Courtney's Story

Cancer treatment is not just about cure – it’s about quality of life. That’s something Courtney Speers learned first-hand when she received help from the Integrated Cancer Pain Clinic at Wilmot Cancer Institute.

Speers made it through surgery for colon cancer, but the 41-year-old was left with extreme rectal pain that made it difficult to enjoy life after surgery.

“I couldn’t ride in the car for a long period of time. I was in constant pain,” she says. “I love to ride horses and I was unable to ride my horse, which is a big decrease in the quality of life for me. Plus, I have three children that need me and I need to sit on bleachers and watch events.”

She carried a pillow everywhere she went for a while, but even that was not enough to help. She told her nurse at Wilmot Cancer Institute. She referred her to Rajbala Thakur, MBBS, who leads the Integrated Cancer Pain Clinic at Wilmot.

And it has made the world of a difference.

Speers opted to have a ganglion impar block, which is often used to treat pain in the anal and genital areas. It involves giving an injection of a numbing mediation around the nerves where the pain is. The medication blocks the nerves from sending pain signals to the brain.

For Speers, it worked well. She resumed her favorite activities and even recently traveled to a family member’s game – which involved more than three hours in the car plus a few hours on bleachers. But it meant she go to see her family who lives in northern New York for the first time since her diagnosis.

“It was a big deal for me,” she says.

She’s grateful not only to be able to enjoy doing what she loves now, but also that she found such a caring team in the Integrated Cancer Pain Clinic.

“My doctor, she calls me personally to check on me and knows when she talks to me, my history,” Speers says. “It just makes you feel really good and it makes you feel that you matter.”