“Read everything you can.”
--Mary, Spouse of cancer survivor
You, like your spouse/partner, probably have a thousand questions about
cancer, including the type of cancer he has and what treatments are available
for it. There’s a lot to learn. At times it may seem like there’s
a new development or news story about cancer every day. How do you make
sense of it all?
Some of the issues you may be facing include:
Should my spouse/partner have surgery?
What kind of surgery?
What about chemotherapy? Radiation?
Is my spouse’s/partner’s doctor really the best?
What are the chances of recurrence?
One of the concrete ways you can help your spouse/partner is by
sifting through all the medical information that is constantly changing.
While some men take in only what they think they need or want to know,
other men want to learn all they can about their type of cancer, treatment
choices and options, so they can make not just informed, but very informed
decisions. You may want to know what side effects are possible and how these
too can be treated along with the cancer. You may want to learn about clinical
trials. He may want to find out who is the best surgeon in the country for
his type of cancer (and how to reach her or him).
If it’s information and answers he wants, then you can become the
research guru. Mine the Internet, research books, journal articles, and
talk to doctors. Talk to doctors and to other doctors, to nurses and to
other spouses/partners of men with cancer. Read the daily papers -- there
are articles about prostate cancer almost every day.
Be a proactive learner. Understand the facts. What options are impractical
or not possible for his situation? What alternative treatments are available,
and have been proven better than conventional therapies?
Also, be sensitive to how your spouse likes to receive information. Does
he prefer printed stacks of paper, highlights with bullets, audio and videotapes,
scientific journals, Internet sites, newspaper articles, books or personal
connections with men who have been through the same experience?
Try to help your spouse/partner understand his options. Find out what questions
he has. Here is a useful checklist of questions you can print or download.
To make sure he retains all the important information his doctors are giving
him, you may want to accompany him to appointments and bring a tape recorder
or notebook. Work as a team. Let him do the asking, and you can concentrate
on writing down the answers. This is an excellent way to preserve information,
especially in times of high stress, when we may remember to ask the right
questions but we don’t always remember the actual answers.
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Wandering Through the Medical Labyrinth
