Photo by Jake Young on Unsplash
These days, cancer is not always a death sentence. But it’s still a serious illness and sometimes can be terminal. Or at the very least exhausting, as often side effects from treatment, can prove more difficult than the disease itself.
If you have a loved one with cancer and this includes yourself), it’s important to balance practical help with emotional care. The cancer journey can be long and tough, so here are ways to offer meaningful and effective support.
To find cures for cancer, it’s important we ditch unkind, ineffective and out-dated tests on animals, and instead switch donations to humane research charities which receive no government grants and little publicity.
How to Offer Practical Support
- Offer help for walking dogs, feeding other pets, child-minding, shopping, cooking and household chores.
- Maggie’s Centres are beautiful buildings with landscaped gardens near nHS hospitals, to give patients and carers somewhere to relax. A legacy from an architect and her husband. Most towns have agencies with volunteers to look after patients. Something to Look Forward To lets hotels, holiday home owners and theatres donate stays or visits.
- Macmillan Nurses provide palliative care. Funded by the NHS, it also offers a free phoneline, email support and live chat.
Providing Emotional Support
- Just listening is good, to help people deal with a cancer diagnosis.
- Share gentle walks or watch light films.
- Acknowledge your own emotions (it’s okay to feel sad and overwhelmed, if caring for others).
Tips to Help Prevent Cancer
You can’t always prevent it (genetics, asbestos etc). But it’s thought around half of all cancers can be prevented: Condensed advice from experts is:
Eat & Exercise Well (and give up addictions)
- Eat plant foods (or mostly). Limit meat and dairy. Take regular exercise and limit alcohol.
- Stay stay protected from hot sun. Also give up smoking.
Live a Natural Lifestyle
Eat organically and avoid garden pesticides. Choose natural beauty/cleaning/laundry products. Choose natural hair dyes (especially for dark hair to avoid PPD). Use natural deodorants (applied near lymph nodes). Choose unscented products for pregnancy/nursing, affected medical conditions and near babies/pets.
Boost Immunity
Learn to relax and take up meditation. Breastfeeding helps reduce cancer risks for mothers later in life.
Sail Naturally Through Menopause
Some HRT medicines are linked to cancer. And often comes from the hormone-rich urine of chained horses).
Have a Holistic Home
Choose natural paints for your home. Read the book Home Detox by an oncology expert. And Holistic Cancer Care, by a medical herbalist who has decades of clinical experience with cancer patients.
Towards a Cancer-Free World
- Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine trains volunteers how to cook foods to prevent and treat cancer (plant-based and free from sugar and refined oils).
- Use your vote, for a world free from environmental toxins (fracking can cause cancer). American biologist Sandra Steingraber was told her bladder cancer diagnosis was due to her mother having the same condition – but she is adopted.
- Support holistic cancer charities. Penny Brohn (Bristol), Yes to Life (integrated medicine ) and The Holistic Cancer Centre (led by trained nurses) all offer free help by phone or online.
- Don’t bother with pink ribbon campaigns. These are promoted often by companies that use cancer-causing chemicals. The original US campaign had a peach ribbon. The cancer patient would not allow its use for toxic beauty companies, which is why the ribbon is pink.
