Latest news with #cancersupport
The Independent
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Book Club come together to throw a Macmillan Coffee Morning with a difference
After witnessing the incredible support Macmillan Cancer Support gave her university friend when his dad was diagnosed with cancer, Taragh, the founder of The Brunch Book Club, was inspired to bring her book club friends together to host a Macmillan Coffee Morning. What surprised her most was how simple it was to organise: a few friends, good food and great company. The event quickly turned into a joyful gathering full of laughter and warmth, proving that fundraising for such a vital cause can be as fun as it can be meaningful. Search 'Host a Macmillan Coffee Morning' to sign up
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
A 'sandwich generation' mom learned she had breast cancer, then lost her father. The hardest part was staying positive in front of her kids.
Katie Asturizaga was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer at 44. She never started her recommended annual screenings because she started having kids at 40. She balanced childcare and the death of her father while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. Katie Asturizaga was getting dressed before helping her son get ready for school when her thumb grazed a lump on her left breast. She quickly compared it to her right side, then asked her husband if he felt something. He didn't. "Thankfully, I was going to my yearly OB-GYN appointment the following day, and the doctor felt it as well," Asturizaga, 45, told Business Insider. A mammogram confirmed the mass in her left breast and a smaller cyst on her right. A few days before Memorial Day weekend 2024, Asturizaga learned she had breast cancer at 44. She cried when she learned she'd need chemotherapy and dreaded losing her hair in the process. Then, less than a year later, her father died. Asturizaga had to balance grieving and planning his funeral with finishing her cancer treatment. But with two kids, ages five and two-and-a-half, she felt there was a limit as to how much emotion she could show. "I basically got up every morning and put a smile on my face," Asturizaga said. "They need their mom, so I couldn't just lie down in bed and be like, 'poor me.'" In the US, 40 is the recommended age to start breast cancer screening. It's also the age Asturizaga, who has some family history of breast cancer, became pregnant with her first child. After giving birth, she was breastfeeding, which can make mammogram results harder to read if the breasts aren't emptied of milk — it's common for doctors to recommend waiting until after breastfeeding is over to get a breast cancer screening. At 42, Asturizaga became pregnant with her daughter and was soon breastfeeding again. She never started screening for breast cancer until she was 44, when she discovered the lump. Given her younger age (the average age of cancer diagnosis is around 65), Asturizaga received treatment through NYU Langone's Early Onset Cancer Program, which aims to help patients who have additional concerns like fertility or childcare. Dr. Mary Gemignani, a surgical oncologist at NYU Langone and Asturizaga's doctor, told Business Insider that she's seen an uptick in breast cancer cases among women in their 40s, and even in some patients as young as their 20s. She highlighted that patients like Asturizaga often deal with the "psychosocial aspects of juggling time-consuming treatments" with caring for their kids or aging parents. When Asturizaga first learned she had cancer, she was about to go pick up her son from school. "I was hysterically crying," she said. "I needed to pull myself together because little kids — they pick up on everything." She put her daughter in the car and watched her son run down the hallway to hug her. After she and her husband put him to bed that night, she cried. She learned from a fine needle aspiration, a form of biopsy, that her cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, making it stage 2 and more advanced than she first thought. While Gemignani helped her feel optimistic ("The first thing out of her mouth was 'You're going to be OK.'"), managing treatment and work-life schedules was a logistical challenge. Treatment involved a mastectomy on her left side, six months of chemotherapy, and radiation for five weeks. Asturizaga, who is a stay-at-home mom, had her chemotherapy on Thursdays so her husband could take off work on Fridays and give her the weekend to rest. By Monday, Asturizaga was back to getting them ready for school and picking them up. Once the chemotherapy drug was switched after the fourth appointment, she had more energy. It was the first few rounds that were the hardest. "That's when I felt like I had been in a car accident," she said. Throughout Asturizaga's treatment, her dad was her