Nildaliz

Tell us about yourself!

Hi, my name is Neil Deli Ramos. I am originally from Connecticut. I am Puerto Rican and I am 35 years old, I am a mother of two girls, 15 and 12,  beautiful girls. Um, they mean the world to me and recorded an album and a single. Uh, the album has 12 songs and the single have one song and you can find it in all the platforms. Um, Spotify, Amazon, just look me up in Google and you’ll find me.

How did you feel when you first found out you had breast cancer?

 When I, um, was diagnosed with breast cancer. I, um, it was, it was a scary moment for me because I didn’t understand why I would get cancer cause it didn’t run in my family and I was just so confused. Um, and also it was also scary because, um, all of the friends that I knew that had cancer had passed away from it. So I said, ok, I’m next, but I guess God didn’t want me yet. 

How did you get through the tough times during your journey?

Well, on this journey, um, you really need to find a good corner, that helped get a couch, a nice little corner for your books. And if you have a hobby, like, I love plants. So I just started collecting plants and I did collect more than 350 plants. But I went a little crazy. But it helped me emotionally and, and mentally, it helps you take your mind off of what you’re going through and, and, and when you look at a plant and you see a plant with life that makes you happy just to see life in something else. And that’s how you’re gonna bloom just like a beautiful flower. 

What was the most challenging part of your journey?

The most challenging part of this journey was losing my identity because um I had to go through chemotherapy radiation and a lot of uh I had to get a double mastectomy surgery and, and it, when the chemotherapy hit and they had to shave my head. I felt like I lost my identity as Nildaliz. So I felt like I needed to like I was being reborn somehow be stripped from, from that old Nilda that I used to be created.

What has been your biggest source of support during your breast cancer journey?

My family has supported me to the max. I’m blessed to have them, my daughters. They help taking care of me, believe it or not, they help taking care of me while I was going through the process, through the hard process. They would see me in my sad days, they would see me in my days that I couldn’t get up and do nothing. They saw me on my depression at the lowest point and um my family was always supportive and also um there’s a lot of um uh breast cancer um agencies that also helped financially, they helped, they stepped in whenever I needed counseling, therapy. Any um any questions I had about breast cancer, they were always there to support me with my friends and family. 

What have you learned from your journey with breast cancer?

I have learned a lot of lessons through this breast cancer journey. I have learned that um we could hit rock bottom and, but we could always grow and, and, and little by little just get back up to, to normal. It, it’s all about a fight that you have inside of you. So I feel that that is what kept me strong through this journey. The fight of wanting to be alive, the fight of wanting to see my daughters grow up and get married and, and all that. I wanna see them living their life.

How do you feel about your diagnosis now?

Now I feel differently about it because I went through it. Yeah, it was a hard process. But um I’m a stronger person now. I’m actually, it actually changed the person who I am. It, it changed the person who I was actually made me like more mature, made me more uh alert to my body to pay attention to what could be going on. Um It also um I feel like a different person go growing through this journey because the whole journey of getting your hair back is like you’re re reborn again, like you’re being a whole different person again is you’re becoming a person but you don’t, you feel different inside, you feel more mature, more stronger. So you, you just become a stronger person after.

What advice would you have for someone who is just starting their breast cancer journey?

My advice to women who do get this um diagnosis, this horrible diagnosis um hang in there and remember just fight even if you don’t have any fight left in you fight um fight for what you love, fight for your family, just take out that warrior that’s in in you and just fight. 

Is there anything else that you would like to share with someone going through treatment right now?

I kinda compare this um journey with a caterpillar. Um because a caterpillar is not always a caterpillar, it’s gonna drag on the floor. It’s like, you know, we’re at our lowest moment, caterpillars are dragging on the floor. We’re at our lowest moment and then they get into like this, metamorphosis. I think I said it right? Um And they go into this cocoon, right? And I would say our cocoon time is, is our time that we are healing. It’s our time that we are preparing ourselves to continue life after a disaster happening into our life. And um it’s just a beautiful thing just to see a caterpillar going into a cocoon. It’s going through a process of transformation and that’s what we as people go through processes of transformation. And we turn, after all this um disaster that happened in our life, that you can always see the brighter side. The caterpillar is always gonna turn into a butterfly and that’s a beautiful um story. I love that story with the butterfly. I compare myself a lot to that. Uh When I speak about my journey.