Coping with Cancer #133

Caroline Bright:

It's so enlightening. I didn't realize that there's so much living that takes place at the end of life and this is where I need to be and this is life times 10,000. You know, it's concentrated and people are real and there's no distractions because it's a matter of time to be saying the things that they need to say or doing the things that they need to do, looking back and taking inventory of their life.

Wendy Tardif:

I try to get out and meet as many of the families and individuals that are coming through our doors and we just learn so much from them about living life to its fullest extent while for whatever time we have left and they've been the best teachers, I think really the best teachers.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 133, Coping with Cancer, airing for the first time on Sunday, March 30, 2014. Today's guests are Caroline Tukeybright, Youth and Family Services Coordinator with the Dempsey center, and Wendy Tardif, Executive Director of the Dempsey Center. The Patrick Dempsey center for Cancer Hope and Healing opened its doors on March 31, 2008. Patrick's mother, Amanda Dempsey, was its designated honoree. Since then, the staff has grown from 3 to 17 and hundreds of people have volunteered their time. The Dempsey center now offers services such as Reiki, massage counseling, cooking classes and support groups. More than 15,000 people from all over the world contact the center for assistance each year. Today we speak with Tookie Bright and Wendy Tardif as we explore a subject that we also cover in the April issue of Maine magazine, coping with Cancer. We hope you enjoy our conversations with Tookie and Wendy and know that many of you are coping with cancer or have family members who are coping with cancer. We know that this conversation will be helpful. Thank you for joining Us. There is a special group of individuals in this world that are really take medicine in a direction I think is important, but is also incredibly challenging. And these are our social workers and I'm really glad that I have the chance to spend time with one of these social workers here in the great state of Maine. This is Caroline, who's never known as Caroline. She's always known as Tookie. Tookie Bright, who is the youth and family services coordinator from the Dempsey Center. Tukey has worked in many settings as a social worker, from outdoor adventure groups to substance abuse and mental health counseling. At the center, Tukey provides short term counseling, art and play therapies for families affected by their loved one's serious illness. And I think you do a lot more than that. So thanks for coming in and talking to us today.

Caroline Bright:

Thank you so much. I'm really glad to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tookie, we have to talk about your name. I'm sorry, you said everybody knows you as Tukey and it's an unusual name. So at first you were called Spooky. Tookie.

Caroline Bright:

Yeah. I can't believe this is going on the air.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I know, but we have to talk about it because I love it. It's a great story.

Caroline Bright:

Yeah. So I was born on my grandmother's birthday. I was supposed to be a boy, at least that's what the doctors had thought. And when I came out a girl on my grandmother's birthday and my grandmother had been deceased since my dad was 16. So it was really unique that here I was two weeks late, popped out a girl and my parents just called me Tukey ever since. So Spooky fortunately dropped off and now I go to, you know, Tuki. Two. Two. Key number two. Two is my lucky number two.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that's good. And it's also good that you are so connected with your family, which I know you are. You have a lot of kids in your family. You and I share this. I'm the oldest of 10. You have how many children in your family?

Caroline Bright:

So I'm the oldest of six and I come from a blended family, so I'm the oldest. And then there's my, my brother Toby, who's right behind me. And then my parents divorced when I was three and they both got remarried and had additional children. So it's kind of easy to think about. It's like two from each set of parents, each combination. So. And then. And that's as far as living children. I also have a brother who passed away when I was very young and. And so that makes him the Number six or the actually number seven out of all of us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I understand the difficulty of remembering all the numbers because people actually ask me on a regular basis, like, tell me about your brothers and sisters. And I have to count back. I have to think, oh, I have five of one set and four of another. But the family piece is so important to you, and it really has become what you do for work and what you do for work with the Dempsey Center. You didn't start out wanting to be a social worker. When you were at the University of New England, you were following a very different path.

Caroline Bright:

