The swim is on Saturday, July 27th and I would so kindly appreciate your donation to my fundraising effort.

By donating to Swim Across America you are supporting Cancer Care on Nantucket. 

I wrote and essay about "What does it mean to get a cancer diagnosis and treatment on Nantucket?" to offer you an insight on what the care here looks like. 

With much appreciation!

Ugne 

Ugne Aleknaite, NP, Oncology Program Leader for Nantucket Cottage Hospital Mass General Cancer Services

"What does it mean to get a cancer diagnosis and treatment on Nantucket?"

Cancer diagnosis can happen like a strike of lightning sometimes out of nowhere, during routine medical visits and sometimes out of the cloudy sky, when seeking care for a specific complaint. 

Regardless of the circumstance it turns your life upside down, flushes your sense of control down the drain and throws your fake sense of invisibility to shambles. 

The first few hours are eerie, filled with groundlessness, confusion.. Why me.. Is this a dream.. Who do I tell first…Will I have to move off island to get care ...am I going to die…

Then you get a phone call from the Nantucket Oncology team …filled with kind reassurance that we are here for you.. We will support you every step of the way…. Let’s do some information gathering to make the best plan and this is what we are going to do next…  

Knowing the next step to take makes the shambles of your life as you knew it just a little easier to manage. 

As does knowing that you can keep the normalcy of your life for a little longer by gathering more information right here on Nantucket: labs, CT scans, MRI’s and possibly a biopsy. 

Consult with Mass General Cancer Center is usually the next step, via the miracle of virtual care or in person. People from around the world travel there to get care and yet somehow patients from Nantucket hold a tender spot in the hearts of brilliant Medical Oncologists,Surgeons, Radiation Oncologists, Nurse Practitioners, Nurses, Researchers, Schedulers. 

Hop skip and a jump later you return home with a treatment plan in place. You become an expert at calendar management quicker than you have imagined: follow up visits, lab visits, infusion therapy visits, support groups. You learn a new language of medications, side effects and red flags to watch out for. 

You are surrounded by the caring embrace of the nursing team and find an unexpected shelter in the storm in their presence and in the privacy of treatment rooms.  You discover strength deep in your core that you are built to do difficult things, that you can do the impossible - find joy, gratitude, meaning, connection and even well being. 

You learn that palliative care is not hospice but more like a magic pill that gives you an opportunity to deeply care for yourself and your suffering - physical and emotional. A new sense of normalcy is found. You didn’t know that you could get over your sense of embarrassment of seeing other Nantucketers in the group support visits, but you do. And it’s nice, it’s nice to know that there are others like you right here in the neighborhood. You surprise yourself in your ability to rejoice in the success of others and learn that successful treatment outcomes are not the same for everyone. For some it is cure, for others cancer becomes a chronic disease, and yet others a full embrace of the quality of life without any further treatment. 

While you are still figuring it out what success means for you.. You know you have grown as a human being, you know you have expanded your heart beyond the capacity you knew was possible.  You learn that life is about growth,  love and letting go ..