UAMS Breast Center offers hope, healing in spacious new setting “I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS.”
Most of the thoughts rolling through LeaAndrea Maxwell’s head on that day, Feb. 27, 2020, were a numbing buzz. The medical professional in front of her hadn’t stopped talking, but the words ceased to make sense, like listening to music underwater. The entrepreneur, performer and caregiver to her aging father had just been given news none of the women in her family had ever had to hear — breast cancer. And the shock of it dulled her senses aside from one quiet but firm voice, on repeat: “I don’t want to do this.” “To be diagnosed with cancer at such a young age and then, right at the beginning of the pandemic, I really didn’t know what to do,” Maxwell says. “I thought, this is going to just stop everything in my life, and I was having some second thoughts about treatment, and whether or not I wanted to do anything about it. “One of the things that I really loved about my doctor is she knew that, and she actually took the time to call me — like, personally, herself. She sat on the phone with me for almost an hour, explaining the type of cancer that I had and how imperative it was that we do something about it. So that’s what gave me that extra push.” Even with the physician’s consult giving
her direction, Maxwell’s choice of the UAMS Breast Center didn’t do much to inspire her in her recovery. With its cramped quarters stuck into a make-do space in the aging Outpatient Center, the accommodations were somber and inefficient, far removed from the hospital’s stellar reputation for level of care that attracted her in the first place. “Initially, I chose UAMS because I know they are second to none when it comes to care and the patients and forward-thinking treatment and medication,” she says. “UAMS has saved my life on more than one occasion, so I definitely wanted to go there. “As far as the Breast Center, it definitely left a lot to be desired. I don’t think it was laid out well. You were kind of confused where you needed to go, and everything wasn’t centrally located.” Maxwell nonetheless reported for her treatments as scheduled during March and April, pandemic be damned. Then, by the time she made her next appointment, she was directed to the new UAMS Breast Center, freshly opened in the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. It was like stepping onto the surface of another planet. “It had such a nice, open feel about it. I mean, it’s like a breath of fresh air,” she says. “It’s easier to find everything, every doctor that you need. When you go and get your blood work, it’s right there when you first come in the door. I think it’s a lot easier for people.” Through a series of medications, radiation and surgery, Maxwell was declared cancerfree and put onto a stepped-up maintenance program of exams and return visits to ensure the cancer doesn’t come back. She considers the new facility to have been critical in her recovery. “When you’re dealing with cancer, you’re going to be exhausted. You’re going to be tired,” she says. “You really don’t want to have to trek from one building all the way to the next, or to another floor, or this is in the old
The functional and artful design of the new center left no detail to chance.
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