The Butter End Cakery: Born After Battling Breast Cancer or a Medical Mix-up?

Sitting in the grandiose lofty tasting room at The Butter End Cakery amidst impressive art pieces that could have easily fit in between a Matisse or Picasso, was not just a challenge to my aficionado with art, but a great test to my weakness for sweets, as these works of art were actually edible cakes that allured me with their sinful smells of chocolate, cherry and zesty lemon scents. Kimberly Bailey, owner of The Butter End Cakery in Santa Monica tempted me further by gently sliding a plate of four various samples of freshly baked cakes in front of me. Just as she loves to share her cakes with ‘dessert zealots’ and relishes converting those who don’t particularly have a sweet tooth, she’s just as enthused to share her personal journey with breast cancer years ago.

Bailey says, “Too often, when people are diagnosed with a terminal illness, they go into the fetal position. It’s pretty devastating especially when you’re young and you’re told that it’s serious and aggressive.”  In 2008, she felt a lump, but it didn’t really alarm her because she’s had history with cysts. On a trip back to NYC, she went to her OBGYN. It was hard, smooth and easily moveable: All the characteristics of a benign tumor.  He stuck a needle in it and nothing came out.  Her doctor said, “Just as I thought, it’s not a cyst. It’s a benign tumor. I’m 99% sure. Don’t even lose your sleep over it.”

Months went by and as she was playing volleyball, while wearing a bikini, she could see it close to the surface, causing her to visit an OBGYN in Los Angeles. The doctor said the same thing. “I’m 99% sure that this is a benign tumor.” Bailey says, “that’s their lawsuit way of saying: I’m a 100% certain.” But the doctor did suggest that in order for Bailey to be 100% sure, she needed to do a mammogram and an ultrasound.

The doctor who read the mammogram said, “I’m 98% certain that this is a benign tumor,” and the doctor who read the ultrasound said, “I’m 99% certain that this is a benign tumor.”  Overall, the statistics sounded good.  The doctor who read the ultrasound, however, said that there was one area that looked a little rough and went to look at it on a higher resolution screen. Ultimately, she confirmed once again that Bailey was fine.

Now the size of a golf ball, she opted to have an excisional biopsy to have the entire tumor removed. Because Bailey was also an actress who just happened to be auditioning for the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, where the callbacks were naked, she didn’t want to have a scar where any V-neck line would be.  The doctor made a line along her areola, went in and removed it. It was two inches from the incision to the point of the tumor.

When Bailey went back for a checkup to see how her sutures were healing from this minor surgery, her surgeon said, “your scar is healing nicely as I expected, but now we have to talk about the results of the biopsy. It’s not good. It’s malignant. It’s serious and it is aggressive.” Bailey hadn’t been waiting for results because she was under the impression that what she had was nothing.  Not only was her tumor now declared malignant, but the surgeon had removed her tumor as though it was benign and not like a lumpectomy. Margins were ignored and this had now effectively contaminated everything including Bailey’s nipple. She now had to have a mastectomy. While she recognized that her doctors had made a grave error, arguing about it wasn’t going to rectify the situation.

But whose error was it?

Bailey believes that the lab might have made the error in the diagnosis. Her suspicions stem from record mix-ups that occurred when she had her follow-up screenings. Twice, Bailey was initially handed someone else’s chart to sign. Four doctors had told her it was benign. The surgeon took her tumor, assuming it was benign, treating it like it was benign, and sends it off to a lab to be biopsied. Bailey believes that it’s possible that the lab gave her someone else’s results and that in fact, her tumor was benign. But, the tumor was gone and there wasn’t an opportunity to get a second opinion. Bailey had to follow the doctor’s orders after hearing that she had Stage II triple negative cancer – the most aggressive of all breast cancers.

For the next year, Bailey went for follow-up ultrasounds. Another radiologist comes in and takes her hand and says, “I’m sorry about what you’re going through. I looked at your initial films of your ultrasound and mammogram and there is no way I would think what you had was cancer. I’m floored at your diagnosis.”

