Patient To Nurse, Breast Cancer Diagnosis Leads Woman Into Nursing

CLEARWATER, Fla. — A breast cancer diagnosis is life-changing, but in Darleen Alvarez’s case, it was also career-changing. 

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What You Need To Know

• A breast cancer diagnosis is life-changing, but in Darleen Alvarez’s case, it was also career-changing




• Alvarez is now a nurse at BayCare’s Morton Plant Hospital, but a decade ago she was an executive assistant manager at a drugstore




• She went to nursing school, and then returned to BayCare to work. She became an oncology nurse

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“So this career direction is totally opposite of what I was doing before. No medical experience, never set foot in a hospital,” said Alvarez. 

Alvarez is now a nurse at BayCare’s Morton Plant Hospital, but a decade ago she was an executive assistant manager at a drugstore. Underneath her nursing badge are words that begin to tell the story of why she changed careers. Those words read: “Cancer Survivor.” 

“They (patients) are always are curious to what kind of cancer and what stage it was. So they are very surprised when I say it was stage three,” said Alvarez. 

Stage three breast cancer. In 2012, she felt a lump in her breast. She got a mammogram and a biopsy, and she remembers her radiologist knew this was cancer immediately. 

“It’s going to come back as positive,” she recalls the radiologist saying. “You are going to be diagnosed with breast cancer. And at that moment my whole brain just went, turned off.”

Like most people who are diagnosed with cancer, she began treatment with urgency. She did chemotherapy, had surgery for a right-sided mastectomy and followed that with 36 rounds of radiation. 

She said the treatment process changed her for the better health-wise, but also career-wise. 

“It was at that moment that I thought, ‘You know what, I think I want to go to nursing school,’” said Alvarez. 

She went to nursing school and then returned to BayCare to work. She became an oncology nurse. 

She feels that her experience with cancer gives her a unique connection with patients. In fact, on the back of her badge is a picture showing her ten days after her first chemotherapy treatment. She had just lost all her hair. 

“Whatever is happening with them at that moment you see that release of like, ‘Oh thank you, somebody is here that truly understands what is happening with me, and I can really talk to her about things, because she has done everything,’” said Alvarez. “I made somebody feel better or understand something they didn’t understand before, it’s a great feeling.”

Alvarez’s mother also had breast cancer. Alvarez urges women to get their mammograms, starting at 40. She said it is not scary, and she can attest it is lifesaving for so many.

The post Patient To Nurse, Breast Cancer Diagnosis Leads Woman Into Nursing appeared first on Tampa Daily Journal.

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