(Christian News) — By the time Lisa F. Crites stepped into the shower after her mastectomy, following a breast cancer diagnosis, she had already lost her mother, acquired a hospital-based infection, and underwent an unexpected surgery due to complications. What came next, she says, was the part no one had warned her about.
A medical journalist, Crites had interviewed hundreds of mastectomy patients over the years. She says she never knew there was a strict no-showering rule for women with surgical drains. As she explains it, surgeons don’t want tap water touching drain sites due to bacteria and the risk of a water-borne illness. The women she spoke with—including nurse navigators, surgeons, and friends—had been getting by with plastic trash bags held on with duct tape.
“Personally, I found it insulting to shower in a trash bag after a devastating breast cancer diagnosis and traumatic surgery,” Crites said.
She figured other patients felt the same way and decided to design a protective garment. The result was the Shower Shirt, a patented water-resistant garment that protects drain sites, ports, and catheters. Crites designed it not only for breast cancer patients, but also for dialysis, rotator cuff, and cardiac patients with life vests or medical equipment that cannot get wet. Her patent, No. 8,516,613, was awarded in 2013, and in 2015 she was named a winner in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s InnovateHER Challenge.
“I Leaned on God”
Getting from idea to product was harder than she expected. Complications began right after her mastectomy when she developed two hospital-acquired MRSA infections, which doctors traced to an unsterile tissue expander. The infection led to four months of hyperbaric oxygen treatment and seven surgeries over a year and a half.
“It was grueling,” she said. She was so focused on trying to stay healthy that she temporarily lost sight of why she was creating the product.
She leaned on a group of clinicians who became her advisory board, but above all, she leaned on her faith.
“Besides leaning on their expertise, I leaned on God,” she said. “I told Him more than once, ‘This product is Yours, not mine. I’m just the vehicle to make it happen, but I need guidance.'”
Every morning she prayed for direction, and every night she prayed that the next day would bring her closer to finalized prototypes for patients to test. When patients later called The SHOWER SHIRT™ a “Godsend,” Crites would gently correct them: “No, it’s a God product. I was just the vehicle.”
The Book She Kept Turning Down
Her new memoir, Beautifully Unbroken: A Life-Changing Invention Born of Loss, Cancer, Courage, and Faith, details the journey starting with the sudden loss of her mother and her subsequent diagnosis.
Although Crites had twice turned down offers to write a book, she changed her mind when she remembered why she created The SHOWER SHIRT™ in the first place—not for financial gain, but to support others going through what she already had.
If the book could help even one person—whether “one cancer patient feeling less alone, one exhausted survivor, one doubting inventor, or one woman who lost her mother”—she decided every vulnerable page was worth writing.
The faith-based memoir reached Amazon Best Seller status in New Releases, trending at #1 in categories including Cancer, Spiritual Biography, and Health and Spirituality, and earned an International Impact Distinguished Author Award. Proceeds from every copy are designated for breast cancer support groups and patient non-profits.
Seventeen Years On
Crites doesn’t present the patent or the book as an endpoint.
“Like any traumatic experience, there is life before the event, and then life after,” Crites said. “We must adjust to our new normal.”
Seventeen years later, Crites still manages health deficits from the MRSA infections and emphasizes the role support groups play in addressing post-traumatic stress after cancer.
“Surviving cancer is only the beginning,” she said. “There is life after, where you learn to adjust to what was and focus on what can be.”
Beautifully Unbroken is available on Amazon here.
For more information on Crites and her patented invention, click on the Authors Website at: https://showershirtinventor.com/
Sources: Beautifully Unbroken – A Life Changing Invention Born of Loss, Cancer, Courage & Faith
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