Читать книгу The Complete Cancer Organizer - Jamie Schwachter - Страница 6

INTRODUCTION

The phone rings, I pick up the handset, and say, “Cleveland Clinic Cancer Answer Line. This is Josette, I’m one of the nurses. How can I help you?”

With a sob in her voice, the caller says, “I have cancer, can you help me?”

My next line will be something to the effect of “Tell me your story.” The remainder of this book is to provide you, the reader, with answers to some of the common questions that are asked as patients tell us their stories.

A diagnosis of cancer can be overwhelming. Technically, the term cancer refers to more than 100 different types of diseases. Each of these diseases has their own particular set of signs and symptoms. Also, how the diseases are evaluated and treated differ, and even within a specific type of cancer, different treatments may be recommended based on a variety of factors specific to how the cancer is acting in the individual patient.

We find that each person who has been diagnosed with cancer brings a whole lifetime of experience that may or may not include knowledge of cancer as part of it. Even if they have experienced cancer through a family member or friend’s eyes, their diagnosis of cancer is new to them. This new diagnosis opens a floodgate of questions.

The questions at the time of diagnosis need to be filtered somehow to allow the most immediate to rise to the surface. What is the cancer? How is it going to be treated? What is my prognosis? When do I get started? However, throughout the cancer journey—from diagnosis, through treatment, into survivorship, or dealing with questions about end-of-life—the questions continue.

With 17 years of combined experience answering questions about cancer from patients and their loved ones on the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Answer Line, Jamie and I have learned there are certain questions that are common. While we could never answer every question here, our hope is that we can provide answers, tips, guidelines, and resources in this book to help patients diagnosed with cancer—either newly or some time ago—to navigate their individual cancer journey. We won’t be focusing on which treatment should be used on which cancer; your treatment team will advise you there. We’ll let you know what to expect, provide you with questions to help as you make decisions, and offer suggestions on how to live well during and after cancer treatment. If there is one thing we’ve learned working on the Answer Line, knowledge and understanding make every journey easier.