Pharmacy

Support Options at the Cancer Care Center at Central Maine Medical Center 

Our oncology nurses will be with you throughout treatment. They work closely with patients, their family and with the oncologists. They have an overview of your treatment, and they are also there to provide direct care.

Our oncology Nurse Navigators help patients and their families learn what other non-medical resources are available. Our navigators can also help you find other community resources that offer comfort and assistance.

Our oncology social workers can assist you in balancing treatment plans with the needs of everyday life.

We also provide access to the Arbor House, a free residential space on the CMMC campus. This spacious house provides comfort and privacy to fit the needs of you and your loved ones while undergoing treatments.

Fertility & Cancer

If you’re a woman of childbearing age who’s been diagnosed with cancer, you probably have questions about keeping your reproductive system healthy while undergoing treatment.

Whose Fertility Is Affected by Cancer and Treatments? There is no blanket answer to which patients might experience side effects from cancer treatment, especially when the side effect could be infertility. The answer will depend on a number of factors:

• Your “baseline fertility”—that is, are you fertile now?
• Your age
• Your type of cancer
• The type of treatment, dosage, and length of treatment
• Other health factors

How Can Your Reproductive System Be Affected by Cancer Treatments? The fact is, cancer is a powerful disease, and we need powerful weapons to fight it. Sometimes those weapons cause weaken us for a while, or even have lasting effects. They’re not pleasant to think about, but if you know the possibilities ahead of time, you’ll be better positioned to prevent them:

• Chemotherapy can cause your ovaries to stop releasing eggs and estrogen. This can be a temporary effect, or it can persist indefinitely.
• Radiation aimed near your abdomen, pelvis or spine can damage nearby organs. Depending on which organs are involved, your reproductive health could be disturbed.
• Surgery near your reproductive organs can cause scarring, which can affect your fertility indirectly.
• Hormone therapy can disrupt your menstrual cycle, thereby complicating fertility.
• Bone marrow transplants or stem cell transplants, in addition to being physically grueling procedures, can require high doses of chemotherapy or radiation and impact your reproductive system.

Your Options for Cancer Treatments and Fertility: When you undergo cancer therapy, you’ll have a long list of options for preserving your reproductive health, ranging from minimally invasive to high-tech, innovative procedures.  Your options might include:

• Sperm and egg freezing
• Embryo freezing
• Tissue freezing
• Medications
• Ovarian transposition, a relatively new process that involves moving your ovaries “out of the way” of radiation’s rays, and reduces your ovaries’ exposure to the radiation.

Infertility is a common side effect of cancer treatments, but you have options for keeping your reproductive system healthy. The fertility specialists at the MGH Clinic for Reproductive Health and Cancer will work with your Central Maine oncology team and keep you informed of all your options, all the time you’re in our care.

Financial Counseling

When you get a cancer diagnosis, the last thing you need is to worry about money. Controlling your stress level is important to managing your illness, and the financial counselors at CMH are here to help you figure out how you will pay your bills, when you can return to work and other issues that can affect your recovery.

How a Financial Counselor Can Help You: Whether you’re a high-earning CEO or work for minimum wage, you can benefit from talking with a financial counselor. The costs of being treated for a serious illness soar higher every year, and a financial counselor can point you to resources or plans you may not be aware of.

• The counselor will review your insurance policies and explain anything you don’t understand about your coverage and how it works.
• Financial counselors know the financial aid landscape and can tell you what’s available to you, including nonprofit and public funding, and how to apply for it.
• You may be eligible for help with medications, including discounts from manufacturers.
• The counselor can suggest options to help with transportation costs for appointments.
• Your financial counselor will review your treatment plan and tell you what to expect regarding costs and options for paying those bills.
• There’s a phrase for the financial stress that often accompanies a cancer diagnosis: financial toxicity—money pressure that aggravates your sickness. Your counselor will guide you through every financial concern and make sure you are never so overwhelmed with money issues that your anxiety gets in the way of your recovery.

Your Counselor Can Help with Billing Issues, Too: Does anyone really understand their hospital and other medical bills? The financial counselor can help you manage your bills.

Money or Not, Trust Your Recovery to Us: CMH is committed to treating every person who needs medical care, regardless of illness or ability to pay for treatment. If your income is below Maine Free Care income levels, you can be treated free of charge at CMMC, Bridgton Hospital or Rumford Hospital. If you have questions about finances, call 888-869-3101.

Genetic Counseling

A lot of conditions run in the family. Maybe your parents, aunts and uncles complain of osteoporosis, while you have friends whose relatives are prone to heart disease or dementia. One disease that’s notorious for having a genetic component is cancer. If you belong to the cancer family, you might consider genetic counseling to learn your cancer risk and how you might prevent getting it.

