To Help or Not

My mom got cancer when I was in 10th grade, just before my dad was retiring from the Navy and we were set to move across the country. She is now 15 years cancer free.

People brought us meals, people helped get my siblings and I to and from activities, and people just came to talk to my mom. It really depends on what works for her. Sometimes just a NORMAL conversation might be all she wants.

I do agree that if you bring her food, ask what they like to eat. Don't just show up with a family favorite for you because they may not like it and then it just makes the night more difficult for them.

If you can help with some of the bills, by all means go for it. If not, you can't. I wouldn't be able to help another family pay their bills right now...but I would be able to give time, run errands, do chores, make meals, talk, etc.

So do what you can, but don't treat her like she has cancer...treat her like she is still the same person, because she is.

When I was really ill all I wanted was for someone to sit with me. Being so sick was really lonely and frightening. The person visiting didn't even need to talk. My mom would read in a chair next to me and just her presence was comforting. I was unable to eat but meals for my husband and daughter were always appreciated. Oftentimes help is needed for the family and company is needed for the sick person.

I had uterine cancer. The nicest part was when people just came over and visited Oh so nice. FIVE YEAR SURVIVOR WOOHOO

ETA: My girlfriend and I checked into this for her mom - since she lives alone and refuses to let her daughters help her...

http://www.cleaningforareason.org/

I believe they will be doing her first cleaning next week. I'll let you know how it goes.

Also - her church is using "SignUpGenie" to help arrange meals for her.

J.,

There is much you can do to help. It's a matter of WHAT you can afford and what you can do.

My very dear friend's mother has ovarian cancer. She's (my girlfriend) out of town a lot. I drive her mom to chemo every other week.

I've made meals for her and delivered them. Making sure they are her favorite meals. She (my girlfriend) and I do this together. We bring her flowers and cheery things for her.

There are websites that help with the financial aspect of treatments.

When my mom was dying last year? People made us meals so that we could tend to my/our mom. It made a HUGE difference. I would talk with her and find out what she needs and wants. Let her know it's okay to ask for help and tell people what she needs!!

Good luck!

I am currently seeing an oncologist but don't have a diagnosis yet. We had some friends bring over meals for about a week when I was basically in bed and my hubby and kids were sick of eating Spaghetti-Oh's. Not sure if she is married with kids or not. If you decide to take meals, make sure you ask her what they would like to eat, maybe give 3 choices of what you are willing to bring and let her choose. I got some crazy things, including lentil casserole. The point is whatever you do, you want it to HELP her not stress her out or cause more work. Also, my other issue was the house. The husband and kids sort of kept it clean, but now I'm trying to get it caught up myself. So if you can afford it, or maybe go in with some other friends, is to get a housekeeper for her. But not if it's going to stress her out and she runs around and cleans up before the cleaners get there. That doesn't help either. lol Mostly I think to just be there for her. Sometimes you just need people to listen to you. You're a good friend for trying to help her. Good luck.

Since you have known her a fairly long time you should be able to call her and ask her what she needs. Depending upon her treatments and how she reacts to them she could need all kinds of help. She may be to tired or sick to do her laundry, clean her house, take care of her kids...... she may need a ride to and from appointments and the grocery store.
Mostly she will need love and acceptance. If she needs chemo and loses her hair she will need help accepting the hair loss. Maybe reasearching wig shops to find one that deals with cancer patients and helping her pick something out. Making a fun project out of it, the chance to try different looks and colors.
If she has breast cancer and loses her breast taking her to a bra fitter who specializes in cancer patients will help.
Cancer means change and change is scary for many people. Sometimes letting her be scared and cry or scream or punch a pillow and then listening, letting her voice her fears and concerns. Many times friends and family will want to reassure the cancer patient 'everything will be fine' and most times it will be. But any illness is like driving through a bad storm you know you will get through it but that fact doesn't make it any less scary.

I always think delivering meals is the best way to be supportive. Its helpful, and it demonstrates your concern without draining them emotionally. It allows them and the family to focus on recovery. Its hard for people with recent diagnosis to rehash and talk about their condition. Phone calls and well wishers can be a strain. Many cancer patients are on strict diets (usually organic and plant based). So if you are not confident in your cooking, a basket of organic veg and fruit would be appropriate too.

Find out what she likes to eat and send over a casserole.

Make & deliver a meal.

Take a collection in a card passed around at work. Parking, meals out, gas money--they're going to need some extra dough.

Start a page at Lotsahelpinghands.com. You can have people sign up to help with meals, cleaning, laundry, rides-whatever she needs.

