Who Are the Team Members Who Help Treat Cancer?

Multidisciplinary Approach To Treating Cancer

In order to give you the best possible cancer care you will be cared for by a team of healthcare professionals. This team is called a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach to treating cancer. You may have only a few healthcare providers – like an oncology nurse, an oncology nurse practitioner or oncology physician assistant, and an oncology physician. But, it is more common to have many providers on your team. These members may include some of the following:

Several oncology nurses (surgical, radiation, chemotherapy, inpatient and outpatient)
Nurse practitioner (NP) or physician assistant (PA)
Several physicians (medical oncologist, radiation oncologist, surgical oncologist)
Pharmacist
Laboratory technician
Social worker or Case manager
Coordinator
Psychologist
Chaplain

One key to helping you and your team to communicate will is to keep a spiral notebook or diary. You can write down symptoms you have medication s you take (with the time of day taken, dose, and whether it helped), questions you have for your team members and their answers. Throughout this blog we will provide tips on how to successfully communicate with your team members.

When you make visits to see your team members at any time (whether diagnosis, during treatment or after treatment) there are a number of important points to tell your team members. On each visit please be sure to bring all of your current medications (in a plastic bag) or at least a list. Be sure to also include all over the counter drugs (drugs that do not require a prescription) you use and minerals, vitamins, and herbs. These would include drugs you buy at the store like cold or flu medicine, vitamin C, or glucosamine.

It is also helpful to tell your team members about any worries or fears that you have. Be sure to tell team members how you are doing physically, emotionally, socially (like with your work, finances, and fun activities) and spiritually. Prepare a list of questions you have before each visit so you do not forget to ask them. You can write down the answers or take a family member or friend with you to listen. You may not hear everything the healthcare provider says.

Lastly, if you have information you have been reading (like from magazines, books or the internet) take this with you to remind you to ask questions. If you are using a spiral notebook or diary you may want each team member to write their name and what they do in your notebook so know how to spell (and pronounce) the name and which department they are in (like medical oncology, social work).

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Yes, No, I Need More Information

One of the overall themes of this blog will be how can you live or cope with cancer. The day you or your loved one learned you had cancer you probably suffered from surprise, shock and were numb. Almost everyone feels disbelief. You may have known something was wrong – but certainly not cancer! You may feel paralyzed and fearful. All of these emotions are normal. These emotions may last for hours, days or weeks. This initial period of time may feel like a “roller coaster” or “hurricane” – much like the victims of hurricane Katrina.

You may have known little about cancer before your diagnosis. Thus, one of your main emotions may be fear. You may fear the cancer itself, the uncertainty, the potential loss of income, the loss of health or loss of life. Your family and loved ones may feel these same emotions and fears for you or other emotions.

You may ask yourself at the time of diagnosis or during the cancer journey – how can I cope or deal with this? How will I be able to live? These are important questions that we will discuss and provide tips for you in this blog.

It is essential for your recovery that you continue to live and to have hope. You may reassess your priorities in life and that is important. From the beginning it is helpful that you get reliable information. Knowledge is power and you will need a good dose of power to get through this. Find support groups and seek out others living and surviving cancer.

Harry Truman had 3 stamps on his desk – “yes”, “no” and “need more information”. You need to use the 3rd one of “NEED MORE INFORMATION” frequently. On this blog we will help you live as survivor and gain the information you need.

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Breast Cancer Update August 2006

Breast Cancer Update

A new study published in the August issue of Psycho-Oncology found that breast cancer survivors and their close relatives who believe certain health behaviors such as sedentary habits, alcohol consumption or bad diet contributed to their disease, are more likely to change those behaviors.

"Survivors take an active problem-solving approach to preventing a future
incidence of cancer; they develop their own understanding or representation of
the cancer and implement preventive behavioral strategies accordingly," the
authors Rabin and Pinto report to Reuters Health.

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The Language of Cancer

When a person hears the words “You Have Cancer,” it becomes clear soon after, that there is a whole lot of work to do. There are important conversations to have with your healthcare providers and treatment decisions that have to be made. But what do all these terms mean? Here are some simple explanations of terms to help guide you through the cancer maze.

The term cancer is used to describe over 100 different diseases. Cancer begins when a particular cell goes out of control. It changes in structure and function and continues to divide and grow and invade and damage nearby tissues. Some cells may even break away and spread to distant areas in the body. It might be helpful to gain some basic understanding of the different words and terms your healthcare provider might use when they talk about cancer.

The first term to understand is tumor. This term is used to mean literally an abnormal mass or swelling in the body. And you can’t tell very much about the characteristics of the tumor until someone looks at it under the microscope. Pathologists are put to task here when they look at the sample of tumor cells that was removed during a biopsy to decide if the tumor is benign or malignant. A benign tumor is a non-cancerous tumor while a malignant tumor is a cancerous tumor which can invade other tissues and organs.

The pathologist also looks to see how abnormal a malignant cell is as compared to a normal cell. This is called the tumor grade. This helps predicts how aggressive the cancer may be.

Another measure is called the stage of the cancer. This is a measure of how extensive the disease is or how much it has spread. It may also be used to guide treatment decisions. The stage is determined by blood tests, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), position emission tomography (PET) or other tests.

Most cancers have four stages:

• Stage I—a tumor is localized, limited to the area where it started
• Stage II—the disease has spread to the lymph node(s)
• Stage III—cancer is locally advanced or has spread to nearby tissues
• Stage IV—disease has metastasized, or has spread to distant tissues or organs

So as you embark on this journey, you will come across many unknowns, obstacles and accomplishments. You may start your cancer journey at the time of diagnosis, but this journey will continue as you become a survivor. The journey can be short or long but once diagnosed, individuals will be an “individual with cancer” or “a cancer survivor,” even if all signs and symptoms of cancer are gone. Still, cancer cells may still be in the body and constant vigilance will always be an order of business. And people with cancer and their family and friends will face many challenges along the way.

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