Time to be Self-Ish

Taking care of your self is your job. You rely on your medical team for treatment and advice about symptoms. Telling them about your goals for your care and life will help them to help you. They can help get you the resources to get what will support you best. Research shows that almost all people who have any type of cancer treatment have significant side effects and struggle with how to manage them. Things like fatigue, back pain, hot flashes, joint pain, and anxiety. Often, these things are not discussed in a clinic visit. What can you do? Send messages to your team. You can do this online if you have access or call the clinic nurse. If you don’t inform them, you will continue to suffer.

An interesting article written by an oncologist that I recently came across discussed that there are gaps in what your doctor knows about you. With busy clinic schedules, they are rushing from patient to patient. It is important for them to know things about you that might not come up in an examination or discussion of test results. As much as we would like our doctors to know all about us, disclosing what might be pertinent to our care can be provided by you.