Helping Hands fund lifts up Spokane Valley skin cancer patient

When receiving a cancer diagnosis, the process can be filled with emotional, financial and physical hurdles that may prevent or slow healing.

Fortunately, community generosity helps cancer patients by addressing these barriers to care, so people like Diana Kantai can concentrate on getting better.

In 2022, Kantai was working as a certified nursing assistant supporting older adults at a facility in Spokane when she began experiencing back pain.

At first, she assumed it was due to the nature of her job — until she noticed a lump forming on her hip. She went to the doctor and was referred to MultiCare Cancer and Blood Specialty Center in Spokane for an MRI and a CT scan.

“That’s when the cancer was confirmed — I had squamous cell carcinoma on my right hip,” Kantai remembers.

As the second most common type of non-melanoma skin cancer in the U.S., squamous cell carcinoma affects more than 1 million people like Kantai each year. To treat the cancer, she began six rounds of chemotherapy followed by 30 radiation sessions.

Overcoming obstacles with help from a social worker

At the Cancer Center, Kantai met with a multidisciplinary team of health care professionals who supported her as she navigated treatment, including oncology social worker Theresa Rivera-Trujillo, BSW.

As a social worker, Rivera-Trujillo empowers patients by ensuring their medical needs are being met and assessing how they’re dealing with their diagnosis from an emotional perspective.

As Kantai navigated obstacles — including her femoral artery rupturing in February, impacting her mobility — Rivera-Trujillo connected her to resources through the Helping Hands program.

Made possible by donors, the fund supports costs not covered by insurance, such as rent, transportation needs and prescription copays that may prevent patients from healing, resulting in hospital readmissions.

“Theresa has been very helpful and very communicative — you’d think it’s only my care she’s handling because of the prompt communication,” Kantai shares. “Anytime I send her an email, I get a reply almost instantly. … I’m not able to work right now, and I can’t even walk because of the open wound. She organized for me … to get reprieve from rent and gas, which made me at least get some good night’s rest without worrying that I might lose accommodations.”

Extra support helps ‘lift a very big burden’

In 2022, donations to MultiCare Inland Northwest Foundation’s Helping Hands fund assisted 116 oncology patients, helping with gas and grocery purchases, medical bills and more.

Kantai shares that the extra support has made a significant difference during this journey.

“I don’t think anybody — no matter how strong you are — would be able to go through this journey alone,” she explains. “It’s a very tough situation because you’re thinking of the disease, which is life threatening, and also being able to live, having a roof over your head and basics like food. With all this medication, you need nourishment and all of that’s very expensive. Helping Hands lifts a very big burden from us so what little energy we have left can be concentrated on recovery.”

While Kantai continues treatment, she’s grateful for her care team and the community of donors that have supported her on this difficult journey.

“I don’t have enough words to express my gratitude; all I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you,” she says. “You touched one life in a very big way. If it weren’t for your help, I would have gone into depression. I don’t think I would’ve pulled through the treatment without that help, at least to get the gas and the bills paid. Your help comes a long way to help in the recovery process. May you continue helping, because that help means life or death to some of us.”