Providing a Community of Support for People with Cancer

Steve Adubato goes One-on-One with Lauren Wood, Founder of Humanly, to discuss the ways Humanly is bringing together those affected by cancer and giving them a community where they are supported and understood.

10/30/19 #2256

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We are pleased to be joined by Lauren Wood, who is the founder of Humanly. Which is? It's a digital community engagement platform for people impacted by cancer. Patients. Caregivers. Nurses. Oncologists You started this, this year? I did. Because? I joined an organization called Immunomedics. It's a biopharma out in Morris Plains. And they were very invested in, you know, looking to find and build opportunities to better understand the daily impacts of people impacted by cancer. And your personal connection. Talk about it. I lost my mother to cancer 16 years ago, yesterday, actually. And it was through that process that I sort of discovered that there was an enormous gap in, not only understanding what it was like to live with someone who is navigating life with a disease, but also, you know, how you manage that impact in that moment, that pivotal shift in your life as you kind of move on and grow and live, and how it shows up in very different ways. It's interesting. It's described as a voice recording... there is a voice recording of stories... We're about to listen to one of those stories, and some pictures that go with it. Set this up for us. What are we about to listen to? So we're about to listen to a submission from one of our community members. It's from parents who lost their son to cancer. And what they're really trying to do is just share more about, again, what their personal experience was by losing their son. Not about the, you know, the clinical aspects of it, or the treatment, or the side effects, but really, how it impacted their lives. The human side? Yes. Exactly. Let's take a listen. Our son Jake was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor at the age of two in 2012. He underwent a six-hour brain surgery, 14 rounds of chemotherapy, and 28 rounds of radiation. When Jake was seven years old in 2017, he relapsed. Which required him to have another extensive brain surgery, eight rounds of chemotherapy, and 33 rounds of radiation. We learned a lot about life from Jake's experience. Our family fed off his positive attitude, optimistic outlook, and how he always lived in the present. Jake taught us that no matter what the circumstance is, we have to live in the now, even when the now seems ordinary and quiet, because the present is very special. Jake taught us that it's senseless to think about the past, because there's nothing we could do to change it. Jake's young mind also taught us that thinking about the future is pointless, because the future is never guaranteed. It's so interesting. I mean part of that was a little about the clinical side, but then they talked about the very human..."