Making Something Positive out of Breast Cancer

After my breast cancer treatment, I started a clothing bank to give others free access to recovery items like post-surgery shirts and pillows.

With five weeks between two nodules being found in my right breast, then biopsies, tests, and then my double mastectomy with DIEP reconstruction, I felt like I was drowning. I found out about special shirts that open in the front, with pockets for the surgical drains, and shirts with zippers positioned for easy port access. However, when I Googled retail stores to go look at them, there were none. I lived in Long Island, New York, and was willing to drive to New Jersey or Connecticut to be able to touch, see, and feel the shirts before buying them, but there were no brick-and-mortar stores in the tristate area.

I was forced to purchase several types of shirts online, which I ended up not using because either they just didn’t work for me, or I didn’t like how they fit.

During chemotherapy and twice-a-week hydration sessions, my husband and I had a lot of time on our hands. We discussed the easy access to wig banks but no access to the specialized shirts in any store. Overtime, we came up with the concept of a clothing bank similar to wig banks, where women could come and borrow these specialized shirts, padded seatbelt covers, and heart-shaped pillows — free of charge, to aid in recovery.

While I sat, hooked up to the IV’s, we started to discuss the logistics of starting the cancer recovery clothing bank. I found a basic business plan online and started my research. The Chabad where I attended religious services had opened the Circle of Hope for patients with breast cancer (providing wigs, kosher meals and free counseling), which is where I was able to get my wigs. I showed the Rabbi and Rebitzen the business plan and explained my thoughts of how a clothing bank would be an addition to what was already established.

They thought it was a great idea and fully backed it. However, I had to raise money to get the shirts. Just after we started to fundraise, the COVID-19 pandemic started. We had raised $150, and we were dead in the water. Everything was in chaos in the world, and donating money was the last thing on everyone’s minds. Fortunately, during the High Holy Holidays of 2019, someone at the Chabad heard about what we were planning and made a significant donation. In one day, we went from being dead in the water to being able to buy shirts and accessories. So, Dress for Recovery opened in Merrick, New York, in December of 2020.

Personally, I felt a need to give back. My radiologist is the reason why my two breast cancers were found at the end of stage 1 and not stage 4. Because I had three prior benign biopsies, he had me on six-month sonogram check-ups between mammograms. I had two cancers — HER2 negative and HER2 positive, and they were growing like rapid fire.

When I was struggling with the decision of lumpectomy, single or double mastectomy, this wonderful radiologist spent over an hour on the phone with me and helped me not only make my decision of a double mastectomy but also helped me to be 100% at peace with my decision.

When people think of chemotherapy, they think of people losing weight and vomiting. Reactions to chemotherapy can take a few hours to 72 hours. I was completely terrified. A friend of over 50 years, who I thought I could count on, disappeared. She honestly thought that she was there for me, but that is not how I felt. However, other people stepped up to help out and stay with me so my husband could go to work and not lose his job. Friends took days off from work, people who I worked with years before my cancer, spent the day with me so I would not be alone. They cared for someone in need.

Therefore, I felt a need to pay forward the kindness that had been shown to me, and that is why I wanted to start Dress for Recovery. Once we were up and running, it felt good to talk with and help women who had recently been diagnosed and were as terrified as I had been. I think I consciously chose to put my energy into being thankful and trying to pass along what I learned because I would not be alive today if my cancers were not found at the six-month stage of growth and did not get the advice and help from so many people who assisted me.

I hope that the idea of clothing banks takes off the way that wig banks did so every person can have easy access to these specialized items.

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