Giving a Fighting Chance

By Carissa Katz

Carissa Katz “People find it very welcoming, very comforting,” Heather Matthews, Fighting Chance’s cancer information specialist, said of the group’s new office on Hampton Street in Sag Harbor.

(06/14/2007)    When Duncan Darrow founded Fighting Chance five years ago, his goal was to help people with cancer navigate the confusing mass of information they faced after a diagnosis. Since then, Fighting Chance has matured into an organization that not only explains the resources available to people with cancer, but is itself a resource.

    With a staff of three and new, larger offices that opened earlier this year on Hampton Road in Sag Harbor, Fighting Chance is able to offer people with cancer and their families some of the services it felt were missing elsewhere, including professional counseling. With more space, it can also accommodate support group meetings, a lending library of cancer literature, and a room where individuals, couples, or families can watch DVDs about the diseases they are dealing with.

    “People find it very welcoming, very comforting,” said Heather Matthews, the group’s cancer information specialist. “We can hold families now; before, a couple would come in and one would have to leave.”

    Fighting Chance will give tours of its offices, at 112 Hampton Street, after a benefit ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday at 3 p.m. Visitors will be welcomed with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Tickets are $50, or $250 for benefactors.

    Fighting Chance started out as a sort of clearinghouse for cancer-related information. Its first major effort was to compile a booklet it called “Coping With Cancer on the East End: A Practical Resource Guide.” Packed with frequently asked questions and answers, names and phone numbers, and advice, it was “the yellow pages for all of the cancer care resources relevant to people on the East End,” Mr. Darrow said. Having been through his mother’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, Mr. Darrow knew how difficult it could be to track down pertinent information in the midst of all the tests and visits to the doctor. The latest edition should be out this week.

    The booklet was meant to make the battle a little easier. Gathering the information also helped Fighting Chance see the gaps in the cancer care system. Bit by bit, Fighting Chance expanded its scope in an attempt to fill some of those gaps. Its first year, it hired Jessica Berlin as its director of Internet outreach. Ms. Berlin, who earned her master’s in social work from Columbia University, introduced e-counseling to Fighting Chance’s Web site, www.fightingchance.org. “That led to an explosion of our Web site,” Mr. Darrow said. “We routinely get, per month, 5,000 visitors.” Ms. Berlin answers e-mails from local visitors to the Web site and refers others to appropriate resources in their communities.

    In 2005, the organization hired Karrie Zampini Robinson, an oncology social worker who had been at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for 16 years. Finding her, Mr. Darrow said, “was really a miracle.”

    Ms. Robinson’s experience allowed Fighting Chance to begin offering professional one-on-one and group counseling to people with cancer. “It was the first Fighting Chance program of our own to fill a gap,” Mr. Darrow said. Ms. Robinson is available for counseling four days a week. She has set up support groups at Southampton Hospital and now can do the same at Fighting Chance’s larger offices on Hampton Street.

    The same year, the group began searching for a full-time secretary, but found much more than that in Ms. Matthews. She had also worked at Sloan-Kettering and had staffed the East Coast phone bank for the National Cancer Institute for two years.

    In addition to the counseling and resource services Fighting Chance provides at it offices, the organization also sponsors an annual symposium on cancer called “A Day of Hope.” The third symposium is planned for this fall.

    “We’ve learned a Fighting Chance way of treatment,” Mr. Darrow said. “Your day at Fighting Chance now is almost like a spa experience. You come in and tell us what type of cancer you have and we’ll show you a tape on a 32-inch TV. You can watch it in a room alone or with family or friends. That gives you a basic understanding of your disease. Then you spend about an hour with Karrie.” People can get help dealing with their insurance companies and, if they cannot afford medications, are given the “compassionate care” numbers at pharmaceutical companies.

    “People are pretty scared when they come in here, so we try to make them feel warm and soothed,” Ms. Matthews said last week. “People use us at different stages in their illness. It depends on the person and what they need. We just try to make ourselves available.”

    “The charge for all of that is zero dollars,” Mr. Darrow said.