Breast cancer program helps people cope with disease



Hotline volunteer Catherine McVeigh

Hotline volunteer Catherine McVeigh

It will be nearly 40 years of service come 2020 for the Adelphi University Breast Cancer Hotline and Support Program. The program received $383,000 in state funding this year to help keep all of its volunteers and services going strong.

“We are extremely grateful for the funding we received from (State) Senator Todd Kaminsky and Senator (Kevin) Thomas, to keep all of our different programs going,” said Hillary Rutter, executive director of the program. “This service is so vital for people who are newly diagnosed to let them call in and speak to someone who once stood in their shoes. It is very reassuring to them.”

The hotline lets people call in to speak to volunteers who are survivors of breast cancer and lets them share their stories. The Breast Cancer Program offers an abundance of support groups, educational programs, counseling services and a partnership with Sisters United in Health, for those who are uninsured and undocumented.

Rutter said that the program started in 1980, with only one mastectomy support group being offered at the time.

“We kind of started from scratch,” said Rutter. “We came up with the concept of a woman to woman hotline and the whole thing kind of grew from there,”

The hotline usually has anywhere up to 75 volunteers who work on a rotating basis at an on-site room at the university. Some of the volunteers even take calls from their homes.

Chris Amatulli, a breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed with an invasive carcinoma in 2007 after a routine mammogram, has been a volunteer on the hotline for over ten years.

“When I was first diagnosed, my doctor’s office gave me the number for the hotline and they were very helpful and supportive,” said Amatulli. “I went through the support group program and ended up in training for the hotline. I’ve been doing this on a rotating basis for over ten years.”

She said that there is one volunteer in the room who answers incoming calls from people and every two hours another volunteer takes their place.

“We’re there to give emotional support and talk about our experiences and how it might relate to what the person is going through. We might even discuss things like getting a second opinion from another doctor.”

She said what the hotline doesn’t do is offer medical advice to people who recommend different doctors.

When callers call in, they can be provided with a ‘specialty list’ which is basically a type of matching program. This enables them to speak to a volunteer who has had a similar experience or gone through a similar situation whether it be effects from chemotherapy or mastectomy results.

“Everybody thinks a cancer diagnosis is a death sentence, but it’s not,” said Amatulli. “There are a lot of people out there who are living with and battling this disease. There are those like myself who have been cancer free for nearly twelve years.”

To find out more information on the Breast Cancer Hotline and Support Program, you can visit their website at breast-cancer.adelphi.edu.

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