Author: sarambarton

Need some help understanding why hope is so important for cancer patients? Here’s a quick video tip!

For more help, visit THE PRACTICAL CAREGIVER GUIDES

Someone I love has breast cancer. Newly diagnosed, still shocked and saddened by the news, she’s struggled with the decision about cancer treatment. Discussions with doctors and her husband, long hours mulling over her options — this person I love is just beginning the cancer journey. Should she give up all hope? Should she fear the future?

If I can do nothing more for the many who are in her shoes, let me do this. Let me spread the word that British researchers reported in the Lancet that an analysis of seventeen studies, involving almost 11,000 women who had breast cancers surgically removed and received follow-up radiation treatment, showed a significant reduction in the recurrence rate to 19.3% in the first ten years after surgery — the original rate was 35%! That means that another 15 women in every 100 survived because of radiation after breast cancer surgery. Imagine 15 more women at the gym, walking on treadmills or enjoying dance classes. Imagine 15 more women at the local coffee house, sipping their lattes and sharing their stories. Imagine 15 more mothers and grandmothers at family reunions, laughing and passing the mashed potatoes. Imagine 15 more women at work, fighting fires, teaching students, caring patients, driving buses and cabs, writing the next Booker Prize novel, or just handing you your change at the grocery store. Those 15 women who survived breast cancer surgery and had radiation as a follow-up lived longer. Where there is life, there is hope. Where there is hope, there is the promise of a cure.

Denise Grady, of the New York Times, reported on the Lancet research:
“Radiation Therapy After Breast Cancer Surgery Cuts Recurrence, Study Says”

You may not think it’s a big deal those 15 women survived their first ten years after breast cancer surgery and radiation, but I do. Why? These women are the future of breast cancer treatment — they are the survivors. Researchers will study them, study the treatments they received, in order to help those of us who are newly diagnosed.

Someone I love has breast cancer, and I want her to know that she has a good fighting chance to survive it with the right treatment. Every day, we learn more and more about how we can use the information we get from cancer survivors to tweak cancer treatments so they work better and people live bigger, better lives. Every cancer patient deserves to have good options. This research analysis is going to change lives. Will it change the life of someone you love?

For more help with cancer caregiving, visit THE PRACTICAL CAREGIVER GUIDES

What are the Practical Caregiver Guides and why do they exist? The answer is simple. Family caregivers are not normally trained in how to provide care. They slip through the cracks. They stumble their way through care. Burned out, exhausted, just trying to survive, family caregivers try to cover all the bases, but it’s not easy.

Hospital workers are trained. Even home health aides have to be certified. But family caregivers? It’s all relative.

The truth is that the more you know about your loved one’s disease, the better the care you give. In cancer management, it can be critical. Want an example of some things you should know?

Eating can be exhausting for cancer patients, and many just give up because it’s too much effort. It takes energy to chew food. If your loved one is too tired to eat, he or she will lose too much weight. You need to understand how to feed your loved one.

Scheduling activities that work with, not against, cancer treatments improves quality of life for your loved one. You need to know how chemotherapy affects your loved one in order to maximize the energy he or she has.

Still think you don’t have a real job to do? The biggest problem for most cancer patients is managing the fear of the disease. What can you do to help your loved one? If you don’t understand the toll cancer takes on relationships, you may find yourself feeling lost and alone.

A good family caregiver understands that cancer patients can be affected by the cancer treatments as much as the cancer. In order to help your loved one, you have to believe that what you do can have a positive outcome. But you won’t feel that way until you accept that the quality of your caregiving will improve your loved one’s chances of managing and navigating cancer.

You want your loved one to have the best medical treatment. Be part of that team. Learn about the disease and strategies to keep your loved one healthier. Take the first step. Have the courage to confront the disease, so your loved one can live better.

For help with your caregiving, visit www.practicalcaregiverguides.com

A lot of people think that cancer caregivers are just there to drive folks back and forth to cancer treatment. You can call a taxi driver for that service. A real cancer caregiver is much more than that, and it’s important to understand what a vital role he or she plays.

