Chemo Comfort provides cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy with kits of products to manage the side effects of treatment. These products help patients manage nausea, mouth sores, hair loss, and other side effects of chemotherapy. Approximately 80% of kits distributed in 2009 were donated to low-income patients through partner cancer organizations.

Problem

A newly diagnosed patient is fragile and needs to conserve his or her strength (mental and physical) for doctors’ appointments, medical tests and fighting with insurance companies. Energy shouldn’t go to learning which toothpaste will be needed to deal with mouth sores. When given a Chemo Comfort kit, patients don’t have to figure out these practical things - everything they need is handed to them. So much is out of one’s control as a cancer patient that to be able to take positive, comforting measures for oneself, however small, is critical to easing the stresses of treatment.

Solution

Chemo Comfort, a volunteer-run organization, was born from the founder’s desire to share knowledge acquired while undergoing treatment for breast cancer. A great many cancer programs are information based. Chemo Comfort is more personal, not overwhelming patients with lists of resources, but empowering patients with ways to help themselves. Chemo Comfort kits provide practical tools - helping patients to manage side effects and providing things that can be used daily, such as toothpaste. Chemo Comfort kits make the treatment experience easier by giving patients the tools to cope with day-to-day needs from the beginning. As they begin the daunting chemotherapy process, kit recipients are already equipped with the right toothpaste and effective, nausea-reducing teas They do not need to spend time and effort investigating products or even go without them due to financial constraints. Starting chemotherapy is a frightening experience. Buying the right toothpaste and toothbrush is pretty far down on the list of priorities. Yet, having the right products is invaluable. With Chemo Comfort kits, this isn’t something a patient finds out once mouth sores have made it painful to brush his or her teeth. By providing these kits, we are saying to patients “Here is a box of tools put together by someone who’s been there. Know that you are not alone and these tools will help you take care of yourself during this difficult journey.”

Example

Over 1600 patients have received Chemo Comfort kits. This feedback was provided by a donated kit recipient: “I would like to express my deep gratitude for your gift presented me through CancerCare. At 64 years of age, unemployed and on social security, with a diagnosis of stage IIB cancer of the left breast, life appeared very bleak. When I received your package I felt that I could continue with my treatments and the process would be less stressful. It is through a person such as yourself that one regains the courage to continue living.” Psychologists Judith Rodin and Ellen Langer did a study of nursing home residents in which half of the residents were given the right to make decisions about their day-to-day lives to enhance their feelings of control (things such as whether they wanted to see a movie). The other residents, in keeping with the home’s policy, were not given any options. Eighteen months later, the residents who had enhanced control were twice as likely to be alive as the other residents. 30% of residents without control had died, while only 15% of those with control had died. “This experiment showed that even increasing a person’s control over apparently mundane things can have dramatic effects.” Providing ways to help patients help themselves is a primary goal of Chemo Comfort. Though having a cup of ginger tea for nausea may seem like a small thing, especially in the large tapestry that is cancer treatment, any sense of control is beneficial.