From the Duke Cancer Institute archives. Content may be out of date.
Mallori Thompson, administrative director of Cancer Support and Survivorship at Duke, keeps a coin-sized metal angel at her desk. When she feels frustrated, she rubs it.
“It reminds me of why I’m doing what I’m doing,” she says.
The angel was a gift from Liz Menges, whose son Bobby Menges was diagnosed with cancer for the third time in 2016 when he was 19 years old and a freshman at Duke University. Thompson met Bobby only once, in 2017, for an hour. But their conversation shapes what she does to this day.
Bobby Menges (2nd from right) was a freshman at Duke University when he was diagnosed with cancer for the third time.
While being treated for cancer, Bobby Menges (far left) took a full load of classes to complete his sophomore year while also playing in the Duke jazz band.
Duke Teen and Young Adult Oncology Program
After a medical leave at home in New York, Bobby returned to school. He completed his sophomore year, taking a full load of classes and playing in the jazz band, all while receiving treatment at Duke.
In September 2017 he passed away from the disease. But he is still changing the experience of cancer for other young people, through the Duke Teen and Young Adult Oncology Program, a student fundraiser he inspired, and a foundation that his family started in his memory.
You Need to Talk to Bobby
In 2017, Thompson, a medical and family therapist, was forming plans for a support program at Duke for teens and young adults with cancer. The pediatric social workers and physicians all told her, “You need to talk to Bobby.”
Bobby had received cancer care at several different places at different times. He was struck by the lack of any formal support services for teens and young adults.
Kids had clowns and face painting to distract them. Older adults had self-image services and wigs. But none of what was offered seemed appropriate for people his age, who are just beginning to live independently, think about careers, and decide who they are going to be.
Thompson still has her notes from their conversation. “He talked about peer connection being really important, but not through traditional support groups, but by feeling like you’re doing something that a young adult his age would be doing anyway,” she says.
Bobby Menges during treatment at Duke. He became passionate about the need for formal support services for teens and young adults with cancer.
A New Idea
Drawing on those ideas, for their first event the Duke Teen and Young Adult Oncology Program tackled an escape room together. They have also gone rock climbing, done yoga, and tried Krav Maga. Right now, their meetups are virtual because of COVID-19.
After Bobby died, Liz found Thompson’s business card in Bobby’s wallet. She had met Thompson only for a second. But she remembered how excited her son had been about his conversation with her.
“He told me about all the ideas that he had shared with Mallori. As soon as I saw her card, I knew this was something that he would want us to support.”
She called Thompson, and that conversation led to a relationship that has resulted in the family’s foundation making three significant gifts to Duke programs that support teen and young adults with cancer and other chronic health issues. The foundation, called I’m Not Done Yet, is named for Bobby’s desire to always do more.
“Even in the last days of his life when he wasn’t feeling good, he would always get up and do what he needed to do,” Liz says.
The I’m Not Done Yet Foundation gift funds a peer-to-peer support program for teens and young adults with chronic disease and their parents, called “Bobby’s Coaches,” an effort led by Gary Maslow, MD, in the Duke Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Bobby had served as a mentor for teen patients with chronic health issues through the ATLAS program in that department, and Bobby’s Coaches grew out of that.
The foundation’s gifts also provide financial assistance to help young cancer patients pay for fertility preservation services.
“Bobby had so much chemotherapy and radiation for so long at such a young age. But talking about fertility was never on anyone’s radar,” Liz says. “By his third bout with cancer, he was aware of the effects the chemotherapy was having on his body and fertility. It made him so mad that no one had talked to him about this earlier.”
Never Done
Before the gift from I’m Not Done Yet, it was difficult to even mention fertility preservation services to young patients because the services are so expensive, Thompson says. “Now we have an option for people who normally couldn’t afford it.” Because the service is now affordable for more people, a patient navigator discusses it with every teen and young adult cancer patient at Duke. “Mallori and her team figured out a way to take our ideas and make them work in ways that are even better than we intended,” Liz says.
Bobby’s passion for helping others lives on among Duke students, through an annual Shave and Buzz fundraising event that he and other students started during his freshman year. To date, the events have raised almost $450,000 for adolescent and young adult cancer services at Duke.
Students shaved their heads again this year via a virtual event on March 27, 2021, even though those who organized this year’s event never even met Bobby. They exceeded their fundraising goal, raising almost $118,000. “These Duke students are amazing,” Liz says. “Their involvement and engagement have really amplified our efforts.”
Bobby’s love for Duke is one reason why she chose an angel as the symbol that she gives out in his memory. “He can’t be a Blue Devil anymore,” she says, “but he can be a blue angel.”
Teen and Young Adult Oncology
Duke Cancer Institute’s Teen and Young Adult Oncology Program (TYAO) provides patients and their families with support and community during a cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship.
Learn more about the annual Shave and Buzz Fundraiser that benefits the I'm Not Done Yet Foundation and Duke support services for teens and young adults with cancer and other chronic health issues.
