“Where have you been doc?”
By T. Delaplain
Retirement gave me the freedom to explore a second act. Figuring out what that would look like took a winding path of nearly ten years.
I knew I wanted to keep helping people outside of an operating room. I just didn’t know how. I took workshops about finding purpose and spent time with the question so many of us face when we leave a profession that has shaped our lives: Who am I now?
In the meantime, I was writing, exploring other interests and becoming more connected to our community in Loreto, Baja California Sur. That’s where I met Maria Elena Posadas, a breast cancer survivor and the founder of Onco Loreto.
Maria Elena was helping people with cancer navigate challenges that went far beyond a diagnosis. In Loreto, getting cancer care means leaving town. A person may have access to treatment but still need money for transportation, lodging and food and someone to help them through the uncertainty of it all.
As a physician, I understood how much those barriers could matter. Through Maria Elena, I began to understand what they meant for people in our community.
I stumbled into fundraising. I was volunteering with a group of woman trying to launch a fundraising effort for Onco Loreto in the early days. We joined together to host a small “Pink Tea” party. After the party, someone asked who would like to take on this project next year. The joke is, I stood still and everyone else stepped back leaving me holding the fundraiser’s hat. I used my organizational skills to bring together people who needed help, someone doing the work locally, and friends and neighbors willing to contribute. I found that I could help bring those pieces together. I called that early organization, Amigas de Onco Loreto, friends of Onco Loreto. In fact I have remained steadfast amigas with Maria Elena Posadas the founder of Onco Loreto.
What began as a small grassroots effort, Amigas de Onco Loreto, eventually grew into Baja Cancer Outreach. Along the way, I became its founder, learned more about running a nonprofit than I ever expected to, and found myself working alongside a volunteer board of people who care deeply about this community.
Today, BCO supports people facing cancer in Loreto and rural Baja California Sur by strengthening access to care, education and awareness through partnerships. We raise funds to support organizations such as Onco Loreto, whose local knowledge and relationships make that work possible. We have also begun supporting Mulegé Community Alliance, extending that partnership approach to another rural community.
Developing BCO has been a labor of love, with plenty of learning, uncertainty and time at my computer. There is satisfaction in seeing what a group of committed people can make possible, and in finding a way to contribute that draws on my years in medicine while asking me to learn something new.
I’ve shared very little of this here. This blog has mostly been a home for my fiction and narrative medical writing, but BCO has become a meaningful part of my life, and it belongs in my story too.
I still write. (Admittedly, my fiction has taken a backseat.) I still wonder what comes next. But that question—Who am I now?—has become a little easier to answer.
You can learn more about the people and partnerships behind BCO at www.bajacanceroutreach.org.
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