Cancer learnings & tips
Your cancer journey will be 100% your own. Even people who had the same treatment will have had a different experience, so there is no standard you need to hit. Survival rates are higher and doctors know far more than they did 50, 10, or even 5 years ago. And nothing will freak out your care team; they have seen it all. I have a very distinct birthmark right where my port was placed, and no one blinked. They just wanted to know if it was new/reaction to bandage/port
- Physically: You will most likely have some very low days, sometimes several in a row. Bone pain is not fun, but it is life-saving (it means your body is making white blood cells). Take full advantage of the good days; they make chemo worth it. Please tell the doctor team everything, since they can often tweak a medication or offer a tip, like Claritin for bone pain. You got this. Cancer will not win
- Emotionally: For me, much harder than the physical side. One of my doctors recommended mindfulness meditation, and meditating every night made me far more aware of my emotions and cut down my ER visits. I used InsightTimer, but plenty of free and paid options work. Meeting weekly with a cancer-focused psychologist during treatment also helped me a lot, and I wish more men used therapists in general
- Mentally: Separate from emotions, because the mind plays its own tricks. I remember “feeling” very hot or “feeling” my heart race, then checking and seeing 98.7° and 80 BPM. Grounding yourself back in reality is “fun,” challenging, and another good way to stay out of the ER. Some days your mental attitude is the only thing you can control while your body fails you
- Support system: Both the paid kind (doctors, psychologists, personal trainers) and the real kind (family and friends) are critical, and each plays a special role in getting you back to your old self. Thank you to my amazing support system. Please rely upon yours → people want to help
- Reactions: Some people will really surprise you, in both directions. A friend checking in or sending a card is heartwarming; on the flip side, it can be good to clear some people out of your life. Most people simply will not know how to react, so, weirdly, you end up coaching them. My favorite moments were when people skipped the medical questions and just talked to me like nothing was different. That made me feel “normal” again
- Share or don’t: Telling people was emotionally exhausting, especially during treatment. I made a list of who “should” know based on how close we were, then stopped when it wore me out. Later I went public by launching my company, and a lot more people found out. That’s 100% a personal call, but going public brought me closer to classmates who had been through their own cancer struggles
- Take space: Some days you will be down and beat. On those days you owe nothing to anyone. Let the messages pile up. I hope you don’t get many bad days, but when they come back to back, life gets a lot harder. Know that you have got this
- Write it down: For every visit I brought the top three things I wanted the doctor to know, plus my questions by category: side effects (bone pain, constipation, and how they compared to the last cycle), restrictions (people, food), results (PET, bloodwork), and medicine (refills, questions). I would send these ahead in MyChart, but between you and me, the doctor never read them in advance. They are extremely busy. A printed copy made sure every question got answered and let me track progress
- Self-advocacy: One of the more surprising, and frankly shitty, parts of treatment. The hospital is swamped, so the team may miss or “forget” things about you, or be against certain medications. My mom and I had to advocate very strongly for opioids; I only ever used Tramadol, but I was eventually prescribed Oxy for bone pain. In the moment it is easy to criticize or scream at the team, but that gets no one anywhere. Sticking to the facts worked best for both sides
- Positivity: I am naturally a positive person, and it helped. I brought it to most visits (except when in extreme pain), and it made me closer to the nurses and doctors. On bad days I would go neutral to grit through the pain, but the positivity bounced back fast, because I knew that no matter the diagnosis, I had a 100% chance of getting through this (and so do you)
Three things I would change
- Keep lifting instead of just walking. Sweat is wonderful for making you feel better and getting out the bad toxins → check with your doctor team for restrictions
- See a psychologist sooner, and be more open about my emotions with friends → hiding things does not help anyone
- Be less hard on myself and more open with others. This journey is difficult and can be terrifying → if you are negative towards yourself, it helps no one
Any questions? Shoot me a message