Life After Cancer

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It’s an intense schedule. “Radiation, for example, is every day Monday through Friday for several weeks. On top of that, not infrequently, they are also coming to the infusion room to get chemotherapy, sometimes it’s every day, sometimes it’s once a week,” explained Dr. Bianca De Souza, a medical oncologist with Lee Health.

Cancer care requires many medical visits--making an overwhelming diagnosis even more life-changing. “Cancer takes a lot of things from us, even when it’s curable. The first thing that goes is our sense of control, so the patients have to mourn too many different losses. They lose control, they lose their health, they lose their sense of wellbeing, they are scared, family dynamics change, relationships either fall apart or get mended and come together, so a lot happens because of cancer care,” said Dr. De Souza.

But once a patient completes their final treatment, their cancer journey has ended—and a new journey begins. “That transition is hard. Some people need more help than others but having that survivorship here is important for that reason,” she said.

A new program called cancer survivorship is helping patients make that difficult transition from being a patient to being a survivor. “The purpose of that is to give them empowering information about what they had all the treatments that they went through, be it chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, whatever it was. They have specific information about what was on their pathology report and what kind of follow up is expected,” said Dr. Hidalgo.

The one-time meeting educates patients on their new treatment plan—giving them back some control. “It empowers the patient to take ownership of their own health,” she said.

Cancer survivors are at risk for reoccurrence or developing a secondary cancer—making it important to have regular visits with their doctor. Helping patients transition from patient to survivor.