Yeah, I am. You know, I went in as the oldest child, and this may be true for some other older children that they can relate to. You know, you're the responsible one. You've got a plan. You know, you're following a path. And I had entered into the University of New England. I had been pursuing the doctorate of physical therapy program. And so the track that I was on was medical biology. And I was like, okay, well, since Dr. Quinn, medicine woman isn't a profession that I can go into, the next best thing would be, like, physical therapy, because you're working with people and their bodies and you can get a sense of who they are and develop relationships. And then my junior year, I was in neuroscience. I was in an accelerated class with all of these brilliant pre med students, and I just floundered. I was terrible. And I was seeing a counselor at the time, and I was like, what am I doing? I'm terrible at memory. I'm terrible at neuroscience. I hate neuroscience. And she was like, well, what are you naturally good at? And I was like, well, I don't even have to think about my psych classes. My psych classes, I don't even study for. I just go to them and it just. It clicks. It's natural. So, you know, I get my respite from my psych classes, and then I spend hours and hours of time studying for neuroscience or O chem, which I despise. And she's like, well, why don't you just do what you're good at? I was like, well, my dad always told me that you have to. You have to work, you know, you have to work to be successful in life. And so I clearly have to work really hard in this med bio track, and so that's what I need to do in order to be successful. And she's like, well, have you even considered the idea that maybe there might be a special calling to you in the psychology world? I'm like, well, everybody's easy at psychology, you know, that's easy stuff for everyone. And she said, no, not really. That's unique for you. And when I walked away from that, it was an opportunity to go in a whole new direction. It opened doors for me that I'd never considered before. And that senior year of my undergraduate, I transitioned to psychology and managed to do an entire major in one year. And I graduated with a major in psychology and a minor in medbiology.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, your advisor was right that it's not a calling that everybody has. It's not something that most people choose to pursue. And you yourself were in a different sort of social work setting before you came to the Dempsey center, and a setting that you told me you got burnt out on.

Caroline Bright:

Oh, yeah, yeah. When I had graduated from my undergrad, I went into community mental health, and I'd spent a year at Sweetser doing work with children in a group home setting. And it was. I only spent six months there initially, and it was the hardest six months of my life. And it wasn't so much because of the kids. It was the bureaucracy of just the system of mental health that we have. And I moved from that to then case management with an organization here in Portland, working with a very low socioeconomic population, substance abuse, mental health, and working with a lot of parents that were mandated by the state to receive counseling. So this is very opposite of social work. Social work philosophy is about self determination, listening to the needs of people and responding to them as the experts of their own care, and then helping them to figure out what they need to do to put things in place. Well, at this place where people were being mandated into care, it wasn't them that had the problem. They didn't want the help, they didn't want the assistance. So there was a lot of clash there between the principles of helping and how that played out for the families and the clients I worked with. And it didn't feel good to be stuck in the middle like that. And I got burnt out pretty quickly. And that's when I ran off to the mountain to be a ski bum and figure out my next move.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it eventually led you into this place, which even though most people would consider very challenging, you seem to be thriving.

Caroline Bright:

Yeah, I got really lucky. I went to the University of New England for my graduate degree as well, and there was a lot of opportunity there, great professors to support me, colleagues. I ended up doing my first year field placement at a hospice organization up in Lewiston, and I was at the hospice house, and that experience was incredible. For me, it opened up another world that I hadn't really explore it. I. I was really cautious, nervous about going into hospice as a field placement. And my advisor at the time said, well, you know, your options are limited. You can either do case management or you could take this hospice position's open. And then there was a few other ones, but I was like, okay, one, I've already done case management in my professional, you know, in my graduate school training. I don't want to do something I've already done. I need to be exploring and pushing my limits. And I really wanted to go into eating disorders because I had some friends that struggled with that in college, and I found it really fascinating. And there was no opportunities to do that. And when this hospice was an opportunity, I was like, oh, that's really scary. That means that I'm going to have to deal with pieces of my own mortality that I don't know if I'm really capable of doing yet or I don't want to look at. And what is this going to mean for me? I ended up going to see a counselor the summer before my internship. And I said, okay, all right, let's talk about death. And she's like, okay, let's do it. I'm like, all right, yeah, I'm gonna have to die alone. She's like, yes, you are. And I was like, so I'm anxious about that. And she's like, yeah, let's talk about a little bit more. And we dove, like, into it further. And it was like, it was just being able to bridge that conversation that really opened up the possibilities of actually looking at that, confronting it, and being able to see. Sit with that as being validated that it's normal and it's okay to feel anxious about those things. And when I did my first day at my internship in hospice, I called my dad sobbing on my way home, and he was like, oh, it was terrible. It triggered you, you know, what happened? And I said, no, no, dad, you don't understand. It's so enlightening. I didn't realize that there's so much living that takes place at the end of life. And I am, like, just remembering this is making my heart flutter, like, with the passion that I felt that day of, like, this is where I need to live. This is where I need to be. And this is. I love this. This is like life times 10,000. You know, it's concentrated and people are real, and there's no. There's no. There's no distractions because it's it's a matter of time to be saying the things that they need to say or doing the things that they need to do, looking back and taking inventory of their and experience. And gosh, how meaty to be sitting with somebody in such an authentic place. Really powerful.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we've long recognized the link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepard of Shepherd Financial. How do you recognize cancer? Cancer growth has no boundaries and it crowds out the productive purpose of life. So what does financial cancer look like? Here are a few Spending that grows into debt. Saving that ends up as hoarding, Investing that leads to speculating and even giving that ends up as sacrificial martyrdom. So I am grateful for and in awe of the people in the world who dedicate their lives to fighting the disease of cancer and helping people who are impacted by it cope with it. But I'm also in awe of the people that manage to go through life spending the right amount, saving the right amount, investing the right amount so that they can have enough to give. That process is what we call evolve with your money. Get in touch with us at tomphepherdfinancialmain.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You deal with a group that really is either as closed or as open as they come.