rock, helping her to cope with the cognitive dissonance of being strong for her kids during the toughest moment of her adult life. In February, a month before she became cancer-free, Asturizaga's father died from a massive stroke. "My dad was there during surgery. He came with me to chemo," she said. "So losing him was very hard." Asturizaga and her three brothers helped their mom plan the wake, funeral, and burial. They went back and forth from NYU Langone, for her ongoing cancer treatment, to their mother's home. The loss was especially devastating because he was the one who wanted to throw a party when her treatment was over. "On my last day, when I rang the bell, it was a little hard that he wasn't there, but he was there in spirit," she said. Asturizaga said that physically, she feels fine. But being part of the sandwich generation, grieving her father while caring for her children, took an emotional toll. "Everyone just keeps telling me, with everything I've been through this past year and losing my dad, 'I don't know how you're just sitting here with a smile on your face — we would've been broken,'" Asturizaga said. "And I keep saying, 'I have two little kids I need to be strong for.'" Read the original article on Business Insider
BBC News
20-06-2025
- BBC News
Woman feared dead after wire theft cut her off for weeks
A woman says her family feared she was dead after thieves stole copper pipes, wiping out all methods of communication for 23 Lowe, 88, noticed she had "no BT telephone lines, no WiFi, no email, no WhatsApp, no message facilities" at her property in Viney Hill, Gloucestershire on 28 Lowe, who has cancer, said hospital specialists were trying to contact her to arrange appointments but could not reach her, leaving her "in danger of getting much worse" until she was reconnected on 21 May.A spokesperson for Openreach said: "These attacks cause unacceptable disruption to the lives of local people and put vulnerable people at risk." Ms Lowe said when you're 88 years old and in difficult times with your health, your family think "you must have died because mum always answers the phone"."They were absolutely alarmed," she is currently receiving treatment from a cancer specialist at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and medics were trying to contact her to arrange blood tests. "I was in danger of getting much worse because I couldn't get any of these messages," she said."I had no security alarm system working, no medical alarm system working, no CCTV surveillance on the house. Everything was dead."While Ms Lowe said her WiFi and telephone line are now working, it caused "incredible and continuous stress". A spokesperson for Openreach said: "We're really disappointed that residents in the Forest of Dean have borne the brunt of a cable theft from our network."Complex jointing works were needed to restore the network and this required permission for temporary traffic lights to keep our engineers safe. All customers should now be back in service."Gloucestershire Police said its intelligence teams were unaware of a large increase in copper cable thefts, which are "sporadic".
BBC News
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Test Fest in Somerset 'a gathering point for cancer survivors'
A festival described by one organiser as "a gathering point for survivors" of cancer will return this Hoosiers and Woody Cook will headline Test Fest, which will take place at Taunton Rugby Football Club on Saturday 21 June to raise awareness of testicular event began in 2017 when Sue Brand, founder of charity It's in the Bag Cancer Support, said the charity found younger men preferred live music to charity Brand said: "What we want is for people to come to the festival and really enjoy themselves, learn a bit about testicular cancer, the charity and the work we do, and how we support people from Hereford right down to Truro." Ms Brand said a second stage is being introduced at Test Fest, where ticket holders often don bright orange underpants over their clothes."We turn away probably between 100 and 150 artists every year, so we've got a smaller stage this year for some acoustic bands but also some fantastic bands and artists that are up and coming," she artists billed to perform at the event include Break Beat Bandits, The Jamestown Brothers, and Whisky Brand said the festival was a place for people to meet and have a chat with others who have also lived with testicular cancer. "That's what the whole festival is about," she said."We started Test Fest because one of the guys who'd had testicular cancer said to me: 'Not everyone likes rugby and football... there's a lot of young guys that love music'."It's actually a really family friendly festival because most men who have testicular cancer are in their 30s.""Come and have a chat with us, listen to the music, have a cider - or two - and have a good time."
