Carol Schaap was sitting in the waiting room at the Women’s Diagnostic Center just as she had for the past couple of decades after her annual mammogram. This visit quickly turned out to be a very different from the rest.
“I found myself meeting with Dr. Nicholson for further testing,” says Carol Schaap, breast cancer patient.
“Fast forward 10 months when I came to the finish line of the breast cancer journey I had begun traveling that day at the hospitals of Community Healthcare System,” she recalls. “It was a trip that had involved fear, discomfort and sadness. It also included the love and support I felt from family and friends and the knowledge that I had good doctors, nurses and technicians. I also had groups and activities that I had participated in at the Cancer Resource Centre that were designed to lend support and ease fears.”
Now at the Community Cancer Research Foundation in Munster with Oncology nurse navigator Nicole Bryner, Schaap was going over her “survivorship” plan so she could pick up the reins and get on with her life.
Part of the many support resources that Community Healthcare System nurse navigators have to coordinate on that journey to a “new normal” include the Community Cancer Research Foundation and its Cancer Resource Centre. Through the Foundation, the hospitals of Community Healthcare System offer patients access to research for prevention and/or treatment for breast, lung, ovarian, colon cancers, lymphoma, adult leukemia and multiple myeloma.
“I had gotten through the year of multiple medical appointments and challenging treatments,” Schaap says. “I had a great support crew, but I also realized I had gotten through because of myself. I had gotten that mammogram on time when my tumor was small. I had lifted myself up onto that operating table or into the chemo chair and under the radiation beam.”
“I learned the importance of staying vigilant of my health, accepting and following sound medical treatment and learning from others who also had ‘walked my walk’,” Schaap says. “But, the most important thing a cancer diagnosis taught me was that I can be strong!”
For more information about cancer care at the hospitals of Community Healthcare System, visit COMHS.org/cancer.
