Shawnee Mission Medical Center’s image center is now open!
Welcome to Santé Image Renewal Boutique & Salon’s first blog. Shawnee Mission Medical Center’s image center is now open!
For our first blog, I want to introduce myself and give you some information about what brings me to Santé. My name is Diane Bender and I traveled a long and bumpy road to now have the good fortune to be here. Life is often unpredictable, but somehow most everything I have done has led me to this place.
I have had a life-long love of cosmetology. From the time I was a little girl I was fixing my dolls’ hair, eventually talking my little sisters and friends into letting me cut their hair with kitchen scissors, even asking my daddy to build me a “beauty saloon” when I grew up. (I had never been to a salon because my mom did my hair.)
Suffering from acne in my younger years, I was very self-conscious about my skin and struggled to focus attention to my “positive” visible attributes—my eyes and hair, by experimenting with makeup and hairstyles. Like it or not, a person is judged by her looks, even if “beauty is only skin deep”.
After high school I tried a year of college, but decided I really wanted to go to beauty school. But practicing cosmetology is hard, even when you are good at it. It is difficult to build a clientele, there is no guarantee you will make any money and you probably won’t have benefits. I went back to college.
Fast forward a few years. I got married, had two daughters, but still hadn’t finished college. In 1993, as my girls were becoming self-sufficient, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 34. It was not a difficult decision to have both my breast removed if that was what it took to keep me alive. My youngest, at six years old told me, “Mommy, you had a choice, your breasts or your life and you chose your life”, but I still had to make some sort of sense out of the diagnosis. I was the only woman in my large extended family to be diagnosed with breast cancer, and 16 years later I still am.
After I returned to college it began to occur to me that I might live through this disease and I didn’t want to spend the next 50 years fussing with breast forms, so I began to consider breast reconstruction. Reconstruction is a huge time and financial commitment so I wanted to make sure I was doing it for the “right” reasons. I did a lot of research on medical procedures, body image and how it can affect a person’s self esteem. I used my classmates and instructors as “guinea pigs” for my presentations and papers, ultimately undergoing the procedure.
My communications degree, research, and personal experience came in handy in 1998 when I was asked to represent the American Cancer Society and the women of Kansas by providing testimony in support of insurance payment for breast reconstruction. The bill passed! Insurance Commissioner Kathleen Sebelius and I traveled Kansas for press conferences announcing the passage of the bill which is now national law.
I have spend the years since in various roles, both paid and volunteer, continuing to advocate and educate women, all the while trying to help them feel better by looking better. It has been a wonderful and rewarding journey.
That is what brought me to Santé. I am honored to have the opportunity to serve the women in the Greater Kansas City area and look forward to sharing experiences and information with you.
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