Cancer survivor thanks Halifax-based support centre

The Lodge that Gives downtown Halifax provides refuge and support for patients battling a cancer diagnosis.

Cindy Goguen was initially uncertain if she wanted to go to the Lodge That Gives, a cancer support centre near the IWK in Halifax.

“At first, I didn’t think I would want to go to it,” Cindy Goguen said. “I didn’t know if I’d want to be sick around other people and not feeling good around other people, because right now you’re trying to be strong for your family, you’re trying to be strong for yourself.

“And it’s, like, now I’m going to go with people I don’t know and I’m going to have to feel like I need to be strong with them.”

Goguen was diagnosed with an invasive ductal carcinoma, a form of breast cancer.

“You go through all the things,” she said. “First the emotional, the fear, the stress, the overwhelm. Anybody that gets that C-word, whether it’s yourself or your family members, you get that, it’s like a dread, that overwhelming dread.”

After surgery and chemotherapy, Goguen had to undergo radiation. The Lodge That Gives was offered as a solution to save her time and money when dealing with treatment.

“Once I was done the chemo, I wasn’t getting any more money,” she explained of the medical leave pay she had been receiving from work. “It’s kind of, like, do I continue on with the radiation or do I just go back to work because you’re kind of stuck in that fear of now I have no money of everything else you’re going through.”

She was skeptical about being around strangers in the Lodge until she walked inside.

“On the outside it looks like just a building, but you go inside, and it changes everything,” said Goguen.

“When they’re staying with us, everybody who’s here has their own private room,” explained Carol-Ann Oster, senior manager at the Lodge. “We offer free meals, lots of activities and just a warm, inviting, comfortable space for people to come so that they can focus on treatment without having to worry about all the things like the financial cost of travel and accommodation.”

“This feeling that you get as soon as you walk in, there’s a lady that’s right there and you just feel the aura of the place, and it just makes you feel so comfortable, so welcome,” said Goguen. “You just had this overwhelming sense of just a relief. It’s like this place of safety and you feel like home. You feel like you’re walking into your own home, and the facility has anything and everything you could ever want on. You’ve got the staff that are supportive.”

“That’s the first point of contact they have is the people who work here, and those relationships build over time,” said Oster. “And a lot of people leave here lifelong friends, which is great to see.”

Even more than the financial benefits, the emotional ones are what make this experience unique.

“People don’t want to burden the family or their loved ones with what they’re going through,” said Oster. “And a lot of times you also hear it from the other way, where people who are trying to be therefore the person who has cancer. They’re worried about saying the wrong thing or they don’t know how to react. Sometimes people just shy away from having those conversations because they don’t know what to do.

“But here, people are going through the same sort of experience. And it’s new for most people, of course. So, they do find that connection and they can be a little bit more open.”

“You get your health back because you feel that you’ve got this space that helps you, like the people that can help you emotionally, mentally,” said Goguen. “When you go in there, I think you get a lot of different emotions going through the body, you’re angry at your situation, you’re frustrated, you feel out of control, you’re upset, you’re feeling bad for your family.

“You’re feeling bad for yourself. You have all of these different emotions that you’re running through, and you go in there and it’s almost like you can just let all that go. You focus on yourself. You focus on your health. And you can look at what everybody else is kind of going through and think, ‘You know what, I got this.’”

For Goguen, the Lodge was the difference between continuing to fight and giving up.

“I know I wouldn’t have gotten my radiation done without this place,” she said. “I wouldn’t have probably done it. So that means to me that because of facilities like this, they helped me be able to finish and go through all my treatment. And I’m still here.”

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