{"id":84402,"date":"2025-07-22T23:13:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T23:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/84402\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T23:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T23:13:13","slug":"road-to-recovery-program-gives-cancer-patients-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/84402\/","title":{"rendered":"Road To Recovery program gives cancer patient&#8217;s hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SAN ANTONIO &#8211; Elizabeth Martinez is celebrating being cancer-free, but it doesn&#8217;t erase the memory of her breast cancer diagnosis in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I went to do my mammogram regular screening, and they called me that I had cancer,&#8221; Elizabeth recalls. &#8220;I was stunned. I was very stunned.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth and her family were ready to fight, but she hit a road block.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I needed a ride to go to my appointments because we had to go to different doctors, different locations,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I had a car but it wasn&#8217;t really that good.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s when a social worker at the oncologist&#8217;s office told Elizabeth about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cancer.org\/support-programs-and-services\/road-to-recovery.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cancer.org\/support-programs-and-services\/road-to-recovery.html\" class=\"themeColorForLinks\" rel=\"noopener\">American Cancer Society&#8217;s Road To Recovery.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Road To Recovery is one of our transportation programs,&#8221; said Patrick Isenberg, director of corporation relations with the American Cancer Society. &#8220;It&#8217;s a free ride for patients. They get connected with a volunteer through an app and then find a ride to get to their cancer treatment,&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth was paired with a woman named Edie.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She took me to the front door and she would pick me up,&#8221; Elizabeth said. &#8220;She let me know if you need to go anywhere else, let me know what time you need to go, I&#8217;ll be there for you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Edie was much more than a ride. She is a friend.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s part of our family now,&#8221; Elizabeth said. &#8220;We invited her to come when I rang the cancer bell,  she was there. We had a birthday party for me. She came.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A friendship that makes all the difference.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the bonds that they make and the connection that they share which gives them a sense of community,&#8221; adds Isenberg.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s something Elizabeth desperately needed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I had hope,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I would have hope. It was very challenging when I lost my hair. I couldn&#8217;t see myself in the mirror.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hope, faith and strength that got Elizabeth through her cancer journey.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I got my hair back. I had lost my hair. I had lost weight. I was very tired,&#8221; said Elizabeth.  &#8220;Now I got hair and I&#8217;m moving now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Isenberg said the American Cancer Society receives more ride requests in San Antonio than they can provide, so they&#8217;re always looking for volunteers.<\/p>\n<p>Learn more about how you can volunteer, donate or get help from the American Cancer Society through the<a href=\"https:\/\/sinclaircares.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/sinclaircares.com\/\" class=\"themeColorForLinks\" rel=\"noopener\"> Sinclair Cares: Help Drive Out Cancer<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO &#8211; Elizabeth Martinez is celebrating being cancer-free, but it doesn&#8217;t erase the memory of her breast&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":84403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,35876,235,718,2609,57229,7202,7203,358,522,9226,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,25235],"class_list":{"0":"post-84402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-american-cancer-society","10":"tag-cancer","11":"tag-community","12":"tag-hope","13":"tag-road-to-recovery","14":"tag-san-antonio","15":"tag-sanantonio","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-transportation","18":"tag-treatment","19":"tag-tx","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-volunteer"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114899427271319177","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}