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CureRays offers rays of hope for cancer patients in remission: Survivorship Clinic meant to guide people through their next steps

Cancer In Your Corner

Jan 10, 2025

Jennifer Nobles

It’s no secret that facing cancer is one of the most harrowing and traumatizing life events a person can go through. Elise Morgan, a board-certified nurse practitioner who specializes in treating survivors of cancer, sees it as her call to help those who have seen the other side of the disease and are seeking post-treatment care. Morgan does this through CureRays, a Grass Valley clinic with a Survivorship Clinic for which Morgan is largely responsible.

“I run the Survivorship Clinic,” said Morgan. “People in remission come to me and I sort of do the rest of their follow-up care, and that includes surveillance. Depending on your type of cancer, I am the one who will manage…how often are you getting scanned? How often are you getting blood work? How often are your physical exams? That’s determined by the type of cancer, the national guidelines, clinical judgment, and the individual.”

CureRays was started by Drs. Clayton Hess and Mohammad Kahn. They offer surveillance, and secondary cancer screenings that overlaps with primary care, and overall support.

“We just want to make sure there isn’t anything falling through the cracks,” Morgan said of her Survivorship Clinic. “It’s kind of your one-stop cancer shop here.”

“For the surveillance piece, the point is to make sure you are continuing to be in remission,” continued Morgan. “If something does come back, we catch it early and take care of it. We don’t want to just send you out to pasture and you’re having symptoms and coming in and it’s quite a bit later than it would have been if we had been doing those scans every three to six months. So it doesn’t prevent cancer from coming back, but if it does we just know we’re going to catch it early.”

Morgan said the clinic performs screenings for cancer not because the patient has symptoms, but for the possibility the patient may be at a higher risk level of seeing a resurgence of their cancer. Once you have had one form of cancer, Morgan added, you could be at greater risk for other types. The screenings help keep both the patient and the medical team apprised of any new developments.

“The biggest part, and my favorite part, is that I handle all of the late effects of treatment,” said Morgan. “So if someone gets cancer, they go through whatever it is; surgery, chemo, radiation. All of my patients mostly are from the pipeline from Dr. Hess. So up at the hospital they’ve been treated with radiation and then they come to me. I am open to the community so anybody who has had cancer can come and see me.”

Morgan said one of the inherent challenges of her job is to help people come to terms with the fact that, even after they’ve gone into remission, their bodies will never be the same. They’ve endured a lot.

“Lay effects of radiation are plentiful, and they really vary on each person,” she said. ”You don’t go back to the body you had before once you’ve gone through treatment. It can be almost no symptoms, you may feel like, ‘I’m actually doing great; I don’t have a lot to manage.’ And then there are people I see every single month because the symptoms they have from chemo, radiation, or surgery, whatever it is, I am having to manage that really regularly. Late effect management is what I call that piece.”

Morgan said CureRays services are completely optional, and are covered by most insurance plans, but like any treatment, is very specific to the individual seeking care.

“The whole goal of this clinic in that realm is really to increase people’s quality of life,” she said. “I care very much about making sure you don’t have cancer. If it comes back, we catch it early of course, but my passion around things is how can I improve your quality of life in this chapter? Because it’s very difficult.”

CureRays is also a supplement to a patient’s overall oncology care, as many oncologists are simply too busy to guide their patients through every step of the process. Morgan is there to treat those in remission, but inevitably she sometimes has to break bad news. While it’s difficult, she said it’s all part of her goal to comfort people who have already been through severe medical conditions.

“I’ve been an oncology nurse for years,” she said. “I think I went into oncology (because) my grandfather had a brain tumor and he lived with us and I watched his demise when I was 11 or 12. And then I’ve had other family members with cancer so when I decided to go into medicine, I was like, ‘this is fascinating.’ It’s the most interesting, medically and scientifically, and the research around it is amazing.”

Her curiosity is just part of what keeps Morgan going through what some might consider a taxing occupation.

“The unknowability of it; the emotional and psychological side of cancer care is really interesting to me,” she said. “Sometimes when I have to have hard conversations with people with reoccurrence, it’s just that it is so meaningful. I get to be the one who gives them bad news, that’s hard, but I am so grateful to be able to be there for them in that time. That’s so meaningful. I think people are very changed after the experience, so I feel grateful to be in that zone where people are like, tell me what I can do.”

Morgan said that the majority of her patients just want an extra reassurance that the cancer is gone, and know full well that if it were to reoccur they would be as on top of it as possible. What CureRays offers, Morgan said, is a bit of piece of mind sprinkled with vigilance and individuality.

“Once you get diagnosed you’re waiting for the knock at the door,” said Morgan. “Some people really get a lot of anxiety around that. I send them to therapy. Other people are like, ‘I don’t even think about it. I went through it and I don’t think about it anymore. It’s fine.’ Some people know it might come back but are in total acceptance of that.

“I think that’s what’s cool about this clinic and something I love about it is that it’s really relationship-based care and it’s individualized care. Whatever the patient needs, I am figuring that out and providing it. It really runs the gamut.”

Curerays is at 300 Sierra College Drive in Grass Valley. They can be reached by calling 530-802-6400. For more information please visit CureRays website at www.curerays.com.

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