Associated Press
11-06-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Specialized CX Starts With One: Lessons From Aflac's Cancer Care Hotline
Originally published by CMSWire One team. One mission. One customer segment. Aflac's hotline for newly diagnosed cancer patients proves that going deeper is the key to meaningful support. The Gist Customer experience is never one-size-fits-all. That is especially true for customers who require specialized support or solutions tailored to their specific needs. They may have unique challenges or require a deeper level of care compared to your typical customer. A couple years ago, my organization introduced what we now call the Aflac Cancer Care Hotline, a dedicated customer service line for policyholders who contact us with a first-time cancer diagnosis. This service gives policyholders the option to connect with a customer care specialist specifically trained to respond to calls with individuals facing cancer for the first time. Since its inception, our team has responded with care and compassion to nearly 150,000 calls from policyholders navigating the physical, emotional and financial impacts of cancer. Based on our learnings from creating the hotline, here's how to identify customers within your organization who require additional support and how to build out the infrastructure to serve their needs. Start By Prioritizing One Customer Segment As with any business decision, offering specialized support to certain customers must be aligned with your values. Leaders can start by asking themselves, 'What is the experience we've committed to providing to our customers, and how can we build on it and do it better?' After completing this exercise, you may identify more than one type of customer that needs extra support, and prioritization may be necessary. Rather than try to address all these customers at once, pick one segment to focus on first, and then apply your learnings to others. You want to start where you can create the biggest impact, and it is up to each organization to define what impact means to them. Providing this additional support may not affect the speed at which you're able to serve customers or the number of calls you're able to field within a given time frame, so the impact may be measured instead by the long-term emotional effects of meeting these customers' particular needs. At my organization, the decision to focus specifically on policyholders who have been diagnosed with cancer was an easy one. Cancer insurance is one of the first products we introduced, two years after our company's founding. Our culture centers around being there for our customers during their times of need, and few events are as disruptive as a cancer diagnosis from a physical, emotional and financial standpoint. Gather Insights From Frontline Employees Employees who are on the front lines and who speak with customers daily are the ones who are the most aware of customers' challenges and ways to reduce friction. Once you have made a decision to focus on a specific customer segment , frontline employees are an important resource to brainstorm and pressure-test ideas. They can also help identify those customers who need additional support. The Aflac Cancer Care Hotline was born out of a brainstorming session with our call center specialists, who identified a key insight. A cancer diagnosis is challenging in many ways, but understanding and using your insurance benefits should not be one of those challenges. These employees, who have more direct interactions with current and prospective customers than anyone else, recognized that our policyholders with cancer require specialized support. Concentrate on Your Strongest Areas By now, you have identified a specific type of customer to focus on, and you have identified their pain points with the help of the employees who work with them directly. But here's the thing. Your organization probably cannot solve everything. Instead, look at where you are uniquely qualified to help, and lean into that. Sadly, my organization cannot change a policyholder's cancer diagnosis. We can't even influence the outcome of their treatment. But what we can do is provide a level of specialized compassion and expertise as we help these policyholders navigate our claims process. What we can do is make sure that every time a policyholder with cancer calls us, they speak with a human being who understands what they are going through and helps them get the most out of their insurance policies. This focus area makes sense because it aligns with our overall value proposition to provide financial assistance to our policyholders so they can focus more on treatment and recovery. Train Employees for Specialized Roles Working with a niche group of customers requires specific skills, knowledge and training. This includes developing a deep understanding of their unique challenges and needs, as well as expertise on how your organization's products or services will benefit them. For this reason, the employees who are best suited to work with these customers are probably ones who have been with your organization for some time. Once these employees have been specifically trained for their new role, it's important to follow up with continuous microlearnings that reinforce key values and help them keep up with customers' changing circumstances and needs. For the Aflac Cancer Care Hotline, we asked for volunteers among our senior customer experience specialists. While this was not a prerequisite, many of these volunteers have been personally affected by cancer in some way and were already deeply empathetic toward our policyholders. Our original plan was to rotate these employees to a different customer experience team every 30 days, since we did not want them to burn out. But when the time came, no one wanted to leave the cancer care team. They knew they were making a difference, and they were proud of the work they were doing. Key Elements of Specialized Customer Support Programs This table outlines strategic components organizations can use to build tailored support experiences for niche customer segments. Share Knowledge Across Departments The people who work closely with these customers become the experts. It's important to listen to them, give them autonomy to do their jobs effectively and share their key learnings with others. Developing a process to share these learnings with your organization's sales, research and development, and marketing teams will help you continuously improve the support and services you provide to all customers. If something works well, build on it. The employees who manage our Cancer Care Hotline hold a weekly meeting to talk about the calls they fielded and any challenges that arose. During one of these meetings, they came up with the idea of sending care packages to some of these policyholders as another way of showing our support. Our entire organization has benefited from their extensive knowledge of our cancer insurance plans and their deep empathy toward our customers. If providing a best-in-class customer experience is one of your core business values, offering specialized support to customers who need it helps you consistently deliver on that promise. By identifying the right customers to focus on, working closely with those who know them best, equipping frontline employees with training and resources, consistently improving processes and building on successes, every organization can build the infrastructure required to effectively serve niche customers. Creating this type of program requires time and investment, but, done correctly, it builds goodwill with customers, differentiates your organization from competitors and serves as a powerful way to demonstrate your values in action to employees. Visit 3BL Media to see more multimedia and stories from Aflac Incorporated
