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what can i do to support my sister that has breast cancer

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How to support people with chest cancer through diagnosis, treatment, and recovery.

What can I do to aid?

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Whether your friend or family member is newly diagnosed or in the midst of handling, she'south unlikely to be wowed by vague offers or having to practise your thinking for you. She has enough on her mind; she has cancer. She may not desire that tuna casserole or to hear about what handling your Aunt Phyllis had either.

Then how can you help? There is no i-size-fits-all answer. That'south why we turned to survivors for our list of back up dos and don'ts. Our patient-generated communication is sorted into three stages—

Diagnosis, Surgery & Treatment, and Recovery—identified past Maureen Broderick, a licensed clinical social worker who has worked with cancer patients and run cancer back up groups. Here's what you demand to know.

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Learn to mind

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"1 of the most important means a friend supported me was by listening to me as I decided what to do," says Orinda, Calif. writer Victoria Irwin, 57, who had a lumpectomy and radiation before this year. "When I was in conclusion-making mode, it'due south all I could remember almost or talk about. My friend listened to me over and over again. I think she learned more than she ever wanted to, and she helped me formulate the questions I needed to ask at medico's appointments," she says. "She didn't give advice, but best-selling the difficulty of the situation. That listening was the most helpful thing she could take done."

Be my annotation taker and advocate

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A twelvemonth subsequently having a stroke, New Jersey homemaker Florence Tweel, 55, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her first business organisation was her children, who were 12 and fifteen.

"I needed all of my strength to focus on how I was going to get through this and tell my children," Tweel says. "I was lucky to accept a friend, Linda, who went with me to every appointment. She wouldn't let me out of her sight. It wasn't my job to understand anything that was beingness told to me medically because she took notes on it and we'd go back to her husband, who is a dr., to get advice." Linda's support gave Tweel the energy to be at her best with her family and get the treatment she needed. "She was a Godsend," she says.

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Follow his or her breast cancer page

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A not bad style to help a breast cancer patient is to visit their page on a site like Mylifeline.org,Caringbridge.org, Lotsahelpinghands.com, or Carepages.com (or help them set up one up if they don't have one). Such sites let people (or friends or family) build private or public communities where patient updates and schedules can be shared, says Broderick.

People can ask for and get the kind of help they really want and need. Survivor Anne Steele, 51, Hermosa Embankment, California, who had

chemo, a lumpectomy, and radiation, for example, liked having companions with her during chemo while Victoria Irwin, who spent her chemo fourth dimension in solitary pursuits like reading, preferred to salve friends' graciousness for another time.

Read my blog

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Many of the sites that offer scheduling let chest cancer patients or their families or friends weblog well-nigh their treatment and recovery progress. Dawn Bontempo, 42, a ceremonious retainer in the section of veteran affairs in Arlington, Virginia, created a Mylifeline.org account right after she was diagnosed final year. She spread the word and link to friends, family unit, and colleagues via a Facebook postal service.

"I don't ask for help easily, and so this made that role simpler," she says. "The 'aid' was essential to my fight. Merely my blog kept everybody—all my long-distance family unit and friends—in the loop and up to date." I tin't underestimate the importance." Bontempo's blog posts turned into a book, Breast Cancer Mardi Gras: Surviving the Emotional Hurricane and Showing My Boobs to Strangers.

Give me phone numbers

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"People would start to tell me almost their friends who survived cancer and, to be honest, I really didn't desire to hear about information technology," admits Anne Steele. Hearing another person'due south story secondhand, even if it had a good result, didn't feel like encouragement to Steele. Talking directly to other people with breast cancer, all the same, tin exist helpful. "If a friend gave me a survivor'south contact data, that was beneficial," says Steele, who could follow upwardly with a call when she felt like it.

"Brand sure to ask the women you know with chest cancer if they desire to be continued with others who have it," says Jodi Maslowski, 45, a homo resources manager in Phoenix. She said yes when she was diagnosed at the age of 36 with

ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and was connected with three young area women.

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Be my electronic mail pen pal

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When the unknown looms, hearing from someone who'due south "been at that place" can really make a divergence, says Mary Vaughan, 58, of Gaithersburg, Md. She found that understanding someone at church; a fellow member who'd had breast cancer some years earlier started writing her emails full of hard-won advice.

"Offset, she told me I could make it touch anytime, day or dark. That was so comforting," says Vaughan. She gave her tips that were applied (how to screen offers of assist and go what you really need) and the more emotional ("Let yourself cry or be angry—that's important. It's a fashion of letting yourself become to know yourself amend during this time of self discovery").

Proceed it lite

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Sue Murrian, 62, a Knoxville homemaker who had a lumpectomy and radiation for her early on-stage breast cancer, almost appreciated "help" with a lite-hearted approach. "It was important to me to keep up my spirits," she says. The best care bundle came from a sis-in-law. "In it were these little press-on tattoos. They came with a note that said, 'Put these on your breast and surprise your radiation technicians!' I got the biggest boot out of that."

