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Community Service-Learning Journal

This semester, I decided to detail how I assist my family friend and neighbor who is
wheelchair bound with his daily needs. Henry is a 95-year-old stroke survivor, who lives alone.
He has home healthcare come in twice a week to assist him with some tasks. However, he has no
family close by. In 2018, he was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer, with a prostate-
specific antigen (PSA) test result over 100. The doctor that initially diagnosed him did not want
to give him any treatment. Fortunately, I had just begun my career as a radiation therapist and got
a referral for a urologist that would agree to have a consultation with him. Due to his age, the
urologist did not want to do surgery or radiation but agreed to do hormonal therapy. After seeing
this urologist, Henry made a remarkable recovery. His PSA stays at around 1.5 consistently. The
urologist comments every time I see him that he is a miracle patient and is amazed by his
recovery over the years. This experience taught me how important it is to have someone
advocate for those that are vulnerable, even when it comes to healthcare as learned in the
Protocols and Studies in Radiation Oncology course. Unfortunately, minorities do not always
have access to the best healthcare or clinical trials. I fortunately have been blessed to have only
experienced great healthcare experiences, but that is not the case for every patient. Due to
witnessing the lack of care with Henry, I always try to make sure any patient that I encounter or
treatment plan I work on never experiences anything like the lack of care he initially received
upon his prostate cancer diagnosis.
I also rotate taking Henry to his urologist appointments and primary care visits with my
family members. His physician visits occur about once every three months. In addition to this we
make sure he has his medications for the month. We also rotate doing grocery shopping for him
and take him with us on beach visits in Charleston, SC, during the warmer months. Most
importantly, to Henry, we make sure that he always watches church service online every Sunday
so he can hear the singing he enjoys so much. While it may seem like my family and I do a lot
for Henry, he provides us all with so much more. He provides friendship for the whole family,
and wisdom that is priceless. He also provides our family with plenty of laughs that make
anything we do for him seem minute in comparison.
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Henry enjoying online Sunday church service.