My Story:
My cancer story started the morning I woke up from a dream that I had breast cancer, the dream that allowed me to find the lump which had begun to grow. Six weeks later after putting my youngest on the bus for his first day of kindergarten, I went to my PCP to have her look at it. Four days later I learned that I had triple negative breast cancer, stage 3a. I was 40.
In reality, my cancer story really started when I was 19, the year that my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She and her sister ended up with breast cancer at the age of 43. Thirty years later, my aunt continues to be cancer free. Seven years after my mom’s first diagnosis, her cancer metastasized, and she died at the age of 51. I was one of her caregivers.
It was this experience of profound loss that spurred me to become an art therapist. I became acutely aware of the many forms of grief and loss. Yet we have so few ways to process the losses, hurting our health and wellbeing.
Art saved me after my mom died, and it saved me when I needed to heal emotionally from cancer.
When treatment ended, that I realized blending my personal and professional experiences would be the key to supporting the emotional wellbeing of cancer survivors. Any cancer, at any stage, not just breast cancer and not just for those whom treatment would end.
The core issues I see:
Cancer is not simply a medical problem and yet the emotional needs of cancer survivors are often overlooked, unaddressed, or neglected.
AND
The traditional approaches of only talk therapy are not enough to fully heal the body, mind, spirit and self.
AND
The healing from cancer is not a linear process. To be successful in supporting my community, I knew I had to develop information and techniques that were effective and always available to the cancer survivor.
The Mission of Creative Transformations:
To be able to move from surviving to thriving with cancer, meant that I could not take a singular approach, it had to be comprehensive.
It had to declare the importance of having a healing team, with the foundation being a comprehensive assessment and game plan of the multiple needs at play. An assessment that could be used repeatedly as things changed and improved.
It had to be realistic. To feel like yourself again means that you need to navigate the choppy, turbulent waters of the unknown, of the future, while processing what’s happened. The therapeutic tools I developed needed to be able to do both.
We cannot remain silent anymore. Our silence hurts us.
Explore the pages, read about my offerings, and contact me- because I want to be on your side.
Warmly,
Stephanie
