When You Need A Helping Hand

November 29, 2010

Scott J. Capozza,  MS, PT 

Have you ever been to a support group for cancer survivors?

What happens there?  What is discussed?  Do people go around the room and talk about their cancer, surgical scars, nausea from chemo and radiation burns?  Is anything non-cancer discussed?

I’m asking because I’ve never been to an ‘official’ cancer survivors’ support group.  When I was going through chemo, I was the youngest one in the room by 30 years.  I was in a different life stage than everybody else.  I was in my early 20’s: I didn’t have a spouse who was frantically worrying about me; I didn’t have a job where I feared if I was out too long in treatment, that I could lose my job; I didn’t have a mortgage that I was stressed about paying if I did in fact lose my job.  These are all real, legitimate concerns of people in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and so on.  But not in your 20’s.

I was concerned about finishing school.  I wanted to know if could return to running.  I doubted whether a girl would ever want to date a guy with only one testicle.

So when the social worker at the hospital asked me if I wanted to come to a support group, I told her nicely that I’d think about it, but really, my mind was already made up: no way.  I just didn’t feel like I had anything in common with the other people going through chemo.

Honestly, there was not much out there for young adult survivors who were going through cancer 10 -15 years ago.  Now, though, it seems like there are more resources available.  Planet Cancer seems to be the primary website that young adults with cancer turn to for information and support.  Partnered with LiveStrong, Planet Cancer has a wide range of online blogs, chat rooms, and information for young survivors.  They have lists of retreats for young adult survivors (like First Descents and Camp Make-a-Dream), as well as listings of college scholarships for teenagers who are survivors.  Planet Cancer also has a section called ‘Cancertainment’ where we could all use a laugh when fighting cancer (I especially liked the ‘Top 10 Things Guys With Testicular Cancer Have To Be Thankful For’ and ‘Top 10 Signs You’ve Joined A Cheap HMO’).  There is also a group out of Chicago called Imerman Angels, which is a program that connects a longtime survivor of a particular cancer with someone who is newly diagnosed with that same cancer.

But Planet Cancer and Imerman Angels weren’t around when I went through treatment, so I didn’t have the benefit of those ‘support groups.’  My support group ended up being my friends, none of whom had cancer.  For me, I needed to be around my friends to act normal, to feel normal, to not feel like...well, a cancer patient.  I remember that my friends were going to a Yankee game and they invited me along.  I am a life-long Red Sox fan and, at the time, I was board-line neutropenic...neither of which bodes well for attending a Yankee game.  Either condition turns Yankee Stadium into hostile territory, but I had the double whammy going in my favor.  But I was able to somehow convince my oncologist to let me go for the weekend, and off I went for my first ever Yankee game.  I knew my friends wouldn’t pick on me too much at the game -- not because I was sick, but because if they pointed me out to the rest of the crowd as a Red Sox fan, then that made them ‘friend of Red Sox fan’, which any Yankee fan will tell you is even worse.  Just to rub it their faces a little more, during batting practice I caught a foul ball.  My friends were so jealous; they had been to countless Yankee games and never caught a foul ball, and here comes the Red Sox fan with cancer and I catch one.  Ha!

In the end, the Yankees won (so at least my friends were happy), but regardless of the score, I was happy, too.  I was with my friends, at a ball game, talking about anything BUT cancer.  It was the best support group I could have asked for.

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