Caroline Bright:

Yeah, teenagers? Yeah, absolutely I am. I also had come from I worked as a director at a girls camp before I got into some of this mental health stuff and so I always loved working with kids but I had kind of thought that I wasn't Going to be able to work with kids in the way that I wanted to back in those years when I was a case manager, working with people involved in the system, because it just seemed too complicated to get through the family dynamics. And when I found my way to the Dempsey center, it was like this huge opportunity opened up. And I remember sitting with Carrie Irish, who is our psychosocial coordinator, and at the time, she was our executive director, and I had met her for the first time, and she's like, you would be perfect to start our children's program. I've been wanting to get something going, and I'm like, oh, that's so generous of you. And she was like, I wasn't gonna take a student this year, but you would really be perfect. And I'm going, oh, well, if you want to think about it, why don't you sleep on it? And if you still want me to come next year, you know, send me a message or something. And I would love to do it. Like, this would be amazing. And she goes. Ten minutes after I leave, I get a text message from her saying, I'm really serious. I still want you. I don't need to sleep on it. And it just, like, naturally happened from there. And I began to be able to work with youth and families that had been impacted by cancer. And those teenagers are my favorite population. I didn't realize that I had ever find that niche. As amazing as it is, they are an incredibly powerful population to work with, and they also don't get the credit that they deserve. In the field of oncology, there is still very limited data to support the needs of teenagers impacted by cancer. There's very limited resources out nationwide that are providing services to teenagers in a way that is meaningful to them. And I think that's the nuance right there that really is making a difference. At the Dempsey center, we have an incredible funding base to be able to provide support services that are geared towards our clients. And so we can really listen to what they're asking for and provide it without having to cut corners or do half the service. You know, like, okay, well, we are hearing from teens that they need an activity to be distracted by, but they also need support, real support, not just, like, fake support. You know, like, oh, we're here for you. And here do have us have an ice cream sundae, because we're here for you and we're supporting you, but we don't want to overdo it. Well, teenagers aren't going to be the ones to say, I want counseling. They're not going to be the ones to say, I want a support group. They're going to be the ones to say, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what I need. You probably hear that a lot if you have teenagers, right? I don't know. But where you do get the feedback from them is in by experimenting and finding out what works. So that's what we've been doing a lot of is experimenting, trying a program, asking kids what they're wanting, doing that, and then weaving in really appropriate clinical interventions. And I call this my Mary Poppins philosophy of a spoonful of sugar. Right. You dress it up and you make it fun, but you provide a true service. You know, don't serve them soda, serve them juice.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think that philosophy could actually be carried over into adults. I mean, don't we all want to do something fun that ultimately benefits us in some way?

Caroline Bright:

Absolutely. I completely agree. And you know, I think that in one way we, as adults, we've felt like we have to, we have to be a really critical society because as consumers of our healthcare, including mental health, we have to be diligent to make sure that what we're getting is evidence based and really a true service and yada, yada, yada, which all has its purpose. But we don't need to necessarily be marketing that. We don't necessarily need to be dressing up our programs with psychobabble or medical terminology that says we know how great we are and we know what we're doing. And as long as we have the evidence to be able to deliver that, when people are asking for it, that's what's most important. And that the interventions that are being provided are truly evidence based and it's not simply just thrown out there on a whim. Then, you know, the actual service itself can be fun, it can be engaging, it can be distracting, it can be invigorating. It doesn't have to be humdrum, white wall interventions. Come and sit in my office and let me probe you with questions. You know, there's lots of different ways to be creative with our application of intervention.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You also deal with a group that hasn't gotten as much, another group that hasn't gotten as much, I guess, attention, and that's the young adult group. The group that maybe they had cancer when they were younger and they're growing older and they're cancer survivors, or maybe they've been impacted by a family member who had cancer when they were growing up. But that's a really important group. Because, you know, young adults and older adults, it's just not. It's not the same.

