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Patient Navigation Experience (10:07)

Heather Simonsen: Yes, let's talk about, you mentioned Amelia, your patient navigator. The health care system, let's face it, it is not easy. I mean, it is a tough process. How did Amelia help you?

PJ DiPentino: I can't, you know, it's hard to put into words. When you're struggling, you're in an area where you don't know anybody, and just everything is tough, and Amelia was amazing. When we checked in, we saw her right away. You know, you get there on a Friday and you're having surgery on Monday, so there's a lot of stress and worrying. She was so kind, I mean, she showed up with tickets to the art festival that was going on downtown, and what a blessing that was. As we walked through town together and just enjoyed everything about Utah and the people. It was really, really nice.

Lexi DiPentino: And she helped us even before we stepped in to Salt Lake, you know, she was my contact there. From the very beginning, life is very hard as a caretaker. I'm running our store, I have a full-time job also on top of that, and then trying to pick up everything that my husband did at the house, there were a lot of roles that I was playing. I wasn't always on the ball with everything and Amelia even reached back out to me like, “Hey, how are you doing?” Just to check in on me and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I still have to book a hotel,” or I have to do this or whatever. It was really nice. From the very beginning, she was there to help figure out what type of travel we needed, how there are different flight opportunities and stuff. She just gave me everything that I needed or opportunities I could potentially use to travel and then allowed me to kind of figure out how it worked best for us. And she was always there, oh my gosh, I can't even explain how amazing she was through the whole process.

Heather Simonsen: We actually have Amelia in the studio today and we're going to be talking to her in a minute. But I'm just so touched hearing you explain how much she helped you. I can tell you, she is touched. It's not very often that you hear how your job really impacts someone's life in such a powerful way.

Lexi DiPentino: I'm crying right now just thinking about all the help she gave us. She was just such a blessing. We could not have done it without her.

PJ DiPentino: Yeah, it was really comforting. Like I said, you have so much to worry about and you’re thinking about and you're stressing out, and then the fear of the surgery, you know, we're both scared to death. We're wandering around a town where we don't know anybody we're not even sure what's ahead of us, our children aren't here, our people to lean on, and she stepped right into that role for us. I mean, she really was able be there for us. To me the epitome of the word support is that she was support, she was support from so many different ways, so many different things that made it a worthwhile decision. We could have went to Denver, we could have stayed in Montana, we chose Huntsman because of the facilities, the type of cancer I had, and the treatment that I thought I could get made taking this big risk of going all the way across country to get this done worth it. I sit here today attesting that I'm not cancer free, but I am better off than I've ever been in a long time and that experience is what brought me here.

Heather Simonsen: It’s almost like a substitute family member, a stand in if you will. Is that how you describe it?

Lexi DiPentino: Absolutely, I would explain it that way. Somebody who just steps in, is right there by you whenever you need. We decided at the last minute when our son was coming that we wanted to rent a car so we could drive around because we didn't know what it was going to be like until we got there. I reached out to Amelia and she right away was able to get us gas cards which was just amazing. We were able to go and drive around with our son a little and do some sightseeing when he was with us before PJ’s last doctor's appointment and before we left. It was just very nice.

PJ DiPentino: You know, one of the things too is, by my son being able to come in the end, my wife was worn out. At that point we'd been three weeks into this, she was tired, worn out, had been just beat up. Just the fact that my son was there and was able to take mom and the two of them got lost for about six hours in Salt Lake with each other, was so much therapy for her and for me. Those small little things that help us to be able to do that was what created the positive experience. I couldn't imagine, I told my wife at one point, I couldn't imagine going through this battle by yourself, without your family, without the support. I never, as a single man, would have figured out Amelia even existed. I wouldn't have known what was available, I would have just toughed it through and who knows if I even would have made it. Just that positive experience having that local contact, having somebody that came to check on me after the surgery, that was really cool. My wife, I don’t remember it, but she said, “Amelia came by and wanted just to see how you were doing.” I mean, that's the personal touch that made a world of difference because that's what you would do, you would check on a family member, you checked on a loved one to make sure they're okay.