After two mammograms and a breast biopsy, Elda Casas received the devastating news: she had stage 3 breast cancer. Her doctor at a local healthcare facility scheduled an appointment for her right away but she couldn’t make the appointment. As the primary caregiver for her mother and 8-year-old son, finding the time needed to receive care seemed impossible. A second appointment time came and went. After the third missed appointment, Elda received more distressing news.
“My doctor called and said she didn’t want to see me,” Elda says, echoing the response other people receive when their challenges of receiving care seem too difficult to overcome.
According to the National Institutes of Health, missed appointments are most often caused by family responsibilities, the need for more health literacy and the fear of how the treatment might affect the patient’s life.
Elda needed a healthcare team to meet her needs, and she needed it soon. Not long after that last call, she started feeling her first symptoms.
“Just cleaning the house would make me out of breath and I’d have to sit down,” Elda explains. “My body hurt. I didn’t want to go through chemotherapy, but I knew this is serious.”
Unsure of what to do next, she was pointed to Parkland as the place to get the care she desperately needed. A patient navigator, whose focus is on overcoming obstacles that are in the way of a patient receiving care, talked with Elda numerous times on the phone and met with her personally.
“I trusted her, I told her everything,” Elda says.
The patient navigator helped her find ways for her mother and son to be cared for, clarified her health needs and eased her fears of treatment. Elda’s older children helped by driving her to her appointments.
Less than two weeks after her talking with her patient navigator, Elda was at Parkland for her first appointment.
Chemotherapy has well-known side effects – hair loss, fatigue, loss of appetite and more – but it does not affect everyone equally. Elda largely felt none of them in the 12 chemotherapy treatments she received. She is now cancer-free and goes to her checkup at Parkland every four months.
After such a long period of uncertainty, today she radiates one thing above all – joy.
“My whole experience and the people have been really nice,” she says. “I’ve known doctors that don’t give you any kind words when you visit them. My doctors and nurses at Parkland ask if I am doing okay. It makes a difference. I say I feel fine, and that’s a great place to be.”
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