Families Who Have Cancer

You know them.  I know them.  Perhaps your family is one of them.  Families who have been touched by cancer. I think that having small children would make having cancer more difficult.  Not only is just doing the every day tasks more difficult, but the emotional facet of perhaps not seeing your children grow up must be factored into the stress of the situation.

Of course, that is not to say that having cancer is any easier for those of us who have grown children.  There are always grandchildren we would like to see grow into adulthood.  Yes.  Cancer is difficult for everyone.

We are not given a choice in life about what diseases we will and won’t have.  Our genetics and lifestyle can and will influence our health, but for the most part we just don’t get to choose.  Famlies are part of the illness and the recovery.

As we pray for the folks in our lives who are will, don’t forget to pray for their families.

American Cancer Society-The Answers Can Begin Here

When my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, I did not even know enough to know what questions I needed to ask. I did know, however, that the American Cancer Society was a place to start looking for information.  I remember calling and talking to whomever would listen.

The American Cancer Society website is easy to navigate and contains a great deal of information.  I am not going to give a lot of specifics about how A.C.S. can help you in your particular situation, but I do suggest that you log on explore the contents of this organization’s website.

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp

Time has blurred my memory somewhat, but it seems to me that the American Cancer Society paid for, or at least supplimented the hotel costs when we took Mother to MD Anderson in Houston.

I have a friend whose husband had pancreatic cancer, and the American Cancer Society provided him with home health equipment including a hospital bed.

In my opinion, the American Cancer Society is a wonderful organization which endeavors to support cancer patients and their caretakers in many areas.  There is the support of providing knowledge and answering questions about the disease itself.  They give emotional support by listening and empathizing with patients and families.  They provide support with equipment helping to keep patients in their home as long as possible.  They can sometimes provide financial support as they did with us in helping to pay for our hotel rooms.

I know there are many many more areas of help the American Cancer Society provides that I have not mentioned, but by checking out their website and contacting them directly, you will at least find a beginning place to find the answers to your questions.

What Do We Need? Prayers and Support

Prayers.  Knowing that your name or the name of your loved one is being lifted up in prayer to our Father during a time of crisis gives incredible emotional support to patients and their families.  Precious friends and acquaintances would ask me, “How can I pray for you and your family?” when we were walking the cancer path.  My immediate response was, “Pray that God will give us wisdom and strength”.  Wisdom so that we can make the right decisions for our parents and strength to face the physical and emotional needs of the day.  Oh, what a difference their prayers made.  As I have written previously, even though I was often the only one standing by my father or mother’s hospital bed in the middle of the night, I never felt alone.  God’s Presence was always there.

Support. More often than not, families need things when they are traveling down the path of cancer or other terminal illness.  They need information.  They need home health equipment.  They need appropriate clothing for  their ill one. They need food. They need transportation. They need. They need.

I will begin a discussion of various organizations that I have encountered which endeavor to meet those needs.  Most of the time these are not for profit organizations which desire to minister to patients and the families who love them.

Feel free to become part of the discussion by way of comment, sharing the names of and information about organizations in your area which seek to meet the needs of the ill.