Make a silly cake

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Bontempo didn't mince words when she was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. She invited everyone via a Facebook mail to help her kick cancer'southward ass. Her office responded with a "Go Kicking Cancer's Donkey!" political party that included a cake with the aforementioned bulletin.

Steele's friends threw her bald caput a party. "People were wonderful; they showed up wearing funny wigs, hats, and scarfs and bought me hats, wigs, and scarves to wear and continue. A friend had a cake fabricated of me and put curly dark-green pilus on my bald head," she says. "Information technology really made alopecia fun!"

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Distract me with fiddling surprises

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"At some point I must've told one of my co-workers near how when I was a kid and I'd get sick my mother would always buy me a piddling gift," recalls Aimee Johnson, 46, executive director of the Alabama arm of the American Diabetes Association. Then, the start time she went to chemotherapy, Johnson'due south staff had a little present for her. "And then every time I went to chemo, at that place was a gift—Netflix to watch or a volume to read while I was there," she says. "Or flowers to take dwelling house."

A friend of Victoria Irwin'south bought her tickets to a concert series. "That was her gift to me—the gift of lark from treatment. Otherwise my days would have revolved around radiation in the morning," Irwin says. "The little distractions aid you feel normal."

Assistance me understand that I need aid

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"Information technology'due south so awkward to receive." Johnson was one of the many breast cancer survivors who expressed this sentiment. Many women are very good at being givers, just not takers. "I'thousand individual," she says, "and I kept telling myself that it was more comfy for me to exist miserable past myself." But after repeatedly refusing neighbors' offers of help, they forced a chip of an intervention. "They came over and said, 'Look, you've got to be more receptive to us doing things for y'all, even if it'south just for us.' That's when I took down those walls."

It took Jodie Maslowski awhile to realize that telling people "No" was devastating to them. "I finally learned to take the assist and I loved it," she says. "It'south now the starting time thing I tell cancer patients I mentor: y'all need to help people assistance y'all."

Leave a message afterwards the tone

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People say, "Oh, I didn't know if I should call or bother you. I thought possibly you were sleeping," merely I want to exist bothered, says Steele. And If I don't desire to talk, I'll go out the machine on.

In fact, if the telephone keeps ringing only the patient is also tired to reply, I tell them to put a message on their machine, says social worker Maureen Broderick. "The patient or a family member could say, 'Anne's having her chemo right now, just she appreciates all of your adept wishes. Delight know that she can't respond right now.'" If you're a friend and you get that message, you tin leave an answer saying, "I'thou going to send you my e-mail and would love to hear from you whatsoever fourth dimension you have the free energy," Broderick says. "That way y'all're keeping in touch and letting the breast cancer survivor answer on her own terms."

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Ask before bringing food

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"People insist on making and bringing meals," says Marybeth Hillard. "I've done it myself for another family when someone set up upwardly a schedule, but in our case it wasn't the best solution. I know they have good intentions, but it made me feel guilty that we weren't eating all the food," she says. Sometimes people find even the food delivery stressful, then telephone call and ask kickoff. You could say, "I'one thousand making a lasagna and can bring over half. I could leave it outside your door and you lot don't even take to run into me." That manner your friend can choose if she feels like eating that day—or feels well enough to run across you." Maslowski couldn't have eaten the food if she wanted to; her taste buds were affected by her chemo. "Someone would bring chicken with no seasoning on information technology but information technology still tasted salty to me," she says. "So somebody read that the last matter a person in chemo wants is food they've never eaten before because they get picky, but like in pregnancy—that's when they hatched the plan to deliver me groceries instead of meals."

I don't want your tuna casserole, but you can buy my groceries

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"One of the coolest things my friends did was come up into the kitchen and write down everything I liked to eat. They wrote down all the details similar 1% milk and whole wheat bread and the brands I liked," says Jodi Maslowski. "They typed it upwardly and emailed it to everybody then that when they went to the grocery store for me, they knew what I would swallow."

Maslowski'south friends also made a note of which detergent, cleaning supplies, and soaps she was using. "You have to be careful considering your skin is so sensitive," she says. "I was using Biotene and Cetaphil products. My friends understood that and only bought me what I could employ while I was going through chemotherapy."

Help make life normal for my kids

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Hillard didn't want chest cancer to stone her kids' worlds equally much as it rocked hers. "If you've got pretty immature kids at home, you lot feel it's your obligation to effort to go on their lives normal—and if you're lying on the couch taking Oxycontin, that's non going to happen," she says. With six surgeries in ix months, Hillard had a lot of time to worry about her daughters getting bored at dwelling or missing activities.

