Navigator leads patient in cancer fight

Maybe Dwayne Shafer should have realized something was wrong last fall.

While pheasant hunting in North Dakota, he noticed he was gasping for breath.

But Shafer dismissed it. "I thought, 'Oh, it was the altitude,'" he said.

And even earlier this year, Shafer, 72, of Marysville, who kept a hectic retirement schedule of home remodeling jobs, didn't want to pay attention to the increasing signs of fatigue.

"He never sits, ever," his wife, Barbara Shafer, recalled, which was why the change was so obvious.

"He was always tired," she said. "Too tired. He would sit in the recliner."

One day in September it was all too much. "I've had it," she remembers thinking, reaching for the phone to make the doctor's appointment her husband could never get around to making.

When they heard of the pain and tightness in his chest, instead of an appointment they told her to call 911 and get to the hospital immediately.

Initially concerned Shafer might be having some kind of heart problem, a CAT scan instead showed a mass in his chest. He was later diagnosed with cancer, lodged in the upper part of his right lung and also attached to his esophagus and trachea.

Shafer thought they would simply cut out the cancer. But he was told it was inoperable. Instead he would need six weeks of chemotherapy and 35 sessions of radiation.

"That's when the shock wave came down," he said. "I saw myself at the edge of a big old dark forest. I didn't know how to get from here to there."

Kathy Reiff was one person who helped guide him through that forest. Reiff works as a patient navigator for the Providence Regional Cancer Partnership, a $62.4 million cancer treatment center that opened in Everett earlier this year.

Reiff's wide-ranging responsibilities are intended to help patients through the initial shock of a cancer diagnosis by linking them with the center's resources.

This might be an appointment with a financial counselor to help with insurance and billing questions or talking with a nutritionist, massage therapist or counselor. Sometimes she helps patients, spouses or other family members find more information on a cancer diagnosis. She also has advised breast-cancer patients on where they can get wigs.

"When you first come in here, it's this big, overwhelming place," Shafer said. "There's so much stress with the diagnosis and treatment process."

The patient navigator program at Everett's cancer center is one of 84 of these programs now offered by The American Cancer Society, providing free assistance to patients. The programs are so popular, both with patients and their physicians who see the help they provide, that they now are included by more than 300 cancer programs nationally.

Reiff came with the Shafers for the initial, nearly daylong round of appointments with medical staff to plan his treatment strategy.

"My wife and I were overwhelmed with all the data," Shafer said. Afterward, Shafer, his wife and Reiff all had three slightly different impressions of one of the consultations. With a few follow up phone calls, Reiff resolved the confusion.

Then a health insurance company declined to pay for one of Shafer's chemotherapy drugs, which cost $1,200 each time it was administered. Reiff linked them to a financial counselor who helped resolve the problem.

"You develop a relationship," Shafer said of the role Reiff has played. "I feel very comfortable with her. I can ask any question and ask for her help as needed."

On Wednesday, Shafer reached his first milestone, the completion of his radiation treatments. Although he has two to three more months of chemotherapy, "now it's once every three weeks."

In his frequent trips to the cancer center, he now often recognizes the faces of other patients and sometimes stops to talk.

"You meet a lot of nice people down there," he said. "You hate to see them go through it, but I encourage them. I tell them it will go by fast."

He tells them of his own goals, which include fishing for salmon between now and Christmas. "That's my pleasure in life," he said.

When asked if he has passed on any other advice, he responds with a chuckle.

"You're darned tootin' I have," he said. He makes it something of a personal mission to tell them about the person he calls Kathy the Navigator.

"I'll talk to anyone who will listen about it," he said.

"The most significant part of this program is the assurance that you're not alone. I know she's there. I don't have to worry about the 'What ifs?' "

Herald report Sharon Salyer at 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.