Hill nurse leads yoga team three days after cancer chemo

Posted 5/31/18

Daniels’ daughter Jasmine, seven, joined her as a member of the “Om”-azing Warriors team in front of an audience of thousands on May 20. The Warriors' shirts featured a butterfly, based on the …

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Hill nurse leads yoga team three days after cancer chemo

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Daniels’ daughter Jasmine, seven, joined her as a member of the “Om”-azing Warriors team in front of an audience of thousands on May 20. The Warriors' shirts featured a butterfly, based on the nickname Kim’s friend gave her early in her cancer treatment: the Butterfly Warrior. (Photo by Beck Photography)[/caption]

by Len Lear

Despite understandable fatigue from her final course of chemotherapy for breast cancer on Thursday, May 17, Chestnut Hill nurse Kim Daniels, 41, actually was a heroic co-leader Sunday morning, May 20, of a yoga team at Living Beyond Breast Cancer’s (LBBC) 17th annual Reach & Raise event on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The team was comprised of people who have supported her during her treatment for breast cancer over the past half-year, including co-workers, family and people from all facets of her life.

A clinical nurse leader at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Daniels was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma in November of 2017. LBBC, a Bala Cynwyd-based national information and support organization that helps more than a half-million people affected by breast cancer every year, helped Daniels connect with others who could understand what she was going through.

Now they all supported each other — and LBBC — by taking part in an inspirational yoga class on the iconic Art Museum steps. Daniels’ daughter Jasmine, 7, joined her as a member of the “Om”-azing Warriors team in front of an audience of thousands. Daniels' Warriors team has raised more than $2,000 for LBBC.

The Warriors' shirts featured a butterfly, based on the nickname Kim’s friend gave her early in her cancer treatment: the Butterfly Warrior. “On my weakest days,” she said, “my ‘village,’ my team, are my wings; they keep me up …

“At first, I just trusted in my doctors, but I hit a point when I was ready to get more information, and I realized I had no clue about what my type of cancer was. LBBC helped me understand that I’m not alone in what I’m feeling and that my reactions and thought processes are normal.”

A native of Somerton in Northeast Philly, Daniels has lived in Chestnut Hill for two years. She attended Abington Friends School, earned a BSN in nursing and MSN as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, both from the University of Pennsylvania, and is working on a Doctorate of Nursing Practice from Villanova U., which she hopes to obtain in 2019. Daniels has been at Penn Presbyterian since January of 2017 as a Clinical Nurse Specialist on a floor of primarily Orthopedics, General Surgery, Medicine and Trauma.

Kim had reason to smile on May 17 after her last chemotherapy treatment. “This last chemo got the better of me for the past five days,” she told us, “but it is my LAST one so I say: bring it on, chemo!” (Photo by Shaun Daniels)[/caption]

Daniels, who also has Type 1 diabetes, discovered her breast cancer during a self-breast exam. “I felt a tiny lump and told my GYN, who then sent me for a mammogram, then ultrasound, then biopsy,” she said last week. “The biopsy pathology came back on Nov. 6, 2017, stating that the lump was actually benign (non-cancerous), BUT there were cancer cells attached to the outside of the lump, meaning I had cancer cells floating around within the ducts of my breasts.

“After a double mastectomy, they discovered more areas of cancerous growth in other areas/ducts, giving me the diagnosis of infiltrating ductal carcinoma. They sent lymph nodes off for pathology, and approximately two weeks later, I got a call from my oncology surgeon, Dr. Julia Tchou, that I had positive lymph node involvement, and that brought me to my medical oncologist, Dr. Angela DeMichele, who told me I would need chemo to try to kill off any remaining cancer cells before they have a chance to spread to other organs (metastasize).

“Chemo is no joke! It has been rough, and I was well prepped for this by my oncology team, but no matter how much prep happens, it is still a bear to get through because everyone reacts differently to the extent of the wicked side effects. This last chemo got the better of me for the past five days, but it is my LAST one so I say: bring it on, chemo!”

Daniels is fortunate to have a “village” of friends and co-workers who have supported her every step of the way. “Without them, I wouldn't have been able to make it through as strong as I have. Whenever I was having a low point or a bad day, I would randomly get a text, email, phone call or visit from someone in my village reminding me that I'm not going through this alone.

“At those low times, my village were my wings, keeping me flying, and my reminders that I can do this! For instance, on the day of my double mastectomy, I got a random text of about 20+ photos from two co-workers who went around the hospital painting various staff members' fingernails pink for me! It was incredible! When I saw all of those photos that morning, I told my husband, Shaun, that everything was going to be just fine during this surgery and recovery.”

Kim relaxes at home with her daughters, Jasmine and Maisie, and their dog, Snowie, an 11-year-old deaf Dogo Argentino, whom they rescued from a PAWS shelter when she was one-and-a-half years old.

As difficult as dealing with her own cancer has been, it is not the hardest thing Kim has ever done. That was “being the sole caregiver to my father, who was unexpectedly diagnosed with a rare cancer and died five months after his diagnosis. My dad was a healthy, active world traveler who never even spent one day in a hospital in all of his 70 years. His dying wish was that he didn't want to die in a hospital, and I made sure that didn't happen…

“If this article just connects one person to get a mammogram, do a self-breast exam or be introduced to LBBC, it warms my heart because as much as it sucks to have a breast cancer diagnosis, I am so grateful to have been diagnosed when I was instead of years from now when it progressed to a further stage.”

Who have been the most important teachers, mentors, role models, etc., in Kim's life? “My dear friend, Lynn Lynch; my dad in his last five months of life; my daughters, Jasmine and Maisie, and my Omi and Opa (grandparents).”

For more information about LBBC, which provides a variety of services at little or no cost, call 855-807-6386 or visit LBBC.ORG.

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