Theres this quote, from Anais Nin, that Ive always really loved.

It says: Today on the show: Performing artist Stephanie Wilsons first interview since her double mastectomy and and breast cancer diagnosis.

Well hear about her journey - the breaking and the blossoming.

Im Myra Flynn.

This is Homgoings.

Welcome home.

Acting the same way Feeling the same things Repeat repeat repeating through our DNA gold chains Cant break the link Stephanie is a singer, a dancer, a lyricist.

I mean, sounds like everything artistic, but mostly in the performance realm.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And thanks for being here with us today on Homegoings.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, so, We've been kind of unpacking on Homegoings what a homegoing is.

And I don't know if you've been.

Have you ever been to one?

My grandmother had one and it's wild because it feels like you're at a rock concert.

My grandmother's body was right there in the center but around it was food and dancing and music and people releasing feelings of grief but also feeling of joy and its just really kind of brought about some insight for me as to, like our people and how layered we are and how much tragedy exists in our community, in our bodies, and how we grieve in that way.

So, with somebody who is based in, like, performance arts, you use your body so much and kind of rely on it.

I mean, as a singer myself, it's like if I lose my voice for even a moment, you know what's going to happen to my livelihood, what's going to happen to me?

And you've been going through something that's incredibly taxing on your body.

Can you just kind of walk us through the story?

I guess to start the story, I would say it kind of began almost a year to date last summer.

I felt I felt a lump in my breast.

It started with that.

I went to get it checked out, got referred to UVM.

And when I went in there, I received an ultrasound and it actually wasn't my first time dealing with something like that, although I'd kind of forgotten because it happened maybe, I think about seven years ago.

I had been through this and I had went in, had the ultrasound, and it was nothing.

So I kind of went in again with the feeling of like, Oh, I just need to get this checked out.

It's going to be nothing.

Well, I went there, I got the ultrasound, and then instead of sending me home, they had me sit back in the waiting room.

I was going to do a mammogram and then the mammogram turned into a biopsy.

And then they had me come back to do an MRI.

So it was just like I went in thinking one thing and then that was just where the switch began.

Of like, Okay, I think this is something very serious.

I did receive a cancer diagnosis about a week later.

So were you feeling scared or nervous or how did you feel in that moment?

I felt very scared, almost in shock.

When did this happen?

I found the lump in the summer.

I had a...of 2022?

I had a visit with UVM, not until the fall.

So October 3rd was the date that I got the call from Pearl, from UVM, letting me know that I didn't, it did indeed come back as cancer.

And November 11th was my first surgery.

Wow.

So it's been I think the other day you were saying, oh, I think the six month mark has like come and gone.

That's fresh.

It's very fresh.

Six months is fresh.

Yeah.

So after my diagnosis, I was presented with a lot of choices of what to do.

I decided that I was going to do a double mastectomy.

So did they offer you treatment, did they offer you chemo, did they offer you all those things and then this as well?

Yeah.

So I ended up going to L.A. to receive treatment, actually.

I did a lot of research on who I wanted to see.

You know, what I wanted to do, what my options were.

I felt like here I was presented more with maybe one option, and I needed to know if there were if there were more.

So that led me to a team of surgeons in L.A. who presented me with many options.

You can receive treatment, you can receive radiation.

You can just treat you know, you can just treat one and then we'll watch the other and you'll come in every six months for who knows how long to monitor it.

So for my own peace of mind, I knew that I just wanted this, like, gone out.

I didn't want it to come back.

And then I did something a little different.

I did a pap reconstruction, which instead of going straight to implant which you can do, they it's a crazy surgery where they take tissue from, they took tissue from my thigh and blood vessels to reconstruct my breasts.

Wow.

That in itself was a whole intense recovery.

So I had four incision points, I had the mastectomy, and then I also had two on my legs.

The incisions are underneath here.

So, you know, all through my arm has been super tight.