Caroline Bright:

Yes, again, there's a little bit of a disconnect between what the needs of those populations are. The young adult population in particular, they're much more similar to the adolescent population in that there's a high sensitivity to stigma developmentally. Around the ages of 18 to 20 to, let's say, 23, people are really developing that autonomy, figuring out who they are. And as an autonomous individual, you got to be able to experiment with meeting your own needs, solving your problems. And so you hear a lot of people, even adults, saying, you know, oh, well, I can handle it on my own, when maybe they could benefit from some support from a professional of whatever it is that they're needing support from, whether it's a mental health provider or it's a doctor or a physical therapist, you know, oh, fine, I'll handle it on my own. And there's also stigma around the ideas of what it means to receive assistance or help from somebody else that's trained in a particular area, as if to get help or receive help denotes your autonomy, denotes your ability to care for yourself as a mature human being. And so being sensitive and aware of that need to be autonomous, to be able to care for yourself, is really meeting that population where they are. And so in order to do that and say, hey, listen, we get it, you can care for yourself. Absolutely. And there's a huge strength in being able to lean on people that also understand what you're going through. You know, having friends that get it is something that maybe even a professional can't provide. But a professional can certainly set up the environment and the safety in order to make that happen. And so that's kind of what I do. I don't really look at myself as I'm the one providing necessarily the intervention. I'm simply providing the space and the structure, the framework, in order for the intervention to naturally, organically unfold, whether it's with the adolescents in the teen group or it's with the young adults in the group, not on my own, which is we call nomo. And the unique thing with the adolescent, I mean, the young adult population, is that we don't meet in the Dempsey Center. We may in the future, but right now, we meet at a restaurant across the street. And so our support group doesn't look typical. It's, you know, the young adults can come out, they can grab a beer, they can get a glass of wine, and we sit around a table and we talk and so it feels a lot less maybe threatening or a lot less like that stigma of what a counseling or support group looks like.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tookie, you're a gem.

Caroline Bright:

Oh, thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think anybody who's listening can hear that in our conversation. Again, the work that people. Social work is so important. I think it's completely under recognized and it's especially important in the population you're dealing with. I appreciate it. I appreciate what you do.

Caroline Bright:

You know, it's interesting. While I was waiting to come in here, I was on my little iPhone browsing on the Facebook news feed, and there was one of those ads like get your MSW today and help people. And I noticed that there was a thread of comments of like 64 comments. And I'm browsing through them. And there was so much rhetoric and misconceptions about what social workers do. And it was like dhs, dhs, dhs. And it's true, there's a stigma that that's all that's social workers are, is a representation of dhs. But we're not. We do so much more, and it really is. And I understand that people have a limited understanding because we don't do a very good job as social workers communicating what we do. And clearly I'm a social worker in a unique setting, but there's lots of other oncology social workers out there. There's amazing social workers in private practice, in administration. The hospital president at CMMC is a social worker. So, you know, they're all over the place, not just dhs. So thank you for bringing that up.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I encourage people to find out more about the field of social work. I know the University of New England does have a great program. So people who are listening, if you're interested, you can Google that program. I hope that people who have been impacted by cancer, specifically children, adolescents, young adults, take the time to go to the Dempsey center website and perhaps connect with you. We've been speaking with Tookie Bright, who is the Youth and Family Services coordinator with the Dempsey Center. Thank you for all that you do.

Caroline Bright:

Thank you so much. Dr. Lisa. It's been great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marcy Booth from Booth Main to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcy. I hope you take a moment to consider the health of your business and how you can make certain it continues to thrive. Now is the perfect time for a business checkup. It's a perfect time to reflect on the systems and processes you had in place last year to determine what worked and what didn't run as smoothly as it should have. Write down the specific changes you'd like to implement to tighten things up over the next month, three months, six months, or a year. Give yourself realistic tasks and goals. This introspection and planning will go a long way toward making certain that 2014 is a year of great success. I'm Marci Booth. Let's talk about the changes you need. Boothmaine.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

not so long ago, I took a trip up to Lewiston to visit the Dempsey center, which has become really a beacon of light and hope for cancer patients and their families around the state of Maine and really around the country. So today I'm quite pleased to have with me Wendy Tardif, who is the executive director at the Dempsey Center. Come in and have a conversation about the work that they're doing with patients and families. Wendy has worked in the field of community health education for over 25 years and as a certified tobacco treatment specialist, her efforts focused in lung health. She helped hundreds of former tobacco users in central Maine quit. She co founded Healthy Andrascoggin, is a commissioner for the Maine Lung association, and is a faculty member for the center for Tobacco Independence. So I think that's I'm intrigued by the fact that you have kind of worked on cancer from both ends. Now. You're now the executive director of the Dempsey center, and you're still very passionate about smoking cessation. So thanks for coming in and talking to us today.

