By Chelsea Laskowski

Navigating life beyond a cancer diagnosis

Sep 28, 2013 | 12:56 PM

When people are diagnosed with cancer they get a double whammy.

They have to deal with the emotions that come along with it, plus decide what kind of treatment to undergo.

A new program in the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region is gearing up to help people through that tough time.

Essentially, people who have recently been diagnosed will be paired up with someone who has either been through the same situation personally, or been close to someone who has.

The volunteer will provide emotional support as well as answer or help find the answer to any questions the patient has about treatment.

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This could mean a lot of things, from tagging along on hospital visits or even just being there to help with the emotional journey.

“We want to make sure that we are supporting that patient, whatever their specific needs are. So that they are not slipping through the cracks or not receiving those extra resources or support,” said Sonya Jahn, volunteer coordinator with the health region.

The support system has been dubbed the peer navigation program and will help people in the health region.
It is very different from other volunteer programs offered through the Victoria Hospital. That’s because it isn’t a single task, for example, delivering flowers.

It is a series of interactions with the newly-diagnosed patient.

The approach is the first in Saskatchewan. As such, it will take a bit of tweaking once initiated, said Jahn.
“Once we’ve successfully established the initiative and the program it will, I believe, it will go into the other health regions as well. It’ll expand.”

The health region got its first taste of what the program will look like on Saturday at a workshop for the first set of volunteers.

The limits of how much help to provide were on the minds of many of the seven volunteers in the room. While volunteers are there to offer guidance to patients, they don’t want excessive pressure or dependency to become an issue between them.

One volunteer spoke of her first few weeks after diagnosis. She said getting information as quickly as possible was very important and expressed frustration when she didn’t know how to find it.

An instructor came in from Regina to provide guidance for volunteers.

Jahn explained what was covered in the six-hour session.
“Even things like communication skills. We will have a resource list. We want to make sure the patient has all the necessary resources, tools, information and knowledge that they need to have in order to make the appropriate decisions through their cancer journey.”

The instructor explained in the workshop that before volunteers start working with the patient, they need to understand themselves. This means taking ownership of their emotions, recognizing individual strengths, and acknowledging that not all people share the same perspectives on issues.

The patients taking part in the program will be referred through Prince Albert Victoria Hospital’s oncology unit.
The unit has four chairs and one stretcher where people receive intravenous or oral chemotherapy.

The process is physically taxing. said Shawn Phaneuf, the nursing unit manager of hemodialysis and chemotherapy at the hospital.

It can make a person’s hair fall out, cause nausea, and a general feeling of weakness.

“The chemotherapy part of it is quite toxic to your body because you’re attacking good cells as well as bad cells,” said Phaneuf.

About seven volunteers have offered to join the navigation program as of right now.

However, the need for volunteers is emphasized by the fact that the number of newly diagnosed people using the unit varies from six to 10 a month.

“We’d like to get more volunteers on board to ensure that we are able to provide the service for newly diagnosed patients,” said Jahn.

For anyone interested in helping out can go to www.princealbertparklandhealth.com or phone Jahn at (306)-765-6010.

With files from James Bowler

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk