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Families Coping With Breast Cancer
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Families Coping with Cancer
Families Coping with Breast Cancer: What’s Happening to the Woman We Love?When a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, she faces tremendous physical and emotional hurdles. It is important that you, as part of her family, do all you can to support her emotional healing. Your ability to help her depends on your understanding of the disease and what she might be experiencing, your existing relationship, how you cope with the situation, and your resources.
Each relationship within a family is unique and develops over a lifetime. Illness can bring family members closer together, but the stress of the illness can also make weakness in your relationship more apparent. Build on your strengths. By making attempt at open and honest communication you can help your relationship survive this stressful time of change.
How She Copes
As your family member is confronted with the diagnosis of breast cancer, she may seek information, try to find answers, and plan solutions. She may also request help from others, vent her feelings, avoid talking about it, or even deny a problem exists. All these responses are normal. At different times, she may need to use one or more of these coping strategies.
If you fear that she is not coping well, try talking with her about your concerns. Encourage her to talk about her feelings, if not with you, it can anyone she feels more comfortable talking with.
- Signs that she is adapting to her breast cancer diagnosis:
- Information seeking – asking questions and getting the facts.
- Acceptance – accepting she has breast cancer and not afraid to say the word “cancer”.
- Optimism – maintaining a realistically positive outlook.
- Maintaining self-confidence – believing her actions can make a difference.
One of the most obvious ways you and your family can help her cope is to provide her with practical help. If she is physically capable, it is important for her to continue to participate in her usual activities and responsibilities. There will be times, however, you can offer to take some of her day-today activities off her shoulders. As a family member, whether you lives with her or not, ask for her permission to help. You can make a difference in her coping.
Ask her to tell you what she wants and what she does not want, then follow her lead. Take time to talk about what these and other aspects of emotional help mean to her.
- Make time to be together.
- Listen with an open mind:
- Work with her in the decision-making process.
- Accept and respect her feelings and decisions.
- Help her make decisions on things unrelated to her breast cancer or treatment.
Think about how you would feel if you had life-threatening illness. How would you react? What would you do? You cannot possibly know what she is going through, but you can communicate to her that you are trying to understand what she is feeling. Empathy is sincerely trying to share in her emotions. It will not always be easy for her to express her thoughts and feelings. Pay attention to what she is saying and what she is not saying.
The diagnosis of breast cancer can alter a woman’s image of herself. Remind her you love her for who she is – not what she does or what is happening to her. Reassure her that she is not alone, but a member of a family. You may want to share your thoughts and feelings with her, you can help her to remember that she is not a “breast cancer patient”, but a woman and an important member of your family.
Allowing Her to Show her Feelings
Although it is important for you to maintain a hopeful perspective, it is equally as important to allow her to feel what she wants and needs to feel. Outbursts of tears and anger are ways in which she can vent her frustrations with her situation. Remember these reactions are not directed at you, but at her situation. Fatigue, depression, and mood swings may be a result of issues related to her diagnosis, treatment and medication. Showing you love and accept her will help her to realize she is safe to express her feelings.
- Allow her to say what she feels.
- Allow her to be angry.
- Let her know that when she is with you, it is okay for her to cry, yell out in anger or even be silent.
- Ask if she would like to be alone, to talk or to be hugged.
- Accept that she may choose to turn to others to talk about her feelings.
Information seeking is an important part of her coping. You may not be the one to provide all the answers, but you can help her find them. By helping her gather the information she wants, you can assist her in regaining control of her situation and making decisions that she will feel good about. Here are some suggestions on how you can help:
- Ask if she would like you to help her make a list of questions to ask her doctor before appointments.
- Offer to go with her to doctor visits so you can provide assistance in listening and writing down whatever information the doctor shares. If necessary, you can help her verbalize her concerns and questions.
- Offer to help her find and look through books, videotapes, pamphlets and the Internet to find the information she is seeking regarding diagnosis, insurance coverage, treatment options and recovery.
- If she chooses, help her find a doctor for a second opinion by asking friends or by contacting your physician referral services at local hospitals that specialize in women’s health.
- When she is ready, help her find a support group. It can be a group from Breast Cancer Foundation, Singapore Cancer Society or even from her own church communities.
Identifying Your Needs
Support from others is not only important for the woman with breast cancer, but for those who care for her as well. In the same way that she may be sensing feelings of fear, anger, frustration and anxiety, you may also be experiencing a number of emotions. You may find yourself wanting to be “strong” for her, or hiding your feelings and your fear so you do not upset her. There is no right or wrong way for a family member to react, but it is important that you not overlook your own needs during this difficult time.
With all that is going on, you may be so busy caring for her needs that you are not even aware of or thinking about your own emotions. Caregivers and supportive family members can best continue to support the needs of the woman with breast cancer if they take care of their own needs as well. If not, they run the risk of becoming worn out or resentful over time. Do not hesitate to reach out to others to get support and help your need. As humans we all need each other to turn to for help now and again. Sometimes all it takes is asking.
