Facebook feed to face-to-face support: Building sisterhood after cancer

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE) - When Sandy Bettencourt Keys was diagnosed with bosom crab successful 2019, she turned to the net looking for support.

But what she found, and what she didn’t find, changed everything.

“I didn’t person immoderate household oregon friends spell done bosom cancer, truthful I had truly cipher to crook to,” she said.

She searched for section groups, browsed forums, and reviewed enactment pages. She came crossed a fewer out-of-state Facebook groups, but thing that made her consciousness seen present successful California.

So she built 1 herself.

What started arsenic a tiny online assemblage successful 2020 has present grown into California Breast Cancer Support Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with much than 3,400 members statewide.

“I deliberation I'm going to commencement a Facebook radical truthful that I tin assistance the ladies successful California,” Sandy remembers saying to herself aft going done treatment.

The radical began with 24/7 enactment connected a backstage Facebook page, a harmless abstraction for women to inquire questions, vent astir attraction broadside effects, oregon simply say, "I'm having a unsmooth day."

But the connections didn’t enactment online.

Today, members crossed the authorities big in-person meetups, thrust to each other’s chemo appointments, and adjacent nonstop attraction packages. Sandy herself makes roadworthy trips from her location successful Modesto to link with members successful Fresno and beyond.

“Somebody you've seen connected Zoom, online for 2 years, and past you really tin conscionable them and hug them... It was truthful great,” she said.

The radical besides offers play Zoom enactment calls, a traveling subsister banner, signed and shared by survivors; the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Boots,” pinkish cowboy boots worn to treatment; “Freebie Fridays,” wherever members donate unused items to others successful need.

Unlike immoderate enactment groups that necessitate a thrust oregon clip acceptable aside, Sandy is intentional astir keeping things elemental and accessible.

“Everybody has [Facebook] connected their phone,” she said. “They don’t person to get dressed, spell to a enactment group, similar an in-person group. They tin conscionable scroll done Facebook and connect.”

Members accidental the radical feels similar family, and that’s precisely what Sandy hoped for.

Sandy inactive works afloat clip arsenic a paralegal, but says moving the radical has go her life’s mission.

“Cancer was a acquisition for me,” she said. “ A batch of radical mightiness beg to differ, but for me, that's your accidental to, you know, unrecorded beingness to the fullest... If  I tin assistance 1 idiosyncratic each day, I'm happy."

The nonprofit present sends concern cards to crab centers crossed California. When idiosyncratic is recently diagnosed, they person Sandy’s info and a nonstop nexus to the community, close erstwhile they request it most.

And conscionable similar her ideas connected supporting women warring bosom cancer, her connection to those who haven’t been touched by the illness is simple.

“Go get your mammogram,” she said. “Do your monthly self-checks. A batch of cancer, if you drawback it aboriginal enough, it’s treatable.”

To articulation the radical oregon enactment California Breast Cancer Support Inc., sojourn the backstage Facebook leafage here.

This communicative is portion of KSEE24’s Buddy Check series, reminding Valley women to cheque successful with their buddy and bash their self-breast exam.