Cleaningforareason.com for 3 or 4 free monthly house leanings to any woman getting chemo, etc.

When my mother went through her treatment, I went to every treatment. She had to see the doctor before she could have treatment and I sat in the waiting room with her, in the doctors office, and then would leave and make her lunch and come back so she could eat while she was being treated.

Treatment is long and boring. I think she liked it best when I had lunch made and was able to stay through her entire treatment.

There are two big things going on: money woes and her cancer.

Do not spend money on useless things like a sun-catcher or a plant when the person could use that $10 for some cans of Ensure, to add to her water or light bill, etc.

Asking may not be good as folk feel badly about saying their needs.

When you visit, take $20 and some juice.

You are a very nice person for wishing to help.

I agree with LotsaHelpingHands - we've used it many times to coordinate meals and errands and child care and yard work and everything else the family might need. My experience is that no two chemo experiences are the same. What someone needs at the beginning, before the side effects kick in and the exhaustion takes its toll is very different that further down the line. The best way to use this is for the family to appoint 1 or 2 coordinators (maybe you from work and someone else from the neighborhood). Then you invite her friends to join or she directs them to you, you "admit" them to the LHH page which is only for her friends/relatives/coworkers, and then the needed tasks and dates and food preferences are listed. The volunteers can sign up for whatever they want, and the site sends them a reminder when it's their turn. We even had lists of who was cooking what on what days, and included instructions about using disposal containers (important so the family doesn't have to wash & return),where to leave meals (most of our families used a cooler near the garage or in a breezeway so the cancer family didn't have to answer the door or socialize if they weren't in the mood). This is TRUE helpful service based on what the family needs and not people just doing well-intentioned things that cause more work.

What the family doesn't need is people just showing up with food - tastes vary anyway, but especially when chemo affects the taste buds and the appetite.

Don't stay out of it - she knows that everyone knows, so avoiding it is just awkward. So yes, a nice "brighten your day" card can be a nice thing,

If you know for sure that she has problems with the bills and that she is public about it, you can organize a fundraiser - usually people set up an account at the local bank so that donors can send money to the bank and not have to make their donations public. There are also Facebook pages that allow people to contribute too. But definitely get the family to sign off on this before you go public. Fundraisers can be fun events too - silent auctions, 5K run/walks, progressive dinners, etc. It doesn't have to be a pity party. Again, I'd work with the family or with a core group of 2-3 others to brainstorm.

My husband has had several health issues in the past few years and my coworkers know I'm doing thru a difficult time.

Some thoughts....

They make cards for all kinds of occasions. You may want to just leave a card on her desk. Not a "get well" card, but something encouraging or that will make her laugh.

If you have the extra money, I'm sure she would appreciate a gift card to a restaurant that has take out for the times she doesn't feel well enough to cook.

You could ask her if she's up for a visit and cook her a meal and have dinner together giving you a chance to talk. OR just make a few meals.

Make some meals and bring to her. It's great if you make extra so that she can have some now and some can be frozen and used later.

Also, when you go to the store, pick up a few supplies. Every household needs toilet paper, paper towels, things to stock the pantry. It doesn't have to be huge amounts. Anything would be helpful.

If she has young children, offer to take them occasionally. That helps her and gives the children something different to do. This will be especially important when she is going through chemo.

Be positive and just be there.

Last year my daughters para-pro (classroom helper) found out she ha cancer. She was also the para-pro for my 18 year old autistic nephews about 16 years ago.
I went to a small local store and found her the prettiest sun catcher I could find and put it in a nice hand painted box with a nice card (the teachers were already raking donations so I did that too). She's coming along nicely and is back to work. She mentioned the sun catcher and the smile it gave her every time she saw it as soon as school started.

Bring food or order food to be brought in there are a number of services (depends where you are) that will bring in either loads of frozen dishes or deliveries of daily meals. This would help with both chores and the finances. The other option is to contact the phone (land lines only) and or electric company. If you have the phone number or address you can often pay some one else's bill.

Another one is to hire some one to come clean her house or ---- and this is awesome but not always taken well so be cautious - hire and pay for a lawyer and financial advisor to help them get their affairs together financially and or wills etc. But a good financial advisor/lawyer can help get the debt issues under control enough to ease the burden of that while they are going through treatment so it is not haranguing them during chemo.....

