Parker Chef: Breast Cancer Won’t Get the Best of Me
MONROE, NJ – Oct. 12, 2021 – Kiana Wooten has a message for anyone else who has had a bilateral mastectomy — “Love who you are, because breasts don’t make you.”
Emitting a positive body image, educating people about her two-year battle with breast cancer, and dispelling common misconceptions about the disease are all reasons why Wooten is becoming a vocal advocate for cancer survivors.
Now is when her message is the strongest during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, highlighting the fact the one in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.
Wooten now shares her personal story among friends and her co-workers at Parker at Monroe, where she works as a cook.
She imagines a day when she might be speaking to rooms of people about her struggles since learning her diagnosis on Oct. 1, 2019. That was the day a biopsy showed an invasive ductal carcinoma spreading to her neck and left armpit.
Wooten, now 36, underwent surgery five weeks later, the beginning of a long ordeal that continues to this day.
Tissue expanders inserted in preparation for implants became infected and sent her to the hospital six times over a five-month span during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the implants also became infected in August 2020, Wooten told her surgeon that she will go without breasts.
To this day, she takes a hormone-based chemotherapy pill every day. Once a month, she gets a chemo injection that amounts to hormone maintenance therapy because her cancer was hormone-positive. The estrogen in her body prompted the cancer to progress rapidly; the treatment stops her body from producing it.
“My daily fight is physical, it’s mental, it’s emotional,” she said. “I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve honestly cried because I didn’t know what was happening. I honestly felt like I was changing into a different person.”
Adding to the struggle, her sister Shannon was battling breast cancer at the same time. “I remember worrying about my mom (Shirley),” Wooten said. “Imagine what it’s like to have two daughters sick at the same time.”
Wooten is also making peace with the knowledge that there is a 50% chance she has passed down the cancer gene to her daughter. Soon after being diagnosed, she had a heart-to-heart discussion in her Monmouth Junction home with her daughter Jordyn about the road ahead, beginning with the surgery.
“She asked me if I was going to heaven,” said Wooten, her voice strained. “That was a very difficult question to answer. At the time, we didn't know really the outcome.”
Wooten endured the long days and nights with the support of her husband, Jamin, and her work at Parker.
She said it was therapeutic to get busy in Parker’s kitchen and make such staples as southern fried chicken, jambalaya, or freshly baked biscuits, some of her favorite family recipes.
“When I'm at work, I have to focus because I'm taking care of 96 people,” Wooten said. “They're depending on me. So, for the eight or nine hours that I'm there, that definitely takes my mind off of everything. And the elders are so appreciative.”
She said her co-workers at Parker, who all call her “Kiki”, are like a second family. During the treatments, they would happily rearrange their work schedules around her trips to the doctor’s office. They threw three surprise parties for her, and raised money to help cover her medical expenses.
“I was so blown away,” Wooten said. “They didn’t have to do that. That’s the type of company and the type of people who I want to work for, and who I want to be around. I know that if I’m falling at work, there’s going to be someone there to catch me.”
One day, a Parker co-worker suggested that Wooten become an advocate for others struggling with breast cancer. The National Breast Cancer Foundation reports that this disease that is expected to affect 281,550 women in America this year.
Wooten now thinks about how to spread that message of positivity and positive body image. She even imagines a day when she fights to have medical institutions and health insurance companies urge women to have breast exams at an earlier age.
“I just try to bring positivity into it,” she said. “I refuse to let cancer get the best of me. I’m pretty fierce.”