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Well, I remember
ads years ago on radio that they used to say,
"Cancer is only a word, not a sentence."
But it's a sentence, all right, when you get it in your family.
It took a lot of tears in private and a lot of worry for quite a long
time before I got a handle on it.
Sometimes the role of carer can become very difficult.
It can take up a lot more time than you would have ever expected.
Some of the strategies that people have used as carers to cope with the
situations is to make sure they remember who they are,
that they are not necessarily the person with cancer.
Sharing your own feelings about what it's like to be a carer for someone
with cancer can be really important to maintain your well-being.
I did talk quite a lot to people who'd been through
a similar experience.
You know, women whose husbands may be have had cancer or even a heart
attack or something and
I found that very helpful because they
might have had coping strategies
themselves that I hadn't thought of.
A general practitioner can be a very good source of knowledge for
the family and help the family explore community
options, community assistance for themselves and for their patient.
I very often
went and had a coffee with a friend or my sister or somebody, yes, I did.
And that was definitely
necessary for me.