'Going to Conemaugh was the best decision I've ever made'
October 16, 2024
Dawn Asure didn’t like the numbers – or the odds.
Her mother and brother died from colon cancer. Her father succumbed from lung cancer. Her sister had ovarian cancer, and her aunt had liver cancer.
That Dawn would be diagnosed with breast cancer didn’t come as a total surprise. “Someone in my family had been getting cancer about every two years,” said the 53-year-old Johnstown resident and married mother of three daughters and a granddaughter.
“So, it was almost like my unlucky number was up. I just hope it all stops now with me.”
An invasive ductal carcinoma in her left breast was discovered during a routine mammogram. Dawn had to decide on whether to pursue treatment at the Conemaugh Health System or in Pittsburgh or Altoona.
“Going to Conemaugh was the best decision I ever made,” she said. “I can’t imagine receiving the same level of care and attention anywhere else.”
Dawn has nothing but praise for Conemaugh entire Cancer Care Center’s oncology department.
It has been two years, four rounds of chemotherapy and 20 rounds of radiation since the operation.
Throughout her life, Dawn was always healthy. Never on medications.
“But cancer really took its toll on my body,” she said. “The doctors caught it pretty early, but to have cancer of any form is really scary. I felt like an alien; not the same person as before the diagnosis.”
She has special praise for Amy Riley, oncology nurse practitioner; Briana Bishop, RN, nurse navigator; and Jamie Mack, oncology social worker, of the health system’s Enhanced Supportive Care Clinic’s newly launched Survivorship Program. The program is the first and only one of its kind in this region, according to Amy, MSN (Master of Science in nursing) and CRNP (certified registered nurse practitioner), who has more than 25 years of oncology experience.
“We focus on addressing the physical and psychosocial healthcare of cancer patients, with particular attention to those who have completed cancer treatment,” Amy said.
“We provide individualized, integrated care and therapy related to prevention of cancer recurrence. We provide surveillance and intervention that can have lifelong impact.
Basically, we create an individualized roadmap for health and quality of life after cancer.”
It's certainly paying off for Dawn.
“Everything is looking up now and I’m glad that I made the decisions I did; not only about the hospital, but also the Survivorship Program,” she said. “I’m counting on watching my granddaughter grow up, my other daughters get married and start their own families and grow old with my husband. Now, thanks to the decisions I’ve made, I think those numbers are in my favor.”
Dawn Asure with husband, Ken, and granddaughter, Maya.