In 2020, Watertown’s Jessica Yamas went through treatment for breast cancer, including chemotherapy, and she used her experiences to create boxes full of items to help others going through cancer treatment.
She calls the boxes ChemoCareKits, which include a variety of items to make people more comfortable, as well as a booklet. Yamas now sells the boxes, with some of the proceeds benefiting cancer research and patient care.
Yamas went through her cancer treatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
“A lot of people were asking me, ‘Oh, did you get COVID? And I, and I would say, oh, no, I skipped the little c and went to the big C,” she said.
Going through cancer treatment during a time when people were isolating had its challenges, but Yamas said she felt supported.
“I had to do everything alone. I did go through two rounds of chemo, and I did surgery and I did radiation,” Yamas said. “Luckily for me, I had a tremendous amount of support. I had support from my partner and I work on a regular basis for a nonprofit organization, a women’s organization —Women’s Business Enterprise National Council — and they are a great organization, and they were very, very supportive.”
Following her treatments, Yamas wanted to do something to help others facing cancer.
“I just thought, ‘Wow, I’m so lucky to have so much support,'” she said. “And how can I share this wisdom and help others embrace the process and embrace that part of the journey, which can be so hard.”
Yamas recalled feeling dread when she learned that her treatment would include chemotherapy.
“I really cried when I learned I was going to have to have chemo. Nobody wants to have chemo, right? It’s really hard to accept that idea, and no one wants to have it in them, right?” she said. “And people will tell you, it’s a toxin, it’s poison. And so I gave myself one full day to have a pity party, and then I got up the next day and I was like, ‘OK, that’s it. We have to get this done.'”
The treatment has many side effects, and the ChemoCareKits have items to help soothe some of them, such as nausea and dry skin, Yamas said.
“It helps you feel like you’re being a little proactive with your treatment,” she said. “Nothing in it is medical, and it’s some of the more homeopathic ways of treating nausea, like with ginger and aromatherapy. There’s a nasal inhaler, and there’s things that help ease your stomach.
The box also includes a booklet called “Words of Wisdom,” which Yamas said is the heart of the kit. She wrote the booklet using what she learned from others, and from her own experience.
“It’s the advice from the women that I talked to that went through it, from the doctors, from the nutritionist, from the acupuncturist,” she said. “And I started to put together a collection of things that I thought, OK, these could probably apply to everybody going chemo.”
One thing she learned was that the medicines are not the only part of the treatment.
“There’s so much stress involved and it’s such a mental game, you really just, you have to keep everything as positive as you can and eliminate all the extra stress,” she said.
About a year after her treatments, Yamas said she “resurfaced” and created her first kits.
“I did it for some friends, and I put together these homemade kits and and then I know some women business owners, one in particular — she does distribution, marketing and distribution — and she’s like, ‘Let me help you.” And so we put together a more, you know, a more professional looking box.”
Yamas said after being diagnosed with cancer it was a whirlwind. People want to help, but it is not always clear how. She said the kits are one option.
“One of the hard parts is that everything happens so quickly, and you don’t know what you need, and then you have so many people that want to help and don’t know how to help,” Yamas said. “And so what the ChemoCareKits is trying to do is bridge that gap between what to give and what to even ask for.”
The company has two products for sale — the full ChemoCareKit or just the booklet.
Yamas also helps with Mount Auburn Hospital, and is on the planning committee for the hospital’s annual Cancer Survivorship Day. She looks for opportunities to help others with the ChemoCareKits.
“I’m always happy to donate the boxes and work with other organizations,” she said.