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Pink Dish! Stories from the Let's Dish! Family
Breast cancer strikes families, not individuals. Here are a few Pink Dish! Stories from the Let’s Dish! team.
We've learned first hand how breast cancer changes a family's day-to-day reality and how much our dishes can help save time, stress and money at home. These and all the Pink Dish! Stories shared with us are the inspiration behind the Pink Dish! Campaign. 
Share and Read More Pink Dish! Stories
Please help us create a narrative of courage and strength: add your Pink Dish! Story or take a moment to read Pink Dish! stories shared by others. For each Pink Dish! Story we receive, we will donate $5.00 to the Pink Dish! Campaign.
Jenny T.
Woodbury customer and neice of Laurie Levine, General Manager
I was 31 when Breast Cancer changed my life forever. I found a little lump under my arm that felt like a pea in the fall of 2007. I of course ignored it, and wrote if off as a inflamed lymph node due to illness. A couple of months later I noticed it again and became concerned. The day after Thanksgiving I interrupted my annual shopping trip with my mom and sister to have my midwife check it out. The following Monday I underwent a mammogram and ultrasound. It’s never good when the radiologist has a look of concern on his face while he’s trying to convince you that it is likely nothing serious. Within hours of arriving home, my clinic contacted me and recommended that I see a surgeon … TODAY. They reported she would stay late and asked how soon I could get there. At that moment I knew that my greatest fear was a reality. In her office that night she told my husband and I that she was 90% sure that I had cancer and that it would need to be confirmed with a biopsy. On December 3rd 2007 that biopsy confirmed that it was indeed breast cancer.
As a young mom with 2 kids who were 15 months and 3 years old at the time, this was the last thing that I thought would happen to me. I have no family history and genetic testing later confirmed that I do not have the genetic markers for breast cancer. I am a runner, I am not overweight, I was eating right and probably healthier at that point in my life than I had ever been.
My treatment consisted of a mastectomy in January of 2008 (we had a trip planned to take the kids skiing with some friends and I didn’t want to disrupt Christmas). Three weeks after my surgery, after clearance from my surgeon and a little financial help from my Grandmother, my family made a last minute trip to Mexico. My parents, sister and her family and my family all boarded the plane (my brother and his wife were unable to join due to their jobs). All I wanted to do was sit on the beach in the sun with my family and prepare for the next 5 months of chemotherapy. I find peace in the ocean, sand and sun and it was just what the doctor ordered!! The day after we returned I started chemo. I finished chemo in June of 2008 and underwent 2 more surgeries to complete my reconstruction in late July and August of that year. I had infusions of Herceptin every 3 weeks until March of 2009 and am happy to say that I now only have to see my wonderful oncologist and oncology nurses every 3 months.
I have changed many things about my life including the products I use, the food I eat, and the stress I allow to be a part of my days. I identify with a butterfly, born one way and able to become something better, more beautiful in the end. I am learning to try to stop thinking about dying and to instead focus on living. Breast cancer taught me invaluable lessons on life & love. The path to change is not always easy, but always worthwhile. I want my story to help young women to listen to their bodies and to know that no one is invincible.
Thank you for reading our Pink Dish! Stories. We hope you'll share your own story now!
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