Month: February 2012

Five tips for cancer caregivers

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If you’re supporting a friend or family member who is undergoing cancer treatment, you may not think of yourself as a “caregiver.” It’s a role that can be very rewarding, but also challenging and stressful.

You may find yourself juggling an incredible range of duties above and beyond what you regularly do at home and at work. From driving your loved one to appointments, to discussing medical issues with health care professionals, to making dinner every night, you may find that you’re taking care of nearly everything – except yourself.

But your loved one’s well-being depends on you, so it’s important that you also take care of yourself. Nancy Borstelmann, LICSW, MPH, a licensed clinical social worker who serves as Dana-Farber’s director of patient and family support and education, shares some tips that may help.

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Cancer treatment and fertility: Planning for the future

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Imagine being 22 and having your two biggest fears come true: You have cancer, and your treatment may leave you unable to have children in the future.

While you’re still coming to terms with the diagnosis, you now have to make some major life decisions. Do you want to freeze your eggs? Or should you choose a sperm donor and freeze fertilized eggs instead? Don’t forget to consider your husband’s feelings — even though he isn’t even in your life yet.

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How our patients help create a healing environment

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Look closely at some of the steel beams that support Dana-Farber’s Yawkey Center for Cancer Care and you’ll see the names of patients spray-painted in bright colors by ironworkers during the building’s construction.

These beams frame the building, but patients and families have lent far more than their names to the facility’s creation.

Their guidance underpins almost every aspect of the Yawkey Center. From the healing garden to the layout of exam rooms to the parking garage, the imprint of our patients and families is felt across the Institute.

Here, Janet Porter, PhD, chief operating officer, recalls in her own words the benefits of working closely with patients and families.

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Treating childhood cancer worldwide

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On International Childhood Cancer Day, it’s important to remember that global support, research, and treatment are vital to ensuring that children in developing countries have the same chance at survival as their peers in the U.S. Physicians such as Dr. Leslie Lehmann from Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center travel all over the world to deliver expert, curative care to young patients with cancer. Here is her story.

Rwanda is a tiny country in central Africa with much beauty but few resources. The genocide in 1994 that killed nearly a million people also devastated the health care system. Many people do not receive basic health care services and cancer care was nonexistent. It was impossible to even tell how common cancer was – people would die from a mass, or from bleeding, or infection without ever having a diagnosis.

The country has over 11 million people with not a single physician trained in caring for people with cancer. It’s a very sad situation.

This is beginning to change a bit. Through the Partners in Health (PIH) organization, I became part of a U.S.– Rwandan team led by Sara Stulac, PIH’s director of pediatrics, assembled at the Rwinkwavu hospital with the goal of providing consistent quality care to children with cancer. Sara had lived in Rwanda working at this rural PIH-sponsored hospital for six years. I went to Rwanda with Kathleen Houlahan, a pediatric oncology nurse and nurse director of the Jimmy Fund Clinic at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, and Dr. Larry Shulman, medical oncologist and chief medical officer of Dana-Farber, who is Senior Oncology Adviser for PIH and leads Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center efforts in Rwanda. 

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Bringing cancer care to Rwanda

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By Lawrence Shulman, MD

Dana-Farber, with our partners Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital, offers patients highly advanced treatments in modern facilities. Our patients also benefit from an excellent staff, clinical research, and extensive resources, and many of them survive cancer to live long and healthy lives.

Is it fair, then, that cancer remains a death sentence elsewhere in the world? In Rwanda, for example, a country of 10 million people, cancer care has been completely unavailable to almost all patients. They die of cancers that could have been cured in Boston.

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World Cancer Day: Tips for prevention

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As we recognize World Cancer Day today, it’s important to remember that one-third of cancer deaths worldwide are tied to lifestyle and diet, making them largely preventable. Dr. Judy Garber, director of Dana-Farber’s Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention, provides some perspective, and highlights some of the steps individuals can take to reduce their cancer … Read more