A SURVIVOR’S Journey

Ifound the lump when I was in the shower,” says Lesley Villarreal, a photographer and lover of life, as she looks back on her 13 month journey with stage three breast cancer. “I just felt a little lump on the side of my right breast.”

In a country facing a precarious situation with COVID-19 and a healthcare system requiring referral after referral, it’d take Villarreal 10 months to finally get an ultrasound. During that time, the mass continued to grow at a rapid pace.

“I ended up having to find an entirely new primary care physician, and when I did, that doctor started to get the ball rolling. We got the ultrasound results and he immediately called me into his office. We hadn’t even done a biopsy yet, but he sat me down and told me that this was very serious. He told me that this was cancer, and we wouldn’t believe otherwise until the tests show something different,” says Villarreal.

After 10 stressful months, she was getting a biopsy, and the results proved the worst to be true, breast cancer. Stage three.

Almost a week after receiving her diagnosis, Villarreal was swept into a whirlwind of chemotherapy and appointments.

“I remember, it was my first round of chemo and I was in the front seat of my car absolutely terrified. COVID regulations were still stringent, so I had to go into it alone. So, I’m new, terrified, and getting hooked up for the first time when I see this tiny woman come through the door. She walks in with her beanie on, with a rolling suitcase trailing behind her like she owns the joint, and takes a seat in her chair. They hook her up, and she pops open the suitcase and starts knitting. I remember thinking she was such a badass, and telling myself that I was going to be liike her,” she recalls.

This moment would leave a lasting impression helped form how she’d face her treatment and this disease moving forward.

Commuting between Marfa and El Paso every few weeks for treatment would take its toll. Still, through the efforts of her husband, friends, family, and community, some of these burdens were lessened as individuals helped in any way they could. Family and neighbors would cook for the couple while her husband worked between their regular drives to and from El Paso.

A significant pillar of support was born from Villarrreal’s first social media post discussing her diagnosis. “There was a girl who reached out to me who had also just been diagnosed with stage three, and we were like, literally one week apart on all our treatments and appointments. We walked each other through all of it, just texting and checking in with one another. It was helpful to have a person who understood, and was going through the same stuff as me,” she says.

Treatments would gradually become a place of community for as she chatted with nursing staff with her laptop open, ready to work.

“When I had my double mastectomy, there was a woman, one of the nurses, who’d regularly check up on me. There was a time we talked about my hair because by then, I’d pretty much lost it, and she kept telling me what shampoo I should get to help it grow. Now, she speaks a little bit of English, and my Spanish is horrible. I was trying to figure out what it was she was saying because I could understand some of it, but I got nowhere. The next morning when they released me, she came running up and handed me this giant shampoo bottle. She went and bought it to give to me when I was leaving. I still use the shampoo.” These touching moments with her treatment team provided her with a much-needed respite after the bumpy start to her diagnosis.

One of the hardest parts faced in her battle against this illness would be the chemotherapy, as healthy and diseased cells were seared away with each treatment.

“It’s tough. It completely destroys your body,” says Villarreal. “There’s just so much stuff that people don’t realize happens outside of nausea and severe bone pain. Your body’s sick. You’re brought to the brink of death to kill this cancer, and if you’re fortunate enough to beat it, there’s going to be an ongoing set of concerns you’ll have to deal with long-term.” For her, some of these long-term struggles she’s forced to face are neuropathy, numbness or weakness in the hands and feet due to nerve damage, and waves of exhaustion.

Two symptoms that are troubling to a photographer whose work requires her to be on her feet for hours on end while holding a camera steady. “It’s little things like vacuuming or cleaning the house that really wears you out. It takes time for the body to snap back and recover,” she says.

When asked about information she wished she’d been told to better prepare for what she was to face with this disease and its treatment, it was the mental strain brought about by the ordeal over the physical difficulties that she wished could’ve been discussed, in addition to resources that’d assist in addressing these burdens.

“The mental stuff is what I feel people don’t talk about, the trauma of it. When you’re in it (treatment), you’re just surviving, but then it starts to get to the end of treatment, and they’re basically saying, ‘Bye!’ It’s crazy how much trauma there is that you have to process because you’re hit with a, ‘Whoa, what just happened to me’ sensation, so now you have the time to actually sit there and process everything that’s happened to your body while you’re dealing with this constant state of fear of the cancer’s return hanging in the air,” says VIllarreal.

She spoke of struggles facing programs for those seeking mental health assistance.

“The program didn’t get the funding they needed, so the person that had been helping me was now basically doing it on her own,” she explains, highlighting the efforts of team members within these programs to continue providing their patients with the help they need.

During the 10 months spent trying to find a doctor who’d give her insight into her developing mass, she remained silent about her condition. Upon receiving the diagnosis and being informed of her treatment options, it quickly became clear that the road to recovery would be costly. She shared her troubles with a confidant who was a sister in every way but blood.

This friend suggested creating a GoFundMe to help ease the burden of medical expenses.

“I live in Marfa, which is very small, so I knew if we did a GoFundMe, people would find out. There’s no way to hide anything in Marfa, so I informed my family of the diagnosis before we committed,” she says.

This disclosure would become the first building block for her to speak up publicly about her story.

“When I’d started researching a double mastectomy and what it meant if you opted against reconstructive surgery, I found all of these women on social media who were brave and open about telling their stories. I truly believe I wouldn’t have known what to do if I hadn’t found them,” she says.

Villarreal shared her reasoning behind taking her story to social media.

“I wanted to be that for someone else while helping spread awareness and the importance of self-checks and mammograms,” she explains.

The experience would naturally have some bumps along the way, with every Tom, Dick, and Harry offering unsolicited medical advice. However, it was those instances where she’d receive a message from someone telling her they’d gotten their first mammogram.

When asked if she’ll continue to post about her ongoing recovery after completing her treatments, Villarreal said she’ll most definitely continue sharing her journey. For now, she’ll be taking a break to focus on healing her body and getting back the parts of her life that’d been put on the back burner due to her cancer.

A piece of advice that she offers to anyone currently going through a similar struggle with cancer, or any other disease for that matter, is to find somebody that has been through it, a “cancer buddy,” if you will. Having someone who has felt the experience on a personal level, you’ll have an outlet that understands not just the physical but emotional struggles of coming face to face with their disease.

To conclude the interview, I asked Villarreal what she was looking forward to now that she’s officially cancer free.

Her answer?

The chance to taste food again.