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 | 10:14 pm | Faith, Family & Relationships, People Stories
Although my life has had a somewhat singular focus recently – breast cancer, getting rid of it and recovering from the getting rid of it – life does still keep going on and on. Kids still get colds and stay home from school. We still have to pay bills and we have to argue with the cable company. Birthdays, anniversaries, events still come and go.
I’ve always been in tune with patterns and dates, taking note of what I was doing this time last year, five years ago, 20 years ago. Sometimes Facebook reminds me with a picture of my girls when they were so tiny, or a video of them doing something cute or funny. These Facebook memories make me smile and bring back a flood of memories.
But sometimes a date pops up that doesn’t need a Facebook memory to be significant. Often it’s a date that is no longer appropriate to celebrate, like a deceased friend’s birthday, my parents’ wedding anniversary when they’ve been divorced longer than the 25 years they were married. Or something that was never a celebration in the first place, like the day my grandpa died or the day I got divorced. But I still take note of the dates, and I remember, enjoying a silent celebration, a smile, or a moment of sadness at the memory, and sometimes I reach out to one of the people who shared the day and understand its significance.
Today is one such date. November 8th, the 16th anniversary of the day that I met my ex-husband, Matt – Camryn and Kate’s dad – in a dusty schoolyard in Gila Bend, AZ, a life-changing day, no matter how you look at it, and regardless of the fact that we are no longer married and each happily remarried. If it wasn’t for that meeting, we wouldn’t have our two beautiful daughters and I would probably not have become a Christian. I wouldn’t be the person I am today. It’s hard not to celebrate a day like that. It’s amazing how a single moment can change the course of a life. My life has had many of those moments. Has yours?
Here’s an excerpt from the “shitty” first draft of my memoir, Believe, that I wrote many years ago. It’s the scene of that day 16 years ago, when I met him after riding 75ish miles on a bicycle, and the next day as we rode back together. The details are less clear now, and if I was writing it from today’s perspective, there might be different things that stand out as important than the ones I shared when I wrote it. But I’m glad I wrote it down back then, even though the writing makes me cringe just a little. I don’t know if this scene or a version of it will be included in the final draft of the memoir that I’m working on now, but it was on my mind and I wanted to share it since this may be the only place this particular version is ever published.
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by Danielle Tantone | 4:52 am | Faith, Family & Relationships, People Stories
I learned of the death of Tom Shrader in the middle of Chemistry class yesterday. (Yes, I must have taken a peek at facebook on my phone during class. Tsk Tsk.)
Tom was a wonderful pastor and teacher to so many, a father to two amazing women whom I have called friends. I wasn’t close to Tom, hadn’t seen him in years. But my heart felt heavy all day, even as I dealt with the tasks of everyday life: work and worries, picking up kids, making dinner, tucking the kids into bed. I didn’t have time to process it or even talk about it other than a few Facebook posts and texts. Which is why I am now up in the middle of the night doing so.
It was right before Christmas in 2003. I was 29 years old and recently divorced. I had just met this boy on a bike ride. He was refreshing and sweet…but a born-again Christian. I was Jewish. My beliefs may have been fuzzy, but if there was one thing I did not believe in, it was Jesus Christ! And yet…I was so curious.
I pretty much invited myself to church with him. East Valley Bible Church in Gilbert. The pastor, Tom Shrader, was this middle-aged midwestern guy with longish gray hair. He spoke in a no-nonsense tone, and I remember him talking about Jesus in a way I had never heard him talked about. Previously I had believed that Jesus wasn’t “for me,” but Tom Shrader introduced me to the real Jesus and made him accessible. To me and everyone else. He taught me not to be “so open minded my brains fall out.” Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.
I heard Tom talk about how he had “been saved” and it made me curious. What exactly does it mean to be saved? And could it happen to me? Tom taught me the gospel, the good news that Jesus lived, that he died on the cross and that all I had to do was believe in him and follow him to have eternal life…not a perfect life, not by a long shot. We all had fallen short of the glory of God, but believing in Jesus covered us with his cloak of righteousness.
It was all such a strange and beautiful idea to me at the time. Who could believe this stuff was actually true – Like true, true and not just a fairy tale to be celebrated at Christmas? Ridiculous. And totally unnecessary for me anyway! I was already one of God’s chosen people. Jesus was just a good teacher, a rabbi, a Jew, I had been taught. He never set out to start a religion. Paul did that after he died. He certainly wasn’t God’s actual son any more than I was God’s actual daughter. He wasn’t actually born of a virgin. That’s impossible. He didn’t actually come back alive three days after being brutally put to death by crucifixion. That’s impossible. A Jew can’t believe in Jesus. That’s impossible…
And yet. I went to the library to check out some books on the subject and I ended up checking out a paperback version of The New Testament of the Bible. It had red lettering to show where Jesus was speaking, and a forward by Billy Graham. I read it in secret in my bedroom of the house I shared with my sister. You have to understand, this was blasphemous to be reading this. I might as well have been reading porn.
