AnCan and The Marsh (well renown, long-established theater company with a large following in the Bay Area and venues in San Francisco and Oakland) collaborateevery 4th Wednesday of the month for Solo Arts Heal!
On April 27th, we had the pleasure of hosting Solo Arts Heal with special guest, Elizabeth Jameson!
Elizabeth Jameson is an artist, writer, and health advocate. Since her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, she has used medical technology to create art as a way of taking ownership of her disease. She transformed her unsettling, clinical black-and-white brain scans into work that invites others to be curious and contemplate
the beauty of the brain, and encourages conversations about what it means to live in an imperfect body. Her use of strong, vibrant colors is a way to celebrate and honor the journey of what she has had to confront—the disease of her brain—and to challenge others to question what it means to be imperfect, which is part of the universal human experience.
As her disease has progressed, her practice has evolved. She now concentrates on writing and publishing essays about illness and disability. In 2021, she created MS Confidential, a monthly web series that provides a safe space for raw and informal discussions about the chaos of daily life for people living with multiple sclerosis.
Watch the performance here:
To SIGN UP for any of our AnCan Virtual Support group reminders, visit our Contact Us page.
AnCan is proud to announce that we recently joined the Modern Medicaid Alliance, a partnership
between Americans who value Medicaid and leading advocacy organizations. We look forward to
working with the Alliance to educate policymakers and the public about the benefits and value of
Medicaid.
As part of our partnership with the Modern Medicaid Alliance, we will be highlighting the diverse
populations that depend on Medicaid for their health and financial security. Medicaid covers about
1 in 5 Americans, including millions of children, older adults, people with disabilities, and 2million
veterans. Medicaid provides an essential safety net for when Americans need it, providing high-
quality, cost-effective care to more than 73 million people nationwide.
We join the Modern Medicaid Alliance at a critical time. While policymakers debate changes to
Medicaid, the program is enjoying widespread support from Americans. In fact, recent polling
found that 86% of Americans want a strong, sustainable Medicaid program – and fewer than 20%
of Americans support cutting Medicaid funding.
AnCan is particularly interested in furthering Medicaid expansion in all States in order to
promote health equity. Indeed, providing mental health services to veterans and to all those
enduring chronic conditions is an urgent need.
AnCan and The Marsh (well renown, long-established theater company with a large following in the Bay Area and venues in San Francisco and Oakland) collaborateevery 4th Wednesday of the month for Solo Arts Heal!
On March 23rd, we had the pleasure of hosting Solo Arts Heal with special guest, Twinkle Burke!
Twinkle is an Actor/Writer from New York City. She is equally comfortable on stage and screen and writing in different genres and styles. Her work has been performed with TMI Project, The Actors Studio Playwright and Directors Workshop, Lift Every Voice: Black Women Speak Festival, and The Drawing Board to name a few. She can be seen in various independent films and on TV in various shows, including Season 3 of HBO’s SUCCESSION. She plays “Eugenia” in Colin West’s latest film, LINOLEUM premiering at the SXSW Festival in March of 2022. She is an avid proponent for using the arts to learn, heal, and grow.
In this SAH, Twinkle performed a piece telling how she used her craft of acting to sustain herself while miscarrying her child.
Watch the performance here:
To SIGN UP for any of our AnCan Virtual Support group reminders, visit our Contact Us page.
AnCan and The Marsh (well renown, long-established theater company with a large following in the Bay Area and venues in San Francisco and Oakland) collaborateevery 4th Wednesday of the month for Solo Arts Heal!
On February 23rd, we had the pleasure of hosting Solo Arts Heal with special guest, Barbara Dyskant!
Barbara is an energetic and versatile pianist, composer, singer-songwriter, and writer who strives to use her art to warmly evoke empathy with her audience and empower them to move forward in their lives, as well as to entertain and delight. She also was caregiver for both her daughter and her husband’s cancers.
Barbara’s other passions include hiking, dancing, camping, adventuring, laughter, meeting people, reading about science, preserving the environment, good conversations, and learning from everyone. And using what she learns from her experiences and those of others to improve lives.
Watch the performance here:
To SIGN UP for any of our AnCan Virtual Support group reminders, visit our Contact Us page.
AnCan’s founder, Rick Davis, innovated virtual peer-led support groups back in 2010. He recognized the potential of peer advice as the best information a patient could find. AnCan’s 2021 research confirms what Rick knew intuitively.
Neuroscientist Herb Geller PhD, the abstract’s lead author, highlighted the following key research findings,
“Our research indicates that peer-led groups don’t just improve quality of life around the things we can control like diet, exercise and stress. Eighty percent of our participants feel the groups make them better advocates for themselves, and well over 60% take information gleaned back to their healthcare teams.”
While this poster is featured in the Advanced Prostate Cancer track on Feb 17, AnCan is proud of its work to establish the stature of the low risk Active Surveillance (AS) protocol and includes its AS findings.
Co-author and nationally recognized AS Advocate, Howard Wolinsky, said:
“Sixty eight percent of our AS participants told us the Groups made them better advocates and 27% reported lower levels of anxiety – that’s a major difference. Active surveillance is the Rodney Dangerfield of prostate cancer – including our study at GU ASCO recognizes AS patients”
Rick Davis, founder of AnCan and a prostate cancer survivor, says the research demonstrates the power of patient communities on outcomes:
“I realized the power of peer-led support groups from my own treatment. Bringing them to a virtual platform 10 years before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19 and Zoom meetings, made peer support available to those compromised by geographical, physical and social issues. Recognition by GU ASCO is a big step in legitimizing AnCan’s work for all peer-led support.”
