Cancer is not an easy battle. That's why it is important to understand how to manage the many various aspects of it. Some of us will have to make arrangements to be treated long term. Some of us will have to learn how to continue to raise our families and do our jobs while living with cancer -- adapting to life with cancer is not easy.

Organizational tools and skills
No matter how long our course of treatment is, the best we can help ourselves is to learn a few simple organizational tools. Even if we are lucky to have an extremely short experience with cancer, we will still have to juggle a number of new life skills, including:

• The latest treatment options
  
• The cost of treatment
• Hospice and home care
• Managing side effects
• Understanding various drug combinations
• Scheduling treatments and prescriptions

Know your drugs
Chemotherapy cocktails, steroids, anti-nausea medication, anti-anxiety tablets, sleep aids, and supplements are all a part of life with cancer. Due to the involvement of large healthcare teams and specialists that can be spread out over a large hospital, treatment center, or even geographical area, it's easy for people to be prescribed drugs that interact badly with each other.

Understand how these drugs interact or conflict.
Start with the web sites for your prescribed medicines. This information is dense with clinical detail in very small print. While daunting, there are ways to scan these clinical articles for necessary details.

Use the find in this page option under the edit menu of your web browser to look for mention of your particular kind of cancer and all the drugs you are taking. This should highlight on the page any drug conflicts that may have arisen in clinical trials. Include a search for any vitamin, herbal, or mineral supplements you may be taking.

Certain herbs and many minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, affect the absorption of medication if taken within a certain time frame of the other drug. Use that same browser function find potential side effects and scan the list.

Don't be afraid to use the contact us link on any pharmaceutical company site. The response, for liability reasons, will usually be to discuss your concerns with your oncologist. Occasionally, however, a company representative will pass along new information about recently discovered drug interactions and side effects.

Schedule, schedule, schedule
It's tempting to lump all of your medications together into three or four daily doses. This is only possible once you know that taking them in combination won't affect how they are absorbed or whether their interaction won't create a new set of side effects.

It's likely you will need to take each medication at specific intervals. It may sound confusing and it is. To keep the confusion in check, get a scheduling tool. For some, this might be a PDA that syncs up with your home computer to remind you what to take when, but a low-tech chart or daily paper calendar is just as effective.

Since you need to carefully schedule tests and appointments, it is important that the calendar have enough space to include all your test, location, and time details.

File your pills
Try using a multi-level pill box to organize and distribute all your medications for the day. Going through your prescription bottles to refill your box will become part of your evening or early morning routine.

Carry the list everywhere
Keep a careful list of all your medications, daily dosage, who they were prescribed by, what conditions they were meant to address, and when you take them. Include vitamins or mineral and herbal supplements on the list, as they can interact with prescription drugs.

Carry the list everywhere and update it every time you are given a new medication, or are taken off one. An anti-anxiety or sleep aid prescribed by a doctor, for example, may not be the best one to use in combination with chemotherapy. The medication can only be changed, however, if your specialist knows exactly what your general practitioner has prescribed and why.

The latest treatment options
Researchers are hard at work to improve and find new methods of treating cancer. Clinical trials are the testing grounds for tomorrow's cancer treatments and, potentially, cures. While clinical trials are not guaranteed to put cancer in remission, they are an option if other standard treatments didn't produce the right results.

Cancer news and research can lead to promising new treatments. Staying informed of the latest cancer news helps us, along with our healthcare teams, make the best decisions regarding our treatments.

Managing your finances
Treating cancer is expensive, but it's better to deal with the financial issues early on rather them letting them spiral. The American Cancer Society provides a comprehensive financial guidance package for people with cancer. It includes information such as how and when to decide to leave work, alternative income options, medical coverage, and life insurance.

Many state hospitals have a patient assistance program designed to help families and individuals carry the financial burden of medical costs. Ask a member of your healthcare team for a referral to social work at the very first sign of financial difficulty. They can refer you to services within the hospital and broader based community services.

Talk to a financial advisor
If you can afford it, talk to a financial advisor early on in your illness. He or she will be able to counsel you on the best ways to protect your family assets in a worst-case scanario. This may involve transferring property to the ownership of a spouse or child, or other moves that will shield assets from debtors due to medical expenses.

Remember, it's still all about you
Cancer is not your fault. There is nothing about getting cancer that makes you a burden to society. You should not feel guilty about accepting financial help from any and all the services available. If anything, you should feel entitled to all the help on offer. It's your right as someone who has contibuted to society to receive its help when times are rough.

Hospice services
Though facing end of life issues can be extremely difficult, hospice support can help everyone involved deal with an approaching death. If our treatment has proved unsuccessful and our life expectancy is six months or less, we may consider finding hospice care.

Hospice care focuses on the quality of the last stages of our lives. Practitioners are available to care for us at our homes, hospitals, nursing homes, or private hospice centers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Palliative care wards
Palliative care wards differ from other kinds of hospital wards and may be available in areas without home hospice networks or hospice centers. Staffed by medical professionals and volunteers who specialise in pain management and end of life issues, palliative care units combine the special needs and wishes of dying people with the legal and bureaucratic demands of a medical institution.

In some palliative care units, visiting hours are unrestricted and even pets can visit. Friends and family are encouraged to participate in care. There is usually easy access to social, psychological, and clerical workers who work with the ward and the people on it.

Doctors and treatment facilities will be able to recommend hospice services and facilities available close to friends and family. Additional resources are available from state hospice organizations, which license hospice care centers and home care providers.

See also

• Living with cancer
• Clinical trials
• Hospice and home care
• Managing your finances