But I started in Matthew and read Jesus’ words: If you’ve even thought about a woman, you have committed adultery in your heart. Well, I was worse than that… I started feeling hopeless.
But as I kept attending church and hearing Tom’s teaching, I felt the hope of the gospel and that perhaps God actually did mean this for me. Maybe the mistakes I had made, the stupid things I had done, could be forgiven. Maybe Christianity actually was for me, even though I would never stop being Jewish. Tom taught right from the Bible and his teaching helped me make sense of its words. The Bible became alive and vivid for me, even the Old Testament Torah, in a way that it never had felt in Temple.
As we passed the communion plate in church, Tom would say something to the effect that if you were not a believer in Jesus Christ, then you could feel free to just pass the plate along. But you needed to know that in doing so, you were saying no to God’s provision and choosing to do it your own way. How well was that working out for you? He didn’t say that exactly, but his words were like a gentle punch in the gut to me.
On the Monday before Christmas, I was driving home from work on the I-10 freeway west of Phoenix, asking God if this Jesus stuff could really be for me. Could a little Jewish girl from Scottsdale become a Christian? How would I know? And how would I ever break the news to my mom? I was literally talking to God, asking him what I should do. I guess you would call it praying, although in Judaism prayer was a more formal affair.
I looked up out of my reverie and the license plate in front of me said, BLEEV!
Believe. That’s all. OK, I will. I do!
And I wish I could say that I lived happily ever after and rode off into the sunset, but that’s not true. My life of course, has taken many twists and turns since that moment, and thank God, my story is so far from over…
I know that I am just one of so many people whose life was forever changed by Tom Shrader. May he rest in peace, at home with Jesus.
by Danielle Tantone | 10:43 am | People Stories
The stage was set in front of the enormous windows at the end of what is normally just a hallway full of people rushing to their flights. But on November 7, the day after the midterm election and a few days before Veteran’s Day, hundreds of people – including many fellow Las Sendas residents – gathered inside Phoenix Sky Harbor’s Terminal 4 to celebrate Jeff Senour’s life and work, many dressed in military uniforms or our country’s red, white and blue, and holding American flags.
When the plane touched down after Captain Jeff Senour’s final flight as a Southwest Airlines pilot, people rushed toward windows to catch a glimpse of him coming into the gate.
After a touching water salute, which involved two Phoenix firefighting rigs that sprayed arcs of water over the arriving flight, Jeff leaned his torso out of the cockpit’s window for a big wave. The water salute is a sign of respect, honor and gratitude and is a common practice when a captain retires. But the rest of the fanfare and festivities was pure Jeff. He had filled that terminal with rocking inspirational music, heroes, employees, patriots and friends because his life’s mission is to inspire others to live their dreams.
“The honor of bringing hundreds of people together under one roof to celebrate life, happiness and dreams is something this world needs more of,” he said.
Although the tributes and inspirational words people shared about Jeff reminded me of the kinds of things people usually only say after someone has died, this was by no means a funeral. It was one part retirement party – celebrating Jeff’s retirement from Southwest Airlines after 25 years of service; one part birthday party – celebrating Jeff’s 65thbirthday, which precipitated the retirement (Yes, you read that right, 65! Though if you met Jeff around town, you’d think he was maybe 50); and one part rock concert – when Jeff is not flying planes across the USA, he and his band, CTS – Called to Serve – play inspirational and patriotic rock music all over, from the Pentagon to Pearl Harbor and everywhere in between. The recipe blended together to create one rocking patriotic celebration – complete with real American heroes and a giant American flag that stretched across the terminal.
Among Jeff’s more famous friends celebrating that day were Emmy-nominated actor Jack Scalia and Valerie Thompson, the world’s fastest female motorcycle racer. Also along for the ride were New York Fire Department Lieutenant Joe Torrillo – who survived being buried under debris on 9/11 in the World Trade Center, and has become an inspirational public speaker; and Mitch Mendler from the San Diego fire department – along with a special passenger, the 30×60 foot Patriot Flag, currently touring the country visiting every US State Capital. We got to spread the enormous flag across the terminal and wave it up and down as rock music wafted through the air. The flag was the larger of two giant flags transported on Jeff’s final flight. The smaller flag came from the USS Missouri, a battleship at Pearl Harbor in WWII. Jeff was also honored to transport several Congressional Medals of Honor in the cockpit with him. There were plenty of regular people celebrating on the flight and in the terminal too: fellow employees, family, friends and neighbors.
