We introduce you to a local woman who is battling breast cancer and show you a group of local doctors providing an opportunity for her and other cancer patients to learn more about their disease and course of treatment.
Jacqueline Rico was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in February 2012.
“I was waiting for someone to come and say, ‘Jacqueline, we made a mistake, and you don’t have cancer,’” said Rico.
But that wasn’t the case.
She’s undergone a mastectomy, six rounds of chemotherapy, and now seven straight weeks of radiation therapy.
“Very scared, overwhelmed,” Rico described her feelings at the time.
A group of local physicians is doing what it can to help cancer patients like Jacqueline.
“It is about somebody’s life. Four eyes and eight eyes are better than two eyes looking at those reports,” said Dr. Bilal Ansari, who is a local medical oncologist.
Ansari started the Tumor Board, a weekly forum of multidisciplinary physicians. They meet at Michiana Hematology Oncology, discussing the needs and course of treatments of selected patients.
The cancer patient can join them, hear about their case and ask questions.
“That gives them confidence about their disease,” said Ansari. “It gives them a light at the end of the tunnel that this is all going to be over, and I’m going to be back to my life, and I will be able to carry on the way I was before.”
For Jacqueline, it’s given her a sense of control. She feels part of it, connected and knows what the next steps will be as she battles this disease.
“It is team work at the finest,” she said. “Very well aligned, very well in sync to allow me to have the best life I can after cancer.”
Dr. Ansari says he is also involved in Tumor Boards in Plymouth and Rochester, and he’s looking at expanding with I-technology and linking up with cancer experts sitting in Indianapolis or Chicago. This is already being tested with Loyola University in Chicago.