You're not really wasn't able to raise both of my arms.

I mean, I couldn't even put a t shirt on.

And so recovery from that, having your arms down.

I mean, it doesn't take long with your body being stagnant to lose it.

Basically, I lost a lot of muscle mass.

Yeah.

And then my thighs.

Holy moly.

Really?

That was that was difficult because the incisions are right on, like, right on the back of my thigh here.

So sitting down like this was not something that was possible.

I remember by Christmas, I sat down for like short periods of time.

By Christmas, I was able to kind of be walking around and sat down to dinner.

It was like, okay, I can think I can sit here with a bunch of pillows for maybe like I think I can do 45 minutes before I need to need to get up.

If you were to give me a sentence when I ask, How are you doing now?

What would it be?

It would be, I'm hanging in there.

There's still some pain there.

There's a lot to process.

My husband, I'm fortunate to have a partner who is so devoted and took as much as he could from me.

I will have to say, I don't think Tim and I were 100% prepared for how intense that was going to be.

It was a lot.

I couldn't get in and out of bed.

I couldn't tie my own shoe.

I couldn't get dressed.

I mean, I was I mean, you're basically just lying there.

Helpless, just helpless.

Completely helpless.

So that was another trust fall of like, okay, I just need to take this help, so I'm just going to just going to go.

When you look in the mirror now with your reconstructed breasts and your double mastectomy, what do you see?

It's only recently that I can really look at myself in the mirror again.

You know, in the beginning, when I had the surgery, I couldn't even look down.

A part of me is gone and there is some deep grief with that.

And, you know, I have such a supportive community that tells me that I'm beautiful and I know that I'm beautiful, but it's really hard.

It's very hard to look in the mirror and accept for this new me.

It's still very fresh.

And so I'm hoping that I will get there.

But it has not it has not been easy.

Even the surgery itself, there were complications in the surgery.

So I ended up having to have one implant in on one side, and then I had the flap in on the other because one of them didn't work.

And so I am coming to terms with that.

How is how is love with this new body?

I feel like that's something that is not talked about and it's something that I also wasn't prepared for.

You know, I got this diagnosis and then it was just straight survival mode.

And Tim has been by my side the entire time and so kind and so loving and so patient.

But I'm I'm almost relearning myself.

I hope that in sharing this, the other women will also talk about this as well.

But there's just a lot to get used to.

You know, there's no feeling there.

So that's something that's gone that I'm still mourning the loss of and grieving the loss of.

And it's difficult because sometimes, like, there's no other side to it.

Like, it's just sad.

Well, some things I can find, though, the silver lining.

But for this there there isn't any silver lining except that, you know, I do try to find like, you know, hold on to those little bits of joy that I can find and kind of like keep those as tight as I can.

And, and almost like, you know, like store them up any little bits of joy.

The silver lining is that you're alive.

Yes.

Yes.

The silver lining is that I'm alive.

The things that tough with that is like sometimes that's not enough.

I know it sounds can sound ungrateful.

You know, I go through these stages of, you know, at least it wasn't this, you know, I didn't need chemo and radiation.

And so I think about those women who got through all as far as I did and then did the chemo and radiation.

And I can get onto this train of like, well, I should be grateful that that didn't happen and I shouldn't feel this way.

So it's kind of hard fluctuating through that of being grateful for what I have, but also being incredibly sad for what happened.

Yeah.

And you're allowed both.

Yeah.

While you were talking about the change in your body and the change in maybe how that shows up for your sexuality and how that shows up for the things that you love about yourself and the way that your husband sees you.

The only other time that we can feel this change, I feel, is when we're either close to mortality for some reason like this, or you give birth.

Do you feel like you've had a rebirth of sorts or are we not there yet?

Is it like I'm still just pissed and sad and that's where it needs to be right now.

I'm not there yet.

I wouldn't say pissed.

I would say I'm just like, sad.

Just describes it perfectly.