Cancer is a scary disease, no matter how you look at it. From the smallest skin cancer to the biggest malignant tumor, the psychological impact of cancer can often do almost as much damage as the disease or its treatment. That’s why good cancer caregivers have gumption.

What’s gumption? It’s common sense, initiative, shrewdness, courage and resourcefulness. These are all the good qualities for a cancer caregiver. You look for ways to help your loved one navigate the cancer maze. Your confidence and faith that you can make a positive difference can often inspire your loved one to try a little harder to survive. It’s not about fooling your loved one into believing that survival is possible. It’s about convincing your loved one that life is still going to be okay with cancer, no matter what the outcome. That takes gumption.

Good cancer caregivers know that they’re afraid for their loved ones, but they also know that they should step up to the plate and be a rock. It’s about understanding that you’re the shoulder to cry on, the one your loved one counts on to be steady and sure. When you have your own doubts, you take them elsewhere, because you know that your doubts will be a burden for your loved one. It’s not that you don’t worry, because you always do. It’s that you share your fears with others, because you understand that you need to be the strength for your loved one.

Gumption makes good caregivers take advantage of the good times and make them better. Cancer changes everything, so finding the simple things to celebrate requires true spirit. You have to make excuses for enjoying life — it’s a beautiful day, it’s a rainy day, it’s a snowy day. A cancer caregiver with gumption doesn’t care what the excuse is — he or she finds a reason to laugh, to try something new, to get out and have some fun with the loved one.

Everywhere you look, you hear people describe cancer patients as brave souls who are fighting a terrific battle. The truth is cancer patients are just human beings, doing the best they can with what they’ve got. They have moments in which they feel confident and moments in which they have doubts. If they have caregivers with gumption, that’s the kind of support that can help them through the dark moments.

You don’t have to be perfect to be a cancer caregiver, but it helps to have gumption. You’ll look for the opportunities to bring quality to life, to give comfort where comfort is needed and courage when courage is needed, to encourage laughter and love to fill the tiny cracks that form in the heart from the pain of having cancer. The truth is we’re social creatures and having partners to help us on difficult stretches of the road of life matter. No one should ever face cancer alone. That’s why good cancer caregivers have the guts to step up and step in to make a difference in the lives of cancer patients. We’re smart enough to know that if the shoe were on the other foot, we’d want this kind of support.

One of the toughest obstacles to overcome when a loved one has a serious disease is sometimes the chronic boredom that results from being stuck in bed. Whether adult or child, it’s hard to keep the brain interested and motivated in everyday life. As time goes on, it becomes easy to just let the hours pass by. After all, bedridden people are sick, so they should just languish there, parked in front of a TV, taking it easy.

The problem with that is people tend to give up — first on their own lives, and then on the world in general. Boredom can mask depression, and depression can take the fight out of any human being. When a person loses interest in learning, it’s a signal that there is less interest in life itself.

Squeezing in little moments of learning throughout the day, especially for children with cancer, can keep an interest in life active. Real learning peaks curiosity, and curiosity spurs learning. Why are things the way they are? How do things work? Challenging the mind to figure out puzzles sends a strong message. There are still mountains to climb, seas to explore, even if it all happens in bed.

As an educator, I have always been of the mindset that learning should be fun and that the more fun it is, the more we learn. Why? Because it sweeps us up and carries us along by momentum. We get into the flow of a discussion and we turn our brains on. We want to participate. We want to share. It takes us out of ourselves and makes us a part of a bigger group, providing socialization. And socialization is a very big part of staying involved in life. The more connected we feel to our fellow human beings, the more intertwined our lives are.

How do you, as a cancer caregiver, keep your loved one interested in learning, especially during chemotherapy? Anyone with “chemo brain” can tell you how hard it is to focus on details. Even people who were wizards of crossword puzzles often stumble during chemotherapy. Does that mean your loved one should stop trying to do the crossword puzzle? No. It means sometimes, when a word is on the tip of the tongue, but the brain can’t call it up, having a dictionary handy can help. It means using a pencil temporarily, instead of a pen. It means that when you play Scrabble or Bananas with a loved one affected that way, you turn the game from a competitive activity to a cooperative one. You play together, side by side, and make the challenge about your loved one succeeding. The reality is that sometimes chemotherapy is a handicap to thinking.

