Ep. 18/ Oncology Supported Therapy
Oncology Supported Therapy
By: Paige Moore, LCSW
Cancer.
What happens when you hear that word? Do you get a physical response like a pit in your stomach or an increase in your heart rate? Or is it an emotionally loaded word that brings you back to a traumatic experience? Is it both for you? For me, it’s both and it’s completely normal.
Cancer has a universal impact. I would suggest that nearly everyone at some point in their lives has been impacted by it, some way or another. It could be a loved one, a friend, a friend of a friend’s Mom, or yourself personally. We all know someone, we all have an experience, and there is some comfort in that.
My own experience with cancer started an early age. My father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when I was in 6 th grade. I remember doing my homework at the hospital with my Dad, doing laps around the oncology floor, wheeling around his IV cart and cracking jokes. Within that same year, my dear friend Collin was diagnosed with brain cancer. He was just a year younger than I was. I experienced the distress of both diagnoses from a child’s perspective. The adults in my life explained what cancer was, how treatment for both my dad and my friend would be invasive and difficult. Death was talked about it but somehow it was also balanced with some hope and perseverance. I saw my friend, a young child, go through countless chemo treatments, radiation treatments, and surgeries. The anguish of seeing such a young child endure intense medical treatments that were meant to save him. I also remember laughing with my friend Collin at some of the things that cancer brought into his life, whether it was the odd pattern in which his hair was starting to fall out, or his funny cravings for certain kinds of food, like my Mom’s Chex mix.
Fast forward to my freshman year of college. A different life chapter, an older more mature perspective. My Dad was a 7-year survivor at that point. But, my Mom was then diagnosed with breast cancer. Within that same week of her diagnosis, my friend Collin passed away after 7-year battle with cancer. To say that week was transformative would be an understatement. I found my passion and purpose and pursued social work to help others who were enduring a similar trauma to what I had been through.
My professional experience has varied but I still hold true to my original calling in this vast therapeutic space. To support, encourage, normalize, and hold space for those facing any type of chronic illness, medical trauma, grief, loss, and anxiety. Cancer is a loaded word and finding the right support can mean all the difference in how you carry it. I worked as an oncology social worker for several years in an outpatient setting at a large Michigan hospital before I transitioned to private practice work. It was and is an immense privilege to be with my clients as they deal with cancer.
Some things that I hope to inform or encourage you about in this podcast include:
- Utilize your support networks. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, whether you are an oncology patient or caregiver. Don’t feel the pressure to carry it all by yourself.
- Work with your social worker to connect to various community resources. It could be support groups, financial resources, grocery assistance, or even wig resources. If you are experiencing a need, most likely someone else has too and there is support for that.
- If you are a caregiver for someone with cancer, remember you can’t be your best if you don’t take care of yourself. The airplane reminder to put your mask on first before you help anyone else is especially relevant here.
- Normalize, normalize, normalize. What you are feeling is valid and true to the experience you are having.
- Be prepared for some of the hardest parts of your cancer journey being after your treatment is done. We touch on scan anxiety, moving forward at your own pace post treatment, and working on how you want cancer to fit into your life narrative.
These are just some of the components of oncology therapeutic support. There are so many other aspects that are worthy of being touched on and perhaps that can be in a future episode.
I want to end with something that I like to tell my clients. Imagine yourself on a surfboard. The beautiful water surrounding you, perhaps the warm breeze blowing in your face. Feel the waves, the up down rhythm of them. That is what your cancer journey will be like. Riding the waves, some periods of high and periods of low. But remember, you always have a support system, like the surfboard keeping you afloat. Utilize them, care for them, and don’t be afraid to clutch on to them with all you got.
