Thomasina Simms
I’m going to start by telling you a lot about myself and my journey in the current situation that I’m in. First, my story begins with me being a loving, caring mother of three; they’re all grown and have gorgeous grandbabies. I am currently 55 years old and living with stage four breast cancer at HRTU. Before this diagnosis, I was a bus driver for high school students at a school. I wanted to be a nail tech after I got my CDL license to become a truck driver.
I dreamed of being a traveling nail technician when I was off driving, so I started researching nail schools. I came across One Stop Beauty School on the website. I called and left a voice message. Bibi did return my phone call. We decided to meet up and have a tour of her school. I loved the setup, and I fell in love with Bibi’s energy. She is a caring, uplifting, and enjoyable person to be around. So, I enrolled in my school in February 2023. The school has a nonprofit organization called the Olivia Mae Lotus Scholarship. I understood the story and the meaning behind the program, but I didn’t understand much of what it entails in the background. I was coming to school three days a week in between my downtime of being a school bus driver.
In April of 2023, I started having some discomfort in my right breast, which wasn’t bothering me a whole lot because I have a high pain tolerance. Eventually, that started bothering me quite significantly. I had to seek medical attention. Once I did that, they immediately got the ball going and had me do all these different tests and had me do all these other scans and so forth to find out what was going on with me and what was the best thing that needed to take place for my life at that given time. Once I did that, I was still coming back to school, even though I was still in a lot of pain as my arm was doubled in size; my arm was triple the size that it was now, my breasts were double that size, and my neck had extended out since my lymph nodes swelling and my armpits were very, very swollen.
Eventually, I needed to tell Bibi I would need to be off school. So, I pulled her aside to have that conversation with her. When we had that conversation, the energy and the love that she provided to me were so uplifting and so enjoyable. She told me my health was more important than finishing my journey to nail school, and I told her that my journey is my health and the journey before that because I’m going to live through this journey, I will not give up. I will not be discouraged from what I started, and I will finish this Nail program. She said take your time. It’s OK. I’m here for you, and she will pray for me. We are going to work through this together.
I’ve had my ups and downs. I was struggling with food and losing a lot of weight when the process started. I weighed about 260 pounds when I started. My current weight is 167 pounds, and I was fragile due to the pain that I was in. I had to get on narcotics to help me manage the pain that I was experiencing because it was a lot for me to deal with. Then we moved this year, and it has been a struggle as well. I did lose my fiancé back in May of this year, and my doctors requested that I have some more tests done to find out if I had any other health issues that were going on. This test was called a bone test, which is where you have this test in your twilight woke anesthesia whether they insert a needle in your buttocks to withdraw the bone out of you. It was pretty painful, but it was worth it. I did research prior. I wouldn’t say I like going to the doctor; I’m not too fond of tests; I don’t particularly appreciate taking medicine. I wouldn’t say I like doing many things that most of us don’t want to do, but I am very stubborn and strong-minded.
I had to move out of the house where I was staying with my fiancé and go back home and manage a new journey in my life, which is living by myself and managing to take care of the things that I have to do for myself, as well as still getting some assistance from family and friends. Along the way, I finally took that test. It was back in June that I started taking a test, and then I started my treatments up again because I have been off treatments since April of this year, and that was a long time, so I started back up.
I’m doing my best in my best life; I don’t want people to feel bad for the journey that I’m experiencing with breast cancer. I live my life more positively than negatively, so I try to engage with positive people, and I pray every one of you knows to learn something from this experience and take it with you to do better in your life because life is life, and we have got one life to live.
If there is anything I can tell you about this institution that I chose to go into, this industry that I did is booming and growing; this nail community is the best thing out there. You can do it, and I’m doing it. I refuse to give up. I refuse to have something that I didn’t ask to take control over my life and say that I cannot do this. I am so uplifted and optimistic about my life and the life that I’m living because of God and everything in my life; he helps me to be strong. He helps me to wake up every morning. He touches me and heals my body. He makes me strong in ways that I don’t even know how I’m doing the things that I’m doing.
At the school’s 2023 graduation, I was given a Lotus Scholarship to help me keep going. I have been off work through this process since April 2023, and the scholarship is helping me stay in the game and keep fighting.