"I don't live with cancer. Cancer lives with me."
Those words by cancer survivor Jerry Rodriguez were just some of the many uplifting phrases that 300 people heard one Saturday in June at Living with Cancer: Confronting the Challenge, an annual gathering of cancer survivors and their loved ones. This year marked the 17th anniversary of the event, and the first time it was hosted by the NYU Cancer Institute.
Carolyn Messner, DSW, LCSW-R, Director of Education and Training at CancerCare, introduced four people who described their own experiences with the disease and how it has changed their lives.
Ann Craig, a book editor who is a two-year survivor of multiple myeloma, told the crowd how her life "has gone on being just as complex and colorful as it was before." Mr. Rodriguez, a six-year survivor of soft-tissue sarcoma, explained how his experience prompted him to finish his now-published novel, The Devil's Mambo.
Recent high-school graduate Kirsten Sommer told the audience about how her mother Joan's 14-year battle against ovarian cancer has encouraged her family to pull together, noting that her mother has "somehow always managed to keep going, living, and hoping." Kirsten's father, Joe Sommer, encouraged caregivers of people with cancer to learn to take care of themselves and not be afraid to accept offers of help.
Yelena Novik, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Oncology) at NYU, and cancer surgeon Bert Petersen, MD, a CancerCare Board member, provided an update on cancer treatment. At the same time as anticancer drugs are becoming more targeted, surgery has also become less invasive and radiation therapy is being used more precisely - thereby sparing more healthy tissue.
After lunch, conference participants attended workshops on topics such as fatigue and symptom management, nutrition, spirituality and hope, how to talk with children and teens about cancer in the family, stress management, caregiving, young adults and cancer, and cognitive changes due to chemotherapy.
Other conference supporters included the American Cancer Society, Calvary Hospital, Continuum Cancer Centers of New York, the Department of Veterans Affairs/New York Harbor Healthcare System, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (New York City Chapter), Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Service of New York, and the Witness Project of Harlem.
"It was a delight and an honor for the NYU Cancer Institute to host the Living with Cancer conference for the first time. The success of this conference each year results from the collaboration and generosity of so many fine institutions and individuals."
- Leora Lowenthal, NYUCI Social Worker
"Bad hair days are better than no hair days."
- Kirsten Sommer, daughter of Joan Sommer, 14-year survivor of ovarian cancer
"Art has a great healing power, no matter what kind of art it is."
- Jerry Rodriguez, cancer survivor and novelist
Download the Fall 2007 Newsletter (pdf)
