National Cancer Survivors Day: Finding Strength and Friendship

The first Sun­day of June marks Nation­al Can­cer Sur­vivors Day, a day to cel­e­brate the mil­lions who have fought and con­tin­ue to fight this relent­less dis­ease. In our own com­mu­ni­ty, four remark­able women — Jen­ni Moran, Alli­son Stults, Denise Poland, and Diane Poland — demon­strate the pow­er of friend­ship. Their jour­neys may have begun with a can­cer diag­no­sis, but they led to a place of incred­i­ble sup­port and an endur­ing bond.

Through the QMG Can­cer Con­nect Sup­port Group, found solace and strength in their shared experiences.

“We hit it off right away,” Moran said. ​“I have an amaz­ing team to sup­port me in my every­day life, but hav­ing friends who have unfor­tu­nate­ly gone down that same scary can­cer path is beyond nec­es­sary. They are invaluable.”

These friend­ships extend beyond the sup­port group meet­ings. They cel­e­brate vic­to­ries, big and small, togeth­er. The moments that mat­ter most may seem small but offer sig­nif­i­cant support.

“I just love the lit­tle, nor­mal times we have togeth­er — going out to din­ner, see­ing ​‘The Music Man’ at Quin­cy Com­mu­ni­ty The­ater,” Moran said. ​“Even just send­ing ran­dom mes­sages out of the blue… they always seem to pop up just when I need them.”

They start­ed a Face­book mes­sage group titled ​“Togeth­er We Can.” The mes­sage chain serves as a con­stant source of humor, infor­ma­tion, and emo­tion­al sup­port, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the nerve-wrack­ing wait for scan results — a peri­od they all know well and refer to as ​“scanx­i­ety.”

“Even though we’re going through dif­fer­ent stages and types of can­cer, we have each oth­er,” said Moran.

Stults echoed that sen­ti­ment: ​“It’s so nice to feel that you can talk to some­one who gets it. They won’t judge and they won’t tell you it’s going to be okay because it real­ly may not. Can­cer is real­ly lone­ly, and nobody real­ly gets it, but this group of ladies does. Can­cer sucks, so say it.”

Can­cer Con­nect is facil­i­tat­ed by QMG Behav­ioral Health Ther­a­pist Shari Robesky, whom Moran and Stults cred­it for fos­ter­ing a wel­com­ing, car­ing environment.

“I love that we have each oth­er and that the folks in the group ​‘get it’ like no one else can. And I absolute­ly cred­it Shari with being an amaz­ing facil­i­ta­tor. She is amaz­ing,” Moran said.

Stults added, ​“These ladies are friends I nev­er knew I need­ed, and I met them on a jour­ney I wish I nev­er had,” she says, high­light­ing the unex­pect­ed gift of com­pan­ion­ship forged in the face of adversity.

Join us on Sun­day, June 2, from 1 – 3 p.m. at QMG Can­cer Insti­tute, 3301 Broad­way St. in Quin­cy, for our ​“Hope Grows Here” event, hon­or­ing the strength and resilience of can­cer survivors.