I had never heard
of Gilda’s Club until a month or so ago.
Then my daughter interviewed there for a position
as a sort of “field test” or “pre-internship” in her master’s degree program in
art therapy.
According to Wikipedia,
“Gilda's Club was founded by Joanna Bull, Radner's cancer psychotherapist along
with Radner's widower, Gene Wilder (himself a cancer survivor) and broadcaster
Joel Siegel (who died after a long battle with the disease). The first club
opened in New York City in 1995, after a long fundraising campaign that
included movie trailers featuring Wilder in theaters around the country. The
organization took its former name from Radner's comment that cancer gave her
"membership to an elite club I'd rather not belong to".”
My first
reaction was, “WHERE THE F…WAS THIS PLACE WHEN WE STARTED THE HIDEOUS JOURNEY
THROUGH CANCER?”
Yeah, my
reaction, in my head, really WAS that strong.
The main reason
we didn’t know about it was that it wasn’t here. Gilda’s Club opened here in
2014. We started our journey in March of 2011. We’ll be “celebrating” the fifth
anniversary of that date this year.
I confess, I
still have bitter (VERY) feelings about the lack of support we got at the
beginning. My daughter shared something of the same sense after she started
working at Gilda’s Club a few weeks ago. In fact, she mentioned that this
experience AS a therapist intern might actually BECOME therapeutic for her.
When I was on the GC page, I happened to see this:
Current Social Opportunities Offerings are:
•Coloring Club
•Knits Wits
•Euro Cafe
Social
•Greet & Eat: Male
Caregivers Cooking for Guys Who Can’t Cook – w/ Jack’s Caregiver Coalition
•Open Circle
Choir Performance
I confess I
teared up. What I would have given to have discovered this group five years
ago...it wasn’t there for me, and so I created this blog.
It’s still been
a lonely slog. I KNOW I have nearly 30,000 hits here over the past five years,
yet I still don’t talk to any other “male caregiver” about the journey. Even
though one of the men I work with and chat with on occasion is also a “male
caregiver”. The atmosphere at work isn’t conducive to talking at depth.
And so I
continue on pretty much in silence, except for these blog entries.
Anyway, it’s
GOOD to know that others won’t have to go it alone anymore. Gilda’s Club has twenty-something
affiliates in places like New York, Chicago, Seattle, Palm Desert, Fort
Lauderdale, Davenport, and besides here, another fifteen or so places. If you
want a place near you, click on the link below in Resources. If you’re in the Twin
Cities, email me and I can give you a little bit of info.
I’d like to try
going to GC, but I still haven’t decided if I want to wallow in my bitterness a
little longer or maybe find other men willing to talk about being a caregiver
of a breast cancer survivor. I’ll keep you posted.
Resources: http://www.cancersupportcommunity.org/,
Image: http://wrex.images.worldnow.com/images/23784252_SA.jpg
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