When Denise Albert was diagnosed with cancer, doctors gave her one piece of advice.
“Don’t Google anything.”
The divorced mom of two young boys says she felt scared and alone with nowhere to turn. “I didn’t know anyone else who had gone through cancer at 41.” At the time, she worked in the media and chose to share her story publicly. “What happened was truly incredible. People started reaching out from all across the country with love, support, and wisdom from their own cancer experiences. Hearing people share things like, ‘If your nose runs all the time, it may be because your nose hairs are falling out with treatment’, or learning tricks about how to keep your nails from falling off, helped me feel like I had a support system. It really moved me and made me want to do the same for others,” she says.
How She Created One Big Cancer Family
Another thing that happened after Albert shared her story, was people started connecting her with their friends and family who were diagnosed with cancer. “I started to speak to people weekly and organically formed my own cancer family.”
That concept turned into what My Cancer Family is today, a mission driven venture to help cancer patients, their caregivers and family and friends navigate the confusing, complex, and emotional cancer journey. “We help with everything non-medical through curated resources and advice across 12 categories including mental health and nutrition, talking to kids, staying employed, cancer hacks, relationships, nonprofits who offer free help and services and more.”
Right now My Cancer Family reaches people through an app, website, and newsletter. “When I met my co-founder, Colleen Sellers, her background was completely different from mine. She’s worked in healthcare and in start-up tech and together we had another ah-ha moment on how to build out our vision. We launched as a newsletter in July of 2022 and it was truly incredible to share other peoples stories, tips, and favorite non-profits.”
Sellers introduced Albert to Avani Agarwal who was originally going to help with design, but when they saw what she could actually do, that was another ah-ha moment. “Avani’s background in design and tech strategy made her the perfect person to join us. The three of us worked together to build our MVP product, the My Cancer Family app which was just released in the app store.”
How The App Works
Albert says this version of the app has some special features with more in the works.
One feature is called Daily Check-In. “This keeps track of daily mood and symptoms for both the patient and the caregiver – even for a caregiver, your feelings matter! When on this journey, it is important to keep track of your daily mood. It helps to differentiate highs and lows and keep everything within context and be able to see the forest for the trees.”
Another feature allows users to select all the ways My Cancer Family can support them. “This included content and video,” Albert says. “Each person, whether the one on a journey, a caregiver, or a friend experiences the app differently. We heard from our users and categorized our content based on some of the most meaningful topics listed below and we continue to add new content every day. Many of the videos are original content provided by people who have been through it.”
One of Albert’s favorite features is called Ask for Help. “Many times when friends and families offer to help, people nod, or say thank you but it’s really hard to get the words out … to really share exactly what is needed. The My Cancer Family App makes it so easy to receive the help needed when and where you need it.” Some of the ways the app enables the patient or their caregiver to ask friends and family to help includes: rides to treatment, food delivery, walking dog/pet care, help with kids, and grocery shopping. “So now, when someone asks how they can help, you can respond with “I’ll send you a text” from My Cancer Family. A text is shared on behalf of the patient and caregiver which specifies time preferences and frequency of need.”
Plans To Expand
My Cancer Family is reaching people in more than 30 countries and the team hopes to reach more. “We want people to download the app and share it with any friends, family or colleagues who may need this kind of support. It’s just the three of us right now, so we are slowly building and want to hear from people who can help by sharing their wisdom, experiences, and favorite non-profits and products.”
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