AUTHOR: Dr Susan Palmer
Back in the very early days, when Gather My Crew was still just an idea, I was working in Brisbane with women undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
A group of these incredible humans agreed to come together as a reference group to help me better understand the problem I thought I was seeing, and what a solution might genuinely look like for them.
They were deep in their cancer journeys.
All were undergoing treatment.
All needed help in different ways.
Many were single parents with young children.
As we sat together, they spoke honestly about how hard it was to ask for help, and how overwhelming it could be to manage and coordinate the offers of help they did receive.
Then one woman raised something that stopped me in my tracks.
She talked about how hard it was to know what to say when people offered or brought things that were well intentioned, but not actually helpful. Flowers. Another lasagna. Kind gestures, but not what was really needed.
That caught my attention.
So I asked them, “If you could turn those flowers and lasagnas into the help you really needed, what would that be?”
Their answer was simple.
Changing the bedsheets.
They went on to explain that because of ongoing fatigue, pain, or the physical impacts of surgery, many of them couldn’t strip a bed, remake it, carry heavy wet washing, or hang it on the line. And because they were often the only adult in the household, there was no one else to notice, and no one to step in.
Some of these women hadn’t had clean sheets for themselves or their children for a long time.
And they were undergoing cancer treatment.
That was the moment I knew Gather My Crew was essential.
This was the problem we were trying to solve, laid bare. The gap between the help we offer and the help that is actually needed.
Because who thinks to offer to change the bedsheets?
I certainly didn’t. Not until that moment.
Do you? 🤔
