8 ways to juggle active cancer treatment and life

In an instant I went from a wife, new mom, and small business owner to all of those things … and a cancer patient. There is no right or wrong way to be a cancer patient, but the following helped me juggle active treatment, including chemo hangovers, and life.

By nature, I find controlling a situation is the best way for me to deal with it, but cancer and the way each person responds to chemo is uncontrollable. However, the following helped alleviate stress and reduce communication barriers within my family.

1. Create a Private Facebook Group
If you’re the one facing a cancer diagnosis, you make the rules about how and when your personal medical history is shared - period. Although I publicly share a significant amount of my journey with the public, it’s important to me that I’m able to share with family and close friends first. I created a private Facebook group to do just that. Privacy settings allowed me to decide who could be part of the group. I did give admin privileges to my husband. And, because my husband is an extremely private person, we decided it would be best to add his boss to the group so he would know what’s going on, because Damon most likely wouldn’t want to share much at work.

These are the actual rules for my private Facebook group to update family and close friends.

2. Stock the house
Treatment is cumulative, which means the first round isn’t too bad, but the fourth might rock your world. It was important to me to not spend my good days at the grocery store. Looking back, it would have been helpful if I would have taken inventory of the house and stocked the essentials: paper towels, hand soap, hand sanitizer, dish soap, cleaning supplies, trash bags, shampoo (for everyone else - ha), etc. If you’re blessed with a great support system, they’ll likely help you out around the house, but they might not give you a heads up when you’re out of something.

3. Create a family email address.Okay, hear me out. I know you probably have way too many email addresses, but creating a brand new email address that you use for paying online medical bills will be extremely helpful when looking for receipts at the end of the year.

4. Create a shared Google Calendar for your primary caregivers/support teamMy calendar includes all doctors appointments, baby appointments, and when someone is going to be at the house. This helped streamline support for Elsie and to ensure we’re not double booked for weekend help with a newborn. [how to share your Google calendar with someone.]

5. Create a “Chore” List
If you’re leaning into a chemo hangover, the last question you want to answer is “what can I help you with?” Create a list of helpful chores and a description of how you like the job done and hang it on the fridge.

Examples:
Do a load of laundry.
Hang-dry leggings, and use Lysol sanitizer on any of Damon’s work clothes.

Wash bottles
Use the bottle soap in the top shelf.

Take out the trash
Trash day is Friday.

6. Use painter’s tape to label drawers and food

Painter’s tape is temporary and a great way to label dresser drawers and kitchen cabinets. If the baby’s sleep clothes go in the top, left drawer put a label on it! This way helpers can put away clothes if they wish without having to ask where things go.

7. Enable Auto-Ship

Chewy.com and Amazon continue to be great additions to our household. We have formula and dog good on monthly delivery, and it’s been so helpful!

8. Create a cancer binder.

Take a trip to your favorite office supply store (hey, Target!) and gather everything you need to keep your diagnosis organized. I used one notebook for all big doctor meetings. During those meetings I would give the notebook to my doctor and have he/she write notes in it as they explained a procedure or diagnosis. This allowed me to listen and to have the correct spelling for researching later.

This notebook (mine is rose gold glitter!) became the one place someone could look if they needed the contact information for a doctor on my behalf.