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Powerful Help

You’ve run out of money. You have no place to go. And you are very, very sick. Where do you turn for help? Patient advocates will fight for your rights while you fight for your life.

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What’s more difficult: Getting the diagnosis or getting healthy? Anyone who has battled a chronic or life-threatening illness knows the frustration of dealing with the healthcare system.

There is help. Patient advocates—both free services and paid companies—help patients and their families with treatment options, emotional support, public programs and insurance issues.

For advocates, illnesses generally fall into two categories: life-threatening diseases such as cancer and long-term conditions like Alzheimer’s and mental illness. The categories represent different needs for patients and their families, such as Kay Skinner, who, without Ikor, a professional advocate company, would not have been able to care for her sister-in-law, who suffers from psychiatric disorders.

But, first, the story of two people who did not have patient advocates.

Joe and Christine Bove married in 2004 , 40 years after they graduated from Conrad High School in Wilmington. They weren’t high school sweethearts, just friends. But after Christine was divorced from her first husband, a friend reintroduced her to Joe. He immediately remembered her as “the cheerleader with blonde hair.” It was love at 101st sight.

But before they were married, Christine was diagnosed with uterine cancer. In 2003, Christine, then 49, was told by her gynecologist that menopause was to blame for her heavy bleeding and pain. The doctor later changed the diagnosis to uterine cancer and told Christine she needed a hysterectomy. She had the procedure.

Yet the cancer remained. Doctors told Christine radiation was the correct treatment, and it shrunk the tumor. But two years later, the tumor returned. In 2005 doctors gave Christine more radiation and drugs to regulate her hormones. “We asked the doctors if there was another treatment,” Joe says. “What about chemotherapy? Or anything else? They told us that radiation was the only option.”

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