January 12, 2012
CancerCare offers free support groups for anyone affected by cancer, including people with cancer, their caregivers, friends and loved ones, and the bereaved.
A cancer diagnosis can bring many difficult emotions, including fear, anxiety, and a feeling of isolation. Support groups connect you with others in a similar situation who may relate to what you are experiencing.
We offer diagnosis-specific support groups, such as a group for people affected by colorectal cancer, as well as specialized support groups, including groups for men with cancer, young adults with cancer, and parents of children with cancer.
CancerCare’s support groups are led by professional oncology social workers, and are available online, over the telephone, and face-to-face in our offices in New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut. To learn more about CancerCare‘s telephone and face-to-face support groups or to register, call 800‑813‑HOPE (4673).
Online support groups are password-protected, and members must go through a registration process. After completing the registration process, members can participate 24 hours, 7 days a week. New online support groups will be offered starting February 1.
View all of CancerCare’s free support groups.
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Caregiving, Coping with Cancer, Learn More About Your Diagnosis, Men's Cancers, Survivorship, Women's Cancers, Young Adults | Tagged: cancer patients, cancer survivors, coping, psychological impact of cancer, stress, support groups | 
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Posted by Kyle Hornyak
July 1, 2011
On Tuesday, July 12, from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time, CancerCare, in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute: Office of Cancer Survivorship and Office of Communications and Education, LIVESTRONG, American Cancer Society, Intercultural Cancer Council, Living Beyond Breast Cancer and National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, will present a free, telephone workshop entitled: Fear of Recurrence and Late Effects: Living With Uncertaintity.
You can listen to this program on the telephone or via live streaming through the internet. This workshop is the last of the four-part series, The Ninth Annual Cancer Survivorship Series: Living With, Through and Beyond Cancer.
This free series is made possible by support from the National Cancer Institute and LIVESTRONG and offers cancer survivors, their families, friends and health care professionals practical information to help them cope with concerns that arise after treatment ends.
The faculty for the July 12 program includes:
- Richard Dickens, MSW, Survivor Perspective, Blood Cancers Program Coordinator, Mind/Body/Spirit Project Coordinator, CancerCare
- Merle H. Mishel, RN, PhD, FAAN, Kenan Professor, School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- David Spiegel, MD, Jack, Sam and Lulu Willson Professor in the School of Medicine, Associate Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine
This workshop is free – no phone charges apply. However, pre-registration is required. To register, and for more information, simply go to the CancerCare website, www.cancercare.org/connect_workshops.
If you missed Parts I, II or III of the series, they are available as podcasts, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week:
Leave a Comment » | Coping with Cancer, Doctor-Patient Communication, Survivorship | Tagged: cancer survivors, coping, psychological impact of cancer, stress | Permalink
Posted by Kyle Hornyak
March 11, 2011
An article in today’s edition of The New York Times addresses a new study showing a 20% rise in the number of cancer survivors. The study’s results show that approximately 65 percent of cancer survivors have lived at least five years since receiving their diagnosis, 40 percent have lived 10 years or more, and nearly 10 percent have lived 25 years or longer.
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control, noted that these results contradict notions of cancer as an immediate, terminal disease. “For many people with cancer there’s a need for them and their families to realize that this is a stage,” he says. “They can live a long and healthy life.”
One aspect of cancer survivorship that the article does not address, however, is the emotional and financial impact a diagnosis has on survivors. CancerCare has responded to the need for this support by providing free counseling, support groups, and financial help for anyone affected by a cancer diagnosis.
Read the article.
CancerCare’s booklet, “After Treatment Ends: Tools for the Adult Cancer Survivor” provides tips on living with and beyond cancer.
Leave a Comment » | Coping with Cancer, Financial Assistance, Survivorship | Tagged: cancer survivors, caregivers, psychological impact of cancer, Support CancerCare | Permalink
Posted by Kyle Hornyak
August 11, 2010
Richard C. Frank, MD’s new book, Fighting Cancer with Knowledge and Hope: A Guide for Patients, Families, and Health Care Providers, is a must-read for anyone affected by cancer. A portion of proceeds from sales of the book will be donated to CancerCare, ensuring that we are able to continue providing free, professional support services to people all across the country.
