breast cancer

SEEK HELP

Unless you have a medical degree, you are understandably out of your element. Ask questions

and keep asking until you understand the answers. Write down the answers. No, they will not

think you are stupid. They work for you, remember?

GIVE HELP
You will feel better when you help others feel better. You have important experience and

unique wisdom to share with a support group, even from day one of your treatment. No one can

quite understand what you are going through like others who are struggling through the same

challenge. Participate in any studies that are pertinent to your condition. These studies are

usually nothing more than a brief phone interview. Your efforts will contribute to saving

others from going through this same experience.

KEEP RECORDS

It’s a bad idea to keep all pertinent phone numbers, chemo schedule, and various medications

on scraps of paper. It is astonishing how quickly you will gather up important information.

Buy a three-ring binder. Divide it into “lab reports,” “calendar,” “phone numbers,”

“questions,” etc. Stick a funny cover or cartoon on it. When you are all well again, file it.

FIND YOUR CENTER

If you have practiced meditation, breathing exercises, Ti Chi or yoga in the past, stay with

the practice so long as your doctors approve. Continue anything you do that absorbs you

completely like playing a musical instrument, needlework or painting.