Nurses Sherry Lawrence, left, and Linda Holliday, who work at the Sue Ann Wortman Cancer Center at Hancock Regional Hospital, say it’s important for them to remain accessible to their patients, regardless of the time of day.
Tom Russo | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — Linda Holliday doesn’t mind when her phone rings and wakes her up in the middle of the night.
As manager of the oncology clinic at the Sue Ann Wortman Cancer Center, it’s her job to take calls round-the-clock from anxious patients, many of whom just need to hear an encouraging voice.
Sherry Lawrence, left, and Linda Holliday are praised by those they work with for their selfless devotion to patients. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)
Tom Russo | Daily Reporter
Last weekend. one patient called the helpline at 11 p.m., convinced she was going to die within six months.
Holliday talked her through her fears and convinced her that all was not lost, and to cling to hope.
“When I saw her leave the clinic on Tuesday, she was smiling. It’s seeing the smiles on the patients’ faces that keep us going,” she said.
Holliday’s longtime friend and colleague, Sherry Lawrence, serves as her backup, answering calls whenever Holliday gets a night off.
Both women say it’s important to be there for patients at all hours of the night, because that’s when anxious thoughts tend to creep in the most.
“When you’re alone and especially at night, that’s when all those negative thoughts get in their heads. They just lie there and think, think, think,” Holliday said.
“Or they get on Google,” chimed in Lawrence, who discourages her patients from searching online for information about their disease.
“I give them reputable websites they can look up if they want to, rather than leaving it to chance what they may find online,” she said.
Lawrence and Holliday, who’ve been friends since they were students at Eastern Hancock High School, embrace the opportunity to serve people in the community they’ve always called home.
The pair is available to take calls from patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they come into the center on holidays and weekends to care for patients.
“These are two of the most dedicated women I have known,” said Dr. Julia Compton, who helped launch the cancer center in 2015. “They make our cancer center feel warm and friendly and make you feel like you’re being taken care of by family, because you are.”
Both she and Hancock Health president and CEO Steve Long call the women the “heart and soul” of the cancer center.
Lawrence managed the hospital’s surgery center for more than 20 years before switching to the hospital’s cancer unit in 1994.
Holliday started work at the hospital as the head emergency room nurse in 1973.
In 1984, she and a colleague developed the cancer program that would eventually evolve into the cancer center where she works today.
Both she and Lawrence have found their true calling in cancer care, though they admit the work can take a toll.
“I can honestly say that working with cancer patients is my passion, but for the first three to four months of working here I went home (every day) and cried,” said Lawrence, adding that she wouldn’t have made it through the tough times without Holliday.
“She’s taught me everything I know,” she said.
It helps that the two women have known each other since high school, and have both lived in Hancock County all their lives.
“There’s no (patient) who comes in here that one of us doesn’t know,” said Holliday. “We see a lot of classmates, friends and family members come through here, unfortunately,” she said.
“I think it’s a comfort to them to have someone on staff they know,” Lawrence added.
As a patient navigator, Lawrence helps track down whatever resources a patient may need. She once helped a patient plan a 25th wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii through a wish-granting foundation.
“She’s always planning things for patients,” said Holliday, as the two took a quick break from work earlier this week.
While the work they do is emotionally taxing, both women say they wouldn’t trade their jobs for the world.
Both women find fulfillment by instilling hope in their patients.
“The doctor can give them their odds, but we can tell them they can beat the odds,” Holliday said. “When I see a smile on their face, I know I’ve done my job.”
Empathy and compassion are a requirement to work with cancer patients, said Holliday, who added her current staff of nine nurses has become a great team.
“We’ve had nurses who have come and gone, because it’s not an easy job. It’s a tough job,” Lawrence said. “Some days you say to yourself, ‘I just can’t do this one more day,’ until something happens that makes you realize you can.”
One such time was the day she found two boxes of breakfast cereal that a patient had dropped off for her at the clinic.
“I had been complaining that I couldn’t find Raisin Bran Crunch anywhere, and this patient went and found it and left two boxes at the front desk for me,” Lawrence recalled.
“That was a day I said to myself, ‘I can do this one more day,’” she said with a smile.
Another woman, a Stage 4 cancer patient who died in April, also made a big impact on Lawrence.
“She was an older lady and she would call me with questions, and we talked all the time. I loved her,” Lawrence recalled.
A month after the woman died, Lawrence was notified she had nominated Lawrence for a Daisy Award, a commendation given by patients to exemplary staff.
“The woman had written all about her relationship with me in nominating me for the award,” the nurse recalled. “It was tough because she was gone, but getting to hear what she thought about our time together… that was another one of those days where you say to yourself, ‘I can do this one more day,’” she said.
Patients often have a big goal they’re aiming for, said Holliday, like surviving to see an upcoming wedding, a new grandchild, or one more Christmas.
She often encourages patients by telling them that it’s amazing how far cancer treatments have advanced in the past 30 years.
“If I have a patient with Stage 4 cancer, I tell them that this is the time to have hope. If that changes, I promise that we’ll tell you and your family if that time comes,” she said. “We have Stage 4 patients who have been around for quite some time and are doing well.”
Both she and Lawrence are proud to work at a cancer center that offers patients all the services of a metropolitan hospital, close to home.
“Everybody thinks we are a small-town hospital, but we’re not,” said Holliday.
“We do everything St. Vincent and St. Francis does. We have access to any physician, dietitian, social workers, clergy. Anything we need, the hospital gets for us,” she said.
Long said there couldn’t be two better nurses tending to patients than Holliday and Lawrence.
“They’re not only great at their jobs,” he said, “but they are two of the nicest human beings you’ll ever meet.”