Fighting Cancer inspires patients to feel in control at a time when they may feel powerless. The many topics the book discusses include:
• What cancer is and how it spreads
• How to reconcile emotional needs alongside medical treatment
• Why particular treatment strategies are chosen and how they work
• How patients can visualize treatments at work in the body and why this is helpful
You can order a copy of the book here, or through Amazon.com.
We also encourage you to visit Dr. Frank’s Fighting Cancer blog.
Leave a Comment » | Caregiving, Coping with Cancer, Mind-Body-Spirit, Support CancerCare | Tagged: cancer patients, caregivers, coping, psychological impact of cancer | Permalink
Posted by Kyle Hornyak
July 27, 2010
A new online quarterly magazine from the Lance Armstrong Foundation examines how complete patient care–physical as well as emotional–is being increasingly emphasized as a critical component in the treatment of cancer patients.
Traditional care has focused mainly on treating cancer as a medical condition in which emotional concerns and issues resulting from the diagnosis are often downplayed or not addressed at all. This is changing, as more and more oncologists and other health care providers acknowledge the integral role of counseling and emotional support for patients, their families, and caregivers.
Oncology social workers provide critical support to patients, notes CancerCare‘s Win Boerckel, who is quoted in the article; they can “help people normalize the experience of having cancer, so they can answer questions from their children or get to their next chemo appointment.”
Read the article, “Surviving the First 100 Days,” in the debut issue of LIVESTRONG Quarterly , beginning on page 22.
Leave a Comment » | Caregiving, Coping with Cancer, Survivorship | Tagged: cancer and the family, cancer information, cancer patients, cancer research, caregivers, coping, counseling, psychological impact of cancer | Permalink
Posted by Kyle Hornyak
February 25, 2010
How am I going to get through this? How am I going to help my family or my loved ones get through this? How do I deal with all these different feelings I’m having?
Aside from the physcial concerns, a person newly diagnosed with cancer experiences many, and often conflicting emotions, such as fear, anxiety and uncertainty about the future.
An interdisciplinary approach by the patient’s healthcare team is key to treating the newly diagnosed person with cancer and should include addressing the patient’s emotional and practical concerns, says Carolyn Messner, DSW, director of education and training for CancerCare, in an interview appearing in the February 2010 edition of The Oncology Nurse.
“Cancer is a complicated disease, and it requires a team of health professionals to refer back and forth to each other so that we can direct patients to the people who can best help them,” Messner notes.
“Social workers are trained to talk to people systemically about their concerns and issues they confront. Many are employed in the hospital or community center setting. In my own experience, oncology nurses and oncology social workers work very well together. That is the best model [in patient care].”
CancerCare has a full-time staff of professional oncology social workers who can help a person find effective ways to cope with a cancer diagnosis. Start by visiting the CancerCare website, or call 1-800-813-HOPE (4673).
1 Comment | Coping with Cancer | Tagged: cancer information, coping, counseling, depression, financial resources, mental health, psychological impact of cancer, stress | Permalink
Posted by Kyle Hornyak
December 14, 2009
In a recent posting to the New York Times health blog “Well,” oncology nurse Theresa Brown relates her experiences in helping two patients shave their heads when the gradual hair loss from chemotherapy became intolerable.
The stories she shares reveal, in her words, “how difficult it can be to lose your hair as a by-product of saving your own life.” Of course, each patient reacts to treatment-related hair loss in their own personal way, as reader’s comments on the blog illustrate:
“I had chemo last year and loved being bald. My son and I went together to have our heads shaved and our local paper made a video of it,” says one woman. Another writes, “I lost my hair twice due to different treatment regimens and each time there were emotions associated that I did not expect.”
