Support site Chemo101.com asking cancer patients and caregivers for help

By April MacIntyre Aug 19, 2010, 19:49 GMT

Chemo 101 is a new website designed for people who learn they have cancer. They will answer all the big and little questions that Chemo patients have.

How do I work with my insurance? 

What should I ask my doctor? 

When will my hair fall out? 

What kind of physical reaction will I get from the Chemo? 

Where is the best place to find a wig? 

If you got the news that you had cancer, do you know what your next move would be?  You're not alone. Neither does most of the world.

Chemo101.com is a Denver-based destination portal which wants to provide the best in-depth information resource for cancer sufferers and their care givers.

Getting the right information on what to expect and how to manage chemo for many has been a patchwork hunt of resources and printed materials dispersed by doctors and hospitals.

But no one current source makes the journey easy. Not the doctors. Not the hospitals. Not any other source on the Internet. And did you know that 30% of those diagnosed with cancer file bankruptcy? They need financial help too!

Chemo101.com wants to streamline all kinds of information, links and detail to provide a one-stop meaningful destination.

The site needs funding from Pepsi's grant campaign called "Refresh Everything," http://www.refresheverything.com/ a generous financial infusion of capital earmarked for worthy causes and ventures.

The public votes on where the funds will be spent. The public needs to go to the "Refresh Everything" site starting September 1 and vote for the funding of http://Chemo101.com  The voting goes until Sept. 30, and you can cast a vote as often as they want.

If you want a resource like Chemo101 to exist and thrive, it needs the help of large corporate donors and grants.

Background on Chemo101:

Erika Hanson Brown did everything she should have to avoid cancer. When the 58-year-old knew something wasn’t quite right with her body, she immediately when to a doctor, and then a second and third doctor. After 2 years of examinations, the best they could come up with was that she was either anemic or had IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). When it was finally diagnosed correctly, it turns out she had final-stage colon cancer. In a matter of days she had surgery, followed by 6 months of intense chemotherapy and a full-year of recovery.

Today, she’s healthy. Unfortunately, she can’t say the same about her finances. Choices she made in her treatment cost her financial well-being, sending her into bankruptcy. Yes, in hindsight and with the information she now knows about chemotherapy, she would have done it differently.

Erika’s story is all too common, says Kristin Gustafson, a patient’s advocate.  More than 1.5 million people are diagnosed with cancer annually; of those who undergo chemotherapy treatment, nearly 40% wind up declaring bankruptcy. Unfortunately, when they need it most, patients who are first diagnosed with cancer rarely have easy access to objective information about their treatment options and costs.

Gutafson felt so strongly about filling this vacuum of knowledge, Kristen and her business partner Kerry Clem left their jobs with an oncology pharmaceutical firm to begin a new organization dedicated to empowering patients with treatment and financial information about chemotherapy.

Chemo101 is a platform for “resources solutions” – providing the consumer with essential facts about chemotherapy treatment options, drug protocols, insurance benefits and so-called “hidden” hospital costs.