1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
"If you want your pep talks in writing, I'm your woman" Journalist involved: Sue Schroder
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Sunday Dec. 5, 2010
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
A friend tells you he or she has just been diagnosed with cancer. What do you say? This is a letter of advice from one cancer survivor to future cancer survivors. Significant findings: Based on the number of people who've told me they are sending this on to someone or saving it for when they need, it, people are hungry for this kind of information to help someone else.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
No documents, data, Internet resources or FOI requests were used in preparation of this entry. This entry is a column based on my personal experience of living with a cancer called follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
An email from a friend who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer was the triggering human resource; my own experience going through the deer-in-the-headlights phase of cancer diagnosis, decisions about treatment and treatment itself make up the remainder.
6. Results (if any).
Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Mi., will reprint one column and an online to it and distribute it to all those attending a 2-day education program for patients and their families dealing with cancer. They had asked permission from The Grand Rapids Press to reprint and distribute them all. The Grand Rapids Clinical Oncology Program will reprint a column and an online link and distribute them to patients through clinical trial research nurses. The community cancer research and education program offers local access to more than 150 national cancer prevention and treatment clinical trials. It is made up of more than 300 West and Northern Lower Michigan physicians and other health care providers in 39 counties and is funded through the National Cancer Institute and its member hospitals and affiliates. For me, the most rewarding results come through responses from others with cancer, or their families. My favorite in connection with this entry came in an email from a woman who was diagnosed with my kind of cancer almost a year to the date from when I was. She was in the well-remembered numbness of diagnosis and trying to make sense of treatment options. I responded to her with what became the column that is this entry.
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
No.
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Be honest: Be real. Writing a column on cancer from the perspective of a long-time journalist means being uncomfortably personal at times, but such a column is both a tremendous opportunity and responsibility. As a journalist and someone with cancer, you have the opportunity, the skills and experience – professional and personal – to go into both the health care bureaucracy and the world of cancer in a way few others can. You can go where other patients often can't or don't … and help them learn they can do it too. You also can help those who love and support them better understand what they_re going through: You have a unique opportunity to make a difference in readers' lives.