Researchers, Survivors, Advocates Create Directory.(Brief Article)

2001 OCT 18 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- For breast cancer patients, their families, and friends, the answers aren't always easy. But a group of breast cancer survivors, researchers and advocates want to help.

The group's answer is a comprehensive directory of phone numbers, addresses, website addresses, retail stores and even advice and medical information - designed specifically for breast cancer patients, survivors, families and caregivers starting from the first detection to survivorship issues years later.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and members of the Breast Cancer Coalition of North Carolina, a grassroots organization for breast cancer survivors and advocates in North Carolina, first came together in 1998.

After three years, the statewide directory, which represents a first for North Carolina, is now ready, both in print form and on the Internet at http://bcresources.med.unc.edu.

Jamie Konarski, a breast cancer survivor and member of the Breast Cancer Coalition of North Carolina, was one of the first to realize the need for the directory.

"When you get the diagnosis, you're trying to understand everything and filter it down," said Konarski, now the resource directory coordinator for the coalition. "Hopefully, this directory will help women to at least feel like what they are going through is not something that only they have to deal with."

She began the project in 1994 by gathering information from friends and organizations she had turned to for advice and assistance with her own breast cancer. But Konarski said she soon found out that the job would be much more difficult than she first thought.