Navigating a Cancer Diagnosis and Advocating for Yourself
November 9, 7:00pm - 8:15pm
Zoom Audio/Video (Login Information in Registration Confirmation)
This session
will focus on teaching you how to advocate for yourself in the healthcare system. You'll learn how to initiate the process of care, the kind of support that will maximize your care, how best to communicate with care providers, and care coordination.
Presenters will discuss discernment and how to align your care to the recommended treatment protocol.
Co-presenter Antra Boyd will share her personal story of navigating ovarian cancer twice and what this looked like from an advocacy standpoint.
About the Presenters:
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Antra Boyd, RN, MSN, BSN, IRNPA, CNOR Bio:
After graduating from nursing school in 1996, Antra served in the U.S. Navy for six years. Her clinical specialty is surgical nursing. After obtaining her masters degree in nursing and with twenty years in the operating room, Antra left clinical nursing and started Connected Care Patient Advocates LLC, which allows her to walk hand in hand with someone experiencing a medical crisis, helping them navigate the healthcare system. Antra is passionate about collaboration and connection and this has fueled her desire to support people on their journey to health and wellness. She sees her role as both an RN with clinical expertise and as a health coach. In 2018, Antra was diagnosed with a very rare ovarian cancer. She thought she had done everything right; she ate well, exercised, never got sick with a cold, and felt she was generally a happy person. Having cancer helped her see so many things, but most importantly it helped her see that beyond having an ill body, we are so much more. She found so much peace and freedom in knowing that no matter what happened to her physical body, she was always going to be ok. In 2021, she was diagnosed, again, with the same ovarian cancer and now a year out from this new diagnosis, her understanding of “Why cancer? Why me?” has helped her find her way back to herself.
Ciera Dube, RN, BSN, IRNPA, CNOR Bio:
In high-school Ciera Dube took one of those quizzes that tell you what you already know about yourself, specifically about: ‘risk aversion,’ and she won the gold medal. Like, if risk aversion was on that allergy scratch-test thingy? Someone would’ve needed to call 9-1-1 because Ciera’s tongue instantly swelled-up. But as John Shedd said (important dude from the 1920s that people quote to prove they read): “A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.” Some people wait for their ship to come in... the world was just waiting for Ciera to leave port. The branches of trees with strong roots are able ‘take risks,’ and spread far. Ciera’s faith in God nurtured her ‘roots,’ and gave her the courage to not only take risks, but also made her a formidable opponent to injustice. So at the ripe old age of 30, discouraged by screaming surgeons, and bewildered patients - vulnerable to a broken system that stymied her efforts to improve their experience and outcomes, she said “Nuts to this!”, and started her own business as an RN patient advocate. (Proving that the test she took in high school was meant for acorns, not Oak Trees.)
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