When You Are Diagnosed With Lung Cancer
If you are diagnosed with lung cancer and are a smoker, it is still a shock, but you do not need to look far for the cause. Stopping smoking should be your first reaction. Then you need to grapple with how you exposed yourself to this danger, against all advice, and to plan lifestyle changes to protect yourself in the future. If caught early enough, lung cancer can be survived. But first you will need to prepare yourself for enduring the treatment regimen and the practical accommodations you will have to make during this time. Here are some tips on how to deal with these difficult times successfully.
Participating in treatments that help you battle cancer is the best thing that you can do, as opposed to just sitting and waiting for physicians to treat you. Don't settle for sitting on the sidelines. Sitting still and not actively participating will not help your health improve.
You may want to get a second opinion from a specialist. There are many treatment options and you may want to know the full range of them, and only commit to one after you know the choices. But you need to make a decision quickly and get into treatment.
Bring televisions and other entertainment devices into your bedroom once you've been diagnosed with cancer. If you did not allow a TV to be placed in your room before, this might be the right time to have one. Throughout your treatment you will find many times where you're confined to your bed or so tired you just want to be comfortable. You might find that time flies by faster during your recovery.
Tell your family about the diagnosis right away. They will rally to your cause and be the backbone of your support system. Tell friends and co-workers if you feel comfortable with it. But you may want to keep it a little close for a while. It is hard to be constantly answering questions from others, even though they mean well. You need to have some time to come to terms with your cancer diagnosis yourself first.
Try to avoid participating in any risky activities. Certain actions dramatically boost the chances of individuals getting infected with something, and many infections lead to cancer. Be sure to always use clean needles and always use protection when having sex.
You may have an array of medical professionals involved in your care and giving treatments. Make sure they communicate with one another, so they are all on the same page, so to speak. The person monitoring your nutritional needs has to be aware of what treatments you receive and when. Measures need to be taken to compensate for what medications do to your system. Radiation kills good cells as well as bad ones. After treatment is over, you will need to rebuild your health. Learn all you can about building up a healthy immune system. What foods are best? What are anti-oxidants and how do they help? What are cruciferous vegetables and why should you eat them regularly? Knowing the answer to these questions can help you avoid a return of cancer.
It is a wise idea to arrange for transportation with friends or family to help you get to your medical appointments during treatments for cancer. Not only is cancer itself an exhausting disease, chemo and other treatments can leave you feeling weak. You may not be able to move quickly or drive and even if you can drive, your reaction times may be too slow to do so safely. So, don't be afraid to sit in the passenger seat and focus on more important things than driving.
Become an expert on your own condition: how cancer cells work, how the body fights them, how your treatments work and how they affect your bodily systems, and also what measures will be needed once the treatments are over and your body needs to restore itself to normal functioning. Most of all, what lifestyle changes will you need to make to strengthen your immune system and avoid a recurrence of cancer. All this knowledge will reassure you of a path into the future, as well as helping you through the treatment phase. What you understand, you can control.
The causes of cancer are diverse, and because of this, most cancers are classified as idiopathic. This fact makes it impossible to avoid cancer with certainty, but there are commonsense steps you can take to minimize your risk. For instance, quitting smoking and not living a sedentary lifestyle can decease your chances of getting cancer.
Try to take as many positive steps as you can to gain a feeling of control. If you start feeling overwhelmed, look for another positive step you can take, either in understanding the disease or being reassured by the stories of cancer survivors. Every such action you take will make your difficult journey a little easier.
