Читать книгу Overcome the Challenges of Cancer Care - M. D. Rosenberg - Страница 4

Introduction

“You have cancer.”

When people hear these words, they’re at a loss. How could this happen? What do I do now? Where do I begin? These are only some of the questions patients, family members, and others have.

The average person has a limited view of what cancer is, how it grows, and how we treat it. People hear things about cancer on TV, read about it in books, and see people deal with it in movies. Many of us even donate time and money to cancer research. But we often talk about cancer in a superficial sense. We rarely dive into what it means to have cancer or how to deal with it.

Maybe we hear about a friend or family member who has cancer: “Uncle Bob has prostate cancer” or “Aunt Susan has breast cancer.” We think, That’s too bad. Maybe, in the quiet and privacy of our homes, we Google the word cancer. The amount of information overloads us. (By the way, if you do Google the word cancer, you get over half a billion results.)

Taking in a diagnosis while wading through this information is overwhelming.

Where Do I Start?

As you work through information online and in books from doctors, healers, salespeople, and anyone in between, the picture only gets cloudier. Worse yet, there are a lot of false promises and poorly written materials out there. Some people try to exploit patients, families, and friends affected by cancer.

I hope this book serves as a guide—a flashlight in the darkness of cancer information. I want to arm you with information on cancer in an easy-to-understand format.

We’ll start with the cancer cell, describe diagnosis, and go over the types of common treatments: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy. We’ll then move on to managing side effects, incorporating complementary care, and making lifestyle changes. Throughout the book, I also outline how to overcome the ten most common mistakes I see patients and families make as they go through this process.

At the end, I’ve included a glossary, where you can find definitions of terms, and a list of additional resources. Please also visit my website at stephenrosenbergmd.com where I’ve included patient resources, such as templates for doctor’s appointments with questions to ask along with other helpful lists. I want you to have everything you or family members may need to navigate the journey of cancer.

Getting the Big Picture

This book isn’t a comprehensive course on cancer, as there are many types of cancer. In fact, you can find entire textbooks devoted to breast cancer, prostate cancer, or many other types of cancer!

Many of these books drag patients down into the details of cancer without giving them the big picture—the “Where is this going?” My goal is to provide an overview of cancer. I want you to understand how cancer grows, how we treat it, and how to move forward.

With that in mind, let’s get started.