While a patient recovers from surgery and adjusts to the port implanted into her arm or upper body to receive the drops of chemotherapy, she copes with loss of stomach muscles, not to mention her hair, and deals with nausea and general physical and emotional malaise. Support groups share the pain and may help her find comedy where she can catch it. At St. Joseph Hospital in Chicago, licensed clinical social worker Nancy Randleman has been a facilitator at meetings. We're not like a typical hospital drop-in group. There are commitments made, relationships built.
Ovarian cancer needs that sense of community.
A visitor to these groups is Sybilann Williams, a gynecological oncologist. I like to approach each patient as the one who's going to survive. The Gynecologic Cancer Foundation has provided support to many, notes Karen Carlson, its executive director and administrator for the 445-member Society of Gynecologic Oncologists. The GCF toll-free information hot line has received thousands upon thousands of calls since its 1995 inception, and we've launched a Women's Cancer Network Web site, which allows a woman to instantly receive an assessment of her risk for developing ovarian cancer. As time passes, survivors wish more was being done.