In 2022, when Iris Bugbee, MS, CCC-SLP, was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 34, she had a lot to think about besides cancer. Working full time as a speech language pathologist and caring for her then-two-year-old daughter, Mila, occupied her days. She took nearly six weeks off for surgery, but she worked throughout the rest of her treatment, just reducing her hours.Bugbee, who lives in Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, and was treated at Duke Women’s Cancer Care Raleigh, fit radiation appointments in between patients. She works with adults and older people who have speech or swallowing issues. “I would go to work, travel to Raleigh, and then come back and see the rest of my patients,” she said. “I was going through treatment and doing what I could for my patients and then what I could as a parent at home. I didn’t think a whole lot about my own treatment or diagnosis.”One year after her mastectomy, when a nurse called asking if she’d be willing to participate in a clinical trial of a new, structured support program for young adult cancer survivors, Bugbee said yes. She wanted to get stronger physically, and she saw it as a good way to get motivated. She had exercised regularly before surgery but had not been exercising at all since. She had developed cording syndrome (inflammation, scarring, and hardening of the tissue that can happen as a side effect of surgery), and she was having trouble with range of motion in her right arm. Cleaning, picking up her daughter, and even typing at work were challenging. TThe program encouraged her to plan and set goals, to start slowly to regain strength and to go easy on herself. “When I started this program that’s when I began walking and stretching and building off of that,” she said.The sessions also helped Bugbee begin to process all that happened to her. She said that the support group, which was held online, felt less like a mandatory class and more like a chat with her peers. “It was nice to see the perspective of other cancer survivors who are in the middle of this part of their life – raising a family or in the middle of their careers,” she said. “Hearing everyone’s experiences and their challenges made me feel like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m not the only one.’ The two psychologists who ran the support program were inviting and gentle, and they just made you want to share."The clinical trial was led by Caroline Dorfman, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Duke Cancer Institute. Read more.This article was originally published in the Fall 2024 Breakthroughs. Read more about DCI's breakthrough research and patient care in this biannual magazine.
Being diagnosed with cancer and going through treatment isn’t easy for anyone. For people diagnosed as young adults (ages 18-39), the experience comes with some unique challenges.“This is an age of transition,” said Caroline Dorfman, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Duke Cancer Institute. People in this age group are often in the midst of reaching milestones such as graduation, landing a job, building a friend group, getting married, and having children, she said. “One of the things we hear from our patients,” she said, “is that the cancer diagnosis stops them in their tracks from being able to move forward on life milestones.”Even after treatment ends, life doesn’t suddenly switch back to normal. Physical symptoms like pain and fatigue can linger, and emotional distress is common during the post-treatment period. Multiple follow-up appointments can present financial and logistical difficulties as well as emotional reminders of cancer.“Sometimes they just want the cancer behind them and to get back to doing what matters to them,” Dorfman said. “The trouble is that when they are in the midst of treatment, they are just trying to get through it, and they don’t stop to process the experience.”That emotional processing often happens after the last chemo treatment or radiation session.To support young adults during this vulnerable period, Dorfman has designed a 10-week program that aims to give them the tools they need to navigate physical and emotional symptoms and learn how to successfully manage their new lives as cancer survivors.
In 2022, when Iris Bugbee, MS, CCC-SLP, was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 34, she had a lot to think about besides cancer. Working full time as a speech language pathologist and caring for her then-two-year-old daughter, Mila, occupied her days. She took nearly six weeks off for surgery, but she worked throughout the rest of her treatment, just reducing her hours.Bugbee, who lives in Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, and was treated at Duke Women’s Cancer Care Raleigh, fit radiation appointments in between patients. She works with adults and older people who have speech or swallowing issues. “I would go to work, travel to Raleigh, and then come back and see the rest of my patients,” she said. “I was going through treatment and doing what I could for my patients and then what I could as a parent at home. I didn’t think a whole lot about my own treatment or diagnosis.”One year after her mastectomy, when a nurse called asking if she’d be willing to participate in a clinical trial of a new, structured support program for young adult cancer survivors, Bugbee said yes. She wanted to get stronger physically, and she saw it as a good way to get motivated. She had exercised regularly before surgery but had not been exercising at all since. She had developed cording syndrome (inflammation, scarring, and hardening of the tissue that can happen as a side effect of surgery), and she was having trouble with range of motion in her right arm. Cleaning, picking up her daughter, and even typing at work were challenging. TThe program encouraged her to plan and set goals, to start slowly to regain strength and to go easy on herself. “When I started this program that’s when I began walking and stretching and building off of that,” she said.The sessions also helped Bugbee begin to process all that happened to her. She said that the support group, which was held online, felt less like a mandatory class and more like a chat with her peers. “It was nice to see the perspective of other cancer survivors who are in the middle of this part of their life – raising a family or in the middle of their careers,” she said. “Hearing everyone’s experiences and their challenges made me feel like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m not the only one.’ The two psychologists who ran the support program were inviting and gentle, and they just made you want to share."The clinical trial was led by Caroline Dorfman, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Duke Cancer Institute. Read more.This article was originally published in the Fall 2024 Breakthroughs. Read more about DCI's breakthrough research and patient care in this biannual magazine.
Being diagnosed with cancer and going through treatment isn’t easy for anyone. For people diagnosed as young adults (ages 18-39), the experience comes with some unique challenges.“This is an age of transition,” said Caroline Dorfman, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Duke Cancer Institute. People in this age group are often in the midst of reaching milestones such as graduation, landing a job, building a friend group, getting married, and having children, she said. “One of the things we hear from our patients,” she said, “is that the cancer diagnosis stops them in their tracks from being able to move forward on life milestones.”Even after treatment ends, life doesn’t suddenly switch back to normal. Physical symptoms like pain and fatigue can linger, and emotional distress is common during the post-treatment period. Multiple follow-up appointments can present financial and logistical difficulties as well as emotional reminders of cancer.“Sometimes they just want the cancer behind them and to get back to doing what matters to them,” Dorfman said. “The trouble is that when they are in the midst of treatment, they are just trying to get through it, and they don’t stop to process the experience.”That emotional processing often happens after the last chemo treatment or radiation session.To support young adults during this vulnerable period, Dorfman has designed a 10-week program that aims to give them the tools they need to navigate physical and emotional symptoms and learn how to successfully manage their new lives as cancer survivors.