Thousand Oaks : Patients Get Boost at Wellness Center

Soon after Sylvia Brodsky’s cancer was discovered last September, she had an operation that removed her breast and the cancer. But the doctor told her she had only nine months to five years to live.

“But will I be able to go to my granddaughter’s bas mitzvah on Aug. 21?” the Thousand Oaks resident said she asked her doctor. When he couldn’t assure her that she could, she changed doctors.

Now the event is six weeks away.

“I’m going to be there with bells on and even hair on my head,” Brodsky said, lifting her pink straw hat to reveal the stylishly short hair that has grown back following her chemotherapy treatment.

Brodsky told her story recently at the new Westlake Village center of the Wellness Community, a support group for cancer patients and their families.

The new office, which opened June 21, serves residents of Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley.

Founded in Santa Monica in 1982, the Wellness Community “encourages people to actively participate in their recovery,” Mandell said. “We don’t help them cope. We help them fight.”

The 19 people who heard Brodsky’s story are one of the center’s sharing groups. The youngest participant of the group, Marc Cabinillas, 35, adjusted the bandanna covering his head as he told about his fight with brain cancer.

“I still sometimes slur my words, so I have to think before I speak,” the Reseda resident told the group.

If we all did that, pearls of wisdom would come out of our mouths, said an older woman whose condition was diagnosed as brain cancer this week.

Cabinillas had an operation April 29. Ten days later, he was back at Wellness Community meetings. The meetings help him get out of bed each morning, he said.

“The two biggest problems for cancer patients are isolation and loss of control,” Mandell said. To relieve the isolation, participants join the weekly groups and may go to social events, such as joke fests and movie nights.

To increase their sense of control over their lives, they can attend workshops on relaxation, nutrition or exercise.

The Wellness Community has received publicity because of such famous participants as late actresses Gilda Radner and Jill Ireland, but most cancer patients learn about it from their physicians.

The center, which is free to participants, completely supports conventional medical techniques, Mandell said.