My Lifeline, My Friend, My Cancer Nurse

Article

By Eleanor Kim Waldrup

My oncology nurse, Wyndelon 'Nikki' Simmons, is my lifeline of communication and support in all aspects. I also have one of the best oncology doctors, Dr. Barbara Craft, at University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.

Your team becomes your lifeline, and over my 10-year journey (invasive ductal carcinoma, metastatic breast carcinoma) we have developed a strong friendship.

During this rollercoaster ride of the past three years, there has been a flare-up of cancer every eight to 10 months in my back, and I always reach out to Nikki for guidance. The delicate procedure of needle ablations in the vertebrae as the cancer is removed is extremely painful afterward. Nikki takes care of what is needed.

Nurse Nikki has been my go-to between Dr. Craft and Dr. Majid Khan, my interventional radiology physician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who performs my microwave ablations. Nikki ensures that all procedure documentation and MRI and PET scans are sent to Dr. Khan in order for appointments to be set in a timely manner because cancer does not wait.

Time and time again, Nikki’s support and confidence helped me press forward in situations I didn’t feel comfortable in. She always makes sure I have what I need and checks afterward to see if I need anything else. All patients with cancer know we have special nurse angels in our lives.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.

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For patients with cancer, the ongoing chemotherapy shortage may cause some anxiety as they wonder how they will receive their drugs. However, measuring drugs “down to the minutiae of the milligrams” helped patients receive the drugs they needed, said Alison Tray. Tray is an advanced oncology certified nurse practitioner and current vice president of ambulatory operations at Rutgers Cancer Institute in New Jersey. If patients are concerned about getting their cancer drugs, Tray noted that having “an open conversation” between patients and providers is key. “As a provider and a nurse myself, having that conversation, that reassurance and sharing the information is a two-way conversation,” she said. “So just knowing that we're taking care of you, we're going to make sure that you receive the care that you need is the key takeaway.” In June 2023, many patients were unable to receive certain chemotherapy drugs, such as carboplatin and cisplatin because of an ongoing shortage. By October 2023, experts saw an improvement, although the “ongoing crisis” remained. READ MORE: Patients With Lung Cancer Face Unmet Needs During Drug Shortages “We’re really proud of the work that we could do and achieve that through a critical drug shortage,” Tray said. “None of our patients missed a dose of chemotherapy and we were able to provide that for them.” Tray sat down with CURE® during the 49th Annual Oncology Nursing Society Annual Congress to discuss the ongoing chemo shortage and how patients and care teams approached these challenges. Transcript: Particularly at Hartford HealthCare, when we established this infrastructure, our goal was to make sure that every patient would get the treatment that they need and require, utilizing the data that we have from ASCO guidelines to ensure that we're getting the optimal high-quality standard of care in a timely fashion that we didn't have to delay therapies. So, we were able to do that by going down to the minutiae of the milligrams on hand, particularly when we had a lot of critical drug shortages. So it was really creating that process to really ensure that every patient would get the treatment that they needed. For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.
Yuliya P.L Linhares, MD, an expert on CLL
Yuliya P.L Linhares, MD, and Josie Montegaard, MSN, AGPCNP-BC, experts on CLL
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