{"id":6091,"date":"2019-05-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prd-www.mccdn.io\/vitals\/?p=6091"},"modified":"2025-05-07T17:30:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T17:30:58","slug":"cancer-patient-receives-a-helping-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/updates-www.mccdn.io\/vitals\/cancer-patient-receives-a-helping-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer patient receives a \u2018helping hand\u2019 through years of treatment","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

After weeks of feeling sick, Kari Newton came to the MultiCare Allenmore Hospital<\/a> emergency department, where she discovered she had stage 4 cancer in both her liver and colon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was scared,\u201d Newton says. \u201cThey were asking the weirdest questions. I didn\u2019t know what to think. But when they told me my cancer was stage 4, I thought, \u2018How long do I have?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Newton immediately began chemotherapy treatment and had her first surgery, a liver resection, in December 2012. She had another surgery on her colon in 2013.<\/p>\n

Because of the intensity of the treatment, Newton had to leave her job as a childcare provider and the medical bills started to add up fast. With two young children at home, she was struggling to make ends meet. It was around that time when she was introduced to Betsy Allen, an oncology social worker at MultiCare Tacoma General Hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I met Betsy, she helped connect me to resources for cancer patients, including Helping Hands,\u201d Newton explains.<\/p>\n

Helping Hands<\/a> is a fund supported by community donors and MultiCare employees. Social workers, such as Allen, identify patients in need and use the funds to help remove barriers that impact a patient’s ability to heal, or a family’s ability to support their loved one.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelping Hands helps families so they don\u2019t have to decide between food and medication,\u201d Allen says. \u201cI\u2019ve personally experienced how offering this support can change patient outcomes. It makes my job doable.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Newton, getting assistance through Helping Hands meant that she could pay her utility bills, medical bills and prescriptions. Since she lives in Spanaway and was receiving treatment in Tacoma multiple times a week, it also provided her with grocery and gas gift cards.<\/p>\n

\u201cAssistance from Helping Hands helped tremendously,\u201d Newton says. \u201cThings like gas cards helped me get\u00a0to the hospital. Or if I didn\u2019t have a meal, the grocery cards allowed me to get food for the family for a couple days. Without Helping Hands, I would be homeless.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, Newton was one of 8,375 MultiCare patients who benefited from Helping Hands. She and her family are extremely grateful for this generosity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you to everyone who has given,\u201d Newton says. \u201cYou don\u2019t know how much it means to all of us \u2014 especially my family. I can imagine there are people you are helping out there who are in the same boat as me or worse, so please continue to give. It helps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, seven years after her diagnosis, Newton is still undergoing treatment. She kept to herself when she first began chemotherapy, but now she says it\u2019s so much nicer to share her experience with others.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou help each other as much as you can,\u201d Newton explains. \u201cI am happy to share more about the resources others can get access to. People come to me for advice because I\u2019ve been going through this for so long, and I am happy to connect them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her advice for patients in similar situations is simple: Stay positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s story is different,\u201d Newton says. \u201cYou can have the same cancer but the outcome could be way different. Stay positive as much as you can. You know that the cancer is there, but I try to make every day count. Doing things as a family, just living and making the most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Kari Newton, getting assistance through Helping Hands meant that she could pay her bills and fill her prescriptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foundations","category-profiles-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCancer patient receives a \u2018helping hand\u2019 through years of treatment - MultiCare Vitals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After weeks of feeling sick, Kari Newton came to the MultiCare where she discovered she had stage 4 cancer in both her liver and colon.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/updates-www.mccdn.io\/vitals\/cancer-patient-receives-a-helping-hand\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cancer patient receives a \u2018helping hand\u2019 through years of treatment - 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