How Did Tivoli Treasures Get Started? About Me Series

People have been asking how did I get into this, why am I making wreaths? How did a non-creative, book smart, follow-the-rules, and color-inside-the lines type of person start a creative handmade items small business? Well, it’s been a longish journey, and really, no one is more surprised than I am.

After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, I was determined to get through all of my treatment and surgeries as quickly and EFFICIENTLY as possible and with the most positive attitude I could muster. My goal was to be the POSTER GIRL for completing treatment and keeping my life just as it was. Because that’s what STRONG woman do. And that’s just what I did.

What’s the catch-phrase? We LEAN-IN. Well, I leaned.

That year I went through 11 rounds of chemo, lost my hair, 6.5 weeks of radiation treatment, a bilateral mastectomy, and an oophorectomy. The only work I missed was 2 weeks for my mastectomy and 3 weeks for my oophorectomy. I worked through chemo, going to work each day. There was no remote work then. I made sure to have my chemo on Friday, so that if I got sick, it would be on the weekend. I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone, especially work.

After chemo and surgery, I had radiation treatment. For six and a half weeks I went to work and then left at 3:45 pm each day for treatment. My skin was so blistered and raw by the third week that I was wearing a zip up hoodie that was three sizes too big, to work each day because it was the only thing I could stand touching my skin.

After radiation, I had my oophorectomy. I scheduled this surgery during the Christmas holidays so that it was after open enrollment at work (I was responsible for the benefit program) and all paperwork had been processed. I made sure to take care of everyone else, because that’s what strong woman do. And, I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone, especially work.

That January I went back to work, determined to get back to normal. I took some accounting classes at the local community college, I started running, became more active in my local SHRM chapter, and I focused on work.

2013 - cancer returned. It was in my hip, my chest wall, my spine, my left clavicle. I had more treatment - radiation to my hip, surgeries to remove the chest wall recurrences - and I worked. Took a few days off for surgeries, but that’s it. More chemo. And I worked through it. Was told I had 3-5 years based on the aggressiveness of the recurrences - I swore I would make those years count. So, I worked. Because, that’s what strong woman do. We LEAN IN.

And then, my hot spots stabilized! Everything just stayed the same - no growth. When you have cancer, this is a really good thing! We took vacations, moved to the DC area, played with the dogs, but nothing stopped me from working! I had a new job and I was loving it. I LEANED IN!

2019 - guess what’s back? And guess who is exhausted from fighting this ridiculous disease? Even when stable, a person with a chronic or terminal illness thinks about the illness every day. Every, single day. So even on good days, you’re just trying to beat this evil unseen thing to the finish line, you tell people you’re doing “great, how are you?” Never let people know that you had a weird tingle last night and you’re scared as crap the cancer is back, that there is a spot on your skin that wasn’t there yesterday and you’ve looked at it 20 times today afraid it’s cancer. You don’t say these things because STRONG woman don’t complain, or worry, or whine.

The thought for me has always been, “If I work hard enough, contribute enough, learned enough, be the best I can be at what I do, I will have earned the right to continue to exist. Well, in 2019, that changed for me.

The chemo I was prescribed and am still on, is supposed to be easy peasey. Only 10-30% have side effects. Guess who is in that group? Yep, and in 2019 I was exhausted.

So I did something new for me. I let myself recognize that I have limits. I went on a leave of absence from work. When the side effects didn’t get any better, I went on short-term disability, then long-term disability. I am now medically retired. We moved to South Carolina where life isn’t so crazy and we can enjoy down time and just being.

I still receive treatment every three weeks. I still have side effects. Some are the same as I had at the beginning and some are different. Nausea for 7-10 days after treatment, headaches that make me want to scream, fatigue so bad that I have dozed off at a red light. There’s new and wonderful things like neuropathy in my hands and feet, along with cording in my right arm, brain fog from the chemo and drugs to treat the side effects, that is so bad that sometimes basic math isn’t possible. My short-term memory is shot and I am unable to sleep through the night. I am also losing my grip on the English language (it took me about a month to write this and I’m sure my grammar is horrific) and I have horrible aphasia. I call the refrigerator a coffin and have no idea I’ve said anything wrong. It’s only the look on the face of the person I’m talking to that tells me I messed up.

Let’s add the guilt I have every single darn day that I am not a good person because I am on disability and not doing what I should be doing - the 9-5 grind. There is fear every single freakin’ day that the disability carrier will decide enough is enough and try to stop my payments. And I’m tired-tired of fighting, tired of having this stupid disease, just plain tired.

But, something good did come from this! When I stopped working and started taking care of myself, my brain shifted. Something else up there turned on. I started to see things through a creative lens. I started to make things. Why not try to make a small business out of it? It’s not like working for someone else where I have to adhere to a schedule, be places at a specific time, have stringent due dates. If I feel well, I make some stuff. If I’m sick, I rest. If I can’t sleep at 2 AM, I make some stuff. If I’ve hit the wall of chemo-exhaustion, I sleep. If my hands won’t work from the neuropathy, I read a book. You get the picture, I’m sure. I still like to think of myself as a STRONG woman, but I give myself some grace here and there when I need it. Who knows, maybe that makes me stronger.

So here I am. I’m at the beginning of this adventure and who knows where it will lead? It may amount to nothing and that’s ok. But it takes away a little of that guilt that I am not contributing anything, that I’m not doing anything. And right now, that’s exactly perfect.

That my friends, is how I got here and how Tivoli Treasures started.