Car­ol Quash

Car­lene Bruno has been can­cer-free for 14 years–a long way from the dev­as­tat­ed woman who in Jan­u­ary 2011 had screamed and cried un­con­trol­lably in the bath­room of a US hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer.

To­day, she be­lieves she has found her call­ing be­cause she en­joys pro­vid­ing breast can­cer sur­vivors with emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal sup­port. She does vol­un­tary coun­selling and guid­ance for women who are walk­ing the path she once did and tries to give them a boost of con­fi­dence through her busi­ness, Car­lene Bruno For­ma­tion Cen­tre.

Bruno is a cer­ti­fied breast pros­the­sis fit­ter. She told WE mag­a­zine, “A lot of peo­ple, when they re­move a breast, it’s trau­mat­ic, and they don’t want peo­ple to touch them. So be­fore I touch you, I will sit and talk to you. And on many oc­ca­sions, I would take out my own breast form to show that I am a breast sur­vivor just like you.”

The for­mer Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ee does house calls through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go and of­fers lay­away plans on her prod­ucts.

“The breast forms are made of sil­i­cone, and the bras are pock­et­ed so you can put the pros­the­sis in­to the bra. And there are bras for every oc­ca­sion–strap­less, sports, and every­day bras–so you can feel com­fort­able like you did be­fore the mas­tec­to­my.”

And they serve more than just aes­thet­ic pur­pos­es.

“You are sup­posed to use it every day be­cause it brings back weight to your chest. When you re­move a breast, you lose bal­ance. That re­main­ing breast can tip you, and you can ac­tu­al­ly fall down, es­pe­cial­ly peo­ple who have large breasts. Soft ma­te­ri­als like socks will not bring the weight and sym­me­try back.”

Bruno said the breast pros­the­ses she us­es can last up to five years. All her prod­ucts come from Amoe­na, a glob­al com­pa­ny that man­u­fac­tures post-mas­tec­to­my wear—the same com­pa­ny from which she re­ceived her cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Like so many oth­er women, Bruno’s Stage 3 di­ag­no­sis came as a com­plete shock, even though she had dis­cov­ered a lump in her left breast two years ear­li­er.

“I had done my ul­tra­sound and mam­mo­gram and was told I need not wor­ry be­cause it (the lump) was be­cause of fi­bro­cys­tic tis­sue. It was get­ting big­ger, but I didn’t think I had any rea­son to wor­ry about it.”

It wasn’t un­til she vis­it­ed a doc­tor for a seem­ing­ly un­re­lat­ed is­sue and was sent to do an­oth­er mam­mo­gram and ul­tra­sound that it turned in­to a night­mare.

“Dur­ing the ul­tra­sound, the tech­ni­cians were look­ing at the screen and point­ing, and I knew that some­thing was wrong.”

Her broth­er, who lived in the US, en­cour­aged her to fly there to see a doc­tor. She did, and a ra­dioac­tive biop­sy con­firmed her fear. A positron emis­sion to­mog­ra­phy scan de­ter­mined the type of treat­ment she would fol­low.

“I start­ed with chemo, and the lump shrunk from five cen­time­tres to 1.5 cen­time­tres,” Bruno said.

This was fol­lowed by a lumpec­to­my and ra­di­a­tion treat­ment.

Al­though she ex­pe­ri­enced the ex­pect­ed side ef­fects of the treat­ment, she took it in stride.

“I start­ed los­ing hair, my fin­ger­nails were black, and my eye­brows dropped off. But I shaved off my hair, wore big ear­rings, and rocked my bald head.”

But then things took an un­for­tu­nate turn. She slipped and fell out­side her broth­er’s restau­rant and got an in­fec­tion in her breast. With much re­luc­tance, she had to do a mas­tec­to­my.

“I re­call the doc­tor telling me, ‘Bruno, don’t wor­ry, we will take care of you.’

“So some­times we go through stuff, and God sends peo­ple who can guide us and give the sup­port that we need to get be­cause it’s not an easy time go­ing through can­cer.”

Her fam­i­ly and friends helped her to nav­i­gate some as­pects of the ex­pe­ri­ence with a cer­tain lev­el of com­fort. But there were some parts she had to go alone, and it was rough.

“So you take chemo to­day, and you will be okay, but then to­mor­row you may not be able to move or eat.”

For­tu­nate­ly, she some­times found so­lace in un­like­ly places, such as a child­hood ol­fac­to­ry mem­o­ry.

“I re­mem­bered how we used to pick cashews and roast the nuts to eat. That scent gave me an ap­petite for cashew nuts. I would sit every evening in front of the TV and eat cashew nuts.”

The abil­i­ty to get a good night’s sleep, how­ev­er, has evad­ed her, even over a decade af­ter un­der­go­ing chemo.

“Up to to­day, I have trou­ble sleep­ing. I would do a lot of work and be re­al­ly tired, but when I get in bed, I can’t sleep.”

Good nu­tri­tion has played a ma­jor role in her re­cov­ery and her can­cer-free sta­tus, as she be­gan nour­ish­ing her body from the day she was di­ag­nosed.

“I read a lot, and once I come across some­thing that is good for me, I take it. I used a lot of whey pro­tein, not be­cause I liked it but be­cause it was good for me. Any­thing I can do to help me stay strong and guide some­body else, I do that.”

She makes her own bread, smooth­ies, and juices and hard­ly eats out.

“Some­times I still feel for KFC and Roy­al Cas­tle,” she chuck­led. “But every­thing in mod­er­a­tion.”

She re­li­gious­ly goes to the St James Can­cer Cen­tre for her an­nu­al check-ups and tries to ex­er­cise reg­u­lar­ly.

Now in a po­si­tion to give back, Bruno vis­its can­cer clin­ics, of­fer­ing words of com­fort and guid­ance to women who are nav­i­gat­ing their own can­cer jour­neys, ful­fill­ing a man­date she re­ceived over a decade ago.

“While in the US do­ing treat­ment, there were a lot of pam­phlets avail­able, and I did a lot of read­ing at that time. I re­mem­ber God telling me to go back home and share that in­for­ma­tion, so I’m do­ing just that. I talk to peo­ple about it, and I try to an­swer their ques­tions re­gard­ing what they are go­ing through.”