Blog Topic: Coping with cancer
Every week, I receive emails and phone calls from women who have recently been diagnosed with cancer. With one in eight Australian women being diagnosed with breast cancer and one in three women being diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life, it’s a disease that touches many of us. But instead of being […]
Muppets creator Jim Henson reportedly specified that nobody should wear black at his funeral and requested jazz tunes. Big Bird sang at his public memorial and mourners heard his advice, made well before his 1990 sudden death, to “watch out for each other…love and forgive everybody…”. Many of us don’t want such fanfare in […]
Just hours before my father died peacefully in a palliative care ward, surrounded by his family, he whispered that he “didn’t think it would be like this”. We hadn’t spoken about what his death might be like when we learned he had advanced cancer, but I still wonder whether the lead-up to his death matched […]
When Michael Mulchrone learned the lung cancer he thought long gone had migrated to his brain and doctors mentioned palliative care in 2015, he was fearful of the journey ahead. A year-and-a-half later, Mike says palliative care wasn’t a “death blow” after all but a life-enriching experience. “When I was first diagnosed, I was left […]
Nearly 50 per cent of cancer patients aren’t offered help for emotional distress How are you doing emotionally? This seems like a question you’d expect when you’re undergoing cancer treatment – but not many people who receive cancer care hear it very often. Up to 1 in 5 cancer patients are never asked about their […]
When I lost my mother to cancer in 2008, then, a 32 year old mother of 3 young boys, I was devastated to say the least. It literally felt as though I had become hollow. Everything I knew about my world, my ‘safe’ world was gone, lost, and never reclaimed. I remember soon after the […]
This year in Australia, it is predicted that 1,900 people will be diagnosed with brain cancer and around 1,385 people will die from the disease. Despite improving survival rates in other types of cancer, brain cancer survival remains poor. Sadly, only around 22 per cent of people diagnosed with this cancer will survive for five […]
Anyone who has kids will know that you just can’t fool them. If you’ve ever tried to keep the fantasy of Santa Claus real for the sake of a younger sibling, you’ll know just how hard it can be! When someone is diagnosed with cancer, adults are sometimes unsure about discussing the situation with children. […]
When Camilla Gunn’s colleague at Westpac was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, Camilla realised the experience for him and for other staff would have been easier if there were some guidelines for coping with cancer in the workplace. “I’m a proud Westpac employee and I really believe in the company credo of helping […]
In 2015 Megan Sullivan fell 15 metres whilst climbing in California’s Yosemite National Park, got hit by a car and was then diagnosed with skin cancer, all in one month. Two weeks later, she decided to see the 7 New Wonders of the World in just 13 days with a new outlook on life: to […]