Each year, some 1.5 million people in the United States are diagnosed with cancer. The shock sends waves of fear through many more millions who are their family members. It’s difficult enough to face the initial fear and anxiety caused by a cancer diagnosis, but that is followed by the difficult, tenuous, and sensitive questions: What can I do? What should I say? How can I help?
Family members of individuals diagnosed with cancer are, themselves, cancer survivors. Yet, all too often, their needs, questions, and concerns are not systematically addressed by the medical and human services systems. Surviving Cancer as a Family and Helping Co-Survivors Thrive was written to help everyone touched by cancer understand and cope.
In this unique book, answers to practical questions, including how and where to find financial and emotional support as a caregiver, are explored through research and personal experience. Influences, such as culture and socioeconomic status that impact the family system within which a cancer patient is cared for, are addressed as well. Recognizing that family members sometimes need help even more than their loved one with cancer, the book provides vignettes demonstrating situations and solutions for particular ethnic and cultural populations and for spouses/partners and children of cancer patients. Easy to read and use, Surviving Cancer as a Family and Helping Co-Survivors Thrive will quickly give readers the knowledge to cope with a cancer diagnosis of a loved one—or even themselves.
