A Loved One has Cancer

Your blood runs cold, as you try to take in the news that your loved one has cancer.

Finding out that a loved one has cancer can be an overwhelming experience, leaving you in a state of shock. You may feel frightened, angry or saddened by the news. You may even try to deny that this could happen to your loved one.

You quickly embark on a steep learning curve about cancer, medical terminology, treatment options, and wait anxiously with your loved one for test results or treatment outcomes. There are countless decisions to be made and financial hurdles to overcome.

You may feel ill equipped to support and care for your loved one, or feel guilty because you are not coping, when they are the one facing a life threatening disease. You may feel resentful that cancer has changed your lives and burdened you both. Your loved one is also going through physical and emotional changes due to the side effects of treatment, and you may feel at a loss to deal with these changes. All of these things leave you feeling exhausted.

You need help – every bit as much as your loved one and you need not face this alone.

It is important to acknowledge your feelings and to arrange for support for yourself, if you are to help your loved one.

CANSA Tele or Virtual Counselling can be accessed via the CANSA Help Desk on 0800 22 66 22 toll free, or book online. This is a confidential, professional, cancer-related telephonic counselling service to cancer patients, caregivers and their families and parents or guardians of children living with cancer. Counselling is available in most SA languages and is free of charge.

You are welcome to join our Facebook Support Group CANSA Survivors – Champions of Hope for loved ones and patients. Here you can connect with others in a similar position and find valuable tips to help your loved one cope with treatment. Find more online resources to help your loved one…

Remember to take care of your physical and emotional needs – eat well and get enough exercise and sleep. Also make sure that you don’t neglect regular health checks and cancer screening.

Tips:

PPT: What to Say to a Colleague with Cancer

Leaflet: What to Say to a Colleague with Cancer

CANSA is committed to connecting people facing cancer with information, day-to-day help as well as emotional support they need. Our aim is to ensure that cancer Survivors and their loved ones don’t have to face cancer alone; we’re here to support them through every step of their cancer experience.*

* The responsibility rests with patients to contact CANSA for assistance. CANSA is not informed of any diagnoses / of patients being treated at medical centres. Family need to obtain permission from patients, before CANSA may contact them. Read more…