Survivors help battle cancer

After the first half of a six-month double round of chemotherapy, Roni Java, 53, was falling into a deep bout of depression.

The Elk Grove resident, diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2010, had already endured two surgeries. She felt overwhelmed by the seemingly never-ending complications of illness and treatment, and a persistent sense of loss.

She tried to remain upbeat — an effort she now says only contributed to the depression.

An unexpected phone call from someone describing herself as a cancer peer navigator felt like a life line and she grabbed on.

"She had been assigned to me because she is a breast cancer survivor," Java recalls being told. "She had the closest to what I have, and was very knowledgeable."

The WeCARE! Peer Navigator Program, created two years ago by U.C. Davis physician and cancer survivor Marlene von Friederichs-Fitzwater provides training for volunteer cancer survivors and matc es them to patients who have been recently diagnosed with cancer.

The U.C. Davis-based program has expanded quickly, and the Fremont-Rideout Cancer Center in Marysville became part of the expansion last month with training for the first batch of local peer navigators.

"It's about listening, and being aware of your own journey in a way that relates to the patient," said Rory Ramirez, former mayor of Yuba City, and one of the local group's first trainees.

He knows about the need for such a program, he said, because he underwent surgery and lengthy treatment for Squamous cell carcinoma in his neck, without the benefit of peer navigator support.

Cancer, he said, "will take the baddest guy on the planet, and it will bring him to his knees."

When Ramirez finally was through with his treatment, he asked that hospital administrators make his contact information available to anyone going through the same process.

"That's when they told me about this program," he said. "Now, I'm ready to help."

Von Friederichs-Fitzwater's own first-hand experience fighting cancer is now 27 years behind her.

She was a single parent with a teenage son still living at home when she got the news. Suddenly, her role as a doctor had to give way to her new role as a cervical cancer patient.

"Overwhelming and confusing," was the way she described it.

Once in survivor territory, she began to wonder what kinds of support models existed for cancer patients.

In 2008, she took up a dedicated search for answers, including work with focus groups and interviews with cancer survivors. She traveled all across the United States to see what kinds of one-on-one programs existed that paired survivors and patients.

"I didn't find anything I liked," she said.

That is when she began to write the volunteer training and matching curriculum for future cancer peer navigators.

"Cancer buddy," is what Java calls Sally Snell, the woman who helped see her through her darkest hours.

"You can talk to your friends and family, but only a cancer survivor knows how to talk to you in a way that can alleviate some of your fears," she said.

Snell prepared Java for what to expect as she went along. She put her in touch with a breast cancer support group and offered to go to doctor's appointments and take notes. She helped Java formulate questions for medical staff when the confusion became overwhelming.

She even helped prepare for the inevitable loss of hair during radiation therapy by taking Java wig shopping in advance.

Snell, "was a constant reminder that I was going to live," Java said.

Among the lessons she said she needed right away, was a new approach to taking on the disease.

"I'd been a good sport, but a good attitude will only carry you so far," she says now, just a couple months after her last radiation treatment. In light of the circumstances, "Trying to be cheerful becomes your own little prison."

With her cancer buddy, she didn't have to maintain a brave front.

CONTACT reporter Nancy Pasternack at 749-4781.