“For nearly 10 million Americans now living with a cancer history, life after cancer means finding a new balance - - one that celebrates triumph and relief of completing treatment, recognizes changes or losses the disease has wrought, and assimilates revised perspectives, new found strengths, and lingering uncertainties. Typically, few signposts exist to guide these highly personal journeys into a familiar but forever changed world.”
Living Beyond Cancer:
Finding a New Balance
President’s Cancer Panel, 2003-2004
Finding a New Normal, Finding a New Balance…
Three out of four families will have at least one family member who is diagnosed with cancer and is a cancer survivor. Who is a cancer survivor? A survivor is anyone living with a history of cancer from the moment of diagnosis through the remainder of life. Healthy survival is not just about surviving. Survival is also about thriving and living well.
The Celilo survivorship project is about helping patients live well through physical, emotional, and practical challenges of finding a “new normal”. A twenty week survivor group education, the
Cancer Quick Lecture series, will help patients learn more about Food as Medicine/Food for Life; Befriending Your Body/Restorative Exercise; Managing Long Term Side Effects of Cancer Treatment; Stress Management; Reintegrating back to Work/School/Family Life; and, addressing the nuts and bolts of gaining/maintaining insurance coverage, accessing benefits and social support services and improving social networks.
Other topics include joyful living, meeting the spiritual challenges of post-treatment, coping with fear of recurrence, improving body image and personal confidence, and re-establishing/establishing intimate relationships. Attendees will have an opportunity to invest in self-care, support other survivors, and create a personal development plan.
At Celilo, patient navigators, social workers, nurses and other health professionals educate and support survivors with their personal journeys. Cancer survivors have an opportunity to meet individually with a resource guide and/or social worker for an assessment of needs as they transition from active treatment to post-treatment. Survivors are linked with community support services and integrative therapies available at MCMC supporting a healthy lifestyle and cancer risk reduction.
As patients improve their understanding of disease management and follow-up care, it is hoped that remission improvement and cure potential will be advanced. Further, it is hoped that effective guidance and survivor coaching will lead to improved coping and improved quality of life.
For more information, contact Jennifer McCoy, MPA, CTR, (541) 506-6997 or Jessica Pembroke, MSW, Celilo social worker, (541) 506-6927.