Chronic Illnesses: Cancer - Essay Example

Running Head: Chronic Illnesses: Cancer Case Study Student’s Name: Instructor: Course Code and Name: Institution: Date the Assignment is due: Cancer Introduction This paper begins with an introduction of cancer, one of the most common and debilitating chronic diseases in the world today. The paper concentrates its focus on the kind of care given or should be given to cancer patients to facilitate their management of the disease. Most importantly, the paper reviews how one can live positively after cancer diagnosis. The role of multidisciplinary care teams in care facilities is reviewed as well as the empowering forums that help patients living with cancer to cope. As a conclusion, the paper illustrates how living with cancer does not have to a string of misery, especially with the right kind of care. Every chronic disease has its kind of patients. Cancer has its own patients and when diagnosed with cancer, it bears a specific meaning to the patient, friends, public and the family. The problem with such associated meanings is that sometimes they are shrouded in misinformation and myths about the appropriate treatment and necessary follow-up. To many people, a cancer diagnosis is still wrongly perceived as a death warrant. The fact of the matter however is that the treatment and follow up of cancer diagnosis is always dependent on the nature of a patient’s diagnosed malignancy (Rosenbaum & Rosenbaum, 2005a). The malignancy can mean that the patient will die of the disease such as is the case for mesothelioma or whether the patient will die with the disease as is the case with prostate cancer. Today, over 50% of the newly diagnosed types of malignancies are successfully cured. While it is not the best of news that a patient can receive, a cancer diagnosis should not be received with fear and destitution characteristic of many people even today when curable cancers have increased to over half the number of diagnosis (Herzlinger, 2007). Research has shown that people are less devastated by heart failure diagnosis than cancer, despite heart failure having a slightly severe prognosis than cancer. Care Implications of Cancer The shock and disbelief typical of patients compounded with their first diagnosis is sometimes more destructive than the condition itself. Such patients usually begin distancing themselves far away from the urgently from their support centers. Cancer is always viewed as a personal attack, an unfair predicament and a wrath to be borne alone. To many depressed cancer patients, it is viewed as a punishment for a living poorly. The infliction of pain to family and friends for the patient’s withdrawal becomes worse if the patient gives up hope and will to live any longer, despite the cancer diagnosis (Coleman & Newton, 2005). Cancer can develop on anyone and everybody is equally susceptible. The cancer patient needs to know that it is not a must that they will die consequent to the cancerous development. It is important that the patients be given a boost in their self-determination, a confidence in their ability to outdo the cancer, a reason to fight the predicament and a hope to hang on despite being a cancer patient. Available treatments are very dependent on the attitude, determination and persistence of the patients to conquer the disease (Huber, 2006). That is why it is very important that the patient remains positive and determined to live life and live it truly in the post-cancer diagnosis. In many instances, that is not always achievable by the cancer patient. It is stimulated by the patient’s care givers. If there is a chronic disease dependent on care givers, cancer tops the pile. Caregivers of cancer patients are the one who encourage and hold the patient steady through the rigorous treatment options available and even when treatment is no longer tenable, to a decent joyous life until death naturally accrues. For some families and to some cancer patients, a positive outlook has made cancer diagnosis to transform into rewards for their lives (Malin, 2007). The diagnosis usually focuses the attention of many individuals to the most important, significant and worthwhile things in life. It adds to quality of life and the urgency to live right. Patients determine their own fate ate the hands of cancer and it is the afforded care that facilitates the choices a patient makes, to live or to die. Living with Cancer Today, psychologists and physicians have agreed on the power of a patient’s mental attitude to his or her. Many cancer patients across the world have outlived their prognosis, others have successfully recovered from progressive cancer, many others have lived quality lives after diagnosis and many more remain happy and vibrant despite being cancer patients (Rosenbaum & Rosenbaum, 2008). Sadly however, some cancer patients have cut short their lives after the cancer diagnosis simply because their attitudes were negative and delimiting. The quality of life after a diagnosis, is not determined by eth cancer, but by the individual patient. Thousands across the world are living with a host of chronic illnesses and yet still maintaining the quality of their lives. The cancer journey begins with those dreaded words, ‘its cancer’. The journey begins after the patient develops a lump somewhere, a pain that is taken to the doctor’s, a routine colonoscopy, chest X-ray or mammogram that surprisingly shows a developing or developed cancer. Each scenario leading to diagnosis has a version of its own for every patient but the words ‘it's cancer’, remains the universal declaration of the journey with cancer for most patients (Nystrom, 2005). To some patients that journey terminates with cure, to others with a long life well lived, to others a short miserable route to death and to others a torturous death in complete destitution. In many cases, the patients and his or her care givers are the ones that pick the course that the journey with cancer results to. There are thousands of cancer survivors out there, who never let the chemotherapy treatments overwhelm them. There are survivors out there who embraced their prognosis with joy for having a few more years to live life at its best. There are cancer survivors whose life with the family and friends became a lot better after diagnosis than before, since they learnt to appreciate the most valuable things in life (Rosenbaum & Rosenbaum, 2005b). During the 1950’s and 1960’s, a cancer diagnosis carried with it great stigma for a patient and his or her family. This was mainly due to poor survival rates. Cancer was known as the Bid C, one that hushed life into a short spell of misery. Patients kept the disease to themselves and felt guilty for having caused their families, the misery of cancer. This not only quickened death, but it also limited the opportunities such patients had in living a quality post-cancer diagnosis life. While treatment of cancer has not advanced