Patti is an Oncology Nurse Navigator specializing in Breast Cancer. While her job is not "daily care" her job involves providing a "cocoon" of support to each of her patients diagnosed with breast cancer. This support can be in the form of emotional, treatment, community-involved, financial, and survivorship support. She does this with over 350 patients annually all throughout Northern Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming.
One particular story comes to mind:
A non-English speaking patient with three children under 10 years old was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer. The only option that would give her the best survival chance involved mastectomy, then chemotherapy, then radiation therapy all over a period of about a year. Because she was "not legally present" she considered not having treatment at all because she could not pay for it. Patti convinced her to not only consider treatment but to apply for funds to help offset the costs of treatment to the hospital system.
Patti helped her find care for her children when treatment made her feel bad, gave her an outlet to get her fears, emotions, and needs expressedand kept in touch with her at all treatment stages. She went to doctor's appointments, took notes, found someone in the family to interpret notes back, and made her feel at ease with the decisions she made.
Patti's patient is not only a breast cancersurvivor but a new mother as well raising another healthy and happy child. And to think she almost chose not to treat because of money and stigma; her children have their mom back!