You might recognize some of this
- The strange flatness of the first few weeks, when you are making decisions you do not feel qualified to make.
- The dread before every scan and the crash after the good result.
- Being tired of being asked how you are, and then, months later, noticing that people have stopped asking.
- Feeling guilty for struggling when the news was good.
- Not wanting to say any of this at home because everyone there is already frightened.
The drive
Around here, serious illness usually also means driving. To Saginaw, to Ann Arbor, sometimes further, over and over, often in winter. Hours in the car with your own thoughts, appointments where you are a long way from anyone who knows you, and a treatment center nowhere near your kitchen table. That is its own weight on top of the illness, and it is worth having somewhere to put it.
For the person who is not ill
If you are the spouse, the parent, the adult child doing the driving and the paperwork and the holding-it-together, this is for you too. Caregivers are usually the last to ask for anything.
An important boundary
This is counseling support alongside your medical care, not part of it. Ann Marie is a Licensed Professional Counselor. She does not diagnose or treat medical conditions, and she does not prescribe or advise on treatment. With your written permission she can coordinate with your oncology or medical team so that everyone is working in the same direction.
What this covers
Cancer, from the first appointments through treatment and survivorship. Chronic illness and chronic pain. Transplant. Grief, and the anticipatory grief that starts long before a loss.
Coming from Tawas City, West Branch or Oscoda
People drive in to Hale for counseling alongside serious illness from right across the Sunrise Side. The road times are worth knowing before you commit to a weekly appointment, so here they are.
- Tawas City, about 32 minutes by road.
- West Branch, about 40 minutes by road.
- Oscoda, in Iosco County, about 45 minutes by road.
Say which town you are coming from when you call. It changes which times are sensible to offer you, and on the longer drives a longer appointment spaced further apart sometimes works better than a weekly hour. Road times from the rest of the area are on the service area page.
Practical
Sessions are 30 or 60 minutes, and what to expect and what to bring is set out in full. Most major insurance is accepted, see which plans and what to ask yours before you come.
Related: depression and anxiety, which is what this often looks like from the outside, and adjustment and stress for the part that is simply a life rearranged.
Reviewed by Ann Marie Shay, MA, LPC, September 2026.