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DURHAM -- In August 2003, Ted and Wana Kaye Rhodes walked into the Duke Hospital Cancer Clinic.
Wana Kaye Rhodes walked in with X-rays under her arm and a diagnosis of neuroendocrine carcinoma. Both she and her husband walked in, he remembered recently, "confused, frightened, conflicted. Desperate."
As they sat down in a waiting room, "a lady with a very warm smile, with compassion in her heart," came over, Rhodes recalled. "From that point on, every experience, every contact, was always a caring, positive experience. When you're in a situation like that, there's no way to put it in proper words what that means."
The lady was a volunteer for the Duke Cancer Patient Support Program. The program offers both emotional and practical support from the time of diagnosis through treatment, recovery and survival, and also through the circumstances surrounding end of life.
It offers, among other services, individual, couple and family counseling; support groups; self-image resources and workshops; and educational resources.
Wana Kaye Rhodes died three years ago, at the age of 57. But her husband hasn't forgotten what the Duke Cancer Patient Support Program meant to both of them -- and the program hasn't forgotten what Rhodes has meant to it.
Rhodes was honored by the program last night with the Light of Hope Award for "work in helping people overcome the challenges of cancer." The ceremony was part of the annual ceremonial lighting of the Nancy Weaver Emerson Tree of Hope in the program's Garden of Tranquility,
The award singled out Rhodes for the annual charity golf tournament he created and chairs in Pinehurst -- which has earned $18,000 so far for the program -- and for the endowment, in his wife's name, that he and his family have created to help support DCPSP.
"The program, with the volunteers on the floor, offers a very unique, caring, compassionate service," Rhodes said. "When you come in with cancer on your mind, and you don't even know where you need to be, well, it's very hard to put into words what they did for us. But it means so much to me. It meant so much to Wana Kaye."
For two years and seven months, the Pinehurst couple came to the cancer clinic, sometimes three and four times a week. "And every day," Rhodes recalled, "the volunteers helped to ease the fear."
For more information about the Duke Duke Cancer Patient Support Program, call (919) 684-4497 or e-mail cancersupport@duke.edu.
