One More Year 2019
Donation protected
So why am I doing this, why am I walking 100 kilometers, why do I care so much about the Psychosocial Oncology Clinic at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto.
Briefly, my story began in September 2014 when I was diagnosed with stage four cancer, melanoma to be exact. Given less than a year to live, I volunteered to take part in clinical studies opening a pathway towards what would eventually be cutting edge health care but first I had to get there.
The first year was easily the most difficult, agonizing over what the end would look like, anxiety and emotional stress plus dealing with cancer on a daily basis became difficult until eventually I was referred to POC in the hopes I’d be better able to deal with the situation.
At first I resisted, convinced I could handle the mounting mental stress on my own but eventually relented and made my way to the sixteenth floor desperate for any kind help. What I discovered was a department full of people dedicated to making my journey through cancer as bearable as possible.
The Psychosocial Oncology Clinic, is a team of psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, music and art therapists, that provide counseling and therapies for patients and their families trying to cope with the daily pressure of dealing with a diagnosis of cancer and improve emotional well-being.
Psychosocial oncology has been recognized as a critical component of cancer care, some studies indicate that more than half of all cancer patients and their families can develop significant distress related to such things as mood, body image issues, sexual function, what will life look like in the future and dealing with their own mortality. Providing effective psychosocial oncology services to patients has been shown to improve the overall experience of dealing with cancer.
Psycho-oncology began in the late 1970’s when Dr. Jimmie Holland worked with two colleagues to establish a full-time psychiatric service at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York city. The program was the first of its kind in training psychologists to specialize in issues specific to people with cancer.
Her interest in the field of psycho-oncology arose in part from discussions with her husband Dr. James F. Holland who was an important figure in the early development of cancer chemotherapy and the patients he treated. It became clear little was being done from a psychological standpoint to help people with cancer manage the experience.
During the 1980’s psychosocial-oncology became more mainstream and eventually made it’s way to the Princess Margaret Hospital by the mid-1990s
Dr. Gary Rodin established psychosocial oncology combined with a palliative care service, making Princess Margaret Hospital the first in the world to do so. Later a cancer rehabilitation and survivorship program were added and together the three divisions are now called the Department of Supportive Care.
Under Dr. Rodin’s careful leadership much work has been done in the field of patient support. Dr. Madeline Li created DART (Distress Assessment & Response Tool) which is considered the most comprehensive and best established emotional distress screening programs in the world.
Together, Dr. Rodin and Dr. Sarah Hales developed a psychotherapy for patients with metastatic and advanced cancer called CALM (managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully), a program that has been adopted in over a dozen countries to support the enhancement of psychosocial care around the world.
Finally in an effort to enrich psychosocial care across the globe, Dr.Rodin and his team established GIPPEC (the Global Institute of Psychosocial, Palliative and End of Life Care) devoted to promoting and developing research that addresses the medical, psychological, social, cultural and religious problems related to psychosocial and palliative care of individuals with advanced and terminal disease.
If I’ve learned anything about cancer in five years it’s one simple thing, the mental anguish that comes with the disease is simply unbearable. It’s what breaks the spirit of individual patients and their loved ones, the distress caused by the mere thought of having cancer slowly sucks the life out of everyone it touches. Had it not been for the brave men and women on the sixteenth floor of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre you probably wouldn’t be reading this.
Only recently has the connection between a patients mental well-being and their ability to fight cancer been solidly established and the funding required to make even greater advancements in field has fallen far short of what is needed. In the fall of 2015 with the help of Barb Webster “One More Year” was created because… Well to put it simply, I’d managed to live one more year. Since then we’ve managed to raise over $36,000 the Psychosocial Oncology Clinic.
So why am I walking 100 kilometers from the front door of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto to the front door of my home in Midhurst, Ontario?? It’s pretty simple really, because I’m one of the fortunate ones. I walk for Keith who left us at the age of 56, Bruce who deals with stage one prostate cancer, I walk for Kevin who passed away at the age of 49, Doreen a fellow patient who’s cheerful personality carried me through difficult days before she left us. I walk for the millions of people trying to cope with the daily mental stress of having cancer.
It’s just that simple, I walk because I can, and so many who have gone before me can’t and most likely there will be many more in the future who are unable to but hopefully together we’ll make a difference and eventually everyone will get the help so desperately needed from those working so desperately hard on the sixteenth floor.
