“Coping with lung cancer is a struggle”</p>
<p>Four years ago, Neicy Shechtman got the news that every smoker dreads.</p>
<p>She had been hospitalized because of intense back pain and difficulty in breathing.</p>
<p>A pulmonary specialist did a battery of diagnostic tests, plus a lung biopsy. When the results were in, he came to her room to break the news.</p>
<p>She had lung cancer.</p>
<p>“He tried to be very kind, but I felt like a train had just run over me,” recalls Shechtman.</p>
<p>“I’d known that something terrible was wrong with me, but I didn’t want to face the reality of cancer. I kept hoping it was emphysema.”</p>
<p>But after the initial shock, she did face reality. It took her only a week after the diagnosis to pull herself together.</p>
<p>“I felt that I had to go forward and learn about my disease and fight it,” says the longtime Northeast resident, who lives near Cottman and Bustleton avenues.</p>
<p>She was, after all, fighting for her life. Her cancer (small cell) was inoperable. Statistics on survival were sobering, but she girded herself for the fight.</p>
<p>A heavy smoker all her life, she made a conscious choice not to dwell on this. She had stopped smoking just three weeks before her diagnosis because she was feeling so ill.</p>
<p>“Once I was diagnosed,” Shechtman says, “I said to myself, ‘I can’t beat myself up about this. It’s already happened. I want to go forward.’”</p>
<p>A TOUGH BATTLE</p>
<p>Fighting the disease meant undergoing 10 months of chemotherapy at Fox Chase Cancer Center followed by radiation treatment.</p>
<p>“I’d get sick for three days, then I’d feel OK, then I’d get sick all over again after the next treatment,” she says.</p>
<p>Her hair fell out, and she remained bald for more than a year.</p>
<p>"It’s a terrible thing to look in the mirror and say, ‘Is this really me?’ " says Shechtman, who used a wig, hats and many scarves during this ordeal.</p>
<p>But what helped her far more than the hats and scarves was the morale boost when she joined a cancer support group.</p>
<p>“I needed to meet people who were in the same position I was,” she says.</p>
<p>“My family and friends were very supportive and loving, but they weren’t walking in my shoes.”</p>
<p>Just one month after her diagnosis, she learned about the Wellness Community of Philadelphia. The non-profit organization is devoted to helping cancer patients and their families, offering support groups and varied activities.</p>
<p>Its headquarters are in a restored mansion in Fairmount Park.</p>
<p>After attending an orientation meeting for newcomers, Shechtman joined a support group of 15 cancer patients. They had all types of cancer and were in various stages with their disease. What they had in common – the cancer experience – formed a powerful connection.</p>
<p>“It was just what I needed,” relates Shechtman. “It brought me hope, comfort and friendship.”</p>
<p>This was a place where she could air her fears and anxieties freely.</p>
<p>“I didn’t want to burden my kids with my fears,” says Shechtman, a widow who is a mother and grandmother, “but with the group, I could be honest about all of my fears. I felt understood.”</p>
<p>TALKING IT OVER</p>
<p>Besides openly sharing fears, the group members helped each other in practical ways. They shared reactions to various drugs and talked about their experience with side effects and what to expect with particular drugs.</p>
<p>“You learn so much from other people who have gone through the same experiences,” says Shechtman.</p>
<p>Meeting lung cancer survivors was especially valuable. At her second meeting, she met Maryann O’Brien, who also had small-cell lung cancer.</p>
<p>O’Brien was by then a four-year survivor.</p>
<p>“When I realized someone could live that long, it gave me hope that I could beat it, too,” says Shechtman. “She was my inspiration.”</p>
<p>Besides faithfully attending the weekly support-group meetings, she participated in other activities of the Wellness Community. She took courses in nutrition and meditation and attended some of the special events – the potluck dinner, the Christmas party and the annual Jokefest.</p>
<p>This event, as the name suggests, is a festival of joke-telling complete with prizes for the best jokes. (Doctor jokes are especially popular.)</p>
<p>“I loved it,” she says. “Humor is part of coping with cancer.”</p>
<p>Ever since she attended her first meeting at the Wellness Community, Shechtman has been an active participant.</p>
<p>“It’s a wonderful place,” she says. “It’s helped me get through a lot, and it’s been a very important part of my recovery.”</p>
<p>And now that she is a cancer survivor, Shechtman, 59, is turning her focus to helping others cope with the disease.</p>
<p>Through the Wellness Community, she learned about the Cancer Hope Network, a telephone support network that links cancer survivors with newly diagnosed cancer patients.</p>
<p>After taking the required training seminar, Shechtman became a volunteer.</p>
<p>HELPING OTHERS</p>
<p>For the past two years, she’s been offering support by phone to lung cancer patients from all over the United States.</p>
<p>“I’m there to give them hope that they can survive,” she says.</p>
<p>“I want people to know that lung cancer does not have to mean a death sentence. I urge them to stay positive because this really helps in their recovery.”</p>
<p>The fact that she is a lung cancer survivor herself is helpful to those who are initially terrified of the disease.</p>
<p>“The very fact that I’m alive gives other people hope,” she says.</p>
<p>Although she’s not allowed to give medical advice, she does offer practical suggestions, such as how to cope with the nausea after chemotherapy.</p>
<p>And she often urges new patients to join a support group, just as she did. And she patiently answers any questions they ask.</p>
<p>“I always feel so much better after I talk to people,” she says. “I feel that I’m giving back. I’m helping others just the way I was helped.”</p>
<p>Besides being a volunteer for cancer patients, Shechtman has become an advocate for lung cancer awareness.</p>
<p>“Lung cancer kills more women every year than breast cancer,” she says, “but you don’t hear enough about it.”</p>
<p>She hopes the public will hear much more during Lung Cancer Awareness Week, Nov. 12 to 17.</p>
<p>Also, the Wellness Community will sponsor a symposium on lung cancer at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Sunday, Nov. 4.</p>
<p>GETTING THE WORD OUT</p>
<p>Living Well with Lung Cancer will feature varied speakers, including an oncology nurse, a social worker, and an editor of an on-line lung cancer newsletter.</p>
<p>Shechtman hopes that the symposium will draw more attention to lung cancer. And she herself tries to raise awareness in various ways.</p>
<p>She’s very open about her own experience and was eager to share her story with Northeast Times readers to increase awareness.</p>
<p>But one thing she doesn’t do is persuade others to stop smoking, even though she knows firsthand the link between smoking and lung cancer.</p>
<p>“When I see people light up, I get very upset,” she says. “But I don’t try to preach. When I was a smoker, I didn’t want people to lecture me about it, so I try not to do that now.”</p>
<p>Besides, she knows how difficult it is to quit smoking. A heavy smoker since she was 14, she stopped once for six months but then started again. She only stopped four years ago when she was feeling so ill that she could hardly breathe.</p>
<p>“It’s the worst addiction there is!” she insists.</p>
<p>But she’s sure she’ll never smoke again. And she’s been cancer-free for three years, so she feels cautiously hopeful.</p>
<p>“I’m cancer-free, but that doesn’t mean I’m cured,” she emphasizes. “I consider myself in remission.”</p>
<p>Every three months, she still gets tested for possible recurrence.</p>
<p>“I get nervous,” she admits. “I’m very uneasy until I hear the results. Then I breathe a sigh of relief and things get back to normal.”</p>
<p>But “normal” has new meaning now.</p>
<p>“Having cancer gives you a new outlook. It changes how you feel and how you deal,” she says.</p>
<p>“I appreciate life more. I don’t take anything for granted. And I try to live every day to the fullest.”