That'due south why she was extremely grateful anytime anyone offered to exercise anything for her children. "1 mother collection one of my daughters to dance class. My neighbor took the kids grocery shopping. It'southward the fiddling normal stuff like that that'southward the almost important," Hillard says.

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Throw me a hair-cutting party

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"I knew I wanted to donate my long hair before it all vicious out," says Bontempo. And then she and 15 friends had a party. "We went to a salon on a Sabbatum afternoon with champagne, food, and wine," she says.

Bontempo told everyone when they were invited that they had to tell her that her hair looked great no matter what. "It was my mode of taking dorsum control," she says. "I knew there were going to be tears and there were, but it was a fun mode to surroundings myself with really great friends and marking that I was dealing with this cancer milestone my mode."

And, of course, they all told her she looked great!

Requite me an open-concluded invite

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Because people undergoing chest cancer treatment often don't know how they're going to feel from solar day to day, an open-ended invitation—for a repast commitment or a friendly drop-by—is the best kind of help, some cancer survivors say.

Steele's friend, Michel, would telephone call and ask, "How are y'all feeling? Exercise you feel similar eating? I'd like to stop over this weekend and melt dinner for y'all. If not this weekend, just permit me know when."

Steele would let him know when she felt good enough to consume. He'd call that solar day to encounter what sounded proficient and would come over with the nutrient. "I'd help with the chopping," she says. "I loved the company and we had wonderful meals with slap-up chat and laughter, which really is the best medicine."

Pamper me with attending

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All of the practical help is wonderful, but special treats can really perk up a cancer patient's day. "My sister-in-police sent me a bottle of Chanel No. 5, a very soft lap coating, and a bottle of Frangelico chocolate. I was similar, "At present in that location's a woman who gets it," says Vaughan. Pretty scarves and cute hats are a great souvenir, too, says Maslowski.

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Send me lots of cards

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You lot'd be surprised at how many survivors loved getting cards and thought that they were very meaningful signs of back up. "The number of people who sent cards and good wishes—it was overwhelming," says Lou Durante. "It makes you lot feel similar you're worth something; that you lot affair to other people."

Don't wait me to exist Miss Manners

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Fifty-fifty women who could give Emily Post a run for her coin demand a pass during breast cancer treatment and recovery. And that ways lowering etiquette expectations, says Johnson. Even little things like nutrient being delivered with the message "At present, make sure you tell me how yous liked this" can feel similar a burden to an overwhelmed patient. "I knew that was lawmaking for 'I'm expecting a written thank-y'all note,'" she says.

To be really helpful, make certain anything you deliver to or do for the breast cancer survivor is strings-gratuitous, says Broderick. "The container you bring food or flowers in shouldn't have to exist given back to yous," she says. If you're dropping off dinner or flowers, Broderick suggests you lot call and say, "I don't expect you to see me or entertain me and I'grand just doing this for you."

Don't tell me how to feel

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It'southward never wise to presuppose how someone should feel at any stage of chest cancer—and that includes virtually the end of handling, says Broderick.

"It tin exist scary at the terminate of the handling considering the patient is going out from under the protection of the medical wing," Broderick says. "Or a adult female may non accept gone through all of the stages of grieving over losing a breast or of having a cancer diagnosis at the beginning of the process and is doing it now at the end."

It's not helpful to tell a breast cancer survivor she should feel happy, lucky, or backup-the-bare. Better to inquire, "How are you feeling?" She gets to call the shots on how she feels and when.

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Don't forget me when 'information technology's over'

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It's human nature for people to rush in to help at the beginning of a crisis, but having breast cancer is a long road, says Johnson, whose surgery and treatment spanned more than six months.

"It'southward like when someone dies and people all huddle around at the starting time," the executive director of the Alabama arm of the American Diabetes Association says. "Simply people become weary of you lot being ill for too very long. After one or ii months, you lot notice a tone. They'll say, 'You're still doing that?'"

The transition from existence sick 24 hours a solar day to feeling well seems and then precipitous that it can be weird, she says. "I don't demand food or a driver anymore, only it's lovely when people still check in with a call or a note."

Please join me in finding a cure

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Earlier Maslowski was diagnosed with breast cancer in her 30s, she'd never paid whatever attention to fund-raising walks or events. Now she thinks participating in an annual breast cancer walk is i of the nicest ways friends and family can show support for her and assistance her fight the disease that tried to sideline her.

"A girlfriend contacted me nearly the walk and said she wanted to practice information technology on my behalf. I wanted to do it, too, even though I was in chemo that first twelvemonth. I've been walking the three-day sixty-mile Susan Thou. Komen walk ever since," says Maslowski. With each step she remembers how far she'due south come and how thankful she is for the support she received and that she is able to now assistance others. And every walk is another year she'southward cancer gratuitous.

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Source: https://www.health.com/condition/breast-cancer/22-ways-to-help-a-friend-with-breast-cancer

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