Fear. Anxiety. Anger. These are all emotions that can come with a cancer diagnosis.
Debbie Elliott, who was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time in 1996, said her reaction was wondering about her family’s future.
“My son was five years old,” she said. “You think, ‘what if I don’t live to see this kid grow up?’… It is tough. It is very tough.
“Nobody wants to go to the Cross (Cancer Institute). Everybody drives by and thinks, ‘that’s for somebody else, that’s not for me.’ But when you’re diagnosed with cancer, your whole life changes forever from that moment on.”
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While it was tough time, Elliott quickly learned of the incredible supports offered at Edmonton’s Cross Cancer Institute and the hundreds of volunteers who go out of their way to make the journey a little bit easier for patients.
“They’re non-judgmental,” Elliott said. “What you need is a place and people who provide you with support, who give you a smile, who are always helpful, who do anything they can to make your day a little bit better—and that’s the way the Cross and the people who work here and volunteer here always were for me.
“It makes a lasting impression on you.”
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Now, 20 years and two battles with breast cancer later, Elliott is cancer free. After working in the health care industry for more than four decades, there was no question how she was going to spend time in her retirement.
“What I always said was that when I retired I was going to go back and I was going to give back to the place that gave to me.”
Elliott works mainly in the cancer information centre, which provides newly diagnosed patients and their loved ones with sessions and information about what they can expect at the Cross during their treatment. The sessions are conducted by volunteers who have been through cancer and have a better understanding of what patients and their families are going through.
“I talk about making sure that you don’t lose your sense of humour, making sure that you continue to do the normal things in your life, because you need something normal when you’re going through cancer,” Elliott explained.
“Every time I do that session, I have never gone out of that room without somebody coming up to me and saying, ‘you have inspired me. You are going to be my beacon of hope for the time that I’m here.'”
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For Elliott, it’s the most rewarding part of her job.
“It’s very much an experience where you feel like you’re making a difference in somebody’s life,” she said.
“When somebody says, ‘I just feel like I’m on a roller-coaster and I don’t know where it’s going to stop’ you can say, ‘you know what? I understand. I have been there. I know what that feels like…. I’ve been there and I’ve beat this and you can, too.'”
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Elliott is one of 375 volunteers at the Cross Cancer Institute, many of whom are either former patients or have been touched by cancer in some way. Volunteers have donated their time at the Cross for more than 50 years and work in about 40 different roles, from the cancer information centre and patient and family library, to the hostess cart and wig salon.
“Usually it’s about 800 to 900 hours a week of volunteering that occurs here,” said Deborah McTaggart-Baird, manager of volunteer resources at the Cross Cancer Institute.
“Literally, there is about 45,000 to 50,000 hours that are volunteered at the Cross in any given year. So it is substantial.”
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McTaggart-Baird points to a unique volunteer model, which sees volunteers run businesses such as the gift shop, that raise money for patient care and comfort at the Cross. Over the years, more than $5 million has been raised through such efforts.
It’s that type of involvement, McTaggart-Baird said, that keeps people in their volunteer positions, sometimes for decades.
“The level of engagement that we have with our volunteers is high because they know that the positions that they’re involved in really do make a huge difference to the patient experience.”
It was that difference that drove Elliott to volunteer in the first place and it’s the rewarding feeling that she can make a difference in someone else’s journey with cancer that keeps her coming back.
“Twice I had breast cancer and twice they were able to work with me so that 20 years later I am alive, well and hopefully making a difference to other people’s lives with my volunteering here,” she said.
“What I always tell the patients here is my hope for them is they will get to the stage where cancer is a part of you, but it’s not the defining part of every day of your life.”
Watch below: The Cross Cancer Institute helps women with cancer in many ways. Here’s a closer look at the Look Good Feel Better program, designed to empower patients.
For more information on the Cross Cancer Institute’s volunteer program, visit Alberta Health Service’s website.
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