Enloe holding virtual cancer management trainings
CHICO >> An educator and cancer patient using his expertise on local trauma trainings has inspired Enloe Medical Center’s new program for people in cancer treatment.
Emiliano Jimenez Cornejo’s new model for managing trauma comes from his background at Butte College, handling trainings on post-trauma skills for Camp Fire survivors. He and Rebecca Senoglu, Enloe Medical Center’s Cancer Support Program Coordinator, call the model community resilience trainings, offered for free to patients several times a year, with bimonthly group sessions.
“A lot of people are not into support groups,” Senoglu said. “This is actually resiliency training … to shift their perception to their resilient self.”
Cornejo, who came to Chico from Argentina eight years ago, dreamed up the idea when he re
cently faced his own battle with cancer.
An instructor at Butte College for nearly five years, Cornejo was diagnosed with Stage 4 sarcoma over three years ago. At 34, with a spouse and two children and a very healthy background, he said the diagnosis “was really shocking for me and the people around me.”
He was prescribed the maximum amount of chemotherapy rounds possible at UC Davis, eight, but was told most patients do not make it to the seventh round. Cornejo said after the first three intense rounds of chemotherapy he didn’t feel he would survive the treatment. So he began looking for help and support outside of the treatments.
“I needed to really turn around and try to see it as a teacher and grow with it,” Cornejo said. “And that process didn’t happen overnight, it took me time.”
He found himself “trying to embrace the process rather than fight it back.” When that happened, Cornejo said he finally saw progress in his treatments as his everyday life became more positive, and he went back to yoga and cycling and other hobbies.
Instead of living in “a constant state of panic and fear and anxiety,” Cornejo said he learned “being in a place where I enjoy life and doing the things I really want to do every day. Instead of cancer being the main focus, it now fades into the background.”
And, Cornejo said he became the first patient at UC Davis to successfully complete eight rounds of chemotherapy.
He discovered over time, as he was treated and continued to train at Butte College, he was relying on the trauma management lessons he would teach fire survivors. It inspired him to begin working to design a program specifically for cancer patients, so he met with Senoglu and worked for months on a model he calls “Shifting My Perception” as a roadmap.
While he and Senoglu said his personal results won’t necessarily be true of every patient, the program is intended as a way for each individual to shift their perception of their treatment and have healing in their mental health. Both are certified with the Trauma Resource Institute in these management skills.
“Cancer treatment has advanced so much that more and more people are living that way (with cancer),” Senoglu said. “You lose so much sense of control when you get a diagnosis. What we’re saying is, there are things you can control.”
“This is not a prescriptive approach,” Cornejo added, but he hopes to “inspire patients and show them there is another way to go around this journey.”
The program offers support for people who are not experienced with video calls or Zoom, and Senoglu said anyone with a registered tablet or computer with a camera connected can get technical aid by contacting her, to get into the sessions Tuesday and Thursday. Patients can also join a virtual, bimonthly booster session and meet others in treatment outside of those meetings.
Cornejo and Senoglu invite patients to register for the first virtual session by 2 p.m. to join at 3:30 p.m. today. If they can’t make a session this week, the next booster session is April 23, taking place every second and fourth Friday of each month.
People interested in the class can call 332-3856 or email rebecca.senoglu@enloe.org for the free Zoom link. Participants do not have to be a patient with Enloe.