When Emilee Garfield first met Dr. Fred Kass at the gym where she teaches Pilates and yoga, little did she know that in just a short time she would come to rely on the oncologist at the Santa Barbara Cancer Center with Sansum Clinic and his staff to get her through one of the most difficult periods of her life.
2015 began as a perfect storm for Emilee. She was soldiering through a divorce, adjusting to life as a 39 year-old single mom of three. Her focus on fitness and strength had quickly turned to a spiral of medical symptoms she couldn’t control. Emilee’s doctors determined that she had stage 3 ovarian cancer. They recommended surgery to remove the tumor. But first, she would need ten weeks of chemotherapy. And following the surgery, she would need another ten weeks of chemotherapy treatment. Emilee had already survived a rare childhood cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma. In college, she had a cervical cancer scare. Another threat to her life seemed too much to handle.
“I kept telling myself I am not going to die. I have three kids to live for,” recalls Emilee. “It took a while to realize I just have to let go and accept the fact that I really have cancer.”
When she arrives at the center for chemotherapy, the front desk staff greet her by name. Her regular spot for treatment is in a circle of recliners where patients can interact, and the rapport with nurses is visible.
Emilee finds the atmosphere so comforting she often drives by even when she doesn’t have chemo scheduled. Many of the people she’s met while sitting in those chairs hour after hour now attend a support group with her. It’s a restorative, sacred time to share a common experience, according to Emilee. “I met friends I will have for the rest of my life there,” she explains. “It takes a village, it’s true.”
The Cancer Center is founded on the belief that a holistic approach to treating illness benefits patients. Its programs are designed to address all the social, psychological, financial and emotional issues that often overwhelm those with dealing with cancer. For Emilee, the overload of insurance information brought her to tears. “It’s so stressful. I just cried and said I couldn’t handle all the paperwork.”
She found relief at the office for financial and insurance matters. Her children received free sessions with a family psychologist to begin to understand their mother’s illness.
The Cancer Center offers its patients nutrition and genetic counseling, yoga, meditation, healing touch and painting classes, support groups, beauty services, and a cancer resource library.
It’s this method of care that drew social worker Sam Leer to work here. He regularly sits with Emilee and others who need help locating community resources, or just need someone to listen.
“Part of the counseling technique is engaging people, helping them to realize their strengths,” says Sam. “Hopefully I am making a heart-to-heart connection because that is why I am here.”
Dr. Kass is proud that his workplace has adopted this philosophy, and has made it an integral part of care. “Most conventional centers aren’t there,” says Kass. “We’re not doing it just to be nice. These programs are expensive, but we work hard to raise funds to support them because we think it makes a difference.”
This community funding provides what Dr. Kass describes as the best of all worlds: the most advanced technology, treatments and wellness programs in a setting still small enough for immensely personal care.
The plan is to build a new Cancer Center two blocks from Cottage Hospital and Sansum Clinic. This new facility will put all the players in a patient’s cancer-fighting team in one location.
“We are going to take these resources and put them into a building where we can integrate them all. Patients won’t shuttle between health care providers. We’ll all be in one place,” says Dr. Kass.
Emilee credits the oncologist for saving her life two times; the first time by assisting with her diagnosis, the second for providing her with humor and encouragement during her darkest hours.
“It’s the only way I can practice,” says Kass. “I have so much admiration for my patients and their families. I love finding myself as both their doctor, and one of their biggest fans.”
This kind of support inspired Emilee to fight her illness on multiple fronts, and gave her courage to tackle challenges she before would have deemed impossible, like her recent speech before a local cancer foundation. Ovarian cancer moves rapidly and aggressively, and often returns. But Emilee says she’s now armed with what she needs to beat the odds.
“I am changing the story of cancer. I am not going to let it get me,” she says determinedly. “I don’t want to die now. I want to fight harder than ever.”
The Cancer Center of Santa Barbara with Sansum Clinic provides state-of-the-art care to those on the journey to live with, through and beyond cancer by retaining devoted personnel from nationally renowned medical programs, acquiring the latest technology and research trials protocols, as well as integrating patient support, wellness, and survivor programs. Funding for programs and services provided through the Cancer Foundation of Santa Barbara.