Bailey paused reflectively and said, “So, it’s a really good reminder of how diligent we need to be in biopsying these things.  Apparently, my entire tumor wasn’t cancerous. The cancer cells were on one side so even if they did a core biopsy and it was cancerous on the side, they might have missed it and then I would really have been in trouble.” She continued, “all of these are unknowns though. You have to go about treating it in the most prudent way. You have to assume the diagnosis, the biopsy and the feedback are correct.”

Dealing with her insurance company

“On top of everything,” Bailey continued, “my insurance company said it was a pre-existing condition and they wouldn’t cover it.” The insurance company, which will remain anonymous because Bailey fears being dropped if she exposes their name, was taking the stance that Bailey wasn’t covered at the time her cancer emerged because she was just rolling off COBRA to individual coverage and there is a lag time to receive that coverage.  “When do cancer cells start?” Bailey asked, who had been with them for eight years. The night before her excisional biopsy, fifteen hours prior actually, the hospital informed Bailey that the insurance company was declining the surgery.  Bailey offered to pay with her credit card the morning prior to the surgery but the receptionist stated that she could not be admitted for this surgery until everything was paid for in advance, including the lab work, that night, before coming to the hospital the next morning.
“Thank God I had American Express!” Bailey exclaimed, reliving that moment.

When her surgeon told her she had an aggressive cancer, she feared that she might die, but she also feared that if she lived, she was going to be flat broke and lose everything she had worked for her entire life just to pay to survive.

The Plan

Rather than solely focus on getting better, Bailey had to formulate another plan so she wouldn’t go financially bust. She flew to New York City, walked into her bank, and handed the manager her account number on a slip of paper with a dollar amount on it.
Bailey calmly told him, “I need to withdraw that.”
The bank teller asked, “Where do you want it transferred?”
Much to the bank teller’s surprise, Bailey said, “I need it in cash. I know you don’t have it on you. But, can you have it tomorrow?”
Her intention was to take her life savings and stash it in her parent’s basement and get state care so that after she survived she could still rebuild her life and live.

“This is what I had to do while I was sick,” she explained.  “Thankfully, that plan never went into action because the surgeon’s office called the next day stating that the insurance company had approved the testing and the surgery.” Bailey doesn’t know why her insurance company changed their position. “At that point, you don’t push it,” she said. “You just say, thank you. It was outrageous, stressful and a hideous thing to deal with and overwhelming in every sense of the word.”

Healthcare

Bailey said, “If you have breast cancer and are clean for five years, other insurance companies may consider taking you on, and then goodnight with the premiums you’ll pay. You’re a high risk cover and you will have to pay through the nose. But, at least there are options, but not really.”

“There is this fear of what you have to go through to try and gamble what’s important in your life financially and materially and all of the things that provide you security versus where do you get your healthcare? Will that decision kill you? A public hospital that has archaic procedures or a state-of-the-art brand new hospital? Nobody should have to make those decisions. I was paying my entire life every month for a premium PPO program. I had never been sick. But they don’t care. Health insurance companies are paid to not approve people.”

Another medical mix-up

There was another medical error that occurred after Bailey’s surgery that caused her to reflect on the integrity, accuracy and safety of our health system.  Bailey had gone for an IPL on her scar at a dermatologist’s office and a fully body scan, which revealed good health. Nothing was removed. Almost a year after her visit, she received a large bill stating that she had a malignant lesion removed.  She called the doctor’s office, perturbed, and stated that she never had anything removed that day and the date of the visit was incorrect on the bill.

The office receptionist assured her it was her bill and recited an address in Studio City to prove it was Bailey’s record. Bailey had never lived in Studio City.
“You’ve sent me someone else’s records. That’s not me,” she claimed.

