Part 1: DIAGNOSIS CANCER

Chapter 1 Why this book?

• Sharing lessons of experience
• Surviving cancer
• Finding out more
• Counseling others

Chapter 2 Understanding your diagnosis

• Pausing to take stock
• Making things clear
• Questions to ask your doctor
• Establishing facts
• Understanding implications
• A second opinion: why and how

Chapter 3 Breaking the news

• Breaking bad news
• Why family and friends need to know
• How to tell them
• Older parents
• Why children should be told
• When and how much to say
• Children's knowledge of death

Chapter 4 The right doctoring

• Care and cure
• Why you need a cancer specialist
• Building the therapeutic relationship
• What to look for in a doctor

Part 2: ROAD TO RECOVERY

Chapter 5 How to be a survivor

• Taking charge
• The importance of hope
• Maintaining your individuality
• Survival and belief
• Lessons from survival stories
• What being positive means
• Dependence and autonomy

Chapter 6 Weighing up alternatives

• Matters to resolve with your doctor
• Attractions and claims of alternative therapies
• Facts and myths about cancer
• Risks of rejecting conventional medicine
• What healing is
• Protecting against cancer

Chapter 7 Treatment options

• What cancer is
• Terms you need to know
• Pre-treatment tests
• Surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, gene therapy, hormone therapy and others
• Treatments proven and promising
• Clinical trials

Chapter 8 Side effects of cancer and its treatments

• Importance of diet
• Dealing with side effects
• Coping with pain
• Sexuality and feelings

Part 3: HELPING YOURSELF, HELPING OTHERS

Chapter 9 What are your rights

• Your right to choose
• Your right to know
• Informed consent
• Refusing treatment
• Ensuring wishes are respected
• Euthanasia
• Suicide

Chapter 10 Understanding feelings

• Honouring feelings
• Possible responses: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, fears, guilt, acceptance, etc.
• Responses of family, friends and children

Chapter 11 Caring and support

• What to expect
• Setting your own agenda
• Speaking up
• Maintaining autonomy
• What carers need to know
• Dealing with changing relationships
• Guidelines for visitors
• Support groups

Part 4: MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL

Chapter 12 Restoring balance in your life

• The message of cancer
• Facing reality
• The immune system and stress
• The mind-body connection
• Relieving distress
• Restoring balance
• Prayer and meditation
• Some meditation exercises

Chapter 13 Living in the face of death

• Making sense of the chaos
• Understanding the past
• Loss of time
• Living in the present
• Setting goals
• Suffering
• Near-death experiences
• Why death is not the end

Part 5: NOTES AND RESOURCES

Notes
Resource guide
Index