How You Can Help: Information for Friends and Family
The length of treatment for childhood cancers can range from several months to several years. It is a very long process, and can be emotionally, physically and financially challenging. Family and friends sometimes just don't know what to say or do for a family with a child receiving treatment. At the same time, parents of cancer kids often find it hard to talk frankly to family and friends. It's an ordeal that is terribly difficult to understand unless you've walked in their shoes.
The following is a collection of suggestions on ways to help the family.* These have been pulled from cancer families nationwide. We have included this on our website in the hope that it will help provide direction to the friends and family who want so desperately to help their loved ones during this difficult time.
Thoughts on things to do for cancer families:
- Clean their house before they come home from the hospital.
- Mow their lawn/rake leaves
- Get them a gift certificate for video rentals, not only for Blockbuster, as you also might want to consider purchasing a membership for the family to Netflix. (www.netflix.com)
- Buy iTunes gift cards for the child undergoing chemotherapy. Perhaps even get them an iPod or mp3 player (maybe go in on it with other friends).
- Get puzzle books, reading books, and activity books for the child undergoing treatment.
- A night or day of babysitting for the siblings and/or for the child in treatment or both.
- Fill a bag with things you think the parent(s) might need while in-patient and drop it by the hospital. Just think to yourself, "If I couldn't be home for over a week, and stuck in one place with little sleep, what would I need/want?" And then throw it in the bag. Items that families have suggested include: note cards; postage stamps; nail care products; laundry detergent; current magazines; hand lotion (hospital soap really dries out your hands); quarters (for the hospital vending machines); bottled water and/or their favorite soda; socks (yes, socks - most parents are walking around the hospital room/floor in socks which get dirty/wet quickly. A fresh pair is always nice to have but not something they always think to bring); chewing gum/candy; flashlight (for when the child falls asleep in the room but the parent wants to stay up and/or needs to look for something and doesn't want to turn on the bright, florescent light); book/reading light; gas cards; restaurant gift cards (include menus from nearby restaurants that deliver to the hospital); check with the hospital and see if you can buy a gift certificate to the hospital cafeteria.
- If it's possible to get there, go and sit with the parent in the hospital on those long days. Bring a favorite food or a new magazine, and bring lots of news and stories to make them feel less left out of normal life. Offer to stay with the child so Mom or Dad can get a shower and something to eat while you're there.
- If the sick child is a teen, provide transportation for their friends so that they can go to the hospital. Staying in touch with friends and having their support is REALLY important at that age.
- Enlist people to send cards and silly, fun things to the child and any brothers or sisters. A little fun and excitement from the dollar store can go a long way toward alleviating pain and fear.
- Find out what the child likes (stickers, beanie baby toys, cool hats, pins, legos, etc.) and help get a collection started if he or she doesn't have one already. It will provide something fun to focus on and then people will know what to send or bring when they don't know what else to do. If the child already has a collection, find out what it is and let people know about it so they can add to it.
- Commit yourself to be the friend of one or all of the siblings of a sick child; someone the child can call on when he or she needs to talk or is feeling left out. Find time to give each of them attention, time, treats. Siblings are scared and they easily feel left out, especially when all the focus seems to be on their ill sibling. They need people to take them places and listen to them and make them feel important. Be that person!
- Find out if there are any special needs the family has, and try to coordinate a solution to their problem. Is there a child who is often home alone after school because one parent is at work and the other is at the hospital? Do they need help with transportation or a supply of meals on certain days when normal life is impossible because of clinic visits, diagnostic tests, etc.? Once you've identified an area of concern, work with the family to help them solve the problem.
- Don't ever decide on your own to sponsor a large project like a fund-raiser or major house repair, etc., without talking with the family first. As well-meaning as many of these efforts can be, they may not always be serving the family's most urgent needs. Any supportive undertaking needs to be done in a way that respects the family's wishes and honors their privacy.
- Be light-hearted and break the tension and stress of a hospital stay and/or treatment at home and show up (at the hospital or at home) with bubbles, silly string, joke books, Marx Brothers videos, rub-on tattoos, whatever. Life is scary enough right now without having all the grown-ups walk in with long faces. It'll help Mom and Dad, too. (Note from a cancer parent: One of our dearest friends showed up at the hospital with a roll of paper, painters tape - the kind that doesn't leave sticky marks - and a box of markers. She covered the walls with paper and each person who visited my son drew pictures for him, wrote jokes, left funny notes and signed their names. Of course, he wanted to draw, too! Distraction is the name of the game!)
- Paper products are great! Napkins, paper plates, plastic cups, silverware, etc. really helps. When the family is home between hospital visits, they can spend less time cleaning up after meals and more time focusing on their child(ren). When they go to the hospital, they can bring some of it along to use there.
- If the child is still in diapers, find out what brand/size the child uses and pick up a box or two for them. When a child is on harsh chemotherapy, they need to be changed much more often then they normally would. Families will easily go through three times the amount of diapers now than they did before their child got sick.
Messages from cancer families (What they want to say to you but probably won't)
- Don't take "no, we don't need any help" from a family as their final response - ask again. Don't say, "Well, call us if you need something" because we probably won't call. We are not used to needing help from others and do not know (1) that we need it and (2) how to say yes. If you really mean it when you say you want to help, please come up with your own ideas, such as "I'd like to mow your grass" or "I will babysit (the younger sibling(s) if any) this week-end" or "I will be snow-blowing your drive-way for the season" or "Let me stay with your son overnight at the hospital so you can get some rest at home" or 'I will drive your other children to school/pick them up from school for the next few weeks to help you out.' And if you make such an offer and we refuse, we may be refusing because we really don't need help like that at the moment, but please, please call back in a week or two and try again.
- I think what most folks forget is that this is SUCH a LONG term family problem. Meals and help the first few weeks are nice....but we're dealing with stuff that will last one to several years. It's easy to fade out of the picture. Emotional support is CRUCIAL for the family - for the entire time our child is in treatment. Just make a point to call, once a week or every two weeks. Parents of cancer kids lose some of their former friends and get distanced from their relatives. Please just let us know you're still thinking of us, praying for our child, sending good thoughts and not just the first few weeks or months; but throughout the years that we may be enduring this.
- People just don't know what to say...so they don't call. It's a horrible feeling to feel like you have the plague or something. We need friends that just call for no reason! And you don't have to say anything. Just call and say "I've been thinking about you." That leaves it wide open for me to say "I'm so glad you called, let me tell you about..." or "This really isn't a good time, but I'm so glad you called." At least we know you called and you care. And that means more than anything.
- Please don't say: "I don't know how you handle it, I just couldn't do it", because we don't have a choice in this. What are we supposed to do? Shrivel up and die because our child has cancer? We aren't "handling" it because we are "so strong"; we love our child and simply have no choice.
- I felt much more comfortable if people just dealt with
it head on and acknowledged that something horrible had
happened. I think it's the tongue-tied, awkward silence we
hate.
Please consider helping our organization, DC Candlelighters,
by donating items on our Wish List
or making a donation or perhaps
volunteering at an upcoming event. We have no paid staff, therefore, 100% of all donations go back into servicing DC area
families directly and your donation(s) are tax deductible.
Thanks for your help!
*Borrowed, in part, from the Ped-Onc Resource Center
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