Thanks,
Lionel Strang
Briefly, my story began in September 2014 when I was diagnosed with stage four cancer, melanoma to be exact. Given less than a year to live, I volunteered to take part in clinical studies opening a pathway towards what would eventually be cutting edge health care but first I had to get there.
The first year was easily the most difficult, agonizing over what the end would look like, anxiety and emotional stress plus dealing with cancer on a daily basis became difficult until eventually I was referred to POC in the hopes I’d be better able to deal with the situation.
At first I resisted, convinced I could handle the mounting mental stress on my own but eventually relented and made my way to the sixteenth floor desperate for any kind help. What I discovered was a department full of people dedicated to making my journey through cancer as bearable as possible.
The Psychosocial Oncology Clinic, is a team of psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, music and art therapists, that provide counseling and therapies for patients and their families trying to cope with the daily pressure of dealing with a diagnosis of cancer and improve emotional well-being.
Psychosocial oncology has been recognized as a critical component of cancer care, some studies indicate that more than half of all cancer patients and their families can develop significant distress related to such things as mood, body image issues, sexual function, what will life look like in the future and dealing with their own mortality. Providing effective psychosocial oncology services to patients has been shown to improve the overall experience of dealing with cancer.
Psycho-oncology began in the late 1970’s when Dr. Jimmie Holland worked with two colleagues to establish a full-time psychiatric service at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York city. The program was the first of its kind in training psychologists to specialize in issues specific to people with cancer.
Her interest in the field of psycho-oncology arose in part from discussions with her husband Dr. James F. Holland who was an important figure in the early development of cancer chemotherapy and the patients he treated. It became clear little was being done from a psychological standpoint to help people with cancer manage the experience.
During the 1980’s psychosocial-oncology became more mainstream and eventually made it’s way to the Princess Margaret Hospital by the mid-1990s
Dr. Gary Rodin established psychosocial oncology combined with a palliative care service, making Princess Margaret Hospital the first in the world to do so. Later a cancer rehabilitation and survivorship program were added and together the three divisions are now called the Department of Supportive Care.
Under Dr. Rodin’s careful leadership much work has been done in the field of patient support. Dr. Madeline Li created DART (Distress Assessment & Response Tool) which is considered the most comprehensive and best established emotional distress screening programs in the world.
Together, Dr. Rodin and Dr. Sarah Hales developed a psychotherapy for patients with metastatic and advanced cancer called CALM (managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully), a program that has been adopted in over a dozen countries to support the enhancement of psychosocial care around the world.
Finally in an effort to enrich psychosocial care across the globe, Dr.Rodin and his team established GIPPEC (the Global Institute of Psychosocial, Palliative and End of Life Care) devoted to promoting and developing research that addresses the medical, psychological, social, cultural and religious problems related to psychosocial and palliative care of individuals with advanced and terminal disease.
If I’ve learned anything about cancer in five years it’s one simple thing, the mental anguish that comes with the disease is simply unbearable. It’s what breaks the spirit of individual patients and their loved ones, the distress caused by the mere thought of having cancer slowly sucks the life out of everyone it touches. Had it not been for the brave men and women on the sixteenth floor of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre you probably wouldn’t be reading this.
Only recently has the connection between a patients mental well-being and their ability to fight cancer been solidly established and the funding required to make even greater advancements in field has fallen far short of what is needed. In the fall of 2015 with the help of Barb Webster “One More Year” was created because… Well to put it simply, I’d managed to live one more year. Since then we’ve managed to raise over $36,000 the Psychosocial Oncology Clinic.
So why am I walking 100 kilometers from the front door of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto to the front door of my home in Midhurst, Ontario?? It’s pretty simple really, because I’m one of the fortunate ones. I walk for Keith who left us at the age of 56, Bruce who deals with stage one prostate cancer, I walk for Kevin who passed away at the age of 49, Doreen a fellow patient who’s cheerful personality carried me through difficult days before she left us. I walk for the millions of people trying to cope with the daily mental stress of having cancer.
It’s just that simple, I walk because I can, and so many who have gone before me can’t and most likely there will be many more in the future who are unable to but hopefully together we’ll make a difference and eventually everyone will get the help so desperately needed from those working so desperately hard on the sixteenth floor.
Thanks,
Lionel Strang
Organizer
Lionel Strang
Organizer
Georgetown, ON
