By AARP staff — 2019
Information and conversation are key to facing the challenges of care
Read on www.aarp.org
CLEAR ALL
Jobs’ “magical thinking” may have defined his business brilliance, but it could have been his downfall in his fight against cancer.
In the past four years, Bruce Mead-e has undergone two major surgeries, multiple rounds of radiation and chemotherapy to treat his lung cancer. Yet in all that time, doctors never told him or his husband whether the cancer was curable — or likely to take Mead-e’s life.
Nothing can prepare you for the immense number of complicated, sometimes life-or-death decisions the disease forces you to make about your own treatment.
I had just learned I carry a genetic mutation that puts me at an incredibly high risk for a rare stomach cancer.
It is extremely difficult for anyone, especially young people in their 20s and 30s, to be told that their treatment(s) haven’t worked. If the cancer you have continues to progress despite treatment, it may be called end-stage cancer.
A sage piece of advice I’d gotten once was to never make any big life decision in an emotional state. Always give yourself time. But what happens when you don’t have time? No person with cancer has the luxury of time. I sure didn’t. So what happens then?
Here are five steps to guide you in becoming a partner with your doctor in determining and guiding your cancer treatment.
Your cancer care team will teach you about your treatment options. But, there’s lots of information about cancer treatments available from other sources, too. There’s also a lot of misinformation out there.
If you've been diagnosed with cancer, knowing what to expect and making plans for how to proceed can help make this stressful time easier.
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Once you begin meditating daily, life as you knew it will begin to take on some interesting twists and turns.