Gloria Henkle, our founding director of WISER (Women in Support of Each Other’s Recovery) has retired and relinquished her position to Teresa Sobery. This unique support group was started several years ago as a unique one-on-one mentoring program, matching a newly diagnosed breast cancer patient with a survivor of a similar diagnosis and age. If you are interested in being a mentor, please contact either Teresa by calling 557-4159 (cell) or e-mail soberytr@aol.com or Lin by calling 545-7434 or e-mail at lvautrain@siumed.edu.

Teresa Sobery was diagnosed with breast cancer in December of 2005. Rather than face her diagnosis in fear, and being a firm believer that knowledge is power, she thoroughly researched her diagnosis and became part of the decision making team contributing to decisions regarding her own treatment. She considers her diagnosis and treatment to be one of the most positive experiences in her life and readily accepted the position as Director of the WISER program.
As Director, Ms. Sobery feels she has been given a rare opportunity to help others by sharing her strength, her experience, her positive outlook and her ability to remain calm while dealing with what most consider a frightening diagnosis. As a benefactor of the WISER program, she says she would like to see that every person in need of such support benefit from it as she has.

Teresa is a full-time employee of the Illinois Department of Public Health/Office of Health Protection in Springfield. She is also a participant in a research project involving exercise and cancer survivors. In her spare time, she especially enjoys ballroom dancing and travel both within the United States and abroad. She has one daughter who lives near Tucson, Arizona with her husband and two small children.

The W.I.S.E.R. Volunteers sit through an interactive all day training session with the breast specialists at the Breast Center at SIU. They are taught about all the different types of breast cancer, ways it can be diagnosed, all the surgical and reconstructive options, forms of chemotherapy and radiation and why certain ones are used.

These women are also informed about side effects of treatments and provided with our treatment algorithms. The volunteers then spend time with the psychologist at the Breast Center at SIU and learn about listening and helping skills, as well as review some past experiences of previous trainees.

When a patient is diagnosed with breast cancer at the Breast Center at SIU, she is introduced to Gloria Henkle (now the director of the program) who learns a bit about her and if desired, matches her with a W.I.S.E.R. volunteer.

The program has been funded by the 2001 Denim and Diamonds fundraiser, which supports the training and the ''icebreaker'' gift bags that are provided to the volunteers to give their new peer. The volunteers ''contract'' for a year with their new matches. They are to contact that person once a week for the first month, and once a month for the first year. If the contact consists only of sending a card, that is fine.

Some women however, become good friends, have lunch frequently, and make lifelong lasting relationships. W.I.S.E.R. has proven to be a wonderful program that brings hope and happiness to women and their families. We hope to extend the program to include spousal support, and child support programs.