What is a typical day like in the offices of the Rofeh Cholim Cancer Society (RCCS)?
Simply put: There is no such thing.
Every day is an intricate mix of pain and hope, suffering and joy, and tragedy and ecstasy. The tireless staff of RCCS never becomes inured to the stories of extreme suffering the patients and their families are enduring. They are also never lacking in joy when a patient turns the corner and begins the road to recovery or reaches a milestone along that road.
The 2017 RCCS Auction Campaign is well underway, with a theme of “ThereAreNoWords. No words can ever fully describe the gamut of emotions a cancer patient goes through from the time they receive their diagnosis until they, b’ezras Hashem, overcome the dreaded disease. No words can ever do justice to the mammoth amount of work the staff of RCCS puts into each and every patient. However, a glance at the cases helped in just one single day by RCCS provides a small glimpse into their work. Each patient represents an entire world, and is treated as such by RCCS. Their daily work covers many worlds, from medical referrals, to obtaining and paying for insurance policies, to financial assistance, and much more, as is briefly chronicled below.
Case #1: A mother takes her 9-year-old for a routine doctor’s visit, taking her 4-week-old baby along. The doctor glances at the baby in his mother’s arms and thought something looked amiss with the size of the baby’s head. She tells the mother, “I saw your baby here last week, and it seems to me that his head grew a since then and seems a bit out of proportion.” The doctor immediately sends the baby for an MRI, and a large brain tumor is found.
The family reaches out to RCCS right away for help, and RCCS sends them to a hospital and gets a top pediatric neurosurgeon on the case.
The case involves getting multiple opinions from top doctors to ensure that the best course of action is being taken to save the life of the newborn from this aggressive tumor. RCCS gets their insurance department on the case and makes sure that he is covered with every doctor they might need to send him to. They utilized their sophisticated system of image sharing, which allows for images of MRIs or any other scan to be uploaded and shared with any doctor. She is sent to out-of-state doctors to review the case, and much discussion ensues between the doctors and RCCS about how to save this child’s life.
RCCS then meets with the family to let them know the results of their research for the best future treatments. The baby has his first surgery at 8-weeks of age and then is set up with an oncologist in a different facility to review the case.
This family of eight just had a newborn baby, and then is thrown into chaos and confusion. The mother, still kimpeturin who never really had a chance to recuperate, is now in distress and shock. RCCS is there to hold the family’s hands as they go through this unthinkable ordeal by making sure that all the other children are taken care of, by answering their questions about all the steps of the medical process, and by making them feel as comfortable as possible with the care their baby is receiving.
Case #2:: A 27-year-old mother of two has been battling sarcoma, a very difficult form of cancer, for several years, and RCCS has been paying for the insurance premiums for this entire time. A few years have passed and most treatment options have been exhausted.
RCCS has been in touch with the doctors throughout the process, and they recently recommended that a specific test be done. The test is known as “Genomic Sequencing.” This test involves checking the tumor for different mutations, to see if more options can be found for treatments. When the mutations are tested, the cancer can sometimes be found to be similar to other types of cancers, which can be used to determine whether treatments from other cancers may help. Such tests are commonly recommended by many doctors, however some more “old-fashioned” doctors do not normally promote such new procedures. Since all conventional treatements were expended, RCCS needed to push strongly to have this test done.
In this case, RCCS was able to convince the doctor to do the “Genomic Sequencing”, and a “ping” was found in the tumor that seemed to indicate that a certain promising trial treatment was being tried in another hospital, and the patient would be able to join the trial, which hopefully would be able to save her life.
RCCS arranged for her to be accepted to the trial program, and arranged for her transport to that facility. Boruch Hashem, it was successful, and her cancer was stabilized with the tumors even shrinking
The above was just a sample of the cases on the RCCS docket for a single day.
While all this is going on, the RCCS staff also has their eyes on Chanukkah. Every year, RCCS arranges for the delivery of Chanukkah presents for many of their patients and their children. They have a comprehensive list of the children and are busy arranging all the custom gifts and preparing them for delivery on the first night of the Yom tov. This is all done to make sure that these children have simchas Yom tov even while their family is completely busy with the illness they are facing.
No words could ever do justice to describe everything a cancer patient goes nor can words fully encapsulate everything RCCS does. Please join the RCCS 2017 Auction Campaign today, and quietly be a part of their work.