a lot in the years leading to today, the survival rate has plummeted from the 1960’s rate. The most palpable culprit of that consequence might be the removal of stigma more than an improvement of treatments. Of important note is that prior to the 1970’s, many diagnosis were never spoken to the patients (Morton, 2005). Medical schools insisted that it would be cruel for doctors to tell their patients of cancer diagnosis since such a diagnosis took away any hope of living. For many patients, a cancer diagnosis was tantamount to a tragic death sentence. The ignorance suffered by most of these patients severed their ability to deal with the condition. The chances of making it through the predicament with joy and happiness were nil (Morton, 2005). Since then however, the trend has been reversed completely. It is now legally and socially expected that a cancer diagnosis be communicated to the patient so that the patient and his or her caregivers can deliberate on the treatment options to pursue. Breast cancer patients no longer have to regard mastectomy as the only possible predicament. In fact, in some jurisdiction, breast cancer patients are only to be informed of the lumpectomy and radiation options and not of the mastectomy (O'Connor, 2008). Key Issues in Cancer Multi-Disciplinary Care Care for cancer patients is best given in specialized where a multidisciplinary team is available and aptly skilled in providing the patient with everything he or she needs. By a multidisciplinary team, we refer to the setting in which assorted professionals team up as the care givers for the patients, with each one of the professionals assuming a particular role in that care (World Health Organisation). For persons entrusted with provision of cancer patients care in facilities be it a hospice or palliative care facility, there is need to approach cancer care as a process of aiding the patient and guiding him or her towards a happy life despite the disease. The team approach afforded by care homes ensures that doctors, physical therapists, nurses, family members and social workers join up to form a team of care givers for the patient. This enables the facility to provide physical, psychological and spiritual care for the patient, thereby fully satisfying the needs of such a patient. Cancer care is not preparation for death or a patient wait for it. It is an opportunity to aid the patient fight the disease and retain his or her quality life if not better it (Macleod, 2005). Palliative care for the patient needs to be wholesomely comprehensive in covering for the spiritual, physical and emotional needs of the patient (World Health Organisation). It necessarily must address all the aspects of the patient’s life preparing him or her for the resulting changes. The home care team helps to provide the patient and the family with correct and reliable information about the development and treatment of cancer in a way that helps them make the right choices. The home care also gives the patients an access to relevant medical equipment, supervision by registered nurses, assistance by qualified physical therapists, visits by religious experts and social workers, convenience of healthy ready meals, opportunity to impose high personal hygiene standards and the appropriate administration of medication (Hewitt, 2005). Such team approach to cancer care is initiate immediately after cancer is diagnosed and continues whether or not the patient is receiving treatment for the cancer or not, whether treatments is viable or not, whether cure is possible or not (World Health Organisation). The goal of such care is to alleviate social, physical and psychological distress that could resort when a patient is diagnosed with the cancer (Wilkinson, 2008). When palliative care is given in the multidisciplinary approach, families, the community and trained professionals join hands to implement a patient’s care whether such patient is in a tertiary care facility, a community health centre or a palliative care home (Rankin, 2008). Specifically, such ongoing care requires that the team provides relief distressing cancer symptoms and treatment side effects including pain, affirms the sanctity and dignity of life, integrate psychological and spiritual care into a singular program of patient care and offers a support system for both the patient and the family (World Health Organisation). More importantly, such an ongoing team care addresses all the needs of patients and his or her families, enhances the quality of life after cancer diagnosis, positively influences the course of illness especially when treatment is tenable, affords therapies that could prolong life or cure cancer such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy etc (Dollinger, 2008). Cancer Care Empowerment Most patients are adversely affected by the lack of information about the condition. The important steps in living with cancer must be initiated after diagnosis. The journey begins after diagnosis with finding the support, seeking second opinions on the diagnosis and organizing for cancer care (World Health Organisation). Cancer treatment is then initiated and it is important to know that cancer treatment comes with some adverse side effects. A positive attitude and determination however helps the patient manage the side effects without submitting to anxiety and depression. Some of these side effects alter the body physically, inflicts the emotional and mental realms of the patient. A patient’s ability to adapt to these changes is essential in the success of conquering or living with cancer. Whatever ensues from treatment, the patient also needs to seek support and resources on cancer to help him or her to deal with the disease (World Health Organisation). Conclusion However uncertain and difficult, there is life after cancer and that life has the potential of being the single most productive sessions of a person’s lifespan. Both the patient and care givers can help transform the doom that usually beguile itself in a cancer diagnosis into a positive outlook of a future in happiness. There is light at the end of the tunnel, a hope in the hour of need for those who dare walk ahead confidently after a cancer diagnosis and those willing to stretch their hands and embrace all that live has to offer despite being cancer patients (Spiegel, 2007). The essence of this discussion lays the emphasis in the need for cancer patients and their care givers to regard cancer as a journey whose destination is solely determined by the patients and the care givers. Even with the disease, a positive attitude turns around the life of a patient to one that is passionately lived, happy and satisfying all the way. It is possible to live a happy, worthy life even when under the strains of cancer (Gratzer, 2007). The absence of hope and a positive attitude only makes a cancer journey, short and miserable. 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