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Survivors of Cancer’s Family and Friends, Seven Tips for Helping Loved Ones Diagnosed With Cancer

By arbutuscoaching | October 22, 2009

The Canadian Cancer Society’s 2009 report says that 40 per cent of women and 45 per cent of men will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime. Staggering numbers, aren’t they?

Cancer patients’ friends and families often feel helpless and at a loss as to what to do when they learn of a loved one’s diagnosis. People mean well and they want to help, but often they are as thrown as the person receiving the cancer diagnosis when they learn that someone close to them has cancer. So with October being Breast Cancer awareness month, what better time to provide some tips for friends and loved ones who want to help those diagnosed with cancer but don’t know what to do?

Doing the following will decrease some of the stress of a cancer diagnosis:

v    Ask the cancer patient what you can do to help. Different patients have different needs. Some will appreciate having meals delivered,  others having childcare arranged.

v    If your friend or loved one with cancer seems hesitant to ask, consider your schedule, your special talents and abilities and make them an offer they can’t refuse.

v         Let the cancer patient set the agenda for your conversations. Some will want to vent and need you to listen, while others may want a respite from their reality and want to hear about your life.

  v Offer to accompany your friend or relative to their doctor’s appointments. Many provincial medical associations encourage this because they realize that patients aren’t always in the best head space to ask what needs to be asked.

v         Stay available; don’t disappear because of your discomfort with cancer. Many people reach out at the time of diagnosis and then disappear. When a friend or relative is diagnosed it’s our opportunity to become our best selves so that we can help them in their hour of need. By paying it forward, some day someone will help you when you need it most.

v    Offer to be the point person for communicating your friend’s status and progress. People facing a life threatening illness need to put their precious resources into their cancer treatment, and often don’t have the energy to keep their network in the loop.

v    Don’t be a Pollyanna about the patient’s situation and conversely, don’t repeat many people’s mistaken premise that people cause their illness. A cancer patient has enough to deal with without adding guilt into the mix.

Every person with cancer has unique needs and requirements for assistance. How much help is needed, and when, will vary from person to person. But the thing that is constant is the need for community, for people who can help the patient feel that they are more than their diagnosis and that they’ll get through this.

And if you’re a survivor, who is mulling over what you want your life to look like now that your treatment is over, my e-book will give you some strategies on how to do that from a coaching perspective.

Kathy Santini
Arbutus Coaching – Growing People and Possibilities
250 388-6108
Kathy@ArbutusCoaching.com
http://www.ArbutusCoaching.com


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What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver, poet

Topics: Surviving Cancer |

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