I felt like I was, like, so confident in my sexuality and so confident in myself and having to rebuild that.

You know, I was talking with my husband about like, I don't like I don't want to feel like I have to try.

Like I want this to be natural.

I don't want to feel like I have to work at loving myself.

I want to just love myself.

What I see when I look at you is somebody who is incredibly strong.

You look like you have not missed a beat in the dance world.

Seriously!

I've been working my butt off for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You must be incredibly strong and tested the limits of your body in ways that you never had before.

I went through a lot of P.T.

was very anxious to get back because I love to dance and was very anxious to get my movement back.

Very anxious to, to pick up where I left off.

I, in my mind, was like, okay, 12 weeks, I think, is what they said for recovery.

No, not at all.

I'm still recovering.

I'm at my best right now.

But it was a long and still is a long journey.

And there's, you know, has only been just over six months.

So there's still some pain there.

There's still, you know, lots of tightness.

But like sitting here right now with us.

Are you in pain?

No, I'm not.

No, no.

Thanks for asking.

I reached out to you after seeing some posts on Instagram and I know the community in Vermont has been loving on you, but you have been pretty quiet.

Why did you decide to say yes to coming on Homegoings?

Did that feel important to you?

It was really hard to even tell anybody.

That was something to really kind of show my vulnerability in that way.

Even some of my closest friends, I kept it from them for a long time.

I feel like all through this process I've been having to trust and it's honestly felt like I've just been closing eyes and falling backwards and just letting my community catch me.

And it's the scariest thing.

Sharing my story is something that's very important to do because what I've been doing before isn't working anymore.

I've been keeping things into myself, keeping them within my body, kind of pushing that down.

And I feel like that is probably something that's, you know, maybe is part of what caused the sickness in the first place.

Yeah, I think it's important for me to be here and tell that story just to like just to break that cycle.

Anyone who knows me and this is so outside of... You don't normally just go get in front of a bunch of cameras and talk with flowers on the table?

Well, thank you for trusting me and thanks for trusting the show What has it been like to as a Black person whose community is so steeped in in dealing with grief and is so steeped in having to deal with it because of how many of us die, what was it like looking at your own mortality and the possibility of that?

My father passed away when I was in high school.

Sorry.

Yeah.

And, you know, I would have to say that after that, you know, my family, we kind of broke apart.

It's so hard.

And I know some people can resonate with this, like some expressions of grief, I know, you know, my mother in particular, she tried.

But it's there's so much pain, so much generational pain that it becomes too much.

And I understand that.

And so the way that I dealt with it was very personal it was very by myself.

In fact, I spent a lot of time alone after that.

I lived by myself for my last two years of high school.

That is so young.

It's very young.

Looking back now, I'm like, Wow, I cannot believe that's what that's what went down.

But I learned to take care of it myself and to put on an exterior that everything was fine and that you don't need to worry about me.

Everything's fine over here.

Fast forward to my own mortality.

I wanted so badly to have that exterior of everything is fine, but this time I couldn't do it.

I try and I tried a little bit.

I had I hosted a party and did a show and and didn't tell anyone.

I had been sitting on that news for weeks and hadn't told anyone and like had a great old time.

I could have opened up my eyes to see your face to say goodbye but I realized soon after that like this isn't going to work for me like this anymore.

I can't do this anymore, which is why I'm here right now.

Even like every time that I, I talk about this, it almost takes, like, lifts the weight off of it and takes away some of the power that it's been holding.

I want to I want to change the generational pain that lives within my family.

I want to change that simply by, like, shattering it and be like, here I am.

This is my story.

We all have stories.

I learned to hold my pain in, but I don't want to do that anymore.

I want to hear about other people's stories.

I want to cry.

At my dad's funeral, I remember someone saying, like, it's okay, you can cry.

You didn't cry?

I did not.

I did not.

And I also couldn't you know, I couldn't I could not look at my dad when he died either.

