Oncology patient navigator Stacy Meyer does everything she can
BUTLER TWP — Although Stacy Meyer spends most of her working hours in a building filled with medical offices, she wants her workspace — a back room on the first floor of the Benbrook Medical Center — to feel like a home to the people she is working with.
But it wasn’t always like that. When she first took on the role of oncology patient navigator for Independence Health System, now West Virginia University Health System, about a decade ago, her work space was just a desk. It became a home when Meyer realized that if someone going through cancer treatment needed something, she was the kind of person who would find a way to get it for them.
Meyer was the first person to have this job at the health system, so she made the role into one not confined by the walls of her work space.
“There’s no rules — there is, but there isn’t,” Meyer said. “When these people have a need, you just do it. I mean, if somebody needs something and I can do it, I try.”
Meyer has worked at the health system for 28 years — she started her career as a medical social worker. She has been oncology patient navigator for about 10 years, during which she has helped hundreds of patients through their cancer treatment.
The help she provides is not laid out in a job description, she said, and it now includes everything from deciphering medical bills with patients to offering them styling when treatment affects their appearance. Recently, Meyer began studying Reiki and even brings in a Reiki practitioner to work with patients.
It’s all in an effort to improve the patient experience during a time when their lives might be really difficult.
“People call here and — as long as it’s cancer-related and they live in Butler County and go to our cancer center — if there’s something I can do to help, I do,” Meyer said. “Mentally, when people are going through a crisis, they can’t think straight. If they need help with your bills, we can sit at the table and go through that.”
Chrissy Senft, of Franklin Township, said Meyer helped in more ways than one while she was going through cancer treatment starting in December 2022. Meyer not only offered her emotional support, but brought in other professionals to help with specific needs, like a hairdresser and the Reiki practitioner.
“She’s also very, very active in helping you find financing, if you’re stuck in different situations,” Senft said. “She managed to bring in someone to do Reiki for free at the office. She had somebody come in and will trim your wig.”
Meyer’s efforts to bring professionals to cancer patients runs the gamut of issues a patient might experience when going through treatment. They need a mastectomy, she brings in a person who makes “Knitted Knockers” — stuffed, knitted cushions that imitate breasts. If they lose their hair during treatment, she brings in a stylist for her program, the Cancer Support Boutique.
Meyer works both ends of the wig supply — she helps people donate their hair to make wigs and she also hooks her patients up with a wig, showing them how to style it and their makeup.
The wigs and makeup especially help patients get out of a funk. Meyer said some people lose hope when they start looking different because of radiation or chemotherapy, but a fresh wig and makeup look can reverse their feelings.
“We provide everything to take care of them. So we give them shampoo, conditioning spray, a stand, a special brush for it,” Meyer said. “Some women, they may want a wig, but also we have chemo beanies, hats.
“Especially during the summer we want to make sure they cover their heads appropriately from the sun, but then in the winter and in the fall we want to make sure they’re warm.”
Anyone who wants to donate their hair to make a wig can contact Meyer to get connected with those who make the wigs. She said she works with a company in California to get any amount of hair turned into a wig, and after a few months, she receives a shipment with new hair for people who need them.
“The nice thing is because it’s real hair, they can be colored, highlighted,” Meyer said.
Patricia Julkowski is a stylist who works with Meyer and her patients for no cost. Meyer said she and Julkowski sometimes match a person’s look with their driver’s license, or another photo taken before a person goes through cancer treatment.
And in the cases that a person recovers after getting treatment for cancer, hair donations are their first idea as a way to pay it forward to incoming patients.
“They’re always welcome to make a donation, but, honestly, when they are in treatment, most people can’t work, and so a lot of times, people want to give back later,” Meyer said.
Meyer said that although she is the only person in her role in the health system, it takes an army to actually fill all the needs of the cancer patients who get treated. She said the volunteers are the lifeblood of her work, and they are also more than co-workers to her and her clients.
Because, as she said, her work space at Benbrook is meant to be like a home — and not just because some patients will spend hours upon hours getting treatment in the building.
“When I invite people in here it’s like inviting them into my home,” Meyer said. “We talk to them just to make them feel comfortable, I always offer a cup of coffee or water.”
Her program is also supported by the Butler Memorial Hospital Foundation, which keeps it free for the patients she aids.
While Meyer constantly sits with people who tell her they are going through the hardest times they have ever been through, she said almost everyone seems to have their experience improved through just spending time with her. Especially when her service dog, Henrietta, is in the room with them.
“People come here and they don’t even want to leave,” Meyer said.
