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HEALTHY LIFE: CANCER
August 29-30, 2012
Whole person
Integrative medicine clinics at Providence
and at Portland’s Legacy Health, both of which
espouse an openness to Eastern and Western
influences to help put cancer patients’ minds at
ease, enlist a two-pronged approach: survivor-
ship and quality of life.
“We look at the whole person the whole time
they’rewithus,” said SelmaAnnala, supervisor
of the LegacyCancer Healing Center, located at
Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in
downtown Portland. A former recreational
therapist with a certification in stress manage-
ment, Annala has worked with cancer patients
for nearly 30 years.
At Providence, Wick tries to come up with
unique ways to aid each individual, including
care for women who’ve had unilateral or bilat-
eral mastectomies.
“We have what we call ‘mastectomy bou-
tiques’ on campus,” said Wick. “If a woman is
making a decision between reconstruction and
a prosthetic, it’s immensely helpful.”
Specialists at six Portland-area Legacy hospi-
tals oversee “a menu of services” that includes
dietary management, visits with social work-
ers, stress management, massage therapy,
classes and support groups, Wick added. Lend-
ing libraries, where patients can check out
books that help them to better understand and
deal with their disease, aren’t uncommon.
Hundreds of patients
Alongwith its booming population, the num-
ber of cancer patients in the metro area also is
growing. Providence Portland saw about 350
people for all types of cancer last year, and
Providence St. Vincent saw 450.
Wick’s average caseload is about 150 patients
in treatment for breast cancer alone.
“We have three nurse navigators,” she said.
“One does breast cancer and head and neck
cancer. One does survivorship navigation, cre-
ating treatment summaries and protocols for
patients.” The third handles all the rest.
“We have a very tight team,” Wick pointed
out.
The Tuality/OHSU Cancer Center in Hills-
boro, a collaboration between Tuality Health-
care and Oregon Health & Science University,
opened in 2002 and serves mostly Washington
County patients and their families.
Located just across the street from Tuality
CommunityHospital, the center’s staff sees be-
tween 200 and 250 cancer patients a year, said
Director Tina Dickerson.
“We treat all types of cancer,” Dickerson
noted, “the most common being breast, pros-
tate and lung.” Other types that bring people to
the center include malignant brain tumors,
pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, lympho-
mas, sarcomas, skin cancers, bone cancers,
metastatic disease and head and neck cancers.
It’s a full plate, Dickerson said, but one to
which her organization is committed.
“Our joint venture gives patients access to
the clinical expertise of our OHSU radiation
oncologists, cancer research and clinical trials,
right here in Hillsboro where they live,” she
said.
The center, on Southeast Ninth Avenue, is
single-story, with “no maze of parking struc-
tures and towers of elevators for the elderly to
navigate,” Dickerson said. “”We want the pa-
tient to feel normal in an abnormal time of
their life, so we look at their needs before, dur-
ing and after treatment.”
Providence, too, provides weekly “cancer
conferences,” bringing the patient, surgeon,
radiologist, pathologist, oncologist and plastic
surgeon together to “discuss all the particu-
lars,” Cook said.
And after treatment is complete, patients
are offered a class a week for three weeks
called “The New Norm,” which emphasizes di-
etary changes and the importance of exercise
in the ongoing process of healing.
It’s a model that’s being replicated in Provi-
dence’s heart care clinics and its brain insti-
tute.
Legacy Health has an army of 10 specialists
who go the distance to make sure patients are
equipped with what Annala called a “survivor-
ship plan.” By 2015, she said, such plans will be
mandated by the American College of Sur-
geons, the body that provides cancer centers
with their accreditations.
For Annala, it’s not just work— it’s personal.
“I lost my mother to breast cancer when I was
6,” she said. “There is a great reward to walk-
ing with people through their journeys.
“I can say that we see way more people who
survive their cancer than don’t.”
Heal better
Meanwhile, Day, who said she’s determined
to “not revisit the land of cancer again,” contin-
ues to take the drug tamoxifen to inhibit the
production of certain estrogens and, hopefully,
keep her disease at bay. Since her diagnosis,
she said, she’s belonged to a non-exclusive
club.
“I’m in this cancer club along with a lot of
other women,” Day said. “Sometimes I get very
sad that some of my fellow club members, who
didn’t choose to be here, are going through so
much without adequate care, or even misman-
aged care.”
For Day, accepting help — and taking the
hands of those who wanted to hold her up —
made all the difference.
“Having a team of people with your best in-
terests at heart is so significant,” she said.
“You’re putting your life in these people’s
hands. If your body knows you’re trusting your
team, it’s going to heal better.”
■
From page 2
PMG PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ
Valerie Day shares a conversation with Cheri
Wick, an oncology nurse navigator at Providence
St. Vincent Medical Center Breast Center. Day
who was diagnosed with breast cancer one year
ago in August, recently went to the center for a
post-treatment mammogram.
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