The doctor eventually called her, while holding her chart and looking at the record, and explained to her that she had a malignant lesion removed.  She told him to look at the name at the top of that record.  It couldn’t be hers. Sure enough, the doctor realized that someone had placed another patient’s record in Kimberly’s chart.  Bailey says, “even on a challenge, the doctors don’t look at the entire piece of paper. I’m more concerned that as a cancer patient that I received a notice to remove a malignant lesion than the amount of the bill and I’m extremely concerned that the patient who actually had the lesion removed might not know!”

The doctor replied more or less as follows. “I hear you. I apologize. This is what happens when your business grows and you have thirty people working for you. I can’t watch everyone.”  

There is good reason why Bailey is so reticent about the accuracy of healthcare after her experience with these numerous record mix-ups.  To this day, Bailey does not know if she really did have breast cancer.

Friends and family

“You become clear on everything when you have cancer and you just have to realize that everyone reacts differently and you just have to know that the people who love you are loving you in whatever way they know how.”

But she’ll be the first to admit, she didn’t appreciate her friends sharing their stories about people who had died from her type of breast cancer. Bailey had to set boundaries and let her friends know that hearing those types of things were not nice for her.

Being bald

“I felt more beautiful than I had ever felt in my life. I was stripped of all of the things that I had identified with my beauty before and I loved being bald.” She emphatically repeated, “I loved being bald.”

Bailey recounted a story about a guy running across the parking lot at Ralphs just to tell her that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. “I can’t remember a guy ever doing that when I had my hair! People should treat everyone like they’re bald, because people are so nice to you when you’re bald. I just loved every second of it.”

Memory

Bailey says, “the first half of anesthesia is an amnesia drug. Your memory is affected, which I learned after my fourth surgery.” On Bailey’s last surgery, she wanted to go under a local because she had been starting to experience memory and cognitive issues. "I didn’t want elective amnesia," she stated.  Because Bailey asked, she was able to get out of the first part of anesthesia, remaining awake for the ride to the operating room and avoiding another dose of this drug.

“Words get lost. I search for words and they are not there,” she explained.  “My short term memory has been affected,” she continued. “The ability to hold focus and read a book is totally different. We’ve all had the experience not remembering what we’ve just read.  But, I zone out after two sentences.”

Bailey wonders if she will get Alzheimer’s even though her focus and memory are improving. She is now reading a couple of nights a week up to five pages. “It’s exciting,” she said. “I’ve had to retrain myself.”

The tasting menu

Kimberly saw that my willpower had finally expired. I had to taste the flaky cakes staring at me.  She explained each one of them in detail.
1) Vanilla bean with a vanilla buttercream
2) Chocolate bourbon coconut – the ‘grown-up’ chocolate cake with a bourbon ganache
3) Lemon sourcream cake with a lemon buttercream
4) Chocolate almond cherry with a cherry cream cheese buttercream

As I tasted the chocolate almond cherry cake, I sighed, “divine!”  Bailey nodded, knowingly as she said, “That one has marzipan and I melt it down with cherry juice and then I fold it into the dark chocolate batter and I put chopped cherries and a little bit of coconut and little mini chocolate chips and then I take some more of the chopped cherries and put it into the icing.”

“It’s different,” I said. “There are a lot of things going on in there. It’s complex. Unique.”

She smiled as she said, “You know my first customer was my chemo nurse.” Bailey never planned on owning a bakery.  It was her therapeutic remedy while going through cancer treatments. While she did have a degree from art school which fuels her hand made designs, opening a bakery was a bold and risky move. Many of her friends and former business colleagues were shocked and asked her what chance she thought she had in succeeding?

Bailey says, “I think the percent only matters when you’re the percent. It’s a good lesson for everything. What’s your chance of succeeding in business? It’s every chance, because it’s my percent, therefore it is. It just is. You can’t think about the alternative.”

The Butter End Cakery is located on Santa Monica Boulevard, in Santa Monica. For more information, click here.