Wendy Tardif:

You're welcome. Glad to be here, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Wendy, you've been doing public health for a long time, and I think this is something that many people don't really understand, the field of public health. And you're doing it from kind of two different directions. Now you've done public health from a tobacco smoking cessation kind of standpoint, and now you're Doing public health and really a. A caregiving, bringing health and hope to cancer patients. So what caused you to be interested in public health in the beginning?

Wendy Tardif:

I guess I've just. I've always been interested in helping people increase the quality of their life, and that's really where it comes from, I guess. And when I, right out of college, I was in the wellness world, mostly doing exercise and physical fitness kinds of things. But back then, which was like the early 80s, there was a huge interest in the public wanting to quit smoking but not knowing how to do it. And I can just remember getting a lot of phone calls at that time. And, you know, it was like, wow, we really need to. We need to help these people. They need help. And I really didn't know a lot about it, except that I had a mom that was a smoker all her life. And so I had been around it and could see how difficult it was for her to quit. So I just kind of started learning more about it and really became quite passionate about tobacco, particularly both in terms of preventing kids from ever starting to use tobacco, as well as helping adults that become smokers already to quit. And, you know, one of the things, I think, too, that really spoke to me quite deeply was the fact that, you know, like, 90% of adults that smoke started when they were kids. And I just remember learning that fact, and it really hasn't changed a whole lot since that time either. And just thinking about that was like, wow, we really need to do something to prevent these kids from ever starting. So, you know, really working on the policy side, too, which, of course, is a big part of public health as well, so. And kind of my journey has just led me to the Dempsey center for various twists and turns, and it's really interesting to be working on it from this side, too. And I can't help but sort of bring that little piece of prevention into the Dempsey center as well, because, yeah, we're helping cancer patients, again, trying to keep their quality of life as high as we possibly can during this very difficult time for folks, which I think is just so important, but at the same time, wanting to make sure that we get the message out there about, not that we can prevent all cancers, obviously, we can't, but what are some of the things that we can do to minimize our chances of actually being diagnosed with cancer? So it's been kind of interesting pulling in a few pieces of stuff of that prevention world into the Dempsey center since I came on board three years ago.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you're from Maine originally.

Wendy Tardif:

I am yeah, Yep. Grew up in Maine and went to school in Maine. Actually went to school in New Hampshire for a little bit and then came back to Maine and met my husband here. And he was pretty grounded in his professional life and just stayed on. And I'm very passionate about, you know, collaborations and working together for the greater good. And I think because I'm from here and you know, I really grew up in the Lewis and Auburn area and I still live there, raised my three boys there. It's kept me really grounded in the community and wanting to just make it a better place for folks.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I was struck when I went to the Dempsey center by how really connected to the community, like even physically the center was. It's not. I mean, the center does draw people from all over the state and fields calls from really all over the country and from what I understand, even all over the world. But it's very Lewiston. It has a very Lewiston flavor to it. It's housed in a former shoe factory, I believe.

Wendy Tardif:

That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it looks out over the Basilica and the Androscoggin and Central Maine Medical Center. I mean, there's no denying its roots.

Wendy Tardif:

And that's one of the reasons we chose this space. Central Maine Medical center had purchased the building. Oh boy. Probably close to over 15 years ago now, I think, and has slowly renovated each of the floors. So when we were looking for new space and the top floor of that building was available, it became our first choice, wanting to move our services and programs right into that space. I think it creates a very comfortable, warm environment with the wood and the brick. And I think folks feel really at home with the big windows and all the light coming in. And it's been a really neat transition for our organization going from the space we had prior to this and into this new space where we can hold all of our programs as well as provide all of our services right in one spot.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The Dempsey center also, in addition to being a center, it also hosts the Dempsey Challenge, which is a multi day event that takes place in the fall. I believe you have dates for 2014 already.

Wendy Tardif:

Yes, we do. September 27th and 28th.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it also, you know, so you have the community that's created by these walls of the center, but then there's also this bigger community that all gathers, which is. It's fascinating because these are many people aren't necessarily bikers. You know, these are not people who would have run before, maybe wouldn't have even walked before, but people are. So they come together as such a Cohesive group in support of this cause.

