly 10 years earlier, and she was cancer-free and thriving.
It wasn’t really a surprise.
While the average woman has a 1 in 8, or 12% chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime, my risk had been calculated at 36%, due to family history, dense breast tissue, some past lumps that had turned out benign, and other factors. Because of my high-risk status, every six months I went in for either a mammogram/ultrasound or an MRI. When the radiologist said he saw some new microcalcifications on the mammogram that were a bit concerning, I didn’t feel afraid, but immediately scheduled the biopsy he recommended and started researching.
I eat healthy, exercise regularly, keep my weight in check and try to keep stress levels low.
I don’t drink much alcohol. I don’t smoke or take drugs. I use all-natural home cleaning and skincare products, free from caustic chemicals. So frankly, I was a bit peeved to still get cancer. But even though I believe in natural medicine and holistic approaches, and perhaps naturopathic medicine could have erased this cancer, I was tired of being high risk, always wondering if I was going to get breast cancer. Several women I had known had died from this horrible disease. I never wavered on my decision to get a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction.
It’s a Very Personal Choice. Every Cancer, Every Woman, Every Life is Different.
Although a lumpectomy combined with radiation was an option for me, the bilateral mastectomy mitigated my risk and precluded the need for chemotherapy, radiation or even hormonal treatments common with lumpectomies and single mastectomies. My breasts had served their intended purpose, breastfeeding all three of my children. They had entertained my husband. They had even earned me beads at Mardi Gras in New Orleans in another life…
But they were heavy, with dense fibrous tissue that likes to hide cancers and other masses. And frankly, a new set of smaller, perkier boobs didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. Silver linings. It’s all about finding the silver linings.
I started sharing my journey online and noticed my writing touched a chord.
People started reaching out to tell me of their diagnoses or struggles, impressed by my courage and positivity. I realized I could inspire others to face their own tough circumstances with courage, laughter and love. Even though not everyone’s prognosis is as good as mine, the attitude we bring to the table – our faith, joy and love, can make a huge difference in our healing process, or in the process of navigating any tough experience.
We are all a Piece of Work, a Work in Progress, and a Work of Art, all at the same time.
It’s a phrase I coined over the past few years as I realized that everyone is trying to figure out and navigate this thing called life, whether they are a child, an adult, a pastor’s wife, a doctor or a world leader.
Forced to take a break from nursing school, I decided to finally finish that book I’ve been working on for years and develop my blog, www.DanielleTantone.com to share stories, educate, and inspire people to live their best life, be their best self, love with all their heart, and find beauty in their darkest days. After all, “life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Green
My breast reconstruction process is ongoing and there will be a few additional surgeries, but today I am thankful to be alive and cancer free.
This will be the first article in an ongoing series focusing not just on breast cancer, but on overcoming. If you have a story – about your own breast cancer journey, another health struggle you’ve already overcome or are still muddling through, or something else you’d like to share with the community, feel free to reach out to Danielle@106danielle.nohassle.website.
by Danielle Tantone | 1:01 pm | Breast Cancer, Health & Wellness, Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship, Nursing, Night Shifts & School
Three weeks has gone by in the blink of an eye. I know that’s a trite phrase – the blink of an eye, but working nights, I’m in a constant zombie state anyway, never quite catching up on sleep, despite the comfy sleep chamber I’ve created in my closet. So there is a numbness, a bit of a jumble between days and nights. Even before this new thing came into my life, I was hardly getting used to night being day and day being night. One day turned into another and the weeks tumbled by like a bumpy ride in an old tattered wagon. I felt like I was barely making it through the weeks, almost drunk with exhaustion, but hiding it well, like a functional alcoholic hides his drunkenness.
I feel like I should feel…something…more than I do. I should be feeling fear, anger, insecurity, unsureness about the choices I have had to make these past few weeks and the many more that are probably coming. But instead I feel just a tiny bit numb, but also resolute, strangely calm, with a bubbling excitement underneath, like I know a thrilling secret or I’m looking forward to something big: a vacation to an exotic land, the first day of school in a new place, a new job or project that’s a bit over my head, a new love that I’m thinking about constantly as I go through the motions of everyday life, wondering if I look different to anyone else. It’s strange that the excitement feels positive rather than negative.
I want to talk about it with everyone I see, and at the same time I don’t. It’s a hard thing to just bring up. The nurses and other techs I work with at the hospital still expect me to help patients to the bathroom, change their diapers and clean them up, check their vitals, run to the lab to get some blood, answer call lights every five minutes for 12 hours straight. Life just keeps going on as if nothing is different. Most people don’t even know. And what am I supposed to do, walk around shouting, “Can’t you see I have breast cancer!?” Even the people I see in real life who are also Facebook friends and surely must have seen my post that garnered almost 300 comments, rarely say anything when they see me in person. Maybe they don’t know what to say. Maybe they are just too consumed with their own life to remember what they read on Facebook three weeks ago.
Who knows how big it even is, this ductal carcinoma in situ. I can’t feel anything besides a small dull ache deep within my breast that may or not be real pain rather than just a twinge I get whenever I remember that I have breast cancer. It’s stage zero. There isn’t even a true tumor yet, just a build-up of mutated cells that are rapidly reproducing themselves in the milk duct of one breast that once brought wholesome nourishment to my three baby girls, but now hangs there empty and useless, just waiting for cancer to rear its ugly ass. Necrosis. Cell death. I had only just learned that word a few weeks earlier in Pathophysiology. It’s strange to be a nursing student and have the words in your textbook suddenly show up on a lab report that’s talking about you. Strange, but also reassuring to actually understand what is happening at a cellular level.
Today I feel like I’m back at the start of my first marathon race, in the dark at 6 am at the top of Usery pass, not far from my home. I’m in familiar territory, but everything is different now. I’m standing right in the middle of the street, squeezed between hundreds of people. There’s noise and fanfare and fireworks. I’m a bit sick to my stomach, surrounded by a crowd, yet all alone, poised and ready, knowing I have to pace myself despite the mounting energy coursing through me. I’m ready to go, prepared for this. I know intuitively that it will be beyond hard, that I will have to push through hard times, that there will be moments when I just want to crumple into a pile on the floor and give up. But I feel like everything in my life up to now has prepared me to face this race and run it with courage and faith. I can do hard things. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, over and over and over…