Which Cancers Are Hereditary? Those that do have a genetic component include:

• Breast cancer
• Gynecological cancers—ovarian, uterine and fallopian tube
• Gastrointestinal cancers—colon, rectal, pancreatic and gastric
• Genitourinary—kidney
• Endocrine—thyroid, pituitary and adrenal
• Skin—melanoma

Who Should Go for Genetic Counseling? The purpose of genetic assessment and counseling is to identify people who may have a high risk of developing certain cancers and help them prevent the disease. We strongly recommend genetic counseling if any of the following apply:

• You’ve been diagnosed with more than one type of cancer
• Several of your family members on one side of the family have had cancer
• You’re of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry with breast, ovarian, colon or pancreatic cancer
• You’ve had more than one childhood cancer, such as leukemia or sarcoma
• One of your family members has a known gene mutation like BRCA or cancer predisposition syndrome
• You were diagnosed with cancer at an earlier than usual age for that type of cancer
• You were diagnosed with breast, colorectal or endometrial cancer at age 50 or younger
• You’ve had a rare cancer diagnosis, such as male breast cancer, at any age.

When you arrive for your appointment, our specialists will review your medical history (and your family’s), assess and discuss your cancer risk, benefits and limitations of genetic testing and arrange testing if appropriate. They may refer you to support groups or research studies.

How You’ll Benefit from Genetic Testing: Genetic counseling and testing might actually improve your health because:

• Testing might identify a cause of cancer
• It could identify children or siblings who are at higher-than-normal risk of developing cancer, and might also benefit from screening
• Testing sometimes finds no increased risk of cancer
• If you are at risk, your counselor will develop an individual cancer screening schedule
• Genetic testing can help you decide whether to undergo surgery to lower your risk
• Test results could indicate a change in your current cancer treatment plan.

We offer on-site genetic counseling for breast cancer patients

Nurse Navigators

An oncology nurse navigator is a professional registered nurse with oncology specific clinical knowledge, who offers individualized assistance to patients, families, and caregivers to help overcome healthcare system barriers.

How Your Nurse Navigator Can Help You: Your Nurse Navigator is beside you on your journey back to health, making sure you know you’re not alone. Our Navigators are specially trained oncology-certified nurses who will:

• Inform and guide you through your specific cancer and treatment choices
• Help you coordinate and streamline your care
• Research any available clinical trials or second opinions you might request
• Identify any physical, emotional, spiritual, psychosocial and financial concerns you might have, and work with you to resolve those issues
• Connect you with social workers, pastoral care, financial counseling and other supporters who will be there to help you through your treatment and recovery.

Nutritional Support

Eating and Cancer Treatment: Treatment impairs more than just your appetite and tasting abilities. Gastrointestinal problems are a common outcome of chemotherapy, and it’s no surprise that nausea and pain make anyone turn away from food. Central Maine’s dietitians will help you to restore your digestive health and prevent malnutrition. Once you’re able to eat again, they’ll work with you to plan meals that not only will meet your nutritional needs, they’ll also be made of foods you enjoy. Together you’ll set daily calorie and nutrition goals, and they will work with your oncology team to identify solutions at every stage of your treatment. Some therapies affect your sense of taste, while others might curb your appetite. Yet, good nutrition is never more important to your health than when you’re fighting cancer. When you’re nourish, you’ll heal faster, and Central Maine’s nutritionists can help make that happen even when you feel lousy.

Palliative Care

Palliative care is a specialized care that uses a team approach to improve the quality of life of a patient who is seriously ill. Palliative care supports the patient and their family before and after treatment. It addresses the physical, emotional and spiritual needs that arise when a person is very ill.

Palliative care teams serve:

• Patients with chronic illnesses or conditions that affect daily living
• Patients with illnesses that may be successfully treated, but result in a poor quality of life
• Terminally ill patients
• Addressing the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs when a patient is very ill.
• Supporting the patient and family before and after treatment.

What the palliative care team provides:

• Partnership with your providers
• Relief from pain and other distressing symptoms
• A coordinated approach to addressing physical, emotional and spiritual suffering
• Open discussions about treatment options and management of symptoms
• Support to improve the quality of your life
• A celebration of life, while also regarding dying as a normal process
• Advocacy for you

You may wish to seek palliative care if you or your loved one:

• Suffers from pain or other symptoms due to illness
• Experiences physical, emotional or spiritual suffering that is not under control
• Need help understanding your condition and coordinating your care

Palliative team members may include:

• Palliative care nurse practitioner
• Palliative care provider
• Chaplain
• Social worker
• Others who might be helpful in improving your care and comfort, such as nurses, care managers, pharmacists, nutritionists, physical or occupational therapists and support staff