Wendy Tardif:

Absolutely. And it's interesting because folks come together for lots of different reasons, but I think what it provides is it provides the opportunity for. For people to come together for whatever their reason, whether it's, you know, that they're in support of a family member or friend that's going through a cancer diagnosis or they've lost somebody to cancer, and they're doing it, you know, as a really a therapeutic opportunity to gather their friends and family. It's really amazing. And one of the. We just had a woman, one of our participants, who's been with the Dempsey Challenge for, I think, all five years and at least four of the five, but she came to the center last week to share a photo book with us that she put together in memory of her husband, who passed away in 2013 from cancer. But they actually were doing the Dempsey Challenge before he was ever diagnosed, and then he did get diagnosed. Anyway, she came into the center, and she was just sharing how important the Dempsey Challenge is from that perspective. It's an opportunity once a year for her family and friends to gather together in this really positive way in memory of their friend and family member that passed away. And it's a time to laugh and a time to cry, and. And it's just amazing what it provides for folks. And even from a personal wellness perspective, too, you hear people that are setting the Dempsey Challenge as a goal, they want to do the 25 or the 50 or the 100, and what it means to them, even from that perspective. So there's just a lot of reasons why folks do participate in the challenge, and I just feel so fortunate that we're able to be the ones to be organizing this event and be able to pull communities together and people together and make it really what a special event it is.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the reasons that the Dempsey Challenge is important is that the Dempsey center provides services free of charge to anyone who has ever been impacted by cancer, which is something that I was very surprised to hear about, because it's not just a cancer patient. It's not just a cancer patient's wife. It's, you know, it's the children. It's someone's aunt. I mean, it's really anyone who's ever had that connection, which could be just about anybody.

Wendy Tardif:

Anybody.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah.

Wendy Tardif:

Yeah, you're right about that. And it does, you know, to be able to say to participants that are raising money for the Dempsey challenge that 100% of the money that they raise goes directly to benefit cancer patients. It doesn't go to the expenses for the challenge. We raise our money through sponsorships for that. And I think that really means so much to people. It really makes it worthwhile for them to reach out and dig deep and try to try to do whatever they can to help raise those funds. Because we do provide a real, you know, a really in depth opportunity for anybody impacted by cancer, as you say, whether it's through programs or, you know, massage therapy for folks that are going through their cancer journey right now. I mean, just a myriad of services that we offer, one on one counseling with social workers. And as you mentioned, the youth and family services aspect of our program is pretty. Is a pretty special component as well. And it is. The Dempsey Challenge is our primary fundraiser. It's really how we raise our money to be able to offer those services at no cost to anybody.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.

[Unidentified voice]:

From time to time, I get calls from people I know or former clients, and they kind of let me in on what's going on around them. And one lady called recently about a letter written in 1956 to Kenneth Roberts, and it talked about a woman who wanted some dowsing done. Kenneth Roberts did a lot of work with Henry Gross, and she knew that I did dowsing. And she remembers when I went out to dowse her property. This woman that called me, she said the end of the dowsing rod flew off at the time I was doing the dowsing work. And a lot of times I do work on land and detect subtle energies. And a lot of times things show up on the land that vortices and things of that nature that really speak to the properties of that land through the subtle energies. It's amazing how intuitive we are in nature and how nature speaks to us in very subtle ways. Ashes on properties are easily detected. Pets and people ashes I've time and time again detected where people are buried, for instance. And people are always amazed at saying, oh, well, that's a place where my husband was buried. And I'd say, oh, well, we should honor this place. And she said, oh, I did. I planted this tree here. But I said, well, we can have another little ceremony or something. So it's always important to realize that there's much more that's going on beyond the scenes and behind the scenes that we can't see on your landscape and your land. I'm Ted Carter and if you'd like to contact me I can be reached@tedcarterdesign.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast understands the importance of the health of the body, mind and spirit. Here to talk about the health of the body is Jim Greatorex of Premier Sports Health, the division of Black Bear Medical. Many medical conditions are a family affair and we understand it. These conditions can seem embarrassing to not only you, but to your family as well. Now rest assured that our family at

[Unidentified voice]:

Black Bear Medical is only concerned about

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

you and how we can help. You are a person, a human being and deserve to be treated with a dignity and respect regardless of your situation.

[Unidentified voice]:

So whether you are looking for incontinence supplies, ostomy supplies, or just feel embarrassed to because you need an aide to

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

live your daily life, rest assured our team at Black Bear Medical understands your concerns and will make you feel like family. Visit our locations in Portland and Bangor or blackbearmedical.com to see why. We respectfully keep you active and in the game of life with medical equipment, sports, health and rehab products, wellness products and more experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

know that you have massage. You mentioned massage. You also have Reiki. You have individual one on one rooms for Reiki, you have a very large kitchen and you have cooking classes to help people learn about healthy or healthier eating.

