My breast cancer story begins last year with a mammogram. Something just didn’t feel right.
The mammogram led to an ultrasound, then a biopsy, and before I knew it, I was on a journey I never imagined. A journey that brought me to Royal Jubilee Hospital, the very place where I had spent the first eight years of my nursing career—only now, I was on the other side of the bed: a patient instead of a nurse.
I’ll never forget the calm reassurance of my general surgeon, Dr. Allen Hayashi, after my biopsy. As he sutured the rather large site, he looked me in the eyes and said, “Call me if anything comes up.” In that moment, it felt like he was my superhero. But just ten days later, I received the news I least expected, I was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), an early form of breast cancer.
The days and weeks that followed were an agonizing blur as I began to process my options and decide my treatment path. I was thinking about my beautiful twins, Livia and Kingston. About my husband, Nolan. About my friends, my colleagues, my own patients.
The only thought that reassured me was knowing I was in the best place with the best surgeons taking care of me. I called them my “dream team,” Dr. Hayashi, and plastic surgeon Dr. Chris Taylor—two surgeons I had once worked alongside of.
On September 17th, 2024, they performed a single mastectomy, removing my right breast tissue. I felt at peace, knowing I was in the best hands possible. When I woke, I was brought to the hospital’s seventh floor where I had worked, in a room lovingly decorated by my former colleagues.
Healing wasn’t easy, but I found strength all around me—in the love of my family, the support of my friends and community, and surprisingly, in art. Sculpting the female form became a way to process, to honour, and to heal. I’ve since created pieces celebrating women who inspired me along the way. Women who like me have faced early breast cancer, later stage breast cancers… but also women who have gone through hysterectomies, cesarians, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer…
I wanted to share my story with the Victoria Hospitals Foundation to honour the incredible work they do supporting women’s health in Victoria. I realize how deeply my story connects to the Foundation and the impact every gift can make. Behind each donation is a woman like me—a patient, a mother, a member of a family navigating uncertainty. An Island woman.
The generosity of our community elevates care. It fuels hope, supports healing. It empowers our caregivers to provide the very best and latest in care, and it empowers patients to reclaim their strength and dignity. As a nurse, and now as a patient, I am deeply familiar with what it means to have Foundation donors support journey like ours.
I am so touched to know our surgeons will be getting 60 new pieces of oncology surgery technology—including a new mammography unit and new surgical tools that will help provide more precise guidance in surgery—through the work of the Foundation. It’s important. It’s time.
