Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
In February when I have really bad allergies out here
in the valley, I go into the doctor,
and we went over that.
We were walking out of the office and her nurse Elizabeth
was hollering for us.
And we both turned around and I was like,
"Oh, you want the doctor, right?"
She goes, "No, I want you.
You are past due for your mammogram by a couple months."
And I didn't even realize it.
I've had several mammograms. This wasn't my first one.
I'm really good about keeping up on it.
Just for some reason, it overlapped a couple months.
And that's what got the whole ball rolling with everything.
I was in the grey area where it wasn't a yes; it wasn't a no.
But they wanted me to come in the following week and do
a biopsy which I'd never done before, and then I was told
on March 31st, which was the following Wednesday,
and I had surgery.
So then I had to do radiation and chemo.
I can only imagine the stuff that those nurses see
on a regular basis, and to still stay so positive
and so caring and loving is amazing.
And they do it. They do it with a smile
and they treat you like you're their family.
It's real important to have a connection with the patient.
The patients look to us.
They're going into an unknown territory.
And so we like to try and make them as comfortable as possible.
I have a granddaughter, a year and a half old.
And I have a second granddaughter coming.
I'm alive, I'm cancer free, and I'm here to see
my beautiful grandchildren and my family.
And if you have to go through what I went through,
I'm so blessed that I was with Kaiser and I was able
to have the services and the help that I did
because they were amazing.
It was Elizabeth doing her job that caught it.
I told her that a few months later.
I went into say thank you.
I took her a thank-you card after a good period of time
had gone and gave her some chocolates
and we cried together.
And I said, "I know you were doing your job,
but thank God you were doing your job."