It was it was just so much push push push away.

And that's something that Im learning now did not serve me and does not serve me and that I can face this but on my own timeline, like, again, it's so fresh.

You know, I had Tim tell everyone, I didn't even, I didn't even have the strength to do that or the bravery.

I couldn't you know, I had so much of this exterior of needing to keep things calm and needing to make sure other people felt okay.

And if they knew that I wasn't okay, they not going to feel okay.

And how am I going to monitor that?

I'm not going to be in control, ugh!

Yes, yeah, I know that feeling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And none of that because I was facing cancer and something so serious, I literally could not think about those things.

And so I just one last time placed it over here, dealt with what I had to deal with.

And then now that I'm coming out of it, I'm realizing, okay, this is serious of how I have dealt with with tragedy and tragic things.

And I feel like I can with some work change that.

Yeah, here I am.

I just think it's so brave to change anything, especially generationally.

Yeah.

So I think you're incredibly brave.

Yeah.

You keep saying I didn't have the bravery.

It's like whatever process you needed to go through to get to this place, it will only serve you it sounds like.

Yeah.

I mean, right now it doesn't.

Like, outwardly, I can be like, okay, this is a brave thing.

And I even feel like, you know, I feel a little bit of strength kind of welling up as well as like, okay, I can do this.

With what I went through with the, the cancer and the physical part, like I had no choice.

I have to do this.

And the emotional part, I feel like I can't continue as I have been, take everything that happened and then stuff it in.

I just can't.

Right.

And you have a choice.

You have a choice to not now.

Yeah.

You're doing that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I hear a rumor that you might share a song with us?

Yeah, in a little bit.

Can you tell us about the piece that you're going to share?

Yes.

I wrote it with my band before this diagnosis, before Ive been going through all of this.

And it's about the very subject of generational pain and forgiveness, wanting to break that cycle of secrets as well.

You know so much about hiding the pain, maybe not talking about it, wanting to have that perfect exterior.

So we're going to pretend none of this is happening.

How that played out in my family is that I was like in the dark with so many things.

Yes, there's that generational pain that's there.

But that also means that there's generational strength as well, because we've been through a lot.

And so I think I'm going to focus on that.

And that's that's something that's been helpful.

And hopefully somebody hears this who needed to hear this.

It's called “To Blame ”?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

So settle in, get ready to let the listen in.

This is Stephanie Wilson with “To Blame ”.

Tell me something about my history Something sorrow something blue Tell me what's inside of you The things we never talk about Things that never leave your mouth Like secret names, what is it you wont say Tell me where I come from Why we act this way Afraid, is that why were running And running away from the feeling, I feel it repeating Acting the same way Feeling the same things Repeat repeat repeating through our DNA gold chains Cant break the link Acting the same way Feeling the same things Repeat repeat repeating through our DNA gold chains Cant break the link I'm my father's son and Im my mothers daughter I continue on like ripples in the water I'm my father's son and Im my mothers daughter Im your reflection.

Your features in my mirror Who am I to blame Who am I to blame Its in my DNA In my DNA Tell me something about my history Something sorrow something blue Tell me what's inside of you The things we never talk about Things that never leave your mouth Like secret names, what is it you wont say Tell me where I come from Why we act this way Afraid, is that why were running And running away from the feeling, I feel it repeating Like I'm my father's son and Im my mothers daughter I continue on like ripples in the water I'm my father's son and Im my mothers daughter Im your reflection.

Your features in my mirror Who am I to blame Who am I to blame Its in my DNA In my DNA Secret names riding on the waves I still feel your strength (improvised singing) (cheering) Amazing.

That was a hell of a first take.

I don't know what youre going to change between the first and second, that is so good.

Thanks so much for joining us.

If you want to continue to be a part of the homegoings family, stay in touch and homegoings.co and subscribe to the Homegoings podcast wherever you listen.

Take good care.