Turning Hopeless To Hopeful

Cancer. The word itself is enough to instill fear in most of us. When you hear that someone has been diagnosed with cancer, you immediately feel compassion. You want to help them. You want to help their families. You reach out to them to offer any help you can. We all know that cancer affects the patient, as well as the family. It is often said that a person does not get cancer, a family gets cancer. We have no choice in the matter. However, once cancer comes into our lives, we have lots of choices.

There are the choices we allow the doctors to make. The doctor will decide what type of treatment will be best for your type of cancer. Cancer treatment can include strong medications, or chemotherapy, that, while killing off the bad cancer cells, take along some of the healthy cells making it difficult to fight off common illnesses and infections. Unfortunately the drugs are so powerful that they often come with side effects of hair loss or constant nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. There is also radiation therapy, which is used is some types of cancer. Radiation therapy has its side effects as well. We know that the side effects are inevitable, we are hoping that the powerful drugs are at least killing the cancer.

It can begin to feel hopeless. It is said that the treatments for cancer are sometimes worse than the disease itself. One important part of your treatment should be support. Being able to speak to people who have been where you are, along with their families, can go a long way in helping you and your family cope with the difficult journey. When you have no hair, are throwing up everything you eat, and feel freezing cold all the time, being able to see someone who felt those same things and now is cancer free, well that can turn hopeless feelings to hopeful dreams.