Wendy Tardif:

Yes we do. We do. We offer a program called Nutrition for Life which is four sessions and we offer that six times a year. And the topics for that program change periodically, but for the most part it's about learning how to cook in a more healthful way. And for a lot of folks, it's about introducing them to things that they're not quite sure what it would taste like. Quinoa for instance, or not quite sure how to cook it. So our registered dietitian cook for our program will share recipes and show people how to cook foods that they might not have ever prepared before so that they then can go home and feel comfortable preparing it themselves. So it's been one of our most popular Programs for sure, and that one is available to cancer survivors and caregivers. And we also offer prevention classes around nutrition that are available to anybody in the community. If they don't identify themselves as somebody who's been impacted by cancer, they can still take advantage of some of our programs that we have at the center. Another one is environmental health. We'll educate folks about the different kinds of chemicals and things that we use for cleaning, for instance, or even personal hygiene products, and what some of the things are that you want to look for and so forth. So we're really trying to make our programs very up to date and appropriate, using best practice and the best information we have from research out there in the community.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The one that you just described, the program you just described is one that's particularly important to me, and in part because I've been to various cancer events as a guest and notice that things. There'll be giveaways of personal products. And I'm shocked at the types of things that we're giving to cancer patients, you know, former cancer patients, cancer survivors, and people who have never had cancer, but that are containing things, you know, like deodorant or beauty products that are containing things that we know are really not good for delicate systems and maybe aren't good for anybody's system. So it's interesting to me that you would offer that type of programming for people, because it's not something that everybody thinks about, right?

Wendy Tardif:

Yeah, I guess that's probably true. We've tried to incorporate, as you're describing, what you've seen. I'm like, wow, have we given away anything like that? And it's something you do want to think about, though, in terms of the systems approach to how we do things. Not only educating people about what you want to look for in certain products, but also making sure that we're not promoting them on some other level, which is really important. And I guess our thinking on all that is we know that people are interested in learning more about that. So we want to make sure that we bring those kinds of programs to the Dempsey center so that folks can take advantage of them. You know, one of the things that we hope to do in the future is to do more with our website, where we videotape those kinds of programs and put it on our website so that folks that aren't able to get into the Dempsey center, whether it's because they're compromised because of their current chemotherapy treatment, or whether it's because they live in California, we want to be able to have or give them access to. To some of those programs. So our hope is to develop a video library as well. On our website, you also offer yoga,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

which I know for some people is. Even though we hear about yoga everywhere, a lot of people who try yoga at the Dempsey center aren't people who necessarily would be going to a class out in the community.

Wendy Tardif:

Yeah, that's very true. And again, is one of our most popular programs. And I think there's a part of the reason for folks trying it is that we have a great referral network, kind of through the Dempsey center itself, but also with providers, both in terms of the community and even outside the community, that are referring cancer patients and their caregivers to that program. But it's also instructed by Tish, one of our employees, who is also. She does a very gentle yoga. She really is able to listen to the needs of the clients that are in her class and teach accordingly. And I think that's a big part of it as well, that people don't come in and feel like totally overwhelmed that the level is so high that they can't begin to learn how to do yoga. And we have a huge following for that class. That's one of the classes that's going to have to expand pretty quickly here, I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Also, as a physician for the Central Maine Healthcare Group, I get all the information that comes through on the Dempsey center, and I'm often struck by how comprehensive it is and how healthful it is and how I would love to see this type of information. Like, you have a couple of integrative medicine physicians who come in and are giving talks. I'd love to see this information pushed out into the community further, you know, before people need it because they are impacted by cancer. Do you feel like you are in some ways setting the stage for that?

Wendy Tardif:

We have another portion of what we do at the Dempsey center is we have an outreach educator, really. And what her role is is to go out into the community, businesses and other organizations and help in terms of cancer education and risk reduction. So, again, that's sort of like the beginning stages, really, trying to get into the organizations. And it's not just about prevention, I guess, because we do do screenings and things like that. She'll organize like a oral health screening or skin cancer screenings where we'll pick up some problems and people will be detect their cancer will be detected real early. But I think in terms of working with maybe some of the public health districts, now that we have actually have public health districts, more than just two of them in the state of Maine. I think that part really is an area where it's helping us to reach beyond our doors, I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In writing the article for Maine magazine about the Dempsey Center, I spent time talking with Mary Dempsey and with Patrick Dempsey and understanding the family reasons for wanting to have the center in place. The fact that their mother had been diagnosed with cancer and the type of cancer that was. I'll use the word recalcitrant and recurrent. Just keeps coming back. Just keeps coming back. It's interesting because I have the sense that there is this. With the recurrence of the cancer, there's always been a sense of hope. There's always. And it's a sense of hope that's carried over into the center itself, you know, that you can. You know, whatever you're given, you just. You show up, you engage. You know, there's always. There's always some reason to be present, and that must be an interesting challenge sometimes, because not everybody gets cured.

