Survivorship
Talking to your care team
Everyone carries responsibility for healthy communication. Actively participating in your health care helps to open the lines of communication between you, your family members, caregivers, and your healthcare team.
Pocket Guide to Talking to Your Doctor about your Side Effects
The University of Texas MD Anderson’s I*Care Interpersonal Care and Relationship Enhancement program has created an easy pocket guide to help you communicate your symptoms to your healthcare team.
TEAMWORK: The Cancer Patient’s Guide To Talking With Your Doctor
The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship has compiled this booklet of tips and tools to help you communicate with your healthcare team.
SpeakSooner™ Difficult Conversations Workbook
The treatment and management of serious illness conversations that must begin with you, the patient. This is a downloadable workbook which may help you or someone you love to understand and communicate their values, concerns, and priorities so they can get the support they need and become more effective partners in their care.
Becoming an Empowered and Engaged Patient
This workbook is designed to help you talk with your health care provider(s) about your complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use during and after your cancer care. This workbook can be used in its entirety or as individual sheets.
The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Health Care – Guide to Communication and Patient Preparedness
The Schwartz Center has compiled a list of ways to better prepare for visits with healthcare providers (caregivers). They have also presented wonderful webinars on compassion and communication.
Your Next Steps
People who have finished their cancer treatments find themselves crossing a bridge into a phase of their cancer journey commonly referred to as post-treatment survivorship. There are several ways of defining survivorship and its meaning to each person is as individual as a fingerprint. To understand more about this important phase of survivorship, please read the explanation and video presented by Cancer.Net here.
NCCS Cancer Survivor’s Toolbox® – Special Topic: Living Beyond Cancer
This Toolbox is an audio program that encourages individuals to take an active role in their care and discusses several issues specific to life with and beyond cancer. Its goals are to teach skills to help survivors adapt to their new life and to help them be as healthy as possible. The Toolbox is available in English and Spanish.
Facing Forward: Life After Cancer Treatment
The National Cancer Institute (NIH) has compiled this booklet for people who have finished their cancer treatments. The booklet is free and can be downloaded print or to a tablet device. The information presented answers questions and new concerns patients and survivors might have to help them understand what life is like after cancer treatments end.
ASCO® Answers Cancer Survivorship Guide
The American Society of Clinical Oncology provides a this detailed downloadable Cancer Survivorship Guide, which includes forms patients can use keep track of many aspects of the cancer, treatment, and follow-up care.
Life After Treatment: The Next Chapter in the Survivorship Journey
The American Cancer Society’s (ACS) booklet is downloadable guide to your life after treatment. Gaining knowledge and learning new tips and tools about your survivorship can empower you to live well beyond cancer.
Healing and reducing your cancer risk
You have faced a cancer diagnosis and, like others who have done the same, you feel motivated to review your lifestyle choices. Adopting a healthier lifestyle can help ease the common side effects of cancer treatment and the risks for other chronic diseases or a cancer recurrence. The following information and tools may help you take control of your health and develop an action plan with your doctor to help you live a healthier, lower-risk lifestyle. For more tools to help you recover, go to our Healthy Living page.
National Comprehensive Cancer Network Foundation (NCCN) Survivorship Care Guidelines for Patients
The NCCN Guidelines are developed by doctors from NCCN Cancer Centers using their combined experience and latest research to provide recommendations for people with cancer and their support team. They have developed a two-part downloadable series on survivorship. One part is the Survivorship Care for Healthy Living®, and the second part is Survivorship Care for Cancer-Related Late and Long-Term Side Effects®. These are written for patients, survivors and their caregivers, and their primary care physicians.
The AICR’s evidence shows that our risk for many types of cancer is related to diet, physical activity, and weight. Begin to learn more about some of the more common types of cancer and what you can do to lower your risk for each cancer. The AICR also touts its most reliable cancer prevention lifestyle advice with their 10 Recommendations for Cancer Prevention.
American Institute of Cancer Research (AICR) Foods That Fight Cancer™
There is no single food alone that can protect against cancer. The American Institute of Cancer Research (AICR) promotes strong evidence that an eating plan filled with a variety of plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans helps lower the risk for many cancers.
