The gift of caregiving 

Cancer caregiving is a powerful gift, an opportunity to serve a loved one facing one of life’s great challenges. It’s inspiring and hopeful to help a loved one through the storm of cancer. Navigating appointments and making sure medications are taken on time and your support community is informed can be empowering (You’re doing something that’s tangible and helpful!). But it can also be terrifying (What if my loved one dies?) and lonely (I’m keeping a brave face because I don’t want my loved one to know how worried I am.) Caring for a loved one who’s been diagnosed with cancer can also be emotionally draining and professionally challenging (missing work! maintaining health insurance!). 

Find organizations that provide resources for cancer patients and their loved ones.

The challenges of cancer caregiving 

In the best of circumstances, cancer caregiving is isolating and scary, an emotion packed journey. But cancer caregiving doesn’t come to the best of circumstances. It is indiscriminate in who or when it hits. (WATCH: Caring for the Caregiver: Seeking Support Through Cancer Hope Network) 

Life doesn’t magically become perfect when the doctor gives a diagnosis and longstanding family dynamics aren’t always smoothed with the addition of heartache. No matter how well meant, compliments and encouragement (“You’re so strong.” “They’re so lucky to have you.”) can’t keep your eyes open when you’re fighting exhaustion after your loved one had a rough night due to side effects.  

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Cancer caregivers sometimes fight and care in quick succession. CHN Support Volunteer Alyssa had just finished her own treatment for head and neck cancer when both parents were diagnosed with two different cancers. Caregiver volunteer Kaci supported her husband through his four-year fight with glioblastoma. Two months after his death, as her three small children began recovering, her mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer.  

CHN’s peer mentors understand those competing emotions and contrasting realities. They are here to listen. They’re here to provide guidance, resources, and hope. They will remind you that while this may be your first time serving as a cancer caregiver, you are not the first. (Meet Pat, a caregiver helping others care for themselves.) 

 (Learn more about serving as a cancer caregiver mentor)

How caregiver volunteers can help 

Serving as a peer mentor with Cancer Hope Network is a convenient, meaningful way to give back. For caregivers living with immunocompromised survivors, the fact that training happens online and matches are made by telephone make it an ideal virtual volunteer opportunity.  

Support Volunteers help fellow caregivers learn the new language of oncology and deal with the wide range of emotions their loved one is feeling (READ: Reasons Behind the Rage from our community of survivors and caregivers). 

Volunteers, along with our Programs Team, can help new caregivers find help and resources  (CanCare offers social worker led case managment, Cancer Support Community offers tips for getting started as a caregiver, the American Cancer Society’s Caregiver Resource Guide includes a wide variety of resources – including information on respite care) 

More than anything, Cancer Hope Network mentor volunteers are great listeners. They’ll help navigate the challenges of caregiving (for many folks, life before cancer didn’t involve quite so many ports or drains, an evolving number of prescriptions or quite so much puke) and provide the calm confidence of only a seasoned caregiver can.  

Call 877-HOPENET (877.467.3638) to connect with a caregiver volunteer, or to start the process to become a volunteer.

1. AARP, National Alliance for Caregiving. (2020). 2020 report caregiving in the U.S. caregiving.org. Retrieved 2022, from https://www.caregiving.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AARP1316_ExecSum_CaregivingintheUS_508.pdf  

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After 32 years as secretary at the local high school, the bustle is familiar to her – as are the faces of “her kids” coming through the doors of the hospital. Of course, many of “her kids” are now parents with their own families. Seeing Ann brings a sense of calm and joy as they head in and out of the hospital. But that calm isn’t limited to people she knows. Ann radiates tranquility to everyone she meets. “Yesterday, I was wheeling a patient to oncology and she mentioned that she has stage 4 cancer. I told her that I was a survivor as well and she perked up, ‘Seeing what you’re doing, here helping me, gives me hope. ‘”

Deciding to help

For Ann, the decision to help is necessary. “Helping people makes you forget about yourself.  It brings a peace to you about where you are in your life.”

As a Support Volunteer, Ann serves in multiple roles – as a survivor of bladder cancer and as a caregiver. Her expertise in both roles is hard won. Clarence, her beloved husband of 45 years suffered a stroke. One week later, Ann was diagnosed with her first bout of cancer. Clarence recovered. She battled through. She had recurrence followed by recurrence (six in total) followed by major surgery to remove her bladder and create a new one from a part of her small intestine. Five years after his stroke and Ann’s initial cancer diagnosis, Clarence was also diagnosed with bladder cancer.

For many people this series of events would be a perfect excuse to curl up in a ball and shut out the world. It’d be more than enough reason to become bitter, angry and­ despondent.

For Ann, it’s been an opportunity to rely on her personal faith and to deepen her commitment to helping others. A practical Southern Lady in the truest sense of the word, she focuses on the happy memories, the best of the times. Talk to Ann for more than a few moments and you get the feeling that she’s the kind of person who could find the “silver lining” in any situation. “I meet some families who are going through so much you wonder how they do it. I never found anything was too difficult for me (as she cared for him in his final years.) since I had the Lord with me.”

Focusing on what matters most

Ann focuses on what’s important – in the years between her initial diagnosis and Clarence’s death, they traveled, an activity they’ve enjoyed for decades. “He got to go to Alabama to see the grandchildren for six years,” she recalls. “We took a lot of Sunshine Bus tours, from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to Branson, Missouri. He was on the quiet side and I’m a people person. We really liked taking trips together.”

She offers suggestions – and hope – for fellow patients and caregivers still in their cancer struggle. “They’re coming out with new treatments, new research and new drugs all the time. Don’t lose faith in the possibility of hope. Once you give up, there’s nothing a doctor can do. Of course it’s ok to get your affairs in order, but try to remember that the Lord is in charge.”

Managing life as a caregiver

She encourages them to concentrate on what they can control, not all of the possibilities the might happen. “I tell other caregivers not to get caught up in thinking too far ahead,” Ann says. “Focus on what’s right in front of you. Take one day at a time. I learned that lesson from my mother, as she took care of my father. Just get through this day.”

“It’s ok to let it all out, to cry your eyes out. I’ve learned over the years that it’s not healthy to keep everything bottled up. “

She reminds caregivers to ask for help when they need it. “You can’t do it by yourself. You’re a person, you’re a human and you cannot do this by yourself. There were days I’d call my daughter to come stay with her father while I stepped away for a few hours. I spoke to my best friend all the time.” It’s an important reminder, seconded by medical professionals. “My oncologist said I had to listen to my body. It doesn’t matter if it’s a balmy 80 degrees out and you just know that you should be outside planting flowers. If you’re tired, lay down and take a nap.”

Request a match with a cancer caregiver or cancer survivor who’s been there by clicking HERE or calling 877-HOPENET (877-467-3638) today.

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