{"id":13536,"date":"2022-03-24T11:49:35","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T15:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/?page_id=13536"},"modified":"2022-03-28T09:12:48","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T13:12:48","slug":"dr-lillian-walker-shelton","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/spotlights\/dr-lillian-walker-shelton\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Lillian Walker Shelton"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Alumna, Class of 2018<\/h2>\n<h3><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-13541 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/300-1.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Lillian Walker Shelton\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/300-1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/300-1-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Degree<\/h3>\n<p>Counselor Education and Supervision<\/p>\n<h3>What inspired you to go into your career field?<\/h3>\n<p>It\u2019s really a funny story \u2013 my older brother is a social worker, his wife is a social worker, my brother-in-law is a social worker. So I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be a social worker. I want to be a counselor.\u2019 I was a legal secretary from 2006 to 2009, but I wanted to do more to help people \u2013 and I didn\u2019t want to go to school for social work because of all these other social workers in my family! So, I decided to instead go to school for <a href=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/academics\/counseling\/\">counseling<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I was doing a fellowship at that time through a group called the Younger Women\u2019s Task Force, and I would be involved in women\u2019s empowerment circles at a place called <a href=\"https:\/\/samaritanministry.org\/strive\/\">STRIVE DC<\/a>. A lot of the women in the group said they wanted assistance but didn\u2019t feel comfortable, but they felt comfortable talking to me. So, that propelled me to go to graduate school at Trinity Washington University for counseling. Once I did that, I worked as a community support specialist in D.C., but I thought to myself that I still really wanted to do more. I saw an ad for Marymount\u2019s doctoral program in Counseling, and thought that this would enable me to really help more people and be creative. I applied in 2014, and now eight years later, here I am.<\/p>\n<h3>Tell us about some of your experiences through Marymount&#8217;s program.<\/h3>\n<p>It was really great \u2013 there was freedom and a lot of opportunities. One opportunity I had was through an internship to work at <a href=\"https:\/\/some.org\/\">SOME, So Others Might Eat<\/a>. I worked at the day program there and I would sometimes help with groups and do individual counseling. I had a desire to learn about counseling internationally as well, and I had an opportunity through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gtrinc.org\/\">Global Trauma Research<\/a> to go to Haiti in 2017 and do counselor education there, where I was teaching people who were teachers, nurses and regular community members about basic things with mental health and how mental illnesses can develop.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MU Counseling alumna describes the importance of mental health support during cancer treatment\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bcfFlwk5dZM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>How did you originally get involved in cervical cancer awareness efforts?<\/h3>\n<p>Unfortunately, our mother passed away in 1996 from cervical cancer \u2013 and when it happened, I really had a lot of questions. When I moved here to the DMV area, I met a woman named Tamika Felder who had a nonprofit organization called <a href=\"https:\/\/cervivor.org\/\">\u2018Tamika and Friends.\u2019<\/a> I began working with her and telling my story about my mom and everything, and we would do different things to raise awareness. Every year, my family from Philadelphia would come down for a walkathon and we would raise money, and it was just really putting cervical cancer awareness out there.<\/p>\n<h3>Tell us about your own diagnosis of cancer.<\/h3>\n<p>When the pandemic was first happening, that\u2019s when I found out I had breast cancer. I was at work and I noticed a lump at my collarbone, and I went and got a chest x-ray at the emergency room. They said everything looked fine, but my primary care doctor told me to get a mammogram, which all women over 40 should definitely do. When I did that, I thought everything was fine but three days later they called me and said they saw something, and recommended I get a diagnostic mammogram. As you can imagine, by the end of that I was just absolutely in tears, and they told me that it looked like I had cancer developing in my left breast. The good thing about it was they caught it very early, and I had what they call stage zero breast cancer \u2013 but it was in two different areas that were not close to each other, so because of that I had to have very radical treatment and get a double mastectomy.<\/p>\n<p>Because of the pandemic, some of my medical treatment was amended \u2013 for instance, I couldn\u2019t get reconstructive surgery because all plastic surgery was deemed elective. Having a potentially deadly illness during the pandemic was an interesting experience for me, but it did put me in a position where I realized that while before I was working with these people who had cervical cancer because of my mom, now I\u2019m working with people who have breast cancer because of me. When you talk to people who have had cancer and you get that diagnosis, it really does change your life a lot.<\/p>\n<h3>How did it affect your mental health at the time?<\/h3>\n<p>You wonder \u2018why did this happen to you\u2019 and \u2018what does this mean,\u2019 but you go through it day by day. You can be upset, you can cry and you can ask for help. For me, it made me think about taking care of myself better. You definitely see how, you know, \u2018I am not invincible\u2019 and \u2018stuff can happen to me.\u2019 So during my recovery, I starting doing my thing of walking every day just to get out of the house and keep my body moving. I lost about 40 pounds.<\/p>\n<p>Also, I always say that every good counselor should have their own counselor, too. When this happened, I got counseling from a service called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cancercare.org\/\">Cancer Care<\/a>, and now my current counselor is from the <a href=\"https:\/\/smithcenter.org\/\">Smith Center for Healing and the Arts,<\/a> where they help people who have had cancer and are recovering from cancer. I was like, \u2018I need all the help that I can get.\u2019 I\u2019m in recovery now \u2013 I\u2019m cancer-free, and I was very fortunate. Some people have to get chemotherapy, they have to get radiation, and I didn\u2019t have to do that. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>How important is it to raise awareness about mental health support for cancer patients?<\/h3>\n<p>Even before I found out I had breast cancer, Tamika would ask me to talk to people about the importance of mental health and getting support \u2013 and also, because I was a caretaker for my mother, the importance of getting support for your mental health when you\u2019re a caretaker. What I\u2019ve been doing now is speaking through my friend\u2019s church, raising awareness on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lillianwslgpc\">my own platform on Facebook<\/a> and doing individual therapy. A lot of times when people find out, they\u2019re terribly depressed and don\u2019t know how to handle it. It\u2019s devastating to find out, but after some time, it\u2019s important to reach out and get support.<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t do cancer alone. Some things you can do alone \u2013 you can ride a bicycle alone, you can even paint your house alone. But cancer, unfortunately, is something you can\u2019t do by yourself. You have to really get help \u2013 so getting help from your friends or family, or someone who\u2019s a professional helper like myself, is really important.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alumna, Class of 2018 Degree Counselor Education and Supervision What inspired you to go into your career field? It\u2019s really a funny story \u2013 my older brother is a social worker, his wife is a social worker, my brother-in-law is a social worker. So I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be a social worker. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/spotlights\/dr-lillian-walker-shelton\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":1820,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/fullwidthpage.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.3 (Yoast SEO v22.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dr. Lillian Walker Shelton - Spotlights - Marymount University<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lillian Walker Shelton graduated with a doctorate in Counselor Education &amp; Supervision, and is a mental health awareness advocate for cancer patients.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/spotlights\/dr-lillian-walker-shelton\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dr. Lillian Walker Shelton\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lillian Walker Shelton graduated with a doctorate in Counselor Education &amp; Supervision, and is a mental health awareness advocate for cancer patients.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/spotlights\/dr-lillian-walker-shelton\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Marymount University\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-28T13:12:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/300-1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/spotlights\/dr-lillian-walker-shelton\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/spotlights\/dr-lillian-walker-shelton\/\",\"name\":\"Dr. Lillian Walker Shelton - 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