How Case Management Helped Me Overcome a Health-Related Challenge
by Terry Tamraz

To be an effective case manager, assessment, planning, facilitating and advocating for the client is imperative. Little did I know that just three to four years into my case management career, I would be utilizing all of these case management skills for myself!

In spring 2000, my father-in-law was diagnosed with a sarcoma of the left thigh. Two weeks later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was quite devastating! I was a body-builder and in great physical shape. Now I was faced with not only being the nursing case manager for my father-in-law but also for myself. Amongst my own appointments with the oncologist, surgeon, plastic surgeon and the hospital, I was attending numerous appointments and surgeries for my father-in-law.

In late summer 2000, it was my turn for surgery. I underwent a modified mastectomy. One month later, a lymph node dissection was completed. On my second wedding anniversary to my husband, we were told the cancer had spread to five of the twenty lymph nodes. We were devastated! I was going to have the “pleasure” of chemotherapy and radiation. My worst nightmare since nursing school was about to come true ? Adriamycin, “the red devil.” I was hospitalized following the first four chemotherapy treatments due to a severe reaction to the Adriamycin. I was struck with severe reactions to Taxol also; however, I survived. Little did I know that my case management skills were really going to be put to the test now!

Chemotherapy was administered every three weeks. I had five days between treatments that I actually began to feel like a human being again. My husband’s carpal tunnel syndrome had resurfaced; he was being faced with a second surgery. My older son had torn the posterior cruciate ligament of his knee and needed surgery also.

I counted ahead for the dates of my upcoming chemotherapy dates (and prayed these dates wouldn’t change due to low blood counts). I figured out the weeks I would become “alive” following chemotherapy. I donned on my stocking hat, painted on some eyebrows, applied my makeup, and ventured into physicians’ offices with my family members. I planned for my husband to have his appointments and surgery one month, and my son’s appointments and surgery the following month. This way, I would be able to take them to and from surgery, and be their caretaker immediately following surgery. It worked and all went smoothly!

Following my son’s surgery, I completed my final chemotherapy treatment and got to look forward to radiation. Halfway through radiation, I got released to light duty work. Three surgeries later, I returned to work full time as a medical field case manager. I loved being back to work and could draw on my experience to help others through the challenges of their injuries.

Without case management experience, coordinating, planning, assessing situations and meeting the needs of all of my family members would have been more difficult.