Cancer Champions offers compassionate guidance and clarity to you and your loved ones throughout your cancer journey.
As your trusted guide, we empower you and your family with knowledge and confidence to make informed decisions about your cancer care and regain your peace of mind. Schedule a 15 minute get-acquainted call (free)Schedule a 90-minute consultationWith Cancer Champions,
You Don’t Have to Face Cancer Alone
If you or a loved one is feeling overwhelmed and anxious by a cancer diagnosis, compassionate support is available. Cancer Champions can ease your fear and uncertainty by helping you and your loved ones understand your specific disease, collect personalized healthcare information, evaluate your treatment options, and make informed decisions.
Combining oncology knowledge with genuine compassion makes Cancer Champions a trusted advisor that complements your cancer care team and provides peace of mind throughout your cancer journey. Call Dana to learn more about how she can help to create a personalized roadmap to guide you and your family.
CONSULTATION
When you are presented with a difficult diagnosis, most likely you don’t know what you don’t know yet. Because I have professional healthcare experience and have personally been through several cancer journeys, I compassionately work with you to create a personalized roadmap to help you and your family navigate the journey. I also provide resources and informationto to help you take the first steps.
EDUCATION
When you are making critical decisions — you need access to the most relevant information, tailored to your unique situation. With both professional and personal experience researching treatment options and supportive care solutions for individuals facing cancer, I am uniquely qualified to offer families the types of information and resources they will need to make better informed decisions about their care.
FACILITATION
Upon hearing a cancer diagnosis, emotions often take control and inhibit decision making. Anxiety and fear may stifle important conversations that family members and loved ones need to have with the individual fighting cancer. I can help to facilitate these important but difficult conversations, with compassion and a kind and open heart.
7 Questions to Ask Your Oncologist
It’s helpful to have a list of questions to ask your doctor when you are presented with a cancer diagnosis. Here are 7 questions to ask at your next doctor’s appointment.
Recent articles
September is awareness month for childhood cancer & a few more, how are we doing?
This September we highlight some of the scientific advances that have lead to new treatments for many of the cancers listed below:
- Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
- Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month
- Leukemia and Lymphoma Awareness Month
- National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month
- National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
- Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month
Breakthroughs in Childhood Cancer
New technology in immunotherapy has led to a novel approach to the treatment of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Chimeric-antigen-receptor T-cell therapy or CAR-T therapy has proven very promising and researchers are encouraged, as plans develop to investigate this new technology in solid tumors.
Learn more about CAR-T therapy
Advances in Leukemia & Lymphoma
Researchers have identified specific genes or proteins associated with cancer cells in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, mantle cell lymphoma, marginal zone lymphoma and waldenström’s macroglobulinemia that have led to targeted therapies such as BTK and BCL-2 inhibitors. These targeted therapies have resulted in promising advances in certain leukemias and lymphomas.
Learn more about BTK inhibitors
New alternatives for Ovarian Cancer
Targeted therapy in ovarian cancer is rapidly expanding and currently, there are 3 FDA approved PARP inhibitors.
Immunotherapy Trial for Prostate Cancer
Based on scientific findings in prostate cancer a new approach to treatment has been developed and will be studied in a clinical trial combining two immunotherapy drugs that target separate brakes on the immune system. The clinical trial for stage IV prostate cancer will enroll 90 patients at 9 centers nationally.
Learn more about clinical trial
So this September we are encouraged by the scientific advances that have led to a variety of new treatment options and are hopeful that in the year ahead many more milestones will be met as the dedicated men and women in the field of cancer research and development strive for cures. This September we recognize their efforts.
If you or someone you know is facing a difficult diagnosis and would like some help making sense of all the information you are receiving so that you are able to make confident decisions please contact me dana@cancer-champions.com or call 703-403-7600. I’m here to help.
What is Palliative Care? Should you consider it?
Palliative Care does not equal hospice.
The objective of both is to provide pain and symptom relief, however, there are important differences.
Hospice care is provided without curative intent. Either there are no longer curative options available or the decision has been made to no longer pursue treatment because the side effects outweigh the anticipated benefit of the treatment.
Palliative care may be provided with or without curative intent.
Who is eligible for palliative care?
Cancer is a serious illness that touches all areas of a patient’s life as well as the lives of his/her loved ones. People with serious illnesses, like cancer, are eligible for palliative care.
Some of the physical effects of cancer on the individual include:
- Pain
- Loss of appetite, nausea
- Shortness of breath
- Fatigue
- Depression
- Neuropathy
Some of the ways family and loved ones are affected include:
- Role reversals
- Shifting needs of family members
- Upset of balance of everyday responsibilities
- Financial burdens
Palliative care treats the emotional , social, practical and spiritual issues brought on by a cancer diagnosis.