Wendy Tardif:

Yeah. Yeah, you're right about that, Lisa. I think we have an amazing staff there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I just.

Wendy Tardif:

It just, like, it's so heartwarming just even thinking about it. A really amazing staff. And I think, you know, it takes a toll because you do. You know, you have folks that are able to overcome their cancer, at least for the present, and you have some folks that are end of life or advanced stage, and it's. You know, we learn so much from these folks that come through our doors. And, you know, we get letters all the time. And one of the things that is just really evident, I think, is that there is always that hope and that healing. That's part of the work that we do on a daily basis. And it's what the clients that are coming through our doors are teaching us about, too. It's pretty amazing just on a daily basis, really, what we all experience. The other thing that I think is really helpful for our own staff is the fact we have three licensed clinical social workers on our staff, and they're just really amazing folks, too, in terms of helping our staff through these more difficult times. Yeah, I don't. It's really an interesting process. And some of us that, I mean, like, my job, I don't have a lot of direct patient care or contact even, but I try to get out and meet as many of the families and individuals that are coming through our doors, and they're. We just learned so much from them about living life to its fullest extent, while for whatever time we have left. And they've been the best teachers. I Think really the best teachers.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's an interesting contrast with where we are, I think, in healthcare today. The sense that here you are dealing with a population has a lot of uncertainty associated with it. And yet you were able to kind of keep showing up and talking with the social workers and taking care of each other and taking care of yourselves as individuals. And in healthcare, we actually have some successes. We actually have some good things that are happening. I think we need to find a way to look at models like yours that maybe are based on end of life and bring them to before the end of life. Does that make sense?

Wendy Tardif:

Yes, it does. It absolutely does. And, you know, I wonder if there are some models out there in relation to that. Yeah, I'm not sure what that would look like exactly, but I think you're right. I mean, healthcare has taken. It's so different now. I mean, we're trying to keep people out of the hospitals any way we possibly can. And. And I think a lot of the things that we're doing are actually helping to do that, even at the stage that folks are at when they come through our doors, helping with symptom management and working as a team to not just the Dempsey center, but the larger cancer treatment team, even to prevent cancer patients from ending up in the hospital. They. So what I'm seeing in the healthcare world is being a lot more proactive, I guess, with patients that are experiencing certain symptoms to help them with those symptoms now, not waiting until they're actually hospitalized to do something about it when they're at a much higher degree of, or need a much higher degree of care at that point. So it's interesting what you're, you know, what you're suggesting there too, especially where I think about it from your perspective and the patients that you're seeing, the spectrum of patients you're seeing, I'm sure, you know, real healthy to very sick. And, you know, how can we. How can we be proactive and not reactive, especially with the sicker. The sicker patients that we see? It's really interesting.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we'll have to keep having that conversation. We'll have you back on another show where we talk about the future.

Wendy Tardif:

Yeah, there we go.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Wendy, how do people find out about the Dempsey Center?

Wendy Tardif:

Well, they can go to our website, which is dempseycenter.org they can come and visit us anytime. We try to do open houses a few times a year so folks can feel comfortable just walking through our doors, although that's available anytime we are open from 8 in the morning to 7:30 in the evening from Monday to Thursday and then Friday we close at 4:30 and folks can come through our doors. We'll give people tours, explain the services that we have. They can also call us at 795-8250 and set up a time to come in and have a one on one consultation with a cancer resource specialist too. That's an option. I guess those are the two best ways for folks to find out about us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your taking time out of your very busy schedule to come down and talk with us today. We've been speaking with Wendy Tardif, who is the Executive Director at the Dempsey center and also a faculty member at the center for Tobacco Independence and a Commissioner for the Maine Lung Association. So thanks so much for all the work that you're doing to bring health to the people of Maine and for talking with us today.

Wendy Tardif:

Well, thanks for having me, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 133, Coping with Cancer. Our guests have included Tookie Bright and Wendy Tardif. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit doctor. Org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on itunes. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E Newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram and read my take on health and well being on the Bountiful Blog. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged. They enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Coping with Cancer show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.