Essence Kisqali Rosa Master

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00:00So my name is Rosa. I'm an LPN. I'm a dancer. I've been dancing since I could walk, literally.

00:14I'm a wife. I'm a mother of a beautiful six-year-old. And of course, I'm a breast cancer survivor

00:19as well. 2023 was tough for us as a family. My son's father passed away from heart disease.

00:26Cancer has just, it's attacked our family in so many different angles. We just lost

00:32my father to cancer. I lost my mother to cancer. Last January, I just so happened to be in

00:37the shower. I don't know what came across me, but I just wanted to do a breast exam.

00:42And I felt a small lump on my right breast. I just knew that something wasn't right. I

00:48saw several doctors, and they all told me the same thing. It was just a cyst. My mother-in-law

00:53pushed me to get a biopsy done. The results were sent to her practice. Because sometimes

00:58when the doctors get the results, they will just call the patient on the phone and say,

01:02guess what? You have breast cancer. And I did not want that for her. And she sat me

01:07and my mother down. I said, whatever is in this report, we're going to get through it.

01:13So she took it and she read it. And then she started crying. The first thing I saw was

01:19carcinoma. And I knew that meant cancer. This is my first time saying this, but I knew Rosa

01:23had cancer before she knew it. I kept looking at her, and she looked like my mother. And

01:28the Holy Spirit said, your daughter has cancer. When she says that she already knew, it's

01:33not surprising for me. I kept telling myself, this is not happening. God, you're not doing

01:39this to me. By the time I was in Nashville for work, and Rosa called me. She told me,

01:46I just remember falling to my knees and just bawling. Not being able to be there in person

01:53to at least just hold her while that whole situation was just unraveling in her mind.

01:58I want to shield her from everything, you know. And this was one thing that I couldn't

02:03get in front of, you know. And that was rough. That was rough.

02:09We got engaged right before it kind of, everything just exploded in our lives. I didn't know

02:14what the journey was getting ready to look like before me. And it was terrifying. They

02:18did offer me a lumpectomy, which is when they would just remove the lump. But because of

02:23my family history, I did decide to do the bilateral mastectomy. That was devastating

02:29as well. But my doctor offered me reconstruction. I definitely let all my providers know that

02:35I was getting married. Like I was not playing. I'm like, listen, I'm getting married next

02:39year. Y'all gonna have to give me some new nice girlies before my wedding. It was a very

02:44quick process. I ended up having, it was about an eight hour procedure. They go in and they

02:49remove all the breast tissue. So when I woke up from surgery, I was completely flat. I

02:54was sore. I was in pain. I didn't want my husband to look at me with no breasts. I was

02:58embarrassed. It was hard to get her to even understand that I'm not going to look at you

03:04any differently. I had to get a needle put in my breast every two weeks and get it filled

03:09up slowly, slowly, slowly. So what they're doing is they're basically stretching the

03:12muscle to create a new space for an implant. It was tough going from the nurse to the patient.

03:20Like I needed to rely on my village. The drains, the, her not being able to move. I think my

03:26ego was in the way a little bit. Me and my husband kind of got into it a couple of times

03:30and he just had to be like, I got it because this is, this is me right here. You know,

03:35taking care of my mom. This is a hard question. Sometimes, sometimes I got to hug her soft

03:43when she has breast cancer. I used to help cook, but every time I try to feed her chicken nuggets

03:52every day and she say no thank you. I knew that though, my son losing his father, it

03:57made me fight harder. Cause I said, you know, he's not going to lose two parents. But then

04:04here, here's the good news. She beat breast cancer.

04:10When I found out that the doctor said that she is cancer-free,

04:14it was the best feeling that a mother could ever have.

04:18Well done. She did it. That's when I started to see that light. Last surgery.

04:25Now it's time for healing. I was recovering. I couldn't get out of the recliner. So I just

04:30picked up a paintbrush and my mom came in and she's like, well, what did you learn how to paint?

04:35I didn't even know. I'm like, I don't know. I didn't know I could paint either, but I guess

04:40I'm an artist now. I was most devastated by not being able to dance. So when I got back into that

04:47studio and I was able to just move my arms above my head, it was, I was so grateful. I never let

04:56cancer defeat me. Like I had defeated moments, but I never let it completely defeat me. I knew

05:03that we were going to make it to that finish line. I knew we were going to make it to that altar

05:08because we have just endured so much together. We had to do a lot of work. We had to do a lot of work

05:15together just to get there. Our wedding day was such a celebration. It was more than a celebration.

05:22It was, that was literally everything. To see them standing at the altar, it was the most beautiful

05:30thing for me to watch. I love the way that I looked in my dress. When she walked down that aisle,

05:36the skin, the beauty. That's Rosa. She's back. She's back. That day made a fight completely worth it.

05:46And we danced to that like madhouse because I thank so much. I appreciate and cherish every moment,

05:55big or small. I'm just so grateful to have you. I'm grateful. I'm grateful.

06:03Oh God, yes, yes, yes. We're here. Yeah, we made it. We made it. My name is Rosa

06:10and not only am I a cancer survivor, I'm a thriver.

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