Self-help group for cancer aftercare in danger - management urgently needed

Created: 07/10/2022, 09:00

By: Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss

Pure joie de vivre: (from left) Gerti Bergelt, Antonie Sommerwerk and Marianne Liebl from the self-help group for cancer aftercare.

The organization is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.

© Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss

The cancer aftercare self-help group has been in existence for 35 years.

Now she needs help herself.

The group is urgently looking for a new leader.

Geretsried—Cancer.

A diagnosis that first pulls the rug out from under the feet of those affected.

The self-help group for cancer aftercare has been helping for 35 years.

But she almost didn't live to see her own anniversary.

When Helga Seitz founded the group in 1987, cancer was still a taboo subject.

"There was a lot of gossip behind closed doors," said the current director, Antonie Sommerwerk.

“Openness is so important here.” Because in addition to questions about treatment – ​​surgery, radiation, chemotherapy – those affected also have to consider their family and professional situation.

Geretsried: Cancer aftercare self-help group is looking for a new leader

Marianne Liebl (78) experienced that it is better to get support.

She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2008.

"I found out about the group through the newspaper," she says.

"I thought to myself, I'll go there and listen to what they have to say." In his own words, Liebl was "pretty dirty" at the time.

She thought, "Seeing how other people are coping with this - maybe that'll help you."

In the self-help group for cancer aftercare, it is customary to clarify initial questions in personal contact and to provide the person concerned with a kind of sponsor, if possible with the same diagnosis.

"If I want to buy a motorbike," put it the longtime director Hedda Rautenberg, who has since died, "I talk to a motorcyclist and not to a hairdresser." Personal contact was lost during the corona restrictions.

Visiting the sick was also impossible.

As far as possible, people listened, comforted and advised at a distance.

"The only thing left for us was the phone," says Sommerwerk.

The self-help group almost didn't live to see its 35th anniversary

Everyone is welcome in the group - no matter where he or she comes from.

The group currently consists of 49 people between the ages of their early 50s and 88 years.

There are no membership fees, funding comes from donations.

The offer is also state-funded: the self-help group is part of the Bavarian Cancer Society.

Meetings with lectures are held once a month.

Joint excursions and the opportunity to exercise twice a week are also on the list.

The atmosphere is friendly and relaxed, the members are on first-name terms.

Cancer, so goes the motto, is no reason to be without joie de vivre.

"Until now we were almost exclusively women," reports Gerti Bergelt, a member for 30 years.

She remembers the first visit from a man.

"The door opened and he was first faced with a horde of women." Bergelt stood up, said "Welcome, I'm Gerti" - and he was there.

The self-help group almost didn't live to see its 35th anniversary.

Hedda Rautenberg was urgently looking for a successor.

"The workload was too much for her," says Sommerwerk, who supported the 78-year-old together with Gerti Bergelt at the time.

But because no one was found, Rautenberg initiated the dissolution from his sickbed – the cancer had struck again.

"I found out about it when I visited her," recalls Sommerwerk.

Although she had already made some voluntary commitments, she agreed to serve as interim director through the end of the year.

"Nevertheless, we need someone.

It's all just too much like that.” Interested parties, even those affected by cancer, can contact her at any time (telephone 0 81 71/52 91 22).

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The 35 year celebration

begins on Friday, October 7th at 4 p.m. with a service in the Maria Hilf church.

in Geretsried A champagne reception is planned afterwards.

Guests include Markus Besseler from the Bavarian Cancer Society and Dr.

Stefan Schmidbauer, Medical Director of the Wolfratshausen District Clinic, is expecting.

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