By Diana Brement, JTNews Correspondent
It all started with bad news — and really poorly timed bad news at that.
“On my 35th birthday — over eight years ago — I was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer,” recalls Polly Lysen-Halpern. “I found the lump three days earlier.”
Her sons, Noah and Elliott, were six and two-and-a-half at the time.
“Overwhelming,” is how she describes it. Diagnosis was followed by 18 months of chemotherapy, radiation and multiple surgeries.
When her oncologist finally declared her cancer-free, “as with many cancer survivors, I felt kind of lost… I didn’t know where to go,” she says. “I had all these issues… struggling with recovering from the treatment itself…[and] a lot of fear anxiety around fears of reoccurrence.”
Trained as a nurse practitioner — with undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Washington — Polly became interested in how cancer survivors navigate the feelings of loss and anxiety that often strike even after a “cure” is pronounced. She found very limited resources were available to patients post-treatment. She herself “stumbled” through it, she says, with the help of a support group of other young women with breast cancer.
Hired to work at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, she developed a survivors’ program funded partly by the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
“I knew there was such a huge need in the community,” Polly says.
The job there showed her that a large segment of the post-cancer population wasn’t returning for the kinds of attention they needed. Some patients were reluctant to enter the medical clinic where they had once been treated; others were in populations that just weren’t being reached once treatment had ended.
“I became interested in developing a clinic that was outside the cancer center,” she says.
This past February she formed Survivorship Partners, a practice that addresses multiple needs of cancer survivors. Physical and psychological ramifications are addressed, including anxiety about recurrence, fatigue, “chemo brain” (unclear thinking resulting from cancer drugs), and anxiety about the health effects of treatment, which are quite toxic.
These aftereffects are “not studied enough,” says Polly, and most of what we know “are drawn from pediatric studies.”
While at the Hutch she came to know a variety of health professionals in the community who were providing services to cancer survivors, including psychologists, physical therapists and nutritionists.
“I developed a network of providers,” she says. “We discussed [providing] an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach” to post-cancer treatment.
Right now Polly works by herself in the clinic, screening survivors, making treatment plans, and providing referrals within her network. She hopes it will become a group practice at some point, with different practitioners under one roof.
Polly shared one recent success story about a colon cancer survivor who had, following chemo and surgery, developed chronic stomach problems so bad she was unable to leave the house. Following the plan Polly developed, the client worked with a nutritionist and a physical therapist and over time was able to return to normal life. She called Polly recently to say she had gone skiing with her grandchildren for the first time in four years.
“We try to provide an integrated multi-disciplinary approach,” Polly explains. “Survivors need lots of different expertise.”
Part of Polly’s approach is to empower her patients.
“After experiencing cancer you often feel powerless, you have no control,” she says.
Survivorship Partners’ clients come mostly by word of mouth, with some physician referrals. Polly is doing a lot of networking and outreach in the community as well as writing articles and blogging at www.survivorshippartners.com.
Polly also sees a number of adult survivors of childhood cancers, who often have their own set of physical and psychological issues, but also she observes, “develop a resiliency…they all go on to do something incredible.”
Polly, her husband Neil Halpern, and their three kids belong to Temple Beth Am. Lilly was adopted after Polly recovered from cancer, but not because of the cancer. She and Neil had already planned to adopt. With three kids in two schools and a new business, Polly has a little time left for cooking, gardening and, she says, “cheering my kids on from the sidelines in whatever they’re doing.”
This is the last in our ongoing series of Five Women to Watch.