Deb McCune calls her Hoag Family Cancer Institute team her “Circle of Caregivers.” It’s a fitting term for the people who wrapped her in loving support through her recent breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. But Deb’s caregivers are also her colleagues. As executive director of strategic engagement at the Hoag Hospital Foundation, one of Deb’s primary responsibilities is to support fundraising initiatives for the Hoag Family Cancer Institute (HFCI).

Deb was first diagnosed with stage I breast cancer in 1995, while living in Colorado. She had long been cancer-free when she accepted her job at Hoag in 2011.

“Little did I know what that decision would mean for my life,” Deb said. As a survivor, she has always brought an extra dose of empathy to her job, but last year, her role took on new significance. Approaching 28 years of survivorship, Deb felt pain in her previously treated right breast. It was another tumor.

“I began my second journey with breast cancer with a band of warriors here at Hoag behind me,” Deb said at the annual brunch for Circle 1000, a group that has raised more than $25 million for cancer care at Hoag since 1987. “If it weren’t for philanthropy, these people literally would not have been there for me.” Indeed, philanthropy helped fund the recruitment of Deb’s oncologist, Chaitali Nangia, MD, and continues to support her clinical research. It also funds HFCI’s Nurse Navigator Program, providing each patient with an oncology nurse who becomes their go-to resource for medical information, emotional support, and facilitation of medical care.

Deb McCune and her Nurse Navigator, Traci Swenson

“She was the warm voice on the other end of the phone,” Deb said of her nurse navigator, Traci Swenson, BSN, RN, OCN. “She was the one who would laugh with me when I realized this cancer journey had really warped my sense of humor. She was the one who would listen to me cry when the physical or emotional pain was overwhelming. She was the one who gave me information, confidence, and support throughout my journey.”

Deb said her personal experience has only enhanced her purposeful work with the Foundation. “I better understand now the passion these donors show by sharing and by giving their gifts, because I was on the receiving end of that,” she said.

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