When Pereda was first diagnosed with stage 1B cervical cancer almost a decade ago — shortly after immigrating from Mexico City — the grueling treatment taught her a lesson about self-love and health. Then the cancer’s metastatic recurrence in 2021, which spread to her lungs and fractured her spine, dealt a blow of chemotherapy and immunotherapy that she barely survived.
After all that, receiving catastrophic health news again this year was a staggering blow she didn’t expect.
“I was pissed — like, ‘Come on, it’s not fair — I did what I was supposed to do,’” said Pereda, now in her early 50s. “But I need to move on, because if you get stuck, it’s even more painful. I’m trying to make the best of it.”
Fear had largely replaced that anger the Sunday afternoon before she was scheduled for brain surgery at Kaiser in Santa Clara, where she moved to cut her former two-hour health-care trek from Monterey down to an eight-minute commute.
Playing Mexican Train over the weekend with the family helped, but Pereda needed to find a deeper, more consistent calm. That’s why she signed up for Wednesday morning qigong sessions.
Pereda, a habitual over-thinker, credits finding some relief to the weekly yoga and meditation classes she attends through Cancer CAREpoint, a San Jose-based nonprofit that offers these and other resources to cancer patients living in Silicon Valley, the East Bay, the Peninsula and Santa Cruz County.
She’s also tapped into what she calls the nonprofit’s “fabulous calendar” of nutrition classes, massage therapy sessions and other courses over her three bouts with cancer, thanks to a nudge from a Stanford nurse overseeing her treatment in 2016. She said disability-friendly meetings and virtual support groups bolster in-person events that she may not otherwise be able to access. The Spanish-specific courses Cancer CAREpoint offers helped comfort her monolingual mother, who had been her caretaker and had always been somewhat apprehensive of accepting services from the government.
Cancer CARE also offers cancer patients a selection of hundreds of wigs in varying styles and colors. While Pereda is not actively looking for a wig right now, she did recently try some on, saying she wants to be open to the possibility in the same way she gave herself permission to embrace her androgynous shaved head during treatment a few years ago.
Pereda’s one lingering regret, however, is not learning how to accept help sooner. And more often.
“Everyone has their own process,” Pereda said, explaining how some people are more private, or simply not ready to share what’s on their mind with others. Treatment can be a complex journey of isolation, guilt and pain, “but, as a cancer patient, once you give yourself the permission to find community — connection, spirituality, companionship, something — things get easier. Reach out. You’re not alone.”
Cancer CAREpoint doesn’t pretend to offer any fix for cancer patients’ daily pain. But it is a place where they can find community and encouragement from others’ stories and struggles, according to the feedback clients share with Pam Klaus, the nonprofit’s executive director.
“Cancer is a lifetime experience — you’re forever changed, never going to go back to the normal that you knew before,” Klaus said. “But we try to provide a little bit of comfort — a little bit of care and love.”
The nonprofit, formerly known as the Samaritan Cancer Foundation, was started by a group of hospital executives, doctors, foundations and community investors looking to fill a gap in local providers. Klaus said their mission is extending a free lifeline to any cancer patient, caretaker or family member who feels like they could use some support, no questions asked.
Since 2012, Cancer CAREpoint has offered personalized, non-medical support like therapeutic fitness and yoga classes, nutrition workshops, mind-body programs, and survivorship support groups. The organization has so far served 10,100 clients — roughly the same number of people diagnosed with cancer in Silicon Valley each year, according to the nonprofit’s estimates.
The group is hoping to raise $20,000 through Wish Book to fund mental health counseling and help provide financial assistance to cancer patients for rent, utilities, food, and transportation.
While a cancer diagnosis impacts everyone differently, Klaus said there’s one problem that’s ubiquitous among the low-income single parents, wealthy yet lonely seniors and hundreds of others who reach out to Cancer CAREpoint.
“It’s hard to ask for help,” Klaus said. “What I also hear a lot is that people don’t know what they might need. Overcome that hesitancy — call us.”
ABOUT WISH BOOKWish Book is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operated by The Mercury News. Since 1983, Wish Book has been producing series of stories during the holiday season that highlight the wishes of those in need and invite readers to help fulfill them.
WISHDonations to Cancer CAREpoint will help the nonprofit provide financial assistance to patients for rent, utilities, food, and transportation. That money will also be used to fund mental health counseling and add up to 125 wigs to its wig bank. Goal: $20,000
HOW TO GIVEDonate at wishbook.mercurynews.com/donate or mail in this form.
ONLINE EXTRARead other Wish Book stories, view photos and video at wishbook.mercurynews.com.