Cancer shop opens on UT’s medical campus

Andrea Harris

Renee Schick fixes one of the scarves on a mannequin at her store.

Renee Schick cares about people battling cancer — and about their ability to find cancer-related products with ease.

The University of Toledo’s Eleanor N. Dana Cancer Center welcomed Renee’s Survivor Shop with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Jan. 15.

Schick, the shop’s manager and owner of the original Renee’s Survivor Shop, opened her business to help cancer survivors find all the products they need in a comfortable environment.

The store carries items to ease treatment side effects, such as mastectomy products, chemotherapy and radiation related items, wigs and head coverings, lymphedema sleeves and post-surgical camisoles as well as other comfort products and gifts.

Schick is also a certified mastectomy fitter and said she consistently keeps up with her certification renewal. As a result, the shop offers mastectomy fittings by appointment.

The fittings as well as many of the store’s other products can be billed to insurance.

Schick is very familiar with cancer-related hardships — she’s a breast cancer survivor.

She said was diagnosed at 36 years old with breast cancer.

“At the time I was diagnosed, my doctor mentioned that there was about a five percent chance that someone at my age would get this cancer,” Schick said.

She said she had four chemotherapy treatments every three weeks while battling cancer and 36 radiation treatments in total.

“I realized that with everything I experienced from my surgeries and treatments, there was not a place that carried what I needed for the side effects I experienced,” Schick said.

Her cancer-related struggles inspired her to open the first Renee’s Survivor Shop at 5401 Secor Rd. However, she said the shop had been closed for the past five months before moving to UT.

According to Schick, she closed the shop because she found herself getting sidetracked from her main goal.

“With all the changes with health care, I found myself being distracted and drawn away from why I originally started my business and that was to help other cancer patients,” she said.

Schick said she decided to reopen the shop for the same reason she started it, and that being a part of UT has allowed her business proximity to those who really need her products.

Customer Patricia Kohn gave the shop positive reviews after searching for hats and eventually a wig due to alopecia, a condition that causes a person’s hair to fall out.

“Renee and her staff treated me with such kindness and dignity,” Kohn said.

According to Kohn, Schick and her staff are highly knowledgeable and very helpful to all of their customers.

“I always left the shop feeling better about myself,” Kohn said. “If there was anything that I needed and they didn’t have it in stock, they would order it.”

According to Schick, her favorite part about the shop is that everyone who volunteers there is either a cancer survivor or has been impacted by cancer in some way.

“We all feel the same as far as helping cancer patients, and that is what it’s all about,” she said.

Renee’s Survivor Shop, located on the first floor of the Eleanor N. Dana Cancer Center, is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Private evening appointments are available upon request.

To make an appointment with Schick, call 419-383-5243 or email [email protected]