Caregivers Cognition

The surgeons are busy crawling around inside her chest as I write.

This is the day cancer patients dread first and likely most (the first day of chemo being the other candidate). There are questions that are only answered during surgery or in post-game lab reports. Yet for the next few hours, Cheryl has one thing she has not since being diagnosed – the chance to not have worry, doubt and rage in her mind.

Being close yet outside, we caregivers – the husbands, parents, children of the breast cancer patient – can see things even the patient cannot. If you have received a BC diagnosis, take a little advice.

Cry, scream, moan and get very angry. Toss a pillow on the floor and beat it until feathers fly. Unless you are a hideous being, you don’t deserve this and you have every right to be pissed off and scared. Get it out of your system as soon, as fast and as completely as possible. It will clear your mind.

Read obsessively, but don’t obsess. Everyone outside the medical fields is ignorant about cancer, and you want to get smart fast. But the internet is loaded with horror stories, none of which are you. Stick to the main web sites – American Cancer Society, Komen, WebMD – otherwise the volume and fear within alternate sources can drive you mad or scare you needlessly.

You chose your doctors, not your insurance company or GP. Cheryl’s general practitioner originally referred her to a vascular surgeon, not a breast cancer surgeon. When she discovered this, we went on the hunt and landed a doctor so qualified that everyone in the local medical industry said “Oh, he’s good!” This is your life we’re talking about, so kick your insurance representive in the shins until you get the best in your area.

Treat it like a puzzle game and find the cure. Yes, this is deadly serious, so take some of the head and heartache out by looking at your cure as one big, complex, integrated project – better than redecorating the living room. Cheryl’s binder is so large that doctors marvel at the efforts she has made to master her own care.

Let the dark humor come to you. Dark humor isn’t for everyone, but when you can laugh at the situation you can deal with it calmly. I mentioned running my fingers through Cheryl’s hair and she replied “Enjoy it while you can.” Laughing death in the face puzzles the Reaper long enough to outmaneuver him.

Know this isn’t going to be fun, but millions of other women have done it already. That’s the big one. You are not a trail blazer. Medical science has been working this problem for a long time. Though surgery and chemo are not cakewalks, the process has been refined, improved and specialized thanks to decades of women before you. Your chances of survival are excellent thanks to them. The chance of losing breasts and nipples are less because of them. The hell of chemo is less hellish because of them. You follow the pioneers, and because of that you’ll make it.

Guy – Cheryl’s Husband and Team Mate