Cancer Patients Face Challenge Together : Camarillo: A support group is being formed to talk about surviving the disease and how best to treat it.

After undergoing radiation treatment and a mastectomy four years ago, Pat Sturges thought she had breast cancer beaten.

But during an annual bone scan last summer, doctors found a suspicious dark mass in an X-ray of her skull. A biopsy confirmed it was a tumor.

This time, surgery was not an option. And radiation, the only treatment suggested by her doctor, could mean a loss of short-term memory.

So Sturges, 64, of Camarillo has chosen, for now, to postpone the treatment and accept the risk. And she has decided to join a support group, hoping to find inspiration from others who have faced the same struggle.

“I’ve never been in a group before,” said Sturges, who recently moved to Camarillo from West Virginia. “But I thought maybe I could help them and they could help me.”

Until recently, Sturges’ only options would have been support groups in Westlake or Ventura. Soon, however, she can travel to a weekly meeting just a few miles from her home.

Organized and funded by the nonprofit Wellness Community of Valley/Ventura in Westlake, a weekly therapy group is being formed to serve cancer patients in Camarillo and surrounding areas.

It has been hailed by cancer patients and oncologists, who say that western Ventura County has a shortage of such services.

“I don’t know how much difference it makes in fighting the cancer,” said Dr. Carole Milligan, an Oxnard radiologist. “But I know it makes a difference in what the quality of someone’s life is.”

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Other informal support groups meet weekly or monthly at hospitals in Oxnard and Ventura. None, however, encourage the kind of weekly commitment that has become the hallmark of The Wellness Community.

“The groups become an extended family and very, very bonded,” said Maryana Palmer, a licensed therapist who will run the Camarillo group once it is formally established.

“Often, the illness is used as a catalyst for growth where people are forced to evaluate their lives,” she said. “It’s very inspiring to see the process.”

The Wellness Community program in Camarillo also gives cancer patients the option of using other services at the organization’s center in Westlake such as tai chi classes and monthly support groups for people with specific types of cancer.

The new Camarillo group is open to any cancer patient who first attends an informal orientation session. Those sessions are held Wednesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Camarillo Health Care District office at 3639 Las Posas Road, Suite 117, in Camarillo. The support group will begin meeting late this month or early in May, Palmer said.

The orientation gives cancer patients and their families an introduction to the Wellness Community and an idea of what to expect from the group, Palmer said.

“The focus is on taking charge of one’s life and fighting for recovery, as opposed to being a hopeless, helpless, passive victim,” she said.

Bob Gunning, a retired aerospace executive who leads the orientation group, said he joined a Wellness Community support group in 1993 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“I went through the usual gamut of emotions” after learning of the diagnosis, he said.

First there was fear, then helplessness. Finally, anger.

“I thought, ‘Just when I’m starting to really enjoy life, I got hit with this!’ ” he said.

Gunning said the Wellness Community meetings helped him change his attitude about his cancer.

“I moved to a position of trying to become a victor instead of a victim,” he said, repeating one of the organization’s slogans.

Palmer said cancer support groups deal with more than just the disease. Often, the illness creates tension within a family or brings on feelings of guilt.

“When people have cancer, the whole family is turned upside down,” she said. “Everyone’s roles change.”

Family members are not allowed to attend the weekly support groups, though they may go to the orientations. Separate group therapy meetings are held for the relatives in Westlake, and one may start in Camarillo within the next few months.

The reason for the separation, Palmer said, is to give cancer patients a chance to talk about worries they might otherwise hold back from their families.

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And despite the seriousness of the subject matter, Palmer said, the groups are anything but depressing. Participants are encouraged to laugh, cry and express any other emotion they are feeling. A box of tissues is always nearby.

Because the Wellness Community tries to make patients feel active in their fight against cancer, support groups often become forums on the latest drugs and research.

Other topics include chemotherapy-related vomiting and nausea, loss of hair, low self-image and decreased interest in sex.

“People become more aware of themselves and able to tune into their own needs,” Palmer said.

At the first orientation session in Camarillo, two women who had never met began swapping stories about the side effects of two drugs given to breast cancer patients.

And always, there is optimism.

“There are people in my support group that are supposed to be dead that are still alive four years later,” said A.J. Santilli, a lung cancer patient.

At the end of the first orientation session, Sturges said she had made up her mind to join.

“I hope God gives me the strength you people have shown,” she said.

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FYI

The Wellness Community of Valley/Ventura offers free psychological and emotional support to cancer patients. Orientation sessions for the new support group in Camarillo will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesdays at the Camarillo Health Care District, 3639 Las Posas Road, Suite 117. Participants must attend the informal orientation before joining the weekly support group.