Who provides palliative care?
Palliative care became a defined specialty in 2006. Although a relatively new specialty, most large hospitals have palliative care teams. The palliative care team is made up of physicians, nurses, dietician, social workers, and psychologists, occupational therapists and chaplains.
Palliative care may be offered by hospitals, home health agencies, cancer centers and long-term care facilities. There may be a palliative care specialist in your oncologist’s practice. If not they will be able to refer you to a palliative care specialist near you.
How can palliative care help me?
Palliative care does not treat your cancer; however, it does relieve the physical, emotional and psychosocial symptoms associated with the disease. Because every individual experiences cancer differently, your unique circumstance, personality and support system all play into how palliative care may help you .
Palliative care can provide relief in the following areas:
Coping and emotional stress, by addressing the anxiety, fear and depression that often accompanies a cancer diagnosis.
Physical pain, fatigue and loss of appetite are some of the symptoms experienced by patients that can be relieved with palliative care.
The practical concerns of families and caregivers, such as financial pressures, employment questions and transportation issues are examples of what a member of the palliative care team could assist you with.
Spiritual issues often come to the forefront when facing a life threatening illness and palliative care can help guide you through questions of faith.
Research has proven that palliative care is effective in improving the quality of life of cancer patients. When your symptoms are controlled and your practical needs are being met you feel better and live better.
If you would like more information on how to locate a palliative care specialist to support you during your treatment please call Dana at 703-403-7600 for assistance
Chemotherapy, Immunotherapy, Targeted Therapy. What’s the difference?
Scientists have been searching for the most effective ways to treat cancer for centuries. Two big milestones in the way cancer is treated occurred in the early 1900s with the development of radiation therapy, and the second in the 1940s with the introduction of chemotherapy.
In 2003, the completion of the Human Genome Project marked a dramatic shift in the understanding of cancer and other diseases. Researchers mapped the entire human genetic code and discovered that every human cell is made up of 20,000 to 30,000 genes. As a result the past decade has been one of exploration into novel approaches to treating cancer and new drug discovery.
Today there are a variety of treatments available. What are the differences?
Chemotherapy
Our cells go through different phases (cell cycle) as they form new cells. Cancer cells form new cells more rapidly than normal cells. Chemotherapy drugs affect cells at specific stages of a cell’s cycle, however they do not differentiate between cancerous cells and healthy cells. Many healthy cells also have a rapid cell cycle, such as those in the gastrointestinal tract and hair follicles and thus are more susceptible to the effects of chemotherapy resulting in nausea and hair loss during treatment. There are a multitude of chemotherapy agents that may be used alone or in combination as well as with other cancer treatment.
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/chemotherapy
Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy cancer treatments use the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells by stimulating the immune system. Immunotherapy includes treatments that work with the immune system in different ways and works better for some types of cancer than for others. Immunotherapy may be used by itself or with other types of treatment. The main types of immunotherapy being used to treat cancer include:
- Monoclonal Antibodies
- Immune Checkpoint inhibitors
- Cancer vaccines
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/immunotherapy
Targeted Therapy
Cancer researchers have discovered some of the differences within cancer cells that enable them to thrive. Targeted therapy refers to treatment with drugs that have been developed to “target” these differences within the cell. Unlike chemotherapy, targeted therapy drugs alter the inner workings of the cell focusing on the part of the cancer cell that makes it different from the normal, healthy cell. Because they leave the healthy cells alone the side effects of targeted therapies are different from standard chemotherapy treatments.
Targeted therapy works by one of the following:
- Arresting the development of new blood vessels that feed the cancer cell
- Triggering the immune system to attack the cancer cell
- Changing proteins within the cancer cell
- Blocking or turning off signals telling the cancer cell to grow or divide
- Carrying toxins directly to the cancer cell
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/targeted-therapies
The specificity of cancer cells precludes a standard treatment for all cancer types and your treatment may or may not include one of the types of treatment listed above. It is important to understand what type of cancer you have been diagnosed with and the testing available to see if you may benefit from one of the newer approaches to treatment.
If you need help preparing for an appointment with an oncologist, look in the sidebar to download our 20 questions to ask at your next appointment.
Schedule a get-acquainted call
The first step is a free 15-minute get-acquainted call to see how I can help. The next step is to schedule our first 90 minute consultation , where I will personalize a roadmap for you and your family, and determine next steps.
