Jane Levy, LCSW-R, our director of affected person help applications, is retiring after 39 years of service at CancerCare. Throughout her time right here she was in many alternative roles and has seen CancerCare undergo many intervals of development. Earlier than leaving, Jane walked us via her years at CancerCare and the totally different evolution’s she was in a position to see. We’re so grateful for all of Jane’s work and we are going to miss her terribly!
In a nutshell, the best spotlight of working at Most cancersCare has been working amongst such devoted colleagues and professionals, throughout all departments. Our collective dedication to serving to most cancers sufferers and their households and making an attempt to impression their surroundings via help, monetary assist , training and advocacy has developed however has by no means wavered on the core. The work has all the time been tough and difficult however by no means tiring and all the time rewarding.
My time at Most cancersCare enabled me to develop as a clinician and as a social employee and it allowed me to apply in my occupation. Throughout my years right here, I used to be the coordinator of the group’s toll-free phone service, the Most cancers Useful resource Listing Mission, and the Graduate Schooling Program.
Within the ‘70s once I first got here to Most cancersCare, we didn’t even reply our telephones utilizing the phrase most cancers. We solely served superior most cancers purchasers within the tri-state space. Throughout these early years, we spent a very good a part of our time making house visits. Sadly, most of our early purchasers died quickly after they got here to Most cancersCare for assist, however we had been early advocates of the hospice motion and the significance of the dialog round demise and dying.
Within the early ‘80s, we had been one of many first organizations to open our doorways with out judgement or hysteria to the primary group of homosexual males with unusual cancers, even earlier than AIDS was recognized. Throughout that very same period of lengthy distance cellphone calls and the revolutionary fax machine, an commercial company did some professional bono work for Most cancersCare. They positioned an advert in Parade Journal about having a secure place to speak and little did we all know it might be an insert in each Sunday newspaper in America. In that summer season alone, we received 1,200 letters from most cancers sufferers and households. The questions we acquired ranged from, “How do I discuss to my kids and my boss” to “How do I pay for therapy?” We answered all of them.
By the ‘90s, we had an 800 quantity, which allowed us to reply these questions on a bigger scale. We had been on the leading edge with the primary cellphone teams, a workshop over the cellphone, our first computer systems and an internet site.
The millennium began out promising however it was marred by the assaults of September eleventh. We had been actually and figuratively witnesses to that day. I’m proud that we served as psychological well being responders to these individuals impacted by each the tragedy and most cancers. That data of most cancers and trauma enabled us to reply to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and extra not too long ago to the pure disasters in Puerto Rico, Texas, and Florida.
Now we’re serving to hundreds on-line, wherever they might be. However we’re nonetheless working within the quaint method with love, compassion and one by one identical to we did once I first got here.