I can speak as both a patient and a caregiver. Other people don't know what to say, they want to help but they haven't a clue. How do you tell them that you are exhausted in mind body and soul? Platitudes are not going to help, hugs and finding a way to get out of your own head are the best answers but not easy to find. When going through it with my father and helping my mother through it with her two best friends, walking it out was the best therapy for both of us. Normal is not a part of cancer, day by day is what you live by. Anger is also part of the journey. This is not the same as what you are going through, I know, I hope you can find comfort. Tracy
My Goodwill
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Sabrina1982 shared an experience
Drug or Chemo Therapy: Starting Afinitor tonight.
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Sabrina1982 started following
User: GregP_WN
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Sabrina1982 started following
Question: Finding caregiver support
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Sabrina1982 asked a questionHodgkin Disease
Finding caregiver support
9 answers-
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RachaelC@StF
Community Outreach Coordinator
317-528-7794
over 4 years agoHi Sabrina1982,
I am very sorry to hear that you are having to experience cancer for the third time. That plain sucks. St. Francis partners with a not-for-profit organization called Cancer Support Community. They offer some awesome support groups that keep our patients and caregivers coming back every week, and they are free! I googled the nearest CSC to you, and I'm not sure you would want to drive that far, but I thought I would throw it out there in case. You have two options:
1. Gilda's Club (CSC's old name) is located in Louisville, KY. The address is 633 Baxter Ave, Louisville, KY. It is an hour drive from Madison.
2. Cancer Support Community of Greater Cincinnatti and Northern Kentucky is located in Fort Wright, KY. The address is 1717 Dixie Highway. It's an hour and sixteen minute drive from Madison.
Hopefully these help. Maybe the drive can be some extra time for you to compress and think, especially if it is only once or twice a month. The support groups usually run in the evening from 6:30 to 8 p.m. -
Queen_Tatiana
over 4 years agoHi Sabrina, My husnad has been battling colon cancer for 8+ years now (Peroll), and has been over the 5% mark at least three times. I have been through every emotion there is and then some since this started. I recently was mad that we were not able to take a cruise we wanted to take over Christmas because chemo started again. Who on earth can you express this kind of anger to, except another caregiver? Yes, everyone asks me how my husband is, and I think it's because they want me to know they know and they don't know what else to say. People look at us as being so strong when I'm not strong a all. Sometimes all I want to to do is sit on a beach somewhere far far away and forget about life for a few weeks, then come back and handle it all over again--I am in one of these times when I'm dreaming of a beach. Please feel free to contact me if you like.
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Sabrina1982 shared an experience
Oh No (Cancer is back/Recurred ): My now husband (then boyfriend), Derrick, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma for the first time in 2007. We were told that radiation and chemo would put it in remission and that some where around 90% of people who are treated for HL never see it reoccur. In 2009 it came back, and he was treated with intense chemo and a stem cell transplant using his own cells. Remission came but in April 2012 the HL had returned. They started him on a new treatment that was for HL patients and it worked great but then for some unknown reason stopped and sent him into a spiral of problems which resulted in a 6 week hospital stay. His doctor sent him to the University of Kentucky for a consult on a donor bone marrow/stem cell transplant. We were told by the doctor's there that Derrick's immune system no longer recognized cancer as a bad thing, that he would need a transplant in order to get a new immune system that would fight cancer but the risks of this transplant would be very high. Option 2 is to live with it and maintain it......we choose this option.
