Advice and Inspiration

1. Change your life's priorities such that your health is number one.
2. Learn about your cancer and its treatment.
3. Get into the best physical shape you can. Eat right, get enough rest, and exercise moderately with your doctors approval.
4. Don't ignore your stress levels. This is a long-term crisis.
5. Keep family informed about your health. This includes your children who are old enough to understand.
6. Let friends and neighbors know about your health so that your family has more community support.
7. Monitor and report your side effects. There are many things that can be done to make you more comfortable.
8. Don't try to tough your way through physical pain. There is no good reason for it and it troubles your loved ones to know you're in pain.
9. Focus on something pleasurable each day and reward yourself for continuing treatment.
10. Don't give up. Even stage IV cancer can be shifted from terminal to chronic status through expert medical management.

1. Learn enough about the cancer and its treatment to understand what is happening.
2. Be supportive of the patient. Provide a shoulder for them to cry on if they choose.
3. Maintain the responsibilities in your life, otherwise the patient feels guilty that they have negatively impacted your life.
4. Take on some of the patient's chores without having to be asked and then don't let them talk you out of it.
5. Continue to seek counsel from the patient if that was your habit prior to the cancer. If you don't, the patient feels like nothing in their life is normal.
6. Listen to the fears your loved one has without offering reassurances you cannot deliver. If you share these fears, it's ok to say so and then return the focus to their feelings.
7. Arrange frequent moments of calm, enjoyment and humor. These do not have to be elaborate or costly. Driving to the coast and watching the sunset is physically possible for most patients, a lovely experience and inexpensive.
8. Don't question the patient's choice of treatment once it has been decided. They must commit to the treatment and doubts or the latest news article tend to get in the way.
9. Occasionally tease the patient about something not associated with the cancer or its treatment. This reassures them that they are still ok enough to be teased.
10. Manage your own health and stress levels with care. Injury or illness to a family member complicates the patient's life and increases their sense of being a burden.