Komen cares

Anyone who has gone through chemotherapy can tell you it knocks the wind out of you, says Karen Belcher. Every inch of your body is fighting, she says, and it wears down on you, physically and emotionally.

But when Belcher, a breast cancer survivor who underwent a single mastectomy and chemotherapy treatment earlier this year, finished her treatment at Carroll Hospital Center’s Center for Breast Cancer, she found that she wasn’t alone in climbing her way back to her normal, healthy self. She sat down with a nurse health navigator to talk about next steps — meeting with a nutritionist, enrolling in a yoga class geared toward cancer survivors, joining a fitness program to build strength and setting wellness goals.

The center’s breast cancer survivor program, called Embrace, was funded earlier this year through a $50,000 grant from Susan G. Komen Maryland, and it’s just one example of 17 programs that collectively received more than $1 million from the organization in fiscal year 2015 to help with breast cancer education, treatment and support.

In 2014-15, Komen Maryland’s community health programs diagnosed 42 cases of breast cancer, gave free mammograms to 1,108 women, and provided 932 women with a free clinical breast exam. The majority of the organization’s revenue comes from the Komen Maryland Race for the Cure, and up to 75 percent of net proceeds remain in Maryland.

“Komen understands what a person who has gone through breast cancer needs,” Belcher said. “They understand those areas, and I think that’s what has hit me more than anything. It’s a really warm, compassionate, friendly feeling — it’s just, ‘Wow, somebody really gets it.”

Kelly Kesler, community health director at Komen Maryland, says at the core of the grants program are health care navigators like the one that met with Belcher. As the health care system shifts toward personalized medicine, there’s a need to go beyond simply paying for mammograms and instead fund health navigators who meet with patients and get them exactly the type of assistance they need. In some cases, like with Belcher, that means survivorship programs that focus on fitness and nutrition. In other cases, it’s getting patients gas cards so they can get to treatment or funding breast care exams for at-risk immigrants who are not eligible for the Affordable Care Act because they have been in the country less than five years. There’s no one solution to aiding women with, or at risk of, breast cancer.

The grants also increasingly go toward survivorship programs, something that is more in demand now than ever before.

“We have seen an uptick in looking at the overall survivorship of individuals,” Kesler said. “Many women who live with metastatic breast cancer go on to live many, many years. … And as the entire survivorship field has grown, we are responding to that.”

At Carroll Hospital Center, the Komen-funded Embrace program supports programs for weight management, massage, acupuncture, yoga and fitness programs and a survivor retreat scheduled for March 2016. Most importantly, the grant allowed the center to hire a nurse health navigator specifically for breast cancer survivors.

“It’s so important to have someone to sit with you to have these conversations,” said Dona Hobart, medical director for the Center for Breast Health at Carroll Hospital Center. “It goes beyond just handing them a piece of paper and saying, ‘Here, here’s the sign-up.’ … There is a little bit of, I don’t want to say cheerleader, but someone to talk to.”

And that can bring a little bit of positivity into what’s otherwise a negative situation.

“There is hope in all of this,” Kesler said, “They say people shine brightest in the darkest hours. Even through a breast cancer diagnosis, some phenomenal things happen.”

For proof, just listen to Belcher talk to a yoga class for survivors.

“When we were all rolling around on the floor together, we were just laughing, and you just say, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s someone else out there who’s having trouble getting up off the floor,’ and suddenly, you don’t feel so lonely.”

This article is featured in The Daily Record’s Path To Excellence: A Woman’s Guide To Business. The mission of the Path to Excellence magazine is to give our readers the opportunity to meet successful women of all ages, backgrounds and beliefs and learn how they define success. Read more from Path to Excellence.