I have just received the worrying news that one of my daughters-in-law has breast cancer. Confirmed by biopsy and involving chemo then surgery then radiation so it must be quite serious. They live far away in Cambridge, England. My question for you is how best to support and care? My son wants to research and be knowledgeable and help all he can. I know a lot of you do that. Does it dis-empower the patient if the caregiver does the researching and has the knowledge? Seems like a daft question but he has asked me to provide him with a list of questions to ask the oncologist next week and I'm sort of scared that he could ask the big mortality/survival type questions that she might not be ready for yet. I'd be grateful for any advice.

Alpaca

I dont think it dis-Empowers the patient at all. I am the caregiver to my mother and I'm constantly researching. It has come to the point where my mother will not go to a single doctor appointment without me. When the doctor ask questions I answer instead of my mother. Kinda of funny but I think I know more about her condition than she knows her self. My mom always ask me to look up this and look up that. She loves to listen to me read some of the post on this forum to her.

I think your daughter inlaw will appreciate her husband being at her side and understanding everything going on. I know it must be hard mentally and physically on the patient. Having that person she trust and loves to sit and talk about all the Ifs and Ands will be a big comfort to her.

Good Luck
Heidi

Maureen, I was obsessive about researching. Our ENT told me I read far too many Journal articles! I needed to know. I'm a bit of a control freak , well , I am a control freak. I needed to know what we about to face, what options there were for treatment. What the side effects would be. How we would handle side effects. What our options would be if treatment failed. We were told the aim of treatment was curative so we never once asked what the odds were for prognosis. I was only going down the positive path. ( though the chemo doc did tell us that having the chemo would improve his prognosis by about 10%)
Kris did not want to know. He was content knowing that I would be his advocate. That I was informed. That I knew what to ask the team. That I was aware of and would look out for problems. That my reading and research enabled me to be fully informed. He didn't need to be and could just concentrate on himself, his treatments, his day to day recovery. He still states that " every patient needs a Tammy".
I don't know if this helps, but the researching helped me. I felt that I could help Kris. That I could fight for him. That I could discuss treatment options and current research with the team. That I was an active participant in the process and had value to Kris.
I am so sorry to hear your news. Fortunately Breast cancer has had an enormous amount of research done and new treatments developed. The survival rates have also greatly improved. I hope your Daughter in law is one of the many who will benefit.
Tammy

Thanks Heidi and Tammy. You are both treasures to your mother and husband and to the oral cancer community. My first thought was to advise my son to do some research so he felt less helpless but then I wondered if that was good advice. My husband, who now has dementia, never took an interest in the facts of my various cancers but then we didn't have Dr Google to such an extent in those earlier days and we both blindly trusted doctors to inform us and do their best. Ironically when my husband was diagnosed with Alzheimers I did a lot of research but that was different. Times had changed and he was incapable of understanding what was wrong with him. I've had a strange history of patient/caregiver relationships.

I'm very hopeful about my daughter-in-law but it's a terrible ordeal and I want to share my experience of cancer in a wise and helpful way. I don't want to overwhelm them with the wrong advice. I think I'll be okay if I tell him every cancer patient needs a Heidi or a Tammy:)

Maureen, both Tammy and Heidi have given you very good advice. Even if your daughter-in-law is interested in researching her own illness, I would think that it would be a comfort to her to know that her husband takes it to heart too and knows about all the changes her body will be undergoing. Maybe you could also suggest to your son to keep good treatment records on her behalf when she is fatigued from her treatments.
On another matter, when a good friend of ours was diagnosed with breast cancer early last year, I knitted her a blanket that I had delivered to her on the day she went home. Honestly, it was just a simple pattern and nothing fancy. She loved it and her husband calls it her healing blanket. Given they live so far away, something like it may help show them you care. I wish the young couple all the very best.