AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

With decades of ex­pe­ri­ence as a nurse, Denise Gibbs-Clarke was fa­mil­iar with the strug­gles can­cer pa­tients faced. Yet when she was di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer in 2023, her un­der­stand­ing of the dis­ease took on a whole new mean­ing.

At 52, Denise found her­self walk­ing the very path she had spent a life­time il­lu­mi­nat­ing for oth­ers. As the di­rec­tor of nurs­ing at West­shore Med­ical, she un­der­stood the im­por­tance of ear­ly de­tec­tion. Hav­ing al­so worked with the T&T Can­cer So­ci­ety (TTCS), she was a fa­mil­iar ad­vo­cate, ed­u­cat­ing women about breast health and the im­por­tance of self-ex­am­i­na­tion to iden­ti­fy un­usu­al changes.

Yet it was while prepar­ing to de­liv­er a lec­ture on breast self-ex­am­i­na­tion at a church that she dis­cov­ered a lump in her own breast.

“I was just home that morn­ing prepar­ing what to of­fer at this lec­ture. And when I touched, I felt the lump. It was a shock,” Denise told Guardian Me­dia.

In her mind, she was al­ready map­ping out the clin­i­cal steps ahead while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly at­tempt­ing to sub­due any neg­a­tive thoughts.

She skipped the lec­ture, alert­ed her hus­band and con­tact­ed ra­di­ol­o­gist Dr Fi­del Ram­per­sad, whom she had worked with at TTCS, to con­firm what her heart al­ready feared. The day stretched long past mid­night as she un­der­went ur­gent tests, seek­ing to ease her anx­i­eties.

Fol­low­ing these ex­am­i­na­tions and a biop­sy, she re­ceived the de­fin­i­tive di­ag­no­sis days lat­er: stage two breast can­cer.

“I was scared to tell my fam­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly my moth­er and fa­ther. So af­ter the di­ag­no­sis was con­firmed, then I spoke to my mom and my dad,” Denise re­count­ed emo­tion­al­ly.

Her hus­band and their two sons, Je­re­mi­ah and Eli­jah, ini­tial­ly strug­gled with her di­ag­no­sis, and she felt she had to stay strong for them. This was es­pe­cial­ly true for her el­dest son, who was griev­ing from miles away while study­ing in Flori­da and was un­able to re­turn to be at her bed­side.

Even with her vast med­ical knowl­edge, she was not pre­pared emo­tion­al­ly for such news.

“Every­thing went through the win­dow. The on­ly thing that you could have hung on to was God,” she said.

Faith through the fear

Faith be­came her sanc­tu­ary through this new­ly un­fold­ing storm. Denise said she felt guid­ed through each stage of the process, even as she strug­gled with mo­ments of fear and un­cer­tain­ty.

She made the de­ci­sive choice to un­der­go a mas­tec­to­my. Al­though doc­tors ini­tial­ly con­sid­ered oth­er op­tions, such as re­mov­ing on­ly the lump, Denise knew she want­ed the af­fect­ed breast re­moved.

Her treat­ment al­so in­volved ge­net­ic test­ing, which re­quired a sam­ple to be sent to the Unit­ed States. The process, along with oth­er cir­cum­stances, de­layed her surgery.

She even­tu­al­ly un­der­went a nip­ple-spar­ing mas­tec­to­my and breast re­con­struc­tion. Rather than opt­ing for an im­plant, she asked whether an­oth­er op­tion was avail­able.

“I think they want­ed to do an im­plant, and I didn’t want an im­plant. I mean, at my age, I am de­ter­mined to live to be 100, God’s will­ing. And I just didn’t want to have to re­do any surgery to have to re­place these im­plants.”

A mem­ber of her sur­gi­cal team pro­posed us­ing mus­cle tis­sue, fol­lowed by fur­ther re­con­struc­tion us­ing fat.

The surgery marked a cru­cial turn­ing point. How­ev­er, ear­ly de­tec­tion was her great­est safe­guard. Denise said test­ing re­vealed that the can­cer had not spread to her sen­tinel lymph nodes. As a re­sult, she did not re­quire chemother­a­py or ra­di­a­tion.

“But I am on hor­mone tablets for five years. It breaks down your bone. And at least two times for the year, I have to go and do the Zometa treat­ment to build back up the bone, which is very painful.”

Re­cov­ery is a dai­ly bat­tle

Now 55, her re­cov­ery jour­ney con­tin­ues to de­mand pa­tience and ad­just­ment.

Denise says she ex­pe­ri­ences lim­i­ta­tions in her move­ment and strength. Ac­tiv­i­ties such as ex­er­cis­ing and dress­ing her­self can some­times be dif­fi­cult, of­ten re­quir­ing the as­sis­tance of her hus­band or son.

“I have no mus­cles to my back, so I’m very lim­it­ed in terms of move­ment with my hands. I can but­ton tops and put on stuff, but to re­move, like a T-shirt that has to go on, it’s very dif­fi­cult.”

Still, she re­mains de­ter­mined to re­gain her strength.

“I kind of don’t have the en­er­gy or the strength, but I will get it back. I’m not wor­ried. But oth­er than that, I’m very com­fort­able.”

Denise con­tin­ues to lead a ful­fill­ing life as a work­ing pro­fes­sion­al. While she may be known for her bub­bly and ever-smil­ing per­son­al­i­ty, she ad­mits that there are times when she strug­gles emo­tion­al­ly.

“I would say I’m 75 per cent there be­cause I have to talk to my­self every morn­ing. You know, ‘You’re good. Let’s do this’,” she said.

“Some peo­ple think that I’m nor­mal, you know, when you look at me, but they don’t know the strug­gles that I go on with in­ter­nal­ly, as well as that phys­i­cal.”

She re­called mo­ments when she would find her­self cry­ing while alone, un­sure whether the tears came from sad­ness or grat­i­tude.

But she tru­ly be­lieves they were tears of joy - a qui­et cel­e­bra­tion of life it­self and the en­dur­ing love and sup­port that car­ried her through.

A nurse with a deep­er un­der­stand­ing

The or­deal has al­so deeply trans­formed her ap­proach to nurs­ing. While Denise has al­ways con­sid­ered her­self a car­ing and com­pas­sion­ate health­care pro­fes­sion­al, she said be­com­ing a pa­tient taught her to pay clos­er at­ten­tion to the con­cerns peo­ple raise about their care. When man­ag­ing and men­tor­ing her team of nurs­es, Denise says she en­cour­ages them to be em­pa­thet­ic and to lis­ten with a more com­pas­sion­ate ear.

Her per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence has al­so strength­ened her con­nec­tion with pa­tients fac­ing can­cer.

“I re­mem­ber one day, you know, there was a [can­cer] pa­tient, and some­times you just need that ex­tra talk. I said, “Why are you fuss­ing? And she’s like, “You don’t know what I’m go­ing through. I said, “Yes, I do.” And we be­came very, very close friends,” Denise shared.

“[Nurs­ing] it’s not just a job here, it’s a vo­ca­tion.”

En­cour­ag­ing women

to get checked

As Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Month un­folds, Denise is en­cour­ag­ing women to pay at­ten­tion to their bod­ies and seek med­ical ad­vice when they no­tice any changes.

“The Can­cer So­ci­ety is here to sup­port you. West­shore is here too. We have sur­vivors that you can talk to ease that whole process, that whole tran­si­tion.”