Group Support

I'm lucky to live close to a Wellness Community facility. I'm even luckier to live close to a Wellness Community facility with an active kidney cancer support network that meets once a month.

I first started attending in May 2004, following my liver resection. It's a lively group of 10-15 members (yes, we are getting more members). When I first started attending I was the only female patient; the first couple of meetings everyone greeted Saint H as the patient, an honest enough mistake. Now, however, there are at least 5 women patients. The group includes members with diagnoses from the early 1990s to the present. We've all had at least one surgery; most of us have had metastases. We exchange notes on our conditions, our day-to-day feelings, our opinions of doctors and treatments and hospitals (oh my!)

We try to have speakers from the medical community every month if we can. As one speaker wryly put it, we are "frighteningly well-informed." But we all take comfort in talking together and learning more about renal cell. We stick together.

Friends and family are great supporters but it's great to talk with other patients - nobody else really knows what you're going through.