“It’s hard to describe the contrast between his calm, mature and professional demeanor and the giddiness, joy and passion that he had that whole day, and that I can only imagine was in every flight he took,” said fellow Las Sendas resident Michael Tantone, who had the opportunity to fly on the celebratory flights with Jeff to Burbank, CA and back home again to Phoenix. “Jeff has a way of making you feel like you are the most important person he’s ever talked to, even as you are aware that he’s talked to some of the most amazing people in the world. He travels with celebrities, heroes and political figures, yet he remains a humble regular guy. He was so honored and touched by all the people there, and we were honored and touched to be there,” Michael said.
“My mom taught me that no matter what job you do, do it well,” Jeff said. “You never know who’s going to notice. Go that extra mile, whether sweeping the floor or whatever.”
Jeff said his dad was a private pilot and his mom was a musician, and he’s been blessed to be able to combine the two dreams.
“Along the way there were stumbling blocks and hurdles,” he said. “You don’t get a trophy in life for everything. The sooner you can learn to fail, the sooner you will learn to succeed. Failure teaches us how to pick ourselves up, move on and be better.”
Jeff said his dad took him flying as a kid and he was hooked, but having little money for flight lessons, he had to learn one slow step at a time. A good friend of his in college was a flight instructor, so each time he’d saved up enough money, he would go up and fly for an hour. Eventually Jeff became a flight instructor at Van Nuys airport. From there he moved on to flying jets, which led to flying celebrities, CEOs and movie stars around the world. He was even inducted into the Screen Actors’ Guild and became a Hollywood screen pilot, working on many movies – including True Lies, Executive Decisions, Hot Shots, and Silence of the Lambs; TV shows such as Fall Guy and Knight Rider, and airline commercials.
“I got to live the dream,” he said.
But he said the job at Southwest was also a dream: the caliber of people spectacular, the culture refreshing, and just an overall amazing experience he has loved every minute of. Although he’s officially aged out of commercial passenger flying, he’s not ready to give up flying just yet. He can still fly corporate and charter flights and is also working on some other projects, including two different television series and his band CTS, which he started about 15 years ago to write and bring original music to the forefront.
“Find the gift inside of you that God gave you and go do something with it to make the world a better place.” He said. “There are 7 Billion people on earth and no two of us are exactly alike. Find your gift and use it for good.”
Jeff said he met his wife Allison here in Las Sendas after he purchased her house. He hadn’t realized the house was “For Sale WITH Owner,” and in fact they didn’t meet until about three weeks after the sale, when he opened the door one day, his then 5-year-old son Parker standing next to him, and saw this beautiful woman standing there. She had only stopped by to welcome him to the neighborhood, but they soon started dating, and quickly got serious. Today Allison is stepmom to Jeff’s four kids: Matthew, 35, Julia Claire, 23, Silvia, 21, and Parker 17.
His advice to a complaining passenger on one of his flights pretty much sums up Jeff’s philosophy of life:
“Look around you. If you think you got it so bad, you might consider that I’m going to strap you into that chair and we’re going to go 600 miles per hour through the sky, seven miles above the earth, and in a few hours I’m going to deliver you safely to a destination that would have taken months in a covered wagon. We get on a plane and we fly at will. Look out that window! Don’t roll your shade down.”
It’s obvious that Jeff won’t be rolling his shade down anytime soon.
by Danielle Tantone | 5:39 am | Mindset, Mental Health & Entrepreneurship, People Stories
I’ve wanted to be a professional blogger for about as long as blogs have existed, or at least since I first heard they existed…
I’ve started a few blogs over the years, on both free platforms and hosted WordPress sites…
I have created and managed blogs for companies I have worked for…
I have blogged for real estate marketing, or just about my kids and life…
I’ve had a vision of my own blog being a central hub for all the different business I have been involved in…
Then I have thought, maybe I should make it more focused on just one thing: travel, or real estate or insurance or health and fitness…
I have taken classes from people who supposedly make more money from their blog in one month than I made last year, and thought, If they can do that, surely I can too. I was a journalism major, after all. That has to be good for something…
And then I have thought, Maybe I should just write about what I love, and not make it a business. Who cares if anyone actually reads it?
Should my blog be a platform for the book I will someday publish? Should I maybe just write the book as a series of blog posts?
So many options. So many details to coordinate to even get the blog set up, since I’m not exactly tech savvy. So many things to get in the way of actually writing anything at all on this blog that I’ve spent so many hours thinking about.
So today I said, This is it! Enough is enough! I’m just going to write something. Anything. Get it started and see where it goes.
So this is it. I’m not really sure what exactly this blog will be about. I will probably share funny and poignant details of my life and try to tie them into a greater meaning that could possibly have some value to you. I hope you enjoy. I hope I make you smile. I hope I show a glimpse of the beauty of this precious thing we call life.
