Cancer sufferer help please

krisskross

Errata wrote: »

If people with cancer are expected to stay strong and positive they may feel that they must not express their anger and negativity about their situation. Not a healthy situation.

Having experienced two different types of cancer and everything ok now, anyone who had hinted that I should be strong and positive about it would have been given a large earful.

I also dealt with a lot of relatives who insisted that we did not tell the patient their diagnosis or prognosis. This was always done on the grounds that the patient wouldn't cope but most time the reality was the patient knew anyway and now had no one to talk about it with. It must have caused the patients a lot of mental distress. And in the hospital i worked in the patient had to have been given a full diagnosis before they could be referred for palliative care so this avenue wasn't open to them.

Very sad. I always used to tell the relatives that if the patient asked then I would reply truthfully.

Errata

Kriss - I think when that happens it can be the relatives that can't cope with the patient knowing, not the patient. It's a great shame.