Pictured left to right: Curtis Collins shown with Charmaine Lamb, RN at the MCCH Regional Cancer Center.

MURRAY, KY – For those in a battle with cancer, the encouragement from others can help someone’s journey.

Cancer patients at the Regional Cancer Center are now receiving a comfort bag thanks to a local organization known as Journey Bags. Journey Bags is a local not-for-profit whose mission is to help patients through their initial diagnosis with love, encouragement, and resources that help through a bag filled with multiple items to help a patient diagnosed with cancer through the treatment process. For Curtis Collins, the bag became a special reminder of those around him that were encouraging him to hang on to hope and give him strength to continue his journey.

Curtis is from Benton, KY, and was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma that caused an ongoing GI bleed around 5 months ago and has been going through treatment. He was discouraged but said, “I have people praying for me everywhere. When they handed me the bag it was just another reminder that people were showing me they cared.”

When patients like Curtis receive a Journey Bag at the MCCH Regional Cancer Center, they know people care. Curtis said the staff at the cancer center have been so good to him and Brett Miles, Radiation Therapist, encouraged him to keep fighting and reminded him he could do it. His friends and co-workers from Calvert City Nursing and Rehab wanted to do something special as well so they personalized the bag with his name and a UK patch.

After speaking with Curtis, we can see how impactful a kind gesture and the support and encouragement of others can truly help one going through cancer treatment along their journey.

The new cancer center brings innovations to the fight against cancer close to home. Thousands of patients will be cared for annually by a multidisciplinary team of specialists and sub-specialists to meet the challenges presented by many types of cancer.

The Cancer Program at Murray-Calloway County Hospital is accredited by the Commission on Cancer (CoC) of the American College of Surgeons (ACoS).

Receiving care at a CoC-accredited cancer program ensures the patient will have access to comprehensive care, a multi-specialty team approach to coordinate best treatment options, information about ongoing clinic trials, access to cancer-related information and support, a cancer registry that collects data on type and stage of cancers and treatment results with lifelong patient follow-up, ongoing monitoring and improvement of care and, most importantly, quality care close to home.

For more information about the Regional Cancer Center at MCCH, visit www.murrayhospital.org.