DO help they obviously need it.

just what to do can vary so, can't it? what mumsie needed was help cleaning and so forth, but she was so touchy and angsting about her own inability to keep up her house that it was a loaded subject. she had always been such an immaculate housekeeper that anyone seeing her place deteriorating was painful for her, so it took some love and comforting to get her to a place where she felt she could allow the help with scrubbing bathrooms and so forth.
with a co-worker that might not be somewhere you could go, but you could certainly put it out there. i know i myself don't have those issues <G> so if i were dealing with something like cancer i'd be thrilled to have someone show up and vacuum from time to time.
food is always a great thing to do, but do find out first if there are any dietary restrictions or strong preferences. no point in sending a magnificent veggie souffle if they want meatloaf.
maybe get her grocery list and do the shopping for her. you'll be able to judge her preferences by what's on the list and can quietly supplement it a little if you're able.
a friend of mine has just finished treatment. she has money so didn't need anything in the way of help around the house or meals, as she just got some professionals to help her out there. for her just an occasional phone call or email or short walk together was just the right touch, reminding her that she was thought of without her having to try to be 'social.'
it can be hard to find the right balance.
khairete
S.

Deliver a dinner to her. Use mealtrain.com to coordinate w coworkers.

J., you're great to want to help and you got a lot of good ideas below.

I didn't go through every reply in detail to see if anyone noted this already, but it's important that you know NOT to send fresh fruits and vegetables such as a fruit basket or a salad you've made (unless you intend for the patient's family to eat them). The patient herself can't have them at many periods when she is undergoing chemo. Fruits and vegetables must be prepared with a ton of care because people getting chemo are told to stay away from any raw or possibly undercooked fruit and veg; fruit and veg can carry foodborne illnesses and doctors tell patients that all veg must be cooked and most raw fruit is out of the picture at times. Chemo patients have very low immune systems so they can't take any risks on foodborne illness -- even though salads etc. are so healthy at other times.

Just a tip based on what I was told by a friend whose mom was undergoing chemo. My friend said some folks sent fruit but the family ate it all since her mom could not have anything uncooked.

And if you send a meal, or organize with others to send meals, make sure to ask the family first in detail what they do and don't eat and what the patient can and can't eat. The family will be so grateful you and others asked first.

One other thing: Have you considered seeing if you or you together with others can offer to pay specific bills for her as a gift? Not a loan, a gift.

You could find out what SHE needs most. Does she need someone to run a few errands? stop by the store? just keep her company? prepare meals?

Offer your assistance and if she doesn't tell you something (she may not want to be an imposition) then offer something by just dropping a meal off or dropping off a movie or book or gift certificate of some kind.

My best friend has lung cancer and has just started a new treatment.
The first year, on the first treatment, was rough.. but she would know when her good days and bad days were. I've taken her to treatments (so her husband could have a break), watched her kids so her and hubby could have a night out like normal people, and just gone over to watch tv with her. Sometimes, just being present helps a lot.

I would be very careful about foods. After each treatment, my friends tastebuds changed, so something she liked a lot three weeks ago could suddenly be unappetizing.

Also, if you can recommend any books, movies or quiet activities that she could do. My friend asked what podcasts I listened to because she'd find herself awake at 3am while the rest of the house was sleeping. She needed something quiet to entertain herself, and could only read or watch tv for so long.

My main recommendation is BE A FRIEND.

I do not know how much you want to help her.

There are websites dedicated to helping set up a community of volunteers to help people with health issues.

I am the most familiar with http://www.lotsahelpinghands.com/

You could run the page. It allows people that want to help, have a schedule and a list of ways to help her.

Driving her to appointments, people to take her back home after a treatment.

Meals, House work, baby sitting, grocery shopping.

She gives you her email list of friends and you add them to the page. If they want to help great, if not, no big deal.

I helped run this page for my friend it was awesome. I was able to pass on updates on her condition. This way she did not have to call around to inform people or keep everyone updated.

Other wise meals.Maybe checking to see if she needs help around the house. Sometimes my friend just wanted someone to be there while she was resting, in case she woke up too weak after a treatment.

The effects of chemo SUCKS! I have watched a lot of my family and friends deal with the effects. The are a lot of different things you can do to help. If she is starting chemo, a chemo bag is a great thing. Items like magazines, crossword puzzles, iTunes gift cards for movies, mints for dry mouth etc. Make some freezer meals that can be popped into the oven or crock pot. Send a card a week (you don't know how much that helps the spirit). Gift cards for meals or in general. Get a group together and do any yard work that needs to be done, or house cleaning since we are changing seasons. Does she need a ride to or from her treatments? Can you do a fund raiser in the office to help her out? Pintrest is a great place for examples of the above also.