NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Sept. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The word "cancer" will incite fear in anyone. When that word comes at the end of a sentence that began with your name, the impact can be life changing. "I had a great job, a beautiful house and a happy family life," recalls oral cancer survivor and Oral Cancer Foundation (OCF) Director of Patient Support Services, Christine Brader. "All that changed once I got sick." Those affected by oral cancer, like Christine, are saddled not only with the physical challenges of treating and surviving the disease, but they must also live with the emotional uncertainty and anxiety that accompanies a diagnosis. OCF's Patient Support Forum (oralcancersupport.org) was created specifically to provide patients with the information, guidance, and support they need to face a cancer diagnosis. Now in its 15th year, it has helped tens of thousands navigate a difficult path.
It was nearly 16 years ago that oral cancer survivor and OCF founder Brian Hill began his search for answers. "When I was first diagnosed," Hill recalls, "I was scrambling for the right information. Once inside the treatment world I was faced with decisions about which treatment path was right for me, uncertainties of what would lay ahead, the arrival of complications unexpected, pain, and ultimately a sense of the loss of control and a resulting fear." While hospital support groups and some online chat rooms existed at the time, they fell short of providing the insights, guidance and accessibility necessary to have real benefit to a newly diagnosed cancer patient undergoing treatment. "My problems were complex and changing daily. Every day it seemed that something new was occurring that complicated matters, and I needed to talk with someone who could help me digest everything from the new medical terminology, to dealing with side effects of what I was undergoing." It was through building relationships with other survivors and exchanging stories and information that Hill was able regain hope and envision life after cancer.
In 2001, seeing a need for patients to connect with one another, Hill worked to develop an interactive online forum where patients and survivors could share their knowledge and tell their stories. Christine Brader joined the forum after her first oral cancer diagnosis in 2007. "When I was diagnosed I didn't know which way to turn, and by finding others who had gone through it, I gained significant peace of mind," she recalls. "After my third cancer recurrence, I lost 65 pounds, was hospitalized twice for dehydration and malnutrition and was ready to quit. The doctors don't always prepare patients for the realities of the difficult treatments." It was the advice from other survivors, words of encouragement and support from the OCF forum community that convinced Christine to continue her treatments and gave her hope. "There's a whole world of people who have gotten through it and survived, they are living in a world after cancer and are thriving" she says. "Given the extensive disfiguring surgeries, and compromises that I would be forced to live with, I was uncertain if there was even a place for me in the world after fighting to survive. Single, unable to work in my previous vocation, I could not wrap my mind around how I would fit back into a world where everything from esthetics, to the ability to speak clearly carry so much weight. But through this online vehicle, I built friendships, and through one person in particular I was repeatedly told that there can be a rich vibrant life after this terrible cancer, which can leave its visible damage even after survival, no matter how different I was after it all. The transition was not easy, but they were right. Life after my battle is rich in relationships, and meaningful work." Now, as the patient support administrator for OCF, Christine offers her experience-based insights and emotional support to others just beginning their own battles.
Unlike public chat rooms and social media based groups, OCF's Patient Support Forum was designed with the users' privacy and safety in mind. OCF's forum users' personal information will never be marketed to by outside companies, and they will never be exposed to advertising; both considerations associated with social media platforms. Anonymous screen names protect privacy and facilitate an open dialogue for difficult topics such as intimacy and depression. "It was important to develop rules to ensure that the information on the forum is reputable, and accurate. Misinformation can facilitate poor decision making, and harm people," says Hill. To that end, the forum is heavily monitored by volunteer staff with diverse medical backgrounds including dentistry, oncology, research, and nursing and of course long term survivors themselves. Both Hill and Brader agree that the survivors are often the most adept at answering questions correctly and sensitively. "Survivors direct experience many times trumps clinical experience of professionals, though we would never suggest that they have the same level of knowledge. But living on the receiving end of the treatment process definitely provides you with a much different perspective. We don't let inaccurate information live on our boards," says Hill, "and we will correct or eliminate the information/comments that are incorrect or scientifically unsupported."
