Cancer Shop USA is Featured in the Sun Sentinel

Written on 11-25-2011 by:

 

Lois K. Solomon, Sun Sentinel

 

When a friend has cancer, the last thing she needs is flowers or chocolate, says Dr. Melanie Bone, a Palm Beach County physician.

Bone should know: She is a Stage 3 breast cancer survivor who received lots of flowers that died and food she couldn't eat from well-meaning friends.

There were many items she could have used but weren't readily available: Shirts with easy access to the chemotherapy port in her chest, moisturizers to soothe her dried-out fingernails, a plastic covering to help her shower without dislodging her incisions and drain tubes. And CancerShopUSA.com was born.

CancerShopUSA helps cancer patients

The website offers 300 products designed to ease the suffering of patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, with part of the proceeds going to the Cancer Sensibility Foundation, founded by Bone, which seeks to change the perception of cancer from deadly to treatable.

"We need to teach people what I refer to as cancer etiquette," said Bone, 51, a gynecologist in Atlantis. "When I had cancer, people looked at me like I was already dead. They didn't call on the phone. I wondered what happened to all my friends."

Bone thinks the products can be given comfortably to friends seeking relief from cancer's pains and treatments' side effects. A friend went with Vickie Evans, of Lake Park, to Cancer Shop USA's West Palm Beach warehouse to find Queasy Drops, a ginger-flavored, anti-nausea candy.

"I didn't want to take drugs, and was trying holistic things to help the nausea," said Evans, 49, a pancreatic cancer patient. "I went to so many stores but nothing worked. I was super-stunned to find these, and I keep them with me at all times."

While there are numerous websites offering T-shirts, pink ribbons and bumper stickers urging the defeat of cancer, CancerShopUSA is one of a small number of sites devoted to helping patients in treatment cope through healing products. Others are TLCDirect.org, an affiliate of the American Cancer Society, and MaddoxOncology.com, also started by a former cancer patient.

Besides assisting with recovery, some of the products at CancerShopUSA offer cosmetic solutions. Joy Williams, of Palm Beach Gardens, in remission from ovarian cancer, designed Chemo Port Covers ($23.95 for three), colorful flowers that clip to the straps of a shirt.

Williams, 66, said she loves to wear tank tops but wanted to cover her chest port. She bought artificial flowers at a craft store and attached clips and felt.

Finding ways to look better has fostered her recovery, Williams said.
"I lost my hair, my eyebrows, my eyelashes," she said. "There are things you can do to look better and feel better. It's something else to make a woman feel pretty."

Go to CancerShopUSA.com, call 866-700-6262 or visit the warehouse at 2501 Bristol Drive, Suite A-12 in West Palm Beach.