Children love games, and some favorite childhood choices are still easy even during cancer treatment. Many adults think that children’s games involve a lot of equipment and time. Some of the best games to play with children are the simplest, especially during chemotherapy. For example, “I Spy” is a verbal and visual game, with no pieces to move. All it takes is for the leader to look around the room, find one item, and decide that is “it”. He or she says, “I spy with my little eye something….” and includes a one-word description. The item could have a particular color or shape or size, something that leads the players to look around their surroundings and guess. It forces them to become better observers. You can even play “Simon Says” with a child in bed. You just scale it down to what the child is capable of doing. “Simon says wink your eye. Simon says make a funny face. Pat your head….” Playing games means being mentally active. Give a direction and it stimulates the brain. Suddenly, the whole body is paying attention to the activity, not the cancer.

That’s the real key to helping someone stuck in bed because of a serious illness. When the flesh is weak, the mind can become a strength. It can take you out of your surroundings, out of your trapped body, and put you in a novel situation. Travel documentaries can broaden anyone’s horizon, but never more so than when a person is confined to a recliner or bed. Learning about an exotic country, culture, animal, or environment provides viewers with an opportunity to see a hidden part of the world that would otherwise be passed by. Suddenly, we wonder about a particular island on the other side of the world, a unique way of life, a jungle cat that is rarely observed in the wild, or a mountain that is covered by snow for most of the year. That helps people who are stuck in bed to transcend the routineness of their everyday existence as patients in favor of embracing another view of the world. It becomes a kind of freedom.

When a person is limited physically by disease, it can feel like he or she is trapped. The four walls that surround him or her can begin to feel like a prison, and if the disease is serious enough, it can feel like a life sentence. That’s why it’s important for cancer caregivers to understand that loved ones sometimes need gentle encouragement to rise above those constraints, whether children or adults. So often caregivers see a loved one resting and the inclination is to not interfere, to not disturb. And yet, sometimes having an interesting discussion or some hearty belly laughs are just what the patient needs to feel a little less lonely, a little less stuck.

Don’t be afraid to liven things up for your loved one. Watch an interesting TV show together once in a while and talk about it. Pick up a book or magazine and share it. Play a game together. Promote the idea that a loved one with cancer is still a vital human being with something to offer the world and then find ways to help your loved one be that person. Help him or her to rise above disease by utilizing the mind, because that is where we all find hope, and without hope, we often miss the opportunity to find life. Cancer patients need to live their lives as actively as they can, even if they have to do it in bed.

I’m a firm believer in palliative care, especially for cancer patients. I also believe in the virtues of hospice. But truth be told, sometimes the best thing a cancer patient can do is survive the day. Why? Because every day, cancer researchers are making strides. If you’re a caregiver for a lung cancer patient, you know the serious nature of the disease, especially in the later stages.

New drugs are constantly coming on the market to treat various forms of cancer. Recently, several media organizations ran articles on a new lung cancer drug by Pfizer to help certain patients. Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s article on crizotinib:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903352704576538683370950462.html

What percentage of lung cancer patients can benefit from normal chemotherapy? Sadly, only about 10%. But according to published reports, researchers identified an ALK gene in 3-5% lung cancer patients. In a drug test, those with the ALK gene got crizotinib and the results were impressive in tumor reduction — 60% of the 82 patients benefited.

Why does it matter that more than half of a small group of patients saw their tumors melt away? These are people who lived another day, whose lives were continued. Where there is life, there is hope. Where there is hope, there is opportunity. Sometimes the biggest obstacle for lung cancer patients is the fight to overcome the fear and depression of living with what is, in its later stages, a terminal illness. Every little bit brings us closer to a cure, and with it, the promise of a better tomorrow.

If you would like more information on cancer caregiving, visit The Practical Caregiver Guides:

www.practicalcaregiverguides.com