It is this kind of monitoring and oversight that earned OCF's websites, oralcancer.org and oralcancersupport.org, Health on the Net's HONcode certification. The HONcode is a designation reserved for online publishers of trustworthy and reliable medical and health information who have volunteered to adhere to hundreds of strict guidelines and Health on the Net's code of ethics. This certification is an oversight process that is ongoing, to ensure the consumer that information presented is trustworthy and scientifically accurate; and that protocols for proper informed interaction are in place. With the understanding that poor information can lead to poor choices, OCF has gone to great lengths to protect its members from misleading information.
Today, the Oral Cancer Foundation is working hard to make patients and their families aware that support and answers are available online, for free, 24 hours a day by visiting the web based forum. In keeping with OCF's missions to reduce suffering and save lives through prevention, education, research, advocacy, and patient support, the forum has been designed to fulfill the need for reliable medical information and emotional support. With over 10,000 active members, thousands more who visit the site, read the threads of discussion without becoming members or posting themselves, and over a quarter million archived threads of information, the forum has grown into the largest and most well curated databases of oral cancer information and emotional support on the internet. Members now span across the globe and dozens of countries. Even oncology researchers have looked to this online community to develop answers and insights into understanding the patient experience, and improving the ways in which they interact with patients, and anticipate their needs both physical and emotional.
When discussing the relationships he's made on the forum, Ed Brown, now a 12-year oral cancer survivor says, "Finding each other is the greatest thing that has ever happened to us. When you feel like you're some kind of freak and struggling alone with your issues, it's the best feeling to find out there is someone else out there who has dealt with the same thing, someone who knows what it's like, someone who understands the "work-arounds" for some of the complications of treatments that we all deal with. Thanks to the forum I now know 10,000 survivors who because of our shared experiences are a resource I can turn to." Few people can comprehend the pain and hardship of undergoing treatment for a life threatening illness, fewer are aware of the emotional isolation and lonesomeness that accompanies the disease. Only survivors, other patients, and their caregivers live the intimate struggles and battles of will that take place when fighting for your life.
"The support forum became a second family really, not just a bunch of patients or survivors, but a community that I was a part of. We've all shared a common experience, endured treatment, survival, complications, and funerals. The camaraderie in the community is the heart and soul of what OCF really is – a group of people helping other people," says Hill. The individuals who use the support forum have made lifelong friendships and passed along their experiences and knowledge to others. Brown says, "For every success I've had on this journey, likely a thousand people will have known about it." Sharing in the successes of others and giving back to a community that has embraced you during your difficult times are important reasons why many of the thousands of forum users continue to use the site after they've been declared "disease free."
Hill has called the patient support forum the "heart and soul" of the foundation. Given the foundations many diverse activities; from sponsoring research to advocacy, those that populate the OCF forum, who choose to spend part of their new lives in service to those behind them on the path, he feels they are the palpable core of what OCF is. Few face-to-face support groups can deal with the daily needs of patient ups and downs, as they most often meet once a month, and have less depth of experience to draw from as there are fewer individuals to share their experiences, and fewer survivors attending as they move on from their cancer experience. The OCF forum idea, created well before Google was the major search engine we know today, and before any social media companies like Facebook even existed, has a decade and a half of experience as an Internet based platform to help others… as often as they find a need for it.
Oral cancer is not fought with treatment staff and medicine alone, but in conjunction with reliable medical information to facilitate good decision making, and emotional support and guidance when the questions and weight of the experience seem overwhelming. OCF's Patient Support Forum is a resource rich with answers, accessible anytime, from nearly anywhere, anonymous, monitored and safe, and free to anyone in need.
For more information about the Oral Cancer Foundation and the Patient Support Forum, please visit oralcancer.org andoralcancersupport.org.
