Medical Side Effects Information
Combating Cancer-Related Fatigue
by Ann M. Berger, PhD, APRN, AOCNS, FAAN
Do you often feel a sense of physical, emotional, or mental tiredness that limits your ability to do usual activities? Do you think that cancer or cancer treatment makes you feel exhausted? If you answered yes, you may be experiencing what your healthcare team refers to as cancer-related fatigue.
Tips for Preventing Infections during Chemotherapy
People with cancer who are treated with chemotherapy are more likely to get infections through everyday activities with their family and friends or from healthcare settings. One out of every 10 people with cancer who receives chemotherapy gets an infection that requires a hospital visit.
Most Cancer-related Blood Clots Occur in Outpatients
In a study of nearly 18,000 people with cancer, University of Rochester Medical Center researchers have found that when blood clots develop – a well-known and serious complication of cancer treatment – 78 percent of the time they occur when a person is out of the hospital, at home or elsewhere, while on chemotherapy.
Don’t Let Fatigue Get You Down
Fatigue is the most common and distressing symptom experienced by people with cancer. It can be part of the disease process or its treatments, and it can persist after treatments are completed. Cancer invades every part of your life. Similarly, fatigue can cast a shadow over everything you do, feel, and even how you think about yourself. Learning about fatigue, its causes, and ways to potentially lessen its effects can improve your overall quality of life.
Feel Like You’re Losing Your Mind?
by Gabriela Höhn, PhD
Knowing about chemo brain and ways to handle it can help you maintain a good quality of life during treatment and beyond. You’re not alone. Many survivors have gone through these challenges, and some of us still do. There’s nothing wrong with keeping your keys in the freezer and your cell phone in the laundry basket if that means you can find them when you need them.
Easing the Pain of Cancer
by Carrie Aigner, PhD, and Diane Novy, PhD
Have you ever noticed that when you are feeling sad or anxious you attend more to aches and pains in your body? When pain flares, you are more prone to experience negative emotions, such as fear, frustration, anger, and anxiety. Furthermore, when you are in pain, you may feel less like being active and socializing, making you even more susceptible to negative emotions.
Coping with the Side Effects of Cancer Surgery
Cancer surgery, like all cancer treatments, comes with benefits, risks, and side effects. The types and intensity of side effects vary from person to person and with the type and location of the cancer, the type of surgery, and the person’s health. If you and your doctor decide that surgery will be a part of your cancer treatment, you will be given information about all aspects of your treatment before you consent to surgery, including the side effects you may experience.
Surviving – Even Thriving – with an Ostomy
by Dorothy Doughty, MN, RN, CWOCN, FAAN
Coping with a cancer diagnosis is a huge challenge for anyone – but if your cancer involved the bladder, rectum, or cervix, you may also be coping with an ostomy. An ostomy is an opening on the abdominal wall that provides for elimination of stool or urine. A person with an ostomy must wear a pouch to collect the stool or urine.
