Today is National Oncology Navigator Day.
These are the humans who translate insurance bullshit into survival. Who know which forms to massage when your life depends on it. Who become your mother, your therapist, your translator, and your last hope all at once.
I had brain cancer at 21. No navigator. Just Uncle Jay who happened to know the system. Most of you don’t have an Uncle Jay.
You hopefully have them.
They’re the ones who call insurance at 7am before their shift starts because they know you’re too sick to fight. Who memorize which prior auth codes actually work. Who slip you the direct number to skip the phone tree that kills people.
The Academy of Oncology Nurse Navigators (AONN+) asked me to keynote their conference. Third time in their history. My message was simple: You do the work that wouldn’t get done if you didn’t do it. You’re what I wished I had 30 years ago. What my dad wished we had. My brother. My mom.
They don’t teach “forging discharge papers to save lives” in nursing school. But navigators learn it anyway. Because dead patients can’t appeal denials.
They’re paid like social workers while doing the job of air traffic controllers—except the planes are cancer patients and the runway is on fire.
Every navigator I know has PTSD from watching the system murder people with paperwork. And they show up anyway. At 6am. On weekends. From their own hospital beds sometimes.
You want to know why some cancer patients survive and others don’t? Sometimes it’s not the tumor. It’s whether you had someone who knew how to work the system while you were busy dying.
To every oncology navigator reading this: You are seen. You are felt. You are needed. From the entire cancer community—you are loved, appreciated, and valued.
To everyone else: If you survived cancer, thank your oncologist. Then find your navigator and thank them harder. They’re the reason you’re still here to read this.
Share this if a navigator saved your life. Or someone you love.
Because NO ONE DIES ON HOLD when navigators are on duty.
Are you new here? My condolences and my thanks. Follow along and stay loud with the rest of us. More voices means more pressure on a system that counts on silence
#OncologyNavigators #WeThePatients #HealthcareHeroes
MY LOVE LETTER ➡️ https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7404211069004521472/