Connecting with others
At a recent meeting, social worker and facilitator Bruce MacDonald (left) talks with Michael Rosengarten and other members of the support group for those facing gastrointestinal cancers and their partners.
Joining a support group is one way for patients and families at Dana-Farber to find connection and kinship. Other programs, such as One to One or the Patient and Family Advisory Councils, also offer camaraderie (see related article, Programs for patients to support one another). "Patients share strategies for facing cancer and play a therapeutic role for one another," says Borstelmann. "A perspective from another patient or family member has a certain value that is different from that of a clinician. Fellow patients and families offer a special kind of credibility."
Less formally, conversations develop and friendships begin every day in the clinics, where patients often receive chemotherapy side by side. GI cancer specialist Robert Mayer, MD, recalls how two couples in his care became friends. After one patient passed away, her husband began driving the other patient to his appointments when his wife was at work.
Support groups are not for everyone. Some patients avoid them because they don't want to bear the burden of other people's problems or are afraid they will lose hope in the face of sad stories. The intimacy of a support group may not be a good fit for patients who are reserved and private. And, MacDonald adds, some people – often men – turn away from an offering they view as "touchy-feely."
Logistics also may interfere. It's not easy to get back to Dana-Farber for an evening group when you already spend so much time there for treatment. Wong and Lee, who live 40 miles away in Northborough, Mass., admit that it's a hardship to drive into Boston at rush hour for a 6 p.m. start time.
It's worth it, they say, because the group offers a remedy for a common experience among cancer patients: loneliness. "Acquaintances are well-meaning, but they don't understand," says Lee.
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