Whether it’s the hydrangeas and roses flourishing in her garden, or her health restored after treatment for cancer, Elisa Razo of Santa Maria is quick to place credit where she feels it’s most due. “We don’t take credit. I thank God I didn’t die.
I want to give credit to the family that protects you, your friends who are your family if you, like me, don’t have children and family of your own here. And it’s his blessing that we have this care here, these people at Mission Hope who demonstrate total care, that offer classes and doctors and nurses that explain everything so well along the way. Thanks to God we have all of this here,” Razo said.
Elisa shared with her late husband, Fred Razo, a lust for life, adventure and travel, characteristics that brought them together in the early 1990s. Together they traveled through her native Mexico and settled back in his hometown where he wrapped up a career in the aerospace industry, and led a quiet life of retirement. Until his death in 2017, he always encouraged his wife to speak only her beautiful native language to him.
The practice improved his linguistic skills but hobbled her English-language acquisition. Though Razo speaks passable English now, the bilingual staff at Mission Hope were key to her understanding of critical medical information and technical details. “The total care they provided was a blessing, from the classes offered — art, support services, nutrition — to volunteers, doctors and nurses that can explain everything,” she said.
Elisa Razo’s stage one breast cancer was discovered during her annual mammogram in late November. Razo’s stage one breast cancer was discovered during her annual mammogram in late November. “I always do my annual mammogram.
It’s always been fine. But in November, it came back with something, and you know it was cancer,” Razo said. Biopsies of two small tumors turned up positive, and by the first week of December scheduling for her treatment had begun under the direction of Dr.
Colleen O’Kelly Priddy. “It was very fast. I was surprised.
They explained everything to me. The doctor recommended surgery as soon as possible, but it was December, a vacation period. I thought they would wait.
The closest available was the next day,” Razo said. They sent her to the hospital for all her pre-surgical tests, and at 6 a.m.
the following morning she was in for surgery. The lumps were removed and the lymph nodes in her left arm tested. She thought it was over.
Over the holidays, she experienced painful fluid buildup. After three visits to remove the material via syringe, she was sent on to Dr. Kevin Kim and Dr.
Benjamin Wilkinson who explained the tumors had been very small, but that the cancer was very aggressive. “They recommended 16 rounds of chemotherapy and 12 bouts of radiation to kill it,” Razo recalled. With treatment came pain and a loss of hair.
“When you take off your hair, the change is very strong. Your face really changes. All the world wants you to have hair,” said Razo.
Initially unaware of Mission Hope’s $200 grants for wigs, Razo obtained two of her own. “I always wanted to try another color. I love my wig! And people would tell me they liked my haircut, that I looked so different.
The doctor said I looked like a different person. People didn’t know me because of the honey-colored hair and style,” Razo said. With treatments wrapped up and her body on the mend, her baby-soft hair is returning.
“I feel better now, you know? It’s already back, and I’m working in the garden and on the trees in the yard. I go to the classes at Mission Hope, physical therapy three days a week with John (Malinowski), the pool at Hancock (College), farmers market,” Razo said. With no family in the country, she was grateful for friends who provided not only moral support, but transportation to and from appointments.
“Life changes, and cancer is something very hard that changes everything. Your feelings. You physically change.
I’m grateful to have had such security going through something so difficult where other people are dying and suffering,” Razo said. When she was down, she looked around to see patients in conditions that were worse than hers, who had small children to care for while she did not, who put things into perspective for her. “I was always talking to friends and people and looking at others.
At first, I was asking, ‘Why me?,’ but now I don’t ask why. It’s no one’s fault. So we are faithful to His strength.
We are thankful for this place. And see I have more because I value everything more. I don’t want anything,” Razo said.
She focuses on healing and relationships. “All that matters is getting better. Nothing else is important.
If we don’t have health, we don’t have anything. I live each day happy and knowing that the most important thing is your family, your friends, because they understand your situation. They support you.
They give you hugs,” Razo said. The eleventh Annual "Day of Hope" fundraiser for Mission Hope Cancer Center returns to cities across the Central Coast on Wednesday, August 21. Volunteers will sell a special edition of the Santa Maria Times, with proceeds benefiting Mission Hope Cancer Center from 7 a.
m. to noon. A celebratory community car parade will begin at the Santa Maria Fairpark at 11 a.
m., rolling through town toward Mission Hope Cancer Center..
