What does it mean to fight cancer?

Jana Bell asked herself that question after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in June.

“I can have a positive attitude and still be outgoing and that cancer is still there,” she said. “It’s not going to reduce it.”

While having her blood drawn, a poster caught her eye. The poster’s message was that cancer cannot rob a person of their dignity or optimism.

It was a lightbulb moment.

Bell said she disagreed with the message. Cancer can take all of those things, she realized. Her job was to keep it from doing so. That was what it meant for her to fight.

“We’re fighting to keep those aspects of our lives,” she said. “Fighting for the love of family, and dignity and optimism.”

Bell, a Coeur d’Alene resident and mom of four, underwent a double mastectomy on Aug. 28. Before the surgery, she was apprehensive.

“A part of my body that I’d had for all these years was going to be gone,” she said. “I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around that.”

Days before the surgery was scheduled, she decided to attend a support group organized by Kootenai Health. She wasn’t sure she would have anything in common with the other women in the group, except for cancer. But the women she met bolstered her. She had an immediate feeling of sisterhood.

“I walked out of there and punched my fist in the air and thought, ‘I can do this,’” Bell said.

After the surgery, Bell received messages of support from the group, which helped her through her five-week recovery.

In addition to groups like the one Bell attends, Kootenai Health offers other kinds of support to those battling cancer, including a cancer patient support fund.

The fund helps provide essentials like food and basic living expenses, medication and even gas vouchers for Kootenai Clinic Cancer Services patients undergoing cancer treatments.

“Often people going through cancer can’t work, or they’re taking a lot of time off work,” said Kootenai Health Foundation manager Melanie Lambrecht. “It’s a financial hardship, so the cancer patient support program is here for them.”

Social workers work closely with medical staff to identify patients who might be in need of financial help, then work with those patients to determine their eligibility.

“Cancer is one of those things that everyone is touched by at one point in their lives,” Lambrecht said. “You never know when it’s going to be you or your family member.”

The program assists around 300 patients each year. Patients with any kind of cancer diagnosis are eligible, so long as they meet certain requirements, which are designed with as few hurdles as possible.

Community outreach coordinator Tolli Willhite said that, for example, patients don’t have to provide their most recent tax return, because a sudden cancer diagnosis can completely change a family’s finances.

“Their financial situation is going to look different now than it did when they filed their taxes, so we look at their financials as it is today,” she said.

Patients often receive help the same day they meet with a social worker.

“They’ve got needs that need to be addressed in a timely manner,” Willhite said.

Financial assistance provided by the support fund makes it easier for patients to handle daily expenses and access health care. For example, Willhite said, patients who live in rural areas must travel far for their treatment, sometimes as often as five days a week for six weeks at a time. The cost of gas quickly adds up — but the patient support fund can help offset those costs.

The program is funded through grants and donations. Willhite said funds stay local and benefit area residents seeking care close to home.

“Dollars that are donated in our community stay in our community,” she said. “They help our neighbors. They help our coworkers. They help our family members.”

These days, Bell said she’s doing well. She didn’t need to have any lymph nodes removed, and she’ll soon begin physical therapy to improve her range of motion and “get strong again.”

She’s cancer free.

“I’m just very fortunate, more so than a lot of people,” she said.

She’s also attending her support group again. She encourages other people who’ve been diagnosed with cancer to do the same.

“I just came out a different person,” she said.

Bell said she wants other cancer patients to give themselves permission to feel whatever complicated emotions come to them during their journey.

“It’s OK to have a whole gamut of feelings that you don’t expect,” she said. “It’s OK to cry and to be sad.”

Though her battle is over, Bell still remembers what she fought for.

“I’m fighting to still have a really good life,” she said, “knowing that fight is going to make it possible.”