Coleen d’Avignon (left) and Duchess Wills talk in d’Avignon’s Art on Market gallery in Wailuku town recently. The two breast cancer survivors are peer navigators in Kaiser’s Caring Connections program that matches them with breast cancer patients. -- The Maui News / LILA FUJIMOTO photo

WAILUKU — When Waiehu resident Duchess Wills was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, she found support from a woman who survived a similar diagnosis a few years earlier.

Coleen d’Avignon went with Wills to a doctor’s appointment and spent time talking with her as she faced anxiety over what would happen next.

“She just helped me get through the darkest time of my life,” Wills said. “I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what was happening to me. She was always there no matter what time I called her. She was always there to reassure me that I would be OK.”

The two women met after being matched through Kaiser Permanente’s Caring Connections program, which offers trained peer navigators to provide support for breast cancer patients during treatment.

“We’re there if they need a little helping hand or a little shoulder,” said d’Avignon, who — along with Wills — is among a handful of peer navigators in the program on Maui. “We’ve been there. We’re like a sounding board.”

She has talked with patients about how taste buds are affected by chemotherapy and the “type of tired you experience — it’s not the kind you can sleep away.”

Some patients wonder whether or not to shave their heads, and whether their hair will grow back, d’Avignon said.

“There are all these things you wouldn’t be aware of if you haven’t had chemo,” she said.

“Some people I’ve met a couple of times to answer some basic questions or just to say, ‘I’m on your side, welcome to my club,’ ” d’Avignon said. “I think it’s important for people to have that kind of support. It’s also good for people to know survivors.”

For some questions, such as decisions about treatment options, a peer navigator will suggest that a patient talk with her doctor or other professional.

“I can say maybe that’s something you want to talk about with your physician,” d’Avignon said. “That’s how I’m part of the process.

“We don’t take the place of the doctor. We’re just there to help you get through it. It’s a crummy, crummy thing unless you’ve been through it.”

D’Avignon was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago on June 4 after she found a lump in her breast. Ten months earlier, she had a mammogram that was clear.

When she found the lump, “it was already the size of a grape and had gone into one of my nodes,” d’Avignon said. “That’s why the exams are so important.”

She had surgery in July, the month after her diagnosis, then started chemotherapy in the middle of August, followed by radiation.

“I remember when I was first diagnosed, my heart was just coming out of my throat, thinking it was the alien, thinking I was going to be overtaken,” d’Avignon said. “They give you an amazing amount of information. But the truth is you’re pretty overwhelmed. You’ve just been told you have a life-threatening disease. That stops you in its tracks all by itself.”

D’Avignon, 63, had support from her husband and sought help from organizations including the American Cancer Association. “They were wonderful.”

“I would like to have had me — someone who’s gone through it, someone who’s comfortable talking about it, who knows how absolutely terrifying it is,” she said.

When Kaiser expanded its Caring Connections program to Maui a little more than a year ago, d’Avignon volunteered to be a peer navigator in the free program.

Wills, 52, was the first patient that d’Avignon was matched with.

The two women became friends “immediately,” d’Avignon said.

“It’s the best thing, I think, for anybody that’s faced with cancer,” said Wills, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2017. “It’s reassuring that there’s someone who went through the same thing you did and they’re there to support you.”

Wills also had support from her three adult children and her husband, who adjusted his work schedule so he could be off to help her on days she had chemotherapy treatments.

“A lot of people told me they got sick and they couldn’t eat,” Wills said. “I lost my hair, but other than that, I was fine.

“Through the whole thing, I never felt any different. The only thing I felt different was I was scared.”

That’s when she would call d’Avignon.

“I would call her all the time because I was having anxiety,” Wills said. “She would calm me down. My husband would be sitting right next to me and I’m talking to her. He would encourage it because he knew she was a big help to me.”

Wills finished her treatment this year.

After her surgery, her doctor said all the cancer had been removed. The doctor said, “it’s all gone,” Wills said. “By saying that, I know that I am cancer free.”

“I don’t think I would have been able to go through it as positive as I was if it weren’t for the program, for Coleen being there,” she said. “I think being positive is the main thing. You have to be positive through the whole journey. You can never be negative or let your situation get the best of you. And Coleen won’t let you.”

When d’Avignon asked Wills if she was interested in being a peer navigator, her answer was “of course I am.”

While she hasn’t been matched with anyone through the program yet, Wills said she has reached out to some others, including a friend with cancer on Molokai, where she lived before moving to Maui.

“Cancer brings out the best in you because you’re grateful for what you have,” d’Avignon said, as she and Wills talked recently in d’Avignon’s Art on Market gallery in Wailuku town.

“You look at life in a different way,” Wills added. “You appreciate the little things, the things you took for granted.”

D’Avignon said her volunteer work with the program is “the best thing I do.”

“It’s the most rewarding,” she said. “Based on knowing how fearful I was, I’m glad to be able to bring somebody else a little comfort in what is absolutely one of the most dire experiences.”

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.