Shipp: Health career didn’t prepare her for cancer diagnosis

Diana Mosley Shipp has been working in healthcare as a registered nurse since 1997, but even with all of the knowledge that career afforded her, she was not fully prepared to be diagnosed with breast cancer six years ago.

“Working in healthcare, I’ve always known the importance of annual checkups and mammograms. And I say that because I feel as though that was a contributing factor in the early detection of my breast cancer,” Shipp said during a recent interview.

Shipp, who is originally from Louisiana, has lived in Clinton for more than 30 years. She found a lump during a routine self exam in April of 2018.

“I had just recently had an annual appointment, which was maybe like a month or so prior to that, and I didn’t feel anything. It just kind of popped up,” Shipp shared. “But because of that appointment, I was in the process of scheduling a routine mammogram, so, I was really just kind of waiting to get a date, so the timing was right.”

Shipp shared that the mammogram was abnormal, which led to another mammogram and later a surgical biopsy.

“At the end of May of 2018, I was diagnosed with lobular cancer of my right breast. And that was just a few days before my 47th birthday,” she said.

According to the Mayo Clinic, invasive lobular carcinoma is a type of breast cancer that “begins as a growth of cells in the milk-producing glands of the breast. These glands are called lobules.”

This type of cancer makes up a small portion of all breast cancers, with the most common type starting in the breast ducts.

For Shipp, the cancer had scattered. It was not only in the lump area, but was in the tissue of her right breast.

“I also found out that it had spread to axillary lymph nodes, so I had it in my lymph nodes as well,” she said.

It was recommended that she have a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, all as part of her treatment plan through her oncology team.

“In July of that year, July 13 to be exact, I had a double mastectomy with reconstruction at UNC,” she recalled.

The surgery was followed by five months of chemotherapy at UNC Garner and then radiation at UNC Clayton for five days a week for about a month and a half.

The biggest part of her journey wasn’t the treatments, though For Shipp, getting through the emotions this diagnosis brought was, perhaps, the most difficult aspect of her journey.

“I was in shock, initially, and I was really just anxious,” she admitted. “I was anxious because we’re talking about the end of May up until maybe within a month (and) I was trying to determine between various things, you know, just what we were going to do.”

But even with the questions plaguing her mind — what she should do or not do — the most emotional part for Shipp was finding out she had to go through chemotherapy.

“It was just the fact, I guess, hearing or thinking so many horrible things about chemo, that was the one that really had me in tears,” she acknowledged. “My mind definitely fell on my family, and the uncertainty.”

Self-described as a positive person, Shipp tried to keep that positivity even when facing her fears of chemotherapy and all the unknowns it would bring.

“The chemo was the one I could say, even out of all of my treatments, between feelings was more challenging for me,” she said. “It was like, I would have my treatment and I would be OK (Then) it would be my third to fifth day, (which were) my harder days.”

Even while describing the symptoms she had while facing chemo — the aching bones and the nausea — Shipp tried to keep things positive.

“The medication kind of helped to control those symptoms to more of a tolerable level,” she said. “But it was something that I had to learn, that it was just going to be a given, meaning you’re going to have your symptoms by your third day.”

The biggest symptom that stood out for Shipp was the extreme tiredness.

“On my fifth day (after chemo), it was like I was not even able to get up out of bed because I did not have the energy to do so,” she said. “But again, on a positive note, (on) maybe my sixth, seventh day I would start feeling a little bit better, get stronger, be myself. So it became a cycle of events. I learned my pattern.”

And while learning her pattern, Shipp learned that she also needed to have a strong support group.

“I had a good family, you know, my husband, my son, grandchildren that were there, church members, definitely a knowledgeable and very caring health care team,” Shipp attested. “They helped offset the (hard) times.”

She explained how there was always someone available if she needed to talk, and that was true of people outside of her family too. It was a fact that, she said, was important because she didn’t want to upset her family over the emotional things she was going through.

“There’s things that may bother you internally that you still need to express, but I didn’t want (my family) to feel the pain of what I was feeling,” she said.

Today, Shipp is grateful for what she went through and how her experience can help other people, showing them that they have the chance to make it through the treatments and everything that comes with them, and that they won’t have to be doing it alone.

“I had my first treatment and I was doing fine. About two days later, I woke up , I went to my living room because I was just hurting and feeling so bad. And I was like, ‘oh my God, I don’t know if I’m going to make it through this,’” Shipp recalled.

But make it she did. Now Shipp hopes her journey will help others realize they, too, can make it through even the most difficult of days.