Being a caregiver to a cancer patient comes with a lot of responsibilities. To help, we’ve put together information on many of the biggest challenges caregivers take on, including how to manage medications, communicate with your loved one’s medical team.

Managing Medications

Cancer treatment usually involves taking a lot of medicine. On top of drugs that attack the cancer, patients may take medications for pain, nausea, low blood counts and other treatment or cancer-related symptoms. Some patients may take up to 20 pills a day. Keeping track of these medications can be a challenge. With some organization, you can make sure loved one is taking the right medication at the right time. Some of the steps you can take while managing medications to help through the treatment are as follows:

• During the course of the treatment, a cancer patient undergoes check-ups and consultations from different departments/doctors. In order to make the process of drug administering easy, a patient must always carry a file of all the basic information like name, phone numbers, blood type, medical conditions and a list of food and drug allergies.
• The patients must always be aware of the drug allergies he/she may have to avoid further complications in the treatment.
• If taking any health supplements (multi-vitamins, homeopathic/Ayurvedic/Herbal supplements), please confirm with the doctor as they could react with the cancer treatment.
• Organize your medication – day or hour wise. It could be kept in organizers available in market or boxes labelled properly. This could be especially useful in case of children and old patients.
• Using mobile applications and setting alarms would prove to be useful for patients in taking the medication at the right time, helping in a speedy recovery.

NCI provides Kark Sevaks (Case Manager) to each patients that registers to get the treatment. A Kark Sevak is a point of contact for every patient in case he/she needs any help or has any query at any point of time.

Communicating with the health care team

Many cancer patients need help talking with their care providers. Sometimes it’s because of age, sometimes because of illness. In these cases, the caregiver steps in to help listen, ask questions and let the team know how the patient is doing. Here are some simple steps care providers can take to make these conversations as effective as possible:

• Try to keep good notes of your appointments from the beginning. Most patients and caregivers are overwhelmed by what they’re going through.
• Keeping a record of what you’ve been told can help you cut down on miscommunication and remember what you need to do. Maintaining a notebook of questions or observations regarding the patient can help in course of the treatment.
• Use that same notebook to take notes during the appointment. It will be easier to go back to these notes than to call the hospital about something you forgot.
• Ask questions. It’s the health care team’s job to help patients and loved ones understand the condition, its treatment and its side effects.

Life After Cancer

When cancer treatment ends, people begin a new chapter in their lives, one that can bring hope and happiness, but also worries and fear. No two people are alike and each person has his or her own way of coping and learning to manage these emotions. It takes a lot of patience and practice.

Anxiety may take over the patients after cancer due the fear of cancer coming back (called cancer recurrence) or more amount of time in hand. Some people are better prepared for life after cancer than others. But everyone can benefit from help and support from other people. Care givers play an important role in the making life easier for the cancer survivors. In the course of this, a care giver must:

• Comfort the patients by creating a fear-free and comfortable environment.
• Make sure he/she is treated like a “normal” person and is not reminded of trauma, time and again.
• Ask questions to the survivors and make sure that a person is not getting stressed about issues. Encourage them to seek help (counselling, support groups, etc.) if needed which is offered at NCI.
• Make observation regarding the physical health of the patient and if the patient encounters problems during rehabilitation, please visit the dedicated rehabilitation facility made available at NCI for the smooth transition of the cancer patients.
• Motivate them to take up physical activity, yoga and meditation.