CancerCare social workers offer the following tips to individuals coping with hair loss:
- Buy a wig before all of your hair falls out. This way, you will have a good match to your own hair color.
- Get a professional fitting. There are full-service wig salons that fit and style wigs.
- Find out if your health insurance company covers the cost of wigs. If so, remember to save your receipt.
For additional tips, read CancerCare‘s fact sheet, “Tips for Managing Hair Loss.”
One commentator to the “Well” blog offers the following helpful advice to parents with cancer who are contemplating going bald:
“Parents with school aged children should talk to their kids and set expectations with them. Our kids were fine with their Mom being bald AT HOME, but when she was at school they requested that she wear a wig so she would look normal.”
Do you have some tips of your own? We invite you to share them with our readers by leaving a comment on this page.
Leave a Comment » | Coping with Cancer, Treatment Side Effects | Tagged: coping, depression, psychological impact of cancer, side effects, stress, Women's Cancers, Young Adults | Permalink
Posted by Monica Cavazos Mendez
November 24, 2009
This year’s Lung Cancer Awareness Month has ushered in a new sense of hopefulness about better treatments in the future for lung cancer.
Continued developments in targeted therapy are leading more oncology researchers to investigate personalized treatments for lung cancer. It’s important to note that lung cancer was one of the first cancers in which targeted therapy was found to help a segment of people dealing with late-stage lung cancer. Today’s newer targeted therapies offer the promise of improved treatment outcomes for many more types of lung cancer. For more information, read CancerCare‘s free publications, A New Class of Drugs: Targeted Treatments for Cancer, Progress in the Treatment of Lung Cancer, and Your Guide to the Latest Cancer Research and Treatments (Lung Cancer).
Unfortunately, people coping with lung cancer are still saddled with a significant emotional burden arising from the stigma of the diagnosis, which can have a negative impact on the views of even the professionals themselves who treat lung cancer patients. The stigma also exacerbates emotional stress among family members of the lung cancer patient, especially when that person has a smoking history. And, patients themselves often react with guilt and shame to their lung cancer diagnosis which may interfere with their doing all they can to comply with their treatment.
A great deal of work needs to be done to address the social stigma of lung cancer so that the diagnosis, like all other cancers, can finally be acknowledged as a “no fault” medical event for patients. Because the simple fact is, no one deserves lung cancer.
Learn more about CancerCare‘s free, professional support services for lung cancer patients and their loved ones.
Leave a Comment » | Coping with Cancer, Learn More About Your Diagnosis | Tagged: cancer information, cancer research, lung cancer, psychological impact of cancer, stress | Permalink
Posted by Win Boerckel
September 16, 2009
A new online program helps adult post-treatment survivors find ways to manage stress, fatigue, difficult emotions, and after-effects of cancer treatment. The program, called “Thriving and Surviving” is being conducted by the Stanford University School of Medicine in conjunction with the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii.
Participants in the program stand to benefit not just themselves, but also future cancer survivors, as the program is being evaluated for its effectiveness in teaching skills needed for day-to-day management of life after cancer.
Cancer survivors anywhere in the United States, with any level of computer experience, can sign up for this study at the Thriving and Surviving website.
Leave a Comment » | Survivorship | Tagged: cancer survivors, coping, psychological impact of cancer, research, stress | Permalink
Posted by Monica Cavazos Mendez
August 5, 2009
A parent’s death increases the risk for depression in children, adolescents, and young adults, a recent study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh’s Western Psychiatric Institute found. Results also indicate a “window of opportunity” in connecting youth with support services, including counseling. To learn more, read Parental Death Has Major Impact on Depression Risk in Youth.
The CancerCare for Kids Program offers bereavement counseling and local workshops for children and teens who have lost a parent or other loved one to cancer.
Find out more about our bereavement services – call 1-800-813-HOPE (4673).
Leave a Comment » | CancerCare for Kids | Tagged: Bereavement, mental health, psychological impact of cancer | Permalink
Posted by jzahora
