Lifestyle & Wellness

The Best Advice for Supporting Someone During Cancer Treatment

Little can make you feel more helpless than finding out your partner has cancer. You want to be encouraging and supportive, but when faced with such a difficult journey, it can seem as if your hands are tied. Thankfully, there are things you can do to help your loved one in very real ways.

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Plan a Getaway

When is the last time you and your loved one took a vacation? As Forbes explains, taking a break from life’s rigamarole offers a number of important potential health benefits, such as lowering stress levels, reducing risk of hypertension, and lowering risk for depression. To raise those benefits another notch, some studies indicate a trip to the beach can bring bonus perks, helping to produce feelings of calm, restoration and encouraging better overall well-being.

With all that in mind, think about spending a few days together with your toes in the sand.  You can even consider renting a house, which offers more privacy and creature comforts than a hotel. In addition to a more relaxed, home-like atmosphere, a house rental is often more affordable than a hotel. To ease your planning, websites like Turnkey offer easy search options for communities like Myrtle Beach, which can easily provide a vacation to remember with its 60-mile stretch of beach. You can check how many beds and baths potential rentals offer, and even find pet-friendly homes so you can bring along your furry companions.

Prioritize Proper Nutrition

When it comes to providing meals, it’s important to encourage cancer patients to enjoy balanced nutrition. A proper diet and maintaining a healthy weight can be challenging to people in cancer treatment. Weight gain can raise long-term survival risks, but weight loss makes it harder to maintain strength and energy.

Plan on meals loaded with vegetables and fruits especially, and choose lean protein sources, low-fat dairy products, and whole grains. Avoid sugar since it appears to feed cancer cells, and instead amp up the intake of antioxidant-rich foods. You can also make recipes designed to help ease symptoms associated with cancer treatment, like subtly flavored lemon rice for upset digestion, chicken noodle soup for comfort, and sweet-tart flavors for dry mouth.

Think Outside the Box

Coping with the various symptoms associated with the cancer treatment journey is challenging, but there are several healing therapies outside of formal medical treatment. For instance, getting a routine massage can provide a wellness boost, encouraging relaxation and helping your loved one feel whole and positive.

Johns Hopkins notes acupuncture is also worthy of consideration, potentially helping to manage pain, nausea, fatigue, depression and anxiety, although you should touch base with your partner’s physician before participating, since low white blood cell counts could leave patients open to infection. Meditation can also help with pain management, fatigue, insomnia and high blood pressure.

Engage Tech Support

Technology is enhancing our lives in numerous ways, and, similarly, it offers opportunities for improving the lives of cancer patients. Fitness trackers can be used to monitor activity levels, which can be a boon to those using exercise to help manage pain. Wearables are also a great way to note things like heart rate and to stay on top of how much your loved one is sleeping and eating. There are also a number of handy smartphone apps to try, offering everything from tracking symptoms and other medical information, to assisting the patient’s memory and creativity.

Cancer treatment is a challenging journey, and you want all possible tools at your disposal to help someone you care about. Plan a getaway, make nutrition a priority, consider supportive therapies, and look for assistance from technology. These simple strategies can mean providing help and encouragement your loved one needs during this tough time.

By :- Sheila Olson

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