Let Me Help You Help Others

houseofclay — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:43:13 -0500

Colorectal cancer awareness month has drawn to a close and I hope you learned a bit more about the disease from this blog. Today, I want to list a few practical suggestions when deciding how to support a family living with cancer. I am not going to include every possible way to help as that would take hours and I doubt I am that interesting. But many people tried to help us when we were in the midst of the fight and some of them were at a loss as to what we needed and wanted.

For families with children, offer to spoil the kids. By that I mean taking the kids to the movies or out for ice cream or some other frivolous activity. While money can be an issue for families living with cancer, time is the greater challenge in some cases. We crammed as much fun into the weeks my husband was on a chemo break as possible but you cannot tell a six year old who wants a Dairy Queen dipped cone to wait for another 3.5 weeks. Offer to drive the children to athletic practice. Most parents are going to try to attend games whenever possible but the practice schedule can be grueling if you are juggling treatment schedules, meal preparation and other normal household responsibilities.

Before fixing a meal for a family, ask if there are special dietary requirements. Patients recovering from surgery have specific dietary restrictions in many cases. Chemotherapy can also wreak havoc with dietary patterns. We were given a lovely casserole that contained things that my husband could not eat and the children were not thrilled about, so I had the privilege of eating it for days on end. I love to cook, so I said that instead of meals, I preferred a grocery gift card so that I could choose the best meals for everyone.

If you subscribe to a magazine, offer back issues to the family. Doctor’s offices are notorious for having a limited selection of current magazines. My husband read a Sports Illustrated that was 3 years old at one chemo session just to see if their football predictions were accurate. He enjoyed himself but a new issue of the magazine would have been much appreciated. Plus, I would offer whatever I had to the other caregivers stuck in the waiting room for hours on end and small gestures such as a recent issue of People would always bring a smile.

The last one for today will seem obvious but much needed. Do not tell anyone (especially the children) in the family about how many people you know or know of that died from the disease. Everyone knows a cancer story that ended in death and we all know what could happen. Those thoughts do not help when you are in the middle of the journey. Regardless of how it might appear from the outside, very few patients are in denial about what could happen to them. I am not going to address the mind-body-spirit connection today but families living with cancer do not need to be reminded that all that they are going through might not change the outcome.

BlogHer - Let Me Help You Help Others - Comments

Let Me Help You Help Others