What to Expect After Treatment. You may feel like your life is trivial compared to having cancer, but it's important to act as normal as you can. Even without these challenges, kindness supports others affected by cancer, including caregivers. ^ Top. Each support group is different. Although more medicine might be the last thing a cancer patient wants, some antidepressants can bring relief. Finding the Right Words When Consoling Grieving Parents, What to Do When Diagnosed With Lung Cancer, How to Avoid Pitfalls & Provide Support for a Loved One With Cancer, Metastatic Breast Cancer Support Communities You Should Join, Coping and Living Well With Alzheimer's or Dementia, How to Support Loved Ones and Friends With Cancer, Mindfulness Can Help Cancer Patients Manage Anxiety, Study Shows, What to Say When Someone Is Diagnosed With Cancer, 7 Tips for Caring for Yourself as a Cancer Caregiver, How You Can Help a Dying Friend or Loved One. Having cancer is, undoubtedly, challenging on all levels – physically, psychologically, and emotionally. This isn't the time to be offering solutions, it's the time to listen. Our words and actions may not cure the disease, but they can help on the path to recovery. Sign up for our Health Tip of the Day newsletter, and receive daily tips that will help you live your healthiest life. Contact us. Get the best cancer care available, anywhere you live, with CTOAM. Discover the latest scientific advancements in cancer care, and how they can help you live longer and have a better quality of life, during and after treatment. What Can I Do? Reach out today and we guarantee you’ll feel more peaceful, knowing that you don’t have to try to figure this out on your own. So what can be done to make the emotional and psychological effects of cancer a little easier to deal with? Buy or make warm blankets or quilts for the patient to cover themselves if they're in a hospital or hospice settings. It can also help you to cultivate self-compassion and connection with others, and to seek support where needed. Take care of their children. Caregiving can be a full-time, non-stop job that wears on you physically and emotionally, but there are many things you can do to make it easier. Really listen. It can be useful to recognize and acknowledge the many changes that cancer is causing you to experience. Updated August 7, 2019. Coping with cancer can be as difficult emotionally as it is physically, and those feelings may continue through treatment and even years after recovery. Feel better, faster, with CTOAM’s precision oncology services. Ask hospital social workers about cancer support groups in the area, or look … When your loved one talks about their cancer, listen. Sometimes, it is not what you say, it is what you do. Our cancer patients know this, too, and that’s why they’ve shared their stories of success with you. Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. If your loved one has just been diagnosed, it is appropriate to suggest a second opinion, but only for the right reasons, not for false hope. However, patient surveys continue to demonstrate less than optimal results in relation to this aspect of cancer care, regardless of where they are in the cancer journey. Compound these emotions with the day-to-day stresses and obligations of life, and the world can seem almost unbearable. If you’re caring for someone with cancer, you have an important role in helping him or her cope mentally and emotionally. A diagnosis that doesn’t use precision oncology will almost certainly be missing important, life saving information – information that can help you avoid misdiagnosis, incorrect treatment plans, and wasting precious time! You may need to try several groups to find the one that works best for you. Really listen. Bring comforting gifts to a cancer patient, regardless of the disease's prognosis. However, they can be surprised when new or old emotions occur after treatment is completed. To learn more about self-care for cancer patients, please explore these pages: Learn more about CTOAM’s counselling services and discover how you can start moving forward in your cancer treatment with a greater sense of peace. Cancer … We combine cutting edge cancer tests with personalized research and advanced monitoring tools to connect cancer patients with the best possible cancer treatments for their unique form of cancer. Introduction People in a patient's social support network include family members, spouses, children and friends. The dying deserve care as much as those who will live. Choose your cancer treatment with confidence! Our team is here to take the guesswork out of your cancer care. Most cancer patients feel pressure to maintain a positive mental attitude, and too often this pressure prevents them from expressing their true feelings. Manage the logistics of treatment Cancer treatment is daunting. Navigators can be lay people with special training and experience or health care professionals, like nurses or social … And how important is your emotional well-being to your recovery? 0808 808 00 00 (Monday to Sunday - 8AM-8PM) Email us. And each aspect – self-care and positive action – feeds back into the other like a loop. Knowing they have a shoulder to cry on is such a comfort. Sometimes,... Don't Show Any Denial You May Be Feeling. Many families talk about feeling guilty. We need to have emotional outbursts every once in a while to vent our feelings. Keep in mind that your strength will make them even stronger. For instance, they should be sensitive to the desire of the patient to share and know information about their cancer, treatment options, and their prognosis.3 A support network can greatly help reduce the stress of dealing with cancer. 3. Ask permission. How Can You Help Someone With Metastatic Breast Cancer? Giving emotional support to a loved one with cancer is not easy. Those who have not personally struggled with cancer, though well-meaning, are unable to understand completely what their loved one is going through both emotionally and physically. Tell Your Health Care Provider About Your Depression. Home Cancer A to Z Worried about cancer Diagnosis Treatment After treatment Supporting someone Get help Stories and media Search Log in Register. Your health care team can help you find cancer support groups in your area. Chat online. When your loved one talks about their cancer, listen. It helps draw their focus away from their disease and to be a part of everyday life like they were before the diagnosis. When you travel on an airplane, you are instructed to put your … This seems like a question you’d expect when you’re undergoing cancer treatment – but not many people who receive cancer care hear it very often.