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 | 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.
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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…
by Danielle Tantone | 6:07 am | Breast Cancer, Faith, Family & Relationships, Health & Wellness, Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship, Nursing, Night Shifts & School
Friends, I have some news. Some bad and some good. Most of it very good! You will think I’m strange in a second for saying that it’s mostly very good, but to me it is. The bad news is I have breast cancer and will undergo a bilateral mastectomy in a few months… But here’s all the good news:
- I have been considered very high risk for breast cancer due to several factors, and have been constantly monitored by mammogram, ultrasound, MRI and biopsy. I have had a few lumps that turned out to be benign, but still stressed me out and caused me to be on edge. After the bilateral mastectomy, I will no longer be considered high risk for breast cancer.
- My most recent mammogram showed new microcalcifications grouped together on the upper right quadrant of my right breast. I am so thankful for the technology that allowed my doctors to catch it at this early stage. I have High GradeStage 0 Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, the very mildest and earliest form of breast cancer. It’s contained within the milk ducts and non-invasive. I have known people who have died from breast cancer, but because of early detection, I most likely will not. Please, go get your mammograms! Wouldn’t you rather know there’s a problem and take care of it before it becomes grave and threatens your life?
- Although a lumpectomy combined with radiation is an option for me, I have opted for a double mastectomy instead, which precludes the need for chemotherapy or radiation. Some people may wonder why I would take the most drastic action rather than the most minimally invasive one. There are several reasons, and I’m sure I will elaborate on them as we move forward. For now, suffice it to say that I feel my breasts have served their purpose. They have breastfed my three children and given pleasure to my husband (and perhaps a few other people in their day, but this isn’t that kind of post…) They are heavy, with dense fibrous tissue that likes to hide cancers and other masses. They are 45 years old. Honestly, a new set of smaller, perkier boobs for my 45thbirthday doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. I may even be able to wear things I have never been able to wear before! But mostly, this mitigates my risk and doesn’t require me to be exposed to harmful radiation and chemotherapy.
- I have a wonderful support system of family and friends, and a team of amazing doctors taking care of me.
- I have an amazing God who “makes me lie down in green pastures” and “leads me beside still waters.”
- Though this will delay my nursing school journey a bit, the forced rest will give me time to finish that book, get my blog going, help Mike with real estate stuff, work on projects around the house, spend time with my family, but mostly time to rest and reflect on what I want the next 45 years of my life to look like!
- I know that not everyone is as lucky as me. If you are experiencing something heavy and need a friend to talk to, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Sending hugs and love and light to you all.
by Danielle Tantone | 7:57 am | Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship
September has always been my favorite month: a month of new beginnings, back to school (even though the kids go back to school in early August here in Arizona), summer turning into fall, the weather cooling down (ever so slightly), and…my birthday!
It’s like a second New Year. And in fact, in the Jewish Religion, we usually celebrate Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year and the start of the High Holy Days, in September. (The actual date varies each year because it’s based on the Hebrew calendar.)
In France September is know as La Rentrée, the re-entry (from vacation back to work and school). When I lived in Paris many years ago, the city was visibly empty during the hot and humid month of August when all the locals left for vacation. Many companies even closed for several weeks. But come September, everyone returned with a newfound vigor and excitement.
I have always felt a bit of that, even in Arizona where the heat is still oppressive and the kids have been back at it for weeks already.
And this year I feel it even more because we have been like the French and have spent much of this month traveling around. But also because I have a Rentrée of my own coming up!
Next week I turn 44 years old, and I will also officially be a college freshman again as I begin Nursing School!
The past few weeks have been a whirlwind, but smack dab in the middle of all these fun family trips, I received notification that I was accepted into the BSN Program at Chamberlain University School of Nursing. So in between packing and unpacking, loads of laundry, meal planning, financial planning and helping Mike with our Real Estate business, I have been tracking down college transcripts and even high school AP scores from 25 years ago, taking assessments, applying for financial aid, registering for classes, and all kinds of crazy stuff I last did a lifetime ago. More on why I made this crazy decision later…
While 44 may seem a bit old to be starting a second bachelor’s degree and a whole new career, I believe it is never too late to begin again, to follow your dreams, to create new dreams, to change your life. I look forward to sharing my experience in this next crazy adventure with you.
