How I Knew I Could Help Fight Cancer

The story behind the first app providing personalized care to breast cancer patients and their friends and family.

Cancer. Everyone is afraid of it. A cancer diagnosis fills a person with fear, doubt and anger. Family and friends don’t know how to respond or react to the news of a cancer diagnosis.

The American Cancer Society says that the lifetime probability of a man living in the US getting some type of cancer is 1 in 2. The life time probability of a woman, 1 in 3.

Statistics are numbers, but cancer is personal. It doesn’t care about age, gender or race — how rich or poor.

Outside my work environment I’ve known over 12 people that have had cancer. Lung, bone, ovarian, blood, breast, prostate — just about everything you can think of. Relatives, close and far, as well as friends.

Apart from dealing with the implications of their diagnosis, all of these people were frustrated. Not because they were sick or fearful of death. Or fearful for the future of the families. Their frustration grew from a desire, a passion, to understand their diagnosis, treatment plan, to understand what leading edge technology is best to treat them. A common theme is “I just want to understand what is happening to me, and I want more control on how my illness is managed”.

Often, the care team doesn’t have the time, or the information available to them. This frustrates them as well. The patient is often overwhelmed following a visit to the surgeon or medical oncologist, and only a small fraction of what they are told is retained.

So, to the internet they go. Google and other search engines have become the cancer patients “go to” place to find content. But this creates another problem. A search for “Breast Cancer” on Google returns 120 million results. A search for “Breast Cancer Treatment” returns 102 million results.

The patient will find blogs, scientific articles, out of date information, ads for new treatments (that may not be relevant for the patient), support groups and more. As a result, there is often more confusion.

Talking to someone else who has been through their cancer journey can help. But, that was their journey, and one thing that recent science has taught us is that no two cancers are the same.

While some of the 12 friends / family members had their cancer, I was still working in the clinical laboratory. I enjoyed being able to directly participate in the healing process of the patient. Working with the clinical team to solve a patient’s clinical problem can be extraordinarily rewarding. But when we lost a battle, I often felt that I’d lost a friend. I particularly remember a 23 year old Navy man that lost his fight with Leukemia.

As my career progressed, thankfully onward and upward, I moved away from the healing process. I was a business man, flying around the world doing the things that business people do.

Early in 2013 I was fortunate to meet a group of individuals from the “National Breast Cancer Foundation” and “Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon” that have dedicated their lives to helping the less fortunate prevent and deal with cancer (and in the case of “Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon”, HIV/AIDS as well). Theirs was truly a dedication to the service of others. Their stories were, for me, truly inspirational.

I left that meeting to head to the airport for a flight to Brussels and after that meeting began some genuine inward reflection. I’d come so far in my career and been successful. But the people I’d just met with — wow — they were doing something to make a difference in the lives of other people.

Within two months I had left my secure job and started Willowglade Technologies. In thinking about the 120 million breast cancer search results, I felt there had to be a way to provide information to a cancer patient that was specific to them — their diagnosis, treatment plan and emotional issues. In this way I could get back to helping people and use the skills I’d attained throughout my career.

Recently we released our first “Personalized Patient Experience” app to the iTunes store, “My Breast Cancer Journey,” along with the companion app “Cancer Journey Supporter.”

“My Breast Cancer Journey” (download here) provides educational content to breast cancer patients that is personalized to the individuals’ diagnosis, treatment, clinical and emotional status. The content is updated throughout the journey so that the patient has access to the right content at the right time.

Patients can also engage with invited friends and family to create a private support network, where the patient can share their personalized educational content, discuss the content, have one on one conversations and engage in group discussions. Public support networks are also available in the app.

Patients can also record and graph medical tests, and record non-cancer conditions that allow the creation of a comprehensive clinical picture of the patient.

“Cancer Journey Supporter” is a companion app for other Cancer Journey Apps. Once a supporter receives an invitation from a cancer patient using the Cancer Journey App, (My Breast Cancer Journey for example) this app allows the supporter to review educational content that has been shared with them. They can also participate in on-line conversations about the content with the patient and other supporters invited to review the content.

Supporters can also participate in one on one conversations with the patient, as well as group conversations. Using this app, the Cancer Supporter can better understand and better support the cancer journey of a loved one diagnosed with cancer.

These two apps are the first of a series of apps that we have planned. In the planning stages are apps for Prostate, Lung, Colon and Cervical cancers. You can follow our progress here.

I hope that our hard work and persistence reaches as many patients, friends, family members and supporters as possible. I truly believe that our solutions will help with the understanding of the clinical and emotional aspects of a cancer journey.